perpetrated The tears of the disconsolate mother were not omitted in her absence Cleopatra made this whole Tragedie to be presented the combate was much enkindled and the battery was forcible Herod who wanted no eloquence in his own occasions replieth with a countenance very lowly and modest Prince and you Sirs who are of the Counsel I hold the Apologie of Herod full of craft scepter of Judea neither of Hircanus nor Alexandra never having had any purpose to flatter them for this end yea much less to fear them You know Most Illustrious Anthonie the Kingdom is in my hands I hold it of you from you all my greatness ariseth and in you all my hopes are concluded If you command I am at this present ready not onely to leave the scepter but my life also which never have I been desirous to preserve but for your service But it troubleth me the way of death being open to all the world the path of reputation which is more dear to me than life should be shut against my innocencie I am persecuted by women and much I wonder how the soul of Queen Cleopatra wholly celestial can nourish so much spleen against a King who never hath failed in any respect lawfully due to her merit For Alexandra it is not strange that she raise such a storm against me her fierce and haughty spirit hath always opposed my patience endeavoring by all means to disparage my government to pull a crown from me which a more puissant hand than her Ancestours hath placed on my head What apparence is there that being by the favour of the Romans a peaceable possessour of a Kingdom the which even by the consent of my adversaries I sought not so regular was my ambition I should attempt a horrible crime which cannot fall but into the mind of a monster No man will be wicked in chearfulness of heart the memorie of the recompence which man proposeth to himself ever beareth the torch before the crime To what purpose should I attempt upon the life of Aristobulus to settle my affairs They were already established your gracious favour most Noble Anthonie hath afforded me more than all their machinations can vanquish But I perpetually have kept back the bloud Royal from dignities What keeping back is it when I have cherished them in my own bosom as much as possible Every one knows Hircanus the prime man of this Royal family being held as a prisoner among the Parthians I bent all my spirits employed all my credit to have him set at libertie and to procure his return to Court where he now liveth in full tranquilitie enjoying all the priviledges of Royaltie but the carefull sollicitude of affairs It is known I have divided my crown and bed with his grand-child Mariamne making her both Queen of people and wife of a King I have given the High-Priesthood to her brother Aristobulus of my meer and free will not enforced by any constraint as being absolute in the mannage of my own affairs and if in ought I delayed him it was because the minority of his age ran not equal with my affections but in effect he hath been beheld High-Priest at eighteen years of age which is a favour very extraordinarie Alexandra his mother who maketh way to this business hath ever had all the libertie of my Court except the licence of ruining herself which she passionately pursueth For what reason had she to hide herself in a coffin and cause herself to be carried in the night as a dead bodie to steal from my Court and after she had wronged me in mine house to traduce me among strangers If she desired to make a voyage into Aegypt she needed to have spoken but one word it had been sufficient But she pleaseth herself in counterfeiting a false peril in a real safetie to thrust into the danger of life those who make her live in all reposed assurance I having discovered this practice did not let fall one word of bitterness against her desirous she should enjoy at her ease the sight of me as a spectacle of patience thinking all folly sufficiently punished with its own proper conscience Certain time after the death of this young Prince happened which draweth tears of compassion from me for I loved him and much it troubled me his mother perverted the sweetness of his exellent nature and cut more stuff out for his youth than he was able to stitch together He is dead not in my house but in the house of his mother dead by an accident which no man could prevent dead sporting in the water a faithless element where a thousand and a thousand have without any such purpose perished dead among the youth of the Court with whom daily be disported himself His own meer motion bare him into the water the bravery of his youth caused him to dally even in danger it self without any possibility to divert him and his own mishap hath drowned him It is to tie me to bard conditions if Alexandra will make me both accountable for the youthfull levities of her son as if I were his governour and of the frail inconstancy of elements as if I were Lord of them This pernicious spirit spake this with so much grace and probability that he gained many hearts So much force had eloquence even in the hands of iniquitie Behold him now on the shore out of peril remaining in Anthonie's Court in all liberty to attend the sentence of his justification In the mean time being as he was wise and liberal in all occasions by force of presents he purchased the hearts of the chief and made all the accusation of Cleopatra appear to be the passion of a woman ill advised Mark Anthony himself said to Cleopatra she did ill to intermeddle so much with forreign Kingdoms and that if she took this course she would raise enemies prejudicial to her estate That Herod being a King it was not fit to use him like a subject and that it would be her happiness rather to have him a friend than an enemie As these things were handled in Anthonie's Court the Queen Mariamne and her mother Alexandra ceased not to be observed by the sollicitous diligence of the mother and sister of Herod Joseph his uncle An act of great stupiditie in Joseph uncle of Herod played the Goaler and often visited Queen Mariamne sometime to treat some affairs with her sometime in the way of complement This man began to burn like a butterflie in the eyes of this incomparable beauty and much affected her although he saw himself far off from all manner of hope Notwithstanding he found some contentment to have fixed his affection in so eminent a place This passion made him foolish and full of babble having already rudeness enough of his own nature which made him utter strange extravagancies For one day there being occasion to speak of Herod's affection to Mariamne his wife Alexandra the mother mocked thereat in an exorbitant
gaudium sed Lazarus mortuus est inquir gaudeo propter vos quia non eram ibi An tristitiaâ—â— sed triâ—â—is est anima mea usque ad mortem An excellens observation upon the terming our Saviour a Lambe light of his glory Notwithstanding we must not think he would undergo all sorts of passions especially such as carry in them any uncomely misbeseeming but those he took upon him which were most decent and incident to man If love saith the oracle of Doctours be a humane passion Jesus hath taken it shewing many times tendernesse of affections towards persons of merit as it is said that seeing a young man who had strictly kept the commandments of God from his most innocent years he loved him and had some compassion of him for that he entred not directly into the way of the Gospel being withheld by the love of his riches If fear be accounted among the motions of nature had not he fear and anxiety when he was near unto his passion If you look for joy doth not he say Lazarus is dead but I rejoyce for your sake because by this means the Apostles faith must be confirmed Lastly if sadnesse be the inheritance of our condition hath he not said My soul is heavy to the death But there are other passions which he would never admit as sensuall Love Hatred of a neighbour Envie and Anger As for that which concerneth this last passion it is certain that our Lord was more meek and gentle then all men from whence it came that he would be called the lamb of God by a solemn title and that he in the primitive Church was represented under the same figure as it appeareth in the Christening Font of Constantine where the statue of a Lamb of massie gold poured out the water of Baptisme Never in his greatest sufferings hath he shewed one least spark of anger or impatience but was alwayes calme and peacefull even shewing an incomparable sweetnesse to a naughty servant who had cruelly wronged him at the time of his passion And as for that he did in the matter of buyers and sellers that ought not to be called anger but a servent and vigorous zeal which caused him to punish irreverences committed against his eternall Father Good God! Had we perpetually before our eyes this mirrour of meeknesse we need not seek for any other remedies His aspect would remedy all our anger as the brazen serpent cured the plagues of Israell This sacred fish would cause a Calm wheresoever it rested and the presence of his aspect would banish tempests but since passion so cloudeth our reason let us apply remedies more obvious against the motions of anger §. 5. Politick Remedies to appease such as are Angry ANger being a jealous passion ever grounded upon the opinion of contempt ought to be handled with much industry and dexterity There are some who very soon are cured by joy by the meeting of light-hearted people and by some pleasing and unexpected accident This notably appeared at the Coronation of Philip Augustus where there was a prodigious confluence Rigordus of many people who out of curiosity excessively flocking thither much hindered the Ceremony A certain Captain troubled to see this disorder was desirous to remedy it ceasing not to cry out and thunder with a loud voice to them to be quiet but the earnestnesse of those that thronged had no ears for Thunders which made him being much incensed with anger to throw a cudgell he had in his hand at the heads of such as were the most unruly and this cudgell being not well directed lighted upon three lamps of Chrystall hanging right over the King and Queens heads which breaking the oil abundantly poured down upon them All there present were troubled at an act so temerarious but the pleasure of the fight put off their anger The King with the Queen his wife instead of being offended laughed heartily seeing themselves so throughly besmeared and a Doctour thereupon inferring that it was a good presage and that it signified aboundance of unction both of honours and prosperities which should overflow in their sacred persons they had no power to be angry out of the Imagination of glory which drieth up the root of this passion Verily there is no better a remedy to appease such as are cholerick then to flatter them with honour and submission which likewise was to be seen in that which happened in the person of Carloman He was a virtuous religious man brother of King Pepin who had buried himself in humility Chronicon Cassinense that he might couragiously renounce all the greatnesse whereunto by birth he was called It fell out that being in a Monastery of Italy not discovering himself he begged he might serve in the Kitchin which was granted him But the Cholerick cook seeing him to do somewhat contrary to his liking not contented to use him harshly in words with much indignity strake him But there being not any thing which more vexeth a generous spirit then to see him ill treated whom he most loveth Carlomans companion who was present not remembring himself to be a religious man entereth into a violent anger and suddenly taketh a pestle and throws it at the cooks head to revenge the good father who bare this affront with incredible generosity But so soon as this his companion had declared his extraction and related all which had happened the whole convent fell at his feet who was affronted and begged pardon of him Where were to be seen sundry sorts of passions Some of indignation others of compassion the rest of Reverence But Carloman thought it a thing intolerable to see himself honoured in such a manner whilst his Companion laughed beholding the Cook beaten and the submissions yielded to his Prince There are others who seeing their friends much incensed seign to take their part and seem angry with them saying this wicked fellow must at leisure be chastised to render his punishment the more exemplary Mean while they give time and expect the return of reason and then they perswade the contrary Many also have in apparence pretended fear to flatter the anger of great ones who take pleasure to render themselves awfull in this passion as did Agrippa towards the Emperour Caligula §. 6. Morall Remedies against the same Passion I Will descend into more particulars against the three More particular remedies against the three sorts of anger kinds of choler which we infinuated As for the first which consisteth in that hastinesse and heat of liver that breaks forth in motions somewhat inordinate First I say God is offended to see persons who make profession of a life more pure and whose soul verily is not bad to be perpetually upon the extravagancies of passions unworthy of a well composed spirit Besides it causeth a notable detriment to our repose For by being often angry our gall increaseth as Philosophers observe and the encrease of gall maketh us the more
these Motives and the felicity of others who have gloriously surmounted them And to add a pleasing variety to this last piece I will conclude with many short and remarkable Examples suited to those four mentioned Passions THE DISASTERS OF SUCH As have yielded to the Passion OF LOVE AND The Glory of Souls which have overcome it 1. LEt us begin with that Passion which is the Source of the rest and which in all times hath caused trouble among men to give a ground to our discourse The children of great Clodoveus became not so soon tractable to the severity of Christian manners but suffered themselves very often to be transported with very violent exorbitancies and particularly with unlawful loves which caused ill example in their house and great disorder throughout their Kingdome Gregory of Tours l. 4. Gregory of Tours observeth fordid and shamefull affections in the person of King Caribert grand-child of Clodoveus which cast an Eclipse upon the lights of the Diademe of this great King and could never be rooted out but by patience by prayers and by the effects of the puissant hand of God Queen Ingobergua who knew the humours of her The plot of Queen Ingobergna to cure her husbands passion succeedeth ill out of too much affectation husband to be addicted to inconsiderate love and who was jealous enough of her bed took not among her attendant Ladies those nymphs of the Court which are full of attractives and deserve admiration but purposely chose out base and despicable wayters thinking it was a singular remedy against the Kings malady She had at that time in her Court and service two daughters of a Clothworker the eldest of which was called Marcovessa and the youngest Mirefleur Caribert whose love was more lustfull then ambitious became desperately in love and courted them to the prejudice of his honour and wedlock which wounded the soul of the Queen with a very sensible arrow seeing the havock this passion made in the mind of this Monarch Jealousie suggesteth her a trick which seemed sufficient to divert him from his infamous servitude if this passion might be cured by another and that a jealous woman did not irritate the wounds of love by its proper remedies She calleth the Father of her two servants commanded him secretly to practise his trade in some corner of the Court whither she very cunningly brought his Majesty to make him see the base extraction of his Mistresses and to throw shame confusion upon him But he who at distance saw this wile coming towards him and the solemn preparation of it was displeased saying that if nothing were wanting but nobility to render these maids worthy of his love he would sufficiently ennoble them by his person and that it onely belonged to him to raise inferiour things by loving them and as great ones will rather be flattered in their passions then censured instantly he made a shamefull divorce with the Queen contrary to laws both divine and humane to take to wife the younger of these sisters which was Mirefleur But love which being of its nature a slave faiâ—eth not to be disdainfull quickly put a distaste of her unto him to make him look after the elder who seemed the more modest and wear a religious habit whether desirous to enflame love by this pretext which ordinarily is eagre to pursue all it can least obtein or whether she did it to give lesse advantage and suspicion to the jealous spirit of Queen Ingobergua The fire of Concupiscence which spareth not to enflame Linsey-wolsey as well as Satin continually blowed by the wind of ambition which promised this creature a giddy Fancy of a Crown burnt so strongly that this spirit which had more cunning then beauty caused so much madnesse to creep into the heart of this miserable king that he resolved to marry her which he did qualifying a prodigious whoredome with the title of wedlock The Queen was ready to dy and addresseth her complaints to God and men The Bishops who were assembled in the Councell of Tours in favour of her made Canons against incestuous marriages but the Canons at that time were not strong enough against the arrows of love S. German Bishop of Paris sent forth thunders of excommunication but passion armed with authority made no more account of them then of flying fires which are quenched in their birth God thereto put his hand by the prayers of the Church and took away this religious woman by a horrible and sudden death which affrighted the King and he in the end conceived shame and sorrow for his fault deriving his salvation out of necessity since he could not gain it from the glory of his refistance That which remained him of life was short and miserable and his passion having rendred him contemptible to his own subjects he quickly left Crown and Scepter to pay a tribute to his Tombe 2. Another kind of sottish love appeared in the government Gregory of Tours l. 5. of young Meraveus which I will here relate as being able to minister matter of terrour to youth which takes liberty in clandestine marriages King Chilperic his father happened to bear away the bloody spoil of his brother Sigebert who had been traiterously murthered by the subtile practises of Fredegond when he was come to the Eve of his triumph The famous Brunhault widow of the deceased King as yet very young was become a party of this miserable booty and saw her pretious liberty enthralled in the hands of her brother in law and sister who was born for vengeance and exercised in massacres Her fortune represented nothing unto her but a thousand images of terrour and the cruelty of her adversaries made her apprehend all that which notable mischievous wickednesse can do when it hath the sword of power in hand Yet her bloud was spared to consume her with languors sentence of her Captivity was pronounced by giving her the City of Roan for prison A trusty man A notable example of Merouevs to dievrt youth from licentious mariages was sought for to execute this Commission and the King cast his eye on his son Meroveus a young Prince of a nature sweet and facile endowed wiht excellent parts which made him to be beloved and beheld as a rising star by all the eyes of France This was to put fire too near to stubble not considering that the calme of such natures is ordinarily the most turmoiled with storms of love So soon as Brunhault who according to the relation of S. Gregory of Torus was a very beautyfull and well spoken Princesse began to unciel her eyes which had hitherto been drenched in a deluge of tears she appeared to Meroveus as a blushing Morn which raiseth the more fair after a shower and the arrow of love sharpned by compassion made such flames to sparkle in his heart that he was enforced to quench them with his bloud He saw himself the captive of his fair prisoner
to advance Virtue and to beat down vice without reflecting on any of the Personages of these times no more than if I wrote under the reign of Charlemaigne or S. Lewis I must intreat these spirits of Application which know not how to behold a work without making it subject to their own fancies imagining every letter to be the Ecchoes of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make a gloss upon their own Dreams than on my Books We live not yet God be thanked in an Age so miserable that we dare not sacrifice to Truth without a disguise seeing it is the glory of our Grandees that we may openly make war against Vice as against an enemy and not of our party For to speak sincerely having laid my first Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I considered what great and glistering lights there were in all their Orders within his Court which might serve as Models for my Treatise but to avoid the affectation of all compliance with this world I did expresly forbear it my own nature and my long Robe having so far estranged me from all worldly pretences that it would be a disease unto me but to salute a man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to return me for it As concerning the manner of writing which I have observed I shall easily confess unto my Reader that it proceeded rather from my Genius than from Art and though I have been curious enough to observe whatsoever the Greek or Romane Eloquence hath happily brought forth yet I must acknowledge that there is a Ray of God himself which entering into our spirit and mingling with our nature is more knowing and effectual than all precepts whatsoever And this I can affirm for the instruction of youth to those who have demanded my advice concerning the qualities and conditions of stiles It is true I have perused variety of Books written in all Ages and I have acknowledged that the most sensible amongst them have been raised both in their conceptions and their words above the common reach and alwayes without affectation Others have been passionately taken with some fine niceties which are the capital Enemies to perswasion and above all to be eschewed in the Discourses which are made of Piety whose nerves they do infeeble and whose lustres they do foil we may see that those who from the chair do speak unto us either by account or by writing although it be with terms discreet enough yet they leave a less impression on our hearts and sometimes are so violently carried away to serve their own reputation that they forget their engagements to the Truth We may observe some who through too much spirit seek out by-ways of conceptions of common sense and extravagant words and so strongly adore their own thoughts that they can suffer none but themselves on their own paper which is the cause they seldom meet with the right use of humane understanding being the true Citizens of Plato's Common-wealth capable to controul all things but to perform nothing Others there are who glory in a sterility and are willfully angry against God because in some part of the Heavens he placed so many stars These can endure nothing that is generous without snarling or biting at it They conceive Beauty and Light to be blemishes because they are above their capacities Lastly there are some who in their continual Allegations do so lay forth themselves in the praise of others that they make their Discourses like those pictures of Helena which are all of gold There is nothing but Drapery to be seen you cannot distinguish the foot from the hand nor the eye from the ear But I will enter no further into the consideration of our times having learned rather to respect than censure the indifferent Works of our Writers But to speak soundly I never thought it expedient either to perswade unto or to follow the same fashions And as in this work I have not altogether renounced the learning and the ornaments which I thought to be convenient but have inchased them in it so I would not fill my papers with Quotations and strange Languages this Labour being undertaken rather to perswade the Great-ones unto Virtue than to fill the Extracts and Annotations of the Students I have so moderated the style without letting my self loose to the empty language of Complements which had been beneath my Subject that I conceive I have rendered it easie to be understood even to those apprehensions which make no profession at all of learning It is the onely Design that I have to speak so as to be understood perswading my self according to the saying of Philo That Word and Thought are two Sister germanes and that the youngest is born onely to make the eldest known I study more for weight of sentences than for ornament of words pretending nothing to the glory of mundane Quills which we see every day appear amongst so many Authours of this Age who would be more perfect if they would apply themselves to more grave subjects and in some fashion imitate the Sun who being admired thoughout the whole world doth not know how to admire it self Nevertheless it often comes to pass but not to the more lofty Writers who are ordinarily indued with more modesty but to certain men extreamly profane to idolize their own inventions to condemn all Treatises of worth and to esteem that one cannot be eloquent in our tongue if he writes not Vanity or Impureness Certainly if a question were made to judge of the French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite that they may stand in comparison with the beauties of Sion As long as letters and men shall continue there shall continue the praises of so many excellent Books which have come from the hands of so many Illustrious Prelates and other qualified persons nay and of the secular State who have exercised their style on chaste and honourable Arguments and worthy all commendation I speak this by the way having at this time no design to enlarge my self on the recital of the number of those able men who have now the pen in their hands nor praise those of my own Robe who have given their holy labours to the publick and who I know may be followed by a great number of excellent Spirits of the same society For that which concerns me I am acquitted of my promise and I conceive that I have sufficiently expressed in these two Volumes the whole reach of my Design for the rest I conceive that the Books of Devotion which are to be made publick ought to be rare and to be very well digested because there is already extant so great a number of them that the number of the Authours will suddenly exceed the number of the Readers Satiety will cast a cloud on the brightest Beauties and though a thing may be very good yet we ought not to surfet
to the same port It is that which maketh Kings to reign 1. Reg. 25. 29. and giveth them officers as members of their state and by this means frameth the Court of Great-ones But if after it hath so made and composed them as of the flower and choise of men it should abandon them in the tempest without pole-star without rudder without Pilot were not this with notable deformitie to fail in one of the prime pieces of its work-manship Judge your self For the second reason it is most evident that to further this impossibilitie of devotion in the course of Courtiers lives is to cast them through despair of all virtues which cannot subsist without piety into the libertie of all vices which they will hold not as extravagant fallies of frailtie but as the form of a necessary portion of their profession And as the rank they hold maketh them transcend other men who willingly tie themselves to the manners and affections of those on whom they see their fortunes depend that would be as it were by a necessary law to precipitate mankind into the gulf of corruption To conclude for the third reason this proposition is manifestly contradicted by an infinit number of examples of so many Kings and Princes of so many worthy Lords and Ladies who living in the Ocean of the world as the mother pearls by the dew of heaven have preserved and do yet still preserve themselves for ever in admirable puritie and in such heroick virtues that they cannot gain so much wonder on earth but they shall find in heaven much more recompence This is it which I intend to produce in this Treatise of the Holy Court after I have informed the mind with good and lively reasons which as I hope by the grace of the holy Spirit of God shall make all persons of quality to behold they do infinit wrong to take the splendour of their condition for a veil of their impieties and imperfections Virtue is a marvellous work woman who can make Mercury of any wood yea should the difficultie be great the victorie would be more glorious but all the easieness thereof is in their own hands and the obligations they have to tend to perfection are no less important than those of Hermits as I intend shall appear in the process of this discourse The first MOTIVE Of the obligation which secular men and especially persons of qualitie have to perfection grounded upon the name of Christian. A Great abuse is crept into the minds of secular persons who hold vice in predominance and virtue under controle It is in that they esteem Christian perfection as a bird out of their reach and a qualitie dis-proportionable to their estate As for my self saith one of these I have made provision of virtue according to my quality I pretend not to be a S. Francis nor to be rapt as a S. Paul to the third heaven I find there is no life but with the living and to hold time by the fore-lock while I can Let our pleasures take that scope which nature presenteth to them were we as wicked as Judas if we have the faith of S. Peter the mercy of God pardoneth all An impertinent discourse as I will hereafter declare On the other side there are women who chatter and say I will not be a S. Teresa it is not my intention to be canonized I love better to see my diamonds in my life glitter on my fingers than to carrie themafter my death on my statues I better love a little perfume whilst I yet breath air than all the Arabian odours after my death I will have no extasies nor raptures It is enough for me to wallow in the world I may as well go to Paradise by land as by water Such words are very impure in the mouth of a Christian nay so prejudicial to eternal salvation that through the liberty of speaking too much they take away all hope of doing well For pursuing the tender effeminacy of that spirit they take the measure of virtue very short and disproportionable their intentions being infirm the works are likewise the more feeble not squarely answering the model of knowledge from whence proceedeth a general corruption I affirm not all Christians ought to embrace the perfection of S. Francis and of S. Teresa No. There are some whom the Divine providence will direct by other aims But I say that every Christian is obliged to level at perfection and if he hath any other intention he is in danger to loose himself eternally A bold saying but it is the sentence of S. Austine You should always be displeased with your Aug. Serm. 11 of the Apostle Semper tibi displiceat quod es si viâ— pervenire ad id quod non es Si dixeris sufficit periisti A notable speech of S. Augustine self for that which you are if you desire to attain to that which you are not and if you chance to say it is enough you are undone And who are you that dare limit the gifts of God And who are you that say I will have but such or such degree of graces I satisfie my self with such a sanctity I have proceeded far enough in a spiritual life let us set up our staff here What wickedness is this Is not this to imitate that barbarous and senseless King who cast chains into the sea to tie the Ocean in fetters God hath given us a Xerxes heart of a larger latitude than the heavens which he will replenish with himself and you will straiten it like a snail to lodge him in narrow bounds whom the whole world cannot comprehend Judge if this proceeding be not very unreasonable and if you yet doubt weight two or three reasons which you shall find very forcible and by them you will conclude with me you have no less obligation to be perfect than the most retired Hermit that ever lived in the most horrid wilderness of Egypt The first reason I propose to underprop this assertion is drawn from the nature and essence of perfection At what mark think you should one aim to arrive to this scope If I should say will you be perfect bury your self alive in a sack put a halter about your neck go roast your self in the scorching beams of the Sun go roal your self in snow and thorns this would make you admire your hair stand an end and bloud congeal in your veins But if one tell you God Perfection engrafted upon love hath as it were engrafted perfection with his own hands upon the sweetest stock in the world what cause have you of refusal Now so it is as I say There is nothing so easie as to love the whole nature of the world is powred and dissolved into love there is nothing so worthy to be beloved as an object which incloseth in the extent thereof all beauties and bounties imaginable which are the strongest attractives of amity yea it forceth our affections with a sweet
