that God doth no miracles for his own profit he doth not change stones into bread in the Desart to nourish himself after that long fast which he did there make but for his faithfull servants he alters the course of nature and being austere to himself he becomes indulgent to us to teach us that we should despoil our selves of self-love which ties us to our own flesh and makes us so negligent to our neighbour 2. What precious thing is to be gotten by following the world that we should forsake Jesus in the Desart and run after vain hopes at Court and great mens houses where we pretend to make some fortune How many injuries must a man dissemble How many affronts must he swallow How many deadly sweats must he endure to obtain some reasonable condition How many times must he sacrifice his children engage his own conscience and offer violences to others to advance the affairs of great men And after many years service if any foreaird or ruinous business committed to his charge in the pursuit whereof he must walk upon thorns shall chance to miscarry all the fault must be laid upon a good officer and if he prove unlucky he shall ever be made culpable and in the turning of a hand all his good services forgotten and lost and for a final recompence he must be loaden with infinite disgraces It is quite contrary in the service of God for he encourages our virtues he supplies our defects governs our spiritual and yet neglects not our temporal occasions He that clothes the flowers of the Meadows more gorgeously than Monarchs who lodges so many little Fishes in golden and azure shels he who doth but open his hand and replenishes all nature with blessings if we be faithfull in keeping his Commandments will never forsake us at our need But yet we find all the difficulties of the world to put our trust in him we vilifie our cares of eternity and by seeking after worldly things whereby to live we torment our selves and in the end lose our own lives A man that must die needs very few wordly things a very little Cabbin will suffice nature but whole Kingdoms will not satisfie covetousness 3. Jesus flies from Scepters and runs to the Cross he would have no worldly Kingdoms because their Thrones are made of Ice and their Crowns of Glass He valued the Kingdom of God above all things that he might make us partakers of his precious conquest and infinite rich prize But now it seems that heaven is not a sufficient Kingdom for us men run after land and itch after the ambition of fading greatness and sometimes all their life passeth away in great sins and as great troubles to get a poor title of three letters upon their Tomb. Alas do we know better than God in what honour consists that we must seek after that which he did avoid and not imitate that which he followed Let us follow God and believe that where he is there can be no desart or solitude for us They shall never taste the delights of virtue that feed upon the joys of vanity All worldly pleasures are Comets made fat with the smokes and vapours of the earth and in stead of giving light and brightness they bring forth murders and contagions but the following of God is always sweet and he which suffers thereby changes his very tears into nourishment Aspiration O My God! Shall I always run after that which flies from me and never follow Jesus who follows me by incomparable paths and loves me even while I am ungratefull I will no more run after the shadows of worldly honour I will no more have my own will which both is and hath proved so unfaithfull I will put my self into the happy course of Gods disposition for all which shall happen unto me either in time or eternity his carefull eye watches over me it is for me that his hands have treasures and the very Desarts possess abundance O crucified love the most pure of all beauties it is for thee that so many generous Champions have peopled the Desarts and passed the streams of bitterness and sorrow bearing their crosses after thee and thereupon have felt the sweetness of thy visits amongst their cruel rigours God forbid that I should give the lie to so great and so generous a company I go to thee and will follow thee amongst the desarts I run not after bread I run after thy divine person I will make much of thy wounds I honour thy torments I will conform my self to thee that I may find joy amongst thy dolours and life it self amongst thine infinite sufferings The Gospel upon Munday the fourth week in Lent S. John 2. Of the whipping buyers and sellers out of the Temple ANd the Pasch of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the Temple them that sold Oxen and Sheep and Doves and the Bankers sitting And when he had made as it were a whip of little cords he cast them all out of the Temple the sheep also and the oxen and the money of the Bankers he poured out and the tables be overthrew And to them that sold Doves he said Take away these things hence and make not the house of my Father a house of merchandise And his Disciples remembered that it is written The zeal of thy house hath eaten me The Jews therefore answered and said to him What sign doest thou shew us that thou doest these things Jesus answered and said to them Dissolve this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it The Jews therefore said in fourty and six years was this Temple built and wilt thou raise it in three dayes But he spake of the Temple of his body Therefore when he was risen again from the dead his Disciples remembered that he said this and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus did say And when he was at Jerusalem in the Pasche upon the festival day many believed in his name seeing his signs which he did But Jesus did not commit himself unto them for that he knew all and because it was not needfull for him that any should give testimony of man for be knew what was in man Moralities 1. PIety is a silver chain hanged up aloft which ties heaven and earth spiritual and temporal God and man together Devotion is a virtue derived to us from the Father of all light who gives us thereby means to hold a traffick or commerce with Angels All which is here below sinks by its proper weight and leans downward toward natural corruption Our spirit though it be immortal would follow the weight of our bodies if it were not indued with the knowledge of God which works the same effect in it as the Adamant doth with iron for it pierceth and gives it life together with a secret and powerful spirit from which all great actions take their beginning You shall never do any great act if the
And if I shall say that I know him not I shall be like to you a lier but I do know him and do keep his word Abraham your father rejoyced that he might see my day and he saw and was glad The Jews therefore said to him Thou hast not yet fifty years and hast thou seen Abraham Jesus said to them Amen Amen I say to you before that Abraham was made I am They took stones therefore to cast at him But Jesus hid himself and went out of the Temple Moralities 1. THe Saviour of the world being resolved to suffer death as the Priest of his own sacrifice and sacrifice of his priesthood shews that it is an effect of his mercy and not a suffering for any fault He doth advance the standard of the Cross which was the punishment of guilty persons but he brought with him innocencie which is the mark of Saints he honours it with his dolours and sanctifies it with his bloud to glorifie it in the estimation of all the just He is without spot and capable to take all stains by his infinite sanctity and yet he suffered as a sinner to blot out all our sins It is in this suffering he would have us all imitate him He doth not require us to make a heaven nor stars nor to enlarge the sea or to make the earth firm but to make our selves holy as he is holy according to our capacity And this we may gain by his favour which he hath by his own nature No man is worthy to suffer with Jesus who doth not purifie himself by the sufferings of Jesus If we suffer in sin we carrie the Cross of the bad thief We must carrie the Cross of Jesus and consecrate our tribulations by our own virtues 2. It is said that the venomous serpent called a Basilisk which kills both men and beasts by his pestilent breath kills himself when he looks upon a looking glass by the very reflection of his own poison The Jews do here the very same They come about this great mirrour of sanctity which carried all the glory of the living God he casts his beams upon them but envy the mother of murder which kills it self onely by the rayes of golden arrows makes them dart out venomous words to dishonour him yet his incomparable virtue kills them without losing any of his own brightness to teach us that the beauty of innocency is the best buckler against all slanders Though it seem to be tarnished for a time yet her brightness will thereby become more lively for it is a star which the blackest vail of night cannot darken 3. Abraham did rejoyce at this day of God two thousand years before it was manifested to the world All the Patriarchs did long after it and did anticipate their felicities by the purity of their thoughts This blessed Day hath been reserved for us and yet many of us despise it We so much love the day of man that by the force of too much love to it we forget the love of God We should and must contemn those perishing dayes of worldly honours and pleasures which are covered with eternal night that we may partake the eternity of that beautifull day which shall never have any evening Aspirations O God of purity in whose presence the Angels ravished with admiration do cover their faces with their wings and have no sweeter extasies than the admiration of thy beauty The stars are not pure enough before thy redoubted Majesty The Sun beholds thee as the true Authour of his light Thou onely canst purifie all humane kind by a sanctity which spreads it self over all Ages Alas I am confounded to see my sinfull soul so often dyed black with so many stains and beastly ordures before those most pure beams of thy glory Wash O wash again out all that which displeaseth thee Regenerate in my heart a Spirit that shall be worthy thy self How shall I follow thee to Mount Calvarie if I be pursued with so many ill habits which I have often detested before thine eyes How can I go in company with the first and greatest of all Saints drawing after me so many sins The increase of my offences would multiply thy crosses I will therefore do my best to drown all my imperfections within thy bloud I will procure light to my nights by that bright and beautiful day which Abraham saw from that glorious day which took beginning from thy Cross I will no more care for the day of man that I may the better apply my self to the day of God The Gospel upon Munday the fifth week in Lent S. John 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees You shall seek and not find me and he that is thirsty let him come to me ANd the Princes and Pharisees sent Ministers to apprehend him Jesus therefore said to them Yet a little time and I will be with you and I go to him that sent me you seek me and shall not find and where I am you cannot come The Jews therefore said among themselves Whither will this man go that we shall not find him will he go into the dispersion of the Gentile and teach the Gentiles what is this saying that he hath said You shall seek me and shall not find and where I am you cannot come And in the last the great day of the festivity Jesus stood and cried saying If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth in me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water And this he said of the Spirit that they should receive which believed in him Moralities 1. TAke for your comfort this excellent word of our Saviour he that is thirsty and desires in this world to thirst after God let him come unto me and he shall quench his thirst at the chiefest fountain S. Augustine saith We are all here as David was in the desart of Idumea our life is a perpetual alteration which will never be settled while we live If we be weary we desire rest and if we rest over-long our bed becomes troublesom though it should be all of roses Then again we thirst to be in action and business which also in a short time tires us and puts us into another alteration and that carries us again to a desire to do nothing All our life goeth like Penelopes web what one hour effects the next destroys We do sufficiently perceive that we are not well in this world It is a large bed but very troublesom wherein every man stirs and tumbles himself up and down but no man can here attain to his perfect happiness 2. This shews us plainly that we are made for God and that we should thirst after divine things if we desire true contentment There is no default in him because all that can be desired is there and yet there is no superfluity because there can be nothing beyond him There onely we abound without necessity we are assured without
