is the frailest in the world is not so frayle as your nature is whatsoeuer is more variable heere beneath is not so changeable as your being is I dare hardly eye you any long tyme for feare least euen while I looke vpon you you vanish from my eyes since you dye euery hower Flatter not your selues my Dames before your Glasse your body is euen iust of the same nature with the shaddow which you see therin You are indeed nothing But if you force me to say you are somthing you are a meere dunghill couered with snow a sinke of infection enuironed with flowers a rich coffer full of wormes and in a word an abridgement of all the miseryes of the world You Courtiers take a pride forsooth for hauing caryed away a thousand Fauours froÌ„ the hands of Ladies either through the force of your spirit or thorugh the charms of your subtilties One bragges for hauing enthralled a Lady with the chaynes of her owne hayre Another for inueagling a new Mistresse in his loue through letters written with his owne haÌ„d There one more perfect theÌ„ the rest shal be publishing his triumphes Heere another more happy yet shal auouch al his passioÌ„s to haue beene crowned There shal not faile some one that wil be ordinarily busiyng his spirit with these vaine thoughts that he was euen borne into the world to tempt the pudicity of Ladyes so louely he is But let vs pul the wings of this proud one make these bodyes of earth to walke vpon the earth who rayse their Spirits vpon Thrones of smoke belieuing they do well Thou that vauntest thy selfe for enthralling thy mistresse with her owne chaynes what glory it is whiles the hayre which so charily thou keepest within a box of muske are but the rootes of lice which shall putrify in sight and thou shalt sent them anone in despight of al thy powders perfumes So as if thou wilt needs haue me call those wreathes of excremeÌ„ts so full of infection by the name of chaynes they are euen the chaynes which the Deuill put into thy hands to help thee to draw that body which thou hast idolatrized into Hel but takest not heed the while that in drawing it thither they draw thee and haling it thither they hale thee also Behould a trimme peece of Glory to be proud off Thou that hast yet more secret tyes of Friendship with a Lady written with her hand and with her bloud if thou thinkst so thou art rich indeed if thy treasure consist in a peece of paper bespotted ouer blurred with blacke or red yet to heare thee speake of this fauour of hers they would verily say thou possessedst the Empire of the world An intolerable vanity the while For admit that all the fayrest Ladies of the world had signed to thee with their guilty and corrupt bloud that they loued thee perfectly indeed on which side wouldest thou find thy glory in these assurances In so promising their loue to thee they but promise thee to get thee damned since a loue so vnlawfull as that leades soules into Hell And And dost thou make any reckoning of these promises then poore soule All the testimonyes of their passions do witnes thy folly agaynst thy selfe and takest thou pleasure to blind thy selfe with their hood not to see the precipices that beset thee round Thou imaginest it strayght to be a great honour to be fauoured of Ladyes represent to thy selfe what a glory it were for thee that a peece of Clay being quickened with lyfe should seeme to be beloued of a Dunghill Whiles thou becommest thus an Idolatour of a beautifull body thou euen adorest the wormes the infection and corruption it selfe where with it is stuffed What a crime is this And thou Companion of vanity and folly at once that so vauntest thy selfe to haue dispeopled the earth of Myrrhes to crowne thy amourous triumphes withall tell me what is become of this glory and of this contentment which thou seemest to exalt so much I graunt thou hast trampled on flowers But where art thou now If therein thou hast found the way of roses thou shalt enter anone into that of Thornes For this is the order and course of things in the world that Pleasure begets Sorrow Eyther thy delighs are past or present if past thou art already in the Hell of their priuation if present thou art lykewise in another Hell of their cryme and of the apprehension to loose them In so much as which way soeuer thou admirest thy fortune if it be a body misfortune is the shadow What glory doest thou thinke thou hast gotten by the victory of thy guilty enterprises Thou hast peopled Hell with an infinite number of soules Are not these very glorious actions trow you Thou hast lent thy cunning to the euill spirits to deceyue thy neyghbours as if he were not deceaued inough with his owne deceypts and yet still thou braggst thereof thereby â—o heape cryme vpon cryme I summon you Courtiers to appeare in â—hought and imagination vpon the thorny bed where you shall cast forth to the winds â—his breath of life and to represent withal to your self before hand once a day the horrour amazement you shall then haue of your â—elfe when you shal be calling to mind the â—essons of the vanity and folly which you haue giuen to an infinite number of feeble â—pirits whose companions in losse you haue â—uer beene Put off the tyme to this last hower to make your accompt of the fauours which you haue euer receiued from Ladyes if you wil know the true price of them TheÌ„ euen then it is when you shall feele very liuely the assaults of your guilty conscieÌ„ce the crust of your pleasures shal be broken you shall playnely see what lyes within Your spirit vnmasked of the veyle of your passions shall sensibly discerne the truth of its passed offences but there is no more returne to be had vnto life to do pennance in for them You must go further theÌ„ sorrows What sorrow soeuer I am able to expresse is no part of that which you shall suffer All torments whatsoeuer being ioyned together haue not gal inough to compreheÌ„d the least part of the bitternes of that cruell Adieu which is then to be made to the world TheÌ„ it is I say that you shall sigh but not of loue Then it is that you shall play the extasyed and dead person not in presence of your Mistresse but before your crucified Iudge Your tongue so eloquent before shal be then struck dumbe in punishment of your too much speach So as of force shall you court Death in your fashion and according to the sad humour which shall then possesse you You must of necessity be playing your part in this last momeÌ„t vpon the theater of youâ— bed I would be loath for my part to troublâ— the Reader with the faces which you shalâ— make it sufficeth that you imagine the one part and that you
