Third an immortal Death O Death how much less cruel art thou in taking away life than in forcing to live in so painful a manner Greg. Moral l. 9. c. 49. St. Gregory also sayes In hell there shall be unto the miserable a death without death and an end without end for their death shall ever live and their end shall ever begin Mortal sin is the greatest of all evils and consequently deserves the greatest of all punishments Because in ordinary death which takes away the use of the senses the rigour of it is not felt God ordained another kind of death in which the senses perpetually dying should perpetually feel the force of pain and should ever live in the agony of dying This David signitied when he said That death should feed on the damned for as the Flock pastures upon the grass but ends it not because it still grows green and fresh again so that death feeds upon sinners but consumes them not This death of the damned the holy Scripture calls the second death Because it succeeds the first and comprehends both that of soul and bodie And with much reason may it also be called a double death because death is then doubled when we die and feel the torment of dying which in the first death of the body we do not Even here amongst us if there should be a condition in which we might be sensible but of some part of that which death brings along with it it would be esteemed a greater evil than death it self Who doubts but if one after burial should find himself alive and sensible under the earth where he could speak with no body see nothing but darkness hear nothing but those who walked above him smell nothing but the rotten stink of their bodies cat nothing but his own flesh nor feel any thing but the earth which opprest him or the cold pavement of the Vault where he lay Who doubts not I say but that this estate were worse than to be wholly dead since life onely served to feel the pain of death For this reason the ingenious Romans when they would punish Sacriledge which is the greatest crime made use of interring the offenders alive as of the greatest punishment and therefore executed it upon their Vestal Virgins when they offended a gainst their chastity as upon Oppia and Minutia that being alive they might feel the pain and bitterness of dying And certainly Zeno the Emperour found this punishment so bitter that he devoured his own flesh by morsels What Sepulcher is more horrible than that of Hell what is eternally shut upon those who are in it whore the miserable damned remain not onely under earth but under fire having sense for nothing but to feel death darkness loathsomness pain and stink This is therefore a double death because to feel the pain of death is an evil double to that of dying Lib. 6. de Civit. ca. 12. Wherefore St. Austin said No death is greater or worse than where death dies not Besides this death of Hell may be called a double death in respect it contains both the death of sin ang the death of pain those unfortunate wretches standind condemned never to be freed from the death of sin and for ever to be tormented with the death of pain There is no greater death than that of the Soul which is sin in which the miserable are to continue whilest God is God with that infinite evil and that ugly deformity which sin draws along with it which is worse than to suffer that eternal fire which is but the punishment of it After sin what pain should there be greater than that of sin it self and for this reason in Hell in regard 't is the torment for sin it is a greater pain than death it self or the most horrible death of all Who trembles not with the onely memory that he is to die remembring that he is to cease to be that the feet whereon he walks are no more to bear him that his hands are no more to serve him nor his eyes to see Why then do we not rather tremble at the thought of Hell in respect of which the first death is no punishment but a reward a happiness and a joy there being no damned in Hell but would take that death which we here inflict for offences as an ease of his pains O how much does the Divine Justice exceed the humane since that which men give unto those whom they condemn for the greatest offences would be received by those whom God condemns as a great ease comfort and accomplishment of their desires who shall desire death and death shall flye from them for unto all their evils and miseries this as the greatest is adjoyned that neither They nor It shall shall ever die This circumstance of being eternal doth much augment the torments of Hell such being the condition of eternity as hath been already declared that it doth infinitely augment that whereunto it is annexed Let us suppose that one had but a Gnat that should sting his right hand and a Wasp at the left and that one foot should be pricked with a Thorn and the other with a Pin. If this onely were to last for ever it would be an intolerable torment What will it then be when hands feet arms head bread and entrails are to burn for all eternity The onely holding one finger in a Candle for the space of a quarter of an hour no body would be able to suffer it To be then plunged into the infernal flames for years eternal what understanding is there that is able I do not say to express in words but to frame a due conception of this torment That a torment is never to cease and that the tormented is to live for ever the onely thinking of it causes great horror What would it be to suffer it Sur. To. 7. die 14. April A certain man who had not much repentance or feeling it seems of his sins having expressed divers most heinous offences to the holy Virgin St. Lidwine the Saint replyed That she would do penance for them contenting her self that he should onely lye in his Bed one night in the same posture looking up towards Heaven without moving or turning himself all night The man very contented and joyful If my penance says he be no greater than this I shall soon have performed it But he was scarce laid down in his Bed when he had a mind to turn on one side it being a great trouble to him not to do it perswading himself that he never lay so uneasie his whole life before and said unto himself My Bed is a very good one and soft I am well in health what is wanting to me nothing else is wanting but onely to turn me from one side to the other But this what is it be quiet and sleep as thou art till morning Canst thou not then tell me what doth aile thee By this means he call'd
all goods and blessings without missing of any one and all of them at once it not being necessary for the enjoying of them to have them one after another but altogether The goods and blessings of this life have not this condition for although one were Master of them all yet he could not enjoy them all at once but successively some passing away and others succeeding in their place The Emperour Heliogabalus who most desired and most endeavoured to enjoy them for all the diligence and haste he used was hardly possest of three or four at once for whilst he was in his Banquets he could not attend his Masques and Dances whilst he was in these he enjoyed not the pleasures of the Shews and Spectacles of the Amphitheater whilst he was present at them he could not apply himself to Hunting and Sports of the field and whilst so imployed he could not satiate himself in Lust and Sensuality Finally to enjoy one he must of necessity quit the other insomuch as he could neither enjoy all pleasures those wanting which were enjoyed by others and of those which he might enjoy himself but few at a time But unto the just in Heaven no blessings or contents are missing no succession needful for their enjoying the blessed possessing them all and all together The possession of this happiness is also perfect in respect of the security it hath nothing being of force to disquiet it none to go to Law about it none to steal it none to disturb it and is likewise perfect because compleat not like the goods of the earth which cannot be enjoyed entirely for either the distance of place the imperfection of the sensible Organ the mixture of some grief or care or at least the multitude of Objects and their own opposition distract the perfect fruition of them But eternal happiness is by the blessed in its full extension perfectly possest the joy of it entirely relisht and the essence and sweetness of it wholly penetrated and imbibed into the essence of the Soul the which no mixture of pain no surprize of grief no incapacity of the subject no distance of position no greatness of the object can hinder for grief and care have there no place the subject is elevated above its nature the object accommodated and the eternal pleasure and delight of it not proportioned by space and distance â—â—n 1. â—â—b 7. 〈◊〉 1. Wherefore Plotinus likewise said that Eternity was A Life full and all at once because in it all that hath life shall be full and compleat the senses with the whole capacity of the soul shall be replenished with all happiness and delight there being no part oâ— life in man which shall not be full of sweetness joy and content The life of the hearing shall be full with the consort of most harmonious musick the life of the smell shall be full with the fragrancies of most sweet odours the life of the eyes shall be full feeding themselves with all beauty the life of the understanding shall be full with the knowledge of the Creator and the life of the will shall be full in loving rejoycing and delighting it self in him Temporal life is not capable of this fulness and satisfaction even in small matters the attention of one sense hinders that of another and the attention of the body that of the spirit This life cannot be here enjoyed but by parts and that also not compleatly but in that eternal felicity the life shall be full the possession total and the joy perfect where all is to live which here can die where neither the incompossibility of the objects nor the impediment of the senses nor the incapacity of the soul shall hinder us from enjoying all blessings together with all our senses and all our powers joyntly Over and above all this possession which is so total so perfect and so full is for life without death a space without limit a day eternal which is equivalent to all dayes and includes all years imbraces all ages and excels all times because in it nothing passes nor any good of it ever shall pass To the contrary it is with those wretched sinners whose eternal miseries have the same condition of bad which the eternity of the blessed hath of good unto whom their evill shall not be extrinsecal but in full possession of them and they shall remain in their torments with all their soul body powers and senses That is called possession which is acquired by a corporal and real presence These then unfortunate sinners are to continue in their torments with all what they have of being not as in a thing lent or distant from them but as in a thing so proper as it can by no possibility be parted or separated from them nothing being more proper and due then punishment is to sinners Wherefore all evils shall take possession of all what they are their senses their members the joynts of their bodies the powers of their soul their most spiritual faculties shall be possessed by fire bitterness grief rage despite miserie and malediction This possession of those unfortunate creatures shall be total because of all evils for no evil can be wanting where there is a concourse and meeting of all torments and unhappiness In the taste there shall not want bitterness in the appetite hunger in the tongue thirst in the sight horrour in the hearing astonishment in the smell stink in the heart pain in the imagination fear in every member grief and in the very bowels fire All evils are therefore to possess the damned and all totally their torments being so many that if they were to suffer them one after another many years would not suffice to finish them And this only were sufficient to make their condition most terrible But above all their unhappiness this is the greatest that they are to suffer them all at once The pain in one part of the body is not to hope it should cease in another the grief of the spirit is not to expect that the fire which burns the flesh should have an end all evils are to set upon them at once and all at one clap are to fall upon the heads of the damned The continuance of one little drop hollows a Stone and to ruine the world it was enough for God to rain for forty dayes What shall then be when his divine justice shall rain fire sulphur and tempest upon the heads of the damned not for forty dayes but whilst God is God Besides all this they shall not only be possest by all the the evils and all joyntly at once but by all of them fully in their whole force and vigour The sense of them shall not grow less by their multitude nor dull by their greatness but shall remain as quick and lively to them all and shall be as sensible of the rigour of each one of them as if they suffered but one onely for the fire shall not onely penetrate their
the place whither he is to goe How comest thou then to forget death whither thou travellest with speed and canst not though thou desirest rest one small minute by the way For time although against thy will will draw thee along with it The way of this life is not voluntary like that of Travellers but necessary like that of condemned persons from the prison unto the place of execution To death thou standest condemned whither thou art now going how canst thou laugh A Malefactor after sentence past is so surprised with the apprehension of death that he thinks of nothing but dying We are all condemned to die how come we then to rejoyce in those things which we are to leave so sodainly Who being led to the Gallows could please himself in some little flower that was given him by the way or play with the Halter which was shortly to strangle him Since then all of us even from the instant we issue out of our Mothers wombs walk condemned unto death and know not whether we shall from thence pass into hell at least we may how come we to please our selves with the flower or to say better with the hay of some short gust of our appetites since according to the Prophet all the glory of the flesh is no more than a little hay which quickly withers How come we to delight in riches which oftentimes hasten our deaths Why consider we not this when we are certain that all that we do in this life is vanity except our preparation for death In death when as there is no time nor remedy left us we shall too late perceive this truth when as all the goods of this life shall leave us by necessity which we will not now leave with merit Death is a general privation of all goods temporal an universal Pillager of all things which even despoils the body of the soul For this it is compared unto a Theef who not onely robs us of our treasure and substance but bereaves us of our lives Since therefore thou art to leave all Why doest thou load thy self in vain What Merchant knowing that so soon as he arrived unto the Ports his Ship and Goods should both be sunk would charge his Vessel with much Merchandise Arriving at death thou and all thou hast are to sink and perish why doest thou then burthen thy self with that which is not needful but rather a hinderance to thy salvation How many forbearing to throw their Goods over-board in some great Tempest have therefore both themselves and Goods been swallowed by the raging Sea How many who out of a wicked love to these Temporal riches have lost themselves in the hour of death and will not then leave their wealth when their wealth leaves them but even at that time busie their thoughts more about it than their Salvation Whereupon St. Gregory sayes That is never lost without grief which is possest with love Humbert in tract de Septemp timore Vmbertus writes of a certain man of great wealth who falling desperately sick and Plate of gold and silver to be brought before him and in this manner spake unto his Soul My Soul all this I promise thee and thou shalt enjoy it all if thou wilt not now leave my Body and greater things I will bestow upon thee rich Possessions and sumptuous Houses upon condition thou wilt yet stay with me But finding his infirmity still to encrease and no hope left of life in a great rage and fury he fell into these desperate speeches But since thou wilt not do what I desire thee nor abide with me I recommend thee unto the Devil and immediately with these words miserably expired In this story may be seen the vanity of Temporal things and the hurt he receives by them who possesses them with too much affection What greater vanity then not to profit us in a passage of the greatest necessity and importance and what greater hurt then when they cannot avail our bodies to prejudice our souls That they put an impediment to our salvation when our affections are too much set upon them were a sufficient motive not onely to contemn them but also to detest them Robertus de Licio writes that whilest he advised a sick person to make his Confession and take care of his Soul his Servants and other Domesticks went up and down the house laying hold every one of what they could the sick man taking notice of it and attending more to what They stole from him than to what He spake to him about the salvation of his Soul made deep sighs and cried out saying Wo be to me Wo be to me who have taken so much pains to gather riches and now am compelled to leave them and they snatch them from me violently before my eyes O my Riches O my Moneys O my Jewels into whose possession are you to fall and in these cries he gave up the ghost making no more account of his Soul than if he had been a Turk Vincentius Veluacensis relates also of one Vincen. in spec moral who having lent four pounds of money upon condition that at four years end they should pay him twelve he being in state of death a Priest went to him and exhorted him to confess his sins but could get no other words from the sick person than these Such a one is to pay me twelve pounds for four and having said this died immediately Much what to this purpose is a Story related by St. Bernardin of a certain Confessarius who earnestly perswading a rich man at the time of his death to a confession could get no other words from him but How sells Wool What price bears it at present and as the Priest spake unto him Sir for Gods sake leave off this discourse and have a care of your Soul the Sick man still persevered to inform himself of such things he might hope to gain by asking him Father when will the Ships come are they yet arrived for his thoughts were so wholly taken up with matters of gain and this world that he could neither speak nor think of any thing but what tended to his profit But die Priest still urging him to look to his Soul and confess all he could get from him was I cannot and in this manner died without confession This is the Salary which the goods of the earth bestow on those who serve them that if they do not leave or ruine them before their death they are then certain at least to leave them and often hazard the salvation of those that dote upon them O foolish Sons of Adam this short life Is bestowed upon us for gaining the goods of heaven which are to last eternally and we spend it in seeking those of the earth which are to perish instantly Wherefore do we not employ this short time for the purchasing eternal glory since we are to possess no more hereafter than what we provide for here Wherefore do we not
consider this Wherefore busie we our selves about Temporal things and the affairs of this life which we are instantly to leave and enter into a Region of Eternity Less are a thousand years in respect of Eternity than a quarter of an hour in respect of threescore years Why are we then negligent in that short time we are to live in acquiring that which is to endure for a world of worlds Death is a moment placed betwixt this life and the next in which we are to traffick for eternity Let us not therefore be careless but let us remember how much it imports us to die well and to that end let us endeavour to live well §. 3. Besides all this although one should die the most happy death that can be imagined yet it suffices to behold the dead Body when the Soul hath left it how ugly and noisome the miserable Carcass remains that even friends flye from it and scarce dare stay one night alone with it The nearest and most obliged Kindred procure it in all haste to be carried forth a doors and having wrapt it in some course Sheet throw it into the Grave and within two dayes forget it and he who in life could not be contained in great and sumptuous Palaces is now content with the narrow lodging of seaven foot of earth he who used to rest in rich and dainty Beds hath for his Couch the hard ground and as Isaias saith for his Mattress moths and for his Covering Worms his Pillows at best the bones of other dead persons then heaping upon him a little earth and perhaps a Gravestone they leave his flesh to be feasted on by the worms whilest his heirs triumph in his riches He who gloried in the exercise of Armes and was used to revel at Balls and Festivals is now stiffe and could his hands and feet without motion and all his senses without life He who with his power and pride trampled upon all is now trod under foot by all Consider him eight dayes dead drawn forth of his Grave how gastly and horrible a spectacle he will appear and wherein differ from a dead Dog thrown upon a Dunghil Behold then what thou pamperst a Body which shall perhaps within four dayes be eaten by loathsome vermin Whereupon doest thou found thy vain pretensions which are but Castles in the air founded upon a little earth which turning into dust the whole Fabrick falls to ground See wherein all humane greatness concludes and that the end of man is no less loathsome and miserable than his beginning Let this Consideration serve thee as it hath done many Servants of Christ to despise all things of this life Alex. Faya to 2. Joh. Major verbo Mors. Ex. 21. Alexander Faya writes that having opened the Vault wherein lay interred the Body of a principal Count they who were present perceived upon the face of the dead person a Toad of an extraordinary greatness which accompanied with many other filthy and loathsome wormes and vermin was feeding upon his flesh which caused so great a horror and amazement that they all fled The which so soon as it came unto the knowledge of the Son of that Count who was then in the flower of his age he would needs goe and behold the spectacle and looking seriously upon it he broke into these speeches These are the friends which we breed and provide for with our delicacies for these we rest upon soft Beds and lodge in gilt Chambers adorned with Tapestries and make them grow and encrease with the vanity of our dainties Were it not better to prevent them by Fasts and Penances and Austerities in our life that they may not thus insult upon us after death With this conderation quitting his fair Possessions and flying privately away accompanied onely with a lively desire of being poor for Christ which he accounted for the greatest riches he came to Rome where chastising the body with much rigour and living in the holy fear of the Lord he at last became a Collier and by his labour sustained his poor life Finally coming one day unto the City to sell his coles he fell into a grievous sickness which having endured with marvelous patience he at last delivered his most happy Soul into the hands of his Redeemer and that very instant of his death all the Bells of the City rung themselves with which Miracle the Pope and the Roman Court being marvelously astonished his Confessor related unto them all that happened and informed them both of the condition and sanctity of the dead person and there being at the same time in Rome some Gentlemen and Souldiers belonging to the same Prince who came in search of their Master and finding him deceased carried home his holy Body with much joy and reverence unto his Country The Sight of the dead Body of the Empress Donna Isabella Wife unto the Emperour Charles the fift wrought no less effect in the heart of Blessed Francesc◠de Borgia then Marquess of Lombay who being appointed to wait upon the Coarse unto Granada where it was to be interred and being to deliver it bare-faced according to custome to the end it might appear to be the same Body he caused the sheet of Lead wherein it was wrapped to be opened which immediately cast forth so horrible a stench that those who were present not able to endure it were forced to retire and withal the face appeared so foul and deformed that not any of the attendants durst take their oath that that was the Empress's Body Who sees not here the vanity of the world what is of more respect and esteem than the Bodies of great Kings and Princes whilest they live and now dead the Guards and Gentlemen which are to wait upon them flye from them Who are accounted more happy than they who have the fortune to be near their persons They are spoken unto upon the knee as if they were Gods but being dead all forsake them and even Toads Worms and Dogs dare approach and eat them A good testimony of this was Queen Jezabell whose pamperd Body adored whilest she lived was being dead ignominiously torn in pieces by Dogs But to return to our Story The Marquess remaining alone behind the rest began to consider what the Empress once was and what he now beheld her Where was the beauty of that face but become worms and putrifaction where that Majesty and gravity of countenance which made all reverence her and those people happy who beheld her but now grown so hideous that her most obliged Servants leave and abandon her Where is now the Royal Scepter but resolved into filth and corruption This consideration so changed his heart that despising what was temporal and now wholly seeking what was eternal he determined never after to serve that Lord who was mortal The very memory of the loathsomness of a dead Body may serve to make us despise the beauty of that which is living as St. Peter Damian advises
us Petrus Damianus in Gomor c. 23. saying If the subtle Enemy shall set before thee the frail beauty of the flesh send thy thoughts presently unto she Sepulcher of the Dead and let them there see what they can finde agreeable to the touch or pleasing to the sight Consider that poison which now stinks intollerably that corruption which engenders and feeds worms That dust and dry ashes was once soft and lively flesh and in its youth was subject to the like passions as thou art Consider those rigid nerves those naked teeth the disjoynted disposition of the bones and articles and that horrible dissipation of the whole Body and by this means the Monster of this deformed and confused figure will pluck from thy heart all deceits and illusions This from St. Peter Damian All this is certainly to happen unto thy self Wherefore doest thou not amend thy evil conditions this is to be thy end unto this therefore direct thy life and actions From hence spring all the errors of men that they forget the end of their lives which they ought to have still before their eyes and by it to order themselves for the complyance with their obligations With reason had the Brachmans their Sepulchers placed still open before their doors that by the memory of death they might learn to live In this sense is that Axiome of Plato most true when he sayes That Wisdom is the Meditation of Death because this wholesome thought of Death undeceives us in the vanities of the world and gives us force and vigour to better our lives Johannes Brom. in Sum. verb. Poenit num 12. Some Authors write of a certain Confessarius who when all his perswasions could not prevail with his penitent to do penance for his sins contented himself with this promise that he would suffer one of his Servants every night when he went to bed to sound these words in his ear Think that thou art to dye who having often heard this admonition and and profoundly considered it with himself he at last returned unto his Confessor well disposed to admit of such penance as should be enjoyned him The same thing happened to another who having confessed to to the Pope very hainous crimes said that he could not fast nor wear hair-shirts nor admit of any other kinds of austerity His Holiness having commended the matter to God gave him a Ring with this Poesie Memento mâ—ri Remember thou art to dye charging him that as often as he looked upon the Ring he should read those words and call death to mind Few hours after the memory hereof caused such a change in his heart that he offered to fulfil what ever penance his Holiness should please to impose upon him For this reason it seems God commanded the Prophet Jeremias that he should goe into the house of the Potter and that he should there hear his words Well might the Lord have sent his Prophet into some place more decent to receive his sacred words then where so many men were daily imployed in dirt and clay but here was the particular mysterie whereby we are given to understand that the presence of Sepulchers wherein is preserved as in the house of a Potter the clay of humane nature it was a place most proper for God to speak unto us that the memory of death might more deeply imprint his words in our hearts For this very reason the Devil strives with all his power and cunning to obstruct in us the memory of death For what other cause can be assigned why the meer suspicion of some loss or notable damage should bereave us of our sleep and that the certainty of death which of things terrible is most terrible should never trouble us CAP. II. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life BEsides the misery wherein all the felicity of this world is to determine the end of our life hath other most remarkable conditions very worthy to be considered and by which we may perceive the goods of it to be most contemptible We will now principally speak of three First that death is most infallible certain and no way to be avoided The second that the time is most incertain because we know neitheâ— when nor how it will happen The third that it is buâ— only one and but once to be experienced so that wâ— cannot by a second death correct the errors of the firsâ— Concerning the certainty and infallibility of death it imports us much to perswade our selves of it for as it is infallible that the other life shall be without end so it is as certain that this shall have it And as the Damned are in despair to find an end in their torments so are we practically to despair that the pleasures and contents of this world are to endure for ever God hath not made a Law more inviolable than that of death For having often dispensed in other Laws and by his omnipotent power and pleasure violated as I may say divers times the rights of Nature he neither hath nor will dispense with the Law of death but hath rather dispensed with other Laws that this should stand in force and therefore hath not onely executed the sentence of death upon those who in rigour ought to dye but upon those unto whom it was no wise due In the conception of Christ our Saviour those establisht Lawes of Nature that men were not to be born but by propagation from men and breach of the Mothers integrity were dispensed with God that his Lawes should have no force in Christ working two most stupendious Miracles and infringing the Lawes of Nature that his Son might be born of a Virgin Mother was so far from exempting him from the Law of death that death not belonging to him as being Lord of the Law and wanting all sin even original by which was contracted death nay immortality and the four gifts of glory being due unto his most Holy Body as resulting from the clear vision of the Divine essence which his Soul ever enjoyed yet all this notwithstanding God would not comply with this right of Nature but rather miraculously suspended by his omnipotent Arm those gifts of glory from his Body that he might become subject unto death in so much as God observes this Law of Death with such rigour that doing Miracles that the Law of Nature should not be kept in other things he works Miracles that the Law of Death should be observed even by his own Son who deserved it not and unto whom it was in no sort due And now that the Son of God had taken upon him the redemption of Mankind for whom out of his most infinite charity it was convenient for him to dye the death of the Cross which reason failing in his most holy Mother unto whom death was not likewise due from Original sin she being priviledged according to the opinion of most Universities as well in that as many other things by her blessed Son yet would