Exaltationes Dei in gutture corum gladii ancipites in manibus corum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 49. Jud. 5. v. 14. Interp. 70. Interpetum à Rupert in Genes careful to carrie with them into the deserts timbrels to praise God with than arms to defend themselves Praises go before curtlaxes and all warlike engins The Captains of the valourous Debora are for the same cause termed in Scripture Notaries because they went into the war with pen and sword The sword to fight with and the pen to write the praises of God If you demand of Rupertus why in Genesis when all creatures are spoken of there is not one word of the sphear of fire he will answer you that fire because of its barren unfruitfulness is the symbol of ingratitude and for that purpose it is not once mentioned in the place where question was made of the sacrifice of acknowledgement If you ask of S. Chrysostom why God coming to give a law to his people appeared amongst briers and thorns he will tell you it was to shew to this ungrateful people the deformity of their ingratitude signified by those thorny plants S. Ambrose likewise Ambros 1. 6. Hexam c. 4. observeth it was the providence of heaven to give young Tobie an Angel and a god for companions of his voyage The Angel to do him good offices and the dog who is most sensibly mindful to cause him to remember a benefit See you not the world and the law are extended and disposed one in his creatures and the other in all his precepts to impress gratitude in our hearts One of the Ancients Marcus Aurel 1. Antonius de vita sua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said that to die ungrateful was the most infamous death might be imagined Would you then Nobles have your bodies buried in Churches in places most eminent and conspicuous yet spare not to make ingratitude a sepulchre for your souls Adde hereunto presently a consideration well worthy to be pondered that by how much the benefits you have received from the liberal hand of Almighty God are great and glorious so much the more is it a hideous thing to repay them in the coyn of ingratitude Follow the foot-steps of the Excellent practice of S. Augustine to encourage himself to gratitude Oracle of Doctours S. Augustine pursue the practice which he used to enflame himself to grateful acknowledgements Go ye upon the brink of abysses and speak to Nothing which is not at all nor ever was nor ever shall be Cast up your age and demand of it Where were you so many years It will reply to your heart with dumb words and tell you That which you have been it is And what have you done to God to be at this time that which it is not Take into your hand a Diamond it will tell you it hath essential being with you but it liveth not and what have you done to God to have life above the same Go to Cedars and Palm-trees and you shall understand they have life common with you but you sense above them Under what title was it due to you with what money did you purchase it Go to Eagles and Lions and they will tell you they have sense common with you but you have reason an incomparable good above them You have judgement memory understanding free-will you are men and they are beasts What have you done to God to be made man to be a reasonable creature capable of an infinite good What have you done before your being to be that which you are What sacrifice have you presented being as then in nothing to be born into the world supereminently prelated above all the creatures of the world Well admit you had deserved your being Where have you merited your well-being Say you had merited to be men where have you deserved to be Christians to be selected by the hand of God from so many infinite nations which daily people hell to be washed with the bloud of his Son to be regenerated by the waters of baptism to be impressed with his own stamp to be beautified with his grace supported with his merits enlightened with his knowledge protected under his wings and the shelter of his Angels to have all the means and opportunitie to begin in the world a celestial life and afterward to reign in Heaven for ever and there to remain absorpt in an ocean of pleasures and felicities At what price have you bought all that Are you not a jadish mule to suck such a teat and then to kick with your heels But you say it is common to you with all Christians Particular obligations of Noblemen I answer the Sun is no less the Sun to you for that it enlighteneth the eyes of a Pismear But behold what personally toucheth you and that which you cannot forget without disloyal ingratitude Nature hath cast all men in one and the same mould all are equal according to birth all equal in death who useth to measure with the same ell Linsy-woolsey and cloth of Tissue But what inequality is there in the conditions of life It seemeth when the course of each mans estate and fortune is well considered there is more difference between man and man than between man and beast How many creatures are born ever in the fetters of miserable servitude and salute life with a yoak on their neck And behold you are not onely born free but Noble but great but eminent you come into the world like Diadumenus with a diadem of honour on your foreheads How many do you behold born with very great disproportion of bodie with bunched backs crookedness maladies deformities which they are enforced to carrie with them from their mothers womb to their grave And behold you are born with a bodie well composed that nature hath framed to serve as a Cabinet for the soul which God would lodge in How many stupid gross and obscure spirits unjoynted judgements irregular brains are there in the world And yet God hath given to you a spirit capable of all kind of lights knowledges a judgement well grounded a faithful memory and all the moveables of a fair soul How many children come into the world as little abortives and are afterward left without instruction guid or conduct as lees and dregs of the creatures of the earth And behold how all things co-operate to your education How many millions of mortals daily dissolve into poverty in a wretched and needy life in extream miseries which make them feed upon gall and every day to drench part of their life in tears And behold you are born to great patrimonies infinite riches large revenues behold not onely men and beasts but all the elements also are kept in breath to contribute to your services your magnificence your felicities your delights How many are at the foot of the wheel trampled on and oppressed under the tyrannie of men many times more cruel than wild and savage beasts And
vice which would have no force nor vigour at all if you did not give arms and weapons into its hand to sack and subjugate all the world First you commit a great sacriledge abusing authority Great sin through bad example which is a ray of the omnipotencie of God impressed on your foreheads to enlighten and sweetly incline your inferiours to duty and you make boast as if it came from your selves Thieves that you are of the treasure of God you have rifled the chief of his coffers which is that absolute power by which he is God you have taken from thence a pearl which himself afterwards ensigned into your hands which himself fixed upon your head to give you as it were a participation of his own essence and you unworthily retain it without making it tributary to its Creatour My God it is true that he who seeketh his own glory from thine ornaments is a Aug. Sol. 5. Qui de bono tuo gloriam sibi quaerit non tibi quaerit hic sur est latro very thief and a robber who endeavouring to filch Gods honour from him stealeth Paradise from himself What sacriledge I pray can you think comparable to this Secondly what an indignity it is to do that which the ill example of Great-ones operateth so to put vice into grace and virtue into neglect Think you Ill example the work of Antichrist not if proof be made unto you it is the work of Antichrist but that will suffice to make you detest it And what will Antichrist do To what will he bend and dispose all the sinews and arteries of his power but to set vice on the Altar and you will before-hand prepare a way for him All that which Jesus Christ hath said and done all that which he hath sweat for all that he endeavoured all that he hath wept all that he hath bled he hath done to blot out and extinguish with works with words with sweat with tears with bloud the work of sin And you forsooth will again erect the statues If sin coming from you were esteemed as sin it would always be unreasonable but less dangerous But now it happeneth not to be so reputed The sins Desinunt esse probri loco purpura flagitia which in a mean fortune would be thought sins when they are dressed up with a diadem or covered with a scarlet cloak become the virtues of the times which is a thing most abominable And by your ill example you are the cause of this illusion of mankind which holdeth vice for virtue and crime for trophie Observe what punishment a false coyner deserveth Advise with your self if idolatrie be the first and chief of all sins what would he merit who were not onely an Idolater but the authour and inventour of a new idolatrie And bad example doth it When you O Noblemen degenerate you impress sin with the stamp of virtue you place it upon the Altar you are the cause that a thousand and a thousand present oblations to it you make a stable for horses of the Temple of honour and you being by the world esteemed as little gods employ all this reputation to destroy the honour of the true God through the example of your wicked life You make a dung-hill of Heaven you Caenum de Caelo facitis errantes animos per abrupta praecipitia crudeli calamitate ducitis cum hominibus peccare volentibus facinorum viam de Deorum monstratis exemplis Julius Firm. Photius in bibliotheca cruelly and miserably dragging wandring souls through headlong precipices when to cause them to sin the more freely you shew them the examples of the pettie gods of the earth These are the words of Julius Firmicus What ingratitude will make Heaven blush and the earth to shake if not this If you well weigh this consideration