doubt not of the rest Thinke thē of death you Courtiers since the Eternity both of glory payne depends of a moment O sweet and dreadfull moment And you my Dames you belieue you haue conquered an Empire straight as soone as you haue once subiected any spirit to you power to what end do you study so euery day since you learne ech moment but vanity and new lessons of nicenes be it for actiō or grace sake but therein what thinke you to do Your purpose is to wound harts you vndoe soules for when you make a mā passionately in loue with you you do euen make him a Foole. You cannot be taking away his hart without depriuing him of reason And to what extrauagancies is he not subiect the while during the reigne of his passion I would say of his folly You are al which he loues and very often all which he adores what cry me I should thinke it rather to please you then to saue himselfe If he looke vpon the Sun he is but to make comparison betweene the light of your eyes and that of this bewtifull starre which I leaue to you to imagine how farre frō truth He seemes to maynteyne very impudently in scorne of all created things that you are the only wonder of the world and the very abridgemēt of al that nature hath euer made bewtifull which yet no man belieues but he and you If he carry vp his thoughtes to Heauen he compares you to the Angells with these words That you haue all the qualities of them Iudge now without passiō whether these termes of Idolatry do not fully wholy passe sentence to conuince him with a thousand sorts of crymes And yet do you take pleasure to make the Deuill more potent then he is for to cause others to be damned Returne then agayne vnto your selfe and consider how you ought to render an accoumpt one day of all those spirits whose Reason you haue made to wander in the labyrinth of your charmes For she that on earth shall haue subiected the most shal be the greatest slaue in Hell What glory take you to ioyne your charmes with those of the Diuels thereby to draw both bodyes and soules vnto them I attend you at this last moment of your lyfe where your definitiue sentence is to be pronounced Thinke you alwayes of this moment if there be yet remayning in you but neuer so litle sparke of loue for your selues When you shall once haue enthralled all the Kings of the earth there would yet be a great deale more shame then honour in it since all those Kings were no more then meere corruption and infection Thinke of your selues my Dames you are to day no more the same you were yesterday Tyme which deuours all thinges defaceth ech moment the fayrest lineaments of your face nor shall it euer cease to ruine your beauties vntill such tyme as you be wholy reduced to ashes So passeth away the glory of the world all flyes into the Tombe That of all the Lawes which Nature hath imposed vpon vs that same of Dying is the sweetest CHAP. XII FROM the tyme that our first Father had violated the sacred Lawes which God had imposed vpon him Nature as altering her nature would acknowledge him no more for her child Anone she rayseth a tumult against him with all created things The Heauen armes it selfe with thunders to punish his arrogancy The Sunne hides himselfe vnder the veyle of his Eclypses to depriue him of his light The Moone his sister defending his quarrell resolues with her selfe to be often changing her countenance towards him to signify vnto him the displeasure she tooke thereat The Starres being orherwise innocent of nature became malignant of a sudden to powre on his head their naughty influences The Ayre keeping intelligence with the Earth exhales her vapours and hauing changed them into poyson infects therewith the body of that miserable wretch The Birdes take part with them they whet their beakes clawes to giue some assault or other The Earth prepares the mine of its abysses for to swallow him vp if the dread horrour of its trembling were not sufficient to take away his life The sauage beasts stand grinding their teeth to deuoure him The Sea makes an heape of an infinite number of rockes to engulfe him in their waues But this is nothing yet Nature is so set on reuenge against him as she puts on his fellowes to destroy their pourtraite I meane to combat with the shadow of their body in causing them to quench the fire of their rage with their proper bloud In so much as man hath no greater enemy then man himselfe Let vs go forward To continue these euils do miseries enter into the world accompanyed with their sad disastres and followed with despayre griefe sadnes folly rage and a thousand passions besides which do cleane vnto the senses for to seize vpon soules This poore Adam sees himselfe to be besieged on al sidess if he looke vp to Heauen the flash of the lightenings there euen dazles and astonishes him quite the dreadfull noyse of thunder makes him to wish himselfe to be deafe he knowes not what to resolue vpon since he hath now as many enemyes as he had vassals before Adam may well cry mercy for his syn what pardon soeuer he obteyne thereof yet will nature neuer seeme to pardon him for it Whence it is that in compasse also of these ages of redemption it self wherein we breath the ayre of grace we do sigh that same of miseryes So as if there be nothing more certayne according to the experience of our sense then that the Earth is a Galley wherein we are slaues that it is the prison wherin we are enchained and the place assigned vs to suffer the paynes of our crymes in can there possibly be found any soules so cuell to themselues and such enemyes to their owne repose as not to be continually sighing after their liberty after the end of their punishments and the beginning of an eternall lyfe full of pleasures What would become of vs if our lyfe endured for euer with its miseryes if it should neuer haue an end with our euill that it had no bounds or limits no more then we For then should I be condemning the laughter of Democritus and allowing of the continuall teares of his companion since the season would be alwayes to be alwaies weeping and neuer to laugh Then would it be that cryes and plaints would serue vs for pastimes and teares sighes should neuer abandon eyther our eyes or harts But we are not so brought to this extremity of vnhappines The Heauens being touched with compassion of our euills and of the greatnes of our miseryes in giuing vs a cradle for them to be borne in haue affoarded vs a Sepulcher also for to bury them in O happy Tombe that reduceth to ashes the subiect of our flames O happy Tombe where the wormes make an end to
deuoure the rest of our miseryes O happy Tombe where our soules do recouer their liberty where our bodyes do fynd the end and terme of of paynes O happy Tombe where we are reduced to corruption to arise in glory O happy Tombe where death euen dyes with vs and where lyfe reuiues with our selues for an Eternity O happy Tombe where we render to the earth the earth of our body to put our soules in possession of the inheritance of heauen O happy Tombe where we passe from death to lyfe from sadnes to ioy from infamy to glory from payne to repose and from this vale of teares vnto the mansion of delights From the tyme that the children of Israel had tasted in the desart the sweetnes of the heauenly Manna the most delicious meates of the earth were growne to be contemptible to them their harts euen chaÌ„ging their nature fell incessantly gaping after this celestiall food So likewise may I say that from the instant wherein a holy Soule is once fed with the food of the grace which is found in an innocent lyfe the world is an obiect of horrour and amazement vnto it its thoughts desires creep not on the earth any more if it sigh it is but after its last sigh if it complayne it is only for the long terme of its banishmeÌ„t in this vale of miseryes The hope of dying serues it as a coÌ„fort in its trobles and solace in its paynes it lyues in the prison of its body as slaues in the prison of their crimes with a necessary constancy alwayes attending on the last houre therof and this last moment where begins the eternity of glory Me thinkes the sentence of death which the diuine iustice pronounced once to our first Parents in that earthly Paradise was much in their fauour agaynst the euills wherewith their lyfe was fraught For if God had made the same to be immortall with all mischifes which succeeded their offence of all created things had man beene found to be the miserablest of them and most worthy of compassion but the same Goodnes which moued the Creatour to effect this goodly worke did euen moue him likewise to conserue the same His sentence was of death but in the rigour of his iustice he let his merry to appeare at the same tyme since from the payne of death we passe to the delights of a