a most irrefragable motive of detestation of any vice when the baseness and ignominie thereof is discovered for that is it which hath most power over generous spirits Now so it is this hypocrisie which maketh you O Noblemen always to live disguised is quite contrary to the condition of a brave and generously elated spirit Because if it be impressed with a good stamp it naturally loveth the liberty and freedom which unavoidably is oppressed in these palliations crouchings and counterfeitings They are the tricks of Apes and Foxes and in no sort are suitable to the nature of a generous Lion Besides seeing God openeth unto us the great Hypocrisie confuted in the great book of the world book of the world as a piece of parchment guilded and traced with his pencil for us therein to read that which is for our instruction if we will consider diligently the most sublime things we shall find they naturally strike at this vanity which maketh you to display apparences to the eyes of men outwardly having nothing solid within It seemeth that all the master-pieces of this celestial and elementary world as it were by a common consent do hide all what they have of most eminency and worth bearing for devise I hide the better part It is true Parte sui meliore latent that Heaven sheweth it self wholly relucent in stars and brightness but covereth his powerful influences which by their secret extent give motion to this great house of nature It is true the air maketh his meteors to appear to the view of the whole world but this secret virtue which doth penetrate us even to the heart and bringeth life and refreshment to us upon its wings who can tell me what colour it is of The fire unfoldeth his flames to us but this commanding heat which conquereth and softeneth the hardest mettals do we behold it The caim sea delighteth us with his smiling countenance at that time especially when it becometh as it were frizled and curled by some gracious and gentle gale and coloured with the beams of a bright Sun which beat upon it but this lustruous beauty what is it in comparison of the treasures which he concealeth in the store-houses of his abysses The earth it self likewise maketh her boast in the spring varied and enameled with her natural pieces of painting and sparkled with a thousand petty flowers which stand as the eyes of the meadows but these do eclipse each evening and morning Quite contrary the mettals which the earth encloseth and as it were engulfeth in the entrails after they are wrought and polished by the artful hands of Lapidaries retain a lustre of a long date which resplendently shine upon cup-boards of Kings and the Great men of the earth What lesson of nature is this to hide all which it hath of greatest value And what corruption of nature in man to hold in the bottom of his heart stench and dung-hills and to plaister it over with a vain hypocrisie God hath not onely imprinted this verity of Hypocrisie condemned by the laws of heaven Sport of God and what 1 Cor. 1. Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus ut confundat sapientes infirma mundi elegit Deus ut confundat fortia ignobilia mundi contemptibilia elegit Deus ea quae non sunt ut ea quae sunt destruereâ— which I speak in the great book of nature but he hath as it were engraven and stampt it with his hand in the monuments of the old and new law The pastimes of Great men are Theaters Tilt-yards and Amphitheaters and the sport of the Divine wisdom in this Universe is to hide treasures under the bark and mantle of some persons base and abject in apparence In the old law a stammering shepheard is chosen to carrie the word to a Monarch to shake and overturn with a poor wand the pillars of his Empire to divide seas to calm billows to open the bowels of rocks to command all the elements and fill the world with wonders In the new law simple fisher-men almost as dumb and mute as the fishes themselves are chosen to catch in their nets Philosophers Kings Cities Provinces and Empires Behold the ordinary custom of God to hold pearls in shels sweet perfumes in very abject boxes The true mark of greatness in the judgement of God is at first blush externally not to appear great On the contrary it is the act of a flat ridiculous and benummed vanity to be desirous to furprize the eyes with a counterfeit and captious beauty which afterward appearing in its native colours makes the deformity thereof the more disfigured What a shameful thing it is to a heart which hath Deformity of hypocrisie never so little resentment of nobility to erect a resplendent sepulchre to boast exteriourly marbles guildings characters titles and to have nothing within but bones put refaction and ashes to cast a certain lustre through the ignorance and obscurity of an Age become bruitish and then to be in effect but a silly worm to live in the world as a snail to make long silver traces and to be nothing else but froth to have the back covered with velvet like a cushion and the belly stuffed with hay to make ostent of leaves and verdure like a wood and to be replenished with serpents Is it possible that a noble heart when it hath no other super-visour but its own conscience can suffer these shames A gentile spirit said to an old man who caused his grisly hairs to be painted with the lustre of green youth Poor fool although thou couldst deceive the whole world with thy hair yet death well knoweth they are gray So when Scit te Proserpina canum an hypocrite shall happen to conceal his jugling from all those who accompany him which indeed cannot be done men now being endued with penetrating eyes yet one cannot deceive the eye of his conscience quick-sighted to pierce such falshoods with bright reflection I say nothing of the shame and ignomie that must be undergone after it is discovered and taken with the manner like a cut-purse I speak nothing of the racks tortures affrightments and perplexities in which they live who desire to entertain these seemings A great wit hath well said that such Stephanus Edvensis in Reg. 3. 18. people are the oxen of Baal who are cut for sacrifice in little gobbets but notwithstanding receive not fire from Heaven these miserable creatures macerate and kill themselves to sacrifice themselves to the appetites of the world without ever tasting the consolations of God which they have renounced Let us lay their pains apart let us admit that with these laborious endeavours they might always live cloked always hidden from the eyes of the world yea even from the all-piercing eye of their own conscience It is most manifest and considerable for the second 2. Reason reason that it is impossible to deceive God whose eye replenished
satietas poenitentia The disorder of it wicked love is full of anxiety and ever in its satiety it finds repentance Disorder You may as well tell the leaves of the trees the sands of the sea and the stars in the skie as number the disorders which have vomited and still overflow upon the face of the earth by means of the sin of luxury If there be poyson to be dissolved love mingleth it If swords be forged and fyled to transfix the sides of innocent creatures love hammereth and polisheth them in his shop If there be halters to be fastened wherewith to strangle love weaveth and tyeth them If there be precipices love prepareth them If there be massacres love contrives them If you go about to find little embryons even in the mothers womb to be bereaved of the life which they have not as yet tasted love is the authour and actour of these abominable counsels All the mischief and crimes which have in former Ages been perpetrated love hath done them and daily invented them It hath from all times pushed and shouldred good order out of the world It hath been the butt and aim of all the vengeances of God It hath been strucken with fire and brimstone from Heaven swallowed in the entrails of the earth drenched in the waters of a general deluge Yet it escapeth yet it perpetually armeth yet it walloweth it self in bloud and slaughter yet it holdeth the sword of justice ever perpendicular over the head and in conclusion it is esteemed but as a sport Is not all this of power sufficient to make it be believed that this filthy vice is an infallible mark of reprobation Flie O Noblemen this fleshly pestilence of mankind and never suffer it to exercise its tyranny over hearts consecrated by the precious bloud of the Lamb. All consisteth in flying far from the occasions thereof If you love danger you shall perish therein If you had the best intentions which did ever bud in the hearts of Saints yet if you seek out occasions of doing ill they become crooked and distracted Nature being Remedies as now it is corrupted the ignorance of vice better serves our turn than all the precepts of virtue Our affections attend on our knowledge the absence of objects maketh us to forget all our most enflamed desires To live in lust and idleness to have our eyes always in pursuit unchaste books in our hands to hear comedies and impure stage-plays to have gluttonous discourse in our mouth to frequent buffons and loose livers to converse familiarly with women these are not the instruments of chastity it is â—ather to put oyl into the flame and then to complain of much heat Petrarch in his books against vanity giveth remedy Petrarch l. 1 2. c. 23. de remediis Occupatio liber incultier habitus villus asperior secessus inque unum aliquid jugiâ— intentio aâ—â—aec testis charus verendus frequâ—nâ— admonitio dulces minae si quando res exigat asperae Cyprian de bono pudor Ante ocules obversetur defermis atque dejectus peccati pudor nihil corpori liceat ubi vitandum est corporis vitium Cogitetur quam honestum sit viâ—â—â—se dedecus quam inhonestum victum esse à dedecore to the wounds which seem to have been inflicted in the time of his loves Love creepeth into idleness handle the matter so that he may always find you busied Love is pleased with curiositie of attire give him hayrcloth He is entertained with feasts subdue him with austerity He will fall upon some object scatter and confound him He laboureth to find out a loose and unbridled spirit hold yours extended upon some good affair He requireth liberty private places night darkness let him have witnesses and enlighten him on every side He will be governed by fantasie keep him dutiful both by admonitions and menaces S. Cyprian found nothing more powerful to conquer a temptation of dishonest wantonness than to turn the other side of the medal and as this sin hath two faces so not to stay upon that which looketh amiable and attractive to deceive us but to behold that which under a black veil sheweth it self to be pensive sad shamefac'd desperate and full of confusion The great Picus Mirandula said the most part of men yielded to temptation because they never tasted the sweetness of glory which is drawn from the victory over a sin Above all it is behoveful to use the advise of a wise Arabian who represented to himself perpetually over his head an eye which enlightened him an ear which heard him a hand which measured out all his deportments and demeanours The exercise of the presence of God joyned with prayer frequentation of Sacraments often invocation of the Mother of purity and the Angels Guardians of chastity daily blunt a thousand and a thousand arrows shot against the hearts of brave and undaunted Christian Champions Adde hereunto that it is good to live in a ceaseless distrust of ones self which is the mother of safety that you may not fall into the fire it is good to avoid the smoke not to trust ones self too much to those petty dalliances which under pretext of innocency steal in with the more liberty Mother of pearls produce sometimes windy bunches for true and native pearls and the will through complacence of passion ill digested in stead of good love bringeth forth silly abortions of amities which are nothing but flashes and wild fantasies yet such as may notwithstanding dispose an emptie soul to some finister affections The tenth OBSTACLE Excess in diet and apparel THe world was as yet in her cradle man was Terrestrial Paradise the chamber of justice no more than born when God making a Palace of justice of terrestrial Paradise pronounced against him the sentence of labour and pain and afterward wrote it as with his finger in the sweat of his brow Thou shalt eat thy bread Gen. 3. 19. In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane Noblemen appeal from the sentence of labour with the sweat of thy brow Noblemen perpetually appeal from this sentence as if they were not men it seemeth labour is not for them Let nature hold to the chain and labour those grosser bodies which are moulded of the clay of Adam they have forsooeth bodies composed of I know not what kind of starrie matter which never must sweat nor take pains but in a dance What a folly it is Ought not he to be dissolved into sweat since he is to be reduced into ashes He cannot free himself from the sentence of death and why shall he decline pains-taking seeing it proceeded from one and the same mouth in the same time and upon one and the same subject But behold the reason which is that to satisfie the sentence of labour sureties are found the houses of rich men are filled with officers and servants who take pains in their fields prune their vines carry
ought to be freed from wars of nature which ever keep in humility your soul a little too indulgent to it self The eighteenth SECTION Remedies against passions and temptations which proceed from every vice I. TO consider that passion is a motion of the sensual appetite which proceedeth from the imagination of good or evil with some agitation of the body II. That there are eleven passions six in the appetite of concupiscence which are love hatred desire aversion joy sadness Five in the appetite of revenge which are hope despair boldness fear anger III. That there are two means to vanquish all passions whereof the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions and vain apparences of all things of the world and the second a serious entertainment of the mind in better things as prayer study labour affairs But above all you must beg of God the light and strength of his holy grace which infinitely surpasseth all humane remedies We here adde some preservatives against passions and the most ordinary vices Against carnal love I. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves which are the true gardens of Adonis wherein nothing is gathered but wretched flowers environed with many thorns II. To set a true estimate upon things and not to be deceived with apparences III. To keep watch over your senses to avoid the opportunities and occasions of sin and above all to have recourse unto God upon the first impression of your thoughts IV. To free your self by main force from the presence of objects to be delighted with serious purposes and good employments V. To present to your self very often the defect ingratitude levity inconstancy and treachery of creatures which we most servilely love Against aversions hatreds and envies I. To esteem nothing great in this life is the way to envie nothing II. To love onely the great inheritance of the land of the living which never becomes less by the many and several divisions made to those who possess it III. To consider attentively the motives which excite us to love our neighbour as the participation of the same nature same life same bloud and like profession and such other reasons which are as so many knots of amity IV. The wretched life of Cain to live in envie troubles disturbances and rage of a distempered spirit which causeth the immortality of its being to contribute to the eternity of its pains V. To behold how envy ere it is aware serveth many times to the advancement of those who are envied Against covetousness worldly hope and joy I. The disquiet of an hungry mind II. The unsatiableness of desires III. The wars and battels we must oft-times undergo to satisfie one sole desire IV. The dishonour of denial insupportable to a generous soul V. The dependence and slavery we must endure to please those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our desires VI. the frailty in offending God through too much greediness of temporal things VII The poor and short pleasure taken in things we most ardently desire VIII That God many times affordeth us the accomplishment of our desires as a punishment of our imperfections Against sadness and despair There is a holy sadness as that we entertain upon the passion of our Saviour or for our sins which is a gift of God and not a punishment There is another furious which hath no ears and which is rather cured by miracles than precepts There is one natural which proceedeth from humour and another vitious fostered by evil habits and neglects of salvation I. Against this last we must consider our desires and affections oft-times make up all our sadness and that the true means to lessen the cares which consume us is to sweeten the sharp and ardent love we bear towards worldly things II. The small account we make of God is the cause we many times are troubled at frivolous things either distantly threatning us or already happened He that would truly love this great God who deserveth all the love both of Heaven and earth should not suffer fear or sadness for any thing but the loss of the love of God which no man looseth if he be not willing to for go it III. Nought but tears of the damned is remediless He that may be in the way of Paradise should not make a kind of hell on earth and who may hope this great All should never be sad for any thing Against evil confidence I. That to be confident in evil things is to have a desperate instrument of ones own misery which entertaineth all exorbitancies of the heart to make them the more punishable II. That there is no assured confidence against the power of God which in an instant ruineth the posterity of the greatest Tyrants III. That the strongest things are wasted by the weakest Lyons have been eaten up by flies and rust though contemptible consumes the hardest mettals IV. That to be confident through presumption of strength is the high-way to become ridiculous in enterprises and unfortunate in all successes We must not go about to soar to the sun with the wings of a Reare-mouse nor sail on the Ocean in the shell of a Tortoise Against fear I. Neither to desire nor love any thing inordinately is the path-way to peace where fear never harbours II. To have a strong charity towards God and to love him fervently with perswasion of his reciprocal love This is the means to enter into a firm confidence For what evil may we fear against us when God is with us III. We many times fear evils which are the fources of great blessings some are not truly evils other much less than we make them and many will never happen Why will you abide where you are not and put your self on the rack in your imagination IV. He who resolves to suffer all that God will have him takes in hand a powerful remedy against all sorts of fears For he who is a Master over sorrow commandeth terrour since the evil present is much more troublesom than the future V. There are natural fears much tied to flesh unless they be vanquished and sweetned by frequent custom with the things which are feared and conversation with men confident and couragious Against anger I. To consider how it depriveth us of six things very precious to wit of wisdom justice civility concord truth and the splendour of the spirit of God II. How it suddenly transfigureth a man into a little monster III. How it is hurtful to the state of health which we so tenderly love IV. That it abaseth the person surprized with it and especially if he be in some eminency of life and dignity V. That the effects thereof are cruel the spoils pernicious events shameful and falls for the most part irrecoverable VI. The contentment to have kept back an evil word which had destroyed a good affair VII The abstinence from curiosities and niceness of life cutteth asunder the sinews of anger The less curious a man is the more
away but with a rod of silver so much this mischievous avarice this feaver of the heart this voluntarily frenzie hath prevailed upon the spirits of these times And were the maids in this case such as they should be seeing the covetousness of men they would rather resolve to take God for a husband in the state of virginity than yield their bodies and riches up to a husband who seeks after nothing less than themselves S. Hierom relateth an excellent passage of Martia daughter of the great Cato who said that among so many Gallants as made love to her there was not any fit for a husband Say the like maidens avaunt mercenary husbands who have the fever of money marry them to the mines of Peru and not to virtuous maids The second evil I observe is riot which now adays wasteth body and goods and becomes more insatiable than hell It is asked why avarice swayeth in marriages and wherefore husbands are so greedy of portion because indeed they stand in need of it to entertain the bravery and vanity of their wives apparel It is a prodigious thing to what height this folly is mounted Lawyers are much troubled to reckon up all the attires and trinkets of women what pain shall then the husband suffer to buy them O woman what makes thee so passionately to desire these gauderies Thy first mother whose garments were cut out by the hands of God was contented to be clothed with skins and now seas must be sailed over and the bounds of elements broken to seek out dressings for thee Miserable that thou art who inordinately deckest thy self and for an ill purpose Kowest thou not thy garment is to thy body as the plaister to the wound or any ivy leaf to stop a cautery S. Isodore said before sin Adam and Eve were clothed with light O precious attire The Sun will have no other mantle than his own rays nor the rose any other robe than her scarlet because nature hath sufficiently adorned them So man had he continued within the limits of original justice would not have wished any garment but innocency Sin is come which hath by reflection impressed an ugly scarre both on soul and body and needs must gold and silk be sought out to involve it A man in former Ages was seen who having feet of wood shod them with golden pantofles O miserable and ridiculous vanity Woman doth the like to cover her wretched body which one of these days must putrifie and which hath received the wound of sin and death All the most exquisite beauties of nature must be drawn together yea marry if it could afford any comfort and ease to the body but you shall many times behold a young gentle-woman groan as at a torture under the weight of her garments yet she for all this will have and adore her own punishment The great Chancellour of England and glorious Martyr Thomas Moore was he not pleasantly disposed when he said to one who complained of heat Ah silly creature what wonder is it thou carriest upon thee meadows vine-yards mills mansions and Islands in the value of Jewels how canst thou possibly be cool This was the cause why Tertullian complained Tertul. de habitu muliebri Brevissimis loculis patrimonium grande praefertur uno lino sâ—stertium inseritur saltus insulas tenera cervix fert graciles aurium cutes ealendarium expendunt before him A little Cabinet makes shew of a large patrimony Twenty three thousand Crowns are disbursed for one rope of pearls A womans neck puts on woods and Islands and her ears which are so curious waste ample revenues But the matter most to be lamented is that it often happens the servile and unfortunate husband buys all this bravery at the charge of the poor and if any perhaps wring these gorgeous garments there will be some danger the bloud of the poor may distil from it The third disorder is the discord which proceedeth from the ill government of men from the obstinacy of women and jealousie of both And verily we may affirm the sleight vanities of wives are much more tollerable than the disorders of men It is no ordinary folly but rather a rage and madness to see a poor woman full of children groan under the heavy burden of a houshold charge upon her hand daily fading and withering away like a plant without juice or moysture to live on gall and tears and in the mean time a disloyal husband to consume in excess of diet and game the instruments of Satan that substance God gave him for the entertainment of his family O ungratefull and unnatural wretch who to give way to thy passion tramplest under-foot the commandments of God and honour of marriage This money which thy cruel hand so profusely scatters in game if thou wouldst well understand is the bloud of this poor creature which was so charily to thee recommended It is the sweat of her parents labours they are her proper entrails which thou piece-meal tearest in this fatal dicing-house I do not say thou art a homicide there is some difference between thee and a murderer The murderer in an instant taketh away life and bodily pain both together but thou who livest in perpetual riots thou drawest the vital parts from this afflicted turtle one after another which thou oughtest to love as thy self Thou cuttest the throat of thy family of thy poor and unhappy children who are thine own bloud which thou shouldest fervently affect hadst thou not renounced nature and entertained the heart of a bruit beast for that of a man what say I a beasts heart the Lamiaes Lamiae nudaverunt mammas lactaverunt catulos fuos filia populi mei crudelis sicut struthio in desertâ— Hier. Thren Si quis suorum maximè domesticorum curam non habet fidem negavit est infideli deterior 1 Tim. 5. have bared their breasts they have given suck to their young and there is not any but the daughter of my people who is cruel as the Ostrich of the desert Knowest thou to whom S. Paul compares such a man to a Cannibal to a Barbarian No he tells thee he is worse than an Infidel If any one neglect his own and namely his domesticks he hath renounced faith and is become worse than a Pagan On the other side the obstinacy of woman is a horse hard in the mouth head-strong untractable and I can no longer wonder said one that she was made of a bone since many times her head is so hard which brings infinite trouble on a family The Ancients dressing up the statues of the Moon in humane shape set on her shoulders the head of the Sun to shew a virtuous wife should have no other will nor other intentions nor glory than the will intentions and glory of her husband if they be reasonable It is the doctrine of S. Paul to the Ephesians Mulieres â—iris suis subdite sint sicut Domino quoniam vir caput
both in the water of tears and in the boiling furnace of afflictions O the providence of God! That is true which the Scripture saith Your ways are now in the abyss and your pathes on the waters Who could discover such tracks whilest this most chaste and innocent Queen amidst the dark obscurity of a prison daily drowneth one part of her life in tears Herod who was now embarqued all bloudy with Arrival of Herod at Rhodes massacre committed on the person of Hircanus found the sea winds men and all his affairs successfull This Proteus who made his wit comply with all accidents seeing he could not conceal the service which he had done for Mark Anthony ever playing the dog sleeping under the feet of his fortune resolved to colour and cloak them with the mantle of virtue He knew Augustus was a Prince born to goodness generous just and that he endeavoured to make faithfull servants in this change of affairs which he began to undertake he deceives him under the shadow of virtue with the colour of constancy and pretext of fidelity Behold he presenteth himself to the Emperour and speaks in these terms O Great Augustus behold here my person and crown His speech to Augustus at your feet It is good reason that all depend upon your Greatness since God is pleased to put the Empire of this Universe into your hands For mine own part I cannot deny what I have been no more than I will dissemble what I ought to be and what I will be I have hitherto been a great friend of Mark Anthony It is true and had he believed me as he hath done Cleopatra his Mistress you Caesar had felt bow far I was your enemy and he how much I was his friend But this miserable Prince cozened by this creature took money of me and counsel of her to destroy in so doing his fortune and raise yours upon his own ruins I have followed him even to the brink of the grave and not fallen therein since my death could nothing advance his service He is in that state and condition wherein I am able to render him nought but tears To you O Caesar are due the services which I tender with much heartiness if you shall please to accept them on this condition that you enforce me not either to hear or speak evil of my old master whom being no longer able to serve I notwithstanding ought after death to love Augustus took pleasure in this liberty and thought this man was made of the wood whereof good servitours are composed not seeing the subtility of the fox who measured all according to his own interests He then taketh the crown which Herod had laid at his feet and set it on his head saying I desire you may live peaceably in your Territory onely be faithfull to me as you have been to Mark Anthony Herod after this so favourable access ceased not to put himself forward into the grace of Augustus by seeking out all occasions to procure it and namely in the voyage the Emperour made into Aegypt wherein he perpetually attended him and performed many singular offices This business so prosperously dispatched he triumphantly returneth into the Citie of Jerusalem to the amazement of the whole world Here it is that the virtuous Mariamne endeth her Accusation and pitifull death of Mariamne career to serve as a sacrifice in the lamentable triumphs of her husband Let us behold how this bright flame is extinguished we shall from thence expect no evil odour the good vapours of her life will wait upon her even to death So soon as Herod was arrived in his capital Citie he hasteneth to salute the Queen his wife whom he had already caused to be set liberty being secure of his affairs and was the first brought her the news of his happy success in this voyage He was so puffed up Sottish love with his prosperities that he could not contain himself and the love of so amiable an object which he then beheld in his presence after so many dangers did so unloosen his tongue in excess of vaunts and and superfluity of words thinking he made himself very acceptable with such impertinencies Mariamne much perplexed to hear him and being free and generous in all her actions shewed not to take much pleasure in these his idle boastings which passion likewise made to appear somewhat childish He thinking at the first this was nothing but a trifling humour of melancholy which would quickly vanish into smoke flattered her the more with words playing the wanton beyond his custom Upon these dalliances the poor Ladie sighed often remembring herself of the secret commandment very lately given to Sohemus He well saw by this her countenance she was not content and beginneth to enter into suspition that Sohemus had used the like intemperance of tongue as Joseph He at that time knew not what face to set upon it so much was he turmoyled love anger jealousie suspition drew him with four horses He could not be angry as he would nor knew how to love what he affected This proud spirit unacquainted how to bow under any one but to deceive him was ashamed to behold himself dis-armed and to become a counterfeit in amorous courtships not so usual to his nature He then seeing this mommery succeeded not was the more afflicted and thought it was time to brandish his sword But love proved of more force than anger and withheld the stroke He retired shaking his head and muttering I know not what between his teeth as cursing love which made him mercifull in despite of his own disposition Out alas Can one find out a more spitefull hatred than in women against women when jealousie hath laid hold of their brain Cypre an Arabian by nation mother of Herod and Salome his sister seeing him so passionate ceased not to blow the cole with their tongues and enkindle him with many calumnies which the Tyrant partly believed yet could not suddenly resolve to give the blow He was long time debating with himself without power to conclude any thing In the end an unhappy day comes in which about noon being retired into his chamber he sendeth for Mariamne who instantly came thither but conjugal rites being required of her she stuck in the refusal saying The law of nature forbad her to company with a man who had murdered her father and brother speaking of her father Alexander who by the pursuit of Herod had been oppressed by the Romans and of her brother Aristobulus so cruelly smothered Here Josephus the Historian after he had highly praised Mariamne as a most chaste Queen and truly endowed with an admirable faith for such are his words taxeth her with a little disdain which was as he said engrafted in her nature for that she rejected the dalliances of her husband But he that will well consider how Herod had used her nearest of kin most unworthily massacring them and how holding the scepter from her
answered their desires For in this second Volumn I treat of the Courts of Constantine the Great the two Valentinians Gratian Theodosius the Elder Theodorick in Boetius his cause Clodoveus Clotilda Levigildus Hermingildus and Indegondis in such sort that I have selected the principal sanctities of Great-ones in the first six Ages of Christianity which will not be sleightly valued by those who better love to finish a Work than unboundedly distend it Moreover also to be better than my promise in my first Volumn having taken the Court in general I here descend into particulars and there being four sorts of persons which compose the life of Great-ones that is to say the Prelate the Souldier the States-man and the Court-Ladie I have made a brief Table of the conditions necessary in every state couched in four discourses pursued with as many Books of Histories which contain excellent models of virtues proper to all orders and states of life in persons most eminent I can assure my Reader these Summaries of Precepts which I have so contracted in so few words it being in my power to enlarge them in divers Volumns are not unprofitable and the Histories are so chosen that besides their majesty which unfoldeth the goodliest affairs and passages of Empires in the beginning of their Christianity they have also a certain sweetness which solid spirits shall find as much to transcend fables and modern eloquence as the satisfaction of truth surpasseth the illusions of Sorcerers You shall perpetually therein observe a large Theater of the Divine providence wherein God himself knoweth I have no other aim but to dignifie virtue and depress vice without any reflection upon the persons of these times no more than if I wrote in the Reign of Charlemain or St. Lewis I heartily entreat all those spirits of application who cannot hold their nose over a piece of work unless they find it to suit with their own fantasies imagining that all literature is the eccho of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make glosses upon their own dreams than my Books We are not as yet God be thanked in so miserable an Age that we dare not offer sacrifice to truth without a disguise since it is the glory of Great-ones openly to wage war against vices as their greatest enemies For to speak truly after I had presented my First Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I likewise considered in his Court rich and resplendent lights in all orders which might serve as models for my Treatises but to avoid affectation of all worldly complacence I have purposely declined it my nature and habit having already so alienated me from all worldly pretences that it would prove painfull to me to court any man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to give me for reward For so much as concerneth the form of writing observed by me in this Second Volumn I will truly confess to my Reader that I have therein proceeded rather guided by my proper Genius than art or cunning And although I heretofore have been curious enough to read and observe all what ever Greek or Roman eloquence hath produced of worth yet I confess there is a certain ray of God which encountering with our spirit and mixing with nature is more knowing than all precepts and I may affirm this for the instruction of youth which hath asked my opinion concerning the qualities and conditions of stile True it is I have handled many books written in all Ages and have found the wisest of them to be elevated in conceits and words above the ordinary strain but always free from affectation Others are so passionately enamoured of certain petty courtships of language which are capital enemies of perswasion and which we most especially ought to avoid in discourses of piety the nerves whereof they weaken and blemish the lustre since even those who speak to us out of Chairs by word or writing although in terms discreetly modest make the less impressions on our hearts and many times so seek after their own reputations as they forget how much they are engaged to truth We see some who through over-much wit search out strange ways conceptions different from common understanding words extravagant and in all other things so vehemently adore their own imaginations that they cannot endure any but themselves in paper which is the cause they very seldom meet with the habit of humane understanding as being true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth of ability to controle all and to do nothing Some glory in barrenness and would willingly be displeased with God that he hath more plentifully sown stars in some parts of the Heaven than in others They can brook nothing that is generous without snarling at it and taxing it supposing beauties and splendours are defects because they surpass their capacities Finally there are some who so furnish themselves with the worth of others ceaseless allegations that they frame discourses like to those Helena's all of gold where we can behold nothing but drapery not being able to distinguish the hand from the foot nor the eye from the face I enter not into the consideration of our times having learned rather to regard the Works of the meanest Writers than censure them But to speak sincerely I never thought it fit to advise or pursue such courses And as in this Work I have not wholly declined learning nor ornament of language which I supposed apt for the purpose endeavouring many times to enchase them with seemly accommodation so have I been unwilling to replenish my leaves with Authours and forreign tongues this being undertaken rather to perswade virtue among men eminent than to fill the common places of young Students I likewise have so intermingled my style that not descending into a petty language of complement which had been below my subject I thought to make it intelligible yea even unto those who make no profession of arts or study My onely aim is to speak and to be understood perswaded thereunto by the saying of Philo That speech and thought are two sisters they youngest whereof is created that the eldest may be known I have more laboured upon the weight of sentences than ornaments of words not at all pretending to the honour of earthly pens which we daily behold to grow in so many Authours of this Age who would be much more absolute did they apply themselves to graver subjects and in some sort imitate the Sun who affording admiration to the world hath none himself Notwithstanding it often happeneth not with the most eminent Writers who ordinarily are endowed with much modesty but certain extreamly profane wits to idolatrize their own inventions to condemn all treatises of worth and value that it is impossible to be eloquent in our language but in the expression of vanities and impurities Truly if question were made to judge of French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite as