it will never escape you to do an act of ill example or if passion should happen to be exorbitant at least you should imitate that bird which by antiquity was called Just because she hid her excrements which she knew to be very pernicious for fear it should infect men so you rather should bury your ill deportments in night and obscurity than expose them to publick view For the third reason consider what wickedness it is to thrust the knife into the throat not onely of a multitude that adores your fortune and glorieth in the imitation of your vices but also to pollute all posteritie with the authoritie of your crimes Every Age teacheth us we may do what hath been done and Admonetur omnis atos fieri posse quod aliquando factum est exempla fiunt que jam esse facinora destiterunt Cyprian ad Donat. Eccl. 1. Sicut aeramentum aerugina nèquitia Figure of ill example Exod. 21. crimes become examples saith the eloquent S. Cyprian Your sin is like much rust which cleaveth close to all your successours and how much the greater you are so much the more precipitation and malice it hath Say not you are personally culpable and no more that you are not to answer to God either for the sins of those who live with you or those that come after you Which is so much otherwise that the Scripture ordaineth who shall open a common cistern without shutting it again if it happen that cattel fall therein he was bound to repair this loss Your brother doth he not more nearly approach to God than a bullock or a horse You have opened to him the gulf of scandal and corruption he is fallen into your snares you shall give an account to God for a soul redeemed with the price of his bloud Although you have caused but one small spark of Exod. 22. fire to flie out if it happen to blast and burn the fruitful fields and destroy the corn of your neighbour you are bound by the law to make the possessour satisfaction A flashing sparkle of concupiscence which proceedeth from your eyes and afterwards enkindleth a great fire of vices and calamities shall be imputed unto you in the day of judgement And what satisfaction for such damage But on the contrary O Noblemen when you seriously embrace virtue you ravish and appease the most savage spirits by your authoritie Nothing resisteth this sweet violence Goodness born in the chariot of greatness hath darts so sharp and flaming that they make the flint-stones to melt The present times invite you the most distant admire you all posteritie blesseth you and God most gloriously crowneth you It is said when the Rainbowe in Heaven boweth Plin. lib. 12. cap. 24. Rainbowe upon flowers his crooked horns directly upon the flowers he imparteth to them a most celestial odour which infinitely reviveth their kind God hath fixed you in the sphear of greatness as heavenly arches you know from whence he hath extracted you and that no otherwise than the Rainbowe in Heaven you are but a petty vapour but this Sun hath guided you
sacriledge to live for our selves That we cannot have a worse Master than our own liberty and scope and such like things In the fifth place come the affections which are Article 5 flaming transportations of the will bent to pursue Affections and embrace the good it acknowledgeth as when S. Augustine having meditated upon the knowledge Aug. Solil 11. Serò te amavi pulchritudo tam antiqua tam nova Serò te amavi tu intus eras ego foris ibi te quaerebam in istâ forniosa quae fecisti ego deformis irruebam of God brake forth into these words Alas I have begun very late to love thee a beauty ever ancient a a beauty ever new Too late have I begun Thou wert within and I sought for thee without and have cast my self with such violence upon these created beauties without knowledge of the Creatour to defile and deform my self daily more and more To this it much availeth to have by heart many versicles of the most pathetical Psalms which serve as jaculatory prayers and as it were enflamed arrows to aim directly at the proposed mark For conclusion you have colloquies which are reverent Article 6 and amorous discourses with God by which Colloquies we ask of him to flie the evil or follow the good discovered in the meditation And of all that which I say discussion light affection a colloquie may be made upon every point but more particularly at the end of the prayer And note in every prayer especially in colloquies you must make acts of the praise of God in adoring him with all the Heavenly host and highly advancing his greatness and excellencies Of thanksgiving in thanking him for all benefits in general but particularly for these most eminent in the subject we meditate Of petition in asking some grace or favour Of obsecration in begging it by the force of holy things and agreeable to the Divine Majesty Of oblation in offering your soul body works words affections and intentions afterward shutting all up with the Pater Noster Behold briefly the practice of meditation If you Another manner of meditation more plain profitable yet desire one more plain more facile and greatly profitable often practice this same As the true meditation of a good man is according to the Prophet the law of God and the knowledge of ones self meditate the summary of your belief as sometimes the Creed of the Apostles sometimes the Pater noster sometimes the Commandments of God sometimes the deadly sins sometimes upon the powers of your soul and sometimes your five natural senses The manner shall be thus After you have chosen a place and time proper and a little sounded the retreat in your heart from temporal affairs First invoke the grace of God to obtain light and knowledge upon the subject you are to meditate Secondly if it be the Creed run over every Article briefly one after another considering three things what you ought to believe of this Article what you ought to hope what you ought to love How you hitherto have believed it hoped it loved it How you ought more firmly to believe it hereafter to hope for it more confidently to love it more ardently It if be the Pater Noster meditate upon every petition what you ask of God the manner how you ask it and the disposition you afford to obtain it If the Commandments of God what every Commandment meaneth how you have kept them and the course you will presently hold the better to observe them If the powers of your soul and five senses the great gift of God which is to have a good understanding a good will a happy memory to have the organs of eyes ears and all the senses well disposed for their several functions How you have hitherto employed all these endowments and how you will use them in time to come Thirdly you shall make oblation of all that you are to God and shall conclude with the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Another manner very sweet for Another way those who are much affected to holy Scripture is mixed prayer consisting in three things The first to make prayer to obtain of God grace and direction in this action as it hath been said above The second to take the words of holy Scripture as a Psalm a text of S. John S. Paul and such like things to pronounce it affectionately pondering and ruminating the signification of each word and resting thereon with sweetness while our spirit furnisheth us with variety of considerations The third to make some resolution upon all these good considerations to practice them in such and such actions of virtue Lastly to end the meditation with some vocal prayer The fifteenth SECTION Practice of vocal prayer spiritual lection and the word of God THe practice of vocal prayer consisteth in Practice of vocal prayer three ways three things to observe whom we should pray unto what we ought to pray for and how to pray For the first we know what the Church teacheth us how next unto the Majesty of the most Blessed Trinitie incomparably raised above all creatures * * * Praemonitus praemunitus To whom to pray we pray to the Angels and Saints who are as it were the rays of this great and incomprehensible Sun from whom all glory reflecteth Above all creatures we reverence the most holy Mother of Praise of the Blessed Virgin God who hath been as a burning mirrour in the which all the beams of the Divinity are united Origen calleth her the treasure of the Trinitie Methodius the living Altar Saint Ignatius a Celestial prodigie Saint Cyril the Founderess of the Church Saint Fulgentius the Repairer of mankind Proclus of Cyzike the Paradise of the second Adam the shop of the great Union of two natures Saint Bernard the Firmament above all firmaments Andrew of Crete the image of the first Architype and the Epitome of the incomprehensible excellencies of God All that may be said redoundeth to the glory of the workman who made her and advanced her with so many preeminences yea that alone affordeth us a singular confidence in her protection The devotion towards this common Advocate of mankind is so sweet so sensible so full of consolation that a man must have no soul not to relish it Next we Angels honour those Angelical spirits who enamel Heaven with their beauty and shine as burning lamps before the Altar of this great God of hosts We have a particular obligation to our holy Angel Guardian whom God hath deputed to our conservation as a Celestial Centinel that perpetually watcheth for us We behold in Heaven with the eyes of faith an infinite number of chosen souls who read our necessities in the bosom of God written with the pen of his will and enlightened with the rays of their proper glory who apply this knowledge to their beatified understanding Behold the objects of our
heretofore ordained for the Vestals by the Common-wealth should at this present be summed up as the coyn of the Weal-publick As the Common-wealth is composed of particulars so hath it no more right over donatives than it hath on particular persons Your selves who govern all preserve for each one what appertains to him and would have justice extend it self further than your power Consult if you please with your magnificence and it will tell you that what you hitherto have given to so many particulars is no more a publick good for the gifts are no longer theirs who bestowed them and that which was in the beginning a benefit by custom and succession of time becomes an obligation It is to affright the consciences of your Majesties with panick fears to think to make you believe you give to our religion that which you cannot take from it without injustice I pray God the secret assistances of all Sects may favour your Clemencie and that this same which hath so long time ayded your Ancestours if it can no longer stand in credit with you may at least keep you in its protection We will on your Majesties behalf afford it all rights and it towards you shall continue ordinarie favours We demand nothing new in requiring the exercise He speaketh of Valentinian of a Religion which hath preserved the Empire for your father now with the Gods and which hath blessed his bed with lawfull heirs of his crown This good Prince being entered into the condition of the Gods immortal beholdeth from Heaven the tears of these poor Vestals and well sees customs cannot be violated which he with so much affection maintained but by the diminution of his authoritie Afford at least this contentment to your good brother received into this celestial companie as to see a decree corrected that was not his own Cover an act under oblivion which he had never suffered to pass had he foreseen the discontent of the Senate and for which the deputies were diverted which we sent unto him when