permanent and immortall lyfe In so much as this sweet coÌ„solation is inseparable from our tormeÌ„ts for they shal one day finish O sweet End since thou breakst the chaynes of our captiuity O sweet End since thou makest vs to reuiue neuer for to dy O sweet End since thou putst an end to all our sufferances O sweet End since we dye to reuiue for euer How Worldlings dye deliciously without euer thinkâ—ng thereof CHAP. XIII WE must needes confesse how the soules of the world are so deepely taken with the sleepe of their pleasures as they are euen drowned in their blindnes without feare of the precipices that encompasse them round Ioy transports them gladnes rauishes them rest charmes them hope comforts them riches moderats their feare health fortyfies their courage all the vanityes nurse them and bring them vp in the forgetfulnesse of themselues so as they may neuer be able to vse any violence for to breake the chaynes of their captiuity A pittifull thing how they neuer consider the while that this ioy wherwith they are so carryed away eueÌ„ vanishes quite lyke a flash of lightening that this gladnesse wherewith they are rauished destroyes it selfe with its owne violence in running incessantly vnto its end That the repose which charmes them coÌ„cludes with an eternall vnrest that the hope which coÌ„forts them quite changes it selfe by litle litle into despayre That these riches which do moderate their feare during their lyfe augments it at their death that the health which strengthens their courage whiles the calme and tranquility of their fortune lasts doth bread them a thousand stormes throgh the absence thereof where they run danger of ship wracke And finally that all those vanityes which serue them as a Nurse and Schoole mistresse to trayne them vp in vices are as so many bad Pylots which make a traffike of their losse and ruine When I image with my selfe the blindnesse whereto the men of this world are brought I cannot chuse but be moued with compassion for them Is it not a strang thing and worthy of pitty that they runne as fast as euer they can vnto Death without cease without intermission without fetching of their breath and without euer taking any heed of the way they hold as if they liued insensible in all their senses The Sunne which riseth euery morning sets euery euening for to let them see how the light of their life should haue at last a last setting as well as it The Age which makes them hoary and which keepes reckoning of their yeares through the accoÌ„pt of the wrinckles which it causeth to grow on their face preacheth nought els but the necessity of their departure All their Actions termine not a whit but to the ruine of the body from whence they fetch their motion since euery action of it selfe still tendes to its end How can they chuse but thinke of death if all the subiects which are found in Nature do euen cary the very lineaments thereof in the face The Sunne dyes in running his race The Moone dyes in her perpetuall inconstancy The ayre dyes with its coruption The birds seeke death in flying The brute beasts in running and the fishes in swimming in the water The seasons dye in springing againe as well as the trees The flowers dye with the day that hath seene them blow forth The earth dyes in the order of tyme since her yeares are counted The Sea sinckes it selfe by litle and litle into its proper abysses The fyre consumes it selfe in its heat and Nature it selfe that serues for a second cause in the generation of all things destroyes it selfe by litle and litle with them I speake nothing of men since they haue nothing more proper then Death What meanes trow you to forget this sweet necessity of dying whose law very happily dispenseth with none yet for all that do not doubt but there are many in the world who would neuer be dying but this were a childiâ—h language of theirs so farre from reason and common sense as one had need to declare himselfe to be a starke foole for to excuse himself of the errour or rather of the cryme We do all waies contemne the good vnknowne and as we naturally lyue in the apprehension of loosing that which we possesse we cleaue to the present so true it is that all things do escape vs and fly away froÌ„ vs. What a life were it for vs to lyue eternally in the miserable condition wherein we are borne What a life would it be to be alwayes breathing in sighes in mourning in playnts What a
where those of Luxury reduce the chastest harts into Ashes whence it comes that that great Saint demaunded wings to carry him into the desert Hope is heere vncertayn despayre assured Happines appeareth but as a lightning and Misfortunes establish their dwelling with Empire They can desire nothing heere but in doubt of successe they can expect nothing but with feare to loose their tyme. Felicityes euen while they are possessed do free themselues by litle and litle from this seruitude of being tyed to vs So as if they destroy not themselues in their sublimity time snatches them from vs at all houres and leades vs away with them What is the world but a denne of Theeues but an Army of Mutiners but a myre of Swyne a Galley of Slaues A lake of Basiliskes and therfore the Prophet sayth shall I neuer leaue a place so foule so filthy and so full of treasons and deceipts Needs then my Soule must thou lift vp thine eyes to Heauen since the Earth is meerly barren of thy contentments Thou seekest the Soueraigne good and it hath but springs of Euill Thou seekest Eternity and whatsoeuer is therein is but vnconstancy Change thy thoughtes the treasures which thou seekest for are not heere beneath since this is the ordinary mansion of Pouerty and Misery The obiects heere most frequent are but Tombes nor do we euer open our eyes but to see them layd open Our eares are touched with no other sound then with that of Sights and Playnts The sents of our putrifaction occupy the smelling and the gaule of a nourishment dipt in our sweat vnfortunately feeds the tast of our tongue So as turne we which way soeuer we will the gulfes the rockes the fires the punishmens and mischiefes follow vs as neere as the shaddow doth the body Consider attentiuely my Soule the importance of these verities and make thy profit of anothers harme Represent to thee the horrour and amazement whereto the world was reduced with all those meruailes at such tyme as the Sunne withdrew from it his light All those proud buildings so enriched with Brasse Marble those famous Temples where Art is alwayes in dispute with Nature striuing to set forth their works appeare to be no more but Collossus's of shaddowes that strike thine eyes aswel with astonishment as with terrour during the reigne of darkenes and imagine how the pourtraite of this horrour drawes before hād its being from the Originall since in the latter day the world shall take vpon it the visage of horrour of terrour and of ruine Represent vnto thy self besids in order of these verityes how the shadowes which couer but halfe of the earth by respits shall very shortly be filling vp the space of the whole Circle according to the decree which hath beene made thereof before all ages In so much my Soule as since the day must end at last quenching its torch within the most ancient waters of the Ocean seeke betymes another Sun aboue all the Heauens that may not be subiect to Eclypses and whose light being alwayes in the East may make thy happines to shine within his splendour not for a day for a yeare or for an age but for an Eternity O sweet Eternity with how many delights enchauntest thou our spirits while we addresse our thoughtes to thee They may not tast thy baytes and not be rauished from themselues with incomparable