arms the Masters who had trained him up confessed he had dainty passages inimitable for any practice The Pagans who would blame him for diversity of Religion have never said ought else of him but that he was to good an Archer and over-fervent in hunting of wild beasts That notwithstanding set him in the estimation of warlike men and as he was singularly affable and liberal so was there nothing to be found in the world more charming than his nature Saint Ambrose having understood his spirit much affected him and endeavoured to joyn the most solid virtues to so many fair natural parts and above all perceiving that among so many Pagans and Arians who stretched out their snares on every side to surprize him it was necessary to prevent them he laid in his Royal soul deep foundations of faith and most chaste grounds of Religion to which Gratian shewed himself from the beginning much enclined There is also a letter found written in his proper stile and with his own hand where when he had heard the learned instructions of his Prelate he demands them in writing and because it is an excellent monument of his spirit and Religion I will here insert it The Emperour GRATIAN to Ambrose the Religious Bishop of God Omnipotent I Have a vehement desire to see my self united to you Apud Ambros in praefat I. de fide by corporal presence as I ever have you in my memorie and as I cohabit with you in the better part of my self which is the soul I beseech you most holy and Religious Bishop of the living God hasten unto me to teach me what I believe before I have sufficiently learned For it is not my purpose to argue upon matter of faith better loving to lodge God in my heart than conclude him in my words My desire onely is to open my soul at large to the Divinitie to receive its lights the Excellent faith and modestie of the Emperour more abundantly God will instruct me if it shall please him by your words since I confess and reverence his most Sacred Majestie well observing not to call Jesus Christ a creature or to measure him by the weakness which I acknowledge in mine own person but rather I avow our Saviour to be so great that our thoughts which are almost infinite can adde nothing thereunto For if the Divinitie of the Son could increase I would dilate my self in it for augmentation of his praises supposing I could not better gain the gracious favour of the Celestial Father than in glorifying the Son Eternal But as I fear no jealousie on Gods side so for my part I make no account to esteem my self so great an Oratour that thereby it may be in my power to adde any thing to the glory of the Divinitie by my words I acknowledge my self to be infirm and frail I praise God proportionably to my forces and not answerably to the measure of his greatness As for the rest I beseech you to afford me the Treatise of faith of which you heretofore gave me a tast adding thereunto the Disputation of the Holy Ghost in such sort that you prove his Divinitie by the Scripture and reason Hereupon I pray God dear Father and true servant of God whom I adore that he many years preserve you in safetie This Letter he that will consider it shall find to be full of much sense and verily Saint Ambrose was so ravished herewith that he confesseth never to have seen nor read at that time the like This good Emperour saith he wrote to him with his own hand as Abraham who himself prepared the dinner for Genes 18. his guests not giving commission thereof to his own servants He wrote holy words unto him as if he had an ear in Heaven and which is more remarkeable it was in a time when he was upon the point of a journey to resist Barbarians and therefore he purposely took the arms of faith from this great Bishop For observe this young eaglet from the second year of his Empire found business enough For Athanaricus King of the Goths entered into Thracia with a formidable Army and as Gratian amassed together all his Eastern troups to make head against him the Baâ—barians imagining with themselves that the Western Empire was unfurnished fell upon the Gauls whither the Emperour went with admirable expedition to succour them and it was at the time when he wrote this letter and most particularly recommended himself to Saint Ambrose taking the standard of faith from him to bear it in the front of his flourishing Legions This was not without Triumphant victory very notable success for by relation of Ammianus Marcellinus he bare himself most valiantly in this journey although very young undergoing toyls and ever appearing in the head of the army to encourage the souldiers by his presence which so enkindled them that they resolved to confront the enemy as soon as might be and defeated them at Strasbourg with so horrible a slaughter that of seventy thousand Barbarians threescore and five thousand covered the field with their massacred bodies leaving young Gratian to make a harvest in the chief field of Mars moistened with the palms of his own sweats but above all blessed by the prayers of great S. Ambrose As the Emperour returned from this conquest he received letters from the holy Prelate where among other things excusing himself that he had not accompanied him he saith It is not the want of affection Most Christian Emperour Affectionate words of S. Ambrose to the young Emperour for what title can I give you either more true or more glorious It is not I say the want of affection hath absented me from your person but modestie joyned to the decorum of my profession yet at your return I present my self before you if not with bodily steps at the least with the whole affections of my heart and all the vows wherewith I could charge the Altars and in this the dutie of a Bishop principally consisteth But it is mistaken to say that I came before you as if I had been separated from you having perpetually attended you in mind marching along with you in your thoughts heart and good favour which is the most noble presence I can desire I measured your journeys I went along with your Armie I was in your camp day and night with all my cogitations and with all my cares I stood centinel with my prayers and those of my Clergie at your Imperial Pavillion How much I was little in merit so much the more did I raise my self in diligence and assiduitie And rendering this dutie for you I did it for the whole Church herein do I use no flatterie for you love it not and well know it to be far from my nature and the place which I hold but God is a witness with us both how much you have comforted my heart by the sinceritie of your faith to whom he hath afforded such
the direction of the family the government of men and maid-servants the example of youth and the comfort of the family She maketh her self necessary in the best affairs there is much repose in her prudence her health is accounted important her life precious her death deplorable and her memory replenished with honour The wisest of men Solomon hath given no other marks to know a virtuous woman than the Oeconomy she holdeth in the government of her family She hath considered saith Pâ—ov 3â— he the paths of her house and hath not eaten her bread in idleness she hath taken pains in linnen and wollen She is become as a ship laden with victuals and riches She riseth before day to provide fitting food for her familie She hath made purchase of farms and entertained traffick She hath put her hand to work then opened it to the necessity of the poor All her servants are in good order her husband and children cannot sufficientlie praise her for her great wisdom She is a lamp which will never be extinguished in the darkness of night Behold somewhat near the terms which he useth to reckon up the perfections of a wife ending with wisdom and fear of God which is the first and last ornament The ninth SECTION Conjugal Love IN the end as love is a generous passion which by It is the Epithere which S. Paul giveth to virtuous women calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2. its good government crowneth all virtues I would advise a married Ladie for the accomplishment of her perfection to bear a most cordial charity towards her husband This is no hard matter when there is good fortune and correspondence in marriages for complacence ever maketh wings for love and it is held a happiness to love that which pleaseth our passion But it is a most pitifull thing when parents blinded with avarice and charmed with the sweetness of pretended interests renew the example of cruel Mezentius who tyed the living to the dead and endeavoured to match a poor young maid who surviving in favours blessings from heaven with a husband putrified in vices ordures and diseases of body Then is a time when much virtue is to be shown in putting on a resolution to love a monster from their most tender years to their tomb What should we do therein The law of nature gives us free permission to desire good husbands but the laws of marriage exhort us to bear theÌ„ as much as we may howsoever they prove If we love for our selves this is impossible but if for God we therein shall find duty and facility A woman cannot seek out a shorter way to the perfection of her sex than by wedding the humours of her husband so that they be not opposite to the commandments of God she who well obeyeth commandeth well and when we once have surprised the heart of a man there is not any thing resisteth our wills Union is a marvellous cement which so straightly knitteth obedience and power together that it is a very hard matter to distinguish him who obeyeth from him that commandeth We have in all ages excelled in this conjugal piety there are hereof so many rare examples to be found that pens are troubled Vives relateth this in the second book of a Christian Woman of one named Clâ—râ— to express as well as ears to believe them Tender delicate young maidens have been seeÌ„ who inconsiderately married to husbands worn out with maladies perceiving froÌ„ the first night of her nuptials unguents ulcers and evil savours and finding a counterfeit health in bodies more fit for a tomb than a marriage bed yet have not abandoned them but loved honoured and served them watching sometimes fourtie days and fourtie nights about their beds never disarraying themselves Some one man hath been found among others whose indisposition drawing along with it seven years together the stench of wounds that were incurable the horrible infirmitie of members which appeared wholly disfigured did weaken all the forces of those who were willing to assist him overthrew the patience of the most faithfull wasted the charitie of the most zealous yea even such as do all for money abhorred to come near him And then to see a young maiden of sixteen years of age weak of complexion handsoâ— of bodie and endowed with a beautie which the most flourishing husbands would have coveted to tie her self to this dead body to stir it touch it cleanse it to give it broths to blow the powder of herbs into the nostrils of it which distilled an humour insupportable to all the world to cut his beard and hair when no man would undertake this adventure is it not a miracle of our sex worthy of the admiration of men the applause of histories and love of all posteritie What shall I say of one Eponina who having espoused See Lipsius in his Politiâ—ks a husband much clogged with troublesom affairs crimes yea even of treason was 9 years shut up with him in the vault of a sepulchre and afterwards seeing him to be discovered and condemned to death by the Emperour Vespatian would needs accompany him to execution die with him saying she alreadie was prepared for a tomb and that she could better tolerate it dead than alive What should I speak of a Persian Queen named Cabadis who seeing her husband detained in prison came to visit him not suffering her self to be known and giving him her garments of a wife to put on those of a husband afforded him opportunitie to escape paying afterward with her noble bloud the errour of her pietie Are not these prowesses worthy to be written in letters of gold and azure to be exposed to the view of all Ages A thousand-fold happy they whose concord hath bound love up with chains of adamant separation never finding place in the knot of marriage which God hath been pleased to tie with his own hands Let us for this cause preserve us from jealousie which useth to grow from the most beautifull loves as those worms which are said to issue from the fairest flowers It is a most unhappy passion formed by fantasie attired by suspitions darkened by discontents sed with bad humours by curiositie entertained with impostures by slander which gnaweth asunder all that which there is of virtue in chast affections troubleth the repose of beds embroyleth the affairs of housholds reateth alliances produceth monsters soweth fury and rage and having tormented all the world devoureth it self If our husbands fall into this miserie let us pitie them as franticks and take away from them all manner of occasions which may stir up their imaginations and if the like maladie surprize us let us not resemble those women who have travelled in the dead time of night through huge forrests full of horrour that they might hasten to watch their husbands accompanied onely with their passions whereof some fell between the teeth of wild beasts which to them were more pleasing
saith he the universe should interest it self in the loss of particulars yea were it of Monarchs We all bud forth like the leaf of a tree and die as the leaf neither our life nor death any thing importeth this great All. Behold that which much abaseth the pride of the most vain-glorious is to think upon a beer and tomb and reflect on that ample grave whereinto all mankind insensibly sinketh That is it which Job called Lapidem calipinis Job 28. 3. Secretarium horroris the stone of darkness That which the Ancients named the secret of horrour The greatest Princes of the earth resemble Alexanders stone the most excellent of the world in the brightness of lustre but so soon as it was covered with dust it had neither force nor beauty beyond other stones How great rich active soever they be the dust of a sepulcher makes it appear they are nothing But God alone hath immortality without dependence because he is what he is All that which may be and not be hath ever some time assigned when it was not or wherein it shall no more be One may Tu autem idem ipse es ann tui non deficient Saecula cuncta tenens anie omnia saecula solus Novatiani l. de Trin. c. 31. at the least find an imaginary time when the most eminent Powers were nothing and for so much as concernethmen it is no difficult matter to give them limits to which and in which they no longer shall be men But of God alone we may truly say his years not onely decrease not but know not what it is to increase For the Eternity of God to speak properly is very long and very short very long in extent for it spreadeth over all Ages very short because in an instant it possesseth all it can have in the infinity of times being ever like the center of a circle which looketh towards all the lines without stirring out of one place 4. Our third Annihilation is that we have much Man hath more non-essence than Essence more non-essence than essence according to Plato's argument because if we have the essence of a man we have not therefore the essence of Heaven of earth creatures nor plants although some similitude thereof We are confined and limited within a particular essence which comprehendeth a soul ignorant and unsatiable a body feeble and frail a strange connexion of a nature mortal and immortal an alliance of a ray of the sun with a dung-hill of a spirit prompt and subtile with most infirm flesh But God who is Excellency of the simplicity and universality of God in comparison of the world what he is containeth in himself all possible essences and which is more containeth them under the sole form of the Divinitie The world is bright in the light of stars resplendent in flames subtile in air streaming in eternal veins of rivers stable on the foundation of the earth rich in mynes fruitfull in plants displayed in flowers and all because it is a world and it a creature But God in one sole indivisible and under one sole form concludeth the fervour of Seraphins the science of Cherubins the majesty of Dominations the height of Thrones the excellency of Principalities the strength of Virtues the superintendence of Arch-angels the charitable offices of Angels the greatness of Heaven the beauty of stars the splendour of lights the activity of fire the subtilitie of air the fruitfulness of earth the eternal freshness of fountains and all we may call great beautifull or pleasing God I say comprehendeth them under this great title I am that I am That is it which Ego sum qui sum Bonum hoc bonum illud â—â—lle hoc illud vide ipswn bonum si potenita Deuâ— videbis non alio bono bonum â—ed bonum omnis boni Aug. l. 8. de Trinit c. 3. Maximus Tyrius Orat. de Deo In Deâ— non est nisi Deuâ— S. Bernard de consider l. 5. made S. Augustine say This and that is good Take away this and that when you speak of God and behold the Sovereign Good so shall you see God who is not good by a borrowed goodness but the Good of all good This first essence is lovely said Maximus of Tyre And verily it is the chief of beauties But how think you is it lovely like a meadow all strewed over with flowers or as Heaven all enamelled with stars Take away this meadow these flowers this Heaven these stars God is nothing of all created things but it is he from whom all creatures derive being beauty goodness force unity and lasting I well know what he is not but cannot say what he is I am satisfied in speaking with S. Bernard In the great God all is God and there is not any thing in him which is not himself Finally our fourth misery is that our essence being Mutability of men so short and slender faileth not to be afflicted with so many mutations so many vicissitudes that we may say there is almost nothing less in us than our selves All change saith the Philosopher beareth with it some image of non-essence and therefore we who change every moment are as it were nothing in nature to be trusted to It is not known with what knot with what chains men should be tied or fettered so variable and inconstant there Proteuses are Ages alter us and in changing us change themselues Infancy becometh adolescency adolescency is taken off by youth youth by manhood manhood by declining years and those years by decrepit age If you reckon well you shall find everyone of these mutations is a species of death As time alters our bodies a thousand other things make impression on our minds Humours passions conversations customs accidents vices and virtues so often transform us into other men that one may say we are the most natural pourtraicts of inconstancy in universal Nature There is none but God can say I Ego Dominus nonmutor Malach. 3. 6. In se â—aneâ—â— innevat omnis nihil accipit quod ipse non dedit esse illi quod est sempiternum semper est proprium S. Leo. ep 93. c. 5. am the God who changeth not There is not any the least shadow of vicissitude in the great abyss of light as he is one without number infinite without limits eternal free from floud and ebbe of time so he is immoveable without augmentation or diminution He stands immoveabâ—e within himself and reneweth all various nature out of himself He takes nothing of men which he gave them not Essence is proper to him as eternal to him It is a maxim in Theologie that simple forms which of themselves constitute a Person make no difference between the subject and nature that is to say God is his Deity his life his eternity and all he is without diversity It is for things composed of divers pieces to be susceptible of many forms and consequently
longer deferred their execution Procopius having once again been tormented before he was brought back to prison recommended these first victims to Heaven by his prayers whose example was quickly waited on by twelve Ladies full of honour who made open profession of faith Justus thinking it was a feminine heat which would be quenched when torments were applied to their bodies caused them cruelly to be tortured commanded their sides and arm-holes to be burnt yet they persevered singing and praising God in the ardour of the most exquisite torments Theodosia mother of our Martyr being present at this spectacle felt her self touched to the quick for the spirit of God entered powerfully into her It suddenly took off the film which in her had clouded the light of reason making her see into the bottom of her soul at which she conceived much horrour Alas then said she within her self who ever Change of Theodosia lodged a heart so barbarous as thine in the body of a woman All the bloud thou seest shed distilleth now to satisfie a revenge thou conceivedst against thine own bloud Thy son is in prison all rent and torn and if he yet have not rendered up his soul he keeps it on his lips expecting perhaps thy last words If thou art not yet satisfied go bathe thy self in his wounds and pull away that little life nature gave him by thy means and which cruelty taketh from him by thy practises Ah Theodosia the most rigorous of women and the most unfortunate of Mothers though thou hast abjured nature renounce not the God of nature Hear the voice which speaketh in thy heart and render thee to that Jesus who begins to resign thee up to thy self Why wilt thou not do what they act before thine eyes They have neither hearts of steel nor bodies of brass more than thou but more resolution because far greater faith And why shouldst not thou be faithfull by imitating their example If thou hast provoked Gods mercy thou hast not wasted it Let us go to Heaven by the purple way since the Providence of Heaven presenteth it unto thee The bloud of thy poor son yet speaks to thee in so many tongues as there are drops of it shed in the streets Let us follow him and never think that done too late which soon shall work thy eternal salvation She feeling the combat of these cogitations in her heart suddenly cried out as in an extasie I am a Christian The Judge who feared this act gave semblance to hear nothing of it but she redoubled her voice so loudly and made so solemn a profession that it was impossible for him to dissemble it So that seeing she would not desist from this resolution he was enforced to send her into the prison where her son remained Procopius beholding her to come fettered with other Ladies was infinitely joyed at this spectacle and cried out aloud Madam my dear mother who brings you To whom she answered Loving son the cause which put you here brought me hither to be the companion of your death since I am the murderess of your life I have betrayed bloud and nature and delivered His imprisonment and martyrdom my bowels to executioners to satisfie passion Virtue and honour being lost nought else remains for me but the happiness to die with you for Jesus Christ It is Son at this instant I must accomplish the words you spake to me at your return that I should take example from you as you birth from me O God most honoured Mother behold here a great touch from Heaven said Procopius I have nothing more to wish in the world since I this day behold you the precious conquest of Jesus Christ It is at this time when being a mother by nature you shall likewise be a mother to me by the example of your piety You are come to the point whither God would have you and all that is past was but to augment the glory of your conversion Let us go by the way of bloud to the place where the soul of your good husband and my dearest father expecteth us These two hearts wholly dissolved into the love of God spake in thought having not language enough to express their affection Theodosia being in a short time after baptized by Leontius was led to execution with the twelve Ladies where she appeared as the singular ornament of this holy Quire leaving her head in the place where she had first confessed Jesus Christ with a constancy so heroick that she drew tears from all the world Procopius having been tumbled up and down at divers Sessions before the Tribunals whipped roasted broyled salted torn in all his body the strength of his courage no whit shaken stretched out his neck to the executioner and yielded up his fair soul to God learning in the conversion of his mother and his own the divine power of this great Praedestination VII MAXIM Of the Divinitie of JESUS THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That God will be served in any kind and that every sect hath reason in its Religion That none but Jesus is Authour of truth and salvation to whom all creatures bear witness of his Divinitie THis Maxim of the Prophane Court is an old dotage of obsequious spirits who having no zeal for faith and likewise less courage against impiety do in apparence approve all Religions and follow none That is it which made Symmachus say God was a great secret and that it was no wonder every one sought after it and spake according to his weak endeavour of it some in one fashion and some in another That is it also which made Maximus Madaurensis write He was too great to enter whole and entire into the understanding of man but must be taken piece-meal every one contenting himself to adore some Symbol of God which seemed most convenient unto him Behold the shortest way can be taken to arrive at gross impiety for it is to make a Roman Pantheon of Religion where you shall have a thousand imaginary Divinities without one least glimmer of the knowledge of the true God Lies for some space accord together although they spare not to oppose one another but true Religion hath this property to tend wholly to Monarchy and if you speak to it of tolerating other sects as if they were reasonable it is to thrust thorns into the feet and put straws into the eyes of it Jesus hath nothing to do with Belial the faithfull 2 Cor. 6. with the unfaithfull nor the Temple of God with the synagogue of devils All religions which wander from the ray of Christian and Catholick verity are but chymaeraes of piety spectres of wisdom and flames which lead these souls into an abyss of fire and darkness There is but one Redeemer to whom are due all services and adorations And it is my desire for your comfort to shew you that the Authours of all Sects having in the end appeared so monstrous it onely appertained to the Eternal
God but wayes likewise easie and yielding to natural inclinations Oblike love is that which holdeth of both the other and which imitating the Angels of Jacobs ladder climbs to God by creatures and descends to creatures by the love of God But behold a love of enemies commanded by God which seemeth not comprized in this division so much it seeketh out wayes alienated and inaccessible to nature yet I intend to shew it may be found in the third part of this list and that it is a love which by the love of God descendeth unto the love of man to love him according to God A love which I maintain to be possible Three proofs of this discourse glorious and necessarie in three proofs that shall make three heads of this discourse 2. To deny the possibility of the love of enemies is First reason possibility of the love of enemies Diligite inimicos vestros to bely the Gospel and reason the Gospel which commandeth it reason which fortifieth the justice of the commandment The words spoken by our Saviour Love your enemies is not a counsel but a commandment so explicateth the Councel of Carthage the fourth chap. 93. the Councel of Agde Can. 22. and all holy Fathers who lent the light of their stile to the first light in the Gospel Now to say God commandeth a thing impossible is to make a tyranny of the Divinity and to make a God like to the cruel duke of Muscovia named Basilides who commanded from his subjects a tribute of sweat and of nightingales in the midst of winter Reason dictateth to us this commandment is not Right of nature onely of Divine right but of nature so far is it from being contrarie to nature that to speak naturally we judge that should be done to our neighbour we would have done to our selves and we desire to be beloved by all the world yea by those whom we have offended we then necessarily conclude we are bound to love those who have done us some injury Besides we well see that to seek revenge by proper authority is to destroy the right of nature and to make of a civil life the life of a Cyclop which were to have no other reason than strength nor limit but the sword Some will say it were good could love as easily be Answer to an objection put on as a shirt but if we have much ado to love things indifferent how can we affect bad and offensive Love ever pursueth good as the shadow the body and God who made both love and nature will not that it settle it self unless there be some attractive or appearance of good which inviteth it to love Now what is lovely in an enemy in whose person all is odious yea the very name Behold how carnal Philosophy with strong passions and weak reasons strikes at the eternal Word as if in the worst man in the world there could not ever be found something which may be an object of reasonable love We are not commanded to affect him with a love of tenderness but of reason It is not said you must love him as vicious you must endear Omne animal diligit simile sibi sic omnis homo proximum sibi Eccl. 13. 19. him as injurious or wicked for that were to force nature but we are commanded to love him as a man to love him as a Christian to love him as the work of God and as a creature capable of life eternal All things in the world said an Ancient have two handles and two faces Take a good hold-fast look on the good countenance and you shall find that easie which you thought impossible Let us also pass with Divinity to a reason more eminent and say it is not a thing against nature to love above nature by the commandment of him who made nature It is asked whether a creature can naturally love God more than it self since all that nature loveth it loves as a thing united to it it self according to the Amicabilia ad alterum sumumtur ex amicabiltus ad se Arist Ehick l. 4. c. 8. D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26. saying of Philosophers all well considered the most learned Divines answer that the soul of man remaining within the lists of natural reason should love the Creatour more than its own life because naturally the will well rectified hath a strong inclination to its end which is the Sovereign Good and the understanding necessarily judgeth the subsistence of essence increate and independent which ought rather to be preserved than that of essence create And if that be done by ways of nature how may one say it is against nature to love an enemy when there is the commandment and honour of God in it Nay it is so much otherwise that I will adde a reason which perhaps may seem strange but it is undoubted true I say it is much more hard to love ones self well than an enemy For I beseech you why was A remarkable consideration it that the Son of God so much spake laboured wept and bled if not to teach how we should aptly love our selves And wherefore were so many Saints fifty yea threescore years at school in desarts but to learn this hard lesson And who hath ever thought Self-love very hard to be repressed any thing more difficult to be repressed than self-love which powerful in fury and impotent within it self forgetful of God still mindful of its own interests ever gluttonous and still hungry swalloweth like a gulph sweepeth along like a torrēt beateth down like thunder and in the end is buried in the ruins it made If well to love ones self this monster be necessarily be to tamed who sees not there is much difficulty therein and that on the other side there is nothing to be done but to love the gift of God in man which cannot be ill but in your imagination Why create we so many impediments in the love of an enemy and find none in the love of our selves Were it not natural Effects of the love of enemies in the Law of nature Senec. l. 3. de irâ c. 38. why in the Law of nature did Cato smilingly wipe away tough phlegme which an enemy spit on his face when he pleaded a cause Why was Socrates content having received a blow on the cheek from an insolent man to set over his head the scroul used on ancient tables Lycus faciebat Why did Augustus in an absolute sovereign power of revenge tolerate with so much courtesy a certain writer named Timagenes who perpetually barked against him Traytours that we are to nature so to cover our neglect and weakness with the pretext of nature 3. Let us yet adde more force to truth and more Second point of proofs drawn from the glory of pardon scope to our pen. Let us enter into the second point of this discourse which teacheth us the greatness and glory of a man who