Titus Etherius dyed in the act of lust Giachetto Saluciano and his Mistress dyed in the same venerial action and their bodies were both found conjoyned in death as their souls went joyntly to hell Upon small matters and unexpected accidents depends the success of that moment upon which depends Eternity Let every one open his eyes and assure not himself of that life which hath so many entrances for death let no man say I shall not dye to day for many have thought so and yet sodainly dyed that very hour By so inconsiderable things as we have spoken of many have dyed and thou mayest dye without any of them For a sodain death there is no need of a hair or fish bone to strangle thee nor affliction of melancholy to oppress or excess of sodain joy to surprize thee it may happen without all these exteriour causes A corrupt humour in the entrails which flyes unto the heart without any body perceiving it is sufficient to make an end of thee and it is to be admired that no more dye sodainly considering the disorders of our lives and frailties of our bodies we are not of iron or brass but of soft and delicate flesh A Clock though of hard Mettal in time wears our and hath every hour need of mending and the breaking of one wheel stops the motion of all the rest There is more artifice in a humane body than in a Clock and it is much more subtle and delicate The nerves are not of steel nor the veins of brass nor the entrails of iron How many have had their livers or spleen corcupted or displaced and have dyed sodainly no man sees what he hath within his body and such may his infirmity be that although he thinks and feels himself well yet he may dye within an hour Let us all tremble at what may happen CAP. IV. Why the end of Temporal Life is terrible DEath because it is the end of life is by Aristotle said to be the most terrible of all things terrible What would he have said if he had known it to be the beginning of Eternity and the gate through which we enter into that vast Abyss no man knowing upon what side he shall fall into that profound and bottomless depth If death be terrible for ending the business and affairs of life what is it for ushering in that instant wherein we are to give an accompt of life before that terrible and most just Judge who therefore dyed that we might use it well It is not the most terrible part of death to leave the life of this world but to give an accompt of it unto the Creatour of the world especially in such a time wherein he is to use no mercy This is a thing so terrible that it made holy Job to tremble notwithstanding he had so good an accompt to make who was so just that God himself gloried in having such a Servant The Holy Ghost testifies that he sinned not in all what he had spoken in his troubles and calamities which were sent him not as a punishment for his sins but as a trial of his patience proposing him unto us an example of vertue and constancy and he himself protests that his Conscience did not accuse him yet for all this was so fearful of the strict judgment which God passes in the end of the world that amazed at the severity of his Divine Justice he cries out in his discourse with the Lord Who will give me that thou protect and hide me in hell Dionys Rikel artic 16. de noviss whilest thy fury passes Whereupon Dionysius Rikellius affirms that that instant wherein the Judgement of God is to be given is not onely more terrible than death but more terrible than to suffer the pains of hell for some certain time and this not onely unto those who are to be damned but even unto those who are elected for heaven Since therefore Job being so just and holy quaked at the apprehensions of that Divine Judgement when it was yet far from him and when we use not to be so sensible as of things at hand without doubt when a Sinner shall in that instant perceive himself to have displeased his Redeemer and Creatour although but in small faults yet it will afflict him more than the suffering of most great pains for which St. Basil judged that it was less to suffer eternal torments Basil hom contra divites avaros than the confusion of that day and therefore pondering that reprehension given unto the rich man in the Gospel Fool this night thy Soul shall be taken from thee Whose then shall be the riches which thou hast gotten the Saint avers that this mock this taunt did exceed an eternal punishment Death is terrible for many weighty reasons and every one sufficient to cause in us a mortal fear whereof not the least is the sight of the offended Judge who is not onely Judge but Party and a most irrefragable Witness in whose visage shall then appear such a severity against the wicked that St. Austin sayes he had rather suffer all manner of torments than to behold the face of his angry Judge And St. Chrysostome saith Chrys homi 24. in Math. It were better to be struck with a thousand Thunderbolts than to behold that countenance so meek and full of sweetness estranged from us and those eyes of peace and mildness not enduring to behold us The only sight of an Image of Christ crucified Rad. in opusc in annuis Societ which appeared with wrathful and incensed eyes although in this life when the field of mercy is open was sufficient so to astonish three hundred persons who beheld it that they fell unto the ground senseless and without motion and so continued for the space of some hours How will it then amaze us when we shall behold not a dead Image but Jesus Christ himself alive not in the humility of the Cross but upon a Throne of Majesty and Seat of Justice not in a time of mercy but in the hour of vengeance not naked with pierced hands but armed against Sinners with the Sword of Justice when he shall come to judge and revenge the injuries which they have done him God is as righteous in his justice as in his mercy and as he hath allotted a time for mercy so he will for justice and as in this life the rigour of his justice is as it were repressed and suspended so in that point of death when the Sinner shall receive judgment it shall be let loose and overwhelm him A great and rapid river which should for 30 or 40 years together have its current violently stopt what a mass of waters would it collect in so long a space and if it should then be let loose with what fury would it overrun and bear down all before it and what resistance could withstand it Since then the Divine justice Dan. 7. which the Prophet Daniel compares
not Masters of time and the things which are in it but are as Stewards to account for it and them Being therefore to give a reason how we have employed them for the service of God Almighty let us not without reason abuse them for our own vain gust and pleasure CAP. V. How God even in this life passes a most rigorous Judgement ALl that we have hitherto spoken concerning the rigour of the Divine Tribunal before which the Soul is at the end of life to appear and to give an account unto his Redeemer is far short of what really is to be To the end therefore that we may conceive it something better I shall here propose the severity wherewith God executes his Judgements even in this life wherein he makes use of mercy that from thence we may collect the rigour of the other where he is onely to use his Justice Ezeck 7. By the Prophet Ezekiel he speaks unto his people thus I will pour out all my rage upon thee and will accomplish my fury in thee I will judge thee according to thy wayes and will lay forth all thy wickedness against thee my eyes shall not pardon thee neither will I have mercy I will charge thee with all thy misdeeds and thy abominations shall be in the middle of thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord which smites And presently he adds My wrath shall be upon all the people the sword without and pestilence and famine within he who is in the field shall die by the sword and they who are in the City shall be devoured by pestilence and famine and they who flye shall save themselves and shall all remain in the Mountains as the Doves of the Valleys trembling in their iniquity their hands shall be disjoynted and their knees shall resolve into water for the great fear and amazement which God in his wrath shall send vpon them But it is not much that the Lord should deal thus with sinners who have forsaken their God since even against those who are desirous to do all for his honour he proceeds with much rigour Zach. 3. Let us see how the Prophet Zacharit sets forth unto us the High-Priest who then lived the Son of Josedeck as a lively representation of the Divine Judgement whom he makes to appear before an Angel who there exercised the Office of a Judge cloathed in foul and polluted Garments in so much as the Lord calls him a Brand taken out of the fire and Satan standing by his side to accuse him If then this great Priest zealous of the glory of God stood so dejected and confused in the presence of an Angel as he appeared as a black and burnt coal of hell in unclean and sooty Garments how shall a grievous Sinner and despiser of the Divine service appear before God himself But this is more fully signified in the Apocalyps where our Saviour himself pronounced judgement against the seaven Bishops of Asia who were then all alive and most of them esteemed great Servants of God and so holy as was St. Timothy the beloved Disciple of Paul St. Polycarp St. Quadratus St. Carpus St. Sagaris all in great opinion for sanctity and holiness of life Let us first behold in what manner our Saviour Christ appeared when he came to judge them and after let us consider the rigorous charge which he laid against them For the first to signifie that nothing could be hid or concealed from him he stood in the middest of seaven Candlesticks or of seaven Lamps like the Golden Candlestick in the Temple in each of which was a lighted Candle in his hand he held seaven Stars whose beams and splendour enlightned all about him and above all his face was as the Sun at midday in his greatest force which leaves not the least atome undiscovered In such a brightness of Candles Stars and Sun there was no shadow to give us to understand that nothing how little soever can be hidden from the all-seeing eyes of our most just Judge unto whom all things will appear clearly and distinctly as they are in themselves but not content with so many arguments of the evidence which he shall have of all offences he adds That the eyes of the Judge were as flaming fire more penetrating than the eyes of Lynceus to see and search into all things and to note also the rigour and severity wherewith he looks upon offences when he comes to judge them This certainly were sufficient of it self to set forth the rigour of his justice but to make it appear yet more terrible he declares it by another figure of a two-edged Sword which he held in his mouth to denote that the rigour of his works shall be greater than those of his words although his words themselves were as cutting swords In conclusion all was so full of terrour and threatning as although it nothing concerned St. John as being none of those who were to be judged yet it caused so great a fear and amazement in him that he fell as dead upon the ground If then St. John only beholding the wrathful countenance of our Lord not against himself but others with whom also he intended to use mercy it made his feet to fail and his pulses to remain without motion how shall it fare with that sinner who shall behold him all incensed against him and that at such a time when he is onely to use his justice I believe that if the Souls of Sinners were capable of death the terrour of that fight would bereave them of a thousand lives Let us now see what was found by those eyes of fire with which Christ so narrowly examined the works of those seaven Bishops who were such as he himself vouchsafes to call them Angels Truly he found much to reprehend in them that it might be verified which was spoken in Job that he found iniquity in his Angels Who would have thought that St. Timothy of whom the Apostle was so confident and of whom he made so great esteem should deserve that God should take away his Chair and deprive him of his Church of Ephesus yet Christ found him worthy of so great a chastisement and threatens to do it if he did not amend and complains that he was fallen from his former zeal exhorting him to do penance which certainly he performed as perceiving it very necessary for him Greater faults he found in the Bishop of Pergamus as also in him of Thiatira who was St. Carpus and in like manner exhorts them both to do penance And that it may appear how different are the judgements of God from those of men although the Bishop of Sardis was held by all for a most holy man that he had gained a great opinion of vertue and that he did many good works yet Jesus Christ found he was so far from being a Saint that he remained in mortal sin O holy good God who would not tremble that he who passed amongst men for
instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire Neither shall they be Masters so much as of that broken pot wherein to contain a little water if it might be given them Jsai 30. For as Isaias sayes There shall not remain unto them so much as the shread of a broken pot to hold a little water from the pit nor shall there be any found to give it them That rich Glutton in the Gospel accustomed to drink in Cups of Chrystal to eat in Silver and to be cloathed in Silks and curious Linnens can tell us how far this infernal poverty extends when he demanded not wines of Candie but a little cold water and that not in Cups of Gold or Chrystal but upon the fingers end of a Leper This rich and nice Glutton came to such an extremity that he would esteem it a great felicity that they would give him but one drop of water although it were from the filthy and loathsome finger of a Leper and yet this also was wanting unto him Let the rich of the World see to what poverty they are like to come if they trust in ther riches let them know that they shall be condemned to the loss of all which is good Let them reflect upon him who was accustomed to be cloathed in precious Garments to tread upon Carpets to sleep upon Down to dwell in spacious Palaces now naked thrown upon burning coals and packt up in some narrow corner of that infernal Dungeon Let us therefore fear the riches of this World and the poverty of the other §. 4. This poverty or want of all good of the damned is accompanied with a most opprobrious infamy and dishonour when by publick sentence they shall be deprived for their enormous offences of eternal glory and reprehended in the presence of Saints and Angels by the Lord of Heaven and Earth This infamy shall be so great that St. Chrysostom speaks of it in these words A most intolerable thing is Hell Chrys in Math. 24. and most horrible are the torments yet if me should place a thousand Hells before me nothing could be so horrible unto me as to be excluded from the honour of glory to be hated of Christ and to hear from him these words I know you not This infamy we may in some sort declare under the example of a mighty King who having no Heir to succeed him in his Kingdom took up a beautiful Boy at the Church door and nourished him as his Son and in his Testament commanded that if at ripe years his conditions were vertuous and sutable to his calling he should be received as lawful King and seated in his Royal Throne but if he proved vitious and unfit for Government they should punish him with infamy and send him to the Gallies The Kingdom obeyed this Command provided him excellent Masters and Tutors but he became so untoward and ill-inclined that he would learn nothing flung away his books spent his time amongst other Boyes in making houses of dirt and other childish fooleries for which his Governors corrected and chastised him and advised him of what was fitting and most imported him but all did no good onely when they reprehended him he could weep not because he repented but because they hindred his sport and the next day did the same The more he grew in age the worse he became and although they informed him of the Kings Testament and what behooved him all was to no purpose until at last after all possible care and diligence his Tutors and the whole Kingdom weary of his ill conditions in a publick Assembly declared him unworthy to raign dispoiled him of his Royal Ornaments and condemned him with infamy unto the Gallies What greater affront and ignominy can there be than this to lose a Kingdom and to be made a Gally-slave for I do not know which of these things that young man would be more sensible of More ignominious and a more lamentable Tragedy is that of a Christian condemned to Hell who was taken by God from the gates of death adopted his Son with condition that if he kept his Commandments he should raign in Heaven and if not he should be condemned to Hell Yet he forgetting these obligations without respect of his Tutors and Masters who were the holy Angels especially his Angel Guardian who failed not to instill into him holy inspirations and other learned and spiritual men who exhorted him both by their doctrine and example what was fitting for a Child of God But he neither moved by their advices nor the chastisements of Heaven by which God overthrew his vain intentions and thwarted his unlawful pleasures onely lamented his temporal losses and not his offences and at the time of his death was sentenced to be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and precipitated into Hell What infamy can be greater than this of the damned Soul for if it be a great infamy to suffer death by Humane Justice for some crimes committed how great an infamy will it be to be condemned by Divine Justice for a Traitor and perfidious Rebel to God Besides this bitterness of pains the damned persons shall also be eternally branded with the infamy of their offences so as they shall be scorned and scoft at by the Devils themselves and not onely Devils but all rational creatures Men and Angels shall detest them as infamous and wicked Traitors to their King God and Redeemer Jsai 13. Facies combustae vultus eorum And as fugitive Slaves are marked and cauterized with burning irons so this infamy by some special mark of ugliness and deformity shall be stamped upon their faces and bodies so as Albertus Magnus sayes so ignominious shall be the body of a Sinner that when his Soul returns to enter it it shall be amazed to behold it so horrible and shall wish it were rather in the same state as when it was half eaten up by worms CAP. IX The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell ANother kind of punishment of great discomfort and affliction is that of Exile which the Damned shall suffer in the highest degree For they shall be banished into the profound bowels of the Earth a place most remote from Heaven and the most calamitous of all others where they shall neither see the Sun by day nor the Stars by night where all shall be horror and darkness and therefore it was said of that condemned person Cast him forth into utter darkness forth of the City of God forth of the Heavens forth of this World where he may never more appear into that land which is called in the Book of Job A dark land Job 10. covered with the obscurity of death a land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabits a land according to Isaias Jsai 34. of sulphur and burning pitch a land of
evil in it self in its own nature For if there were no God or that God were not offended with it yet it were a most abominable and horrid evil the greatest of all evils and the cause of all In regard of this deformity and filthiness of sin the Philosophers judged it to be abhorred above all things Aristotle said Aristotle 3. Eth. it were better to die than to do any thing against the good of vertue And Seneca and Peregrinus with more resolution said Although I were certain that men should not know it and that God would pardon it yet I would not offend for the very filthiness of sin For this Tully said That nothing could happen unto man more horrible than a fault And even those Philosophers who denied the immortality of the Soul and the providence of God affirmed that nothing should make us to commit it And there hath not wanted some Gentils who have suffered great extremities to avoid a vicious act Plut. in Demetrio Democles as Plutarch writes chose rather to be boiled in scalding water than to consent to a filthy act With reason Hippo is celebrated amongst the Greek Matrons who chose rather to die than offend Neither was that horror less which Verturius conceived against uncleanness who suffered prison whips and rigorous torments rather than he would sin against chastity Equal to this was that of the most beautiful youth Espurina of whom Valerius Maximus and St. Ambrose write Ambl. l. 3. de Virg. That he slashed and wounded his fair face that it should not give occasion to others of offence even by desire All those were Gentils who knew not Christ crucified for man nor saw hell open for the punishment of sinners nor fled from sin because it was an offence unto God but only for the enormity and filthiness it had in it self This made them endure prisons and tortures rather than admit it What then should Christians do who know their Redeemer died to the end they should not sin and how much sin is offensive to God Certainly they ought rather to give a thousand lives and souls than once to injure their Creator by committing an offence which not onely Gentils but even Nature hath in horror which hath planted in brute beasts although they cannot sin yet a natural aversion from that which looks like sin John Marquess of Gratis desired much to have a Foal from a generous Mare which he had by her own Son but could never effect it neither would she ever admit him until deceived by cloathing him in such sort as she knew him not But when he was uncloathed and she discovered the deceit she fell into that sorrow and sadness that after she would never feed but pined her self to death The like is reported by Jovianus Pontanus of a delicate Bitch of his which he could never although he caused her to be held make to couple with her Son So foul and horrible is but the shadow and image of sin even unto brute beasts Why should not men then who are capable of reason and have an obligation unto Gods commandments say and think with St. Anselm Lib. de simil c. 19. If I should see on this part the filthiness of sin and on the other the terrour of hell and it were necessary for me to fall into one of them I would rather cast my self into hell than admit of sin For I had rather enter pure into Hell than to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven contaminated with sin Whosoever than he be who is infected with that horrible evil of a mortal sin he cannot choose but be most miserable and wretched For as St. Chrysostome sayes Chrysost Tom. 5. Ser. 5. de ie The greatest evil is to be evil And although the Chirurgion do not cut the cankered flesh yet the ulcerated Patient will not be freed from his infirmity So although God should not punish a Sinner yet he would not be free from the evil death misery and abomination of sin And therefore St. Austin sayes Aug. To. 8. in Ps 49. Although we could cause that the day of Judgement should not come yet we ought not to live ill This monstrous deformity of sin our Lord was pleased to express by a visible Monster and that after a most strange manner as is related by Villaveus He writes Villaveus lib. 8. c. 35. that in the year 1298. Cassanus King of the Tartars with an Army of 200000 horse entring Syria made himself Master of it and brought a great terror upon all those neighbouring Countries in so much as the King of Armenia delivered him his Daughter although she were a Christian and he an Infidel to be his Wife Not long after the Queen proved with child and when her time came was delivered not of a Child but of a most horrible and deformed Monster Whereat the barbarous King being astonisht and incensed by the advise of his Council commanded that she should be put to death as an Adulteress The poor Lady grieving to die with the imputation of a sin whereof she was innocent commended her self to our Saviour and by divine inspiration desired that before her death the Thing which she had brought forth might be baptized which was granted and no sooner performed but that Monster became a most beautiful and goodly Boy and the King amazed at the miracle with many other of his Subjects became Christian acknowledging by what had happened the beauty of Grace and the deformity of Sin although that deformity proceeded not from any actual sin either mortal or venial from which the Child was free but onely from Original guilt which without the fault of his proper will descended unto him from his Parents The deformity of sin comes from the contrariety of it to reason which renders a Sinner more foul and ugly than the most horrid Monster and more dead in soul than a putrid and dead Carcase Pliny admires the force of lightning which melts the gold and silver and leaves the Purse which contained it untoucht Such is sin which kills the Soul and leaves the Body sound and entire It is a flash of lightning sent from Hell and worse than Hell it self and such leaves the Soul which it hath blasted What shall I then say of the evils which it causes I will onely say this that though it were the best thing of the world yet for the evil effects which it produces it ought to be avoided more then death It bereaves the soul of grace banishes the holy Ghost deprives it of the right of heaven despoiles man of all his merits makes him unworthy of divine protection and condemns a sinner unto eternal torments in the other world and in this to many disasters for there is neither plague warre famine nor infirmity of body whereof sin hath not been in some sort the occasion and therefore those who weep for their afflictions let them change the object of their tears and weep for the
which he was wholly absorpt his senses suspended and tied up as it were in a sweet sleep by the content which he received from that consideration Seneca Epist 22. I delighted my self sayes he amongst other things to enquire into the Eternity of Souls and believing it as a thing assuredly true I delivered up my self wholly over unto so great a hope and I was now weary of my self and despised all that remained of age though with perfect and entire health that I might pass into that immense time and into the possession of an eternal world So much could the consideration of Eternity work in this Philosopher that it made him to despise the most precious of temporal things which is life Certainly amongst Christians it ought to produce a greater effect since they not onely know that they are to live eternally but that they are either to joy or suffer eternally according unto their works and life CAP. III. The Memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious then that of Death ANd therefore it shall much import us to frame a lively conception of Eternity and having once framed it to retain it in continual memory which of it self is more efficacious then that of Death for although both the one and the other be very profitable yet that of Eternity is far more generous strong and fruitful of good works for by it did Virgins preserve their purity Anchorits perform their austere penances and Martyrs suffered their torments the which were not comforted and encouraged in their pains by the fear of death but by the holy reverence and hope of Eternity and the love of God It is true the Philosophers who hoped not for the immortality of the other life as we do yet with the memory of death retired themselves from the vanity of the world despised its greatness composed their actions and ordered their lives according to the rules of reason and vertue Epict. c. 28. apud S. Hier. in ca. 10. Math. Whereupon Epictetus advises us alwayes to have death in our mindes so sayes he Thou shalt never have base and low thoughts and desire any thing with trouble and anxiety And Plato said that by so much man were to be esteemed wiser by how much he more seriously thought of death and for this reason he commanded his Disciples that when they went any journey they should go barefoot signifying thereby that in the way of this life we should alwayes have the end of it discovered which is death and the end of all things But Christians who believe the other life are to add unto this contemplation of death the memory of Eternity the advantages whereof are as far above it as things eternal above those which are temporal The Philosophers were so much moved with the apprehension of death because with it all things of this mortal life were to end death being the limit whereunto they might enjoy their riches honours and delights and no further others desired to die because their evils and afflictions were to die with them If then death amaze some only because it deprives them of the goods of this life which by a thousand other wayes use to fail and which of themselves even before the death of the owner are corruptible dangerous and full of cares and if others hope for death onely because it frees them from the evils of life which in themselves are short and little as all things temporal are why should not we be moved by the thought of Eternity which secures us goods great and everlasting and threatens us with evils excessive and without end Without doubt then if we rightly conceive of Eternity the memory of it is much more powerful then that of death and if of this wise men have had so great an esteem and advised others to have the same much more ought to be had of that of Eternity Zenon desirous to know an efficacious means how to compose his life bridle his carnal appetites and observe the lawes of vertue had recourse unto the Oracle which remitted him unto the memory of death saying Go to the dead consult with them and there thou shalt learn what thou demandest There seeing the dead possess nothing of what they had and that with their lives they had breathed out all their felicity he might learn not to be puffed up with pride nor to value the vanities of the world For the same cause some Philosophers did use to drink in the skulls of dead men that they might keep in continual memory that they were to die and were not to enjoy the pleasures of this life although necessary unless alloid by some such sad remembrance In like manner many great Monarchs used it as an Antidote against the blandishments of fortune that their lives might not be corrupted by their too great prosperity Philip King of Macedonia commanded a Page to tell him three times every morning Philip thou art a man putting him in mind that he was to die and leave all The Emperor Maximilian the first four years before he died commanded his Coffin to be made which he carried along with him whither soever he went which with a mute voice might tell him as much Maximilian thou art to die and leave all The Emperors also of the East amongst other Ensignes of Majesty carried in their left hand a book with leaves of gold which they called Innocency the which was full of earth and dust in signification of humane mortality and to put them in minde hereby of that ancient doom of Mankind dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return And not without much conveniency was this memorial of death in the form of a book nothing being of more instruction and learning then the memory of death being the onely School of that great truth where we may best learn to undeceive our selves With reason also was the book called Innocency For who will dare to sin that knows he is to die Neither were the Emperors of the Abissins careless herein Nicol. God lib. 1. de rebus Abiss â—a 8. for at their Coronations amongst many other Ceremonies there was brought unto them a vessel fill'd with earth and a dead mans skull advertising them in the beginning that their Raign was to have a speedy end Finally all Philosophers agreed in this that all their Philosophy was the meditation of death But without doubt the contemplation of Eternity is far beyond all Philosophy it is a greater matter and of far more astonishment for the torments of Hell to last for ever then for the greatest Empires sodainly to have an end more horrible to suffer eternal evils then to be deprived of temporal goods greater marvel that our souls are immortal then that our bodies are to die Wherefore Christians especially those who aim to be perfect are rather to endeavour in themselves a strong conception of Eternity then to stir up the fear of death whose memory ought not to be needful for the
contempt of what is temporal since the first step unto Christian perfection according to the Counsel of Christ is to renounce all that we possess of earth that being so freed from those impediments of Christian perfection we may employ our selves in the consideration and memory of that Eternity which expects us hereafter as a reward of our holy works and exercises of vertue This horrid voice Eternity Eternity is to sound often in our hearts Thou not onely art to die but being dead eternity attends thee Remember there is a Hell without end and fix it in thy memory that there is a Glory for ever This consideration That if thou shalt observe the Law of God thou shalt be eternally rewarded and if thou break it thou shalt suffer pains without end will be far more powerful with thee then to know that the goods and evils of this life are to end in death Be mindful therefore of Eternity and resound in the inmost part of thy soul Eternity Eternity For this the Church when it consecrates the Fathers of it which are Bishops puts them in minde of this most powerful and efficacious memory of Eternity bidding them think of eternal years as David did And in the assumption and consecration of Popes they burn before their eyes a small quantity of flax with these words Holy Father so passes away the glory of the world that by the sight of that short and transitory blaze he may call to minde the flames eternal And Martin the fifth for his imprese and devise took a flaming fire which in short time burnt and consumed a Popes Tiara an Imperial Diadem a Regal Crown and a Cardinals Hat to give them to understand that if they complyed not with the duties of their places they were in a short time to burn in the eternal flames of hell the memory whereof he would preserve ever present by this most profitable Symbol §. 2. The name of Isachar whose Blessing from his Father was as we have formerly said to lye down and rest betwixt the two limits of Eternity signifies him That hath a memory or The man of reward or pay The Holy Ghost by this mystery charging us with the memory of eternal rewards And the Lord to shew how precious it was in his divine esteem and how profitable for us caused this name of Isachar to be engraven in a precious Amethyst which was one of those stones worn by the High-Priest in the Rational and one of those also rcveal'd unto St. John to be of the foundation of the City of God By it saith St. Anselme is signified the memory of Eternity which is the most principal foundation in the building of all perfection Truely if we consider the properties of this stone they are so many marks and properties of the memory of Eternity and of the benefits which that soul reaps Albert. Mag. Milius Ruiz v. Cesium de Min. lib. 4. p. 2. cap. 14. sect 14. which seriously considers it The Amethyst cause Vigilancy And what requires it more then the passage betwixt the two extreams of eternal glory and eternal pains What thing in the world ought to awake us more then the danger of falling into hell fire How could that man sleep which were to pass over a narrow plank of half a foot broad which served as a bridge betwixt two most high rocks the windes impetuously blowing and he if his foot slipt certain to fall into a most vast abyss No less is the danger of this life The way by which we are to pass unto Heaven is most streight the windes of temptations violent the dangers of occasions frequent the harms by ill examples infectious and the deceits of wicked Counsellors very many How then can a Christian sleep and be careless in so evident a peril Without all doubt it is more difficult to be saved considering the depravedness of our nature and the deceitful ambushes of the Devil then for a heavy man to pass over a heady and rapid river upon a small and bruised reed They say also of the Amethyst that besides the making him watchful who carries it it frees him from evil thoughts which how can that man have who bears Eternity in his mind how can he think upon the short pleasures of his senses who considers the eternal torments due unto his soul if he shall but consent to the least mortal sin The Amethyst also resists drunkenness preserving him that wears it in his senses and judgment and there is nothing that more preserves a mans judgment in the middest of the wine of delights in this life then the memory of the other and that for the pleasure of one moment here he is not only to suffer for hours for dayes for moneths for years but for worlds and a world of worlds hereafter The Amethyst besides this preserves the wearer from the force of poison And what greater Antidote against the poison of sin then to remember Hell which he deservs and Heaven which he loses by committing it The Amethyst also quiets a man and settles his thoughts And what can be more efficacious to free us from the disturbance of this life to bridle the insolence of covetousness to repress the aspiring of ambition then to consider the blessings of Eternity which attend the humble and poor in spirit Finally the Amethyst conferrs fruitfulness and this great thought of Eternity is fruitful of holy works For who is he that considers with a lively faith that for a thing so sleight and momentary he may enjoy the reward of eternal glory and will not be animated to work all he is able and to endure and suffer what shall happen for God Almighty and his Cause O how fruitful of Heroical works is this holy thought Eternal glory expects me the Triumphs of Martyrs the Victories of Virgins the Mortifications of Confessors are the effects of this consideration O holy thought O precious Amethyst that makes vigilant and attentive the negligent and careless that gives wisdom and judgment to the most deceived that heals those who are most ulcerated and corrupted with the poison of sin that quiets and pacifies the motions and troubles of our concupiscences that makes the most tepid and barren of vertues fruitful of holy works who will not endeavour to obtain and fix thee in his Soul O that Christians would so grave thee in their heart that thou mightest never be blotted out nor removed from thence How differently would they then live to what they now do how would they shine in their works for although the memory of Hell Heaven Death and Judgment be very efficacious for the reformation of our lives yet this of Eternity is like the quintescence of them all and virtually contains the rest CAP. IV. The Estate of Men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity BEfore we come to declare the conditions of Eternity whose consideration is so necessary for the leading of a holy