contentmēts We wander I confesse whiles we seeke thee but thy Labyrinthes are so delicious as we are alwayes in feare to get forth therof The harts which are taken with thy loue without knowing thee sigh after thy pleasurs howbeit they haue neuer tasted its sweetnesses but by way of Idaea yet find they no repose but in hope to possesse them one day O sweet Eternity what feelings of ioy and happines dost thou breed in Soules created for thy glory How tedious is the way of this mortall and transitory life to them that liue in expectation of thy pleasures They resemble the Marriner being tossed with stormes tempests who through teares measures with his eyes a thousand tymes in a moment the humide spaces of the waues for to discouer the Port he aspires vnto for they sayling in like māner in this Sea of the world and continually dashed with tēpests of misfortunes do coūt the houres the dayes and the moneths of their annoyes in the long pretension of landing at the port of the Tombe to be reborne from very Ashes in the mansion of thy glory O sweet Eternity what sensible repasts haue thy contentmentes with them The more I thinke vpon thee and the more I would be thinking of thee my Spirit rapt in this diuine Eleuation is so violently pulled from it selfe as it liues of no other food then that of thy diuine thoughtes O how happy is he who establisheth in thee for an Essay the foundation of his felicity My Soule if thou wilt be content in the midst of thy pleasures thinke of Eternity The onely imagination of its delights shal be stronger then thine annoyes What griefe soeuer thou endurest imagine with thy selfe how it is but for a tyme and that the ioy of Eternity can neuer end The Fastings the Hayrecloth and al the sufferances of an austere life can neuer shake thy constancy if thy desires haue Eternity for obiect What accident soeuer stayes thee in the way of thy pilgrimage lift vp thine eyes to Heauē for to contemplate the Beauty of the mansiō whither thou aspirest Thou seest how for the purchase of a little glory of the world men expose their liues to a thousand dāgers and to possesse one day that same of Eternity wilt thou not hazard thy body which is nought els but corruption to the mercy of torments and paynes Consider my Soule the instability of all created things and put not thy trust in the earth since the waters snow sandes are the foundations therof As often as the meruailes of the world attract thee insensibly to their admiration breake but the crust of those goodly apparences and thou shalt see within how it is but a Schoole of Vanity a Faire of Toyes a Theater of Tragedies a labyrinth of Errours a Prison of darknes a Way beset with Thornes and a sea full of stormes and tempests That it is but a barren Land a stony Feild a greenish Meadow whose flowers do shroud Serpēts a Riuer of teares a mountaine of annoyances a vale of Miseries a sweet Poyson a Fable a dreame an Hospitall of febricitāts where euery one suffers in his fashiō Their repose is full of anguishes and their vnrest is replenished with despaire Their trauels are without fruit and their Ioyes are but counterfet where no content is found aboue a day all the rest of the life is nothing els but wretchednes So as if the euils wherewith it is propled could be counted they would surpasse in number the atomes of Democritus who could reckon the maladies of the body the passions
felicityes adore the diuine Obiect of their Glory And while thine eyes shal be tasting in their fashion the delights which are foūd in the admiration of things perfectly fayre lend thine eares to that sweet harmony wherwith al those happy Spirits make vp a Consort in singing without cease Holy Holy Holy is our Lord the Heauens and Earth are filled with the maiesty of his Glory O diuine melody How powerfull are thy streynes since through our thoughtes they make thēselues so sensible to our harts With how many different pleasures and all perfectly extreme art thou rauished now my Soule With what rauishments of Ioy art thou transported besides thy selfe In what sweet extasies art thou not wādering After what sort of goods canst thou seeme to aspire vnto Thou beholdest all Greatnesses in their Thrones Riches in their mynes Glory in its Element and the Vertues in their Empire Thou tastest the true Contentments in their purity after a manner so diuine as thou possessest all without desiring any thing yet neuertheles not all since the obiect of thy delights is infinite which makes thee tast new Sweetnesses not in the order of increase of pleasure but in that of the accomplishment of the rest as being alwayes perfectly content Nor yet is this all my Soule to make thee admire in Idaea the Meruailles of all these diuine obiects of glory and of felicity It behoues me now to represent vnto thee besides the strayte vnion that ioynes the happy Spirit with his soueraigne Good I would say the Soule with God But how may it be done God cannot produce a Species or an Image of himselfe which is able to represent him in regard the Species and the Image are alwayes more pure more simple then is the Obiect whence they proceed Now what Species or Image may be purer and more spirituall then God Besides that all the Species and all the Images are so determined in the forme of the thing they represent as they cannot seeme to represent another And it is true that God is not a thing determinate because it hath not a particular Being separated from others in such sort as he eminently conteynes ech thing as the Apostle saith Portans omnia verbo virtutis sue There is no Species which is able to determine this God indeterminate there is no Image created or produced that can represent this God increated Hence it is that God cānot vnite himself to the Soule through a Species or Image as we do other things The Deuines say that God vnites himselfe to the Soule per se really they call this vnion per modum species But for to cleere the obscurity which is in all this mystery you must note that when as God vnites himselfe to the Soule he eleuates the same to a being which is supernaturall and diuine In so much as it resēbles God himselfe not so as it looseth its proper Essence but within the perfectiō wherto it is eleuated it deriues from the Obiect which cōmunicates to it al the glory that it possesseth 〈◊〉 relatiōs to his similitude in such sort as in regarding this happy Soule they behold God Moreouer it may be said more cleerely that God vnites himself to the Soule in such manner as the Fire is vnited to the Iron forasmuch as the Fire as agent is more noble then the Iron it conuertes the Iron into its semblance with so much perfection as one would say the Iron had chaunged its proper forme into that of the Fire yet notwithstanding the Iron looseth not awhit of its essence Now this vnion of Fire with Iron is a reall vnion per se and not through Species nor through Image So God who is called the Deus noster ignis consumens est is vnited to our Soule per se really and receyuing the same into himselfe reduceth it to a being supernaturall and deified in so much as it seemes to be no more a Soule but God himselfe A verity which S. Iohn publisheth when he saith we shal be like vnto him From the Tyme that a Soule is vnited with God he illumines it with a light of glory to the end it may see him and contēplate him at its pleasure and with him all things which are in him formally and eminently to vse the termes of the Schoole-men in so much as it is ignorāt of nothing within the perfection of its wisedome O admirable Science Then shall it be when it shall cleerely see within the Abysses of diuine secrets that which God did before he created the world