the resentment of injuries Necessitie of salvation since prayer and sacrifice essential parts of our salvation cannot subsist without the pardon of our neighbour And pursuing this precept we have a tradition from the Hebrews which saith He who being entreated to pardon after warning given before competent witnesses if he shewed himself inexorable was surnamed as with a title of infamy the Sinner and held as one excommunicate as a rotten member and cut off from the society of the faithfull I likewise say necessity of salvation since according to S. Augustine without this virtue all devotion is but August super Joan. homil 10. Quid prodest quia credis blasphemas Adoras illum in capite blasphemas in corpore c. hypocrisie all religion blasphemy all faith infidelity To what purpose is it saith this Prelate to believe and blaspheme to adore God in his head and blaspheme him in his members God loveth his body which is his Church if you dissever your self from his body he will not for all that forsake his own members Hear you not the head which speaketh to you from heaven saying O Man it is in vain thou honourest me hating thy neighbour If any one whilst he is giving thee low obeysance with his head tread on thy foot thou wouldst in midst of all his complement cry out Sir you hurt me What is there either more powerfull or persuasive The horrour and confusion of revenge than these reasons Yet notwithstanding among so many lightnings and thunders which encompass us on every side there are to be found infinite many black souls in the world which practise hatred some in secret some in publick make vaunts to eternize their revenge in the everlastingness of their punishments What a horrour is it to see a man who besought and entreated with all earnestness to pardon a brother who hath offended him answereth with disdain furious and intolerable he will never agree nor hold correspondence with him no more than with a Turk or Moor Ah Barbarian Shut up that mouth unhappy creature and never open it at least never open it before the wounds of Christ which bleed against thee Thou wilt embrace no other friendship with thy brother but such as may be found between Turks and Moors Lyer that thou art seek yet out words more out-ragious to express the gall of thy passion For if thou knowest it not Turks and Moors retain the amities and sense of man whereof thou art despoiled Turks even in the general desolation of Moors entertained them into their Countreys and afforded them helps which thou hast denied thy flesh and bloud If that seem worthy of thee take a turbant and become a Turk But when thou hast put it on yet shalt thou find laws which will oblige thee to love a man The Turks have their Behiram a feast wherein they pardon all injuries and wilt thou turn Turk to retain an injury Out of God's Church out of the society of men out of nature bloudy monster as thou art Where wilt thou any longer find place in the world when thou once hast pulled down the Altars of clemency That also which is spoken in choller and hasty precipitation might seem pardonable in repentance were it not there are some who in cold bloud foster suits and immortal pertinacities and which is worst many times in publick shewing a fair face in secret they transfix the heart of a poor man like unto witches they rip up the bowels of wife and children to satisfie a revenge Barbarous man eat rather eat the miserable heart than pierce it perpetually with thy infernal bodkins I would in the rest be silent if there were not women who being infirm in all things get diabolical strength for revenge What may we say of a creature of this sex who being very slightly offended by another of the same sex whilst she advised by her Confessour disposed her self to all duties of satisfaction the other looked on her with a Gorgons eye and foaming with anger spitefully reviled her with bloudy words so that nothing now remained but to take her by the hair and drag her on the floar which violence reproved by other she repeated the burden of the old ballad That she wished her not ill but would never see her again Inhumane and furious creature a Maegera not a woman what mouth will you hereafter bring to the Altars which you seem to honour Have you any other than that by you polluted with this poisonous choller What heart remains in you for God Is there any part of it not steeped in gall What expect you at the hower of death and in the instant of your souls separation but that God repeat unto you your own words I wish thee no ill I will not put thee upon the wheel nor the rack I have neither rasors nor flames to torment thee but thou never shalt see my face Wilt thou then cherish quarrels maintain sides spread rumours either true or false secretly undermine the fortune of men and make thy self as inexorable to reconciliation as thou art inflexible to reason Lord have mercy on us Semper jurgia quaerit malus Angelus autem crudelis mittetur contra eum Proverb 6. a cruel Angel will be sent against thee an ill suit commenced a ruinous business a tedious sickness a loss of goods a confusion of understanding and then shalt thou see whether fire being in the four corners of thy house thou still retainest the itch of revenge But you generous souls march on by union to the chief of unities and think the onely revenge is well to be revenged on your self If as I have shewed pardon be possible glorious and necessarie why foment we our curiosities to enflame our feavours Let us take away these silly humane respects this slender pride which often broodeth under silken devotions and which is the cause that God is daily beheld and adored upon both the knees by those who will not see nor speak to any that have committed some slight indiscretion whilst feigning to honour God the Master with lips the servant within the heart is strangled Say O Christian say to thy self Am I more powerfull Goodly considerations to pacific the mind in my small family than God in the universe He daily endureth so many injuries not threatening mortals with his thunders what am I who have ears so tender Many have forgiven their deaths and I cannot pardon a cold countenance a silly word a slender negligence Is it a child is it a young man hath offended age excuseth him is it a woman sex a stranger liberty a friend familiarity He hath offended he hath displeased Vid. de I thee once and how many other times hath he done thee good offices But this is not the first time so much the better shall we bear what we already have suffered Custome of injuries is a good Mistress of patience He is a friend he did what he would
simplicity to forsake certain pleasures for an uncertain beatitude That the glorie of Paradise is most certain to good men WE live here among the groans of creatures Opinion concerning beatitude every one well understands he is not in his right situation and all the world turns from one side to another like a sick man in a bed and if any one lie still it is rather through the impotencie of motion than the happiness of repose Our soul well knows it is the daughter of a good house that there is another place which expecteth it another life which inviteth it It seeth some glimmers of felicity in the mass of this bodie but hath much ado to follow them so many illusions deceive it upon one side and so many obstacles oppose it on the other The great floud and ebbe of perpetual disturbances Disturbances of life August l. 2. de Trinit c. 12. Amor magis sentitur cum prodit indigentia shew us we are made for some great matter since among so many objects there is none which either fully or long contenteth us We understand our happiness by the continual change of our miseries and our strong appetite by distast of all things Love which according to Plato is the son of indigence never is so ill as with its own mother from whom it learns nothing but its poverty which addeth a sharp spur to direct it to riches When I read S. Gregory Nazianzen in the great Naz. de itineribus vitae The divers wayes of humane life according to S. Gregory That the choice of conditions of life is hazardous work he compiled of sundry courses of life it seems to me I behold a man in the enterance of a labyrinth much distracted who will and will not who desires waxeth drouthy is intranced and become pale yea in the height of his delights It seems to me nature leadeth him through all the corners of her Kingdom and sayes unto him O man what wouldest thou do to become happie Behold I conduct thee through all the parts of my jurisdiction of purpose to afford thee felicitie which thou seekest Wilt thou then marrie fy no saith he for there is too much hazard in the adventure single life it is painfull would you have children they cloy with too much care barreness it hath no support riches they are treacherous to their Master and many have been in danger to loose life for having too much wherewith to live charges and honours they cost overmuch and are indeed dead trees whereinto ostriches flie as well as eagles would you have favour it is a squib which cracks in the air and leaves nothing behind it but burnt paper and smoak but if the Courts of Great-ones afford good fruit there is store many times of evil birds which devour it Thou wouldest then live in subjection saith nature since thou canst not command He replieth he could not obey I will make thee poor saith she to teach thee humilitie you were as good quoth he to put me on the wheel Thou shalt have beautie it is the snare of lust youth it is the bubling of time strength it shall be inferiour to bulls nobility it is too full of libertie eloquence it is too vain skill in pleading it is nought but wrangling Wouldest thou wear a sword by thy side it is to live either an homicide or to become a victime of death retire into some wilderness it is to languish Will you have title it is to become captive traffick it hath too much hazard and pains travel it hath too much toil sail on the sea there are too many storms stay on the land it is repleat with miseries learn some trade all is full of craft and I find none good manure the earth I am not able live idlely that is to rot alive One knoweth not on what side to turn him in the Obtiruntur humilitate depressa nutant celsa fastigio S. Eucherius Miseries of this present life world poor states are overwhelmed under their miseries great totter born down with the weight of their own greatness We find by experience that we here lead a painfull bitter and corruptible life which is fruitfull in miseries knowing in all whereof it should be ignorant and many times impotent but to do ill A life over which elements predominate which heats burn cold congeals humours swell maladies torment the very air and viands wherewith it lives cease not to corrupt A life which loves tyrannize hopes flatter cares devour anxieties oppress joyes make profusely dissolute A life which ignorance blindfolds flesh tempteth the world deceives sin poisoneth the devil beguiles inconstancy turmoileth time takes away and death despoileth Now what spirit is so bruitish and unnatural Necessary consequence which considering upon one side how God accommodateth all creatures even the least flies to the full latitude of that felicitie their nature admitteth and on the other side seeing this great abyss of miseries Bonum omnes conjectant maxime vero principalissimum Aristot politic lib. 1. cap. 1. wherein we role in this life doth not judge that God who in his nature is most wise and benign hath not so given the King of creatures over as prey to injuries and calamities as not to have reserved a life of spirits for him since he is spirit to please him by an intellectual felicitie 2. The Sages of Gentilism have looked this verity Opinion of the wise Summum hominis bonum est perfectio per sua intellectiva in the face by the sole ray of natural light For if we consult with Alpharabius the Arabian he will tell us that the Sovereign felicitie of man consisteth in a perfect dispose of the functions of his soul as well those which concern the understanding as such as depend on the will If we ask of the Philosopher Heraclitus what wiped his eyes so many times drenched in his tears He will tell you that it was the contemplation of a good not imaginable which expected souls in the other life If we desire to understand the apprehensions of Metrodorus we shall learn the soul must ascend until it behold time in its source and the infinity of the first Being If we cover to hear Plato upon it doth not he discourse in his Phedon that the soul recollected within it self mounteth to the Divinity Ascende donec saeculum rerum videas infinitatem Plato in Phaedone Mercur Trismeg Pymander cap. 1. Plotinus Ennead 1. l. 6. Ennead 5. l. 8. whose image it carrieth and that in the fruition thereof it satisfieth all desires It it not likewise the doctrine of Trismegistus in his Pymander Doth not he teach us the soul after death of the bodie returns to its nature as a troubled water which purifieth when it is setled And doth not Plotinus triumph on this subject in publishing that blessed souls at their passage out of bodies go to the first beautie which hath power to make
a forraign Nation separated from the sweetness of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synesius hymn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our dearest Country and lovely vision of the sovereign cause We are saith Synesius as little veins of water wandered from their fountains which desire nothing but to be re-united to their source should you afford them vessels of amber or chrystal to contain them they are never so well as in their origen We have a strong inclination that disposeth us to know love and admire this soveriegn Being which makes the world bring forth his great ide'as with more ease than the Sun could produce a ray Now here we must observe there are many sorts Diversity of unions of union The one of dependence which causeth the creature to depend on the Creatour as light on his star and heat on the fire which produced it The other of presence and most inward penetration by which God penetrateth all creatures by his admirable infusions by reason of his immensity and subtility The third of grace by which we are sanctified and in a sort made participant of Divine nature The fourth of glorie properly that which accomplisheth what grace had begun and setteth a seal upon the plentitude of all our felicities This being so divided it is evident that the union whereof we here speak is the glorified and ineffable union which disposeth the reasonable creature to the highest point of the commerce it may have with the divinity It is very hard to explicate how that is in our soul because of the weakness of our spirits which are now so tied to flesh Some Divines refuted by Chancellour Gerson and among others Doctour Almaricus and Henricus took this in a very high strain when they imagined that God coming to fall as a lightening-flash upon the soul of a blessed one filled it with his presence force and love and so possessed it that he wholly converted it into himself in such manner that from created Being it passed to increated Being returning to Anima perdit esse suum accipit esse divinum idea's of God and into the state it had before the worlds creation This opinion hath been rejected and condemned as a chymera for God will not beautifie us by ruining and destroying us but he will our felicitie be so wholly of him that it be notwithstanding wholly to us and there is no apparence our soul which is immortal and incorruptible should be annihilated by the approach of God from whom it must derive its being and conservation 5. We must then conceive this much otherwise Union of glorie what it is and believe the union of glorie that makes our beatitude consisteth in the vision love and joy of God which is the fruition termed by S. Thomas the ineffable kisses Imagine you see a needle which in presence of a diamond runs not to the adamant as being tied and fettered by the force of this obstacle but if you take away the diamond which captived it it goes stoutly and impetuously to its adamant which setteth it in the place of its repose by ordinarie charms I find something like in the state wherein we are Our poor spirit naturally tendeth to God as to the first cause and can take no contentment but in union with him yet is it here arrested by the poize of body by the bait of concupiscence and tie of sense but so soon as these obstacles are taken away and that it feeleth the vigorous infusions of this light of glorie which giveth it wings to raise it self to the Sovereign good above all the ways of nature it soareth as a feathered arrow unto the butt of its desires it sincks and plungeth it self into the bosom of God and there abideth contented with three acts which essentially compose its beatitude The first is vision the root of this so Sovereign happiness which causeth us to see with the eyes of a most purified understanding through the rayes of The three acts of beatitude the light of glorie the great God face to face with all the immensity of his essence the length of his eternity the height of his majesty the extent of all his excellencies and with the fecundity of his eternal emanations the productions of total nature and secrets of highest mysteries We shall see him saith Joan. 1. 3. August l. 9. de Trin. c. 10. Omnis secundum spiritum notitia similis est rei quam novit S. John as he is and thereupon S. Augustine addeth we shall necessarily derive a resemblance of God because knowledge here principally rendereth him who knoweth like to the thing known Of this vision necessarily is formed a great fire of love divinized when God like to a burning mirrour opposed to a glorified soul replenisheth it with his ardours ever by us to be adored And from this love proceedeth that excessive joy which is called the joy of God Vision causeth in us an expression of God love an inclination delicately violent to the presence of this Sovereign good joy a profound repose which seems to spread over our hearts a great river of peace benedictions and felicities Then this beatified soul not being able to be what God is by nature in some sort becometh such by favour So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Hymn S. Gregory durst boldly say our soul makes it self a little God which eternally triumphs in the bosom of the great God It is properly then when man by an amorous consumption wholly dissolves into his beginning and not loosing what he is becometh one same spirit with him not by nature but by apprehension and affection He not onely will what God willeth but he cannot will any thing but what God will He takes part in all his interest all his greatness and all his joys being so divinely incorporated into the family bosom of this Father of essences He rejoyceth at the beatitude of all the elect as of his own he is rapt with admiration sometimes at the beauty of the place sometimes at the delicious correspondence of that great company sometimes at the unchangeable continuance of his most blessed eternity sometimes at the garments of glorie his body must put on and he every where beholdeth sources of comfort to spring which can never drie 6. From this favour besides so many other wonders Three great effects of beatitude I see three excellent effects succeed The first is impeccability The second verity of our knowledges which shall admit no errour The third tranquillity of our love which shall not know what wound or interruption is And first consider what a good it is The great happiness to be impeccable to be impeccable since we not onely shall be without sin but out of all danger of sinning All that which here afflicteth the most purified souls is not to be exposed to so many miseries and persecutions for they know good men are here on earth like flower-de-luces begotten by their
pleasures Fortitude Fortitude is a virtue which confirms us against the pusillanimity that may hinder good actions It hath two arms one to undertake the other to suffer Aristotle assigneth it four parts that is confidence patience love of labour and valour Patience Patience is an honest suffering of evils incident to nature The points thereof are To bear the loss of goods sickness sorrows injuries and other accidents with courage neither to complain nor to groan but discreetly to conceal your grief to be afflicted in innocency for justice sake and sometimes even by those that are good to covet and embrace persecutions out of a generous desire to be conformable to the patience of the Saviour of the world Justice Justice is a virtue which giveth to every one that which is his due and all the acts of it are included in this sentence You must measure others by the same measure wherewith you desire to be measured your self Magnanimitie Magnanimitie according to Thomas Aquinas is a virtue which aimeth at great things by the direct means of reason The acts thereof are To frame your self to an honest confidence by purity of heart and manners to expose your self reasonably to difficult and dreadfull exploits for Gods honour neither to be bewitched with prosperitie nor dejected at adversitie not to yield to opposition not to make a stay at mean virtues to despise complacence and threats for love of virtue to have regard onely to God and for his sake to disesteem all frail and perishable things to keep your self from presumption which often ruins high spirits under colour of Magnanimitie Gratitude Gratitude is the acknowledgement and recompence as far as lies in our power of benefits received The acts thereof are To preserve the benefit in our memory to profess and publish it to return the like without any hope of requital Amitie Amitie is a mutual good will grounded upon virtue and communitie of goods The acts thereof are To choose friends by reason for virtues sake communicating of secrets bearing with imperfections consent of wills a life serviceable and officious protection in adversities observance of honesty in every thing care of spiritual profit accompanied with necessary advice in all love and respect Simplicitie Simplicitie is nothing but union of the outward man with inward The acts thereof are To be free from all false colour never to lie never to dissemble or counterfeit never to presume to shun equivocation and double speech to interpret all things to the best to perform business sincerely to forgo multiplicity of employments and enterprizes Perseverance Perseverance is a constancy in good works to the end through an affection to pursue goodness and virtue The acts thereof are firmness in good quietness in services offices and ordinary employments constancy in good undertakings flight from innovations to walk with God to fix your thoughts and desires upon him neither to give way to bitterness nor to sweetness that may divert us from our good purposes Charitie toward God and our neighbour Charitie the true Queen of virtues consisteth in love of God and our Neighbour the love of God appeareth much in the zeal we have of his Glory the acts thereof are to embrace mean and painfull things so they conduce to our Neighbours benefit To offer the cares of your mind and the prayers of your heart unto God for him To make no exceptions against any in exercise of your charge to make your virtues a pattern for others To give you what you have and what you are for the good of souls and the glory of God to bear incommodities and disturbances which happen in the execution of your dutie with patience Not to be discouraged in successless labours To pray fervently for the salvation of souls to assist them to your power both in spiritual and temporal things to root out vice and to plant virtue and good manners in all who have dependence on you Charitie in Conversation Charitie in the ordinary course of life consisteth in taking the opinions words and actions of our equals in good part To speak ill of no man to despise none to honour every one according to his degree to be affable to all to be helpfull to compassionate the afflicted to share in the good success of the prosperous to bear the hearts of others in your own breast to glory in good deeds rather than specious complements to addict your self diligently to works of mercy Degrees of Virtues Bonaventure deciphers unto us certain degrees of Virtue very considerable for practise his words are these It is a high degree in the virtue of Religion continually to extirpate some imperfection a higher than that to encrease always in Faith and highest of all to be insatiable for matter of good works and to think you have never done any thing In the virtue of Truth it is a high degree to be true in all your words a higher to defend Truth stoutly and highest to defend it to the prejudice of those things which are dearest to you in the world In the virtue of Prudence it is a high degree to know God by his creatures a higher to know him by the Scriptures but highest of all to behold him with the eye of Faith It is a high degree to know your self well a higher to govern your self well and to be able to make good choice in all enterprizes and the highest to order readily the salvation of your soul In the virtue of Humilitie it is a high degree to acknowledge your faults freely a higher to bow with the weight like a tree laden with fruit the highest to seek out couragiously humiliations and abasements thereby to conform your self to our Saviours life It is a high degree according to the old Aâ—iom to despise the world a higher to despise no man yet a higher to despise our selves but highest of all to despise despisal In these four words you have the full extent of Humility In Povertie it is a high degree to forsake temporal goods a higher to forsake sensual amities and highest to be divorced from your self In Chastitie restraint of the tongue is a high degree guard of all the senses a higher undefiledness of body a higher than that puritie of heart yet a higher and banishment of pride and anger which have some affinity with uncleanness the highest In Obedience it is a high degree to obey the Law of God a higher to subject your self to the commands of a man for the honour you bear your Sovereign Lord yet a higher to submit your self with an entire resignation of your opinion judgement affection will but highest of all to obey in difficult matters gladly couragiously and constantly even to death In Patience it is a high degree to suffer willingly in your goods in your friends in your good name in your person a higher to bear being innocent the exasperations of an enemy or an ungratefull man a higher yet to suffer much and repine at nothing but
of the Lord. The seventh Rest not satisfied onely with not being beaten your self but beat your enemy when Satan layes a snare to entrap you make it an instrument of virtue if he present a good work which glisters in the sight of the world thereby to tempt you to pride do the work and let alone the vanity reserring all to the greater honour of God The eighth When you are in combate fight chearfully as if you were already assured of the victory Turn away the eye of your consideration from what you suffer and keep it continually fixt upon the reward One great misfortune which causeth many to fall when they are tempted is that their mind is set and bent so wholly upon the pain that no room in it is left to contemplate the reward which waits for them When the fourty Martyrs were in the frozen lake thirty nine looked upon their future Crowns but one of them thought of nothing but his pain all were victorious except this wretch who sullying the glorie of patience came out of the pool to die presently after in infidelity Do you not think the glorious mirrour wherein he beheld all his sufferings Crowned was that which comforted our Saviour on the Cross in that Abyss of reproch and torment This is the course you must take to insist little on the present and to have a lively imagination of the future bearing these words of S. Paul always in mind Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2. Cor. 4. 17. Fight then valiently as if this were the last temptation which should assail you and perswade your self that herein consisteth the evidence of your predestination When you have over come it behave your self like one always ready to re-enter the list and to make one victory the step to another The ninth Though you are never so valiant do not provoke danger tempt not temptation by thrusting your self into occasions through presumption of heart he that loveth danger shall instead of finding glory mark out his grave in it The tenth A Sovereign means to overcome temptation is to discover the Mine betimes to open your heart freely to your spiritual counsellour to disclose your thoughts to know them well to consider their nature and to seek what power they have upon your soul It happens commonly as Epictetus saith It is not the things themselves that trouble us but our own fancies How many temptations might be vanquished by slighting them if we took but a little leisure to laugh at them We make elephants of flies and of little pigmies which pinch us by stealth frame giants We are like young children who frighted with a vizard hide their heads in their nurses bosom crying but take off the vizard and give it them in their hand they will make sport with it How many things seem terrible and impossible which we find ridiculous and easie to be overcome if we touch them never so little with our finger In temptations of pusillanimity it is good to conceive these counterfeit giants as pigmies but in those of concupiscence we must not despise any thing but rather lay hold of small threads as if they might grow to huge cables In the one and the other there is nothing like dashing these children of Babylon against the stones to withstand beginnings and not to suffer our enemies to fortifie themselves to our disadvantage The eleventh A stumbling block to many is that they represent the sweetness of sin to the like in their imagination and never consider the pleasure which follows victory over sin A man is no sooner plunged in the puddle but his ashamed soul is immersed in pensiveness me ancholly and despair by a loathsom pleasure which passeth away like the dream of a dream furnished with a huge heap of scorn sorrow and confusion Whereas on the contrary the soul which hath held out remains contented sprightly elevated and sed with divine comforts coming from Gods paradise On this thought which S. Cyprian highly commendeth few reflect which is the reason why the number of the reprobates is so great And do you not yet think it very fitting that one who hath fallen a thousand times under temptation should once in his life taste the sweetness which is in victory over temptation to rejoyce at it for ever Many have been put by from steep and evident precipices by pondering these words Well then to covenant with sin what will be the event To purchase repentance so dear To give up the credit of so many years a prey to one unhappy minute of pleasure Where is the Faith thou hast promised to God Let us at least seek out some place where he is not and where is he not So many stars so many intelligences wherewith the world is replenished are so many eyes of God which behold thee He himself seeth into thee even to the bottom of thy conscience if thou wilt sin get leave of him but how wilt thou beg it of him and how obtain Patience a while This temptation is a cloud which will pass away Thou art going to commit a sin whose pardon is very uncertain but it is certain that when thou hast done it God himself cannot in all eternity make it not to have been done The twelfth Think not you are the less in Gods favour because he suffers you to be tempted though with dishonest thoughts which are extreamly odious to chast souls Why so If S. Paul that Cherubim scorched with celestial heat who set his foot upon the stars according to the opinion of S. Ambrose Theophylact and Oecumenius felt the stings of concupiscence in a body that had been taken up to the third heaven do you think that because you have some good dispositions to do well you must be freed from the wars of nature which preserve your mind being to indulgent to its self always in humility To conclude follow the counsell of Cassian consider daily the passions which are bred in your heart as a fisherman beholds the fishes swimming in the water on purpose to catch them Look on that which is most predominant within you from what root it springeth when it began what progress it hath made what rule it usurpeth ordinarily over your soul what effects it produceth whether it be more spirituall or temporall what things use to foment it what remedies you have taken to divert it provide counsell and means to root it out proceed to this with courage and fervour as to the acquisition of an incomparable good The nineth SECTION Remedies against passions and temptations proceeding from every vice FIrst to consider That passion is a motion of the sensual appetite arising from the imagination of good or ill with some commotion of the body 2. That there are eleven passions six in the concupiscible appetite which are Love Hatred Desire Loathing Joy Sadness five in the irascible that is Hope Despair Confidence