Truly the folly and vanity of Man admits no other cure than to set before his eyes that for the small and momentary pleasure of a sin committed against the Law of God he loses and unthriftily casts away that which is to last for ever For this cause we ought to consider what it is to have no end what it is to last for ever what it is to be Eternal But who is able to declare this since Eternity is an immense Ocean whose bottom cannot be found a most obscure abyss wherein are sunk all the faculties of humane understanding an intricate Labyrinth out of which there is no issue a perpetual Present without what was or what shall be a continued Circle whose Centre is in every part and Circumference no where a great Year which ever begins and is never ended finally that which never can be comprehended yet ever ought to be pondered and thought upon But that we may say something and frame some conception of it let us see in what manner the Saints have defined it St. Gregory Nazianzen knows not what it is but only what it is not and therefore says Eternity is not time nor part of time because time and each part of time pass away but in Eternity nothing does nor ever shall pass All the torments with which a Soul enters into hell shall after millions of years past torment him as lively and entirely as at the first beginning neither shall the joyes with which the just enter into Heaven ever in the least sort diminish Time hath this property to draw along with it custome which at length lessens the sense of what at first was grievous but Eternity is ever the same ever entire in it nothing passes the pains with which the damned begin shall after a thousand ages be the same they were at first and the glory which he who is saved receives in the first instant shall ever appear fresh and new unto him Eternity hath no parts all is of a piece in it there is no diminution nor lessening And although the pleasures of this life which go along with time are of this condition that in time they lessen and that there is no delight in this world which by long enjoying becomes not troublesome and tedious and that to the contrary even griefs and and pains with continuance either grow less or are absolutely cured yet far otherwise is the web which Eternity weaves it is all uniform in it there is no joy which wearies us nor any pain which by continuance abates or becomes less sensible in so much as Eternity according to St. Dionysius Areopagita Cap. 10. de divin nomin is the immutability immortality and incorruptibility of a thing wholly and altogether existent a space which perishes not but is always subsistent after the same manner and therefore as the Wise man saith Wheresoever the tree falls there it shall for ever remain if thou shalt fall as an infernal fire-brand into the bottom of Hell there shalt thou be for ever burning whilest God is God it not being in the power of any to redeem thee thence nor in thy own so much as to turn from one side to the other Eternity is immutable because incompatible with change it is immortal because not capable of end and incorruptible because it cannot suffer diminution The evils of this life how desperate of remedy soever yet want not this comfort that they are either eased with change or ended by death or lessened by corruption But all this is wanting in eternal evils The change of pains serves for a refreshment and the infirm man how afflicted soever by turning from side to side receives some ease but eternal pains shall whilst God is God remain in the same posture force and vigour without change at all If the most pleasant and wholesome food of Manna only because continual caused vomiting and became loathsome What shall those pains which shall last for ever What torments shall they cause since they are to remain still after the same manner The Sea hath his ebbs and flows the Rivers their encreases the Planets their various Aspects the Year his four Seasons the greatest Feavers have their relaxations and the sharpest pain arriving at the height uses to decrease only eternal torments shall never suffer declination nor shall the eyes of the damned ever see a change The plain and even way which seems most easie wearies the Traveller because it wants variety What weariness shall then the ways of Eternity cause and those perpetual pains which can neither change end nor diminish The torments whereunto Cain entred now five thousand years ago are after so many ages past still the same they were at first and what they now are shall be so many ages more to come they are measured by the Eternity of God and the duration of his unhappiness by the duration of the Divine Glory whilst God lives he shall wrastle with death and shall immortally continue dying that eternal death still living and that miserable life still dying containing the worst of life and the worst of death those wretched Souls living only that they may suffer torments and dying that they may not enjoy comfort having neither the content of life nor the end of death but contrariwise for their greater torment have the pain of death and duration of life On the other part behold the happy lot of them that die in Grace their glory shall be immortal without fear of ending their happiness immutable without capacity of growing old their Crown incorruptible without danger of withering where no day shall pass without joy whose content shall be ever new and whose Glory flourish for perpetual Eternities and whose happiness shall ever be the same And that very Glory which St. Michael was six thousand years ago possest of the same he enjoys this very instant as fresh and new as the first day and shall six millions of years to come as new as now CAP. VI. What Eternity is according unto Boëtius and Plotinus LEt us now hear the Opinions of Severinus Boëtius and Plotinus two great Philosophers and the one of them no less a Divine what they conceive concerning this great Mystery and secret of Eternity Boëtius defines Eternity to be Lib. 5. de cons Philosopho A total and perfect possession of an indeterminable life which Definition although it principally belongs unto the Eternity of God yet it may-be also applied unto the Eternity of reasonable Creatures since they also enjoy a total and perfect possession of happiness in an eternal life never to end With reason he calls it a possession for the fulness it hath of joy possession being the best way of enjoying the which implies a ful Dominion of what it possesses for he who hath a thing in loan or trust may be said to enjoy it but not with that liberty as he who possesses it He says moreover that this possession is total because it is of
penance performed by Ezechiel the Prophet at the Commandment of God who appointed him that he should continue laid upon one side without rising for the space of 390 days This was a most rigorous pennance but by Divine Grace accomplished by the holy Prophet If it be then so difficult to lie immoveable upon one side for so short a time as the space of one year what shall it be for a condemned sinner to lye stretched upon a bed of sire in that eternal night and sadness of hell all sorts of evils raining down upon him for a time without end or limit What Christian is there who should consider and frame a liveconceit of this but would become another man who could take delight in a momentary pleasure of this life running the danger of those eternal pains in the next who would dare to sin at the hazard of so great a punishment O how powerful a remedy were it against the disordered customs of sinners if they would but settle themselves seriously to think that Eternity hath no end O that they would think upon this one half hour in a day or but so much in a week how quickly would they amend their lives But this is a thought not to be past over in haste but leasurely pondered with attention and profound consideration meditating within our selves what Eternity is that it is that which shall never have an end never never For as that meat which is not chewed nor concocted in the stomack benefits nothing so the thought of Eternity without being well ruminated and digested will little advantage us The force of this consideration appears by an accident related by Benedictus Renatus of a certain man vain and vitious named Fulk the which Benedict Renat lib. 5. as he was given to all sorts of pleasure and delicacy would be sure not to want a soft bed and a large repose But one night his sleep failing him tossing and turning from side to side desiring every moment that day would break whilest he lay thus awake this thought came into his consideration What wouldest thou take to lye in this manner for the space of two or three years in continual darkness without conversation of friends or entertainment of thy pleasures certainly although thou shouldest lye at thy ease and upon a soft Bed as thou now doest yet the trouble would be intolerable But know that thou art not to depart so cheap out of this life thou art not to escape hence at thy own choice at the best that can happen thou art to lye languishing in thy Death-bed where thou art to pass many evil and tedious nights unless perchance thou dye suddenly which will be more and when thou leavest that Bed and dyest dost thou know what Bed shall then expect thee what Couch death hath provided for thee Thy body certainly shall lye upon the hard and cold earth and be devoured by worms but concerning the soul what shall become of it knowest thou whither it shall goe assuredly according to thy present life it shall goe to hell where a terrible Bed of fire awaits thee not for a year or two but for a whole Eternity There thou art to continue in perpetual darkness and torments where a thousand thousand millions of years are not sufficient to satisfie for one of thy unlawful pleasures There thou shalt never see nor Sun nor Heaven nor God Ay me Ay miserable me if this poor want of sleep be so ill to be endured how shall I suffer the eternal torments of hell that which now imports me is to change my course of life for in this way I now goe I am lost for ever These considerations imprinted so deep a character in his minde of Eternity that he could not quit the thought of it until he had resolved to become a Religious man but would often say with himself What doest thou here miserable man thou livest in the world and the world affords thee no comfort thou sufferest many things which thou wouldest willingly avoid and wantest others which thou wouldest as willingly enjoy Thou molestest thy self with the cares of this life and what reward attends thee for all thy trouble thou enjoyest no compleat pleasure and if thou didst it would not last Seest thou not daily those who dye and enter into Eternity O Eternity Eternity if thou beest not in Heaven wheresoever thou art even in this soft Bed thou art grievous I will therefore endeavour to assure Heaven and for a little will not lose much nor for what is temporal the eternal and so putting in execution what he had resolved upon he entered a Religious person into the order of the Cistercians §. 4. All our actions are still to be accompanied with this thought For ever For ever shall be rewarded that which I do well and that for ever punished wherein I grievously offend With this consideration shall a Christian not onely animate himself to do good works but to do them well Aelianus writes of Ismenias Lib. 1. Var. Hist ca. 21. Embassador from the Thebans unto the King of Persia that being about to deliver his Embassage and advertised that before he spake a word he was to adore the King Ismenias thinking this honour too much to be bestowed upon a barbarous Prince yet seeing no wayes to avoid it fell upon this devise He took his Ring which anciently was of great esteem as signifying the quality and authority of him that wore it and pulling it from his finger let it secretly fall at the Kings feet whilest he lay prostrate before them saying within himself Not unto thee but to this Ring If we in like manner should in all our actions propose unto our selves Eternity and wholly respect it we should finde little difficulty in any good work we went about Let us therefore fix our eyes and thoughts upon it which is to be given us for that which may be done in a moment Blessed be God who bestows upon us a reward without and for troubles so short that they scarcely have a beginning Euripides a famous Poet amongst the Greeks complained upon a time that in three whole days he had made but three Verses and those not without trouble Alcestides another Poet present answered For me one day is sufficient to make an hundred Verses and that with ease Euripides then replied It is no marvel since thy Verses are but for three dayes and mine are for ever In the same manner Zeuxis a most excellent Painter but above all measure slow being demanded why he was so tedious in his work answered I paint leasurely because I paint for ever But certainly he deceived himself for at this day there is no Picture of his to be seen and for Euripides many of his works are lost But no good work of the just shall perish Neither have we need so much as of a day to gain Eternity One act of Contrition which is made in a moment does it and in a moment
we gain those joyes which shall endure without end Yet ought we to make use of this consideration of Euripides and Zeuxis and not only to do good works but to do them seriously and perfectly well since we work not for this life but for Eternity which ought ever to be in our memory The benefit which David reaped by this consideraration was a firm resolution to mend his life and change into a new man animating himself to a greater observance and a more high perfection And so in that Psalm wherein he says That he thought upon the days of old and the years of Eternity he adds immediately the effect of his Meditation saying That he was to begin a new because the change which he found in his heart he perceived was from the most powerful hand of God Wherefore considering that Eternity never ends but still begins and that it is wholly a beginning he determined with such new fervour to give a beginning to a more perfect life that he would never flagg or be dismayed in the prosecution of it willing in this to imitate Eternity the which as it is ever beginning so he would ever begin to deserve it And what great matter is it if that which we are to enjoy or suffer be ever in beginning that we should likewise be ever beginning either to deserve the one or flie the other Our reward is not to fail us and therefore there is no reason why we should fail and grow weary in our service and endeavours Our joy is ever to begin Why should not then our endeavours be ever in beginning The repose we hope for shall never have an end Why should then our deservings ever cease With this considederation St. Arsenius much profited himself making account that although he had served God many years in a most holy life yet that he did but then begin repeating often that Speech of David Now I begin Now I begin We ought never to look back upon our labours past but still to animate our selves to labour anew for God and his Service as did the Apostle St. Paul who says of himself Philip. 3. Vide Masuet in vita St. Pauli That he did forget what was past that he did inlarge his heart and mind extending it for that which was to come the which the Apostle spake in a time when he had suffered much and done such services unto God in the good of Souls as he had already laboured more than all the Apostles After he had entred into the Synagogues of Damasous and publikely preached Jesus Christ with so evident danger of his life that if he had not escaped over the walls of the City he had been cut in a thousand pieces After that in Arabia he had converted many people many in Tarsua and in Antioch After he had been rapt up into the third Heaven After that he had been elected by the Holy Ghost to be an Apostle and wrought great and prodigious Miracles After that he had past over Asia Minor all Greece and the better part of Europe converting innumerable Soules After he had distributed great Alms gathering them with much labour made long journeys and brought them unto the poor in Jerusalem After the suffering of innumerable persecutions After having been thrice stoned and once left for dead After having been often whipt and often apprehended After infinite services performed for the Church Alter all these it seemed unto him that he had suffered nothing done nothing for Christ and he forgot it all as if it had been the first day of his conversion determining still to doe more to suffer more to labour more to begin anew esteeming himself after so many labours and services to be an useless and an unprofitable servant following the counsel of our Saviour when he sayes Luk. 17. After ye have done all what I have commanded you to doe say ye are unprofitable servants and that ye have done what ye ought have done Let a man compare his labours his zeal his preaching his charity with that of the Apostle and he will find that he hath not yet begun If then the Apostle who at that time exceeded the merits of divers Saints who have dyed in great holiness and yet forgot all judging he had done nothing but turned to begin afresh we who have not yet begun wherefore shall we be weary before we begin let us ever begin anew since Eternity which we hope for is ever to be new and ever to begin Let us not glory saith Dionysius Carthusianus in the merits of our life past neither let us esteem our selves for any thing we have already done but let us bestir our selves as freshly and with as much fervour as if we did but that day begin and were that day also to dye CAP. IX How Eternity is without change THe second condition of Eternity is to be immutable and to persevere without change which the Ancients gave us to understand by many most mysterious Symbols Some figured it by painting of a Chair Isaiah 6. conformable unto which the Prophet Isaiah saith That he saw the Lord sitting on high upon a Throne setting forth in this settled posture the immutability and greatness of his Eternity And St. John in his Apocalyps often celebrates the Seat of God as representing his eternal duration More clearly the Prophet Daniel Dan. 7. unto whom God vouchsafed to appear as he was eternal whereupon he calls him the Ancient of dayes and sayes he beheld him with his hair all white and seated upon a Throne From the same consideration the Nasamâ—nes a certain People of Affrick when any amongst them was about to die caused him to sit and in that posture to expire signifying thereby the estate wherein his Soul was prefently to enter And for the same cause they interred their dead sitting giving us thereby to understand that rest and repose were not to be sought for until death when we were to enter the gates of Eternity This life is no place to sit in we are not here to stay the misery which we find in it sufficiently declares that God made it not for that purpose This life is but lent us we are not to abide in it but to walk apace unto the Mountain of Eternity It is so miserable that even it self informs us of another life wherein we shall finde rest since here we cannot meet it In Heaven all our unhappiness all our miseries are to cease there the tears of this valley are to be wiped from our eyes there our troubles are to find ease there the unquietness of our hearts is to have repose In this world no manner of life no sort of estate no condition of man no greatness of dignity no abundance of riches no felicity of fortune can ever give rest unto the possessor For this reason the Romans in the Statues which they erected to their deceased Emperors made them still sitting whereby they would signifie that all the
world are not to affright us since they are to cease and determine By how much Eternity enobles and adds unto the greatness of those things which are eternal by so much doth Time vilifie and debase those things which are temporal and therefore as all which is eternal although it were little in it self ought to be esteemed as infinite so all which is temporal although it were infinite yet is to be esteemed as nothing because it is to end in nothing If a man were Lord of infinite worlds and possest infinite riches if they were at last to end and he to leave them they were to be valued as nothing and if all things temporal have this evil property to sail and perish they ought to have no more esteem then if they were not with good reason then is life it self to be valued as nothing since nothing is more frail nothing more perishing and in conclusion is little more than if it had no being at all Possessions Inheritances Riches Titles and other goods of fortune remain when man is gone but not his Life A little excess of cold or heat makes and end of that a sharp winde the infectious breath of a sick person a drop of poison makes it vanish in so much as no glass is so frail as it Glass without violence may last long but the life of man ends of it self glass may with care be preserved for many ages but nothing can preserve the life of man it consumes it self All this was well understood by King David who was the most powerful and happy Prince the Hebrews ever had as ruling over both the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel with all which was promised by God unto the Israelites but not until his time possessed his Dominions besides extending over many other Provinces See 1. Paralip 29. what he left him towards the building of the Temple onely so as gold rowld up and down his House and Court and he left at his death mighty treasures unto his Son Salomon Yet this so fortunate a Prince considering that his greatness was to have an end valued it as nothing and not onely esteemed his Kingdoms and treasures as a vanity but even his life it self Wherefore he sayes Thou hast put O Lord a measure unto my dayes and my substance is as nothing all my Rents all my Kingdoms all my Trophies all my Treasures all which I possess although so powerful a King all is nothing And presently adds Doubtless all is vanity all what living man is Psal 38. all his whole life is vanity and nothing that belongs to him so frail as himself Of so mean value are the things of this world although we were to enjoy them for many ages but being to end so quickly and perhaps more sodainly than we can imagine what account is to be made of them O if we could but frame a true conception of the shortness of this life how should we despise the pleasures of it This is a matter of such importance that God commanded the principal his Prophets that he should goe into the Streets and Market-places and proclaim aloud How frail and short was the life of man For the Prophet Isaiah being about to prophesie of the most high and hidden mysterie which ever God revealed unto man which is the incarnation of the eternal Word was suddenly commanded by the Lord to lift up his voice and to crie aloud unto whom the Prophet replied What is it O Lord that I must crie aloud The Lord said That all flesh is grass and all the glory of it at the flowers of the field For as the grass which is cut in the morning withers before night and as the flower is quickly faded so is the life of all flesh the beauty and splendour of it passing and withering in a day Upon which place saith St. Hierome Hieronin Comment He who shall look upon the frailty of our flesh and that every moment of an hour we increase and decrease without ever remaining in the same state and that even what we now speak dictate or write flyes away with some part of our life will not doubt to say his flesh is grass and the glory of it as the flower of the field And presently after He that was yesterday an Infant is now a Boy and will suddenly be a Youth and even until old age runs changing through uncertain conditions of lite and perceaves himself first to be an old man before he begins to admire that he is not still a Boy In another place the same Saint meditating upon the death of Nepotianus who died in the flower of his age breaks out into these complaints In Epitaph Nepot O miserable condition of humane nature Vain is all that we live without Christ all flesh is hay and all the glory of it as the flower of the field Where is now that comely visage where is now the dignity of the whole body with which as with a fair garment the beauty of the Soul was once cloathed Ay pitty the Lilly is withered by a Southern blast and the purple of the Violet turned into paleness And immediately adds Why do we not therefore consider what in time must become of us and what will we or will not cannot be far off for should our life exceed the terme of 900 years and that the dayes Mathusalam were bestowed upon us yet all this length of life once past and pass it must were nothing and betwixt him who lives but ten years and him who lives a thousand the end of life and the unavoidable necessity of death once come all is the same save onely he who lives longer departs heavier loaden with his sins This frailty therefore and brevity of humane life being so certain and evident yet our Lord would have his Prophet publish it together with the most hidden and unknown mysterie of his incarnation and the manner of the worlds redemption which even the most high Scraphins did not conceive possible and all because men will not suffer themselves to be perswaded of this truth nor practically apprehend the shortness of their life Nay seeing death seiseth upon others yet they will not believe that it shall happen unto themselves and although they hear of it hourly yet it appears unto them as a hidden mysterie which they cannot understand God therefore commanded the Prophet Isaiah that he should proclaim and publish it with a loud voice as a thing new and of great importance that it might so penetrate and link into the hearts of men Let us therefore receive this truth from God himself All flesh is grass All age is short All time flyes All life vanishes and a great multitude of years are but a great nothing Let us also hear how true this is from those who lived the longest Jux Isi l. de vita mor. Pat. c. 24. and have had the greatest experience of what it is to live Perhaps thou mayst
quality of temporal life that having in it self no truth or reality yet it paints and sets forth that false ware which it hath with much beauty and lustre to our perdition Wherefore Aeschylus said That it was not onely a shadow of life but also a shadow of smoak which blindes and smuts and is a thing so inconstant and vain which is also suitable to that of David when he said That his dayes vanished like smoak and grew towards an end like a shadow joyning together the shadow and smoak two things the most vain of any in the world Even Pindarus exaggerates it yet more saying That it was no shadow but the dream of a shadow and what is it else but to dream to perswade ones self that this life is long and hope for prosperity in it This certainly is the greatest deceit which is put upon man and the chief cause of all his evils that he suffers not himself to be perswaded what life is and the shortness of it For as the Shadow is nothing less than the Statua whole Shadow it is yet appears like it and is the figure of it so although this life be most short and nothing less than eternity yet it looks like it and unto us it seems as if it were eternal This is a most hurtful and costly cosenage For if life should appear what it is and not lie unto us we should not put our trust in it nor make such esteem of those goods and blessings which it promises which in themselves are so deceitful and uncertain but being as it is an image and a shadow all which it proposes unto us is but feigned and dissembled promising great happiness when it is onely full of misery and calamity although disguis'd in such manner as we know them not How contented goes the Bride unto her Marriage Bed and yet within a short time laments her unfortunate choice with what gust does the ambitious man enter upon his office which is but a Seminary of future sorrow and vexation what joy doe those riches bring along with them which in the end are to be the death of the possessor All is deceit dissimulation falshood and prejudice and yet we like frantick people are not sensible of our mischiefs Unto how many infirmities is the body of a man exposed with what imaginations is he afflicted and deceived with how many labours and toyls does he daily wrestle with what thoughts and apprehensions doth he torment himself what dangers of soul and body doth he run into what fopperies is he forced to behold what injuries to suffer what necessities and afflictions Nay such is our whole life that it seemed unto St. Bernard little less evil than that of hell Sermo de ascen Domini but onely for the hope we have of heaven Our Infancy is full of ignorance and fears our Youth of sins our Age of sorrow and our whole life of dangers There is none content with his condition but he who will die whilst he lives in so much as life cannot be good unless it must resemble death Finally as the Shadow is in such manner an image as it represents all things to the contrary so as he who shall place himself betwixt the Statua and the Shadow shall perceive that that which is upon the right hand of the Statua the Shadow represents upon the left and what it has upon the left the Shadow hath upon the right so Time is in such manner the Image of Eternity as it has all its properties to the contrary Eternity hath no end but Life and Time have a speedy one Eternity hath no change but nothing is more mutable than Time Eternity suffers no comparison by reason of its infinite greatness but Life and all the goods of it are short and little and derived from the earth which is but a point THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Of the End of Temporal Life LEt us now consider how contrary unto the conditions of Eternity are those which accompany this our miserable life Let us begin with the first Which is to be limited and subject to an end In the which two things are to be considered The End and the Manner of it which perhaps is of more misery than the end it self And truly although the end of life should fall under humane election and that it were in the power of Man to make choice how many years he would continue in life and after what manner he would then leave it and that it might conclude some other way than by death or sickness yet the consideration that it and all things temporal were to perish and at last to have an end were sufficient to make us despise it and that very thought would drown all the pleasures and contents which it could afford us For as all things are of greater or lesser esteem according to the length and shortness of their duration so life being to end be it in what manner soever is much to be disvalued A fair Vessel of Chrystal if it were as consistent and durable as Gold were more precious than Gold it self but being frail and subject to break it loses its estimation and although of it self it might last long yet being capable by some careless mischance of being broken it becomes of much less value In the same manner our life which is much more frail than glass being subject to perish by a thousand accidents and though none of them should happen could not long continue since it consumes it self must needs together with those temporal goods which attend it be most contemptible But considering that the ending of it is by the way of death infirmities and misfortunes which are the Harbingers and prepare the way for death it is to be admired that Man who knows he is to die makes account of temporal felicity seeing the misery in which the prosperity of this world and the Majesty of the greatest Monarchs are at last to finish Wherein ended King Antiochus Lord of so many Provinces 1 Machab 6. 2 Machab 9. but in a disconsolate and mortal Melancholy in a perpetual waking which with want of sleep bereft him of his judgment in a grievous torture in his belly which forced him to void his very entrails in a perpetual pain in his bones that he was not able to move And he who seemed to command the waves of the Sea and that the highest mountains of the Earth hung upon his finger ends whose Majesty was once lifted up above all humane power could not then preserve himself in his own Kingdom nor move one pace from the place where they layd him he who cloathed himself in soft Silks and pure Linnens he whose Garments were more fragrant than the most precious spices cast now such a smell from his putrified members that none could endure his presence and being yet alive his whole body swarmed with loathsome vermin his flesh dropped away by