he was alive for the fear his enemies had of his equitie It much importeth the publick to take away a foul blame from the ashes of a good Prince and justifie the passed by abolishment of the present The fifth SECTION The Oration of S. Ambrose against Symmachus MOST SACRED MAjESTIE ALthough your Minoritie gave us undoubted signs It is drawn from his reasons conceptions and as it were from all his own words of the strength of your spirit and constancie of your faith yet the rank I hold near to your person obligeth me to prevent the surprizes of a craftie discourse which creepeth amongst so many golden words as the serpent amongst the flowers It is ill the Governour Symmachus hath employed so fair a tongue on so foul a subject The deceit of his eloquence makes us suspect the weakness of his Gods for ever a bad cause seeketh that support in words which in truth it cannot find Such are the ordinarie proceedings of Pagans when they speak of their superstitions Their Orations resemble those ancient Temples of Aegypt which under golden Tents lodged Idols of Rats and Crocodiles But the Scripture teacheth us rather to live than talk and recommendeth the contempt of language to oblige us to soliditie of virtues That is the cause why most sacred Majestie after I have entreated you to take my discourse rather in the weight of reasons than number of words I will answer to three points which the Governour seemeth to comprize in his speech The first toucheth the Religion of Pagans The second the revenews of Vestals And the third the cause of the famin we have felt A singular refutation of Symmachus his strongest argument I understand in the first article it is Rome which speaketh with her eyes full of tears sighs at her heart demanding the exercise of Pagan superstitions because they are such saith the Governour which drave Hannibal from the walls and the Gauls from the Capitol It is to publish the infirmitie of false Gods to defend them in this manner and better we cannot refute Symmachus than by shewing him armed against himself For I ask if those Gods are the Protectours of this Empire why they so long time suffered Hannibal to triumph in the ruins of Italie Were their hands so short they could stretch them no further than their walls and Temples As for the Gauls what shall I say I much wonder how the governour doth mention it since it is in effect a thing most ridiculous to say that the enemies being in the heart of the Citie all these protecting Gods should stand idle in their Temples in such sort that all histories have published the people of Rome owed their preservation not to the Gods or sacrifices which nothing availed them but to the gagling of a goose which by good hap awakened the drowsie Centinels if it be not that Symmachus as he is inventive enough will say that Jupiter had then forsaken his burning Chariots and thunder-bolts to shut himself up in the throat of this gosling But as a lye is ever industrious to hurt it self did not Hannibal adore the Roman Gods If it be true that they always bear victorie in their hands why did not Hannibal surprize Rome with the assistance of those Gods Or why did not the Romans vanquish Hannibal in all their battels Why had both the one and the other oftentimes the worst On what side soever you turn you must see Gods conquered who cannot denie their impotencie if they avow not their nullitie It is not Rome then that speaketh in this manner as Symmachus makes it never gave she him this commission but she says by the mouthes of her brave Captains Romans what have I done to become a butcherie and Rome speaketh with Majestie to be imbrued with the bloud of so many creatures Victories abide not in the entrails of beasts but the arms of souldiers It is not the death of oxen hath made me subdue Monarchs but the valour of men Camillus by force of arms displayed my standards on the Capitol which your ceremonies suffered to be taken away Attilius exposed his life for the trial of his fidelitie safety of the Weal-publick Scipio Africanus found triumph not among the Altars of the Capitol but in the field of battel If you desire to see the goodly effects of your superstitions behold Nero who was the first that drew the sword of Caesars against the Christians behold Emperours monethly made and unmade like the moon behold those who were the most zealous in your ceremonies whereof some having shamefully enthraled the worlds Empire to forreigners the other promising themselves great victories under the favour of their Gods have found servitude Was not there then an Altar of Victorie in the Capitol From whence I pray proceeded so many sinister accidents if good hap be divinely destined to those who obey it I much repent me of these barbarous ceremonies
can ought avail me Ruffinus notwithstanding insisted protesting he would instantly perswade the Bishop what ever he pleased He failed not to find out the Bishop but the Saint gave him a very sharp reprehension advising him rather to dress his own wounds than intercede for others for he partly understood that he had a hand in this fatal counsel Ruffinus notwithstanding plyed it all he could and endeavoured to charm this man with fair words saying finally for conclusion he would immediately accompany the Emperour to the Church S Ambrose who was ever very serious answered If he come thither as a Tyrant I will stretch out my neek but if in quality of a Christian Emperour I am resolved to forbid him entrance Ruffinus well saw the Bishop was inflexible and went in haste to advise the Emperour not yet on this day to hazard his approach to the Church He found him on his way as a man distracted that had the arrow in his heart and hastened for remedy and he saying he had dealt with the Bishop It is no matter saith Theodosius let him do with me what he please but I am resolved to reconcile my self to the Church S. Ambrose advertised that Theodosius came went Aedicula jaculatoria out and expected him at the door of a little Cell seperated from the body of the Church where ordinarily salutations were made Then perceiving him environed with his Captains Come you oh Emperour saith he to force us No saith Theodosius I come in the quality of a most humble servant and beseech you that imitating the mercy of the Master whom you serve you would unloose my fetters otherwise my life will fail What penance replieth the holy man have you done for the expiation of so great a sin It is answereth Theodosius for you to appoint it and me to perform it Then was the time when to correct the precipitation of the Edict made against the Thessalonians he commanded him to suspend the execution of the sentence of death for the space of thirty days after which having brought him into the Church the faithfull Emperour prayed not standing on his feet nor kneeling but prostrated all along on the pavement which he watered with his tears tearing his Psal 118. Adhaesit pavimento anima mea vivisica me secundùm verbum tuum hair and pitifully pronouncing this versicle of David My soul is fastened to the pavement quicken me according to thy word When the time of Oblation was come he modestly lifted up himself having his eyes still bathed with tears and so went to present his offering then stayed within those rayls which seperated the Priests from the Laity attending in the same place to hear the rest of Mass Saint Ambrose asked him who set him there and whether he wanted any thing The Emperour answered He attended the holy Communion of which the sage Prelate being advertised he sent one of his chief Deacons which served at the Altar to let him understand that the Quire was the place of Priests and not of the Laicks that he instantly should go out to rank himself in his order adding the Purple might well make Emperours not Priests Theodosius obeyed and answered that what he had done was not on purpose but that such was the custom of the Church of Constantinople Yea it is also remarkable that returning afterward into the East and hearing Mass at Constantinople on a very solemn festival day after he had presented his offering he went out of the Quire whereat the Patriarch Nectarius amazed asked him why his Majesty retired in that manner He sighing answered I in the end have learned to my cost the difference between an Emperour and a Bishop To conclude I have found a Master of truth and to tell you mine opinion I do acknowledge amongst Bishops but one Ambrose worthy of that title Behold an incomparable authority which was as the rays of his great virtue and sanctity from whence distilled all that force and vigour which he had in treating with all men I imagine I hitherto have exposed the principal actions of S. Ambrose to the bright splendour of the day and so to have ordered them that all sorts of conditions may therein find matter of instruction It hath not been my intention to distend them by way of Annals but historical discourses proper to perswade virtue So likewise have I not been willing to charge this paper with other particular narrations which may be read in Paulinus Sozomen Ruffinus and which have exactly been sought out by Cardinal Baronius suitable to his purpose I conclude after I have told you that Paulinus his Secretary witnesseth he writing by him a little before his death saw a globe of fire which encompassed his head and in the end entered into his mouth making an admirable brightness reflect on his face which held him so rapt that whilest this vision continued it was impossible for him to write one word of those which Saint Ambrose dictated As for the rest having attained the threescore and Death of S. Ambrose fourth year of his age he was accounted as the Oracle of the world for they came from the utmost bounds of the earth to hear his wisdom as unto Solomon and after the death of Theodosius Stilicon who governed all held the presence of Saint Ambrose so necessary that he esteemed all the glory of the Roman Empire was tied to the life of this holy Prelate In effect when on the day of holy Saturday after his receiving the Communion he had sweetly rendered up his soul as Moses by the mouth of God a huge deluge of evils overflowed Italie which seemed not to be stayed but by the prayers of this Saint Let us I beseech you pass over his death in the manner of the Scripture which speaketh but one word of the end of so many great personages and let us never talk of death in a subject wholly replenished with immortality Oh what a life what a death to have born bees in his first birth on his lips and at his death globes of light in his mouth What a life to be framed from his tender age as a Samuel for the Tabernacle not knowing he was designed for the Tabernacle What a life to preserve himself in the corruption of the world in a most undefiled chastity as a fountain of fresh water in midst of the sea What a life to arrive to honour and dignities in flying them and to have enobled all his charges by the intefrity of his manners What a life not to have taught any virtue before he practised it and to become first learned in examples before he shewed himself eloquent in words What a life so to have governed a Church that it seemed a copy of Heaven and an eternal pattern of virtues What a life to have born on his shoulders the glory of Christendom and all the moveables of the house of God! What a life to have so many times trampled the head of