Fear and Anger 3. That there are two ways to overcome all passions the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions and vain appearances of all worldly things The second a serious diversion to better things as prayer study labour and business But above all you must pray to God for the light and strength of his holy grace which infinitely transcends all humane remedies Against Gluttony 1. REpresent unto your self the miserable state of a soul polluted and plunged in the flesh 2. The hardness of heart 3. The dulness of understanding 4. The infirmities of body 5. The loss of goods 6. The disparagement of Reputation 7. The horrour of the members of Jesus Christ to make members of an unclean creature 8. The indignity to worship and serve the belly as a bruitish and vile God 9. The great inundation of sins flowing from this spring 10. The punishments of God upon the voluptuous Against sloth 1. The ceaseless travell of all creatures in the world naturall and civil 2. The easiness of good works after grace given by Jesus Christ 3. The anxiety of a wavering and uncertain mind 4. The shame and contempt 5. The confusion at the day of judgement 6. The irreparable loss of time Against Covetousness 1. The disquiet of a greedy mind 2. The insatiability of desire 3. The many wars and battels which we must run through to satisfie one single desire 4. The dishonour of denial insupportable to a generous soul 5. The dependance and servitude we must undergo to comply with those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our wishes 6. The easiness of offending God through excessive greediness of temporall things 7. The transitory and fleeting pleasure of those things which we most ardently desire 8. That God many times allows us the fulfilling of our desires as a punishment for our faults Against carnall love 1. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves which are true gardens of Adonis where 〈◊〉 can gather nothing but triviall flowers surrounded with many bryars 2. To set a value on things and not to be deceived with shows 3. To guard your senses to shun accidents and occasions of sinning and above all to have a particular recourse to God upon the first impression of thoughts 4. To pull your self away by main force from presented objects and to direct your self by serious designs and good employments 5. To set often before you the imperfection the ingratitude the levity the inconstancy the perfidiousness of those creatures we most servilely affect Against Sadness THere is a holy sadness as when we are moved at our Saviours Passion or for our own sins which is the gift of God not a punishment There is one furious which hath no ears and is rather cured by miracle than precept There is another natural arising from our disposition and another vicious which is nourished by ill habits and neglect of our own salvation 1. Against this last we must consider That our desires and love cause for the most part our sadness and that the true way to diminish the cares that consume us is to sweeten the sharp and ardent Affection we bear to worldly things 2. The little esteem we have of God is the cause that we are often troubled at frivolous things whether they threaten or happen He that would truly love this great God which deserveth to possess all love of heaven and earth should not entertain fear or sadness for any thing but for the loss of God no man can loose him but he that purposely forsakes him 3. There is nothing beyond remedy but the tears of the damned A man who may persist in the way to paradise should not place himself in the condition of a little hell and he who can hope for that great All ought not to be sad for any thing Against Envy 1. THe way not to envy any thing is to account nothing in this life great 2. To covet onely the inheritance of the land of the living which is never lessened by the multitude or shares of the possessours 3. To consider seriously the motives which induce us to love our neighbour as participation of the same nature THE THIRD PART OF THE CHRISTIAN DIARY The first SECTION BUSINESSE Of what importance THe third employment of the day is business whether Publick or Private the government of your Family or discharge of some Office Good devotion is a good employment and nothing is more to be avoided than idleness which is the very source of sin He that labours said the old Hermite is tempted but by one devil he that is idle is assaulted by all No man is too Noble to have an occupation If iron had reason it would choose rather to be used in labour than to grow rusty in a corner The second SECTION Two Heads to which all Business is reduced IN Business we must consider the Substance and the Form The Substance for it is great wisdom to make good choice herein to take in hand good employments and to leave the bad the dangerous and burthensom which do nothing but stop up the mind and choke all feeling of devotion especially when there is no obligation to undertake them They are truly sick even in health who interpose out of curiosity to know to do and solicite the business of others It is sufficient said the Emperour Antonius that every one in this life do that well which belongs to his calling The Sun doth not the office of the rain nor the rain that of the Sun Is it not absolute madness of some in the world whose onely employment is to attempt all things but perform none As for the Form in the exercise of charge offices and business there is required knowledge conscience industry and diligence Knowledge 1. In learning that which is requisite to be known for the discharge of your duty 2. In informing your self of that which of your self you cannot apprehend 3. In hearkening very willingly to advise examining and weighing it with prudence and governing your self altogether by counsel Conscience in performing every thing with good intention and great integrity according to the Divine and Humane laws Industry in doing all discreetly and peaceably with more fruit than noise so that we express no anxiety in business like that Prince of whom it was said That he seemed always vacant in his most serious employments Diligence in spying out occasions and doing every thing in due time and place without disorder confusion passion haste irresolution precipitation For these are the faults which commonly destroy good government He that hath never so little wit good inclination shall ever find wherein to busie himself especially in works of mercy amongst so many objects of the miseries of his neighbour The third SECTION Of the government of a Family THat man hath no little business who hath a Family to govern a good Father who breedeth his Children well that they may one day serve the Common-wealth is employed
souldiers and I say to this go and he goeth and to another come and he cometh and to my servant do this and he doth it And Jesus hearing this marvelled and said to them that followed him Amen I say to you I have not found so great faith in Israel And I say to you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exteriour darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth And Jesus said to the Centurion Go and as thou hast believed be it done to thee And the boy was healed in the same hour Moralities 1. OUr whole Salvation consists in two principles The one is in our being sensible of God and the other in moving toward him the first proceeds from faith the other comes of charity and other virtues O what a happy thing it is to follow the examples of this good Centurion by having such elevated thoughts of the Divinity and to know nothing of God but what he is To behold our heavenly Father within this great family of the world who effects all things by his single word Creates by his power governs by his councel and orders by his goodness this great universality of all things The most insensible creatures have ears to hear him Feavers and tempests are part of that running camp which marcheth under his Standard They advance and retire themselves under the shadow of his command he onely hath power to give measures to the Heaven bounds to the Sea to joyn the East and West together in an instant and to be in all places where his pleasure is understood 2. O how goodly a thing it is to go unto him like this great Captain To go said I Nay rather to flie as he doth by the two wings of Charity and Humility His charity made him have a tender care of his poor servant and to esteem his health more dear than great men do the rarest pieces in their Cabinets He doth not trust his servants but takes the charge upon himself making himself by the power of love a servant to him who by birth was made subject to his command What can be said of so many Masters and Mistresses now adays who live always slaves to their passions having no care at all of the Salvation health or necessities of their servants as if they were nothing else but the very scum of the world They make great use of their labours and service which is just but neglect their bodies and kill their souls by the infection of their wicked examples Mark the humility of this souldier who doth not think his house worthy to be enlightened by one sole glimpse of our blessed Saviours presence By the words of Saint Augustine we may say he made himself worthy by believing and declaring himself so unworthy yea worthy that our Saviour should enter not onely into his house but into his very soul And upon the matter he could not have spoken with such faith and humility if he had not first enclosed in his heart him whom he durst not receive into his house 3. The Gentiles come near unto God and the Jews go from him to teach us that ordinarily the most obliged persons are most ungratefull and disesteem their benefactours for no other reason but because they receive benefits daily from them If you speak courteously to them they answer churlishly and in the same proportion wherein you are good you make them wicked therefore we must be carefull that we be not so toward God Many are distasted with devotion as the Israelites were with Manna All which is good doth displease them because it is ordinary And you shall find some who like naughty grounds cast up thorns where roses are planted But we have great reason to fear that nothing but hell fire is capable to punish those who despise the graces of God and esteem that which comes from him as a thing of no value Aspirations O Almighty Lord who doest govern all things in the family of this world and doest bind all insensible creatures by the bare sound of thy voice in a chain of everlasting obedience Must I onely be still rebellious against thy will Feavers and Palsies have their ears for thee and yet my unruly spirit is not obedient Alas alas this family of my heart is ill governed It hath violent passions my thoughts are wandering and my reason is ill obeyed Shall it never be like the house of this good Centurion where every thing went by measure because he measured himself by thy commandments O Lord I will come resolutely by a profound humility and an inward feeling of my self since I am so contemptible before thine eyes I will come with Charity toward these of my houshold and toward all that shall need me O God of my heart I beseech thee let nothing from henceforth move in me but onely to advance my coming toward thee who art the beginning of all motions and the onely repose of all things which move The Gospel for the first Friday in Lent S. Matth. 5. Wherein we are directed to pray for our Enemies YOu have heard that it was said thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemie But I say to you Love your enemies do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and abuse you that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven who maketh his Sun to rise upon good and bad and raineth upon just and unjust For if you love them that love you what reward shall you have Do not also the Publicans this And if you salute your brethren onely what do you more Do not also the heathen this Be you perfect therefore as also your heavenly Father is perfect Moralities 1. A Man that loves nothing but according to his natural inclination loves onely like a beast or an infidel The best sort of love is that which is commanded by God and is derived from judgement conducted by reason and perfected by Charity Me thinks it should be harder for a good Christian to hate than love his enemy Hate makes him our equal whereas love placeth us quite above him By hating a mans enemy he breaks the laws of God he fights against the Incarnation of Christ which was acted to unite all things in the bands of love he gives the lie to the most blessed Eucharist whose nature is to make the hearts of all Christians the lame he lives like another Cain in the world always disquieted by seeking revenge and it is a very death to him to hear another mans prosperity Whereas to love an enemy doth not bind us to love the injury he hath done us for we must not consider him as a malefactour but as a man of our own nature as he is the Image of God and as he is a Christian God doth onely command perfect
And if we must needs forsake this miserable body we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easie death This maketh us plainly see the generosity of our Saviour who being Master of life and death and having it in his power to chuse that manner of death which would be least hydeous being of it self full enough of horrour yet nevertheless to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father and to confound our delicacies he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious which was to be found among all the deaths of the whole world The Cross among the Gentiles was a punishment for slaves and the most desperate persons of the whole world The Cross amongst the Hebrews was accursed It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouthes did pronounce against their greatest enemies The death of a crucified man was the most continual languishing and tearing of a soul from the body with most excessive violence and agony And yet the Eternal Wisdom chose this kind of punishment and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter He should have died upon some Trophey and breathed out his last amongst flowers and left his soul in a moment and if he must needs have felt death to have had the least sense of it that might be But he would trie the rigour of all greatest sufferings he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour and having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life to make his death compleat he would spare none of those infinite dolours The devout Simon of Cassia asketh our Saviour going toward Mount Calvarie saying O Lord whither go you with the extream weight of this dry and barren piece of wood Whither do you carry it and why Where do you mean to set it Upon mount Calvary That place is most wild stony how will you plant it Who shall water it Jesus answers I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood which must conquer him who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood I carry it to mount Calvarie to plant it by my death and water it with my bloud This wood which I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of all the world and to draw all after me And then O faithfull soul wilt not thou suffer some confusion at thine own delicacies to be so fearfull of death by an ordinary disease in a doun-bed amongst such necessary services such favourable helps consolations and kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition We bemoan and complain our selves of heat cold distaste of disquiet of grief Let us allow some of this to Nature yet must it be confest that we lament our selves very much because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified Let us die as it shall please the Divine Providence If death come when we are old it is a haven If in youth it is a direct benefit antedated If by sickness it is the nature of our bodies If by external violence it is yet always the decree of Heaven It is no matter how many deaths there are we are sure there can be but one for us 2. Consider further the second condition of a good death which consists in the forsaking of all creatures and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death Ferrara a great Divine who hath written a book of the hidden Word toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour 1. His apparrel leaving himself naked 2. The marks of his dignitie 3. The Colledge of his Apostles 4. The sweetness of all comfort 5. His own proper will 6. The authority of virtues 7. The power of Angels 8. The perfect joys of his soul 9. The proper clarity of his body 10. The honors due to him 11. His own skin 12. All his bloud Now do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things how bitter it was First the abandoning of nearest and most faithfull friends is able to afflict any heart Behold him forsaken by all his so well-beloved Disciples of whom he had made choice amongst all mortal men to be the depositaries of his doctrine of his life of his bloud If Judas be at the mystery of his Passion it is to betray him If S. Peter be there assisting it is to deny him If his sorrowfull mother stand at the foot of the Cross it is to increase the grief of her Son and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners to crucifie him again by the hands of Love The couragious Mother to triumph over her self by a magnanimous constancy was present at the execution of her dear Son She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds to engrave them deep in her heart She opened her soul wide to receive that sharp piercing sword with which she was threatened by that venerable old Simeon at her Purification And Jesus who saw her so afflicted for his sake felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross and the heart of his dear Mother We know it by experience that when we love one tenderly his afflictions and disgraces will trouble us more than our own because he living in us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Jesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a Throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his Passion became like a scaffold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entered to be tormented and crucified upon the cross of love which was the Cross of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from Heaven to accomplish the business of all Ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and in this so precious shipwrack there remained one onely inestimable pearl which was his divine Mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hand of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Jesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered it to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively and in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the
fearfull maladie 135 His notorious cruelty even in his extreamest sickness ibid. His miserable death ibid. Hermingildus his retreat and conversion 325 His father's letter to him and his to his father 326 He is wickedly betrayed by Goizintha 328 His letter to his wife and his undaunted resolution 330 His death 331 His young son Hermingildus died not long after 332 A notable Observation upon the habit of a High-Priest 93 Hilarion of Costa a reverend Father 388 Hippocrates his desire how to cure the itch of ambition 56 House of the Moth. 25 House of Swallows ibid. A notable Doctrine of Hugo 61 Humility defined 468 Humiliation of Death 350 State of Humilitie 18 All the world teacheth us the lesson of Humilitie 56 The kingdom of Hypocrisie 11 Reasons against Hypocrisie ibid. Baseness of Hypocrisie ibid. Hypocrisie confuted in the great School of the world 42 Hypocrisie condemned by the Law of Heaven ibid. Deformity of Hypocrisie ibid. I JAcques de Vitry his pretty Observation 39 Idleness the business of some Great men 44 Abuse of an Idolatrous spirit 13 Jesus one and the same for Nobles and Plebeians 3 Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ 376 He is the Concurrence of all perfections ibid. Three Excellencies of Jesus in which all other are included ibid. His Sanctity Wisdom and Power 377 Practice of the love of Jesus reduced to three heads ibid. Miracles of the person of Jesus 442 Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit ibid. Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour Jesus ibid. Imitation of Jesus Christ the abridgement of Wisdom 3 Images of Emperours how much reverenced 13 Impietie hath its misery 36 Impietie condemned in the Tribunal of Nature 420 Impietie chastised 451 Against Toleration of Impietie 452 Impuritie of life ariseth from three sources 85 Reasons against Inconstancie 40 Inconstancie of men 236 Indegondis transporteth the Catholick Faith into Spain 323 The persecutions of Indegondis 324 By her mediation there is a Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son 327 The glory and greatness of that man who knows how to suffer Injuries 40 Observation of Isaiah 30. 8 406 Belief of Judgement most general 430 Judea in what condition before Herod came to the Crown 89 The causes of the corruption of Julian 373 The School of Julian ibid. How he became depraved 374 He is a Christian for policie and an Infidel in soul ibid. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls ibid. His subtility to invade the Empire ibid. His Embassage ibid. His remarkable punishment ibid. He had ill success with the qualities that Machiavel furnished him with 260 Jupiter painting goats in the Clouds what it meaneth 14 Justina an Arian requireth a Church in Milan 206 Justice and Mercy the two Arms of God 22 Necessity of Justice with its acts 89 Justice without favour very remarkable ibid. Justice of Belizarius and Aurelianus 226 Justice defined 468 K KNowledge of good and evil doth make the sin more foul 23 Knowledge of ones self very hard 69 No certain Knowledge of four things 440 L LAcedaemonians practice 381 LAdies excellent in pietie 388 Sordid Liberalitie of Emmanuel Comenus 91 Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines 449 Arrogancy of Libertinism 450 The Table of Philo of the manners of Libertines ibid. Punishment of God upon Libertines ibid. Evil of a sleight Lie 145 Lying the key of vice 469 A Life led by opinion is ridiculous 8 Condition of this Life well described 65 Man must lead a Pilgrims Life in this world 72 Our Life is a Musick-book 84 Four sorts of Life 137 Opinion of the other Life 403 Life and Death the two poles of the World ibid. Divers kinds of Life ibid. Life was given to Cain for a punishment 414 Disturbances of Life 435 Divers wayes of humane Life according to Saint Gregorie ibid. The choice of conditions of Life is hazardous ibid. Miseries of this present Life 436 Of the Lilie with six leaves 72 Divers kinds of Love 228 229 Love turned into rage 244 The baseness of Love 375 Love of invisible things most penetrating ibid. Worldly Lovers being converted are the most servent in the Love of God illustrated by a comparison 379 Excellency of Love 399 Division of Love ibid. There is a possibility in man to love his enemies ibid. Effects of the Love of enemies in the Law of Nature 400 Loyalty of a wife to her husband 352 Lust ruineth Empires 154 Lust is a fire that burneth the garment of the soul 182 Luxurie the sin of the heel 195 Lycinius his condition 242 His end 242 Lycurgus his greatness 3 M MAgnanimitie 468 MAn a Stage-player upon the Theatre of the world 12 Three sorts of Man in every man 61 Character of the carnal and spiritual Man ibid. Of the nature and dignity of man what he hath been what he is and what he shall be 64 Man hath more non-essence than essence 350 Mans ingratitude towards God 346 Mutability of men ibid. Miseries of an indebted man 352 It is dangerous to disoblige pious and learned Men. 379 Diversitie of Men. 413 Monument of the Empress Marie 418 Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass 74 Mass a sacrifice ibid. Instructions for the Married 96 Mariamne's accusation and pitifull death 124 Martianus of whom a marvellous accident 150 His good success ibid. A great Massacre at Thessalonica 214 Maxims very dangerous used by Hereticks 183 Maxentius acteth a strange Tragedie 240 He is defeated by Constantine 241 Maximian the Baloon of Fortune 239 A remarkable speech of Maximus 79 Maximus overthrown and put to death 209 210 Meditation its definition 75 Necessity and easiness of Meditation ibid. What you must understand to Meditate well ibid. Practice and Form of Meditation consisteth in six-things 76 Seven ways to dilate ones self in Meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts ibid. Modestie important 87 Modestie of a son of S. Lewis 418 Modestie defined 468 The actions of Modestie ibid. Marvellous contempt of money 227 Monica the mother of S. Augustine her qualities 193 Her death 198 A singular saying of Sir Thomas Moor. 90 Mother of Macchabees persecuted 348 N NAtures evils 355 NAtures voice 370 Nature delighteth in contrarieties 412 Nature the price of time 43 Nebucadnezzar nursed by a Goat 16 Nero his folly 12 Notable action of Noah 414 Nobility the first gift of God 4 Nobility not tied to bloud ibid. Against such as betray their Nobility 5 Nobility of Noah wherein ibid. Nobility of Eleazar and his excellent speech ibid. Priviledges of Nobility 8 Noble-men why ill educated 16 Nobility very much corrupted 17 Noble-mens particular obligation 20 Noble-men examples of great importance in the world 21 Noble-men appeal from the sentence of Labour 51 Disorders in corrupt Nobility 218 219 Novelty in Religion dangerous 31 Novelty ever suspected by the Wise 32 O OAths of Magistrates 90 OBedience defined 468 The qualities of an Officer 272 Onocratalus his instinct 417 Souls in the torrent of Opinion 37
and danger of passions may profit us whether they edifie us by their repentance or divert us by their disasters I conclude the HOLY COURT in this Volume which I esteem above the rest by reason of its utillty and writing of passions to cure them I wish in my self an incurable one which is to desire the progression of my Readers and to beseech God they may submit Sense to Reason Time to Eternity and the Creature to the Creatour THE FIRST TREATISE OF LOVE Sect. 1. Of the Necessity of Love Against those Philosophers who teach Indifferency saying We must not Love any thing THe Divine Providence which hath concluded our salvation All Happinesse included in love in Love very plainly shews us That the means to be quickly happy is to love Felicity and that the way we walk in to become singularly happy is to esteem as we ought the chief of Felicities We lose all our good hap for want of loving and our Love through the defect of well placing it which is the cause that we daily learning so many Arts forget what we should eternally practise if it be true we desire to be everlastingly happy I find the great Apostle of France S. Denis said well when he called God The Father of Vnions who S. Dion l. de Hierarch coelest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the Father of unions draweth all to unity by the means of love ceaseth not to gather and rally together all the creatures into his heart which issued out of his heart He is That in the life of Intelligencies which the Sun is in the celestiall world but one immoveable Sun about which so many changes and agitations of all creatures circumvolve who groan and aim at this First beauty the true Center of Repose It concerneth us since we are made for it and that God hath given us Love which is to the soul That which wings are to Birds to carry us to it's fruition It is a riches which is onely ours and which would be infinitely profitable if we could tell how to employ it well but for want of well loving we apply the most precious thing which is Love to gain wretched Creatures as if one used a golden hook to fish for Frogs and a Sceptre to shake Hey This is it which causeth me to undertake in this discourse to speak of the well ordering of Love as the most assured way we can choose to arrive at Tranquility and to shew that we first of all most necessarily love to be happy in the world and that the most loving and tendrest hearts are ordinarily the best This age scant enough in goodnesse and fruitfull The Sect of Philosophers of Indifferency in malice hath of late brought forth a Sect of wits who term themselves the Philosophers of Indifferency and who make boast to be very insensible as well in the fear of the Divinity as in tendernesse towards the miseries of men To what purpose is it say they to addict ones self to the worship of a God whom we cannot sufficiently know And wherefore should we be solicitous for the afflictions of another which nothing concern us This is to make our selves eternally miserable and to be tormented with all manner of objects He who would live contented in the world must love nothing but himself entertein himself within himself and concerning himself and derive pleasure as a tribute out of all the creatures of the world but to take heed not to enter into the participation of their troubles and should we see all to be turned topsie turvey so it inconvenienceth not us in any thing to let time slide to catch good by the wings whilest we may and to let evil fall on the miserable These kind of people are so unnaturall that they laugh at all and mock at the miseries which others suffer If you tell them of a house burnt they say it is nothing and that it is but a fire of great wood If of an inundation of water that Fishes have a good time of it If of a warre or contagion that it is a good harvest for death and that there are too many bread-eaters If one say such a friend hath lost an eye they answer he is very happy because he shall see but half the bad times I do not think there is a vice in the whole world more btutish or contrary to nature then this obduratenesse which is the cause I would cast it under the feet of love and shew you that tendernesse towards God as a Father towards men as the lively Images of his Goodnesse is the principall foundation of all virtues Consider first that all the good order of life comes 1. Reason against the Indifferents from the knowledge of the First cause whereon all Creatures have their dependence as on the contrary the Disorder of all actions springeth from the ignorance of the submission we ow to the Increated Essence Now he who loveth none but himself and cares not but for his own Interests maketh himself as the chief end and the God of himself which sufficiently proveth it to be the most palpable folly and the greatest evil may be imagined in Nature It is a remarkable thing that among all Essences There is none but God which is for it self there is none but God alone who as he can know nothing out of himself nor love any thing but in himself so he doth nothing but for himself For in doing all for himself he doth all for us since we have no good which tendeth not to him as to its scope Monas geâ—uit monadem in se suum reflexit amorem S. Thom. 1. part q 32. a. t. 1. which subsisteth not in him as on its Basis which resteth not in him as in its Centre Thus did S. Thomas understand that notable saying of Mercury Trismegistus Vnity hath produced unity and hath reflected its love on it self It is not but for an Infinite Essence to do so but had the highest Angel in heaven the thought onely to behold himself and hence-forward to work for himself he would instantly be pulled out of heaven and would of a bright Sun become a sooty Coal What may one think then of a man who sayes in his heart I am born for my self and I have no other aim in the world but to satisfie my mind with all contentments nor shall the evils of another ever enter into my heart till Fire commix with Water and Heaven with Earth If I obtein my ends all shall go well Hearken how God speaketh in the Prophet Ezechiel to these wicked ones Behold I come to fall upon thee Ecce ego ad te draco magne qui tuba iâ— medio fluminum tuorum c. Ezec. 29. 3. oh thou great Dragon who lyest stretched out at length in the midst of thy Rivers and darest saey this stream is mine and I made my self Assure thee I will put a bridle upon thee and when I
have fastned to thy scale all the fishes of the waters wherein thou bearest sway I will drag thee from the midst of the Kingdome of waves and I will throw thee into a wildernesse thou shalt lie upon the dry land nor shall any one care to sae thy obsequies performed For I have abandoned thee to the beasts of the field ard to the birds of the air to be devoured This sentence of God was executed on the person of the Emperour Tyberius under whom our Saviour suffered that death which gave life to the world Verily he was a man who through the whole course of his Empire made himself the God of himself the slave of his passions and the hatred of mankind He lay close as an Owl in the retirement of his filthy lusts he was greedy as a Griphon in such sort that dying he had above three-score and six millions of gold in his coffers which he with the Empire left to an infamous nephew who as it is thought hastned his death tearing that sensuall soul out of the body which in the world breathed nothing but the love of it self How can a man so wretched so caitive behold himself as a Divinity seeing God in the heighth of glory riches and beauties which so happily entertains him within himself hath so affectionate bowels of mercy for man that he thinks of him from all eternity he presenteth himself unto him on all sides with hands replenished with benefits in so great a diversitie of Creatures and hath in generall so much care of all men and of every one in particular S. Tho opus de Beatit Quasi homo sâ—t Dei Deuâ— that he who were not well instructed by faith might have matter to imagine that Man were the God of God himself Let us besides produce another proof which more 2. Reason drawn from the communication of creatures evidently convinceth this obduratenesse of heart and this cruel rechlessnesse of the Philosophers who teach Indifferency which is that all creatures yea the most insensible are made by God to impart and to compassionate If the Sun hath light it is not for himself he clotheth the Air the Land and Sea with a golded net he imparteth it also as well to the little eyes of the Ant as to those of the mightiest Monarch in the world he soweth seeds of flames and vigour to warm and quicken totall nature If the Air hath Rain it keeps it not eternally within the treasurie of clouds but distilleth it as in a Limbeck to moysten the earth If the Sea have waters it so diveth them among all the Rivers as to bear men and victuall in Vessels and to make it self a knot of commerce from Land to Land from Countrey to Countrey from World Unaquaeque res cogitur dare â—eip â adeo exclusit Deus avaritiam à rebus humanis Guil. Paris l. de univers to World If the earth hath fruits it preserves them not for it self no more then the trees which bear them but plentifully opens its bosome profusely to communicate it self to all nature Every thing saith a great Bishop of Paris is bound by the Divine Providence to communicate it self so true it is that God hath banished avarice from humane things As each creature giveth it self by love so it suffers with others by conformity All the world is united and collected within it self as the parts of an Egg are tyed one within another All the members of the Universe mutually love and embrace and if they make warre it is but to establish their peace If there be want of an element as of Air the Water would mount to heaven or heaven descend to the water rather then not supply the defect of a neighbour It is a law which God hath engraven as with a toole of Adamont in the bosome of Nature It â—ath been observed that Palmes divided one from another by an arm of the Sea which had overflowed the countrey bowed their tops one towards another by a naturall inclination as witnessing their Amity and protesting against the fury of that element which had disunited them and if this sense be in plants what may we say of living creatures where we see cares troubles anxieties goings and comings combats yells neglect and losse of body repose and life with the sense they have of the detriment and dammage of their like And shall we not say then that a man who loveth nothing in the world and onely studieth the preservation of himself is a prodigie in Nature fit to be denyed the Air he breatheth the light which reflecteth on him the fire which warms him the viands which feed him and the earth which bears him I add for a third reason that pity and tendernesse 3. Reason of the tendernesse of great hearts of heart is not onely authorized by God and nature but it is established as by a common decree of nations Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople observeth in his Bibliotheque a wonderfull judgement A notable sentence of the Areopagites given in the City of Athens where he saith the Senate of Areopagites being assembled together upon a mountain without any roof but heaven the Senatours perceived a bird of prey which pursued a little Sparrow that came to save it self in the bosome of one of their company This man who naturally was harsh threw it from him so roughly that he killed it whereat the Court was offended and a Decree was made by which he was condemned and banished from the Senate Where the most judiciall observe That this company which was at that time one of the gravest in the world did it not for the care they had to make a law concerning Sparrows but it was to shew that clemency and mercifull inclination was a virtue so necessary in a State that a man destitute of it was not worthy to hold any Place in government he having as it were renounced Humanity We likewise see that the wisest and most courageous men in the world have been infinitely tender full of love zeal affection care anxiety and travel for the good of another David and Jonathan who were the bravest Princes over the people of God loved each other so much that the Scripture speaking of this Amity saith Their souls were tied together with an inseparable band S. Paul was so affectionate and jealous for the salvation of his Corinthians that he seemed to carry them all in his bowels and daily to bring them forth with convulsions and pains attended by joyes and delights not to be expressed Saint Ambrose bitterly bewailed the death of his brother Satyrus that to hear him speak one would think he meant to distill out his eyes and breathe out his soul on his Tombe So did S. Bernard at the decease of his brother Gerard. S. Augustine was a man all of fire before and after his conversion with onely this difference that this fire before the morn-tide of his salvation was nourished with