will it cause when a Sinner in the instant of Gods judgment shall see himself delivered over into the power of the infernal Dragon without all hopes of ever escaping from him who will seize upon a Soul and carry her to the abyss of hell Let us call to mind with dread that which the holy Prophet feared and said of the Devil God grant he lay not hold on my soul like a Lion when there will be none that will set me at liberty or relieve me O what a lamentable thing will it be for one to see himself in the power of Lucifer not onely abandoned by Men but also by the Angels and by the Queen of Men and Angels and even of God himself Father of all mercies Let us provide our selves in time for that which is to be done in a moment on which depends our Eternity O moment in which all time is lost if a Soul doth lose it self in it and remains lost for ever how much doest thou avail us Thou givest an assurance to all the good works of this life and causest an oblivion of all the pleasures and delights thereof to the end that Man may not wholly give himself over to them since they will then be of no benefit to him and persevere in vertue since it will not secure him unless he persevere in it to the last §. 2. How can men be careless seeing so important a business as is the salvation of their Souls to depend upon an instant wherein no new diligence nor preparations will avail them Since therefore we know not when that moment will be let us not be any moment unprovided this is a business not to be one point of time neglected since that point may be our damnation What will a hundred years spent with great penance and austerity in the service of God profit us if in the end of all those years we shall commit some grievous sin and death shall seise upon us before repentance Let no man secure himself in his past vertues but continue them until the end since if he die not in grace all is lost and if he doe what matters it to have lived a thousand years in the greatest troubles and afflictions this world could lay upon him O moment in which the just shall forget all his labours and shall rest assured of all his vertues O moment in which the pains of a Sinner begin and all his pleasures end O moment which art certain to be uncertain when to be and most certain never to be again for thou art onely once and what is in thee determined can never be revoked in another moment O moment how worthy art thou to be now fixed in our memory In vit PP l. 5. p. 565. apud Rot that we may not hereafter meet thee to our eternal mine and perdition Let us imitate the Abbot Elias who was accustomed to say That three things especially made him tremble The first when his Soul was to be pluckt out of his Body the second when it was to appear before God to receive judgment and the third when sentence was to be pronounced How terrible then is this moment wherein all these three things so terrible are to pass Let a Christian often whilest he lives place himself in that instant from whence let him behold on one part the time of his life which he is to leave and on the other the eternity whereunto he enters and let him consider what remains unto him of that and what he hopes for in this How short in that point of death did those near-hand a thousand years which Mathusala lived appear unto him and how long one day in Eternity In that instant a thousand years of life shall appear unto the Sinner no more than one hour and one hour of torments shall appear a thousand years Behold thy life from this Watch-tower from this Horizon and measure it with the eternal and thou shalt find it to be of no bulk nor extension Sec how little of it remains in thy hands and that there is no escaping from the hands of Eternity O dreadful moment which cuts off the thread of Time and begins the web of Eternity let us in time provide for this moment that we may not lose Eternity This is that precious pearl for which we ought to give all that we have or are Let it ever be in our memory let us ever be sollicitous of it since it may every day come upon us Eternity depends upon death death upon life and life upon a thread which may either be broken cut or burnt and that even when we most hope and most endeavour to prolong it A good testimony of this is that which Paulus Aemilius recounts of Charles King of Navarre Paulus Aemilius l. 9. Aâ—cidita anno 1387. who having much decayed and weakned his bodily forces by excess of lust unto which he was without measure addicted the Physicians for his cure commanded Linnens steeped in Aqua vitae to be wrapped close about his naked body He who sewed them having nothing in readiness to cut the thread made use of a candle which was at hand to burn it but the thread being wet in those spirits took fire with such speed as it fired the Linnen and before it could be prevented burnt the body of the King in that manner as he immediately dyed Upon a natural thread depended the life of this Prince which concluded in so disastrous a death and no doubt but the thread of life is as easily cut as that of flax time is required for the one but the other is broken in an instant and there are more causes of ending our life than are of breaking the smallest twist Our life is never secure and therefore we ought ever to fear that instant which gives an end to Time and beginning unto Eternity Wonderful are the wayes which death finds out and most poor and contemptible those things upon which life depends It hangs not only upon a thread but sometime upon so small a thing as a hair So Fabius a Roman Senatour was choaked with a hair which he swallowed in a draught of milk No door is shut to death it enters where air cannot enter and encounters us in the very actions of life Small things are able to deprive us of so great a good Valer. Max. lib. 6. A little grain of a grape took away the life of Anacreon and a Pear which Drusus Pompeius was playing with fell into his mouth and choaked him The affections also of the Soul and the pleasures of the Body become the high way unto death Homer dyed of grief and Sophocles of an excess of joy Dionysius was kill'd with the good news of a victory which he obtained Aurelianus dyed dancing when he married the Daughter of Domiâ—ian the Emperour Thales Milesius beholding the sports in the Theater dyed of thirst Vid. Andream Eborensem de morte non vulgari and Cornelius Gallus and
something of the merits of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Then he said Now 't is well The Religious much admired that a young man so innocent should speak things so dreadful and with such a strange noise When the young man was returned to his senses they demanded of him to declare unto them the meaning of those words and great cryes He answered them I saw that in the Judgement of Almighty God so strict an accompt was taken even of idle words and other things that seemed very little and they weighed them so exactly that the merits in respect of the demerits were almost nothing at all And for this reason I gave that first terrible and sad outcry Afterwards I saw that the demerits were weighed with great attention and that little regard was made of the merits For this reason I spake the second words And seeing that the merits were so few and inconsiderable for to be justified I spake the third And in regard that with the merits of the Passion of Christ our Saviour the balance wherein my good works were weighed more than the other immediately a favourable sentence was given in my behalf For this reason I said now 't is well And having said this he gave up his ghost § 3. The third cause of the terribleness of the end of Temporal Life which is the charge which shall be given of divine benefits received THere is also in the end of life another cause of much terrour unto Sinners which is the lively knowledge which they shall have of the divine benefits received and the Charge which shall be laid against them for their great ingratitude and abuse of them This is also signified by what the Prophet Daniel spake of the Throne and Tribunal of God For he not onely said it was of flames of fire by which was given us to understand the rigour of divine justice against Sinners signified by the violence heat and activity of fire and the discovery and manifestation of sins signified by the light and brightness of the flames but he also adds that from the face of the Judge there proceeded a heady and rapid river which was also of fire signifying by the swiftness of the course and the issuing of it from God the multitude of his graces and benefits which flowing from the divine goodness are communicated and poured down upon his Creatures His saying that this so great river shall in that day be of fire is to make us understand the rigour of that Charge against us for our abuse of those infinite benefits bestowed together with the light and clearness wherewith we shall know them and the horrour and confusion which shall then seise upon us for our great ingratitude and the small account we have made of them in so much as Sinners in that instant are not onely to stand in fear of their own bad works but of the grace and benefits of God Almighty conferr'd upon them Another mourning Weed and confusion shall cover them when they shall see what God hath done to oblige and assist them toward their salvation and what they to the contrary have done to draw upon them their own damnation They shall tremble to see what God did for their good and that he did so much as he could do no more all which hath been mis-imployed and abused by themselves This is so clear and evident on the part of God Almighty that he calls men themselves as witnesses and Judges of the truth and therefore speaking under the Metaphor of a Vineyard by his Prophet Isay Isai 5. he saith in this manner Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge betwixt me and my Vineyard what ought I to have done more unto my Vineyard and have not done it And after the incarnation of the Son of God the Lord turns again to upbraid men with the same resentment and signifies more fully the multitude of his benefits under the same Metaphor of a Vineyard Mat. 21. which a man planted and so much cherished and esteemed it that he sent thither his onely Son who was slain in the demand of it Let therefore men enter into judgement against themselves and let them be judges whether God could have done more for them and has not done it they being still so ungrateful towards their Creatour as if he had been their enemy and done them some notorious injury Coming therefore to consider every one of these benefits by its self The first which occurs is that of the Creation which was signified by our Saviour Jesus Christ when he said that He planted a Vineyard and what could God do more for thee since in this one benefit of thy Creation he gave thee all what thou art both in soul and body If wanting an arm thou wouldest esteem thy self much obliged and be very thankful unto him who should bestow one upon thee which were sound strong and useful why art thou not so to God who hath given thee arms heart soul body and all Consider what thou wert before he gave thee a being Nothing and now thou enjoyest not onely a being but the best being of the Elemental world Philosophers say that betwixt being and not being there is an infinite distance See then what thou owest unto thy Creatour and thou shalt find thy debt to be no less than infinite since he hath not onely given thee a being but a noble being and that not by necessity but out of an infinite love and by election making choice of thee amongst an infinity of men possible whom he might have created If lots were to be cast amongst a hundred persons for some honourable charge how fortunate would he be esteemed who should draw the lot from so many Competitors behold then thy own happiness who from an absolute nothing hast light upon a being amongst an infinity of creatures possible And whence proceeds this singular favour but from God who out of those numberless millions hath pickt out thee leaving many others who if he had created them would have served him better than thy self See then what God could have done for thee and has not having chosen thee without any desert of thine from amongst so many and preferred thee before those whom he foresaw would have been more thankful Besides this he not onely created thee by election and gave thee a noble being but supernatural happiness being no way due unto thy nature he created thee for it and gave thee for thy end the most high and eminent that could be imagined to wit the eternal possession of thy Creatour It was enough for God to create thee for a natural happiness conformable to what thou wert but he not to leave any thing undone which he could do created thee for a supernatural blessedness in so much as there is no creature which hath a higher end then thy self See then if God could do more for thee and has not and see what thou oughtest to do
we can carry nothing but our good works and let us not add unto our evil ones that of vain-glory in seeking to leave behind us a vain Fame and Renown Plin. l. 56. c. 13. What remains unto King Porsenna of that heavy burthen wherewith he grieved and afflicted his whole Kingdom in rearing him a Sepulchre of that rare and sumptuous workmanship but a testimony of his pride and folly In like manner the Monument of the Emperour Adrian which was the Beauty and Glory of Rome shall be then changed into a scorn Lastly St. Thomas teaches us that Temporal things on which we place our affections because some last a longer and some a shorter time after death shall all enter with us into Divine judgement Let us take heed therefore whereon we set our hearts since the accomplishing of what we wish may be a punishment of our desires Those things of the Earth which we most love and desire should continue if they be taken from us it is a chastisement of our earthly affection and if we be permitted to enjoy them let us fear that they be not the temporal Reward of some good Work which may either diminish or deprive us of the Eternal Besides this because not onely the Soul of man hath offended but the whole man both in Soul and Body it was fit that both Soul and Body should be judged and appear before the Tribunal of Christ and that in publique because none should presume to sin in secret since his sins are to be revealed and made known to all past present and to come A terrible case it is that this passage of Divine judgement which according as we have said out of holy Job appears unto the Saints more terrible than to suffer all the pains of Hell is twice to be acted and this so bitter trance to be again repeated the second time being unto sinners of greater horrour and confusion than the first CAP. IX Of the last day of Time THat we may now come to handle the manner of this universal Judgement which is to pass upon time and men we are to suppose that this fire which is to precede the coming of Christ is at his descent to continue in assistance of his Divine justice and after his return unto Heaven attended by all the just to remain until it hath purged and purified these inferiour Elements the which is noted by Albertus Magnus Albert. Magn. in comp Theol. lib. 7. c. 15. Less de perf div lib. 13. c. 30. 23. and collected from divers places of the Divine Scriptures We are also to suppose that this coming of Christ is to be with greater terrour and Majesty than hath been yet manifested by any of the Divine persons either in himself or any of his Creatures If an Angel which represented God and was onely to promulgate the Law came with that terrour and Majesty unto Mount Sinay as made the Hebrew people though purified and prepared for his coming to quake and tremble what shall the Lord of the Law doe when he himself comes to take an account of the Law and to revenge the breach of it With what terrour and Majesty shall he appear unto men plunged in sin and unprepared for his reception who are then to be all present and judged in that last day of time The day in which the Law was given was very memorable unto the Hebrews And this day where an account of the Law is to be given will be horrible and ought perpetually to remain in the memory of all mankind But before we declare what shall pass in this let us say something of what hath already passed in that that from the horrour of the first appearance we may gather something of what shall happen in the second and from the Majesty wherewith an Angel appeared when he gave the Law collect something of the Majesty of the Lord of Angels when he judges the Law Fifty dayes after the departure of the Sons of Israel out of Egypt after so many plagues and punishments poured upon that Kingdom after the burying of the unbelieving Egyptians who pursued them in the bottom of the Red Sea and that the Hebrews having escaped their enemies were lodged round about Mount Sinay Deut. 33. Vid. Barrad l. 6. itin c. 5. Ps 65. Deut. 33. There was seen to come in the Air from far that is from Mount Seir in Idumea a Lord of great power attended with an infinite multitude of Angels In so much as David sings that ten thousand compassed about his Chariot And Moses speaking of many thousands which attended him says also that he carried in his right hand the Law of God all of flaming fire and yet he who came in this height of Majesty waited on with those Celestial Spirits was not God Act. 7. but as we learn from St. Stephen onely an Angel and believed to be St. Michael who because he came in the Name of God the holy Scriptures calls the Lord. This Angel thus accompanied came seated on a dark condensed Cloud which cast forth frequent flashes of Lightning and resounded with dreadful cracks of Thunder Deut. 33. from Mount Seir unto Mount Haran in the Land of the Ishmaelites and from thence with the same Majesty passed through the Air unto Mount Sinay where the Children of Israel lay encamped who at the dawning of the day astonisht with that fearful noyse stood quaking and trembling in their Tents No sooner was the Angel arrived unto Mount Sinay which as the Apostle says Heb. 42. was covered with rain whirlwinds storms and tempests but he descended in flames which raught betwixt Heaven and Earth from whence issued forth a smoke black and thick as from a furnace during which time a Trumpet was heard to sound with that piercing vehemence that as it encreased in loudness so fear encreased in the amazed Israelites who now stood quaking at the foot of the Mountain but were by the Angel so much would he be respected commanded by the mouth of Mâ—ses not to approach it lest they died After which the Angel began with a dreadful voice to proclaim the Law which was pronounced with so much life and vigour that not withstanding the horrid noyse of Thunder the flashes of lightning and the shrill and penetrating sound of the Trumpet still continued yet all the Hebrews who with their Tents overspread those vast deserts and many thousands of Egyptians who were converted and followed them heard conceived and understood it clearly and distinctly Nay so piercing was the voyce that it entred and imprinted it self in their very bowels speaking unto every one of them as if it had spoken to him only which caused so great a fear and reverence in the people that they thought they could not live if the Angel continued speaking and therefore besought it as a grace that he would speak unto them by the way of Moses lest they should die Nay Moses himself accustomed to see
and work stupendious wonders and being of a great and generous spirit confessed his fear saying as we have it from St. Paul Heb. 12. That he was terrified and trembled Let a man now consider how memorable was that day unto the Hebrew Nation wherein they saw such Visions heard such Thunders and felt such Earthquakes as it is no wonder that the great fear which fell upon them in that day of Prodigies made them think they could not live Yet was all this nothing in respect of the terrour of that great day wherein the Lord of Angels is to demand an account of the violation of the Law For after the sending far greater plagues than those of Egypt after burning in that Deluge of fire the Sinners of the world the Saints remaining still alive that that Article of our Faith may be literally fulfill'd From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead The Heavens shall open and over the Valley of Josaphat the Redeemer of the World attended by all the Angels of Heaven in visible forms of admirable splendour shall with a Divine Majesty descend to judge it Before the Judge shall be born his Standard Chrys Tom. 3. Serm. de Cruce which St. Chrysostome and divers other Doctors affirm shall be the very Cross on which he suffered Then shall the just such being the force and vigour of their spirits as will elevate their terrene and heavy bodies meet as the Apostle sayes their Redeemer in the Air who at his issuing forth of the Heavens shall with a voice that may be heard of all the world pronounce this his Commandment Arise ye dead and come unto Judgement Which shall be proclaimed by four Angels in the four Quarters of the World with such vehemence that the sound shall pierce unto the infernal Region from whence the Souls of the damned shall issue forth and re-enter their bodies which shall from thenceforward suffer the terrible torments of Hell The Souls also of those who died onely in Original sin shall come and possess again their bodies free from pain or torment and the Souls of the blessed filling their bodies with the four gifts of Glory shall make them more resplendent than the Sun and with the gift of agility shall joyn themselves with those just who remain alive in the Air in their passible bodies which being yet mortal and therefore not able to endure those vehement affections of the heart of joy desire reverence love and admiration of Christ shall then die and in that instant behold the Divine Essence after which their Souls shall be again immediately united to their bodies before they can be corrupted or so much as fall unto the ground and thence forward continue glorious for in the moment wherein they die they shall be purified from those noxious humours and qualities wherewith our bodies are now infected And therefore it was convenient they should first die that being so cleansed from all filth they might by the restitution of their blessed Souls receive the gifts of Glory Considering then the so different conditions of the Souls of men who can express the joy of those happy Souls when they shall take possession of their now glorious and beautiful bodies which were long since eaten by worms or wild beasts some four some five thousand years agoe turned into dust and ashes What thanks shall they give to God who after so long a separation hath restored them to their antient Companions What gratulations shall the Souls of them who lived in austerity and penance give unto their own bodies for the mortifications and rigours which they have suffered for the hair-shirts disciplines and fasts which they have observed To the contrary the Souls of the damned how shall they rage and curse their own flesh since to please and pamper it hath been the occasion of their torments and eternal unhappiness Which miserable wretches wanting the gift of agility and so not able of themselves to go unto the place of Justice shall be hurried against their wills by Devils all trembling and full of fear § 2. The Reprobates being then in the Valley of Josaphat and the Predestinate in the Air the Judge shall appear above Mount Olivet Zach. 1. unto whom the clouds shall serve as a Chariot and his most glorious body shall cast forth rayes of such incomparable splendour as the Sun shall appear but as a coal for even the Predestinate shall shine as the Sun but the light and brightness of Christ shall as far exceed them as the Sun does the least Star The which most admirable sight shall be yet more glorious by those thousand millions of excellent and heavenly spirits which shall attend him who having formed themselves acreal bodies of more or less splendour according to their Hierarchy and Order shall fill the whole space betwixt Heaven and Earth with unspeakable beauty and variety The Saviour of the World shall sit upon a Throne of great Majesty made of a clear and beautiful Cloud his countenance shall be most milde and peaceable towards the good and though the same most terrible unto the bad In the like manner out of his sacred wounds shall issue beams of light towards the just full of love and sweetness but unto sinners full of fire and wrath who shall weep bitterly for the evils which issue from them Psa 109. 1 Cor. 15. Phil. 2. So great shall be the Majesty of Christ that the miserable Damned and the Devils themselves notwithstanding all the hate they bear him shall yet prostrate themselves and adore him and to their greater confusion acknowledge him for their Lord and God And those who have most blasphemed and outraged him shall then bow before him fulfilling the promises of the eternal Father That all things should be subject unto him That he would make his enemies his footstool and That all knees should bend before him Here shall the Jews to their greater confusion behold him whom they have crucified and here shall the evil Christians see him whom they have again crucified with their sins here also shall the Sinners behold him in glory whom they have despised for the base trifles of the earth What an amazement will it be to see him King of so great Majesty who suffered so much ignominy upon the Cross and even from those whom he redeemed with his most precious blood What will they then say who in scorn crowned the sacred temples of the Lord with thorns put a Reed in his hand for a Scepter cloathed him in some old and broken Garment of purple buffeted and spit upon his blessed face And what will they then say unto whose consciences Christ hath so often proposed himself in all his bitter passion and painful death and hath wrought nothing upon them but a continuance of greater sins valuing his precious blood shed for their salvation no more than if it were the blood of a Tyger or their greatest enemy I know not how
their Angel guardians shall assist by giving testimony how often they have disswaded them from their evil courses and how rebellious and refractory they have still been to their holy inspirations The Saints also shall accuse them that they have laughed at their good counsels and shall set forth the dangers whereunto they them-themselves have been subject by their ill example The just Judge shall then immediately pronounce Sentence in favour of the good in these words of love and mercy Come you blessed of my Father possess the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the creation of the world O what joy shall then fill the Saints Abul in Mat. Jansen Sot Les l. 13. c. 22. alii Isai 30. and what spight and envy shall burst the hearts of Sinners but more when they shall hear the contrary Sentence pronounced against themselves Christ speaking unto them with that severity which was signified by the Prophet Isaiah when he said His lips were filled with indignation and his tongue was a devouring fire More terrible than fire shall be those words of the Son of God unto those miserable wretches when they shall hear him say Depart from me ye cursed into eternal fire prepared for Satan and his Angels With this Sentence they shall remain for ever overthrown and covered with eternal sorrow and confusion Ananias and Saphira were struck dead only with the hearing the angry voice of St. Peter What shall the Reprobate be in hearing the incensed voice of Christ This may appear by what happened unto St. Catharine of Sienna who being reprehended by St. Paul In vita ejus c. 24. who appeared unto her onely because she did not better employ some little parcel of time said that she had rather be disgraced before the whole World than once more to suffer what she did by that reprehension But what is this in respect of that reprehension of the Son of God in the day of vengeance for if when he was led himself to be judged he with two onely words I am overthrew the astonisht multitude of Souldiers to the ground how shall he speak when he comes to judge In vita PP l. 5. apud Rosul In the book of the lives of the Fathers composed by Severus Sulpitius and Cassianus it is written of a certain young man desirous to become a Monk whom his Mother by many reasons which she alleadged pretended to disswade but all in vain for he would by no means alter his intention defending himself still from her importunity with this answer I will save my soul I will assure my salvation it is that which most imports nic She perceiving that her modest requests prevailed nothing gave him leave to do as he pleased and he according to his resolution entred into Religion but soon began to flag and fall from his fervour and to live with much carelesness and negligence Not long after his Mother died and he himself fell into a grievous infirmity and being one day in a Trance was rapt in spirit before the Judgement Seat of God He there found his Mother and divers others expecting his condemnation She turning her eyes and seeing her Son amongst those who were to be damned seemed to remain astonisht and spake unto him in this manner Why how now Son is all come to end in this where are those words thou saidest unto me I will save nay soul was it for this thou didst enter into Religion The poor man being confounded and amazed knew not what to answer but soon after when he returned unto himself and the Lord was pleased that he recovered and escaped his infirmity and considering that this was a divine admonition he gave so great a turn that the rest of his life was wholly tears and repentance and when many wisht him that he would moderate and remit something of that rigour which might be prejudicial unto his health he would not admit of their advices but still answered I who could not endure the reprehension of my Mother how shall I in the day of judgement endure that of Christ and his Angels Let us often think of this and let not onely the angry voice of our Saviour make us tremble Raph. Columb Ser. 2. Domin in Quadr. but that terrible Sentence which shall separate the wicked from his presence Raphael Columba writes of Philip the second King of Spain that being at Mass he heard two of his Grandees who were near him in discourse about some worldly business which he then took no notice of but Mass being ended he called them with great gravity and said unto them onely these few words You two appear no more in my presence which were of that weight that the one of them died of grief and the other ever after remained stupified and amazed What shall it then be to hear the King of Heaven and Earth say Depart ye cursed and if the words of the Son of God be so much to be feared what shall be his works of justice At that instant the fire of that general burning shall invest those miserable creatures Less l. 13. c. 23. the Earth shall open and Hell shall enlarge his throat to swallow them for all eternity accomplishing the malediction of Christ and of the Psalm which saith Psal 54. Let death come upon them and let them sink alive into hell And in another place Coals of fire shall fall upon them Ps 139. and thou shalt cast them into the fire and they shall not subsist in their miseries And in another Psalm Psal 10. Snares fire and sulphur shall rain upon sinners Finally that shall be executed which was spoken by St. John That the Devil Death and Hell and all Apcc. 20. who were not written in the Book of life were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where they shall be eternally tormented with Antichrist and his false Prophets And this is the second death bitter and eternal which comprehends both the Souls and the Bodies of them who have died the spiritual death of sin and the corporal death which is the effect of it The Just shall then rejoyce according to David Psal 57. beholding the vengeance which the Divine Justice shall take upon sinners and sing another song like that of Moses Exod. 15. when the Aegyptians were drowned in the red sea and that Song of the Lamb related by St. John Apoc. 15. Great and marvelous are thy works O Lord God omnipotent just and righteous are thy wayes King of all Eternity who will not fear thee O Lord and magnifie thy name With those and thousand other Songs of joy and jubilee they shall ascend above the Stars in a most glorious triumph until they arrive in the Empyrial Heaven where they shall be placed in thrones of glory which they shall enjoy for an eternity of eternities In the mean time the earth which was polluted for having sustained the Bodies of the damned shall be
vanity in their manner of leaving us which is excellently represented by St. John Chrysostome in the Eunuch Eutropius Patrician of Constantinople Hom. in Eutrop. tom 5. Consul and great Chamberlain to the Emperour Arcadius who withdrawing his privacy and favour from him committed him to prison which the holy Doctor admirably ponders in this manner If in any time now more than ever may be said Vanity of vanities all is vanity Where is now the splendour of the Consulat where the Lictors and their Fasces where the Applauses Dances Banquets and Revels where the Crowns and Tapestry where the noise of the City and the flattering acclamations of the Circus all those things are perished a boysterous wind hath blown away the leaves and left the naked tree tottering and almost pluckt up by the roots Such was the violence of the storm that when it had shaken all the nerves it threatned utterly to overthrow the stock Where are now those masking friends those healths and suppers where that swarm of Parasites and that flood of wine poured out from morning till evening where that exquisite and various artifice of Cooks those Servants accustomed to say and do all that pleased All these were no more than a Nights dream which disappeared with the day Flowers which withered when the Spring was ended a Shadow they were and so they passed a Smoke and so they vanisht Bubbles in the water and so they burst Spiders webs and so were torn in sunder Wherefore let us ever repeat this sentence Vanity of vanities all is vanity This saying ought to be written upon our Walls Market-places Houses Streets Windows Gates but principally in the Conscience of every one since the deceitful employments of this life and the enemies of truth have gained too much power and authority with many This is it which one man ought to say unto another this is it we ought to say at dinner at supper and in all our conversation Vanity of vanities all is vanity Did I not daily tell thee that riches were flitting and deceitful but thou wouldest not endure me Did not I tell thee they had the condition of a fugitive Slave but thou wouldest not believe me See how experience hath taught thee that they are not onely fugitive but ungrateful and murthering since they have cast thee into this exigent But because this Eunuch would neither be advised by the counsel of his Domesticks nor Strangers do thou at least who art puffed up with wealth and honours make use of this calamity and turn it to thy own profit There is nothing more infirm than humane things By what name soever thou shalt express their baseness thou shalt still fall short Call them hay smoke a dream flowers which wither all is too little they are so frail that they are more nothing than nothing it self They are not only nothing but are still in precipitation Who was more exalted than this man was he not famous for his wealth through the world was he not mounted up to the height of all humane honour Did not all fear and reverence him But behold him now more miserable than Slaves and Bond-men more indigent than those who beg their bread from door to door There is no day wherein are not set before his eyes Swords drawn and sharpened to cut his throat Precipices Hangmen and the Street which lead to the Gallows Neither doth he enjoy the memory of his pad pleasures nor the common light but is at midday as in a dark night pen'd up betwixt four walls deprived of the use of his eyes But wherefore do I remember those things since no words are able to express the fear of his mind who every hour expects his punishment to what end are my speeches when the image of his calamity appears so evidently before thine eyes Not long agoe the Emperour having sent some Souldiers to draw him out of the Church whither he was fled for sanctuary he became as pale as box and at this instant hath no better colour than one who were dead To this add that his teeth gnash against one another his body quakes his voice is broken with sobbs his tongue stammers in conclusion he stands like one whose soul were frozen for fear within him All this is from St. John Chrysostome It is not needful to attend the end of life to see the imposture of it It is enough to see the alterations whilest it lasts CAP. V. The baseness and disorder of Temporal things and how great a Monster men have made the World LEt us now come to consider the baseness of all that which passes in time the which appeared so mean and poor unto Marcus Aurelius that he said Lib. 2. Those things which fall under sense which either allure us with delight or deject us with grief or glitter with outward pomp and appearance how vile are they all how worthy of contempt how sordid and filthy how subject to perish and how dead This said that great Emperour and Monarch of the World when the Roman Empire was in its greatest power and lustre and in the greatest experience of the goods of the earth being more powerful and having more command of them than Salomon and yet he not onely sayes they were vain but vile filthy contemptible and dead That we may understand this better let us look into the substance and being which temporal things have of themselves without respect either to the shortness of their duration or to the variety of their changes for which alone although in themselves most precious yet were they most despicable but being so little so vile so disorderly and for the most part so hurtful and prejudicial unto us although they were eternal yet ought they to be contemned We are not therefore onely to look upon that littleness and poorness which they have by nature and from themselves but upon the evil which they have acquired by our abuse For the World which of it self were tolerable is by us made such that it is not to be endured even by those who best love it And to those natural goods which it affords our unstable appetite hath added such artificial fopperies of our own inventions that of both together we have composed a Monster no less horrible than that described by St. John in the Apocalyps Apoc. 13. And therefore he that will see what worldly felicity is let him cast his eyes upon that Beast which for his unquietness and unconstancy is said to rise out of the sea He had the head and face of a Lion the body of a Leopard a Beast various and spotted and the feet of a Bear and for his more deformity he had seaven heads and ten horns This the lively Image of that which passes in the World For as this Monster is composed of three savage Beasts of a Bear which is carnal and luxurious of a Leopard whose skin is full of eyes and of a Lion the proudest of all other Beasts