How he produced eternally another himselfe without multiplication of Deities and how betweene the producent and the person produced proceeds an eternall loue of him who engenders and of him who is engendred which is this adorable Trine-vnity It shal see besides how this God being engēdred Eternally in himselfe without mother might be borne once on earth of the most glorious Virgin without Father With what Prouidence he gouernes all things with what Goodnes he created Man with what Loue he redeemed him How he iustifies inuisibly without forcing the liberty How the works of his Iustice accord with those of his mercy How he saues through his grace How he leaues them reprobate without fault How his infallible Science agrees without the Contingency of things How the Predestinate may damne himselfe and the Reprobate be saued though the Science of God remayne alwaies infallible and immutable as it is The verity of all these secrets shal be represented to its eyes more cleere then the Sunne O what Science my Soule or rather what incomparable felicity proceeds from all these sundry pleasures When shall this be that thou cryest out with the Queene of Saba speaking to thy Lord in lyke manner as she spake vnto Salomon What wisedome is thine O great King what glory and what magnificence admire they in thy Kingdome What Citty is this same replenished with so many goods what delicious meates and what precious wines do they tast at the table of thy banquets What lustre of greatnes appeares in all those that attend vpon thee Renowne may well publish thy prayses in all places of the Earth if al the Heauēs together are not large inough to conteyne the rumour of them O happy Spirits who reigne in the mansion of this immortall glory I wonder not awhit at your so trampling vnder foot the Crownes and Scepters of the world in iust pretension to the felicity you possesse What fires what torments and what new punishments would not one suffer for to purchase this soueraygne good where repose is so durable Gibbets Hangmen all the instruments of Death are as so many Trophies of the glory which succeeds shame and payne O how these diuine words of S. Augustin do cause a sweet melody to resound while he sayes Let the deuills prepare me from henceforth as many ambushes as they will let them addresse the last assaults of their power to encounter me let
יהוה Annos aeternos in mente habui Memorare nouissima tua THE SWEETE THOVGHTS OF DEATH and Eternity Written by Sieur de la Serre AT PARIS 1632. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE HENRY NEVILL BARON OF ABERGAVENY SYR YOV may behold heer a sensles Statue made to the Life but vvithout Life till the Promethean Fire of your vvell knovvn piercing Iudgment gracing it giue it a true subsistence It hath a Mouth vvithout VVords VVords vvithout Spirit till you the Mecaenas through your Honours gracious acceptation affoard it strength energy As for the Heart expressed in the pure Intentiō of this Addresse to your Honour it is vvholy yours nor needs the spoiles of feigned Deityes to giue it breath to make it more your ovvne then novv it is Or rather if you please you haue heer tvvo nevv-borne Tvvins put forth thus naked as you see into the vvide VVorld to shift for themselues and like to be forlorne vnles your Lordship pittying their pouerty take thē into your Honourable Patronage and safe Protection France hath had the happinesse to giue them their first birth your Honour shall haue the trouble to afford them a secōd That to haue bred a Spirit able to conceiue and bring forth such issues And your Lordship through your noble Fauour to make them free Denizens of this Kingdome Or lastly to speake more properly I heer present your Lordship vvith the Svveet Thoughts of Death and Eternity expressed in our tongue Not to vndertake to make that svveet vnto you vvhich othervvise vvere bitter vvho through a fayr preparation of a Christian and vertuous life haue confidence inough to looke grim Death in the face and vvith good serenity of conscience to vvayt on Eternity but rather that your Lordship vvould please to commend the same to others of like quality vvho follovving the vogue of the allurements pleasures and delights of this vvorld may haue need of such noble Reflections as Monsieur de la Serre Authour of this VVorke vvell versed vvith people of that ranke hath learnedly and piously shevved to this more free and dissolute age So shall your Honour do a charitable vvork of mercy the vvorld be edified and I vvell satisfied to haue put to my hand Your Honours most humbly and truly deuoted H. H. THE TABLE OF CHAPTERS Chap. 1. OF the sweet Thoughtes of Death pag. 1. Chap. 2. What Pleasure it is to thinke of Death pag. 6. Chap. 3. That there is no contentment in the world but to thinke of Death pag. 22. Chap 4. That it belongeth but only to good Spirits to thinke continually of Death pag. 30. Chap. 5. How those spirits that thinke continually of Death are eleuated aboue all the Greatnesse of the Earth pag. 41. Chap. 6. A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Alexander the Great pag. 50. Chap. 7. He that thinkes alwayes of Death is the Richest of the world pag. 61. Chap. 8. A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Cresus pag. 66. Chap. 9. That he who thinkes alwaies of Death is the Wisest of the world pag. 73. Chap. 10. A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Salomon pag. 80. Chap. 11. A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Helena pag. 90. Chap. 12. That of all the Lawes which Nature hath imposed vpon vs that same of Dying is the sweetest pag. 113. Chap. 13. How Worldings dye deliciously without euer thinking thereof pag. 119. Chap. 14. Goodly Considerations vpon this important verity That whatsoeuer we do we dye euery houre without cease pag. 124. Chap. 15. The Tombe of the pleasures of the Sight pag. 127. Chap. 16. The tombe of the Pleasures of the Sense of Hearing pag. 130. Chap. 17. The Tombe of the other Pleasures that are affected to the Senses p. 132. Chap. 18. How he who hath imposed the Law of death vpon vs hath suffered all the paynes therof together pag. 135. Chap. 19. The pleasure which is found in Liuing well for to Dye content pag. 143. Chap. 20. The Picture of the Life and Death of a sinfull Soule pag. 148. Chap. 21. A goodly Consideration and very important both for lyfe and death pag. 159. THOVGHTS OF ETERNITY The Triumph of Death pag. 3. The Glory of Paradise pag. 55. Of the Infernall Paynes pag. 190. The Houre of Death pag. 145. Of the svveet Thoughtes of Death CHAP. I. THERE are no sweeter Thoughtes then those of Death Spirits being raysed to the knowledge of Diuine thinges do euer occupy themselues in counting the tyme of their banishment in this strange Land where we sigh vnder the burden of our Euils Slaues liue not but of the hope to see themselues at liberty their prisons and their irons are obiects both of horrour and dread which put their soules vpon the racke The Sun shines not for them at all and all the sundry pleasures agreable to their senses changing their nature serue but to afflict them So as in their captiuity they breath the ayre of a dying lyfe whose moments last for ages We are those slaues so enchained within the prison of our bodies as exiled from the paradise of our delights where the first innocency of our parents had established vs a Mansion so true it is their disobedience hath changed our bodies into prisons and the delightes of our Soules into thraldome What feelings then may we haue in this seruile condition whereunto we are brought but those of an extreme dolour and bitter sorrow to see our selues depriued of the Soueraygne