answer to that there is very much difference between the condition of things eternal and temporal Angels entered almost as soon into felicitie as into being because they were placed in the upper region of the world where miseries cannot approch and who having besides a singular knowledge of God's favour stood not in need to be aided by the counterpoize of adversities But as for us we are not onely born in a soil which is as fertile in calamities as forrests in brids and rivers in fish but besides we are extream ignorant of God's grace when we long enjoy prosperity which is the cause that adversity though necessarily tied to our condition maketh us notably open our eyes to know the felicities which follow it and to understand from what source they proceed As for that which concerneth the Divinity it cannot to speak properly endure any thing contrary by reason of the condition of it's essence which is fully replenished with all sorts of beatitude God said Philon is incommunicable to tribulations he is alwayes vigorous ever free from dolour or pain perpetually in action without weariness still plunged in a sea of most pure delights as being the height end and aim of felicitie Thereupon unable to suffer as he is God and and yet willing to undergo some special part in the great sacrifice of patience which began with the world he took a body and in that body drank the cup of the passion shewing evidently to all mortals that tribulations by their darkness avail to the brightest rayes of glorie which S. Augustine spake in very express terms The onely Son born of the substance of the Father and Vnicus ille de Patris substantiâ Natus aequalit Patri in formâ Dei Verbum quo facta sunt omnia non habebat ubi flagellaretur ad hoc autem earne indutus est ut sine flagello non esset August Quia eras acceptus Deo necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te Tob. 12. 13. Reg. 4. 2. 9. S. Aug. l. 2. de mirab Scrip. Obsecro ut siat in me duplex spiritus tuus equal to the Father in Divine essence the Word by which all things were created had nothing to suffer as God and is clothed with our flesh to participate in our punishments 2. The second reason which visibly sheweth the secret of Divine providence in the tribulation of the Just is that God being the Sovereign Sanctitie was necessarily to procure and plant it in the souls of his elect by all the most effectual wayes which his wisdom had ordained Now there is not any shorter way to virtue than a well mannaged affliction and therefore it was necessarie to maintain adversity in the world as the nource of great and generous actions of Christianity It was necessarie saith the Scripture to trie thee by tribulation because thou wast acceptable to God It is a matter almost impossible to preserve a great virtue in perpetual prosperity one must be more than a man and to have a double spirit which is excellently well observed by S. Augustine upon the words of Elizeus I intreat your spirit may be doubled in me Elizeus saith he begged the spirit of Elias might be double in him because he was to live in the favour of Court and worldly prosperities where the way is more slippery and dangers most frequent His Master Elias had passed his life in many persecutions wherefore a single spirit was sufficient for his direction adversity being not so difficultly borne as prosperity But insomuch as eminent fortunes are subject to deep drunkenesses and supine forgetfulness of God the Prophet saith by an instinct of the Divinity Let your Fiat in me duplex spiritus Boet. de conso l. 2. pros 8. spirit be doubled in me Prosperity under the shew of felicitie deceiveth us tribulation is ever true the one flatters us the other instructeth us the one tied up our senses and reason the other unbinds them the one is windy empty giddy ignorant the other sober reserved and prudent the one withdraweth us from real good by the allurements of vanity the other reduceth us by a wholesome way into the duty from whence we wandered S. Bernard saith excellently Prosperity is in Quando hoc incautis non fuit ad disciplinam quod ignis ad ceram quod solis radius ad nivem velglaciem Sapiens David sapiens Solomon sed blandientibus nimis secundis rebus alter de parte alter ex toto desipuit Magnus qui incidens in adversa non excidit vel parum a sapientia ne minor cui praesens faelicitas si arrisit non irrisit weak and inconsiderate souls as fire to wax and the sun's rayes to snow David was very wise and Solomon much more yet both charmed by the great success of affairs lost understanding the one at least in in part the other wholly We must affirm there is need of a strong spirit to subsist in adversity without change of reason or constancie but it is much more hard to tast very pleasing prosperities and not be deceived This is the cause why wise providence ever to keep virtue in breath ceaseth not to excercise it in this honourable list of great souls and we behold that following these proceedings it thence deriveth great advantages and many beauties The Scripture noteth that Job (a) (a) (a) Job 42. Merserus in Job returning into the lustre of his former state gave titles to his three daughters much observed for he called one by the name of Day the other Cassia or as some Interpreters say Amber and the third Amaltaeas Horn so the Septuagint translate it We must not think so holy a man would herein do any slight thing or not to some purpose But if we believe Holy Fathers upon it he meant by these three names to signifie the three conditions of fortune The first which was before his great adversities is compared to the day rejoycing us with the natural sweetness of it's serenity The second which was that of his calamity to amber because it is properly in tribulation where virtue diffuseth her good odours It resembleth aromatick spices which more shew their virtue when they are pounded and brought into powder in a morter or incense which never lets it so much appear what it is as when it is cast on coals so that this motto of the Wiseman may be attributed to it (b) (b) (b) Quasi ignis refulgens thus ardens in igne Eccles 50. 10. A resplendent fire and incense burning in the fire In the end issuing forth of tedious tribulations and having been hardened and fortified under storms it openeth it's bosom and unfoldeth admirable fruits which fitly make it to be called the Horn of abundance Whereof we say with S. Ambrose (c) (c) (c) Est ergo beatitudo in doloribus quos plena suavitatis virtus comprimit coercet ipsa sibi domesticis opibus abundans vel ad
is when men of quality who affect the reputation of being judicious prostitute their wits to these gods of straw and dung and for the tuneable cadence of a rime loose all harmonies of faith and conscience All hereticks who make boast to assail the Church Their ignorance for so many Ages have likewise made a shew to bring with them into this combat some recommendable qualities Some came with points of logick other with knowledge of things natural other with eloquence some vaunted profoundness in Scriptures the rest to be versed in the reading of Councels and holy Fathers They who have had no excellent thing in them have brought an austere countenance and semblance of moral virtues But such kind of men have nothing but ignorance with bruitishness but scoffing sycophancy but language and the wind of infamous words How can it then become them to talk of the Bible and to argue upon holy Scripture and the mysteries of our Religions Shut up your ears against these Questions if you be unable to stop their mouthes Is it handsom think you to see a wretched and infamous Tertul. l. 2. advers Marc. c. 2 Censores divinitatis dicentes sic non debuit Deus sic magis debuit c. Tert. de praescript contra haeres l. 1. fellow to make himself the censurer of Divinity and correctour of Scripture God should have done this and that in such and such a fashion say they as if any one knew what is in God but the spirit of God himself who is never so great as when he appeareth little to humane understanding There is but one word saith Tertullian to determine all disputations with such kind of men do but ask them whether they be Christians whether they renounce their Baptism and Christianitie If so let them wear the turbant or go into the Countrey of God-makers and Gentiles But if they make profession of one same Christ and one same Religion with us why do they bely their profession by the impudence of their unbridled speeches Faith saith S. Zeno is not faith when it is sought S. Zeno serm de fide Non est fides ubi quaritur fides Tertul. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium We stand not in need of curiosity after Jesus Christ nor to search for the Gospel said S. Cyprians great Master Should an Angel from Heaven speak unto us we are to change nothing in our belief We have betaken us to the side of truth we have a law which the Word declared unto us which ten millions of Martyrs have signed with their bloud which the best part of mankind professeth the wisest heads of the world have illustrated by the light of their writings To whom would we abandon it To a caytive spirit which hath nothing great in it but sin nothing specious but illusion nothing undoubted but the loss of salvation Effects of Libertinism and punishment of the Impious 5. THe neglect of God is the root of all wickedness nor can there be any thing entire in a soul despoiled of the fear of God Impiety causeth most pernicious effects in States First for that it maketh havock of all good manners leaving not one spark of virtue Secondly in that it draweth on the inevitable vengeance of God upon Kingdoms and Common-wealths which suffer this monster to strengthen it self to their prejudice Philo in the Book he made that no salary of an unchast The table of Philo of the manners of Libertines woman should be received in the Sanctuary very wisely concluded when he shewed that he who is a Libertine and voluptuous having no other aim in the world but the contentments of nature is unavoidably engaged to all manner of vice He becomes saith he bold deceitfull irregular unsociable troublesom chollerick opiniative disobedient malicious unjust ungratefull ignorant treacherous giddie inconstant scornfull dishonest cruel infamous arrogant insatiable wise in his own judgement lives for himself and is unwilling to please any but himself one while profuse presently covetous a calumniatour an impostour insensible rebellious guilfull pernicious froward unmannerly uncivil a great talker loud vaunter insolent disdainfull proud quarrelsom bitter seditious refractory effeminate and above all a great lover of himself Nay he goes further upon the like epithets very judiciously and sheweth us the seeds of all evils spring from this cursed liberty Now I leave you to judge if according to the saying Tunishments of God upon Libertinism of Machiavel himself the means quickly to ruin an estate be to fill it with evil manners who sees not that Libertinism drawing along with it all this great train of vices of corruptions tendeth directly unto the utter desolation of Empires But beside there have been observed in all Ages hydeous punishments from God caused by impiety over Cities Provinces Kingdoms and Common-wealths which have bred these disorders And that you may be the better satisfied upon this point I have at this time onely two considerations to present unto you drawn from two models In the first you shall see God 's justice exercised before the Incarnation upon the sins of infidelity and irreverence towards sacred things In the second you shall behold the rough chastisements of those who after the Incarnation lifted themselves up against the worlds Saviour When God was pleased to correct the infamous Balaam who was a Patriarch of atheists and wicked ones he commanded not an Angel to speak unto him because he was a Doctour much unsuitable to a carnal spirit but he raised a she-ass to instruct him in so much as he was become worse than a beast It is likewise loss of time to deal with Libertines by proofs derived from Schools or from the invention of sciences Men as bruitish as themselves must be made to speak to them who will put them in mind of the way they have held and the salary they have received of their impieties First I establish this Maxim for such either who are not yet hardened or are too yielding and consenting to evil company that there are not any sins which God hath so suddenly and more exemplary punished than such as were committed against Religion The Prophet Ezechiel a captive in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar discovered among tempests and flames that marvellous chariot which hath served for matter of question to all curious digladiation for the learned and admiration for all Ages I say the great S. Justine Martyr touched the sense very near when he said S. Iustin in Epist ad Orthodox q. 44. An observation upon the chariot of Ezechiel that in four figures whereof the one was of an ox the other of a man the third of an Eagle the fourth of a Lion God signified the divers chastisements he would exercise upon King Nebuchadnezzar in that from a reasonable man he should become bruitish eating grass as an ox and that his hair should grow as the shag of a