at least mortifie our affections for what is promised us hereafter and because it is most agreeable to God and profitable for our selves as may appear by this story related by Glycas Glycas ex eo Rad. in Aula Sancta cap. 12. A certain Anchorite had lived forty years in the desert retired wholly from the world and applying himself with great observance of his profession to the salvation of his Soul A desire at last entred into his minde to know who in the world was equal to himself in mortification Whereupon he besought God to reveal it unto him and it pleased his Divine Majesty to grant his request and it was answered him from heaven that the Emperour Theodâ—sius notwithstanding that he was Master of the greatest glory of the World yet was neither inferiour unto him in humility nor in overcoming himself The Hermite with this answer moved by God repaired unto the Court where he found easie access unto the courteous and religious Emperour unto whom the Servants of God and such as were famous for sanctity of life were alwayes welcome Not long after he found means to speak unto him and know his holy exercises At first he onely acquainted him with common vertues That he gave large Alms That he wore hair-cloth That he fasted often That he observed conjugal chastity and That he caused justice to be exactly observed These vertues seemed well unto the Hermit especially in such a person but yet judged all this to be short of himself who had done those things with greater perfection For he had renounced all and given all he possessed for Christ which was more than to give almes he never knew woman in his life which was more than to observe conjugal chastity he never did injury or injustice unto any which was more than to cause it to be kept to others his hair-cloth and fasts from all sorts of dainties were continual which was more than to abstain some dayes from flesh Wherefore altogether unsatisfied he further importuned the Emperour beseeching him to conceal nothing from him That it was the Divine will that he should acquaint him with what he did and that therefore he was sent unto him from God The Emperour thus urged said unto him Know then that when I assist at the horse-courses and spectacles in the Circus where my presence is required I so withdraw my minde from those vanities that though my eyes be open I see them not The Hermit remained astonisht at so particular a mortification in so great an Emperour and perceived that Scepters and Purple could not hinder a devout Prince from mortification of his affections and meriting much with God Almighty Theodosius further added Know also that I sustain my self by my labour for I transcribe certain parchments into a fair hand which being sold the price payes for my food With this example of poverty amongst so much riches and temperance in the middest of so great dainties the Hermit was wholly amazed and learned that abstinence from ease and pleasures of this life was that which made this religious Prince so gracious and acceptable unto our Lord. Finally so perverse are the delights of the World that though lawful yet they hinder much our spiritual proficiency and if unlawful are the total ruine of our Souls § 4. What shall we then say of the Royal and Imperial dignity which seems in humane judgement to embrace all the happiness of the World Honours Riches Pleasures all are contained in it But how small is a Kingdom since the whole Earth in respect of the Heavens is no bigger than a point and certainly neither Honours Riches or Pleasures are greater or more secure than we have described them Let us hear St. Chrysostome speak of the Emperours of his time Hom. 66. ad pop Look not upon the Crown saith he but upon that tempest of cares which accompany it Fix not thy eyes upon the purple but upon the mind of the King more sad and dark than the purple it self The Diadem doth not more encompass his head than cares and suspicions his soul Look not at the Squadions of his Guard but at the Armies of molestations which attend him for nothing can be so full of cares as the Palaces of Kings Every day they expect not one death but many nor can it be said how often in the night their hearts tremble with some sodain fright and their souls almost seem to forsake their bodies and this in the time of peace But when a warre is kindled what life so miserable as theirs how many dangers happen unto them even from their Friends and Subjects The floor of the Royal Palace is drowned in the blood of their Kindred If I shall mention those which have happened heretofore and now of late thou wilt easily know them This suspecting his Wife tied her naked in the mountains and left her to be devoured by wild beasts after she had been a Mother of divers Kings What a life had that man it being impossible he should execute such a revenge unless his sick heart had been eaten and consumed with jealousie This put to death his onely Son This killed himself being taken by the Tyrant This murthered his Nephew after he had made him his companion in the Empire This his Brother who died by poison and his innocent Son ended his life onely for what he might have been Of those Princes which followed one of them was with his Slaves and Chariots miserably burnt alive and it is not possible for words to express the calamities which he was forced to endure And he which now raigns hath he not since he was crowned suffered many troubles dangers griefs and treasons but in Heaven it is not so After this manner St. Chrysostome paints forth the greatest fortune of the World the Imperial Majesty which must needs be little since it is so unhappy that it suffers not to enjoy those frail goods of the earth in security but makes the possessors oftentimes perish before them But it is far otherwise in Heaven the Palace and House of God where the just without mixture or counterpoise of misery are to enjoy those goods eternal as we shall see in its proper place Lastly let us learn from hence not to admire the greatness of this World nor to desire the benefit of it Which lesson was well taught by St. Spiridion unto his Disciple who accompanying him one time unto the Court of the Emperour suffered himself to be transported with those things which he beheld The greatness and lustre of the Court The rich Garments Jewels Pearls and precious Stones dazled the eyes of the raw and unexperienced youth but above all the sight of the Emperour seated in his Imperial Throne with so much splendour and greatness almost drew him besides himself St. Spiridion willing one day to correct his errour asked him as if he had not known it Which of those were the Emperour His Disciple not reaching his intention
arrogant clay an insolent dust and a sparkle which in a moment is extinguished a flame which quickly dies a light which vanishes into air a dead leaf withered hay faded grass a nature which consumes it self to day threatens and to morrow dies to day abounds in wealth and is to morrow in his grave to day hath his brows circled with a diadem and to morrow is with worms he is to day and to morrow ceases to be triumphs and rejoyces to day and to morrow is lamented immeasurably insolent in prosperity and in adversity admits no comfort who knows not himself yet is curious in searching what is above him is ignorant of what is present and scoffs at what 's to come he who is mortal by nature and out of pride thinks himself eternal he who is an open house of perturbations a game of divers infirmities a concourse of daily calamities and a receptacle of all sorrow O how great is the Tragedy of our baseness and how many things have I said But it cannot better be declared than by the voice of the Prophet In vain doth man who lives trouble himself For truly the things of this life which shine and glister most are of less profit than a putrified Carcase This is of St. John Chrysostome in which he clearly sets forth the misery of Man the shortness of his life and the vanity of things temporal § 3. And that the perfect knowledge of our selves may not be wanting unto us Man is not onely thus vile and base whilest he lives and much more being dead but even his Soul whilest it remains in his Body is not of much greater esteem For although the Soul be of it self of a most noble substance yet our vices do so much vilifie it that they make it more abominable than the Body And without doubt the Soul when it is dead in mortal sin is more corrupt and stinking in the sight of the Angels than a Body dead eight days agoe for if that Body be full of worms this is full of devils and vices And even whilest the Soul lives and is free from any mortal sin yet by committing those which are but venial it becomes full of imperfections and although it be not dead yet it is more weak feeble and languishing than a sick Body and if a man knew himself well he would be more affrighted at the misery of his Soul than at that of his Flesh The devout Father Alfonso Roderiguez a most excellent Master in matters of spirit writes of a holy Woman who desired light from God to know in what condition she was and saw in her self such ugliness and deformity that she was not able to suffer it and therefore besought God again saying Not so much O Lord for I shall faint and be dismaid Father Master John d'Avila saith that he knew a person who often had importuned God to discover unto him what he was It pleased God to open his eyes but a very little and yet that little had like to have cost him dear for he beheld himself so ugly and abominable that he cried out aloud Lord of thy mercy take from before mine eyes this mirrour I desire not any more to behold my figure Donna Sancha Carillo that most fervent servant of Christ after she had led a most perfect and admirable life besought our Lord to give her a sight of her Soul that seeing the filthiness of her sins she might be further moved to abhorre them Our Lord was pleased to grant her request and shewed it her in this form One night as she sat alone in her Sala the door open there passed before her an ancient Hermite his hair all gray and in his hand a staffe to support him She amazed at the sight of such a man in such a habit at so unseasonable an hour was a little surprised with fear yet recollecting her self said unto him Father what seek ye for here to whom he answered Lift up my Cloak and you shall see She did so and beheld a little Girle sickly pale and weak with the face all covered over with flies She took it in her armes and demanded of him Father what is this Doest thou not remember replyed the Hermite when thou earnestly desired'st of our Lord that he would give thee a view of thy Soul Behold the figure of it after this manner it is This said the Apparition vanished and she remained so confused and affrighted that it seemed unto her accordingly as she after confessed that all her bones were displaced with such grief and pain as had it not been for the great favour and mercy of God it had been impossible for her to endure it She passed that night almost overwhelmed with the waves of her sad and troubled thoughts The manner of that Girle so feeble and discoloured afflicted her extremely contemplating it as the image of her Soul especially when she reflected on the face covered with those impertinent and troublesome little creatures her grief was doubled and it seemed unto her as if it had smelt like something that was dead or some old sore which made her send up a thousand sighs unto heaven and to desire a remedy and mercy from our Lord. No sooner did the day so much desired by her appear but she repaired instantly unto her Confessor a person of great vertue and learning and desired him with many tears to explicate unto her the meaning of that Vision and to tell her whether those little creatures did signifie any grievous and hidden sins which her soul knew not of The Confessor took some short time to recommend his answer unto our Saviour which done he returned and said unto her Madam trouble not your self but render hearty thanks unto God for the favour which he hath done you and know that the feebleness which appeared in the Image of your Soul was an effect of venial sins which weaken but kill not cool but extinguish not the charity in our Souls for if they had been mortal sins the Girle would have been dead for those deprive the Soul wholly of life those which be venial onely take away our fervour and promptness in the service of God and the perfect accomplishing of his holy Law If then the Souls of so great Servants of God are so full of miseries wherein can miserable man boast since he is so both in soul and body CAP. IX How deceitful are all things Temporal FRom what hath hitherto been said may be collected how great a lie and cozenage is all that which passes in time and that the things of the earth besides that they are base inconstant and transitory are also deceitful and full of danger This is signified unto us in the Apocalyps by the Harlot by which was denoted humane prosperity who sat upon that monstrous Beast which is the World And amongst other Ornaments as the Scripture sayes she was adorned with gilded gold which gives us to understand her falshood Since it was
dangers no man would take thee up though he should finde thee in the Streets And Dionysius to express the anxieties of the life of Kings said it was like that of condemned persons which every hour expect death This is signified by the Cup of Gold which the Woman that is Prosperity who sat upon the Monster with seaven heads that is the World held in her hand which although it made a fair shew yet was full of abomination because there is none who speaks not ill of his own condition and many who seem most fortunate abhorre their own lot although it appear glorious unto others Salomon was the King who most enjoyed the goods of this life for he resolved to satiate himself with delights even until he surfeited He had a thousand Wives whereof 700 Queens and 300 Concubins he had sumptuous Buildings and Palaces Gardens Orchards Houses of Pleasure Woods Groves Fish-ponds excellent Musick Men and Women Singers the greatest and best ordered Court in the World his Service and Vessels of gold and silver so sumptuous as it caused admiration in the Queen of Saba His Cavalry consisted of 40000 horse with furniture sutable in perpetual pay The Treasure which his Father David left him was according to Budaeus ten times greater than that of Darius King of Persia Finally he arrived unto that point of happiness and felicity in all kindes that he himself admired it and acknowledged himself for the most fortunate Prince in the world and said Eccl. 2. Who shall feed like me and who shall abound in all delights and pleasures as I doe Yet in all this prosperity than which greater cannot be imagined by man when he seriously cast his eyes upon it he said All was vanity and affliction of spirit and was so discontented with his life that he confessed it was tedious unto him and that he detested the care he had taken about it and envying the poor Laborer judged it was better for one to eat of what he got by the sweat of his brows If then such exccess of fortune felicity wealth honour and pleasure deceived so wise a King as Salomon who will not he deceived what shall we expect from some little part of felicity when this flood of fortune could not bestow a contented and quiet life What greater argument of the scarcity and littleness of temporal goods when all are not sufficient to fill a humane heart But as they are not the things which they seem so they afford not what we expect and therefore no man is content with what he has that still appearing better which is anothers And this proceeds from the deceit of humane things that obtaining what we desire and not finding that satisfaction which we expected we envy the condition of others thinking we should there meet with that content which is not to be had at home which seeking with much trouble we at last come to know our errour and find their condition worse than our own This is well exprest by Antiquity in a fiction it made full of doctrine wherein it feigned that the Cretans presented a Petition to Jupiter that since he was born in their Country he would be pleased to exempt them from the trouble and labours endured by others Jupiter answered that this was a Priviledge of those who were in heaven and could not be granted to them who lived upon earth Whereupon they framed a second Supplication that it might be lawful for them to change and truck their labours and cares one with another This was granted Whereupon the next Fair-day every one trussing up his own troubles in a Fardel and loading himself brought them to the Market-place but began before they bargained to search and look into those of others and finding them more heavy and grievous than their own every one returned to his house as wise as he came The remedy of afflictions is not to flye from them but to turn unto God since they happen unto us for our forsaking of him And it was a most high counsel of the Divine Providence that no man should want afflictions that so he might know his sins and hoping onely for ease and comfort in the next life and in God he might acknowledge and onely serve him Wherefore the Prophet Osee saith that God deals with us Osee 2. as a Husband with a Wife who had forsaken him and sought after strange Lovers who sowed thorns in her paths that being wounded she might say I will return unto my first Spouse so God sows Gall and Wormwood in the goods of this life that the Soul being afflicted may repent and turn unto him Another argument of the great deceit of temporal things is this that the more we possess them the more we covet them and alter the experience of their little substance and power to satisfie our hearts yet still we desire and gape after them It is evident that this is a great cozenage and a certain kind of witchcraft by which they snatch away humane affections at such a time as they should most avoid them Nothing satisfies and yet we desire that which does not satisfie How vain then are they since when we possess them they content us not yet we still desire more All the power and felicity of his Kingdom nor the greatness of his Palaces nor being Lord of so many Cities and Fields could content Achab unless he enjoyed the little Vineyard of his poor neighbour which being denied he fell sick with grief and melancholly flung himself upon his bed and for meer rage and madness forbore to eat O goods of the earth where is your greatness since the wealth of a rich Kingdome could not fill the heart of one man but left it empty to desire more and the want of one onely thing had more power to afflict him than so many goods joyned together to content him All things are as vain as this since they cannot give us that for which we seek them Eccl. 5. and therefore Ecclesiastes said The Covetous man shall not be filled with coin and he who loves riches shall not enjoy the fruit of them And this is vanity Finally from ail which is spoken either in this or the former Books may be drawn that consolation of in the Emperour Marous Aurclius in his Philosophy Lib. 2. in fine p. 185. where he sayes The time of humane life is a moment the nature slippery the senses darkned the temperature of the whole body easily corrupted the Soul wandring the fortune what it shall be hard to conjecture the fame uncertain and to be short those things which belong unto the body have the nature of a river and those which belong unto the mind are as smoke or a dream Life is a warre and a peregrination fame after death is forgotten What is there then that can guide unto security There is nothing but Philosophy which consists in this that thou conserve a mind without wound or stain entire and
one day Whereupon St. Austin sayes Such is the beauty of righteousness Augus de libero arb 3. such the joy of that eternal light of that immutable truth and wisdom that although we were not to continue in it above one day yet for so short a time a thousand years in this life replenished with delights and abundance of all goods temporal were justly to be despised For it was not spoken amiss that Better is one day in thy Courts above a thousand So that whereas it is commonly said that for eternal joyes we ought to leave the temporal and frail goods of the earth which are short and transitory St. Austin sayes that if those of heaven were short and these of earth Eternal yet we ought to forsake these for those This is confirmed by that which is written by Thomas de Cantiprato and others Lib. 2. c. 57. N. 67. That the Devil being demanded by an Exorcist what he would suffer to see God answered That he would suffer all that the damned in hell Men and Devils were to suffer until the day of Judgement onely that he might enjoy the sight of him but for some short time How can we then complain of the short troubles of this life which are to be recompenced with the clear vision of God for ever when his professed Enemy would suffer so much onely to enjoy it for an insant Cato having onely read that discourse of Socrates concerning immortality thought it nothing to part with this life and tear his bowels in pieces that he might enjoy that eternal liberty of the Soul freed from the incumbrances and oppressions of the Body Jo. Herol in Promp Exem Heroldus writes that Frier Jordan General of the holy Order of the preaching Friers exorcizing a possest person the Devil amongst other answers to his demands told him That he had never seen the face of God but onely during the twinkling of an eye and that to see it so much longer he would willingly suffer all the pains of his companions until the day of Judgement Frier Jordan remained astonished at this answer and recalling himself a little he said unto him Thou hast said well But declare me his beauty by some similitude or representation Thou hast moved a foolish question replied the Spirit for there is no expressing of it But to give some satisfaction to thy desire I say that if the beauties of all Creatures Heavens Earth Flowers Pearls and all other things that can give any delight to the sight were all comprised in one onely thing if every one of the Stars yielded as much light as the Sun and the Sun shined as bright as all they together all this united so together would be in respect of the beauty of God Almighty as a dark pitchy night in respect of the clearest and brightest day Where by the way it is to be observed that the Devils never saw God clearly as the Angels in glory now behold him but onely by the excellency of their nature attained to some particular and advantagious knowledge of his beauty and divine perfections and joy which resulted from that knowledge And if to enjoy that once again for so short a time they would endure those torments for so long a space what shall it be to behold him clearly in his glory Certainly to be rosted pluckt in pieces with pincers to be burnt alive for a thousand years were well employed to enjoy that felicity but for a day What shall it be to possess it for an eternity when the joy also of each day shall be equivalent to many years Joh. Major Ex. 14. Ex Coll. Psal 89. Wherefore Johannes Major reports that a certain Monk being at Mattins with the other Religious of his Monastery and coming to that verse of the Psalm where it is said A thousand years in the presence of God are but as yesterday which is already past began to imagine with himself how it might be possible and remaining in the Quire as his manner was after the end of Mattins to perfect his devotions he humbly besought the Lord to grant him the true understanding of that place which he had no sooner done but he perceived a little Bird in the Quire that with flying up and down before him by little and little with her most melodious singing insensibly drew him forth of the Church into a Wood not farre off where pearching her self upon a bough she for some short time as it seem'd to him continued her musick to the unspeakable delight of the Monk and then flew away leaving him by her absence no less sad and pensive But seeing she came no more he returned back thinking he had left his Monastery the same morning immediately after Mattins and that it was now about the third hour but coming to the Convent which was near the Wood he found the Gate by which he was accustomed to enter to be mured up and another opened in some other part where calling upon the Porter he was demanded Who he was From whence he came and What was his business He answered that he was the Sacristan of the Church and that having that morning gone abroad after Mattins he found all things at his return changed The Porter demanded of him the name of the Abbot the Prior the Procurator He named them all and wondered he was neither understood nor permitted to enter and why they feigned not to know those Religious whom he mentioned and desired to be brought to the Abbot but coming into his presence neither the Abbot knew him nor he the Abbot whereat the good Monk being much astonished knew not what to say or do The Abbot asked him his name and that of his Abbot and turning the Annals of the Monastery found it was more than three hundred years since the death of those persons which he named Whereupon the Monk making a relation of what had happened unto him concerning the Psalm they acknowledged him and admitted him as a Brother into their profession where having received the Sacraments of the Church he with much peace ended his dayes in our Lord. If the pleasure of one sense did so ravish the Soul of this Servant of God what shall it be when not onely the hearing but the light smell taste the whole body and soul shall be drowned in joyes proportionable to the senses of the one and power of the other If the musick of a little Bird did so transport him what shall the musick of Angels what shall the clear vision of God what shall God himself doe when he makes oftentation if so may say of his omnipotency For as Assuerus who raigned from India to Aethiopia over 170 Provinces made a great Feast for all his Princes which lasted 181 dayes So shall this King of Heaven and Earth make his great Supper of glory which shall last for all eternity for the setting forth of his Majesty and for the honour and entertainment of his Servants where
such a one would hardly make him conceive the brightness and beauty of the Sun much less can the glory of those things of the other world be made to appear unto us though exemplified by comparisons of the greatest beauty the world affords So ineffable blessings are contemned by a Sinner and all to make himself despicable and accursed .. § 3. After the same manner the evils and pains of this World are nothing comparable unto those which are eternal and therefore as the three hundred years enjoying of one heavenly pleasure seemed unto that Servant of God no longer than three hours so to the contrary three hours of eternal pains will appear unto the damned as three hundred years and much more since even of the temporal pains in Purgatory this notable accident is written by St. Antoninus St. Anto. 4. p. §. 4. A man of an evil life was visited by our Lord with a long infirmity to the end he might repent and reflect upon his sins which took effect But his sickness by continuance grew so grievous and tedious unto him as he often with great earnestness recommended himself unto God and besought him to deliver him from the prison of his body Whereupon an Angel appeared unto him with this choice either to continue two years sick in that manner he was and then to goe straight to Heaven or to die instantly and remain three dayes in Purgatory He was not long in his election but presently chose the latter and immediately died but had not been an hour in those pains when the same Angel appeared unto him again and after some encouragement and consolation demanded if he knew him he answered No. I am said he the Angel who brought thee that choice from Heaven either to come hither or to remain in thy infirmity for two years To whom the afflicted soul replied It is impossible thou shouldest be the Angel of the Lord for good Angels cannot lie and that Angel told me I should remain in this place but three dayes and it is now so many years that I have suffered those most bitter torments and can yet see no end of my misery Know then said the Angel that it is not yet an hour since thou left thy body and the rest of the three dayes yet remain for thee to suffer To whom the Soul replied Pray unto the Lord for me that he look not upon my ignorance in making so foolish a choice but that out of his Divine mercy he will give me leave to return once more unto life and I will not onely patiently suffer those two years but as many as it shall please him to impose upon me His Petition was granted and being restored unto life his experience of Purgatory made all the pains of his infirmity seem light unto him in so much as he endured them not onely with patience but joy Much like unto this as appears in the Chronicles of the Minorits happened unto a religious person of the Order of St. Francis Chron. S. Fran. 2. p. l. 4. c. 8. who demanded the same of God Almighty in regard of the much trouble he put his religious brebren unto as also for what he suffered himself An Angel appeared unto him and gave him his choice either of suffering one day in Purgatory or remaining a whole year longer sick as he was He made choice to die presently and had scarce been one hour in Purgatory when he began to complain of the Angel for having cozened him The Angel appeared unto him again certifying him that his body was not yet buried because there was one onely hour past since his death He gave him his choice the second time His Soul was presently reunited to the body and he rose out of his Bed to the great astonishment of all If this then pass in Purgatory it will not be less in hell and if an hour seem a year which contains above eleven thousand hours an eternity in hell will appear eleven thousand eternities O how dearly bought are the short pleasures of the senses which are paid for with so long and so innumerable torments For if pain should last no longer than the pleasure that deserved it it would seem to those who are to feel it ten thousand times longer What will it do being eternal O pains of this World infirmities griefs and troubles how ridiculous are ye compared with those which are eternal since the time which you endure is but short and it is not much that you can afflict us nay if by temporal punishments we may escape the eternal you are most happy unto us and ought to be received with a thousand welcoms CAP. II. The greatness of the eternal honour of the Just LEt us now in particular consider the greatness of those goods of the other life in which are contained Honours Riches Pleasures and all the blessings both of soul and body of each whereof we shall say something apart and will begin with that of Honour Certainly the reward of honour which shall be conferred upon the Just in the other life is to be wonderful great First in respect that amongst all the appetites of a reasonable creature that of honour is the most potent and prevalent Secondly because our Saviour exhorts us unto humility as the way by which we are to enter into glory and promiseth honours and exaltations unto the humble and there is no question but in that place of satiety remuneration and accomplishment of all that can be desired the honour of the Servants of Christ and followers of his humility shall be inexpressible of which there are many promises in holy Scripture He himself sayes That his Father will honour them in Heaven and David sings Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour and Ecclesiasticus as it is applied by the Church A Crown of Gold upon his head graven with the seal of holiness and the glory of honour Besides all the tribute which those who serve God are able to pay him is onely to laud and honour him His eternal joy happiness and all his intrinsecal perfections are so excellent that they can receive no addition onely this glory and honour as they are an exteriour good are capable of augmentation And this is that which he receives from the Saints who serve him With which God is so pleased that he pays them again in the same money and honours those who honoured him and this honour arrives at that height that Christ himself expresses it in these words Apoc. 3. He who shall overcome I will give him to sit with me in my Throne even at I have overcome and have sitten with the Father in his Throne At the greatness of which promise a Doctor being amazed cries out Bell. l. 1. de aterna felici c. 4. infine How great shall be that glory when a just Soul shall in the presence of an infinite number of Angels sit in the same Throne with Christ and shall by the