God where Soules do find the accomplishment of their rest The harts being holily enamoured speake so sweet a language both of sighes sobbs in the absence of that they loue as if the Angels were touched with enuy they would desire to learne it to make therof a new Canticle of glory in their Eternity Of all the dolours that may tyrannize a soule such as know what it is to loue find not a more intollerable then that of the absence of the Subiect with they loue perfectly indeed And if it be true that affections draw their force from their merit what should our loue be towards this Sauiour whose perfection so wholy adorable cannot brooke comparison but with thēselues And how be it this great God be infinitly louely yet would he needs be borrowing a hart of nature to resent the draughts of our loue to dye on the Crosse of their woundings What excesse of goodnes How may they resist the sweet strokes of his mercy He espouses our Condition for to suffer all the miseryes therof sinne and ignorance only remayning without power agaynst his person in so much as dying he changed the countenance of death and makes it so beautifull as generous harts at this tyme sigh not but in expectation of their last sigh since euen the selfsame moments that lead vs to the Tombe conduct vs also to immortality The paynes which my Sauiour hath suffered on Mount Caluary haue beene fruitfull to bring forth diuers punishments in fauour of the infinite number of Martyrs who
loued not life but to ressent it's death His Nayles haue forged them others of that sort His Thornes haue thence produced new Thornes and the forme of his Crosse hath made them to inuent some others of the lyke and the turning vpside downe of his hath serued S. Peter for a Couch to dye in For ioy rather then of payne I would say that all the deadly instruments of the passion of my Redeemer haue beene the preparatiues of the Triumph that a million of soules haue carryed away in their Martyrdom The Scourges haue been for S. Bartholomew the Nayles for S. Andrew the Sword for S. Paul the wounds for S. Francis and the Crosse serues on earth for a new subiect of Enuy for the whole world togeather since that euery one can pretend no better then to this glory to sacrifice his life vpon the same Aultar where the Authour of life hath beene immolated O how the amourous plaintes of that great Apostle make all to resound with a sweet melody Me thinkes the sweet accēts of his cryes do euē rauish my Spirit through mine eares The tyme of my lyfe is too long sayd he in the strength of his Passion I am troubled to reckon vp the moments of it's durance When shall it be that I shall liue forth of my selfe to go to liue in him whom I loue much better then my selfe Quite contrary to those guilty Soules who stand discoursing of death as of a losse where he desires it for recompence So as the Sun had neuer a fayre day for him and Nature so beautifull in its diuersities and so fruitfull to bring forth so many wonders was barren for his contentment in so much as the obiects of his pleasures was quite without the world and yet through a Miracle worthy of him he liued and dyed of Loue at once O sweet Life But yet more happy death The Swan after she hath measured diuers tymes the humide spaces of the banckes euen tyred out with lyuing calles for death vnto her succour with accents of melody so sweet and so pittifull withall as that it cannot choose but then euen yield to the assaults of Compassion This bird being richly dressed vp with innocency proclaymes the truth of her Death to Forrests to Champaygnes and to Rockes by the sad accents of her tunefull notes whose harmony doth rauish all those that haue sense of feeling in them and giues them a desire to dy with her This Diuine Apostle dying on the shore of his teares represents to vs this bird For being now weary to liue so long tyme absented from his lyfe he sends vp his amourous sighs to Heauen-wards with a voyce full of allurements cryes out how he desires to abandon his body for to go to behould the God of his Soule The harmony of his cryes so powerfully attracts the harts vnto him as all those who are able to heare but the Eccho of it and to perceyue i'ts sweetnesse doe borrow wings of al sides to fly out of themselues while the Earth is in contempt with them You Soules of the world I inuite you heere to hearken to this Consort of Musike where the Angells hold their part but you must purify your senses if you wil be rauished with Pleasure and Ioy. What Pleasure it is to thinke of Death CHAP. II. A TRAVAILLER strayed from his way and puzled in the full of the night within a thicke forrest finds himselfe on a sudden brought into streights through a thousand assaults of feare wherwith his Soule is strooken He casts his eyes on euery side but sees nothing but shadowes of horrour which presage the sun-set of his life The noyse of the impetuous winds that puts a garboyle into the boughes beate so roughly on his eares as he breathes but in a deadly feare more intollerable well nigh then death His imagination being troubled lets him see in dreame in the midst of the darknes as many precipices as the steppes he makes on his way In so much as he belieues euery momēt he is buryed quick in some pit or other with the whole burden of his euils The feare of being deuoured by the sauage beasts makes him to apprehend a new punishment whose dolour redoubles euermore through the sensible apparence of some euident danger The heauens earth being hid alike from his eyes within obscurity for remedy represent to him despaire in effect his Iudgement being now stupid with terror hath not the liberty of discourse but to conclude vpon his losse al things the while cōtributing to his most disaduantage Himselfe sees not himselfe awhit as if already he were quite besides himselfe the little sense he hath left him serues him but to suffer euils which in their excesse do rob him of his speach Thus brought to this extremity where death is more present with him then life since he wholy dyes and liues but to halfes he lifts now at last his eyes to Heauen-wards where he discryes a ray of light to disclose through the birth of the Aurora which serues him as a Beakon or Watch tower to remit him into the path of his way which he had lost The day by little little makes the shadowes of death with enuirone him to vanish out of sight with the hope of lyuing affoards him the contentmēt to behold the precipices which he hath escaped in so much as he arriues to the places of his desires with a great deale more pleasure then he felt paine Let vs now say We are these Trauaylours wandering in the thicke Forrest of this world during the darknes of Synne which enwraps vs one euery side The winds of temptations bluster without cease in our eares euery stepp we seeme to make forwards leads vs into the Tombe since we dye euery houre and the abysses are alwayes open to swallow vs vp as culpable of a thousand sortes of crimes Being brought to this estate the Heauen hides it selfe from our eyes as not able to pretend awhit for it's glory So as being oppressed with diuers disasters we breath the ayre of a lyfe full of annoyes and of vnsufferable afflictions The light of Eternity which shines to vs in the port of the Sepulcher is this goodly Aurora whose day disperses the shadowes of our night for euer What contentment to arriue at this port amidst so many stornes What happinesse to enioy the brightnes of a Sun which is not subiect to Eclypses after so many tedious nights We are all Pilgrimes who continually trauayle from this world into the other The darknes of sinne is the shadow of our bodies since they accompany vs without cease What incomparable felicity to go forth of our selues to find out that day which should illumine vs eternally What may we desire in Slauery but Liberty In darknes but light and in Trauayle but Rest This earth is a prison let vs neuer thinke then but to recouer our liberty This vnlucky dwelling is a place of obscurity let vs gape