corruptible matter of Earth but after he became a Christian he lived upon the most pure influences of heaven S. Gregory Nazianzen saith he more breathed S. Basile then the aire it self and that all his absences were to him so many deaths S. Chrysostome in banishment was perpetually in spirit with those he most esteemed S. Jerome better loved to entertain his spirituall amities in little Bethelem then to be a Courtier in Rome where he might be chosen Pope And if we reflect on those who have lived in the light of nature Plato was nothing but love Aristotle had never spoken so excellently of friendship had he not been a good friend Seneca spent himself in this virtue being suspected by Nero for the affection he bare to Piso Alexander was so good that he carried between his arms a poor souldier frozen with cold up to his throne to warm him and to give him somewhat to eat from his royall hands Trajan brake his proper Diadem to bind up the wound of one of his servants Titus wept over the ruines of rebellious Jerusalem A man may as soon tell the starres in the heavens as make an enumeration of the brave spirits which have been sacrificed to amity Wherefore great hearts are the most loving If we seek out the causes we shall find it ordinarily proceedeth from a good temperature which hath fire and vigour and that comes from good humours and a perfect harmony of spirit little Courages are cold straightned and wholly tied to proper interests and the preservation of their own person They lock themselves up in their proprieties as certain fishes in their shell and still fear least elements should fail them But magnanimous hearts who more conform themselves to the perfections of God have sources of Bounty which seem not to be made but to stream and overflow such as come near them This likewise many times proceedeth from education for those who fall upon a breeding base wretched and extremely penurious having hands very hard to be ungrasped have likewise a heart shut up against amities still fearing lest acquaintance may oblige them to be more liberall then they would contrariwise such as have the good hap to be nobly bred hold it an honour to oblige and to purchase friends every where Add also that there is ever some gentilenesse of spirit among these loving souls who desiring to produce themselves in a sociable life and who understanding it is not given them to enlighten sands and serpents will have spectatours and subjects of its magnificence Which happens otherwise to low and sordid spirits for they voluntarily banish themselves from the conversation of men that they may not have so many eyes for witnesses of their faults So that we must conclude against the Philosophers of Indifferency that Grace Beauty strength and power of nature are on their side who naturally have love and affection §. 2. Of Love in generall LOve when it is well ordered is the soul of the universe Love the soul of the universe which penetrateth which animateth which tieth and maintaineth all things and so many millions of creatures as aspire and respire this love would be but a burden to Nature were they not quickned by the innocent flame which gives them lustre as to the burning Bush not doing them any hurt Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris Eccl. 43. at all I may say that of honest love which the wise man did of the Sunne That it is the superintendent of the great fornaces of the world which make all the most Love the superintendent of the great Fornace of the world Faber ferrarius sedens juxta in eodem considerans opus ferri vapor iguis uret carnes ejus in calore fornacis concertatur c. Eccl. 29 38. Pieces of work in Nature Have you ever beheld the Forge-master described by the same wise-man You see a man in his shirt all covered over with sweat greace and smoke who sporteth among the sparks of fire and seemeth to be grown familiar with the flames He burns gold and silver in the fornace then he battereth it on the Anvil with huge blows of the hammer he fashioneth it he polisheth it he beautifies it and of a rude and indigested substance makes a fair piece of plate to shine on the Cup-boards of the most noble houses So doth love in the world it taketh hearts which are as yet but of earth and morter it enkindleth them with a divine flame It beats them under the hammer of tribulations and sufferings to try them It filleth them by the assiduity of prayer It polisheth them by the exercise of virtues lastly it makes vessels of them worthy to be placed above the Empyreall heaven Thus did it with S. Paul and made him so perfect Act. 9. that the First verity saith of him that he is his vessel of election to carry his name among nations and the Kings of the Earth and that he will shew him how much he must suffer for his sake The whole nature of Pigri mortui oetestandi eritis si nihil ametis Amare sed quid ameris videte August in Psal 31. Hoc amet nec ametur ab ullo Juvenal Seven excellent things the world tendeth to true love every thing loves some of necessity other by inclination and other out of reason He who will love nothing saith S. Augustine is the most miserable and wretched man on earth nor is it without cause that in imprecations pronounced over the wicked it is said Let him not love nor be beloved by any The ancient Sages have observed in the light of Nature that there are seven excellent things to be esteemed as gifts from heaven which are clearnesse of senses vivacity of understanding grace to expresse ones thoughts ability to govern well Courage in great and difficult undertakings fruitfulnesse in the productions of the mind and the strength of love and forasmuch as concerneth the last Orpheus and Hesiodus have thought it so necessary that they make it the first thing that came out of the Chaos before the Creation of the world The Platonists revolving upon this conceit have built us three worlds which are the Angelicall nature Vide Marsilium Ficinum in convivium Platonis An exâ—ellent conceit of the Platonists the soul and the Frame of the universe All three as they say have their Chaos The Angel before the ray of God had his in the privation of lights Man in the darknesse of Ignorance and Sinne The materiall world in the confusion of all its parts But these three Chaoses were dissipated by love which was the cause that God gave to Angelicall spirits the knowledge of the most sublime verities to Man Reason and to the world Order All we see is a perpetuall circle of God to the world and of the world to God This circle beginning in God by inestimable perfections full of charms and attractives is properly called Beauty and
when it comes to extend it self in the world and to draw it to it The natâ—â—e of love Lib. 1 de civit â—8 Amor inhians labere quâ—â— amatuâ— cupiditâ— est idem â—mor habens cóque fruenâ— letitia est fugiens quod adversatur el timor est quod si acciderit eitristitia est proinde mala sunt ista si malus est amor bona si bonus self it is called love But if you consider it in the condition wherein it gathereth together all Creatures to the first cause and makes its works re-ascend to God they say it then takes the name of Pleasure which is a most happy satisfaction of to all Nature in its Authour So love is a circle which turns from good to good by an everlasting revolution Now if you desire I should in few words explicate the nature thereof its origen progresse causes qualities and effects you must observe a notable doctrine of S. Augustine who saith That Love whilest it is in the search of what it loveth is called Desire and when it enjoyeth the thing beloved it is changed into joy But if it avoid that thing which is contrary to it either in effect or opinion it is Fear and if the Fear hath its effect by the arrivall of the evil it apprehendeth it turns into Sadnesse This love takes sundry countenances according to divers Circumstances I agree all this is said with good reason yet notwithstanding we must affirm with divines that this Oracle of Doctours hath in this difinition rather comprised the cause the effects and progresses of love then its essence and nature For to speak properly love is neither Desire Fear Joy nor Sadnesse but A Complacence of the Appetite or will in an object conveniont 5. Definition of love either according to verity or apparence But if we will speak more generally we say it is nothing but an inclination Richard de Medvill dist 27. l. 3. Art 1. q. 1. propending and moving to a good which is conform to it For by the definition we include all the kinds of love which are divided principallly into three branches to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable It s division love Naturall love consisteth in things inanimate which have their sympathies and Antipathies As Palmes male and female Amber and straw Iron and the Adamant Animall love is that Beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of beasts to seek for that which is fit for them and to be pleased in the enjoying what they fought for Reasonable love is an Act which pursueth and accepteth the good represented by the understanding wherein we may also comprehend Angelicall and Divine love which S. Denis addeth to these three kinds whereof we speak Reasonable love is also divided into love of Amity and love of Concupiscence Love of Amity which wisheth good to the thing beloved for it self without enquiry into its own proper interesse As when it desired to one Health knowledge grace virtues wealth honours without pretence of any benefit to it self This Gabriel d. 27. q. 1. l. 3. is to affect with a love of amity which is very rare now a daies so mercenary are affections and when this love is not onely Affective as Divines speak contenting it self with bare desires but Effective by plentifully opening hauds to liberality it mounteth to a huge degree of Complacence Love of Concupiscence is an interessed love which causeth one to love a thing not for it self but for the pleasure and commodity derived from it or to be hoped in time to be dersved from it So the Horseman desireth beauty strength and courage in his horse and dog not for their sakes but his own contentment Such love is worldly love commonly defiled with base and animall consideration nor is ever purified but when it for God loveth that which cannot in it self be lovely Behold the nature and Essence of Love in its whole latitude Now to speak of the proceedings of the soul in its loves The first step it makes when it beginneth to love is the degree of the conformity of the will with The steps and progressions of â—ove the good is proposed The senses imagination understanding give it notice of some Beauty Goodnesse or Commoditie which it conceiveth to be fit for it Thereupon it beginneth to take fire and to have sparks of desires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which make it to wish the good proposed unto it Thence it passeth to the second Degree which is that of Sharp-sweet Complacence which pleasingly each moment holds it fixed upon the thoughts of its object Sometimes between hope to possesse it another while between fear to lose it and many other passions which accompany this as yet suffering Complacence From this degree it goes to the third which is inqui +sitioâ— and motion where love putteth on wings to fly speedily into the bosome of its repose employing all possible means for its contentment and if it be favoured in its pursuit it advanceth to the fourth degree which is union esteemed the principall scope of Amities From this union ariseth another Complacence which is not painfull and dolorous but satisfied and pleased in the fruition of its object which is the heighth of love By the sides of love are lodged Beauty and Goodnesse for that as S. Denis saith they are the objects Its causes and motive of love which are so allied together that the Grecians call them by one self same name The Sages have ever sought for the true causes which dispose the wils of men to love and there are many different opinions upon this point Some hold it is a quality which God imprinteth on nature others imagine it comes from the aspect of starres and from divers constellations Others make it to proceed from Parents and education others from a certain Harmony and consonancy of hearts which meeting in accord upon the same Tone have a naturall correspondence Lastly the Maxime of Divines and Philosophers much swayeth which saith that Fair and Good make all loves I hold that to accord these opinions a notable distinction must be made of three loves which we have proposed in the beginning to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable Forasmuch as concerneth Naturall or Animall love besides the order of nature it is God which giveth to each creature necessary inclinations to arrive at their end Well there may be influency of starres which bear sway over humours and bodies and with the starres bands of bloud temperature of Humours education and secret qualities which tie creatures with the knot of a certain love the cause whereof is not well known For how many are there who love things which are neither lovely nor good I not onely say in effect but in their own opinion and judgement yet are they thereunto fastned by some Tie nor can they free themselves from it but by the absolute power of Reason Do we not daily find by experience that a Man who is
and who knoweth himself to be deformed and wicked yet faileth not by Nature to be in love with himself So through a love of Concupiscence he may love things which have neither Beauty nor Goodnesse although he daily have a blind feeling of some thing suitable to sensuallity and an unperceivable attractive As for love of reason which is properly Humane love one may be assured it alwayes looks directly upon good and fair not simply but good fair acknowledged agreeable to its contentment This is the root of all reasonable amities and hitherto those great sources Means to make ones self to be beloved worthily of love reduced which are Honesty utilitie Delectation Resemblance reciprocall love obliging and pleasing conversation Within these six heads in my opinion the fifteen means to make one to be beloved are comprised which are touched by Aristotle in the second book of his Rhetorick To wit to love that which a friend loveth to entertain his apprehensions his joyes and his discomforts his hatred and Amities to keep him in a laudable opinion of our sufficiency by good parts of wit courage virtue industrie and reciprocally to hold him in good esteem to love him to oblige him to praise him unto others to bear with him in his humours to trust him with your secrets readily to serve him without forgetfulnesse or negligence to be inviolably faithfull to him which we will more amply deduce in the subsequent section But if you regard its effects I find three great empires Notable effects of love in the 3. worlds it exerciseth in the world naturall civil and supernaturall In the naturall it causeth all simpathies antipathies accords ties generations productions In the civill world it builds two cities as saith S. Augustine very different If it be good it raiseth a Citie of peace wherein chaste Amities sway and with them Truth Faith Honour Virtues contentments delights If it be bad It makes a Babylon full of confusion where cares fears griefs warre enmities impurities adulteries incests sacriledges bloud murther and poison inhabit and all that which commonly ariseth from this fatall plague In the supernaturall world it causeth nine effects which are very well figured by the celestiall throne of love composed of nine diaphanous globes whose effects are Solitude Silence Suspension Indefatigability Languishment Extasie and Transanimation which we more at length will consider in the sequele of this Treatise §. 2. Of Amity AMITY is the medecine of health and Immortality Eccl. 6. Medicamentùm vitae Amity the tree of life of life and in a manner doth that in Civill life which the tree of life in terrestriall Paradise promises in naturall life with an infinite number of sweetnesses and pleasures it immortaliseth us after death in the remembrance of that which is most dear unto us in the world It is that which giveth light to dark affairs certainty It Includeth all blessings to doubtfull support to tottering goodnesse to evil grace to good order to irregular ornament to simple and activenesse to dead By it the banished find a countrey the poor a patrimony great ones find offices the rich services the Ignorant knowledge the feeble support the sick health and the afflicted comfort Should a man live on Nectar and Ambrosia among starres and Intelligencies he would not be happy if he had not friends to be witnesses of his good fortune and we may truly say that Amity continually makes up the greater part of our Felicities It is not here my purpose to extend my self with full sail upon the praise thereof since so many excellent wits have already handled this subject but to shew how good Amities are to be chosen and how to be cultivated There are some who make profession to be friends What amity is Affectus est spontanea suavis animi ad aliquem inflectio Cassiod de amicit and know not so much as what friendship is but Aristotle plainly proves there is difference between affection Good-will Love Amity and Concord Affection is a spark of love not yet throughly formed in which understanding hath some slight passion Good-will A simple Good-will and consent born towards some one although many times there be no great knowledge of the party as it happeneth to such who of two Combatants favour rather the one then the other not knowing either of them Love is an affection already formed and inclined with fervour to the good of Conformity Amity is a love of mutuall well-wishing grounded upon communication Whence may be inferred that all those who love are not friends but all such as are true friends necessarily love The meanest people may love the most eminent but there can be no Amity since they therein find not correspondence There are entranced lovers in the world who are enamoured Miserable lovers of all beauties none returning them love again which deserves either laughter or compassion seeing they may directly go to the first of Beauties where they shall find reciprocall contentment After love followeth concord which is the fruit of it in the union of judgement and will Now well to understand how to choose good Amities the Species or kind of them must be known wherein I find that one Hippodamus a great Platonick Philosopher hit right when he established three sorts of Three sorts of amity Amities whereof one belongs to beasts the other to men and the third to Demi-gods Animall-Amities are those which subsist onely in Animal-amity Nature and which are common to us with beasts Thus saith S. Augustine a mother which loveth Pro mugno laudarurus sum in homine quod videam in Tigride August 410. homil 38. her children for flesh and blouds sake not otherwise raising her thoughts towards God doth but as a Hen a Dove a Tigresse a Serpent and so many other living creatures which have so great affection towards their little ones It is not that these Amities are not very necessary since Nature inspires them and powreth them into the veins with the soul by admirable infusions which preserve the estate of the world entire It is good much to affect ones own but we must build upon the first elements of Nature and by Grace and Reason raise the edifice of true charity Parents ought to love their children as a part of their own bodies which Nature hath separated from themselves But Amity should never divide their hearts Children are bound to love their parents as fishes their water Brothers cannot too much esteem the love and Concord which they mutually maintain together A husband and a wife are bound to a most strict commerce of Amity since as God produced a word in heaven and with the word the holy Ghost So he hath been pleased to create Adam on earth as his own Image and out of this Image he hath drawn Eve to be unto a man a spirit of peace and a love of a perpetuall lasting There is no doubt but that to fail in
these laws and to break the Knots which God hath tied with his own hands for all the living is a vice which surpasseth all kind of brutishnesse Notwithstanding the evil manners of men corrupt things the most sacred and are the cause that some love their own Bloud farre above God himself and others even furiously persecute them I put likewise in the number of animall-Amities all such as love one another for sport for the Belly and Lust For they have no other scope they do not much better then wanton whelps who cease not to run up and down turn after turn dallying and playing one with another And such as love their wives no otherwise then for pleasure do like the male Crevisse who in his little Cavern hath 〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 of nature many females for whom he fights as for an Empire All this kind of proceeding smells too much of the brute beast nor can it have any merit in heaven The Amities of men are those which are exercised with reason and are ordinarily built upon three foundations Humane Amities and their foundation which Aristotle expresseth in the Treatise he wrote of it which are utility pleasure and morall virtue Utility is now adayes the most common Ciment of worldly Amities and you find few friends who hold it not in much esteem It is that which hath raised Towns Cities and the societie of men That which having raised maintaineth them by mutuall offices rendered one another in the necessities of ordinary life The hand must wash the hand and the finger the finger One contributes his counsel another his industry another his abilities another his pain one his pen another his tongue and another his feet All set themselves awork to do service to Amity I know Philosophers will say that this is somewhat mercenary it notwithstanding preserveth communities and he who would take it out of the world should find almost nothing in it but a meer shadow of Amity Particular Interest is as it were the fift Gospel of Interest the fift Gospel of many Christianity depraved in the minds of many and is the great God of the Time to whom millions of souls do homage Think not that so many busie spirits and men Avaruâ— Evangeliorum irrisor transgressórque perpetuuâ— Climach Grad 16. fervent to make a fortune care much for Idle friends although they were endowed with all the virtues of the Anchorets of the wildernesse They esteem not gods of clay although they had all the curious draughts of Polycletus upon them It is gods of Gold and silver they would have men which may give them whatsoever they desire They carry these dispositions even to Altars and make piety it self mercenary For we see many are little enough moved to hear of the greatest Saints in heaven when a discourse is made of their excellent virtues but if peradventure an extraordinary cure happen thither they runne by heaps and the saint which is the authour of them hath magnificent Altars waited on by many vows offerings Tertull. in lib. ad Natiaver Dâ—i vero qui magis tributaâ—â— magis sancti majestas constituitur in quaestum venditis totam divinitatem non licet eam gratis coli Amities of pleasure Merry jests and Candles It is the poverty of the heart of man to measure all things by proper interest but it is a maxime deep-settled through all Ages in the opinion of the multitude and one may truely say that to him utilitie is the mother of the Gods Others who have a more gentle spirit seek for pleasure in their affections I do not say those pleasures which we have placed in Animall Amities but some worthy recreation as that of the Mathematicks of Eloquence of Poesie of Painting of Musick ingenuous Sports pleasant jests most witty and quaint This hath much predominance upon spirits who love recreative pastime and I think the seven Sages of Greece should they live again would die for hunger in that house where one who can jest with a good grace might make a brave fortune These kind of amities although they may for a time be sweet to sense are subject to change according to the diversitie of Ages seasons humours employments and occasions The best men tie themselves to the honesty of morall Amities grounded upon Honesty virtues and singularly love one who is wise prudent courageous just temperate liberall magnificent weighing all this in the course of a life sutable to Aristotles Philosophy and do please themselves with the familiarity of such a man and are entertained by a Correspondence of manners a delightfull conversation and an affection very sincere but not extraordinary The third sort of Amities which the Pythagorian Amity of Demi-gods calleth of Demi-gods and which we may attribute to the most rare and excellent soul is among such as mutually love one another not for ordinary virtues but for celestiall qualities graces and singular gifts of God and interchangeably love in an extatick manner to wit by a rapture of spirit of heart and affection which causeth all things to be common among them so much as virtue and honesty permitteth Such was the Amity of the first Christians of whom with much wonder the Pagans said Behold how Vide ut invicem se diligant pro alterutro morisint parati Tertull. Apolog they love one another See how ready they are to die each for other and that which the Poets found to be a matter so rare reckoning up some few parts of true friends Christianity made it appear at that time in as many subjects as it had men But at this present the multiplication of persons hath abbreviated the extent of charity That generous spirit which borrowed the golden wings of the dove of the Prophet to fly throughout the world and to sacrifice it self for a neighbour is waxed cold and rests immured within its little house busing it self almost wholly in the preservation of its Individuums From the discourse of these sorts of Amity it is now much more easie to judge of the conditions of a good friend then to meet with the effects of it but if you will follow the way I shall prescribe I will shew you what choice is to be used First I am of Aristotles opinion that Great ones Qualities of a good friend Great men are noâ— ordinarily the best friends to speak according to the ordinary course of life are not very fit for Amities because they love themselves too much and make use of men as of Instruments for their purposes looking after nothing but the establishment of their own greatnesse Besides the licentious life they commonly leade in a fortune which permits them all is the cause that good men love them not unlesse they become as virtuous and magnificent as they are powerfull Which is the cause that being usually encompassed with a multitude of flatterers or of intercessed people who labour to enrich themselves in the mannage of
Velocitas cogitationum animi celeritas ingeniâ— varictas multiformes illis notaâ— imprimâ—t Plin. l. 7 cap. 12. thoughts divers inflexions of the heart tastes distastes which thrust on one another as the waves of the sea They likewise thereunto adde that they very easily are turmoiled with suspicions jealousies and distrusts the least matters offend them and many once displeased are irreconcileable And which is more that the most part of them have narrow hearts and hands nor open enough to help their good friends at a need they being ordinarily much tyed to the interest of their family so that there are many who love not so much for love as for gain Reasons for the modest love of women Amor magis lentitur cum prodit eum indigentia August l. 10. de Trin. c. 12 S. Thom. 1. 2 q 25. This may well happen in certain humours but there are some grievous spirits who do not so easily receive the impressions of these ill qualities and who persevere till death in an unshaken constancy of affection And verily it seemeth that contrary to what hath been spoken nature more favoureth them therein because Love as saith S. Thomas after S. Augustine appears best in indigence and those love most fervently and powerfully who besides other attractives see themselves bound unto it by some kind of necessity Now the inclination which a woman hath towards man is as it were necessary For it is more easie for a man to be without a woman having regard to spirituall and temporall assistances as Sacraments and Physick then for a woman to be without a man Adam was for a while all alone in Paradise in a vaste world but God permitted not that Eve should be there alone one moment for this solitude would have gone hard with her to see so many living creatures and in so divers kinds and not meet with one to bear her resemblance This being so one may with reason say that as we love things necessary with more endeavour and stability so women are tyed with the more indissoluble chains in virtuous inclinations But not to speak of this motive which proceeding from a meer motion of nature cannot be the most generous we find men who rest upon Indifferency and seek nothing but to content their own senses and to idolatrize themselves but women very rarely stay upon neutrality needs they must love or hate there is no third condition for them and since according to the Philosopher it is fit to judge of Contraries by proportion we will truly say that if they be susceptible of the impressions of hatred above all may be said so are they likewise capable of noble Amities They think themselves more engaged in honour to entertain them when they have begun fearing to be disparaged by the multitude of wandring and flitting affections Adde also to this that they are more tender then men and that softnesse of temperature is to love as the air to the ray of the Sun seeing the affections more easily penetrate where they find dispositions which have already prepared a way for them Lastly as they commonly are more devout and religious then men so they observe virtuous Amities with respect and entertain them out of conscience and especially such as are grounded on piety which is the thing that most powerfully predominateth over their heart I speak this in respect of those who are very virtuous but as we find few rare virtues and strong amities accompanied with all necessary circumstances are not so frequent in their sex It seemeth also that the Examples we derive as well from Nature as Civil life insensibly lead us to the proof of that which we propose Among living creatures the Females are the more Bodin Theatri natur l. 3. sect 6. sharp and ardent as well in their affection as in their anger the cuttle-fish takes revenge on that which striketh her male but the male flyeth if his female catch a blow as Aristotle hath observed in the ninth book of his living Creatures I well remember the Antients studiously reckoned up the pairs of friends which they had observed throughout all Ages and that Lucian Luc. Toxatis in his Toxaris hath strange examples of amity between men as of him who left his whole family in a fire to carry out his dearest friend on his shoulders and of another who gave his own eyes for the ransome of him whom he most tenderly affected But who likewise would in particular decipher the notable acts of love which many wives have witnessed to their husbands should find wherewith to be moved to admiration and to settle his constancy If we talk of preserving a widdow-hood inaccessible to second wedlocks Rare amitieâ— of women Valer. Max. l. 4 c. 6. how many may we find of them even in Gentilisme who after the death of their dear husbands have said what the antient Valeria did My husband is dead to others but not to me If we speak of suffering great toils of body Queen Hipsicrates followed King Mithridates her husband as one of his bravest Captains gallautly corvetting a horse and galloping through snows and wildernesses not to be separated from him If we discourse of banishment and ignominies Sulpitia brake up doors and locks to run Idem lib. 6. cap. 7. maugre her mother after her exiled husband among the proscripts of the Triumvirat If imprisonments be Lipsii exem politica put into the list of account Eponia was nine years shut up with her husband in the hollow cavern of a Tomb. If you regard maladies a daughter of Spain daily Rhod. Santius histor Hispan p. 1. cap. 4. Scard lib. 3. hist Paravinae with her tongue licked the envenomed wound of King Edward of England her dear husband If you look on the terrible of terribles death Blaunch the Italian Lady scorning the flatteries of the Tyrant Actolin who passionately woed her captive though she were escaping out of the hands of souldiers she went to breathe out her life upon the tomb of him to whom she first of all had given her heart and affections Yea I much more admire those who willingly have deprived themselves of all riches greatnesse yea even of the presence of their husbands whom they dearly loved to procure them liberty wealth and honour Cedrenus Cedren in Epirom hist p. 596. observeth in his history that Constantine the ninth exercising tyranny as well in matter of love as within his Empire caused the Roman Argyropylus to be sought out and commanded him to repudiate his wife whom he had lawfully married to take his daughter on condition that he would make him Cesar and associate him with himself in his dignity but if he condescended not to his will he threatned to pull out his eyes and to make him all the dayes of his life miserable The Excellent loyalty of a Lady Lady who was present seeing her husband involved in all the perplexities that might be and