to the Common-wealth known to posterity But in Heaven there is no need of this artifice because those who are there honoured are immortal and shall have in themselves some character engraved as an evident and clear testimony of their noble Victories and Atchievements The honour of the Just in Heaven depends not like that of the Earth upon accidents and reports nor is exposed to dangers or measured by the discourse of others but in it self contains its own glory and dignity Cuiac ad tit de dignit The dignities in the Roma Empire as may be gathered from the Civil Law were four expressed by these four Titles Perfectissimus Clariffimus Spectabilis Illustris most Perfect most Clear Specious and Illustrious These Honours were onely in name and reputation not in substance and truth For He was often called most perfect who was indiscreet foolish passionate and imperfect He most clear who had neither clearness nor serenitity of understanding but was infected with dark and obscure vices Those specious and beautiful from whom a man would flye twenty leagues rather than behold them and those illustrious who were enveloped in the darkness of vice and ignorance without the least light of vertue That we may therefore see the difference betwixt the honours of Heaven and those of the Earth which are as farre distant from one another as truth from falsehood we must know that in Heaven the Blessed are not onely called most Perfect but really are so both in soul and body without the least imperfection or defect are not onely called most Clear but are so each one being adorned with that gift of brightness that they shall cast out beams more clear than the Sun and if the Sun be the most bright thing in nature what shall they be who seaventimes out-shine it Nor shall they be onely said to be spectabilis or specious and worthy to be looked upon but their beauty and comeliness shall be such as shall not onely draw the eyes of all to behold them but shall stirre up their affections to love and admire them In the like manner they shall not be titularly but really Illustrious for every one with his own light shall be sufficient to illustrate and enlighten many Worlds If one onely false title of those which are truely enjoyed by the Blessed were capable of making the Roman Empire to respect and honour the possessor what shall the truth and substance of them all do in Heaven 1 Mac. 2. With reason did Mathathias call the glory of this World dung and filth because all honours and dignities of the Earth in respect of those in Heaven are base vile and despicable What greater honour than to be Friends of God Sons Heirs and Kings in the Realm of Heaven Apoc. 4. St. John in his Apocalyps sets forth this honour of the blessed in the 24 Elders who were placed about the Throne of God and in that Honour and Majesty as every one was seared in his presence and that upon a Throne cloathed in white and lucid Garments in signe of their perpetual joy and crowned with a crown of Gold in respect of their dignities To be covered in the presence of Kings is the greatest honour they conferre upon the chiefest Grandees but God causes his Servants to be crowned and seated upon Thrones before him and our Saviour in the Day of Judgement makes his Disciples his fellow Judges §. 4. Certainly greater honour cannot be imagined than that of the Predestinate For if we look upon him who honours It is God If with what With no less joy than his own Divinity and other most sublime gifts If before whom Before the whole Theater of Heaven now and in the Day of Judgement before Heaven Earth Angels Men and Devils If the continuance For all eternity If the titles which he gives them it is the truth and substance of the things not the empty word and vain name By all this may appear the cause why eternal happiness being a mass and an assembly of all goods imaginable yet is called by way of excellence by the name of Glory because that although it contain all pleasures contents joyes riches and what can be defired yet it seems the Glory and honour which God bestows upon the Just exceeds all the other The honour which God gives in Heaven to glorious Souls may be seen by that which he gives to their worm-eaten bones upon Earth whereof St. Chrysostom speaks these words Where is now the Sepulcher of the great Alexander In 2. ad Corinth Hom. 26. shew it me I beseech thee and tell me the day whereon he died The Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ are so famous that they possess the most Royal and Imperial City of the World and the day whereon they died is known and observed as festival by all The Sepulcher of Alexander is unknown even to his own Countrymen but that of these is known to the very Barbarians Besides the Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ excell in splendor and magnificence the Palaces of Kings not onely in respect of the beauty and sumptuousness of their buildings wherein they also exceed but which is much more in the reverence and joy of those who repair unto them For even he who is clothed in Purple frequents their Tombs and humbly kisses them and laying aside his Majesty and Pomp supplicates their prayers and assistance with God Almighty he who wears the Diadem taking a Fisherman and a Maker of Tents for his Patrons and Protectors What miracles hath not God wrought by the Reliques of his Servants and what prodigies have not been effected by their bodies St. Chrysostome writes of St. Juventius Chrysost in Serm. de Juven Max. Sever. in Ep. ad Socrum and St. Maximus that their bodies after death cast forth such beams of light that the eyes of those who were present were not able to suffer them Sulpicius Severus writes of St. Martin that his dead body remained in a manner glorified that his flesh was pure as Chrystal and white as milk What wonders did God work by the bodies of St. Edward the King and St. Francis Xavier preserving them incorrupted for so many years and if he do those great things with their Bodies who are under the Earth what will he do with their Souls which are above the Heavens and what with them both when their glorious Bodies shall arise and after the Day of Judgement united to their Souls enter in triumph into the holy and eternal City of God CAP. III. Of the Riches of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven THe Riches in Heaven are no less than the Honours though those as hath been said are inestimable There can be no greater riches than to want nothing which is good nor to need any thing which can be desired and in that blessed life no good shall fall nor no desire be unsatisfied And if as the Philosophers say he is not rich who possesseth much
that it may not onely be said to be joyful but joy it self The multitude of joyes in Heaven is joyned with their greatness and so great they are that the very least of them sufficient to make us forget the greatest contents of the Earth and so many they are as that though a thousand times shorter yet they would exceed all temporal pleasures though a thousand times longer but joyning the abundance of those eternal joyes with their immense greatness that eternal B iss becoms ineffable Wherefore St. Bernard sayes The reward of Saints is so great that it cannot be measured so numerous that it cannot be counted so copious that it cannot be ended and so precious that it cannot be valued Albert. Mag. in Comp. Theol. l. 7. c. 8. 1 Cor. 2. Isai 64. And Albertus Magnus to the same purpose So great are the joyes of Heaven that all the Arithmaticians of the Earth cannot number them The Geometricians cannot measure them nor the most learned men in the world explicate them because neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love him The Saints shall rejoyce in what is above them which is the vision of God in what is below them which is the beauty of Heaven and other corporal Creatures in what is within them which is the glorification of their bodies in what is without them which is the company of Angels and men God shall feast all their spiritual senses with an unspeakable delight for he shall be their object and shall also be a mirrour to the sight musick to the ear sweetness to the taste balsam to the smell flowers to the touch There shall be the clear light of Summer the pleasantness of the Spring the abundance of Autumn and the repose of Winter §. 2. The principal joy of the Blessed is in the possession of God whom they behold clearly as he is in himself For as Honourable Profitable and Delectable according to what we have already said are not divided in Heaven so the blessed Souls have three gifts essential and inseparable from that happy state which correspond to those three kinds of blessings which the Divines call Vision Comprehension and Fruition The first consists in the clear and distinct sight of God which is given to the Just as a reward of his merits by which he receives an incomparable honour since his works and vertues are rewarded in the presence of all the Angels with no less a Crown and recompence than is God himself The second is the possession which the Soul hath of God as of his riches and inheritance And the third is the ineffable joy which accompanies this sight and possession The greatness of this joy no tongue can tell and I believe that neither the Blessed themselves who have experience of it nor the Angels of Heaven are able to declare it Yet it will not be amiss if we as much as our ignorance and rudeness is able to attain unto consider and admire it This joy hath two singular qualities by which we may in some sort conceive the immensity of it The first that it is so vigorous and powerful that it excludes all evil pain and grief This onely is so great a good that many of the Philosophers held it for the chief felicity of man Cicero de Fin. 5. Tuscul And therefore Cicero writes that Jeronymus Rhodius a famous Philosopher and a great Master to whom may be joyned Diodorus the Peripatetick speaking of the chief happiness of man taught that it consisted in being free from grief It being the opinion of those Philosophers that not to suffer pain or evil was the greatest and most supreme good But herein was their errour that they judged that to be the good it self which was but an effect and consequent of it For so powerful is that love and joy which springs from the clear vision of God that it is sufficient to convert hell into glory in so much as if to the most tormented Soul in hell were added all the torments of the rest of the Damned both Men and Devils and that God should vouchsafe him but one glympse of his knowledge that only clear vision though in the lowest degree were sufficient to free him from all those evils both of sin and pain So that his Soul being rapt by that ineffable beauty which he beheld would not be sensible of any grief at all O how potent a joy is that which cast into such an abyss of torments converts them all into consolations How mighty were that fire whereof one spark would consume the whole Ocean There is no joy in this World so intense which can suspend the grief we suffer from a finger that is in sawing off Griefs do more easily bereave us of the sense of pleasure than pleasures do of pains Yet such is the greatness of that soveraign joy in Heaven that it alone is sufficient to drown all the griefs and torments both in Earth and Hell and there is no pain in the World able to diminish the least part of it The other stupendious wonder which proceeds from the greatness of this joy is the multitude of those pleasures which as from a most fruitful root spring from it Who would not be astonisht that the happiness of the Soul should cause so many and so marvelous effects in the bodies of the Blessed So excellent is that beatifical vision which with ineffable joy possesses the spirit that it bursts forth into the body with all the evident demonstrations of beauty lustre and the other gifts of glory We see here that the heart is not able so farre to dissemble a great joy conceived as that it appears not by some signe in the body but that joy is so weak and feeble that it extends no further than to express some little chearfulness and mirth in the countenance But the beatifical Vision is so immense a joy that it wholly changes the body making it beautiful as an Angel resplendent as the Sun immortal as a Spirit and impassible as God himself working great miracles and prodigies in the body by the redundancie of that unspeakable comfort which the spirit feels O if one could place before the eyes of the World the body of some blessed Saint enendowed with the four gifts of glory full of clearness splendor and beauty casting forth a fragrancy infinitely more sweet unto the senses than that of Musk and Amber that men might see by this shadow how immense is that light and joy which thus illustrates and beautifies the flesh O mortals why do ye covet other pleasures with loss of Soul and Body and do not rather seek after these with the profit and glory of both O how different are temporal delights from eternal those especially if they be unlawful blemish and destroy the Soul and weaken and corrupt the body but these beautifie and embellish them both
conferring perfect happiness upon the Soul and beauty and immortality upon the Body § 3. Finally all those joyes of the Blessed both in Soul and Body which are innumerable have their sourse and original from that unspeakable joy of the clear vision of God And how can the joy be less which proceeds from such a cause who gives himself being the sweetness and beauty of the world to be possessed by man that joy being the very same which God enjoyes and which suffices to make God himself blessed with a blessedness equal to himself Wherefore not without great mystery in those words by which our Saviour admits the faithful into Heaven it is said Enter into the joy of thy Lord. he said not simply into joy but to determine the greatness of it sayes it was his own joy that joy by which he himself becomes happy and truly the immensity of this joy could not better be declared We are therefore to consider that there is nothing in this World which hath not for his end some manner of perfection and that those things which are capable of reason and knowledge have in that perfection a particular joy and complacencie which joy is greater or lesser according as that end is more or less perfect Since therefore the Divine perfection is infinitely greater than that of all the Creatures the joy of God which is in himself for he hath no end not perfection distinct from himself is infinitely greater than that of all things besides This joy out of his infinite goodness and liberality he hath been pleased to make the holy Angels and blessed Souls partakers of communicating unto the Just although no wayes due unto their nature his own proper and special felicity And therefore the joy of Saints which is that of the beatifical vision wherein consists the joy and happiness of God must needs be infinite and unutterable and all contents of this World in respect of it are bitter as alloes gall and wormwood Besides by how much a delectable object is more nearly and straightly united to the faculty by so much greater is the joy and delight which it produces Therefore God who is the most excellent and delightful object being in the beatifical vision united to the Soul with the most intimate union that can be in a pure creature must necessarily cause a most inexplicable joy incomparably greater than all the joyes real or imaginable which can be produced either by the Creatures now existent or possible For as the Divine perfection incloseth within it self all the perfections of things created possible and imaginable so the joy which it causes in the Souls of the Blessed must be infinitely greater than all other joyes which either have or can be caused by the Creature If the Greeks warred ten years and lost so much blood for the beauty of Helen And if it seemed a small thing unto Jacob to serve fourteen years a Slave for that of Rachel what trouble can seem great unto us to enjoy God in comparison of whose beauty all which the World affords is but deformity Absolon and Adonis were most beautiful and with their very sight drew love and admiration from their beholders But it looking upon Absolon another ten times more lovely should appear we should quickly leave to gaze upon Absolon and fix our eyes upon the other and if a third should come a hundred times more graceful than the second we should serve the second in the same manner and our eyes and delight would still follow him who was the most agreeable God being then infinitely more beautiful than we can either see or think and although he should create some other Creature ten hundred thousand times more beautiful than these we know yet that and one another million of times exceeding it would both fall infinitely short of God himself especially that beauty not being alone but accompanied with perfections without limit with an infinite wisdom omnipotence holiness liberality bounty and all that can be imagined good beautiful and perfect which must necessarily force the hearts of those who see him although before his enemies to love and adore him Which is an other proof of the joy which springs from the beatifical vision in regard it works so powerfully upon the will of him that enjoyes it that it compels it by an absolute necessity to a most intense love although it had before detested it because the joy must equalize the love which it caused It there were in the World a Man as wise as an Angel we should all desire to see him as the Queen of Saba did Salmon but if to this wisdom were joyned the strength of Hercules or Sampson the victories of Machabeus or Alexander the affability and curtesie of David the friedliness of Jonathan the liberality of the Emperour Titus and to all this the beauty and comeliness of Absolon who would not love and desire to live and converse with this admirable person Why then do we not love and desire the sight of God in whom all those perfections and graces infinitely above these are united which also we our selves if we serve him are to enjoy as if they were our own O how great and delightful a Theater shall it be to see God as he is with all his infinite perfections and the perfections of all Creatures which are eminently contained in the Deity How admirable were that spectacle where were represented all that are or have been pleasant or admirable in the World If one were placed where he might behold the seaven Wonders of the World the sumptuous Banquets made by Assuerus and other Persian Kings the rare Shews and Feasts exhibited by the Romans the pleasant Trees and savoury Fruits of Paradise the Wealth of Craesus David and the Assyrian and Roman Monarchs and all those joyntly together who would not be transported with joy and wonder at so admirable a sight but more happy were he upon whom all these were bestowed together with the assurance of a thousand years of life wherein to enjoy them Yet all this were nothing in respect of the eternal sight of God in whom those and all the perfections that either are or have been or possibly can be are contained What ever else is great and delightful in the World together with all the pleasures and perfections that all the men in the World have obtained or shall obtain to the World's end all the wisdom of Salomon all the sciences of Plato and Aristotle all the strength of Aristomenes and Milo all the beauty of Paris and Adonis if they should give all these things to one person it would have no comparison and would seem to be a loathsome thing being compared onely to the delight which will be enjoyed in seeing God for all eternity because in him onely will be seen a Theater of Bliss and Greatness wherein are comprised as in one the greatness of all creatures In him will be found all the richness of Gold the delightfulness
danger But this Celestial happiness being eternal neither shall nor can end diminish or be endangered but with this security adds a new joy unto those others of the Saints §. 2. Besides the Powers of the Soul the Senses also shall live nourished with the food of most proportionable and delightful objects The eyes shall ever be recreated with the sight of the most glorious and beautiful Bodies of the Saints One Sun suffices to chear up the whole World What joy then shall one of the Blessed conceive in beholding as many Suns as there are Saints and in seeing himself one of them when his hands feet and the rest of his members shall all forth beams clearer than the Sun at midday how shall he be transported in beholding the Body of the holy Virgin our most blessed Lady more beautiful and resplendent than the light of all the Saints together When Saint Dionysius Arcopagita beheld her in a mortal Body she seemed unto him as if she had been in glory With what joy then and gladness shall we look upon her in Heaven clad with immortality Hester 2. Of Hester the holy Scripture tells us that she was incomparably beautiful and of most rare features ravishing the eyes of all and exceedingly amiable With how fat greater excellency will the Queen of Heaven appear full of all graces and priviledges of beauty in the happy state of glory But above all with what content and admiration shall we behold the glorious Body of Christ our Redeemer in comparison of whose splendor that of all the Saints shall be as darkness from whose wounds shall issue forth raies of a particular brightness The tormented members also of the Martyrs and the mortified parts of the Confessors shall flourish with a singular beauty and splendour Besides all this the glory and greatness of the Empyrial Heaven and the lustre of that Celestial City shall infinitely delight the blessed Citizens The ears shall be fill'd with most harmonious songs and musick as may be gathered from many places of the Apocalyps and if the Harp of David delighted Saul so much as it asswaged the fury of his passions cast forth the Devils and treed him of that melancholy whereof the wicked spirit made use and that the Lyre of Orpheus wrought such wonders both with men and beasts what shall the harmony of Heaven do The devout Virgin Donna Sancha Carillo being sick and ready to die with excessive pain Roa l. 1. c. 10. in ejus vita with the hearing of musick from Heaven was freed from her grief and remained sound and healthy St. Bonaventure writes of St. Francis that whilest an Angel touched his Instrument it seemed unto him that he was already in glory What delight then will it be not onely to hear the voice of one Instrument played upon by an Angel but also the voices of thousands of Angels together with the admirable melody of musical Instruments The singing of one little Bird only ravished an holy Monk for the space of three hundred years when as he perswaded himself they being past that there were no more than three hours past What sweetness will it be to heat so many heavenly Musicians those millions of Angels so many men which will be sounding forth their Alleluja's which holy Tobie mentioned and those Virgins singing a new song which none but they could sing Surius writes in the life of St. Nichalas Tolentine that for fix moneths before his death he heard every night a little before Mattins most melodious musick of Angels in which he had a taste of that sweetness which God had prepared for him in his glory and such joy and comfort he received by hearing it that he was wholly transported desiring nothing more than to be freed from his Body to enjoy it The same desired St. Austin when he said Aug. c. 25. med that all the employments all the entertainments of the Courtiers in Heaven consisted in praises of the Divine Majesty without end without weariness or trouble Happy were I and for ever happy if after death I might deserve to hear the melody of those songs which the Citizens of that Celestial habitation and the squadrons of those blessed spirits sing in praise of the eternal King This is that sweet musick which St. John heard in the Apocalyps when the Inhabitants of Heaven sang Let all the world bless thee O Lord To thee be given all honour and dominion for a world of worlds Amen The smell shall be feasted with the odour which issues from those beautiful Bodies more sweet than Musk or Amber and from the whole Heaven more fragrant than Jesemins or Roses Greg. l. 4. dialog c. 16. Hom. 38. in Evang. Turonen li. 7. histo Fran. St. Gregory the Great writes that Christ our Redeemer appearing unto Tarsilla his Sister cast forth so delicious a smell and fragrancy that it well appeared it could not proceed but from the Author of all sweetness St. Gregory of Tours writing of the holy Abbot St. Sylvius sayes that when he was dead there was so great sadness in the Monastery for the loss of him that our Lord was pleased to command that he should be restored to life again The Saint obeyed though with great resentment of what he left and whither he returned He bewailed his banishment with a fresh and lively memory of that Celestial Country where he had seen himself a little before with so great advantage The Monks pressed him very hard to declare unto them something of of what he had seen He told them I my dear Bretheren mounted up to the land of the living where I had the Sun Moon and Starres for my footstool with greater splendour and beauty than if it had been paved with silver and gold being placed in the seat deputed for me I was replenished with an odour of so singular sweetness that it alone hath been sufficient to banish all appetites or desires of the things of this life in so much that I neither desired to eat nor drink any thing to maintain it Baron To. 9. an 716 Baronius reports of one who raised from death amongst other things recounted That he had seen a most delightful place where an infinite number of most beautiful persons did recreate themselves and that there issued from them a most fragrant and miraculous sweetness and this the Angels told him was the Paradise of the Sons of God Greg. l. 4. Dial. The like is reported also by St. Gregory of a certain Souldier Neither is it much that glorious Bodies should breath out so sweet a smell since even in this valley of misery the Bodies of Saints without life or soul have sent forth a most admirable fragrancy St. Gregory the Great writes that at the instant Greg. 4. Dial. c. 14. when Sr. Servius died all who were present were filled with a most incomparable sweetness St. Jerome reports the like of St. Hilarion that ten moneths after his death
his Body cast forth a most fragrant perfume If this be in corruptible flesh what shall be in the immortal Bodies of the Saints The taste also in that blessed Country shall not want the delight of its proper object For although the Saints shall not there feed which were to necessitate that happy state unto something besides it self yet the tongue and pallat shall be satiated with most pleasant and savoury relishes so as with great decency and cleanliness they shall have the delight of meat without the trouble of eating by reason of the great delicacy of this Celestial taste The glory of the Saints is often signified in holy Scripture under the names of a Supper Banquet Manna Aug. lib. de spiritu vita Laur. Justin de Dis Mon. ca. 23. St. Austin sayes it cannot be explicated how great shall be the delight and sweetness of the taste which shall eternally be found in Heaven And St. Laurentius Justinianus affirms that an admirable sweetness of all that can be delightful to the taste shall satisfie the pallat with a most agreeable satiety If Esau sold his Birthright for a dish of Lentil pottage well may we mortifie our taste here upon earth that we may enjoy that perfect and incomparable one in Heaven The touch also shall there receive a most delightful entertainment All they tread upon shall seem unto the Just to be flowers and the whole disposition of their Bodies shall be ordered with a most sweet and exquisite temperature For as the greatest penances of the Saints were exercised in this sense by the afflictions endured in their Bodies so it is reason that this sense should then receive a particular reward And as the torments of the damned in hell are most expressed in that sense so the Bodies of the Blessed in Heaven are in that sense to receive a special joy and refreshment And as the heat of that infernal fire without light is to penetrate even to the entrals of those miserable persons so the candor and brightness of the celestial light is to penetrate the bodies of the Blessed and fill them with an incomparable delight and sweetness All then what we are to do is to live in that true and perfect life all is to be joy in that eternal happiness Therefore as St. Anselme sayes Ansel de Simil. c. 59. the eyes nose mouth hands even to the bowels and marrow of the bones and all and every part of the body in general and particular shall be sensible of a most admirable pleasure and content Joan. de Tamba Trac de Deliciis sensibilibus Paradisi Et Nich. de Nise de quat Noviss 3. Myst 4. Consi The Humanity of Christ our Redeemer is to be the principal and chief joy of all the Senses and therefore John Tambescensis and Nicholas of Nise say that as the intellectual knowledge of the Divinity of Christ is the joy and essential reward of the Soul so the sensitive knowledge of the Humanity of Christ is the chief good and essential joy of the Senses and the utmost end and felicity whereunto they can aspire This it seems was meant by our Saviour in St. John when speaking unto the Father he said This is life eternal that is essential blessedness as Nicholas de Nise interprets it that they know thee the only true God in which is included the essential glory of the Soul and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ in which is noted the essential blessedness of the Senses in so much as onely in the Humanity of our Saviour the appetite of the Senses shall be so perfectly satisfied as they shall have no more to desire but in it shall receive all joy pleasure and fulness of delight for the eyes shall be the sight of him who is above all beauty for the ears one onely word of his shall sound more sweetly than all the harmonious musick of the Celestial spirits for the smell the fragrancy that shall issue from his most holy Body shall exceed the perfume of spices for the taste and touch to kiss his feet and sacred wounds shall be beyond all sweetness It is much also to be noted that the blessed Souls shall be crowned with some particular joyes which the very Angels are not capable of For first it is they onely who are to enjoy the Crowns of Doctors Virgins and Martyrs since no Angel can have the glory to have shed his blood and died for Christ neither to have overcome the flesh and by combats and wrastlings subjected it unto reason Wherefore Saint Bernard said The chastity of men was more glorious than that of Angels Secondly men shall have the glory of their bodies and joy of their senses which the Angels cannot For as they want the enemy of the Spirit which is the Flesh so they must want the glory of the victory Neither shall they have this great joy of mankind in being redeemed by Christ from sin and as many damnations into hell as they have committed mortal sins and to see themselves now freed and secure from that horrid evil and so many enemies of the Soul which they never had which must needs produce a most unspeakable joy Cap. VI. The excellency and perfection of the Bodies of the Saints in the life eternal WE will not forbear also to consider what man shall be when he is eternal when being raised again at the great day he shall enter Soul and Body into Heaven Let us run over if you please all those kinds of goods which expect us in that Land of promise When God promised Abraham the Country of Palestine he commanded him to look upon it and travel and compass it from side to side Gen. 13. Lift up thine eyes saith the Lord and from the place where thou standest look towards the North and towards the South and towards the East and towards the West All the land which thou seest I will give unto thee and thy seed for ever And immediately after Arise and walk the land in length and breadth for I will certainly give it thee We may take these words as spoken unto our selves since they seem to promise us the Kingdom of Heaven for no man shall enter into that which he docs not desire and no man can desire that as he ought to do which he has not walked over in his consideration for that which is not known is hardly desired And therefore we ought often to contemplate the greatness of this Land the length of its eternity and the breadth and largeness of its felicity which is so far extended that it fills not onely the Soul but the Body with happiness and glory that glory of the Soul redounding unto the Body and perfecting it with those four most excellent gifts and replenishing it with all felicity which can be imagined or desired If Moses seeing an Angel in a corporal figure onely upon the back part and but in passage received so great a glory from