grow in him He would feygne haue found some rocke within this sea of loue but the Pilot who steeres the ship of his life is a Port of assurance for all the world since he cōmands the winds and tempests What pleasure needs must this great Saint take to see himselfe thus smitten with the selfe same woūds of his Maister The Crosse fayles him howsoeuer yet he hath it in the hart The Crowne of Thornes he misseth but what say I he weares it in his Soule But then at least he seemes not to be depriued but of Nayles and Gaule I deceiue my selfe For as for the nayles he caryes the markes thereof as well in hands feet as side and for gaule the tongue takes very greedily the sweet bitternes therof O great Saint thrice happy Tel vs the pleasure which is to dye since you dy so sweetly in the extasies of your felicities How irksome needs must life be to you and the earth be in contempt with you in this trāsportation of ioy wherunto you are raysed S. Stephen hath beheld the Heauens opened and you his hart who hath created them S. Paul hath seene so admirable things as might not be tould and you felt such delicious as cannot be expressed S. Peter hath beene dazeled through a beame of glory you by one of loue whose light hauing pierced your darksome body hath made it transparent to the eyes of all the world so communicating it's diuine qualityes thereinto as the markes therof remayne eternal S. Iohn hath slept vpon the bosome of his Maister and by a sweet transport your hart got through and sought within the bosome of his hart your most assured repose This same disciple hath beene a witnesse of his torments and you participant of his paynes with this glory yet moreouer of bearing as well the wounds in the Soule as the markes on the body So as your fauours are so deare as none dare enuy them for fear of presumption though otherwise they be most worthy of enuy I wonder the thoughts of Death should be displeasing since we dye with pleasure in the life we lead There are none so blind in the knowledge of themselues that know not how they dy euery houre were it not iust then that we should thinke vpon that which we are continually a doing And wherefore shall we not take pleasure at this thought if it be the most profitable sweet that we are able to conceiue It is impossible to thinke of death but we must needs be thinking of Eternall life which succeds the same or rather say we It is impossible to thinke of the Soueraigne God and not to thinke of the imaginary euill of death And where shall we be finding of thoughts both sweeter and deerer then those of our Soueraigne Good So as if for the raysing of our spirits thither we are to passe into the imaginations and idea's of death the light of the Sunne which shal serue vs for obiect shall disperse all those vayne shaddowes which subsist not but through a false opiniō The starre of the day neuer shewes more bewtifull thē when it hath escaped through flight from a shole of clouds which do hide its light Those obscure clouds so strongly relieue the flash of its light as thence it appeares to be radiant in excesse The like may we say of our Reason being as the Sunne of our life that from the tyme it escapes from all these vayne shadowes of feare and dread which do veyle its brightnes it appeares so shining as it serues for a torch to passe very confidently withall from this life to the other The Will loues but the Good it is the Needle that is alwayes a pointing at this Pole It is the Iron which incessantly followes this Adamant as its only obiect In such sort as we are not capable of loue but to purchase the good which is presented vnto vs be it false imaginary or true And therin is iudgement giuen vs to know the difference that is from the one and the others Now that life is a false good there may no doubt be made since it hath no other foundation in it then misfortunes myseries That it is an imaginary good we are enforced to belieue whiles its pleasures are but of fancyes and dreames But that death is a true good we are to hould for certaine since it is the end of the terme of our exile of our captiuity of our sufferances For we cannot enter into glory but by the gate of the tombe where being reduced to our nothing we returne to our first beginning Sweet then are the thoughtes which make the life fastidious and death pleasing yet more sweet the desires that termine all our hopes in Heauen Such as know not the Art of dying well diliciously are vnworthy to liue Impatience in the expectation of death is more sensible to a holy Soule then the greatest pleasures to a man of the world We cannot loue life but in cherishing the fatall accidents that are inseparable from it which made Terence to say That he loued not any thing of all that which was in him but the hope of a speedy dying In effect there is no greater consolarion in life then that of death For were it immortall with all the encombrances that cleaue vnto it of all the conditours that are found in nature that same of man would prooue to be the most vnfortunate The afflicted loue not but by the sweet expectation of death and the others of the hope of a second life with reason imagining with themselues that if on earth they be touched with some pleasure they shal be one day accomplished in Heauen with al desirable delights And through the good of our death it is that we possesse the soueraigne good of eternall life It is the entry of our felicity the passage from the false and imaginary to the true and alwayes permanent He is yet vnborne whose hart being glutted with al sorts of contentments hath neuer gaped after new pleasures There is not a Soule in the world how happy soeuer it thinke it selfe that points not its pretensions beyond that same which it possesseth We hold it good to be rich our desires are alwayes in chase of Good We are raysed to the top of the greatest dignities we build new Thrones in our imagination not finding on earth scope inough to satisfy our Ambition withall In so much as mā hath alwaies vnrest in the repose which he hath once proposed to himselfe which makes vs sensibly to perceiue that the obiect of our desires is forth of nature and that if we sigh in the midst of our felicityes it can be but of the hope we haue to possesse some greater then they We haue lyued long inough then in Tantalus his Hel where we are continually a thirst without being euer able to drinke We must be vsing of some violence with our selues and go couragiously before death since it is that which