themselves up to Heaven Let the Arms and Feet shake off the numbness of sleep as S. Peter did his chains at the voice of the Angel This were a beginning as it were of sacrificing our selves to God They used to pluck the hair off the beast and cast it into the fire before they sacrificed it so should we take these little actions from our uprising as the beginning of our sacrifice The third SECTION Five good actions to begin the day THat Action should be as a preparative to another more long and serious devotion which you should perform in your Closet as you come out of bed If your attire be so curious that it would require much time to dress you it is a miserable slavery Stay not till that be done to give God your tribute but clothe your self indifferently so much as is necessary for decency and health Then on bended knees do five things Adoration Thanksgiving Oblation Contrition and Petition I will here shew you the way to frame these actions which you may read at times and I will adde examples and forms taken partly out of Scripture such as are fit to be repeated daily The fourth SECTION Of Adoration The first Act of Devotion YOu are to observe that Praise is one thing Honour another Reverence another Adoration another Praise consists properly in words Honour in outward signs Reverence in inward respect but Adoration considered at large comprehends all these acts with much eminence For Adoration is an act of Religion whereby we do homage to the sovereignty of God with a lowly submission which is not communicable to any creature This act is formed and composed of four things which are as it were its four Elements The first is a strong apprehension of the greatness and excellency of God The second a consideration of our own meanness in comparison of that great Majesty The third a fervent act of the will which at the thought hereof melts it self into respect And the fourth an outward expression both of the mouth and gestures of the body testifying the resentment of our heart To discharge her self in this act of Adoration the soul first conceives God great dreadfull majestick she conceives him as a sea infinite in essence goodness beatitude comprehending within himself all Being all Good all Truth and not onely comprehending but anticipating it to all eternity with an incomparable eminence She beholds the whole universe in the immensity of God like a spunge in the midst of the Ocean an atome in the air and a little diamond set in the highest Heaven She acknowledgeth God to be the Foundation of all things possible the Super-essential being of all things that are and that are not without whom nothing can subsist neither actually nor potentially and that he hath no hold which the understanding may take to have knowledge of him She represents God to her self as the beginning and end of all things the Creatour the Founder the Basis the Support the Place the Continuation the bound the Order the Tie the Concord the Consummation of all creatures who hath within himself all the good of Angels of men and universal Nature who hath all glory all dignities all riches all treasures all pleasures all comforts all delights all joys all Beatitudes as Lessius very well explains in his Treatise of Infinitie This soul unsatisfied walks leisurely into these fourteen depths of greatness which are in God that is Infinitie Immensitie Immutabilitie Eternitie Omnipotence Wisdom Perfection Holiness Bountie Dominion Providence Mercie Justice and the End to which all things tend She considers every perfection first absolutely then by comparison and application making return upon her self and comparing this Infinitie of God with her nothing this Immensitie with her smalness this Immutabilitie with her inconstancy this Eternitie with the shortness of this temporal life this Omnipotence with her weakness this Wisdom with her ignorance this Perfection with her defects this Holiness with her vice this Bountie with her ingratitude this Dominion with her povertie this Providence with her stupiditie this Mercie with her obdurateness this Justice with her iniquity this End to which all things tend with the necessarie dependances which arise from her infirmities Here she is ravished in God as a little pismire in the Sun and like Aristotle who as it is said being not able to comprehend the ebbe and flow of an arm of the Sea threw himself into it so she drowneth her self in such a multitude of wonders not willing any longer to measure her love by the ell of her knowledge She is transported in this great labyrinth of miracles otherwise than the Queen of Sheba at sight of the Palace of Solomon and cannot at the last but break forth into an outward act and say My God and my All the God of my heart my portion and my inheritance to all Eternitie The fifth SECTION Example of Adoration IN pursuit hereof you shall worship God prostrate on the earth sounding like a small string of that great Harp the world offering to the Creatour the whole Universe as a picture to hang up at his Altar and resigning your self totally to his will The Hymn of the three children in the fiery furnace suiteth very well with this Act who call all creatures as by a catalogue to praise God or else take that form which the Angels and Saints use in adoring this Sovereign Majestie Holy holy holy Lord God Almightie which was and is and is to come Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Thou hast made Heaven and earth with all the ornaments thereof Thou hast compassed the sea with bounds by thy Almightie word Thou hast shut up the deep and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious Name Thou makest the pillars of Heaven to tremble under thy feet Thou strikest terrour into all creatures by the insupportable brightness of thy Majesty Thou art in the Temple of thy holy glory Thou beholdest the depths and sittest upon the Cherubims I adore thee my God from the center of my nothing with all the creatures of the Universe making an entire resignation of all that I am into thy hands and desiring now and to all eternity to depend on thy blessed will The sixth SECTION Of Thanksgiving The second Act of Devotion THis is an Act very necessary considering the benefits that we receive continually from the hand of God We should not be like the clouds which obscure the Sun that raised them but let us rather imitate the Looking-glass which returns the image so soon as the face is presented to it We must not let slip any benefit proceeding from this sovereign hand without representing to our selves the lively image of it in our acknowledgement And if the Ancient Hebrews as Josephus relates set marks and tokens sometimes on their arms sometimes at their gates to publish to all the
alms and bounty which are the steps which God left imprinted in this world If you must rise to honours and dignities take them as instruments of holiness and be not powerfull but to be more obliged to do good by so being Aspirations O God which didst conceal thy self how comes it about that I desire so much to be seen and make my self known to the world What can I discover if I shew that which I am but onely sin vanity misery and inconstancy which make the four elements of my life To what serves this itch of seeing but onely to receive into our eyes the seeds of curiosity Why do we covet to be so much seen but to expose our selves to vanity and to carry a Torch in a blast of wind Alas O Mercifull Lord I have very long lived for my self and for the eyes of the world when shall I begin to live for thee Shall I never see those happy moments of my life which will receive light onely from the day of thy face Let me O most beloved of my heart be blind to all the world so that I may have eyes for thee If the condition of my estate must needs shew me to the world let it be to give it part of thy light without receiving any part of that darkness which covereth it Let me be in the world to do good but let me dwell in thee as within the Fountain of all goodness The Gospel upon Wednesday the fifth week in Lent S. John 10. The Jews said If thou be the Messias tell us plainly ANd the Dedication was in Jerusalem and it was in winter And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomons Porch The Jews therefore compassed him round about and said to him How long dost thou hold our soul in suspence If thou be Christ tell us openly Jesus answered them I speak to you and you believe not The works that I do in the Name of my Father they give testimony of me But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them life everlasting and they shall not perish for ever and no man shall pluck them out of my hand My Father that which he hath given me is greater than all and no man can pluck them out of the hand of my Father I and the Father are one The Jews took up stones to stone him Jesus answered them Many good works I have shewed you from my Father for which of these works do you stone me The Jews answered him for a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemie and because thou being a man makest thy self God Jesus answered them Is it not written in your Law that I said You are Gods If he called them Gods to whom the word of God was made and the Scripture cannot be broken whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world say you That thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God If I do not the works of my Father believe me not But if I do and if you will not believe me believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in the Father Moralities 1. THe Wolfs encompass the good shepheard counterfeiting Lambs to draw truth out of his mouth which they would persecute They resembled a certain plant which carrieth the name and shape of a Lamb but hath a contrary substance and different qualities for it is ravenous as a wolf and devours all the herbs which grow about it So are there many who do insinuate themselves into the friendship of good men by fair but counterfeit respects to the end that afterward they may be made the object of their cruelty Those men