the light and beauty which he beheld that his heart not being able to contain it it struck forth into his face with a divine brightness what joy shall the blessed Souls receive from the sight of God himself when they shall behold him as he is face to face not in passage or a moment but for all eternity This joy by reason of their strict union their Souls shall communicate unto their happy Bodies Albert. Mag. in Comp. Theol. l. 7. c. 38. which from thenceforth shall be filled with glory and invested with a light seaven times brighter than that of the Sun as is noted by Albertus Magnus For although it be said in the Gospel that the Just shall shine as the Sun yet Isaias the Prophet sayes that the Sun in these dayes shall shine seaven times more than it now doth This light being the most beautiful and excellent of corporal qualities shall cloath the Just as with a garment of most exceeding lustre and glory What Emperor was ever clad in such a purple what humane Majesty ever cast forth beams of such splendour Joseph l. 19. c. 〈◊〉 Herod upon the day of his greatest magnificence could only cloath himself in a Robe of silver admirably wrought which did not shine of it self but by reflection of the Sun beams which then in his rising cast his raies upon it and yet this little glittering was sufficient to make the people salute him as a God What admiration shall it then cause to behold the glorious Body of a Saint not cloathed in Gold or Purple not adorned with Diamonds or Rubies but more resplendent than the Sun it self Put all the brightest Diamonds together all the fairest Rubies all the most beautiful Carbuncles let an Emperial Robe be embroidered with them all all this will be no more than as coals in respect of a glorious body which shall be all transparent bright and resplendent far more than if it were set with Diamonds O the basenese of worldly riches they all put together could not make a Garment so specious and beautiful If here we account it for a bravery to wear a Diamond Ring upon our fingers and women glory in some Carbuncle dangling at their breasts what shall it be to have our hands feet arid breasts themselves more glorious and resplendent than all the Jewels of the World The Garments which we wear here how rich soever are rather an affront and disgrace unto us than an ornament since they argue an imperfection and a necessity of our bodies which we are forced to supply with something of another mature Besides our cloathes were given as a mark of Adams fall in Paradise and we wear them as a penance enjoyned for his Sin And what fool so impudent and sottish as to bestow precious trimming upon a penitential Garment But such are not the Ornaments of the Saints in Heaven their lustre is their own not borrowed from their Garments not extrinsecal without them but within their very entrails each part of them being more transparent than Chrystal and brighter than the Sun It is recounted in the Apocalyps as a great wonder that a Woman was seen cloathed with the Sun and crowned with twelve Stars This indeed was far more glorious than any Ornament upon Earth where we hold it for a great bravery to be adorned with twelve rich Diamonds and a Carbuncle and what are those in comparison of the Sun and so many Stars Yet this is short of the Ornament of the Saints whose lustre is proper to themselves intrinsecally their own not taken and borrowed from something without them as was that of the Womans The State and Majesty with which this gift of splendor shall adorn the Saints shall be incomparably greater than that of the mightiest Kings It were a great Majesty in a Prince when he issues forth of his Palace by night to be attended by a thousand Pages each having a lighted Torch but were those Torches Stars it were nothing to the state and glory of a Saint in Heaven who carries with him a light equal to that of the Sun seaven times doubled and what greater glory than not to need the Sun which the whole World needs Where the Just is shall be no night for wheresoever he goes he carries the day along with him What greater authority can there be than to shine far brighter than the Sun carrying with him far greater Majesty than all the men of the Earth could be able to conferre upon him if they went accompanying him carrying lighted Torches in their hands St. Paul beholding the gift of Clarity in the humanity of Christ remained for some dayes without sense or motion And St. John onely beholding it in the face of our Saviour fell down as if dead his mortal eyes not being able to endure the lustre of so great a Majesty St. Peter because he saw something of it in the transfiguration of Christ was so transported with the glory of the place that he had a desire to have continued there for ever Neither was this much in Christ since the people of Israel were not able to suffer the beams which issued from the face of Moses though then in a frail and mortal body Caesar lib. 12. mir cap. 54. Caesarius writes of a great Doctor of the University of Paris who being ready to give up his ghost wondered how it could be possible that Almighty God could make his body composed of dust to shine like the Sun But our Lord being pleased to comfort and strengthen him in the belief of the Article of the Resurrection caused so great a splendor to issue forth of the feet of the sick person that his eyes not being able to suffer so great a splendor he was forced to hide them under his Bed-cloathes But much more is it that in bodies already dead this glory should appear The body of St. Margaret Daughter to the King of Hungary sent forth such beams of light that they seemed to be like those of Heaven The splendor also of other dead bodies of the Saints hath been such that mortal eyes were not able to behold them If then this Garment of light do beautifie those dead bodies without souls how shall it illustrate those beautiful and perfect bodies in Heaven who are alive and animated with their glorious spirits for all eternity St. John Damascen said that the light of this inferiour World was the honour and ornament of all things How shall then the immortal light of that eternal glory deck and adorn the Saints for it shall not onely make them shine with that bright candor we have already spoken of but with diversity of colours shall imbellish some particular parts more than others In the Crowns of Virgins it shall be most white in that of Martyrs red in that of Doctors of some particular brightness Neither shall those marks of glory be only in their heads or faces but in the rest of their members And therefore
no wayes hinder them they shall therefore in the same manner walk or stay upon Water Air Heavens as upon Earth It was miraculous in St. Quirinus Martyr St. Maurus and St. Francis of Paula that they walked upon waters passed rapid rivers and seas without Vessels but the glorious bodies shall not onely be able to traverse the seas mount into the air but enter into flames secure and without hurt It is said of S. Francis of Assisium that in the fervour of his prayers and contemplations he was seen lifted up into the air and the great Servant of God Father Diego Martines of the Society of Jesus was lifted up in prayer above the highest trees and Towers and hanging in the air persisted in his devotion If God vouchsafe so great favours to his servants in this valley of tears what priviledges will he deny to the Citizens of Heaven To this so notable gift of Agility shall be annexed that of Penetration by which their glorious bodies shall have their way free and pervious through all places no impediment shall stop their motion and for them shall be no prison or enclosure They shall with greater ease pass through the middle of a rock than an arrow through the air It shall be the same thing for them to mount unto the Moon where they shall meet no solid body to oppose them as to pierce unto the center through rocks mettals and the gross body of the earth We wonder to hear that the Zahories see those things which are hid under the earth Let us admire that which is certain that the Saints cannot onely see but enter into the profundity of the earth and tell what minerals and other secrets are contained in its entrails Metaphrastes writes that a certain Goth a Souldier of the Garrison of Edessa fell passionately in love with a Maid of the same City and sinding no other way to enjoy her demanded her in marriage but the Mother and Kindred gave no ear to the treaty trusting little to a Barbarian and a Stranger who carrying her into a Country far distant as his was might there use her at his pleasure The Souldier notwithstanding persisting still in his suit with many promises of good entertainment gained at last the consent of the Maid and her Friends onely the Mother would not be satisfied before they had entred all together into the Temple of the holy Martyrs St. Samona Curia and Abiba and that there the Souldier had renewed his promises by solemn oath and called the holy Martyrs as witnesses which done the Maid was delivered unto him whom he not much after carried into his own Country where he was formerly married and had his Wife yet living There better to conceal his wickedness he fell into a greater and like a wild beast without pity enclosed the poor woman alive in a Sepulcher and there left her She thus betrayed had recourse unto the Saints whom she with tears invoked as witnesses of the Souldiers treachery and breach of faith At the instant the holy Martyrs appeared in a glorious equipage and casting her into a gentle sleep conveyed her the Sepulcher still remaining lockt without hurt into her own Country where they left her The Barbarian ignorant of what had happened and perswading himself she was long fince dead returned a second time to Edessa where convinced of the crime he satisfied it with his life If the Saints then have power to make the persons of others pass through distinct bodies much more are they able to make their own to penetrate them without impediment Finally the Servants of Christ shall be there so replenished with all goods both of soul and body that there shall be nothing more for them to desire And every one even during this life hoping for those eternal goods may say with St. Austin What wouldest thou my Body what is' t thou defirest my Soul There ye shall find all which you desire If you are pleased with beauty there the Just shine as the Sun and if with any pure delight there not one but a whole sea of pleasure which God keeps in store for the Blessed shall quench your thirst Let men then raise their desires unto that place where only they can be accomplished Let them not gape after things of the earth which cannot satisfie them but let them look after those in Heaven which are onely great onely eternal and can onely fill the capacity of mans heart CAP. VII How we are to seek after Heaven and to preferre it before all the goods of the Earth LEt a Christian compare the miseries of this life with the felicities of the other the weakness of our nature in this mortal estate with the vigour and priviledges of that immortal which expects us and let him excite and stir up himself to gain a glory eternal by troubles short and temporary Justinus lib. 1. Cyrus when he intended to invade the Medes commanded his Persians upon a certain day to meet him with each one a sharp Hatchet They obeying he willed them to cut down a great Wood which performed with much toyl and diligence he invited them for the next day unto a sumptuous Banquet and in the height of their mirth demanded of them whether they liked better the first dayes labour or that dayes feast The answer was ready all cried out That dayes entertainment With this he engaged them to make warr upon the Medes assuring them that after a short trouble in subduing an effeminate Nation they should enjoy incomparable pleasure and be Masters of inestimable riches This served him to make the Persians follow him and conquer the Kingdom of the Medes If this motive were sufficient to make a barbarous people preferre a doubtful reward before a certain and hazardous labour why should not a certain reward and infinitely greater than the labour suffice us Christians Let us compare that Celestial Supper of the other life with the troubles of this The greatness of the Kingdom of Heaven with the littleness of our services The joyes above with the goods below and our labours will seem feasts our services repose and the felicity of earth misery and baseness What is the honour of this life which is in it self false given by lying men short and limited in respect of that honour the Just receive in Heaven which is true given by God eternal extended through the Heavens and manifested to all that are in them Men and Angels What are the riches of the Earth which often fail are ever full of dingers and cares and never free their owners from necessity in comparison of those which have no end and give all security and abundance What are their short pleasures which prejudice the health consume the substance and make infamous those who seek them in respect of those immense joyes of glory which with delight joyn honour and profit What is this life of misery to that full of blessings and happiness and what those evil qualities
the Pikes and Launces to obtain that honour at the price of his own blood Because King Saul published in the Army that he would give his Daughter in Matrimony to him that should overcome the Giant Golias there being none found that durst attempt it David slighted all danger in hopes of obtaining such a recompense What have not men attempted to gain a terrestrial reward Nothing hath seemed much unto them For the gaining then of Heaven all things ought to seem little unto a Christian Seneca wondered at what Souldiers did and suffered for so short and transitory Kingdoms as are those of the Earth and that not for themselves but for another Much more may we wonder that the sufferings and labours of this life by which we are to gain the Kingdom of Heaven not for a stranger but for our selves seem so great and grievous unto us What did not Jesbaam perform for the advancing of the Kingdom of David though he was esteemmed a poor wretch and a dastard 2 Reg. 23. 1. Paralip 11. Vid. Sanctium Tirinum 2 Reg. 23. seeing that the Kingdom of David lay at stake he took such courage that he set upon 800 men and slew them in his first fury and at another occasion he killed 300. For the same Kingdom of David Eleazar Son of Ahostes fought with such constancy and valour that he slew innumerable Philistins continuing the Battel until he was so weary that he was not able to move his arm no longer and it remained so stiff with weariness as if it had been of stone If for a Kingdom of another Man's Dominions these men were so valiant why do not we take courage and procure with great valour to make conquest of the Kingdom of Heaven though we lose all our strength and even our lives in the Conquest since in respect of it all toil and labour is nothing For the advancing then of the Kingdom of David his worthies performed such actions as if they were not authorised by holy Scripture might seem incredible But what speak I of advancing his Kingdom when only to fatisfie a gust of his and perhaps an impertinent one which was to drink of the water in the Cisterns of Bethleem the young men threw themselves into the thickest of the Enemies Squadrons and with their naked swords cutting a passage through the middest of the Army fetcht the desired waters If men undergoe such hazards for the Kingdom nay for the pleasure of another and that momentary what ought we to do for those eternal joyes which are to be our own and for the Kingdom of Heaven wherein we expect such immense honours riches and pleasures Why do we not all take heart and courage It is the Kingdom of Heaven we hope for joyes riches and honours eternal are those which are promised us All is but little what can be suffered in time to obtain the same Semma for the defence of a poor field sowed with lentils durst fight alone against an Army of the Philistians 2 Reg. 23. For the defence then of grace which is the seed of God and to assure our glory which is the fruit of the Passion of Christ it is not much if without shedding of blood we fight against our unruly appetites and conquer our corrupt nature in this life that we may render it more perfect in the other To this purpose the consideration of glory is most powerfull having still before our eyes Heaven which is promised us And let not the eternal reward proposed by Christ be less efficacious than the temporal proposed by Man This was signified by our Lord unto the Prophet Ezechiel in those four living creatures so much different in nature Ezek. 1. but all one in their employment and puesto to wit an Eagle a Lyon an Ox and a Man which he beheld in the middle of the air flying with each one four wings as swift as a flash of lightning What thing could so force the heavy nature of an Ox as to equal the flight of an Eagle or what could associate the fierce nature of a Lyon with the gentleness of a Man The same Prophet declares it saying that they carried Heaven on their heads having the Firmament above them Because if Heaven be in our thoughts it will encourage us to all things It will make material Men equal unto Angels and subject them unto reason who in their customs are brutish as wild beasts so as he who is slow and heavy as an Ox shall flye with four wings and by conquering his own nature become in his flight equal to the birds of the air and he which feeds grovling upon the earth shall elevate himself and quit his short and transitory pleasures for those which are eternal § 3. Neither is this much For so great is the good which we expect that for it to be deprived of all other goods whatsoever ought to be esteemed a happiness and to suffer all torments and afflictions as a pleasure Let us hear what St. Chrysostome sayes Chrysost Tom. 5. Hom. 19. How many labours soever thou shalt pass how many torments soever thou shalt endure all are nothing in respect of those goods to come Let us hear also what St. Vincent Martyr said unto Dacianus the President and with what joy and patience in his torments he confirmed what he had spoken When they hoisted him up on high upon the Rack and the Tyrant in a scoff demanded of him where he then was the Saint smiling and beholding Heaven whither he was going answered I am aloft and from thence can despise thee although insolent and puft up with the power thou hast upon Earth Being after menaced with more cruel torments he said Me-thinks thou dost not threaten but court me Dacianus with what I desire with all the powers and faculties of my Soul And when they tore his flesh with hooks and pincers and burnt him with lighted torches he cried out with great joy In vain thou weariest thy self Dacianus thou canst not imagine torments so horrid which I could not suffer Prison Pincers Burning-plates of iron and Death it self are unto Christians sports and recreations and not torments He who had the joyes of Heaven before his eyes scorned and laughed at the bitterest torments upon Earth Let us consider them also and we shall not shun the sufferance of any thing whereby we may gain Heaven What pity is it that a Christian for some short and sordid pleasure should lose joyes so great and eternal because he will not bear some slight injurie here should be deprived of celestial honour there for not paying what he owes and not restoring what he hath unjustly taken should forfeit the divine riches of Heaven and for one pleasant morsel which the Devil offers him should deprive himself of that great Supper whereunto God invites him Who would choose rather to feed upon bones and craps which fell from the Table than to he a Guest at the
Prosperous and the Lovers of the World who are those which for the most part people Hell The Prophet Baruch sayes Baruc. 3. Where are the Princes of the Nations which commanded over the beasts of the earth and sported with the birds of the air which store up silver and gold in which men put their trust and there is no end of their seeking who stamp and work silver who are sollicitous and their works are not found They are exterminated they have sunk down into hell Jac. 5. and others have risen in their places St. James sayes Weep you who are rich and lament the miseries which are to fall upon you St. Paul not onely threatens those who are rich but those who desire to be so saying Those who desire to be rich fall into the snare and temptation of the Devil 1 Tim. 6. and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires which drown them in death and perdition With this counterpoise then and hazard who would desire the wealth of the World since onely the desire of it is so poisonous Let those who dote upon the World hear St. Bernard Bernard in Medit. who sayes Tell me now Where are those lovers of the world who a little while agoe were here with us there is nothing remaining of them but dust and worms Mark diligently what they once were and what they now are They were men as thou now art they did eat drink laugh and pass away their times in mirth and jollity and in a moment of time sunk down into hell Here are their Bodies eaten by worms and their Souls condemned to eternal flames until united again they both shall sink together into everlasting fire that so those who were companions in sin may be also in torments and that one pain involve them who were consorts in the love of the same offence What did their vain glory profit them their short mirth their worldly power their fleshly pleasure their false riches their numerous families where is now their laughter their jests their boasting their arrogance how great shall be their sorrow when such misery shall succeed so many pleasures when from the height of humane glory they shall fall into those grievous torments and eternal ruine where according to what the Wise-man said the mighty shall be mightily punished If then those who most enjoy the World run the greatest hazard of being damned what can more induce us to the contempt of it than the consideration of so lamentable an end And what can more set forth the malice of temporal goods than to be the occasion of eternal evils If a curious built house be subject to some notable inconveniency no man will dwell in it if a couragious horse have some vitious quality no body will buy him and if a Chrystal cup have a crack it shall not be placed upon a Royal Cupboard yet the pleasures and goods of the World though subject to all those faults how are they coveted loved and sought after and in them our perdition Certainly if we should consider seriously the eternal evils which correspond to the short pleasures of this life we should have all humane felicity in horrour and trembling to see our selves in fortunes favour should flye from the world as from death The reverend and zealous Father Frier Jordan being desirous to convert a certain Cavalier to God and from the love of the world for his last remedy had recourse unto this consideration Seeing him a beautiful young man active and well disposed of body he said unto him At least Sir since God hath bellowed so comely a face and personage upon you think what pity it were they should be the food of eternal fire and burn without end The Gentleman reflected upon his advice and this consideration wrought so much with him that abhorring the world and quitting all his possessions and hopes he became poor in Christ and entred into Religion §. 2. Let us now come to the consideration of Eternal Evils that from thence we may despise all which is temporal be it good or bad The evils of Hell are truly evils and so purely such that they have no mixture of good In that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint and there is no room for comfort Aelian lib. 3. varia Hist c. 18. Aelian relates a History which being taken as a Parable may serve to illustrate what we are about to speak of He sayes in the utmost borders of the Meropes there is a cetrain place called Anostos which is as much to say from whence there is no return There was to be seen a great Precipice and a deep opening of the earth from whence issued two Rivers the one of Joy and the other of Sadness upon the brinks of which grew divers trees of so different fruits that those who eat of the one forgot all that might cause grief but those who eat of the other were so possessed with an unconsolable sadness that all was weeping and lamentations until they at last died with signs and shedding of tears What do those Rivers signifie but the one of them that whereof David speaks which with his current rejoyced the City of God the other that Flood of evil which enters the Prison of Hell and fills it with groans tears and despite without the least hope of comfort for there shall the door be eternally shut to all good or expectation of ease in so much as one drop of water was denied the rich Glutton from so merciful and pitiful a man as Abraham There shall not be the least good that may give ease nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction There is no good to be found there where all goods are wanting neither can there be want of any evil where all evils whatsoever are to be found and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils every evil is augmented In the creation of the World God gave a praise to every nature saying It was good without farther exaggeration but when all were created and joyned together he said They were very good because the conjunction of many goods advances the good of each particular and in the same manner the conjunction of many evils makes all of them worse What shall Heaven then be where there is a concourse of all goods and no evils And what Hell where there are all evils and no good Certainly the one must be exceeding good and the other exceeding evil In signification of which the Lord shewed unto the Prophet Jeremias two little Baskets of Figs Jer. 24. in the one of which were excessively good ones and in the other excessively bad both in extremity He does not content himself in saying they were bad or very bad but sayes they were over-bad because they represented the miserable state of the Damned where is to be the sink of all evils without mixture of any good at all And for this
added to their other torments Hell is the Prison of God a most rigorous Prison horrid and stinking wherein so many millions of men shall for ever lye fettered in chains for chains or something answerable unto them shall not there be wanting Whereupon St. Austin sayes and is followed by the Schoolmen Aug. l. 1. de Civit. Cap. 10. that the malign spirits shall be fastned to fire or certain fiery bodies from which the pain which they receive shall be incredible being thereby deprived of their natural liberty V. Less de Perfec Divin l. 13. c. 30. as it were fettered with manicles and bolts so as they are not able to remove from that place of mishap and misery It were a great torment to have burning irons cast upon our hands and feet but this and much more shall be in Hell where those fiery bodies which are to serve instead of shackles and fetters are as grave Doctors affirm to be of terrible forms proportionable unto their offences and shall with their very sight affright them Besides the bodies of the Damned after the final Judgement past shall be so streightned and crowded together in that infernal Dungeon that the holy Scripture compares them to grapes in the Wine-press which press one another until they burst Most inhumane was that torment inflicted upon three Fathers of the Society of Jesus by their Enemies at Mastrick They put certain rings of iron stuck full of sharp points of needles about their arms and feet in such manner as they could not move without pricking and wounding themselves Then they compassed them about with fire to the end that standing still they might be burnt alive and if they stirred the sharp points pierced their flesh with more intolerable pains than the fire What shall then be that torment of the Damned where they shall eternally burn without dying and without possibility of removing from the place designed them where whatsoever they touch shall be fire and sulphur into which their bodies shall at the latter day be plunged as their souls at present swim in the middle of that lake or pond of fire as the Scripture calls it like fishes in the Sea which enters into their very substance more than the water into the mouth nose and ears of him who is drowned Neither shall unsavoury smells so proper unto Prisons be wanting in that infernal Dungeon For first that fire of sulphur being pent in without vent or respiration shall send forth a most poisonous sent and if a match of brimstone be so offensive here what shall such a mass of that stuffe be in Hell Secondly the bodies of the damned shall cast forth a most horrible stench of themselves and that more or less according to the quality of their sins It happened in Lions that a Sexton entring into a certain Vault where the body of a man not long before dead lay yet uncovered there issued forth so pestilential a smell that the dead man killed the living If one mans body then cause such a stink what shall proceed from a million of bodies which though alive for their further evil yet are dead in the second death besides as hath been said all the uncleanness and filth of the World when it is purified must fall into that eternal Sink which shall infinitely encrease this noisome quality Paulus Jovius writes that the Enemy of mankind Actiolinus the Tyrant had many Prisons full of torments misery and ill smells insomuch as men took it for a happiness rather to die than to be imprisoned because being loaden with irons afflicted with hunger and poisoned with the pestilential smell of those who died in Prison and were not suffered to be removed they came to end in a slow but most cruel death The Messenians also had a most horrible Prison under earth full of stench and horror into which offenders were let down with a cord never after to see the light But what are these Prisons to that of Hell in respect of which they may be esteemed as Paradises full of Jessemy and Lillies Victor Afric l. 2. de Persec Vandal Victor Africanus relating the torments which the Arian Vandals inflicted upon the holy Martyrs accounts the stench and noisomness of the Prison to be the most hidious and unsufferable of all the rest There were saith he in one Prison 4996 Martyrs which was so straight and narrow that they flung the holy Confessors into it one upon another who stood like swarms of Locusts or to speak more piously like precious grains of Wheat In this want of room they had not place to comply with the necessities of nature but were forced to ease themselves where they stood which caused so horrid a savour as exceeded all the rest of their afflictions One time saith the Author giving a good summe of money to the Moors we had leave whilest the Vandals slept to see them and at our entrance sunk up to the knees in that filth and loathsomness It seems that the stink of Hell could not be more lively expressed than in the uncleanness and stench of this Prison but without doubt all this was but a rough draught and a dead image of that which shall be there in respect whereof this here was Perfume and Amber If one were cast into some deep dongeon without cloathes exposed to the inclemency of the cold and moysture of the place where he should not see the light of Heaven should have nothing to feed on but once a day some little peece of hard barley bread and that he were to continue there six yeares without speaking or seeing of any body and not to sleep on other bed but the cold ground what a misery were this one week of that habitation would appeare longer than a hundred years Yet compare this with what shall be in that banishment and prison of Hell and you shall finde the miserable life of that man to be a happiness There in all his troubles he should not meet with any to scoff and jest at his misfortunes none to torment and whip him but in Hell he shall finde both The Devils shall not cease to deride whip and cruelly torment him There should be no horrid fights no fearefull noyses of howlings groanings and lamentations In hell the eyes and eares of the damned shall never be free from such affrights There should be no flames of fire to scorch him In hell they shall burn into his very bowels There he might move and walk In hell not stirr a foot There he may breath the ayr without stink In hell he shall suck in nothing but flames stink and sulphur There he might hope for coming forth In hell there is no remedy no redemption There that little peece of hard bread would every day seem a dainty But in hell in Millions of yeares his eyes shall not behold a crum of bread nor a drop of water but he shall eternally rage with a dog-like hunger and a burning thirst
tribulation and affliction would be too great to give satisfaction Well may he say I deserved to suffer greater torments and therefore will not complain of this my light suffering Beda de Gest Anglorum l. 5. Venerable Bede doth also write of one to whom the pains and torments as also the joyes and bliss of the other life were shewn and having obtained leave to return to this world again he renounced all he had in this life and betook himself unto a Monastery where he persevered in a most rigid manner of life to his dying day in so much that his manner of living gave perpetual testimony that although he was silent yet he had seen horrible things and that he had hopes to obtain other great ones which did indeed deserve to be thirsted after He entred into a frozen River which was near the Convent without putting off his cloathes having first broke the ice in several places that he might be able to get into the water and afterwards let his cloathes to dry upon his back Some admired that a man's body was able to suffer so great cold in the Winter time And to those who demanded How he could possibly endure it He replyed I have seen colds far greater And when they said unto him How can you so constantly keep such a rigorous and austere manner of life He replied I have seen far greater austerity Neither did he relent in the rigour of his penance even in his decrepit age but was very careful to chastise his flesh with continual fasts and his exemplar conversation and wholsome admonitions were such as he did much good to many and efficaciously stirred them up to the amendment of their lives We must make use of this self-same consideration to encourage our selves to suffer in this life all that can be suffered in regard that in the other we should suffer more than can be suffered Hell certainly is more unsufferable than fasting with bread and water farre more than a rough hair-cloth or a discipline though never so bloody far more than the greatest injuries or disgraces that can be put upon us Let us then suffer that which is lesser to be freed from that which is greater especially being so much greater by how much a living creature exceeds a painted one Let us not complain of any thing that may happen unto us in this life But let us rather be comforted that we who have deserved to be in those eternal flames without profit or hope of reward may by our patient suffering here some temporal afflictions expect an everlasting reward for them in Heaven The Mother of St. Catharine of Siena carried her to certain Baths to divert and recreate her because she was very weak Hist S. Dom. 2. p. lib. 2. and disfigured with leanness But the Saint could find in this entertainment a sharp cross which was that entring into the Bath alone she went to the Bathhead where the water came out in a manner boyling hot and there suffered her self to be scalded to that degree that it seemed impossible for a weak Damsel to have been able to endure it Her Confessarius asked her afterwards How she had so much courage to abide such heat and for so long a space She replyed That when she placed her self there she also placed her consideration in the pains of Purgatory and Hell-fire and withall begged of God Almighty whom she had offended that he would be pleased to change the punishments she had deserved by her sins into temporal pains and sufferings whereby all the pains of this life seemed very easie unto her to suffer and the great heat of the scalding water of the Bath seemed a refreshment to her in respect of the fiery Furnace of Hell in which the damned are for ever and ever to be tormented And in regard holy Scripture calls Hell a Poole or Lake of fire Pet. Damian l. 2. ep 15. ad Desid c. 4. I will here rehearse a story out of St. Petrus Demianus which will give us to understand the terribleness of this torment In Lombardy saith he there was a man cunning and crafty of a notable talking tongue and a friend of breaking jests on all occasions and commonly by reason of his quick wit he came off with credit And if at any time it happened to him otherwayes he knew how to put it off very handsomely In fine he was one of those that knew very well how to live in the world But what end had all his tricks and slights he died for against this stroak he had no defence His body was buried in the Church and his soul in the place which God grant no body may ever come in An holy Religious man being in prayer he saw in spirit a great Lake not of water but of fire which boiled like a Pot and cast flames now and then up into the heavens which sent forth sparks in so great quantity and with such fearful noise that it caused great horrour to hear and see it What would it be to suffer it The miserable foul of this man we speak of did suffer it in all extremity Moreover he saw that the Lake was encompassed round about with fearful Serpents and terrible Dragons which had their mouths open towards the Lake with many rows of sharp teeth to guard the Lake In this confusion of fire and cruel beasts the Soul of the miserable Babler was howling and crying and swimming upon the flames endeavoured to get to the banck and drawing nigh the comfort he found was that a Serpent stretching out a long neck and a wide mouth was ready to tear him in pieces and swallow him He endeavoured to turn another way in the Lake and drawing near the side he lighted upon a Dragon the onely sight whereof made him make more haste back again than he had done to come thither He swam in the Lake burning alive and where-ever he came he found the like encounter but which is worse he shall remain there whilest God is God without any remedy at all And with much reason saith St. Peter Damianus he suffered this punishment of not being able to get out of that Lake of fire in regard he in this life got so cunningly out of any adversity by his many shifts In this manner God Almighty gave to understand by this revelation the extremity of this torment But it is to be noted that it is farre greater than is here expressed because this was not so much to tell us what hell is as to declare by some similitude or representation which may remain fixt in our senses that which indeed exceeds all similitude or resemblance § 3. The pains of the Powers of a damned Soul THe Imagination shall no less afflict those miserable offenders encreasing the pains of the Senses by the liveliness of its apprehension For if in this life the imagination is sometimes so vehement that it hurts more than real evils in the other the torment