scatter in the air to serve as instruments and hands to their attractions This being common to other natures of plants metals and living creatures we must not think but that the body of man participateth therein by reason of its vivacity and the multitude of pores which give a more easie passage to such emissions There then cometh forth a spirituous substance which is according to Marsilius Ficinus a vapour of bloud pure subtil hot and clear more strong or weak according to the interiour agitation of spirits which carrieth along with it some quality of a temperate friendly and convenient which Marsilius Ficinus l. 1. de vita c. 2. insinuating it self into the heart and soul doth if it there find a disposition of conformity abide as a seed cast into the earth or as a Leaven which swelleth up a piece of dough and forms this love of correspondence with an admirable promptnesse and vigour From thence it cometh that brothers many times feel motions and affections of tendernesse one for another Surius without knowing each other as it happened to S. Justus who knew his brother Justinian among sundry slaves who were at the chain by this notice without any other fore-judgement Thence it comes that at first we are passionate for persons we never saw and that we wish them well though they alwayes have not so much grace nor beauty but there is some relation of humour which weaveth the web and tieth such affections All nature is full of such communications which are effects of Sympathy observed in the Corall which sensibly changeth according to his disposition who hath it about him as also in the flesh of beasts which boileth in the powdring-tub at the time of the fury of dogs because they have been bitten by a mad dog And in wine which seems to be sprinkled all over with certain white flowers when the vines are in blossome So it happeneth that the spirits which do in our bodies Modification of the opinion who place love onely in transpiration Species forma semel per oâ—ulos illigaâ—a vix magni luctaminis manu solviter Hieron in Threnos cap. 3. what the winds do in Nature being transpired from one body to another and carrying in their wings qualities consonant do infallibly excite and awaken the inclinations But it is not credible or at least ordinary that this manner of working should be as in things inanimate and that it hath nothing to do with the senses for it is principally the eyes which are interressed therein breathing thence the most thin spirits and darting forth the visuall rayes as the arrows of love which penetrate the heart are united confounded and lost one within another then heating the bloud they strike the Imagination and attract wills which are so linked one to another that one cannot perceive the knot which so fast tied them together If transpiration alone of spirit indifferently proceeding from all the parts of the body were able to enflame concupiscence we must then say that a blind man set at a certain distance from a perfect beauty would become enamoured with beholding it hearing it smelling it couching it or by any sense understanding it which notwithstanding happeneth not in that manner and if nature thus proceeded and that this passion were to be taken as a Contagion we might extreamly fear the approch of bodies and persist in continuall apprehensions to be infected by them It is certain that the senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against love A Guard over the senses since the Imagination it self stirreth not but upon their report but after they yield themselves up by a too familiar conversation and resign their defences a terrible havock is made in the mind for love entereth thereunto as a Conquerour into a surprized City and imprinteth that pleasing face in every drop of the masse of bloud It engraveth it on the Imagination It figureth it on every thought and there is nothing any longer entire in the mind which is not divided between slavery and frenzy § 7. The effects of Sensuall Love IT is a strange thing that this fury hath a thousand hands and a thousand attractives a thousand wayes of working quite different and many times opposite It takes by the eyes by the ears by the imagination by chance of purpose by flying pressing forward honouring insulting by complacence and by disdain Sometimes also it layes hold by tears by laughing by modesty by audacity by confidence by carelessenesse by wiles by simplicity by speech and by silence Sometimes it assaileth in company sometimes in solitude at windows at grates in Theatres and in Cabinets at Bals at sports in a feast at a Comedy sometimes at Church at prayers in acts of Penance And who can assure us against it without the protection of God Eustatius the Interpreter of Homer saith there are some who feign Love to be the sonne of the wind and the Rainbow in Heaven in my opinion to signifie unto us its Inconstancy and diversified colours and this beautifull Iris in the beginning appears all in Rubies in Diamonds and Emeralds over our heads afterward to cause rain and tempests So love shewing it self at first with such bright semblances to our senses occasioneth storms and corruption in our minds Observe one transfixed with violent love and you The miserable state of one passionately in love Insomnia aetumnae terror fuga stultitià que adeò temerâ—tas in cogitantia excors immodestia c. Plautus in Moâ—cat shall find he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell darkenesse Flames the worm of Conscience an ill Savour Banishment from the sight of God You shall see a man whose mind is bewitched brain dislocated and Reason eclipsed All he beholdeth all he meditateth on all he speaketh all he dreameth is the creature he loveth He hath her in his head and heart painted graved carved in all the most pleasing forms For her he sometimes entereth into quakings sometimes into faintings another while into fits of fire and Ice He flieth in the air and instantly is â—â—enged in the Abysse He attendeth he espieth He fears He hopes he despairs He groneth he sigheth He blusheth he waxeth pale He doteth in the best company He talks to woods and fountains He writeth He blots out He teareth He lives like a spectre estranged from the conversation of men Repast is irksome to him and Repose which charmeth all the cares of the world is not made for him Still this fair one still this cruell one tormenteth him and God maketh him a whip of the thing he most loveth Yet is this more strange in the other sex which hath naturally more inclimation to honesty A Lady chaste or a Virgin well-bred who begins to wax cold in the love of God and in the exercise of devotion and takes too much liberty in her conversation with men finds her self insensibly surprized by the eyes and ears by
his flock and kill his brethren by your ill example Carnall love in what person soever is still ill situate said Epictetus In a maid it is a shame in a woman it is a fury in a man a lewdnesse in youth it is a rage in mans estate a blemish in old-age a disgrace worthy of scorn You will say all these considerations are very effectuall but that they cure not passion already enflamed and almost desperate of remedy Remedies for affections which come against our will To that I answer we must proceed with more efficacy and addresse among such as are surprised with vehement affection of which they would be free but they find all possible repugnancies I approve not the course of certain directours who think all maladies are healed by words as if they had ears To what purpose is it to hold long discourses and to appoint many meditations to a sharp feaver which is full of ravings and furious symptomes All the maladies of Love are not cured in one and Diversity of the maladies of love and their cures the same manner There are some who are engaged in the sense of the passion but not in the consent to the sinne which is expresly sent by God to persons very innocent but not entirely perfect to punish some negligencies or some slight liberties of conversation whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide by surprisall that they may feel the danger of sinne by the torment they suffer and may correct themselvs by the scent of the smoke before they be involved in the flame And this many times lasteth long being ordained as under a sentence of the divine Providence as a punishment to become afterward a bridle to negligence and a precaution against peril Some also are permitted by heaven and imposed upon certain souls who had a little too much rigour towards such as were tempted to the end they might learn by their experience more mildly to handle suffering hearts and not exasperate their wounds by the sharpnesse of the remedy Witnesse that old man of whom Cassian speaketh who having roughly entertained a young religious man that discovered his passion Cas Col. 2. de discret Intellige te vel ignotarum hactenus a dia bolo vel despectum to him was tempted so violently that he thereby became frantick and understood from the venerable Abbat Apollon this had befaln him by reason of his great harshnesse and that although he hitherto had not felt any rebellion against chastity it was because the devill either knew him not or contemned him There are some which like tertian and quartan agues have their accesses and recesses measured and what diligence soever be used therein well the pain may be mitigated but the root is not taken away till it arrive to a certain period of time wherein the sick man is insensibly cured There are some driven away by hunger and others overthrown by a reasonable usage as it happeneth to melancholy Lovers whose bodies are dry and brains hollow if you appoint them fasts and austerities ill ordered you kill them Some advise them recreation wine bathes honest and pleasing company necessary care of the body Some sweet and active entertainment which gives not leasure to the wild fancies of the mind but this must be taken with much moderation There are some who expect a good sicknesse and many bloud-lettings which may evacuate all the bloud imprinted with Images of the thing beloved to make a new body others are cured by a suit a quarrell ambition an ill businesse great successe a new state of life a voyage a marriage an office a wife There are now very few fools of Love to be found who neglect worth and honour to serve their passion There are nice and suspicious Loves which have more of vanity then concupiscence when one troubleth and hinders them from honestly seeing that which they love they are distempered and if one resist them not they vanish away as if they had not had so much intention to love as to vanish It were almost necessary for many if it may be done without sinne or scandall to converse continually for being somewhat of their own nature coy they still observe some defect in the thing beloved which weakneth their passion and find that the presence is much inferiour to their Idea which is the cause they easily desist from their enterprise having more shame to have begun it then purpose to continue it Some are enflamed by deniall others become totally cool by contempt as proud and predominate loves who have not learn'd to suffer the imperious carriage of a woman a disdain of their mistresse a cunning trick a coldnesse a frown makes them quickly break their chains One would not believe how many humane industries there are to cure the pain of Love but ever it is better to owe ones health to the fear of God to Penance to Deuotion then to all other inventions For which cause you must consider the glorious battails which so many heroick souls have waged to crush Solid remedies this serpent and to walk with noble steps in the liberty of the children of God Some have fought with it on thorns as S. Bennet others on flowers as the Martyr Nicetas who being Admirable examples of the combats of Saints against Love bound on a bed of roses with silken cords to resign himself to the love of a courtesan spit out his tongue in her face Others have thrust sharp pointed reeds under their nails as S. John the Good others have quenched it in snows as S. Francis others in flames as S. Martinian who being by an unchaste woman sollicited to sinne burnt his face and hands to over-throw the strongest passion by the most violent pain There are many of them in the new Christianity of Japonia who pursue the same wayes and run to their chimney-hearths to vanquish the temptations of the flesh thinking there is not a better remedy against this fire then fire it self Others have overcome this bruitishnesse by a savage life as S. Theoclista who being taken by Arabians stole from them and was thirty years hidden in the forrests living on grasse and clothing her self with leaves To say truly there is not any virtue hath cost mankind so much as invincible Chastity But since these manners of conquests are more admirable then imitable at least mortifie your body by some ordinary devotion Make use of the memory of death make use of assiduity of prayer of labour of care over the eyes ears heart and all the senses Humble your spirit and submit to obedience that your flesh may obey you Be not transported with extravagancies Ubi furoris insederit virus libidâ—niâ— quoque incendium nâ—cesse est peneâ— Casde spiritu fornic c. 23. animosity and revenge since Anger and Love according to the Ancients work upon one subject and that the same fervours of bloud which make men revengefull will make them unchaste fail not to heal
eyes confesse God is visible and that he sheweth himself in as many mirrours as there are creatures in this great Universe A man needs to be a Philosopher but a little to learn to love let him see know and study nature in all its works let him hear the harmonies of Gods consort to understand in some measure the perfections of the workman Those little golden and azure shels which make a lodging for certain fishes more magnificent then Solomons Palace Those cob-web-lawns and those tiffanies which compose the body of flowers with an exquisite delicacy Those waves which curle on the current of rivers those gentle western blasts which bear comfort and health on their wings those huge theatres of seas that vast extent of plains those meteors so artificially varied those little eyes of heaven which shew themselves so soon as night spreads its mantle on the inferiour regions of the world all that is seen all that is heard all that is touched all that is handled cease not to recount unto us the love of our Father One must never have seen the sun not to have love for God he must have lived like a hog with his head in the mire and his eyes in a trough to say he knoweth not what the Divinity is To speak truly this great starre is the visible sonne of the first Bright the Image of the sovereign King the eye of the world the heart of nature it daily speaketh to us out of the gates of the East with as many tongues as it hath raies This great supervisor of the fornaces of the universe travelleth throughout totall nature He lighteth up the stars in heaven he createth crowns and rain-bowes in the air on earth flowers and fruits in the sea pearls and in the bosome of rocks saphires and diamonds he throws fire and vigour into all living creatures his presence causeth alacrity and his absence insensibly horrour and melancholy in all nature His motion so rapid his circumvolution so even that so regular harmony of nights and dayes those reflections which are as fathers of so many Essences set the whole Divinity before our eyes O what a goodly thing it is to talk face to face with those great forrests which are born with the world to discourse with the murmur of waters the warbling of birds in the sweetnesse of solitude and of so many creatures which according to S. Denis are the veils and Tapistries of the great Temple There it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dyonisius c. 1. Hierar coelestis where God accoasteth on all sides where our soul is stirred up with its own thoughts dischargeth it self of matter and entreth into a great commerce with Intelligencies When I behold all the perquisites of Organs where Musick is in perfection I stay not on the Iron Lead Wood the Piper nor on the bellows my spirit flyeth to that hidden spirit which distributeth it self with so melodious proportionable divisions throughout the whole Instrument So when I contemplate the world I stick not on the body of the Sun the stars the elements the stones the metals the plants nor the living creatures I penetrate into that secret spirit which insinuateth it self thereunto with such admirable power such ravishing sweetnesse and incomparable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synesiâ—o Quod colimus nos Deus unus est qui totam molem istaÌ„ cum instrumento elementorum corporum spirituum expressit in ornamentum majestatis suae Tertul. Apol c. 17. Harmony I infinitely love him because he is fair since he made all the beauties which are presented before mine eyes Because he is good because he is wise since he communicateth himself with so much profusion since he so well tempered the consonancies of the whole world I love him because I know he is mine and I am wholly his Were I not touched with his beauty his wisdome his goodnesse perpetually his benefits would soften my heart Me thinks I meet him every where with a hundred arms and as many hands to do me good I neither see place room time or moment which is not figured with his liberalities I am clothed with his wooll fed with his Granary warm'd with his wood served by his Officers I live in him I breathe by him I have nothing which is not his Inheritance It is neither Father nor Mother great one Lord or King which gave me wealth honour and estate Well they may be instruments of my happinesse but they are not the cause They were nothing for so many years They came into the world as poor as I they daily return from it into dust I feel my necessities and dependences and I know they cannot be supplyed but by a necessary and independent Essence We must not say we have not commerce enough with him great things are for the little and the rich The commerce of man with God S. Maximus Cent. 5 ex vatiis Deum extra se effici creaturis omnibus providendo Melinra sunt ubera tua vino Can 1. Quia vinum exprimitur cum la bore in torculari ubèra sponte fluunt for the necessitous See we not that heaven is all for the earth doth it cause one sprig of an herb to grow in it self produceth it one sole flower among its stars It giveth all it hath and is perpetually content with what it is So God is all for us as if man were his God saith S. Thomas If we be miserable he is not therefore disdainfull if he be high he is not therefore far distant from our inferiour condition He is all in all things ever present continually doing somewhat He hath dugs of bounty which put him to pain if he stream not upon us We see him to come from all parts and his approch is not mute for the best part of us is spirituall which maketh commerce easie unto us with a God who is all spirit How often find we our soul to be raised above it self and to be transported with thoughts knowledges lights joyes pleasures consolations hopes confidences courages and antipasts of glory which we acknowledge to be above our strength It is God then who worketh by them in us who enters into our soul as a Master into his house who becomes our guest our friend our Doctour and our Protectour We need not seek for him in heaven he is in our heart saith the Emperour Antonine and there he uttereth his oracles There it is where he enterteineth us and teacheth us we are his children and reserveth for us an admirable inheritance When it was said to little Nabuchodonozor who was exposed in his infancy and bred up in the house of Glossa in Danielem a Peasant whose son he took himself to be Courage child you are not made to drive Oxen and till the ground there is another profession expecteth you you are the son of a great Prince who keeps the prime kingdome of the world for you These raggs must be changed into
that its depth was his exaltation He went back again into the kingdome of Sarazens in Africk where being known he was suddenly stoned to death in a popular commotion and buried under a great heap of stones in which place his body long remained unknown to all the world but it pleased God that certain merchants his countrey-men sailing into that countrey saw in the night a Pyramis of fire to rise up over his tomb which caused a curiosity in them to see what it was and coming to dig into it they found this venerable old man who was so gloriously buried in his own triumph they brought him back into his own countrey where he is all this time reverenced out of an antient Devotion of the people which the holy See permitteth rather by way of toleration then expresse Canonization The second Treatise Of HATRED § 1. It s Essence Degrees and Differences WHat a Comet is among stars Hatred is Hatred a hidenus Comet among virtues It is a passion maligne cold pernicious deadly which ever broodeth some egge of the serpent out of which it produceth infinite disastres It is not content to vent its poison in certain places and times but it hateth to the worlds end yea as farre as eternity To set before your eyes the havock it maketh in a soul it is necessary to understand it in all the degrees and dimensions thereof For which purpose you shall observe that Hatred being properly an hostility of the appetite against those things which it apprehendeth to be contrary It s nature to its contentment It hath some similitude with Choler but there is much difference as between pieces engraven and painted which may easily be defaced Choler is more sudden more particular more ardent and more easie to be cured Hatred more radicall more generall more extended more sad and more remedilesse It hath two notable properties whereof the one Its properties consisteth in aversion and flight the other in persecution and dammage There is a Hatred of aversion which is satisfied to flie from all that is contrary to it There is another Enmity which pursueth and avengeth and tends to the destruction of all whatsoever The first property hateth the evill the second wisheth it to the authour of the evill and when it hath once possessed a black soul it maketh terrible progressions and is especially augmented by four very considerable degrees First it beginneth in certain subjects by a simple Its degrees aversion and a hatred of humour which is the cause we have an horrour at all those things that oppose naturall harmony which appears as well in the good constitution of body as in the correspondencies of senses and the faculties of the soul with their objects And although this contrariety be not alwayes evident enough unto us yet there is some feeling which in the beginning maketh us many times to have an aversion from some person whom we never saw and from whom we have never received the least suspicion of affront or dammage Be it out of some disproportion of body of speech of behaviour or whether it be there is some secret disaccord we often hate not well knowing the cause thereof which very easily happeneth to the femall sex For women being full of imaginations the vivacity of fancy furnisheth them with infinite many species of conveniences and inconveniences that cause a diversity of humours which very seldome make a good harmony but if they do it is ever easie enough to be disturbed There are loves and hatreds which cannot be put on and put off as easily as a man would do a shirt which teacheth us it is very hard to make one to love by commands as if we went about to introduce love by cannon-shots The first degree of Hatred is properly called Antipathy and is so generall in nature that it The natural antipathies passeth into things inanimate and into bruit beasts which are no sooner born but they exercise their enmities and warre in the world A little chicken which yet drags her shell after her hath no horrour at a horse nor at an elephant which would seem so terrible creatures to those that know not their qualities but it already feareth the kite and doth no sooner espy him but it hasteneth to be hidden under the wings of the hen Drums made of sheep-skins crack as it is said if another Jo. ◠Por a in Chao ther be strucken near them made of a wolfs hide and such as are made of the skin of a camel scare horses The lion is troubled at the crowing of a cock Cabbages and herb-grace cannot endure each others neighbour-hood such enmity they have and a thousand other such like things are observed in nature wherein there are such expresse and irreconciliable hatreds If man who should moderate his passions by reason suffers himself to run into Antipathies and naturall aversions and doth not represse them by virtue it falleth out they increase and are enflamed out of interest contempt slander ill manners outrages offences or out of simple imaginations of offence which then causeth a second degree of hatred which is a humane hatred consented to with deliberation which putteth Humane hatred it self into the field to exercise its hostilities here by injuries there by wrangling here by forgery there by violence and by all the wayes which passion inventeth to do hurt by Abject courages hate with a cold and cloudy hatred which they long hatch in their hearts through impotency of vindicative strength The haughty and proud do it with noise accompanied Its differences with disdains affronts and insolency All they who love themselves tenderly perpetually swarm in hatreds and aversions seeing themselves countre-buffed and crossed in a thousand objects which they passionately affect All the most violent hatreds come out of love Hatred of love and namely when lovers the most passionate see themselves to be despised despair of amity transporteth them to a◠outrageous hatred finding they have afforded love the most precious thing that is in our dispose to receive scorn There are likewise who without receiving any injury begin to hate out of wearisomnesse in love and coming to know the defects of such as they had the most ardently loved they take revenge upon the abuse of their own judgement by the evill disposition of their own will and do as those people who Quintil. decl 17. Non habent proximorum odia regressum quaecunque nexus accepere naturae quae sanguine visceribúsque constructa sunt non laxantur diducta sed percunt burnt the Gods they had adored Whether hatred arises out of a weary love or whether it proceeds from an irritated love it is ever to be feared and there are not any worse aversions in the world then those which come from the sources of amity Quintillian also hath observed That the Hatreds of neighbours are enmities irrecoverable and wounds which never are cured because bands
woven by flesh bloud and bowels cannot be untied but by making a rupture remedilesse Out of this second degrée oft-times a melancholick Hatred sprouteth which the Grecians call man-hating Melancholy hatred Man hatred which is an Hatred bred in feeble black ugly and ulcerated souls in the world who to be revenged of their mishaps extend as it were their aversions over Totall Nature You see men pale meagre hidrous who being unable to endure a reasonable yoke which God hath put about their necks or finding themselves to be disfavoured in their ambitions endeavours and pretentions Plin. l. 18. cap. 1. Homines quidam ut venena nascuntur atra ceu serpentium lingua vibrat tabéque animi contracta adurit culpantium omnia ac dirarum alitum modo tenebris quoque suis ipsarum noctium quieti invidâ—â—tium steal out of all amities out of all companies hiding themselves not in those glorious Hermitages of Religion where heavenly souls are but in shamefull solitudes where they busie themselves to feed on gall and gnaw some heart in imagination since they have not been able to transfix it with iron Others grow up like poisons with the tongue of a serpent which is ever in action They have a Pthisick of spirit that gnaws burns and consumeth them so that they have no other profession in their life but to blame all which is done becoming like unto those ill presaging night-birds which cast forth boading scrietches in the dead time of night as if they envied us darknesse and the sweetnesse of repose Such was the disease of Dioclesian and Tyberius when they retired from the Court to hide themselves in solitary places as serpents among thorns Lastly this Hatred ever fomented if it fall upon men powerfull and factious it maketh tyrants of them who passe to the degree of brutishnesse and execrable Barbarisme which causeth some to eat hearts stark raw others to disentomb the dead and to exercise cruelty on those who have nothing common with the living Others to invent torments never seen heard nor imagined others to make themselves goblets of the heads of their enemies therein still to drink revenge as often as they do wine as did Alboinus a monster worthy of the horrour and execration of all men See here somewhat near the essence qualities division causes and effects of hatred § 2. That the consideration of the goodnesse of the heart of God should dry up the root of the Hatred of a neighbour LEt us now dazle the eyes of this fury by the contemplation of the goodnesse of our celestiall Father who is the prime model whereon we ought to reform the exorbitancy of our passions Let us learn from him to hate nothing or if we Diligis enim omnie quae sunt nihil odisti corum quae fecisti nec enim odiens aliquid quod constituisti aut fecisti Sap. 11. 21. must hate at all let us enter into the participation of a hatred fit to rest in the heart of God The sovereign Creatour hates not any thing in the world for he made in all the world and as his wisdome is free from errour so his works are void of repentance Whence is it think you that Antipathies are to be found in Creatures But that their essence being limitted to certain conditions and particular qualities they commonly meet with other objects of natures quite contrary to that wherewith themselves are endowed which causeth countre-buffs and resistance in encounters But if a creature might be found which eminently had all the qualities and perfections that are observed throughout the whole latitude of essences and which had thereof made a good temperature within it self it would not hate any body but rather within it self accord all contrarieties Now that which we cannot give to creatures piece-meal no not in our * * * Simplicity of Divine Essence exempt from Antipathy imagination God possesseth in grosse from all eternity For within a most simple essence and one sole form of Divinity he involveth all essences all forms and perfections of creatures which in him are exalted and deified which is the cause he hated nothing that he made he despiseth nothing he accounts nothing unworthy the care of his Providence even to the least worm of the earth He is not like those nice and curious men who are distasted with all that is not for them As he is all he loveth all and communicateth himself to all creatures according to their disposition O God! what say we when we speak of the †††Omnia unum sunt in Deo cum Deo nec enim aliunde justus aut sapien quam unde magnus bonus nec aliunde denique simul haec omnia est quam unde Deus Bern. ser 8. in Cant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Greg. Orat Natal S. Zeno ser x de gener verbi Soluâ— ante omnia quoniam in ejus manuinclusa sunt omnia ex se est quod est solus sui conscius Essence of God All things are in God the same form of the Divinity which makes him great maketh him by the same means good wise just and all he is by his proper Essence The great Divine S. Gregory sirnamed the Divine saith It is onely in him to comprehend in his bosome all the Essences whereof he is the source of Origin And S. Zeno addeth That he alone is before all things because all things are contained in his hands he of himself is what he is and there is none but he who knoweth himself in all the dimensions of the perfection which science may have All the Attributes of God make in him but one perfection all creatures which are in the heavens the air on the earth and in the sea are but one Essence He united all in himself and for this he loveth all and regardeth all things created as rayes of his light and tokens of his bounty Hemlock aconite and aspicks and so many other mischiefs in nature are evils but in appearance and benefits in substance as S. Augustine very pertinently discourseth August de moribus Manich. There is not so much as poison in the scorpion which is not good although it be not good for us it is so much a good for the scorpion that take away his poison you take away his life It is the disproportion of our nature it is sinne which hath in us changed so many excellent blessings into great mischiefs and which daily maketh us to hate and curse them but God hateth nothing nor curseth any thing but what Onely sinne hared by God he is not and he is all except sinne It is that alone which he esteemeth worthy of the hatred of his heart which he chastiseth and which he with an armed hand pursueth to the gates of hell and beyond the gates of hell He presseth continually upon sin he convinceth it he fights against it with no other arms then his Justice
said And yet thou O man wilt play the hobgobling hate a man and hate him in cold bloud yea hate him determinately and hate him irreconcileably Seest thou not that remaining in this disposition of a divel thou dost thrust as much as thou canst the knife of division into the bosome of God banding against unity in contempt of the first of unities Seest thou not thou sinnest against the Incamation of the word the chief Sacrament of union which thou profanest Against the sacrament of the Eucharist dreadfull to Angels which our Saviour instituted to unite us as grains of Corn are united in the Hoast which serveth as a basis to this Mystery and thou wilt frustrate the counsels of Jesus despise the bloud wherewith thou wert regenerated separate thy self from the body from whence thou canst not be divided but by making thy self a companion for devils Senslesse man by what God by what Sacrament wilt thou swear after thou hast profaned not out of sudden choler but by premeditated hatred the God of peace and the Father of unions What a life of an Owl is it to resolve to live perpetually without seeing such a person and to be reconciled unto him and to be satisfied with onely saying he wished him no ill because he will not tear his heart out of his belly Noble and illustrious souls who bear the character of the living God will you not rise up against this life of a Tyger and a Leopard to enter into the sweetnesses and communications of Jesus who shut up his transitory life by sealing with his bloud the pardon he gave to hisenemies § 4. Of three notable sources of hatred and of politick remedies proper for its cure VVE peradventure take too high a flight in Theologicall proofs I will descend lower and touch remedies more secular for such as are in the practise of humane life You shal observe that it is most expedient to know the sources of Hatred to apply sit remedies and since those most ordinarily bear sway proceed from Humour Reason and Interest it is good to adapt to every passion that which is most proper to the cure thereof Hatreds of Humour and naturall Antipathy are very hard to be cured in those who guide themselves by the Hatreds of humour and how they are to be handled senses the best remedy is to advise them to separation who hate in this manner so much as affairs occasions and civill reasons may permit For as there be certain natures which cannot endure the presence of some creatures but that they feel some notable alteration witnesse those who are affrighted being shut up in a chamber with a Cat which they are sensible of before they see her by instantly changing hue and countenance and others who are terrified at a spider or some other venemous creature so there are spirits so contrary that mutuall presence causeth disturbances in them which are not absolutely in their power to represse Attila the scourge of the world who made the Suldas Attila fears Zercon whole earth to tremble under the lightning of his arms feared not any thing in all nature but the sole countenance of Zercon wherewith he was so moved that he thereby became ungrateful We must sometimes in these matters give way to naturall inclinations when they rise to so great a violence And I cannot approve of those who for worldly wealths sake marry such together as have as much correspondence as the ape the tortoise who naturally hate one another And although they perswade themselves that these a versions of humour wil waste with time yet this happeneth but to those who Porra l. magnatur S. Bernard tom 4. ser 6 An observation of S. Bernardin concerning bad marriage are infinitely virtuous But if vice and profit become parties in the businesse then do we see hatreds irreconciliably arise between man and wife S. Bernardine in his fourth Tome six and thirtieth Sermon speaketh of a marriage made by surprisall for the accommodation of a family without any disposition of the parties which was the cause that a very handsome young-man was made to marry a maid with many deformities of body palliated with many impostures so that she appeared as those birds who having no body make themselves a pompous dresse of their plumage But above all they had given her chopins which might of a dwarf have made a Colossus But at night she laying off all those her trims and artificiall leaves the husband took such an aversion that he flew out of the nuptiall bed and could never endure her because he was a young-man and did not resolve to love so much out of charity but that he would call his eyes to councell Here divorce began as soon as marriage wherein it was more happy then in those who after many years of miseries madnesse tragedies and sins come in the end to separation That which is observed in ill-ordered marriages is likewise seen among many brothers and sisters who are full of contrarieties which begin almost with their birth and when these cannot easily be overcome parents do not amisse to separate them and breed them in sundry houses that continuall presence may not encrease enmity Do we not see it is an industry in nature to interpose great rivers seas and mountains almost inaccessible between people who are of humour manners and customes extremely different Following which principle I do not think we should continually urge with eagernesse a sick man to see those against whom he hath as it were an invincible antipathy but rather to be contented with other testimonies by which he declares he entertaineth no deliberate hatred I say this with regard to necessity and humane infirmities For it is most certain that a soul truly Christian should advance its actions to the highest top of Generosity And although to speak humanely we seldome find He habitable lupus cum agno delectabitur infans ab vbere super foramine aspidis Reasonable Hatred and its illusion Orpheuses who with their Harp do accord creatures very different yet is the grace of the Gospel able to make wolves to cohabit with lambs and children to sport in the cavern of an Aspick As for Hatred upon reason which causeth one to hate evil and the wicked out of zeal or indignation It is much more nice and sometimes there are spirituall persons who infinitely flatter themselves therein thinking they have reason to hate although they have no other ground but a false report and a lye whereof they will not be cured thinking to do that through zeal which they act out of meer revenge There is no doubt but one may and ought to have vice and the vitious yet must he ever in them love the image of God and the resembrance of humane nature which is that perfect Hatred whereof the Kingly Prophet spake according to S. Augustine But we meeting not with vices which like Platoes Ideas are not tyed to persons it