look after the Messias in the Porch of Solomon as Herod sought after him in the Manger not to adore but to kill him Their mouth carries honey when their heart hatcheth poison but nothing is unknown to God from whom hell it self hath not darkness enough to hide it self 2. Jesus knows his flock and his flock reciprocally knows him and in that consists all our happiness to know God and to be known of him The chiefest of all wisdom is to know him and to be known by him and to be written in the Book of life which is the last and chiefest of all felicities It is true that he knows all things by the knowledge of a clear intelligence which serves the wicked onely to discover plainly their crimes whereas he knows the just by a science of favour and approbation which indeed is eternal predestination If we be unknown to God we must make our selves known to him by some good virtue which doth not depend onely upon us The first beam is of prevenient grace and our vocation to Christianity which is part of our predestination and is not all within our power We have not been elected because we have believed in God by our own forces but we believe because we have been elected The first knowledge comes purely from God but it is in us by his grace to pursue this first light and to advance our predestination to glory by forcing our selves to know him perfectly who hath known us so liberally 3. Jesus will not be known singly by his words but by his works Our words must agree with our good actions as the needle of a clock agrees with the springs When we have heard or read some good doctrine that Sermon or reading must pass into our manners It is surely a strange thing that many employ their leisure to know much and yet will not spend some considerable time to make themselves good Christians We must be Philosophers more by imitating the example of God than by any curious enquiry of his greatness Our Christianity teacheth us that we should be more knowing and skilfull in the practise of our life than of our tongue and that we are rather made to perform great actions than to speak them We must have a special care that our hands do not give our mouth the lie What can we gain in the judgement of God by being like those trees which have a fair outside garnished with leaves yet good for nothing but to give a shadow and to make a little noise when the wind blows God requires of us fruit since he is the Father of all fertility and nothing is barren in the land of the living Aspirations O My God I know thee because thou was first pleased to know me Thou hast known me by thy goodness and I will do my best to know thee that I may obtain all happiness O that I might know that my name is written in the Book of life and also know the life which I may possess within the heart of Jesus in which so many lives do live O how should I then find my spirit ravished in those beautifull Idaeas of glory Fix thine eyes on me O Lord and thou shalt
of Riot 461 Rispeliones 265 Rodomonts 93 A condemnation of Rodomonts and Duels 224 Roman Empire full of strange disorders 154 S SAcriledge of fair souls 13 To Sacrifice the Calf without flower 78 Sanctity the character of Nobility 5 Sanctity an irrefragable argument of Faith 29 Sadness the snare of Satan 83 Immortification one cause of Sadness 84 Sadness a plant of our own growing ibid. Prayer the best remedy against Sadness ibid. Unworthiness of Sadness 85 Two great Obstacles of Salvation 43 To handle the affairs of Salvation is a matter of no small importance 31 Sameas his grave and free Speech concerning Herod 116 Same 's a Martyr of poverty 89 Scoffing the harbinger of Atheism 46 Danger of Scoffing 47 368 Self-love hard to be repressed 400 Semblances the children of opinion and lying 37 Sesostris his Chariot applied to the rich 9 Simplicity defined 468 Simplicity the chief virtue of Saints 41 What it is to be Simple ibid. Simplicianus a holy man 96 Sins committed for want of witnesses 6 Sin of the flesh a mark of Reprobation and injurious to the incarnation of the Son of God 50 Sincerity preserved in the light of Nature 396 Slander the wound of Frogs 46 Greatness of the Soul 64 Souls of men different in qualities 4 Excellencies of the Soul remarkable 11 The Soul clothed with royal purple 12 What the Soul is and wherefore it is a Spirit ibid. The care that is to be had of the Soul 423 Piety the first virtue and the Soul of Military virtue 220 The belief of the immortality of the Soul invincible 420 The operations of the Soul are admirable 421 Sentence of God upon the immortality of the Soul ibid. Piety and Valour of a French Souldier 222 Notable Devotion of a Souldier 223 Military virtues of a French Souldier 226 A great indignity of the abuse of the Spirit 12 Apparition of the Soul of Samuel 423 Spurina 3 Stratonica her ridiculous pride 93 Supereminency of person ibid. Suemâ—s persecuted 342 His admirable constancy ibid. Three Suns shine at one time 370 Symmachus magnifieth the Vestals 182 Shamefull Law of the Sybarites 87 Synagogue of the Jews burned 213 T TEmperance the first tribute of Sanctity 86 Emptations remora's of the Soul 79 Temptation is a Christians trade ibid. What is the cause that many yield in Temptation ibid. It is not good to tempt Temptations 80 The sweetness of victory over Temptation ibid. Tertullian his parable of the Ass to the Hereticks of his time 33 An excellent conceit of Tertullian 19 Tertullian his saying is repugned 267 Thaumastus made the second man in the Kingdom for having given a glass of water 91 Theodosius his birth and extraction foretold 137 His Baptism 139 His Education 140 Sanctity of his Court. 143 The Discourse between him and a Hermite 144 Theodosius destroyeth Marna 139 He maketh the Court holy 212 His remarkable Piety 261 His death 148 Theodosia her revenge 368 Theodorick's practice which he gave to Cassiodorus 274 Theodorick slew Odoacer at a Banquet 281 Strange act of Theodorick 90 A crafty and witty conceit of Theodora 397 Theophilus a bloudy Emperour 402 The admirable Justice of Theodorick 285 Time not onely precious but onely necessary 43 Time compared to a River 44 Time irrevocable ibid. The Tongue compared to the Almond-Tree 45 The Tongue a feathered Bell. ibid. The Tongue the incensory of the Divinity 47 Trajan his notable Act. 90 Travel of worldlings 79 Triumph of Asmodeus with a description of his Chariot wheels horses coach-man and Court 49 The power of Truth 395 As bad contesting against Truth as against the master of the Bowe ibid. Tutours are Fathers over the Spirits 373 V VAlentinian father to Gratian his death 200 Erity a Sea 45 Virgins give an Altar of Gold to the Church of S. Sophia 140 Ungratefull men punished 23 Diversity of Unions 437 Union of glory what it is ibid. Unworthiness of being ashamed of well-doing 82 W WAnt a great misery 15 Excellent discipline in War 226 The name of Sun given to Warriours 172 Tragical events of the Wicked 257 Equity of the Senate of Rome to support Widows 340 William of Paris his notable Doctrine 360 Weakness of humane Wisdom 362 Good Wives of bad husbands 388 Wisdom requisite in Prelates 169 All Wisdom reduced to one Word 88 Over-much Wit troubleth 37 Modesty of Great Wits 450 Women stout to do good 39 Women without Devotion as a Bee without a sting 302 Therare qualities which are given to them in Scripture ibid. Houshold affairs recommended to Women 305 Words are the Chariot of the Soul 70 Word of God altered in Chairs by the extravagant opinions of hearers 385 The World a Clock and how 18 Worldlings condition 24 The World an Island of Dreams 16 The vanity of the World and misery thereof 119 The vanity and inconstancy of the World 146 Practise of Worldly men 389 Baseness of the World 414 Tertullian his Conceit concerning the World ibid. Three Ties of the World 417 Discordant acts of the World 442 The World is full of Craft 397 A Wonderfull Spectacle of the affairs of the World 238 Z ZEal of a Ladie towards God 90 Eal ought to be had towards Religion 341 The End of the Table of the first Three TOMES THE HOLY COURT THE COMMAND OF REASON OVER THE PASSIONS VVritten in French by F. N. CAUSSIN AND Translated into English by Sir T. H. WITH HISTORICALL OBSERVATIONS UPON IT Printed M.DC.L TO THE EXCELLENT PRINCESSE THE DUTCHESSE OF BUCKINGHAM Excellent Princesse THis Translation of the Holy Court as it had it's first life breathed into it by the animating spirit of her sacred Majesties Royall acceptance so in this last and concluding piece it infinitely desires such your favourable enterteinment Nor verily can I where so bright and resplendent a Star from a Sphear of Greatnesse hath already lighted up a flame to direct others in their approbation but with much confidence hope the like propitious rayes may benignly reflect from your so near a confining Influence Here shall your Grace behold the powerfull predominance of Reason over passions not taught in Epictetus or Senecas Prophane School but dictated from the Truth-teaching sacred Oracles of Christian Piety Here the soul is informed and judgement rectified to hate vice and flie it to love virtue and practise it not in exteriour garbs and petty slight formalities which onely serve to amuse vulgar spirits but by the interiour Habits and serious embracement of the most solid virtues The pretious memory Excellent Princesse of your thrice-noble Father whose living Image and second-self you representatively are together with your known love of pious Books and daily practise in your life of the wholesome precepts couched in This hath encouraged my present addresse to serve for the enterteinment of your vacant hours which thus silently spent and maturely digested will have the force and efficacy of the most serious employment and may Exemplarily invite other eminent Spirits to
torments no whit shaken blessing God for all these things and incessantly praying and forming some stuttering inarticulate sounds to instruct and exhort those who visited him A while after he is called again before this Tyrant who made a sport of his pains and sought to make him end his life by despair to kill the soul with the body But when he perceived his heart was of so strong a temper and that the dreadfull horrour of a poor body carried up and down among so many tortures made nothing for his reputation he gave order to Chrodobert to put him to death and instantly he was delivered to four executioners who led him forth into a forrest which retaineth the name of S. Leger The blessed blind man perceiving his hour approached said to them I see what you go about to do Trouble not your selves I am more ready to die then you to execute me Thereupon three of the murderers relenting prostrated themselves at his feet and craved pardon which he very freely granted and putting himself upon his knees prayed for his persecutours recommending his soul to the Father of souls at which time one of these four executioners persisting in his obduratenesse cut off his head The wife of Chrodobert took the body and interred it in a little Chappel where it did great miracles which have deserved the veneration of people Some time after the detestable Ebroin continuing the wickednesse of his bloudy life was slain in his bed like another Holophernes and suddenly taken out of the world not shewing any sign of repentance to be reserved for an eternall torment Behold all which Envy Jealousie and the Rage of a man abandoned by God can do which letteth us manifestly see that there are not any men in the world worse then those who degenerating from a religious profession return to the vices