to last for ever in regard he had the good fortune to save his Soul Wherefore if one onely disastrous day after the enjoying of so much felicity and greatness of the world for twenty years space is sufficient to cause a contempt of all that pomp and make the same appear as smoke not onely one year of affliction not a thousand ages but eternity in torments how will it make all humane prosperity to seem nothing else but a shadow and a dream If the sad death of one though he saves his soul shews the vanity of all humane felicities The lamentable death of one who is damned to Hell and an eternity of unspeakable misery how will it make evident that all felicity and humane greatness is nothing but smoke a shadow and nothing Let us reflect a thought upon the Emperour Heliogabolus who gave so great a scope to all his sensual appetites and was most exactly industrious in making use of time to the advantage of his pleasures What account are we to make of his two years and eight moneths raign if we give credit to Aurelius and Eutropius turning our consideration to the other Scene of his miserable death For the Pretorian Souldiers having drawn him out of a Sink or Privy where he had hid himself then haling him upon the ground they threw him into an other Sink most filthy and abominable but in regard there was not room enough for his whole body they pull'd him out again and dragging him through the great place called Circus and other publick Streets of Rome at last they cast him into the Tyber having first tied great stones about him to the end he might never appear more nor obtain interrement All this was done to the great content of the people and approbation of the Senate Who should see this nice and effeminate Prince wallowing in the Sink abused by his Souldiers and drowned in the Tyber what estimate would he frame of all his greatnese But see him now in the horrid Sink of Hell abused by the Devils and plunged into that pit of fire and brimstone where he is to suffer excessive torments for all eternity what will that short time of his Empire seem being compared I do not say with three hundred thousand millions of years but with an eternity of pains which he is to suffer causing all the past glory of his Empire and splendour of his fortunes to vanish into smoke You may look upon a Wheel of Squibs or Fireworks which whilst it moves casts forth a thousand lights and splâ—â—dours with which the beholders are much taken but all at last ends in a little smoke and burnt paper So it is Whilst the Wheel of felicities was in motion according to the stile of St. James that is to say whilst our life lasts its fortune and prosperity appeared most glorious but ceasing all comes to end in smoke and he that fares best in it becomes a firebrand of Hell Rabanus said well that when a strong fever Raban in Eccl. or some great unexpected change in his estate happens to one it makes him forget all his former contents in health and wealth his sickness and adversity taking up so the whole man as that he has no leasure to employ his thoughts upon any thing else and if perhaps any passage of his former condition chance to come to his minde it gives him no satisfaction but rather augments his pain Wherefore if even temporal evils though very short are sufficient to make former felicities of many years vanish what impression will temporal goods make in us if we employ our thoughts upon eternal evils Besides this the eternity of torments in hell which is to be suffered hereafter without profit may move us to husband the short time of this life most to our advantage and with the greatest fruit How many miserable Souls now suffer those eternal pains for not employing one day in pennance nor endeavouring to make one good confession What would a damned Soul give for one quarter of an hour out of so many dayes and years which are lost and shall not have one instant allowed him Thou who now livest and hast time lose not that which imports so much and once lost can never be redeemed Peter Reginaldus writes that an holy Religious man being in prayer heard a most lamentable voice whereupon demanding Who he was and Why he lamented it was answered I am one of the damned And thou must know That I and the rest of the damned Souls lament and bewail nothing more bitterly than to have lost time in the sins we have committed O miserable creatures who for having lost a short space of time lose an eternity of felicity They come to know too late the importance of that which they have lost and shall never come to regain it Let us now make use of time whilest we may gain eternity and let us not lose that with pleasure which cannot be recovered with grief Let us now weep for our sins with profit that we way not weep for our pains without fruit Let us hear what St. Bernard sayes Bernard Serm. 16. in Cant. Who shall give water unto my head and who shall give a fountain of tears unto mine eyes that I may prevent weeping by weeping Let us now weep in time and do penance with sorrow that our tears may be dried up and our sorrow forgotten since eternal happiness is no less efficacious to make us forget the tears and grief of this life than hell the pleasures of it Wherefore Isaias saith My former cares are forgotten Isai 65. and are hid from mine eyes Upon which words St. Jerome glosses It is the effect of mirth and confession of the true God that an eternal oblivion shall succeed precedent goiefs For if former evils shall be forgotten it is not with the oblivion of memory but with the succession of so much good according to that In the good day an oblivion of evil Lastly let us draw from the consideration of hell a perfect hatred to all mortal sin since from the evil of sin proceeds that evil of pain Terrible is the evil of sin since it cannot be satisfied even with eternal flames But this requires a larger consideration which we are now come unto CAP. XIII The infinite guilt of mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of heaven and fall into eternal evils THe horrible and stupendious malice of mortal sin is so foul and accursed that though committed in an instant it deserves the torments of hell for all eternity and an unlawful pleasure enjoyed by a sinner but for one moment deprives and disinherits him of eternal felicity Because therefore the scope of this work is to beget such disesteem of temporal goods as for them we may not lose the eternal I thought it not besides my purpose to procure as much as I could a horror and detestation of sin which is the occasion of the loss of heaven and
Dion Chrys Orat. 10. And therefore Dion Chrysostomus is sayes He who knows not Man cannot make use of Man and he who knows not himself cannot make use of himself nor of those things which belong unto his nature But who can arrive unto the knowledge of himself It is so difficult that the Devil although he knew how important this knowledge was to Man and wisht nothing but his ruine and perdition yet confident in the impossibility of attaining it and desirous to gain the credit of a wife God among the Grecians he caused this Command Know thy self to be placed in his Temple of Apollo in Delphos And truly the light of Heaven is necessary for this knowledge and we guided by what faith dictates and the Saints inctruct us will endeavour to say something whereby we may at least be less ignorant of what we are It is then to be considered What Man is of himself and what he is of God that is what he hath of himself and what he hath received from God What he hath from God must needs be good since he gave it from whom can proceed no ill And if upon this score because it is good he hath less ground to humble himself I am sure he hath none to boast of since it is wholly the Divine benefit not having any thing of himself but what he hath received Onely he may consider that by the sin of Adam he hath put himself in a worse condition both for soul and body than when he received them from God His Soul is now full of ignorance and imbecility to what is good and subject to a thousand miseries which it then had not And his Body which is now mortal was then immortal and free from the corruption of those infirmities which as hath been already said accompany it until it end in dust worms and ashes But these although by the perverseness of our nature they are become much worse yet coming from God are good and are ah honour and glory in respect of what he possesses from himself This the Arausican Council declares in two words that is We are nothing of our selves but a Lye and Sin that is the nothing that we were and the evil we are A lye we are because what is a lye is not And from our selves we have onely a not being for what have we but what God hath given us take away what we have received and there remains nothing This is what is ours what is more is our Creators and therefore we are not to use it according to our own fancy but his pleasure Thou art also to consider that thou oughtest to humble thy self more for being nothing than for being but dust and ashes For those are something and betwixt something and nothing there is no proportion and as the Philosophers say an infinite distance Thou hast not from thy self so much as a possibility of being for if God were not God thou couldest not have been at all From this consideration thou hast great reason to humble thy self For to be nothing is a Well without bottom never to be drawn drie yet this Nothing is far better than what thou art by Sin Here the most holy Saints have sunk down in amazement and some unto whom our Lord hath revealed what they are have been so astonished as they had certainly died if they had not been comforted and upheld by the Divine hand For having sinned thou art as evil as sin it self Call to mind what we have said of the infinite malice and abomination of sin All this falls upon him who commits it With reason therefore did Dion the Philosopher say That it was most hard to know ones self because it was most hard to comprehend the malice of sin which being the chiefest evil becomes in a manner as difficult to be known as the chiefest good and therefore no better way to find what it is than to proceed after the same way we do in the knowledge of God §. 2. St. Dionysius Areopagita teaches us that in the knowledge of God we may proceed alter two manners either by the way of Affirmation attributing unto God all what is Good and perfect or by way of Negation denying unto him all what is good or perfect in the Creatures as being of a goodness and perfection infinitly above it In the same manner we are to proceed in the knowledge of Sin either by Affirmation in attributing unto it all the ill in all creatures whatsoever or by Negation denying it any ill as being a malice of another kind horrible and enormous above all other Evils imaginable Call together therefore all the evils thou hast seen heard or read of Joyn all these in one a mortal sin is worse then all these together The miseries of Job stilence in the time of David the torments of Phalaris Nero Dioclesian and all the Tyrants are farre short of it in malice Is it as bad as all those afflictions and miseries which they suffered who perished in the Deluge and those who were burnt alive in Sodome and the neighbouring Towns and as all they suffered who were put to the sword in Amalee and all those that were hunger-starved in the siege of Jerusalem One onely mortal sin goeth far beyond all the aforesaid miseries All the Plagues Warrs Sickness Famines all that hath been suffered since the World began come not near the ill of one sin Good God! how vast is that evil which is equivalent to so many evils where shall we find an evil that may equal it where shall we meet with an end of so much malice Certainly all the evils that have been since the World began or could succeed in a million of Worlds to come fall short of it If nothing then upon earth be comparable unto it let us seek it beneath the earth amongst those eternal evils which shall never have end Let us enter Hell and consider the torments there which are or have been suffered by Men or Devils even from the least and most unknown of the damned unto Lucifer and Antichrist Is there any thing there that may equal the evil of one sin No we shall not there find it Reflect I say again and mark if thou findest any torment amongst so many miserable creatures as suffer in Hell which may parallel the malice of one only mortal sin There is none to be found But I 'le give thee leave to make a collection of those many torments which may seem unto thee in reason comparable to a mortal sin and you shall finde that Sin does not onely equalize but exceed the malice of them Joyn then together and put in one heap all the torments that are inflicted upon all damned creatures Men and Angels and compare the malice of them all with that one of mortal sin and you shall find that the malice of sin doth farr surpass the malice of all those That gnashing of teeth that inconsolable weeping that burning fire which penetrates
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
1. Tertullian said The greatness of some goods were intolerable the which according to the Prophet Isaias is verified in this Divine good and benefit which we were not able to support Wherefore it is called in holy Scripture The good or the good thing of God because it is a good and a benefit which more clearly than the Sun discovers the infinite and ineffable goodness of God to the astonishment and amazement of a humane heart and therefore the Prophet Oseas sayes Osee 3. They shall be astonished at the Lord and at his Good because his Divine benefit amazes and astonishes the Soul of man to see how good the Lord is and how great the good which he communicates unto us All which tends to no other end than to make us despise the goods of the Earth and to esteem onely those of Heaven which we attain unto by this Divine mysterie For this therefore did Christ our Redeemer institute this most blessed Sacrament that by it we might withdraw our hearts from things temporal and settle our affections upon those which are eternal for which it is most particularly efficacious as those who worthily receive it have full experience §. 3. Wherefore let that Soul who goes to communicate consider Who it is that enters into him and Who he is himself who entertains so great a Guest Let him call to mind with what reverence the blessed Virgin received the Eternal Word when he entred into her holy Womb and let him know it is the same Word which a Christian receives into his entrails in this Divine Sacrament Let him therefore endeavour to approach this holy Table with all reverence love and gratitude which ought if possible to be greater than that of the blessed Mother For then the obligation of Mankind was not so great as now it is For neither she nor we were then indebted unto him for his dying upon the Cross Let him consider that he receives the same Christ who sits at the right hand of God the Father That it is he who is the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth He whom the Angels adore He who created and redeemed us and is to judge the living and the dead He who is of infinite wisdom power beauty and goodness If a Soul should behold him as when St. Paul beheld him and was struck blind with his light and splendour how would he fear and reverence him Let him know that he is not now less glorious in the Host and that he is to approach him with as much reverence as if he saw him in his Throne of glory With much reason did St. Teresa of Jesus say unto a devout Soul unto whom she appeared after death That we upon earth ought to behave our selves unto the blessed Sacrament as the blessed in Heaven do towards the Divine Essence loving and adoring it with all our power and forces Consider also that he who comes in person to thee is that self same Lord that required so much reverence that he struck Oza dead because he did but touch with his hand the Ark of his Testament and slew 50000 Bethshamits for their looking on it And thou not onely seest and touchest but receivest him into thy very bowells See then with what reverence thou oughtest to approach him The Angels and Seraphins tremble before his greatness and the Just are afraid Do thou then tremble fear and adore him S. John standing but near unto an Angel remained without force astonisht at the greatness of his Beauty and Majesty and thou art not to receive an Angel but the Lord of Angels into thy entrails It adds much to the endearment of this great benefit of our Saviour that it is not onely great by the greatness of that which is bestowed but by the meaneness of him who receives it For what art thou but a most vile creature composed of clay and dirt full of misery ignorance weakness and malice If the Centurion held himself unworthy to receive Christ under his roof and St. Peter when our Saviour was in this mortal life deemed himself not worthy to be in his presence saying Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinful man and St. John Baptist thought himself not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe How much more oughtest thou to judge thy self unworthy to receive him into thy bowels being now in his glory seated at the right hand of God the Father The Angels in heaven are not pure in his sight What purity shouldest thou have to entertain him in thy breast If a mighty King should visit a poor Beggar in his Cottage what honour what respects would it conferre upon him Behold God who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes to visit thee not in thy house but within thy self Seaven years did Salomon spend in building a Temple wherein to place the Ark of the Testament Why doest thou not spend some time in making thy self a Temple of God himself Noah was a hundred years in preparing a Vessel wherein to save those who were to escape the Deluge Why doest thou not spare some dayes or hours to make thy self a Sacristy for the Saviour of the World Behold thy own unworthiness and what thou goest a-about Moyses when he was to make an Ark for the Tables of the Law not onely made choice of precious wood but covered it all with gold Thou miserable and vile Worm why doest thou not prepare and adorn thy self to receive the Lord of the Law Consider also what is the end for which thy Saviour comes unto thee It is by communicating his grace to make thee partaker of his Divinity He comes to cure thy sores and infirmities he comes to give remedy to thy necessities he comes to unite himself unto thee he comes to Deifie thee Behold then the infinity of his Divine goodness who thus melts himself in communication with his Creatures Behold what is here given thee and for what it is given thee God gives himself unto thee that thou mayest be all divine and nothing left in thee of earth In other benefits God bestows his particular gifts upon thee but here he gives thee himself that thou mightest also give thy self unto him and be wholly his If from the Incarnation of the Son of God we gather the great love he bore unto mankind passing for his sake from that height of greatness unto that depth of humiliation as to inclose himself in the Womb of a Virgin Behold how in this he loves thee since to sustain thee in the life of grace he hath made himself the true food of thy Soul and comes from the right hand of the eternal Father to enclose himself in thy most impure breast Jesus Christ comes also to make thee one body with himself that thou mayest after an admirable manner be united unto him and made partaker not onely of his spirit but of his bloud That which this Consideration ought to work in the breast of a
obtaining of things eternal without respect to any temporal or earthly commodity are as a sweet savour unto the Lord like that Rod of perfume so much celebrated in the Canticles Cant. 3. composed of incense myrrhe and spices which ascended streight unto heaven Whereupon St. Gregory sayes that prayer is called that little Rod of sweet smoke because whilest it onely supplicates for eternal blessings it mounts directly to heaven without inclining unto any thing that is earthly Well may it be seen how little our Saviour is pleased with earthly petitions by that answer he gave unto the Wife of Zebedeus when she desired that her two Sons might have the honour to sit one at the right hand of his Throne and the other at the left Our Saviour answered They know not what they asked because as St. Chysostome sayes Their petition was for the things temporal and not spiritual and eternal Certainly a fool he is who when he may have heaven for asking trifles away his time in demanding things of the earth A fool he is who when he needs but to demand eternal glory busies himself in praying for temporal honours A fool he is who having but to ask grace from God loses his time in asking favours from men Certainly he knows not what he prayes for who prayes to be rich He knows not what he prayes for who prayes for great Places and Commands Finally who prayes for honours accommodations pleasures or any thing that ends in time knows not what he prayes for because he knows not how little is all that which time consumes §. 2. Paludanus observes three errors in the Petition of the mother of St. James and St. John The first Palud Enarr 1. de S. Jacobo that she did not observe a due order in the petition The second that it was not clear and free from affections of flesh and blood And the third that the subject of it was vain and unprofitable All these errors are sound when not attending unto the eternal we petition for what is temporal For of the first who sees not that he who demands temporal things violates and perverts all order for what more disorderly proceeding than to demand little when we may obtain much to sue for that whereof we have no need and to neglect that which is extreamly necessary The necessities of the body hold no comparison with those of the soul The soul hath more necessity of divine grace than the body of food The soul hath more enemies and stands therefore in more need of the favour and assistance of heaven Gelas contra Pelag. Epis 5. lib. 6. It is against her that the infernal powers have conspired and therefore it is she who stands in most necessity of divine succour Gelasius the Pope speaking of our first Parents saith That when they were in the state of innocency replenished with all those gifts of graces wherewith God had enriched them and that they had not those adversaries which now we have for neither the world nor the flesh were then their enemies Yet because they did not pray for the divine assistance and favour that they fell into sin Having received saith this great Pope such abundance of grace yet because they did not pray as their is no mention that they did they were not secure How needfull is it then for us to pray who want that original justice have our nature weakned and corrupted by sin our flesh rebellious against the soul the World with all its instruments of vanity and deceit and so many occasions and dangers of sinning our enemies and the devil himself irritated by those singular favours exprest towards our nature by the Son of God more fierce against us then before So as it is not possible to declare the great need we have of divine grace And now to forget this great necessity and to forbear crying unto heaven for a remedy from whence we can onely hope it how great a folly and disorder is it If a man in the Dog-dayes were exposed naked in some Desert against the scorching beams of the Sun and ready to perish for thirst and should meet one who were furnished with plenty of cool water would he not ask some to refresh him or if he forbore to ask it would he demand a warm Jacket which were onely useful in Winter and in Summer a burthen and a trouble Certainly a greater madness and disorder cannot be imagined And yet ours is far worse if we demand temporal goods which can onely hinder and entangle us and neglect to pray for the water of divine grace without which we are certain to perish But even in temporal things themselves we know not what order to observe in our demands because we are ignorant which are most convenient for us Who knows whether it be better for him to be sick or in health since it may so happen that being in health he may fall into some grievous sin and be damned and being sick he may repent and be saved Who knows whether poverty or wealth may be more convenient for him since being in abundance he may forget God and being in necessity of all things he may have recourse unto his holy service Who knows whether it be better for him to be honoured or suffer confusion since honour may puff him up in vanity and humiliation may make him prudent and wary No man knows what is good or evil for him That which we desire is oftentimes our ruin and destruction and those evils which we weep for as often turn into our greatest happiness How can there then be any order in our prayers for temporal things whereof we are totally ignorant whether they are good or hurtful The second great errour in our prayers for temporal things is the disordinate affection and want of pure intention which accompanies such petitions whereas our prayers ought onely to proceed from a pure and mortified mind wholly intent upon the service of God To signify this The fire which was to burn the incense was fetcht from the Altar of Holocausts and that our prayers may be acceptable and of a sweet savour unto God they are to spring from an enflamed heart Sacrificed unto his divine Majesty in a true Holocaust of our whole will and affections And he who demands any temporal things from God Almighty after another manner may justly fear least they may be granted for his greater punnishment Therefore St. Thomas sayes St. Tho. 2.2 q. 83. art 19. that our Lord God grants unto sinners what they desire with an evil affection for a Chastizement of their desires So he granted Quails unto the murmuring Isrealites who died with the morsel in their mouths We ought therefore to be cautious in our prayers and tremble at our own desires since their success may prove so dangerous unto us And I wonder not at all that he who desires the goods of this world is often punished in the grant of his petition since
France There she taught her Brother how to order a Dairy milk Cows and make Cheeses and after found a way to have him received into a certain Grange of the Cistercians where he performed this office to such satisfaction of the Monks that in a short time he was admitted amongst them a Lay-Brother His Sister Matilda seeing him thus placed said one day unto him Brother certainly a great reward attends us from the Lord for having thus left our Parents and our Country for the love of him But we shall receive a far greater if for the short time of our lives we deprive our selves even of this content of seeing one another and that we so give our selves over to that Divine and Soveraign Majesty that we meet no more until we meet in Heaven where we shall see and converse one with another in true and eternal comfort Here the Brother fell a weeping apprehending this as the greatest difficulty he had hitherto encountred in the whole course of his life But at last he master'd it and they both parted never to see one another more upon earth The holy Virgin went unto a certain Town nine miles distant where she lived retired in a little Cottage and sustained her self wholly by the labour of her hands admitting neither present nor alms Her Bed was the ground or little better she eat upon her knees and in that posture spent many hours in prayer wherein she often was so rapt from her senses that she neither heard the noise of thunder nor perceived the flashes of lightning Alexander was never known whilest he lived But St. Matilda was nine years before her death and therefore attempted often to have left the place but was so strictly watched she could not She wrought many miracles both during her life and after death A certain Monk sick of an Imposthume in his breast offered up his prayers at the Tomb of Alexander and to him the Servant of God appeared more resplendent than the Sun adorned with two most beautiful Crowns The one of which he wore upon his head The other he carried in his hand And being demanded of the Monk what those two Crowns signified he answered This which I bear in my hands is given me for that temporal Kingdom which I forsook upon earth The other of my head is that which is commonly given to all the Saints of Heaven And that thou mayest give credit to what thou hast seen in this Vision thou shalt find thy self according to thy faith cured of thy infirmity In this manner God honours those who humble themselves for his glory CAP. IX The love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our Souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal WE have already produced sufficient motives and reasons to breed in us a contempt of the things of this world and to wean our affections from them as well for being in themselves vile transitory mutable little and dangerous as for that the Son of God hath done and suffered so much to the end we should despise them I will onely now add for the conclusion of this matter That though they were of some real worth or value as they are not yet for all this we ought not to love them since so great is that love and affection which is due from us unto God that it ought so fully to fill and possess our hearts that it leave no room for any other affection than it self For if it were commanded in the Law when men had not the obligation which we now have the Son of God not having then died for our redemption that we should love him with all our heart all our soul and all our powers how are we to love him when our debt is so much greater and that we have a further knowledge of his divine goodness If then there ought to be no place for any love but his how can we now turn our eyes unto the creature or set our hearts upon it when a million of hearts are not sufficient for our Creator There is no one Title for which God is amiable but upon that title we owe him a thousand wills a thousand loves and all what we are or can be What do we then owe him for all together Consider his benefits his love his goodness and thou shalt see that though thou hadst as many hearts as there are sands upon the Sea-shore or atoms in the Air all were not capable of that great love which is due unto him How canst thou then divide this one heart which thou hast amongst so many creatures Consider also the multitude and greatness of his divine blessings and deal but with God as one man doth with another If we say of humane benefits that gifts break rocks how comes it that divine benefits do not move a heart of flesh Prov. 22. And if as Salomon sayes Those who give gifts steal the hearts of the receivers how comes it that God robs not thee of thy soul who not onely gives thee gifts but himself for a gift Consider the benefits thou didst receive in thy Creation They were as many as thou hast members of thy body or faculties of thy soul Consider those of thy Conservation Thou hast received as many as there are distinct natures in Heaven and in Earth The Elements Stars and the whole world were created for thy preservation without which thou couldest not subsist Look upon the benefits of thy Redemption They are as many as are the evils of Hell from which they have freed thee Look upon those of thy Justification they are as many as the Sacraments which Christ hath instituted and the examples which he hath left thee Think what thou owest him for having made thee a Christian pardoned thee so often and given thee still fresh grace to renew thee All these and a thousand other benefits and obligations demand and sue for thy love And not onely these benefits from God but even those from men cry out unto thee to love him For there is no benefit which thou receivest from man but comes from God On all parts then and for all things thou art obliged to love God for it is he who does thee good in all and is worth unto thee more than all How comes it then that since he hath done all this for us we yet think not what we are to do for him nor how we shall express our thankfulness for such and so great benefits David was troubled with this care when he said What shall I return unto the Lord for all which he hath given me And yet the Lord had not then given him the Body and blood of his Son nor had his Son then been born or died for him Since then he hath done all this for us why doe we not study how we may be grateful for such infinite and unspeakable mercies But what can we return which we have not received Let us deliver him back our