explication of the picture Deside rium est motus rppetitus in amabili inchoatio amoris S. Thom. 2 sent dist 26. q. 1. art 3. Theology and the Philosophy of S. Thomas I say to explicate my self that the countrey thereof is the countrey of the prodigall child and that famine is perpetually there Desire being nothing else but a hunger of the good it wisheth or indeed a motion of the appetite towards the thing it loveth and the first degree of love All is in blossome in this countrey and never in fruit insomuch as he who desiret hpossesseih nothing as yet but in imagination and such is the nature of Desire that coming to the end of its carrer it sinks sinee where the good is present that is affected there is no further desire the Inhabitants there are continually in feavers since wishes are but feaverish fervours All there is full of phantasmes because all those blessings are merely imaginary Covetousness is necessarily hungry being perpetually in pursuit never overtaking nor eating but if it do overtake and eat and gluts its heart it ceaseth to be Covetousness Verily it hath round about it litle laughing boyes those are gaudy and sparkling desires some sad they are frustrated desires Many bloud-suckers which suck it they are troublesome and turbulent Desires I adde that time ever distant from it entertaineth it with an enchanted mirrour For it seeth nothing but in the future and sees many Chymeras and illusions after which it is tormented As Tygers who beholding the looking-glasse which hunters have set in Forrests imagine it to be a creature of their own kind shut up in a prison of glasse and so long they scratch it till they break it and deface their desire Lastly I conclude that they are served at dinner with smoke all worldly desires being nought else but wind and smoke § 2 The Disorders which spring from inordinate Desires and namely from curiosity and Inconstancy O God! should one imagine the misery of those Ose 13. §. Eâ—unt quaâ—â— nubes matutina sicut ros matutinus praeteriens sicut pulvis turbine raptus ex area â—â—cut fumus de fumario Three disorders of desire who dwell in this Counrety of Covetousnesse and who live in worldly desires and perpetuall disturbances he could not have any thing more efficacious to give him a distaste of it I observe ill-rectified desire causeth three Disorders in the soul which are sterility ardour and unquietnesse Sterility for perswade your self all the inhabitants of this countrey which are now adayes many are empty hollow soules void of the solid and eternall good for which they were created and are filled with imaginary windings and labyrinths Ardour since they are hearts enflamed like Fornaces which dart forth desires as Coles do sparks Hearts which as the Eagle-stone are still big but produce nothing Unquietnesse for that they live like Hedghogs all environed with sharp quils There is onely this difference that sharp quils serve the Hedghog for a defence and sharp-pointed desires kill and consume those who have them You see men who all their life-time lie at anchor and expect a wind never sailing Men who are continually in fetters like prisoners Men perpetually like to languishing Amorists or to truantly schollers who vehemently desire play-dayes some the most spirituall thirst after books and libraries others please themselves with Ideas of dogges of birds of apes and of horses Others in imagination handle pieces of chrystall pictures Diamonds and pistolls Others cut out garments at their pleasure of the richest stuffes which fancy can furnish them with some are eager after hunting and traffick others after Courtship and Game Some go to the temple of Honour others mind nothing but money It were a very hard thing to reckon up all the feavers purgatories and pains of those passionate souls For indeed naturall Desires are not limitted by nature which made them but those which consist in opinion have no limits as Imagination which produceth them hath no measure but although men be very different in desires they agree all in one point which is never to be contented alwayes to desire some change and noveltie and so ardently to desire it that there are such to be found who for a rufâ—-band or a shoe would gladly hasten the course of the sun as they set forward the hand of the diall But among these Symptomes which are frequent with persons infected with such like diseases I discover The passion of Curiosity a kind of Desire two other passions of Curiosity and Inconstancy the companions of desire Note that Truth sitteth in a Throne all replenished with lights and is of very difficult accesse if one have not wisdome for direction For ordinarily Curiosity way-layeth such as go about to approch to it and involveth them in vast labyrinths of errours This curiosity if you desire to know the nature of it is nought else but irregular appetite to know things either vain unprofitable or evil It dwelleth in a Countrey fertile in apparance but very barren in effect it hath in its dominion many spirits to speak truly neither dull nor stupid for they all have smartnesse and vivacity but the most part have a great want of judgement and discretion to serve as a Counterpoise to their levity They will know all and in an instant ask more questions then the seven Sages of Greece could resolve in ten years so likewise they are of the nature of those Starres which raise tempests and cannot calm them since they frame a thousand casualties a thousand difficulties in affairs and never derive a good conclusion you may say if you well weigh them that they have a worm in their wits which gnaws them that they are men sick in health and living dead-men who neither know what they would what they do nor what they are Curiosity seeing they have so much Curiositas motus animae mortuae S. August Confes l. 13. disposition to receive its impressions entertaineth them in the winding wayes of Truth like a Mountebank who puts a multitude upon a gaze by letting them see infinite many dainty colours in a Triangular-glasse and in the conclusion sends them away dinnerlesse with hunger in their teeth and illusion in their eyes After these slight amusements this evil Mistresse turns them over to anxiety anxiety delivers them to new desires and new desires to servitude servitude to ignorance ignorance to presumption and presumption to unquietnesse of mind From thence they who are Omnis anima curiosa indocta est August de agone Christiano c. 14. Nullâ curiofitare videant quae sunt in sanctuario Num. 4. deeper plunged into this poison of false wisdome take the way of impiety others of misery and poverty some of choler of envy of slander and despair the best provided are like the Danaides who do nought but fill and empty their tub but to no purpose All are not sick of one same disease For some have
which draw thence all thy vitall humour and make thee have a life which hath nothing lesse then life in it Temerarious soul who hast dared to think that forsaking thy Creatour thou elsewhere shouldst find a better match Go and see the obstacles which daily meet with those who hunt after honours favours and worldly wealth Go go behold and thou shalt see a thousand fishes swim in a pond after a rotten worm How many battails must thou wage how many sweats of death must thou sweat how many iron-gates must thou break through to content one onely of thy desires O how often will the Heavens and the Elements conspire against thy affections which thou so unworthily so disastrously hast placed O what bloudy sorrows at thy death when God shall draw aside the curtain of the city of peace and shall shew thee an infinite number of souls in the bosome of Beatitude for having well disposed their Desires and on the other side burning coals to expiate affections ill managed O what horrour what terrour and what despair if the Angels come and say with a voyce of thunder Foris Apoc. 22. 15 Canes and that we must wander up and down in affection with a hunger everlastingly enraged after a good we so many times have despised O Jesus the desire of Eternall mountains draw to thee all my desires since thou art the Adamant Jesus the love of all faithfull souls take all my affections since thou art the Centre of all hearts Jesus the Joy and Crown of all the Elect stay my floating hopes since thou art the haven of hearts stretch out an assisting hand to so many errours and set me in a place where I may desire nothing but let it be such a place wherein I may love that which is infinitely amiable The fourth Treatise Of AVERSION § 1. The Nature and Qualities thereof AVersion is a passion apprehensive disdainfull The essence and nature of Aversion of distastes which is shut up as a snail in its shell and hath no inclination to any thing in the world Covetousnesse presenteth it many objects to see if it can snare it with a bait but it doth nothing but fly away and turn the face to the other side and albeit it seems not to desire ought of all is offered unto it it neverthelesse coveteth good but goes towards it by by-paths and flight from all that which seems opposite to its felicity Well to understand the nature of this Passion we How Aversion is formed must know that as in motions of affections there is first made in the soul a love wholly simple which is an inclination and a complacence towards some object from thence Desire is created by which we consider the same object not onely as good and convenient but as a thing absent and out of us which we must endeavour to have and to bring within our power But if we have the good hap to possesse it from thence joy ariseth which is a perfect complacence raised upon the possession of the thing desired Likewise in passions which resist and oppose our heart first a simple hatred is created which onely importeth an Antipathy and a certain dissenting from the object which the understanding proposeth to the will as disagreeable or hurtfull Thence we come to consider this object either as farre distant and hard to be avoided and then Fear laies hold of our heart or we behold it more near at hand and very easie to be repelled being wholly unable to make any great or strong impressions upon us as Fear doth and then it is properly called Aversion but if the evil happen to be present it is a vexation and a trouble and when it is past there remains a horrour which we call Detestation We may say this passion which is disgusted withall The character and true image of a spirit subject to Aversion hath nothing so distastefull as it self There you behold a soul oppressed still apprehensive still retired and ever harsh and as nothing pleaseth it so easily it displeaseth all the world If there be cause to name one he will never call him by his name but will say of whom speak you of that wretch of that sluggard of that miser of that ignorant fellow Or if he hath some deformity of body of that crooked piece that crump-shoulder of that unfortunate caitiffe who is much duller then a winters-day or the snows of Scythia If a Book be to be censured there is nothing worth ought in it they are discourses and words ill placed If merchandize be to be bought the shop and store-houses of a merchant shall be turned over and over and nothing found that gives contentment If he be in his own house he makes himself insupportable to his domesticks this garment is ill made this chamber ill furnished this bed too hard these dishes unsavoury the wind at a door the creaking of a casement the crying of a child the barking of a dog all is troublesome to him If a man of this condition be to be married there is not a maid in the world worthy of him he must have one framed out of his own rib as God did for the first Man or suffer him to raise his love in imitation of Endymion and Caligula up to the sphere of the Moon But most especially women Humour of coy women of this humour are extremely troublesome They have no small businesse to do who are to find them out maid-servants and nurses this is too rusticall she hath nothing amiable in her eye she speaks too big her body is not slender enough the other is a piece of flesh not worth ought needs must she be perpetually upon change and out of too much curiosity to meet with a good service be the worst served of any woman in the world Behold one distasted with professions conditions and offices all displeaseth him Shall he become a Church-man that seems a slavery to him Shall he betake him to a sword It is hazardous To an office It costs too much To traffick Little is to be gotten To a Trade He cannot find a good one Lastly it troubleth him to be a man and would gladly entertain the invention of Ovids Metamorphosis to be transformed into some other kind of Creature There are young wenches who have much a-do with themselves Shall they marry There is not any match likes them this man is unhandsome that other is but simple this man too way-ward that too melancholly one too wild another hath not living enough nor that other good alliance an Angel must be fetched out of heaven to marry them In the mean time some amorist learneth to dance his cinque-pace and to powder and frizzle himself to please this coy piece whom nothing contenteth but her own distastes If one the other side this creature looks towards Religion she will multiply her paces and visits and will run over all the Monasteries and find none to content her one is
too indulgent and another too austere the habit of this pleaseth but the manner of living is distastefull the flesh draweth upon one side and the discipline drives away on the other and her wavering mind can resolve on nothing nor irresolve on nothing but irresolution That admitted and established in this manner I say there are two sorts of Aversion the one whereof is tied to things the other to persons and both of them are of power much to disturb us if we seasonably seek not to give remedy thereto in our most tender years before these dispositions wax old in us and strengthen themselves to our prejudice Now I observe we may find very good remedies out of the consideration of the Divine proceedings of God as I intend to let you see in the sequele of this discourse § 2. The sweetnesses and harmonies of the heart of God shew us the way to cure our Aversions FIrst we see that God loves all things except sinne and hates nothing he hath made Essence Goodnesse The consideration of the love which God bears to his creatures is a powerfull remedy to cure Aversion Diligis omnia quae sunt nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti Sap. 11. 25. Sin corrupteth the goodness of essence in intellectuall creatures Cypr. de Idol vanir à vigore and truth follow one another by necessity of consequence and God hath put nothing into Being which is not in the state of some Goodnesse yea the devils will burn in hell having something good having somewhat of God They have being and substance understanding and will all which considered within the limits of Nature cannot but be good There is nothing but sinne which altereth and depraveth it by the ill usage of it S. Cyprian hath well noted it when hs saith of devils That they were * * * Spiritus insinceri vagi qui posteaquam terrenis immersi vitiis sunt coelesti terrâ—no contagio recesserunt non desinunt perditi perdere spirits impure and sophisticate who having lost their sincerity and heavenly vigour by the contagion of the vices of the earth and who being once lost cease not to ruine men From thence we behold that as in adulterated merchandize and false money there is alwayes some good mixed with the bad so in these unclean spirits there is an Intellectuall nature of it self very good which hath been corrupted by sinne God cannot but love in them all that is his as much as he detesteth all which proceedeth from their rebellion But if there be any thing lovely in creatures so miserable and forsaken which is worthy to entertain the heart of God how can we have an Aversion against so many other things which rest as yet in innocency It is an admirable thing that the heart of God is as God in his Essence accordeth the diversity of all Essences the Father of Harmonies and doth within it self accord things the most opposite For we know all the world in this sovereign being is more beautifull better coloured and more flourishing then it is in it self yet there is no contrariety Water resisteth not fire heat cold drought moisture because it is a Sanctuary of Peace where all diversities conclude in Unity Greek Marvellous Temples where lions were tractable Histories make mention of certain Temples as was that of Adonis wherein lions were tractable that might come to passe from the industry of men and not out of the virtue of the place as Elian the Historian Aelian de animal l. 12. cap. 25. supposeth but here we must say The bosome of God is a true temple of Peace which makes lions familiar with lambs and which uniteth all to it self But to witnesse unto us beside the intention which God hath to dispose us to sympathy hence is it that The sympathies and antipathies which God hath wisely impressed on Essences end in union not satisfied to have united all the parts of the world as those of an Egge he giveth even to creatures insensible certain Bands and dumb Amities which causeth them to seek one after another and to link themselves together by complacence as we see to happen in the load-stone and iron in the amber and the straw whether it be done by a substantiall form which is hidden from us or whether it be by transpiration and effluxion of their substances as the Philopher Empedocles thought and which is more if this sovereign Workman permit Antipathy among creatures he hath reduced all to the good of community since it serves for the conservation of Species which compose the beauty of his Universe So the contrariety between the Lamb and the Wolf is a perfect incitement to the conservation of this creature necessary for humane life Some one may here say that by perswading too How we ought to govern out Aversions Nature necessarily brings with it its sympathies and antipathies Fracast de sympath â—ntipath 1. c. 13. much I perswade nothing for if we admit sympathy for all which God hath created we then must love serpents and poisons we must miserably satisfie our hunger with all impure viands which cannot be done without destroying the principles of nature which necessarily hath its Appetites to good and its Aversions from many things contrary unto it To that I answer we cannot wholly live without Sympathy and Antipathy For we well know that the knowledges of the Senses of the Imagination of the Understanding come to us by the help of Species which represent unto us the quantity figure form habit motion and rest of things but above all the accord and dissonance from whence commonly arise in our soul two affections the one of Dilatation and the other of Restriction For as the soul dilates and spreadeth it self to things which are delightfull to it So it draws back and foldeth it self up at the sight of all is unpleasing to it very well witnessed even in the members of the body which extend or contract themselves according as matters are agreeable or disagreeable to the heart We do not The first motions are for the most part inevitable Senec. l. 2. de Ira. cap. 2. here intend to stifle all the first motions which are not in our power insomuch as they are invincible and inevitable It were to no purpose to make long discourses to a man to exhort him not to have some small quaking in his body when on a sudden cold water is thrown upon him or not to wink with his eyes when a glittering sword is presented as it were to strike him or not to have some dizzinesse in the head by beholding a precipice from a place on high For all that is naturall and may happen to men the most moderate We do not likewise say that we must not flie not One may reasonably fly that which is in any wise hurtfull Nemo enim unquam carnem suam odio habuit sed nutrit sovet eam ficut Christus
that we cannot look upon them but if with these defects we also there find a soul wicked ungratefull an enemy to God and men we then conceive such horrour that one had need to be more then a man to endure them Now we were in this estate which I speak of for besides the misfortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides we were enemies to God by having been too much a friend to our selves and which is more we could not have one silly spark of love for him if it were not inspired into us by himself mean while he accepteth us and appropriateth us to himself among all these contrarieties He out of his goodnesse will not lose him who through his own malice delighteth to lose himself he then stretcheth forth his hand unto him when the other tums his back the one flyeth and the other pursueth this fugitive with the pace of his charity even into the shadow of death He calleth him he flatters him he courteth him and not content to pardon him a crime he promiseth him a Kingdome What may one say of so profuse a Bounty How can we in the world so greedily seek for all the contentments of nature seeing the God of nature so roughly handled in the world which he built with his own hands we cannot abide the stinging of a fly a noise a smoke the sight of a thing which is in any sort displeasing a world must be made of gold and silk to satisfie our desires Jesus is the sign of a Contradiction reverenced in appearance and in effect used as a thing of nought O how divinely hath Saint Augustine expressed the humour of a worldly man an enemy to the life of God in the book he wrote of the Christian Combat Jesus was not wise enough according to the opinion of the world He hath indifferently taken upon himself all that which his heavenly Father would not shewing any Aversion from things the most distastefull This is it which is hard to digest It displeaseth the covetous that he coming into the world hath not brought with him a body of gold and pearl It displeaseth the luxurious that he was born of a Virgin It displeaseth the proud that he so patiently suffered injuries It displeaseth the nice that he endured so many afflictions and torments Lastly It pleaseth not the timorous that he dyed Prophane spirits cease not to say but how can that be done in the person of God and in stead of correcting their vices which are very great they find cavills at the perfections of Jesus Christ which are most innocent § 4. The Conclusion against Disdain VVIll we still out of humour love things pleasing It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of body or some other deformity of nature when we are bound to love him to sensuality and have a perpetuall distaste against all which may maintain virtue A Father and a Mother to have an aversion against their own children under colour that they have some defect in nature and in stead of regarding them with an eye full of pity and compassion to comfort their infirmities wipe away their tears and provide for the necessities of their life to leave them at randome in the storm and if out of necessity we must do them some good to throw them out bread in an anger as if they had committed a great crime to come into the world in that rank which the providence of God had prepared for them what a shame is it to entertein amities and petty loves onely to please flesh and bloud that if the eyes find not contentment the heart will no longer observe fidelity This creature which hath heretofore been so much beloved is now forsaken rejected and used like an excommunicate having no other crime but some deformity of body some infirmity or other accident nothing at all in its power to remedy A husband traiterous to Altars and to the Sacrament of Marriage barbarously useth a wife who brought with her the wealth of her parents and her own heart and body in lawfull wedlock but now this carnall man taken in the snare of his lust by a wretch and a prostitute rejecteth a lawfull wife as if she were a serpent or the froth of an enraged Sea elswhere to satiate his brutishnesse to the prejudice of his reputation and the death of his soul Must I here produce the actions of Infidels to confound ours One Mnesippus relateth in Lucian How that he one Lucianus in Toxaride A generous act of a Pagan who teacheth us powerfully to command over our Aversions day seeing a man comely and of eminent condition passing along in a Coach with a woman extreamly unhandsome he was much amazed and said he could not understand why a man of prime quality and of so brave a presence should be seen to stir abroad in the company of a monster Hereupon one that followed the Coach overhearing him said Sir you seem to wonder at what you now see but if I tell you the causes and circumstances thereof you will much more admire Know this Gentleman whom you see in the coach is called Zenothemis and born in the City of Marseilles where he heretofore contracted a firm amity with a neighbour-citizen of his named Menecrates who was at that time one of the chief men of the City as well in wealth as dignities But as all things in the world are exposed to the inconstancy of fortune it happened that having as it is thought given a false sentence he was degâ—â—ded of honour and all his goods were confiseated Every one avoided him as a Monster in this change of fortune but Zenothemis his good friend as if he had loved miseries not men more esteemed him in his adversity then he had done in prosperity and bringing him to his house shewed him huge treasures conjured him to share them with him since such was the laws of amity the other weeping for joy to see himself so enterteined in such sharp necessities said he was not so apprehensive of the want of worldly wealth as of the burthen he had in a daughter ripe for marriage and willing enough but blemished with many deformities She was saith the history but half a woman a body misshapen and limping an eye bleared a face disfigured and besides she had the falling sicknesse with horrible convulsions Neverthelesse this noble heart said unto him Trouble not your self about the marriage of your daughter for I will be her husband The other astonished at such goodnesse God forbid saith he I lay such a burthen upon you No no replyeth the other she shall be mine and instantly he married her making great feasts whilst the poor Father was rapt out of himself with admiration Having married this miserable Creature he honoured her with much regard and made it his glory to shew her in the best company as a trophey of his friendship In the end she brought him a goodly son
trouble those spirits which have an inclination to mildnesse they say that Joab was his kinsman his faithfull servant the best of his Captains the chief Commander that had followed him from his youth accompanied him through infinite dangers and upheld the Crown a thousand times shaking upon his head He never medled in the factions that were raised against the King he was alwayes the first that dissipated them by the vigour of his spirit resolution counsell of his Arms and of his Sword If he slew Abner it was in revenge of his Brother which the other had slain If he stabbed Amasa it was the chief Captain of the Rebell Absolon whom they would have put in his place for to lay then great faults of the State upon him If he spoke freely to David it was alwayes for his good and for his glory in the mean time at his Death he recommended him to be punished after that in effect he had pardoned him all his life But to all this I say that the last actions of so great a King are more worthy of honour then censure The punishment of Joab proceeded not from a Passion but from a Justice inspired by God which would satisfie the voyce of blood the which cryed still against the murders committed by this Captain Further also there was a secret of State as saith Theodoret which is that this Joab shewed himself against the re-election of Solomon and was ready to trouble the peace of the Realm And as concerning Shimei to whom he had sworn that he would not cause him to dye he kept his promise to him faithfully abstaining from doing him any evil while he lived although he was in absolute power for to hurt him but as his oath was personall he would not extend it upon his sonne and tye his hands contenting himself to recommend unto him that he should do justice according as his wisedome and discretion should direct him It is very fitting that we should think highly of this Prophet and that we should rather search out the reason of many of his actions from the secret inspiration of God then from the weaknesse of humane judgement He lived near upon three-score and twelve years reigned fourty and dyed a thousand and thirty two years before the birth of our Saviour leaving infinite treasures for the building of the Temple and eternall monuments of his devotion and understanding It was a speciall favour to him that the Saviour would be born of his bloud and that his birth was revealed to him so many dayes before it was known to the world He hath often set it down upon the title of his Psalmes and was in an extasie in this contemplation by the fore-taste of that his happinesse Men are accustomed to take their nobility and their names from their Ancestours that go before them But David drew it from a Son which is the Father of Glory and Authour of Eternity The industrious hands of men have taken pains in vain to carve him out a Tomb Death hath no power over him seeing that he is the Primogenitour of life All things are great in his person but the heighth of all his greatnesse is that he hath given us a Jesus SOLOMON SOlomon was he that ordered the holinesse of the Temple and yet he can hardly find place in the Holy Court The love which gave Solomons entry into the Realm full of troubles him the Crown by the means of his mother Bathsheba hath taken from him his innocency The Gentiles might have made him one of their Gods if Women had not made him lesse then a man His entrance into the Throne of his father was bloudy his Reign peaceable his Life variable and his End uncertain One may observe great weaknesses at the Court at his coming to the Crown confused designs desperate hopes a Prophet upright at the Court a woman full of invention an old Courtier overthrown and little brotherhood where there is dispute of Royalty David was upon the fading of his Age and his Throne looked at by his Children which expected the dissolution of their father He had taken the authority upon him to decide this question by his commands not willing to be ruled therein by nature nor to preferre him whom she had first brought into the world but him which should be appointed by God and best fitted thereto by his favours Bathsheba a subtil woman Bathsheba fitly insinuares her self and procures the Crown for her son Solomon that had carried him away by violence of a great affection kept her self in her possession and had more power over the mind of the King then all his other associates Amidst the kindnesses of an affectionate husband which is not willing to deny any thing to her whom he loves she drew this promise from David that he would take her sonne Solomon to be successour in his Estates This was a little miracle of Nature in his Infancy Solomons infancy pleasing and it seemed that all the Graces had strove together to make a work so curiously polisht His mother loved him with infinite tendernesse and his father could not look upon him without amazednesse He was married at the age of nineteen years and David before he departed from the world saw himself multiplied by his son in a second which was Roboam Aristotle hath observed well that children which are married so young do seldome bring forth great men and this observation was verified in Roboam who caused as many confusions in his life as he had made rejoycings at his birth This strengthened Solomon at the beginning in his own and his mothers pretences But Adonijah his brother which immediately followed Absolon was before him in the right of Eldership and promised himself to have a good part of the Empire The example of that unfortunate brother which had Adonijah competitor of the Crown and his faction expired his life in the despair of his fortune was not strong enough for to stay him which treading as it were in the same steps went on infallibly unto his last mischance David endured too long for him and it seems to him that the greatest kindnesses that a rich father could do for his sonne when he is come to die is to suffer himself to die He had sufficiently well knitted his party together binding himself closely to the chief Priest Abiathar and to Joab It seemed to him that having on his side the Altars and Arms he was invincible But in that burning desire that he had to reign he The fault of Adonijah in his Counsel of State committed very great faults which put an end to his life by an event very tragicall He did not sufficiently consider the power of his father who governed himself by the orders of them in the disposition of their Royalty and saw not that to undertake to succeed him without his good will was to desire to climb to the top of the house vvithout going up by the stairs His