of the world And on the other side we may behold in the person of S. Leger that there is not any Passion which may not be overcome nor honour which may not be trodden underfoot nor torments which a man is not able to set at naught when he with strong confidence throws himself between the arms of the Crosse there to find those of Jesus Christ LAUS DEO FINIS THE HOLY COURT VVritten in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Fifth Tome Containing the Lives and Elogies of Persons of the COURT most Illustrious both of the Old and New Testament c. divided into five ORDERS Monarchs and Princes Queens and Ladies Souldiers States-men Religious men Printed M.DC.L To the READER HAving employed my first Volumn in pious and profitable discourses I have purposed to set forth in this fifth Tome a sufficient large Court to serve for example Which I have done by uniting to the Histories which I have already published these which I have here added a new which are almost all taken out of the holy Scriptures and handled in a style more solid and contract then specious and enlarged If this Work hath somewhat delayed its coming forth into the light it hath been businesses other wayes coming upon me that hath staid it We have had adversaries to deal with very well known that have by their Requests and by their Libels exceedingly troubled themselves to molest us I have answered them in two Books after a long silence for that the necessity did seem so to require and Authority therein did expresly command my obedience I have done it with the greatest modesty and sincerity that I was able and I may with confidence say that it hath been to the satisfaction of people of quality and desert Since as I understand they have continued their Replies where they largely witnesse their sharpnesse against me But what offence have I committed if in a Cause so good and by order from my Superiours I have undertaken the Defence in generall of a Society in which I have lived near these fourty years and have never learned any thing therein but Wisdome and Virtue They have so little matter that they are compelled to use old News-books against me which have spoken nothing but what hath been interpreted to my honour I have served God the King the Queen and all France without ever offending any person they might be ashamed to reproach me with that which hath been so much for my credit and to imitate those people that threw their Gods at the heads of their enemies for want of arrows God keep me from losing so much time as to reade their Writings or any desire to answer them I should seem to have lost my understanding if I should busie my self in fighting against Shadows and Lies put into Rhetorick so fully refuted by our Justifications and so manifestly condemned by the judgement of the Queen Regent and the rest of the. Powers that have acknowledged and maintained the Innocency of this Society against all Accusations These Books of evil Language are intolerable to all honest people and even odious to those that are rationâ—ll of their own party in so much that I pity their Authours to whom the pains of so great a Volumn with so little successe hath already served for a large punishment Instead of Replies to all those slanders I do sincerely offer up Prayers to God for our Persecutours that he may please to kindle in their hearts his holy Love which may purge out this gall of bitternesse this carnall wisdome and cause them to bring forth the fruits of Truth Justice and Charity The which I have endeavoured to do in this Work wherein I conceive that I have acquitted my self of the promises that I made to the Publick by treating on the true Histories of great Personages and especially those whom the holy Scripture hath honoured by its style for the edification of all the world It is in these illustrious Representations that the mind contents it self it is here that it contemplates the Virtues of famous Persons like the beams of the first Magnitude it is here that it quickens it self to the imitation of their glorious deeds and that it fore-stalls the delights of its own immortality It is here that it learns to endure adversities without departing from the duties of its Calling and firmly to keep its Constancy like the shadow in the Quadrants that remains immoveable under the blasts of the most furious winds not forsaking the measures of the Sunne Receive therefore courteous Reader the fruits of this my labour sprung up in the midst of a tempest that is may find calmnesse in thy favourable acceptance THE MONARCHS THe wisest of Monarchs speaking in the holy Scripture unto the Princes of his age and proceeding at large to give a full warning to all those that should bear part in their honour and imitate their lives delivereth these words by way of Oracle Hearken O Kings not onely The words of the wiseman directed to the Kings of his time Sap. 6. with an ear of flesh but attend with that of the understanding and
his ambition did here bound it self and promised to speak to the King thereof very willingly which she did going expresly to visit him Solomon went forth to meet her made her very great reverence received her with most courteous entertainment and having ascended his Throne he caused another to be set at his right hand for his mother which said to him That she came to make a very little request unto him upon which it would be a displeasure to her to receive any deniall The son assured her and said That she might boldly demand and that he was no wayes intended to give her any discontent As soon as she had opened the businesse and named Abishag's name Solomon entred Solomons rigour into great anger and said she might have added thereto the Kingdome seeing that he was his eldest brother and that he had Joab and Abiathar on his side and without giving any other answer he swore that he would make Adonijah die before it was night whereupon presently he gave order to Benaiah who supplied the office of Captain of the Guard which failed not to slay this young Prince Those that think that Solomon might do this in conscience He cannot well be justified for the murder of his brother and that one may conjecture that God had revealed it unto him take very small reasons to excuse great crimes and see not that whosoever would have recourse to imaginary Revelations might justifie all the most wicked actions of Princes There is not one word alone in the Scripture that witnesses that after the establishment of Solomon this poor Prince did make the least trouble in the State he acknowledged Solomon for King he lived peaceable he was contented with the order that God permitted for the comfort of the losse of a Kingdome which according to the Law of Nations did belong to him he desired but a maid servant in marriage and he is put to death for it Who could excuse this I am of opinion of the The just punishment of God upon Solomon Dr Cajetan who saith that this command was not onely severe but unjust and I believe that hence came the misfortune of Solomon for that having shewed himself so little courteous towards his mother and so cruel towards his brother for the love of a woman God to punish him hath suffered that he should be lost by all that which he loved most After this murder he sent for Abiathar the chief Priest and gave Abiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignity by a very violent action him to understand that he was worthy to die but forasmuch as he had carried the Ark of the living God and had done infinite services for the King his father even from his youth he gave him his life upon such condition that he should be deprived of the dignity of the high Priest and should retire himself to his house The Scripture saith that this was to fulfill the word of the Lord which had been pronounced against the house of Eli but yet it follows not for all that that this depriving was very just on Solomon's side being done without mature consideration And although God ordains sometimes temporall afflictions upon children for the punishment of the fathers yet one cannot neverthelesse inferre from this that those which torment and persecute them without any other reason then their own satisfaction should not any wayes be faulty for otherwise one might avouch that the death of our Lord having come to passe by the ordinance of God Pilate and Caiaphas that did co-operate unto this order without any knowledge thereof should be without offence As for those that think that the Levites were accusers in those proceedings it is a conjecture of their own invention and if indeed it were so one might yet further reason by what Law could the Levites bring accusation against their chief Priest This jealousie of Government is a marvellous beast and those that would excuse it find for the most part that there is no stronger reasons then swords and prisons and banishments In the mean time the news comes to Joab that he was in great danger for having followed the party of Adonijah and as he saw himself on the sudden forsaken and faln from the great credit that he had in the Militia he had recourse to the Tabernacle which was the common refuge and taking hold of the Altar he asked mercy and his life Banaiah the executour of the murder goes to him by Solomons order and commands him to come forth for which he excuses himself protesting that he would rather die then forsake his refuge which was related to King Solomon who without regard to the holy place caused him to be massacred The death of Joab at the foot of the Altar to mingle his bloud with that of the sacrifices Behold what he got from the Court after fourty years services and one may affirm that if it had been sometimes a good mother to him now it acted a cruel step-mother at the last period of his life There remained no more but Shimei to make up the last Act of the Tragedy and although David had given commandment for his death Solomon seemed yet to make some scruple upon the promise of impunity that was made to him and this was the cause that he appointed him the city of Jerusalem for a prison with threatning that if he should go forth thence and onely go over the brook of Cedron he would put him to death The other that expected nothing but a bloudy death willingly received the condition and kept it three years until the time that on a day having received news of his servants that were fled to the Philistims it came into his mind to follow them without taking heed to that which was commanded him which caused that at his return he was murdered by the commandment of Solomon by the hand of Benaiah Behold the beginning of a reign tempestuous and one must not think to find Saints so easily at the Court especially in those which have liberty to do what they please many things slip from them which may better be justified by repentance then by any other apology That which follows in this history of Solomon is all peaceable and pleasing even unto his fall which may give cause of affrightment The third year of his reign he had an admirable Dream after the manner of those that are called Oracles A wonderfull Dream of Solomon It seemed to him that God appeared to him and spoke to him at the which he was in an extasie and seeing himself so near to him that could do all he desired of him with incredible ardency the gift of Wisdome to govern his people the which pleased so much the Sovereign Majesty that not onely he gave him a very great understanding above all the men of the world but further also added thereto Riches and Glory in so high an eminence that none should equall him There