withhouldes this second life from vs wherein abides the accomplishment of our happines To dye is but to cast into the wynd the last sigh of our miseries To dye is but to make a partition of our selues commending the body to the Earth the Soule vnto Heauen To dye is but to bid a last adieu to the world preferring the company of Angels before that of men To dye is to be no more vnhappy To dye is to despoyle vs of our infirmities and to reuest vs with a nature exempt from sufferances O sweet death since it leades vs to the spring of life O sweet death since it giues vs the Eternity of glory in exchange of a moment of dolour O sweet death since it makes vs to reuiue for euer in a felicity immortall O yee Soules of the world thinke then alwayes of death if you will tast with pleasure the sweetnes of life For it shal be euen in this last moment where you shal receiue the Crowne of all the others you may sigh long inough in your chaynes you are neuer like to be delyuered thence if death come not to breake the gates of your prison Go before it then and carry in your countenance the desire of meeting it rather then a feare to be touched with it We should suffer with a good cheere that same which we must of necessity endure What say I endure Were it a payne to approach to the end of ones euils Were it a payne to become for euer exempt from their sufferances Let vs rather say a Contentment since thereby do we get forth of sadnes to enter into ioy Let vs call it a Happines since so we do abandone the dwelling of misfortunes to liue eternally in that of the felicities of Heauen That there is no contentment in the world but to thinke of Death CHAP. III. DEATH hath it's delights as well as Lyfe Iob was neuer more happy nor more content then at such tyme as he saw himselfe vpon the Throne of his dunghill oppressed vnder the burden of his miseries He dyed so deliciously in the depth of his dolours as he would haue suffered alwayes and haue dyed incessantly in that manner His wounds serued him as a mirrour to his loue For in looking thereinto he became amourous of himselfe but yet loued he not himselfe but to dye continually so pleasing was death vnto him therby to obey him who had imposed that law vpon him Loue changes the nature of things From the tyme that a Soule is chastly taken with this passion it neuer suffers for the subiect which it loues The paynes and torments therof are changing the name quality within the hart They are Roses rather then Thornes For if it sigh it is of ioy and not of payne if it be necessary to dy to conserue this louely cause of its life it is no death to it but a meere rap◠of contentment which seuers it from it selfe in fauour of another selfe which its loues more then it selfe In such wise as it begins to liue content from the point it begins to dye in or rather to take its flight towards the obiect it hath proposed to it selfe of the full perfection of its loue From this goodly verity do I draw this lyke consequence That the hearts wounded with diuine loue do neuer sigh in their torments but of the apprehension they haue of their short durance Death which to vs seemes so foule and deformed vpon the sudden changing it's countenance in their respect appeares a thousand tymes more beautifull then lyfe Whence it is that they are alwayes thinking thereon to to be alwayes content since it is the point where their paynes do termine where their felicityes begin The most pleasing thoughtes which our spirit can tell which way to conceyue can haue no other obiect then that of contentment of profit and of vertue in so much as they are the three sorts of goods whereto our will is tyed Now where shall we find more pleasure then in the thought of death since it is the great day of our Fortune where we take possession of the delights of Heauen Where more profit then in the selfe same thought since the soueraygne good which is promised to vs is the But the End and Obiect thereof And where more vertue then to thinke alwayes of Death whilest with the armes of these sweet thoughts we triumph ouer vice I belieue it is impossible to tast pleasures without thinking of death in regard these delights are continually a flying away and incessantly dy with vs in such wise that if we cannot ressent the contentments but within their fruit in running alwayes after them they are rather displeasures then pleasures and therefore we hold there are no greater delights thē those of thinking of Death as being the only meane to make them eternall When I resent vnto my selfe S. Laurence extended vpon the deuouring flames but yet more burned with the fire of his loue then with that of his punishment how he cryes out with a cheerefull voyce in the midst of the heates which consume him to be turned on the other side as if he thought he should not dye but by halfes being so but halfe burned I do feele my selfe rauished with the same iumps of ioy that transported him Death is so welcome to him as he deliciously roles his body on the coles as if they were very beds of Roses So as if he be touched with any payne at all it is for not suffering it for that his life being all of loue finds its element in the fire that consumes it and therefore he sighes of gladnes in the height of his torments In effect how shall he expire admidst those heats if his hart be all aflame already his Soule of Fire For if he were to be turned into ashes the stronger must needs preuayle So as he cannot be consumed but through the fire of his loue O sweet encounter O welcome combat And yet more deere the Triumph Death assayles him with flames it assaults him with heats but the fire wherewith he is holily burned triumphes reduceth him to ashes so to render them as cōsecrated This great Martyr neuer tasted in his life more sweet pleasures thē that of feeling himselfe to dy vpon this bed of flames because resenting death he felt the delights of immortall life wherof he made himselfe a crowne Kings Princes and all those who are raysed to some great fortune confesse it to be a great pleasure to dy since they dy euery hore so sweetly amidst their greatnesses I say so sweetly for their spirits and their senses are so strongly occupyed with their continuall ioyes as the Clocke which keepes accompt of the houres of our lyfe may sound long inough its 24. houres a day and they heed it no more then if they were starke deafe And the night full of horrour which represents to vs the same of the Sepulcher cānot fright them any more then
if they were quite blind Needs must the charmes of their pleasures be strong to make them insensible to that which toucheth them so neere S. Augustin sayd how the greatnesses of the world aspersed a kind of leprosy on the soule which euen benummed all the senses of the greatest Potentats of the earth In effect all their sighes all their actions do but carry the countenance of Death with them yet perceyue they no whit therof A strange thing To liue and not to thinke of lyfe at any tyme or rather of Death since to liue and dy is but one thing It is yet true notwithstanding that we dye without euer thinking of death wherin do we spoile our selues of the sweetest contentments of lyfe because our whole felicity consists in dying well and the meanes to incurre a glorious death is alwaies to thinke of the miseries of lyfe to the end to be encouraged through hope to possesse the eternall glory which is promised vnto vs. We do naturally loue our selues with so strong affections that all the powers of the world are not able to burst the chaynes thereof But what more mighty proofes may we affoard of this verity then that of thinking continually of Death since the same is the day of our Triumph When shall I begin to liue not to dye for euer sayth the Royall Prophet Our lyfe is a continuall combat and the day of our Death is that of our Victorie All the Martyrs though they were in the thickest of the fight and alwaies in the action of defending themselues yet in this warre of the world thought themselues very happy to find the occasion where they might make to appeare the last endeauours of their courage in the midst of torments for that they found in Death the crowne of immortall lyfe O sweet lyfe and cruell the attendāce As often as we carry our thoughtes beyond nature and euen to Heauen our spirit remaines wholy satisfyed therewith because that in this diuine pitch where it sees it selfe eleuated aboue it selfe it begins to liue the lyfe of Angells The earth is in contempt with it and when the chaynes of it's body fall off in their first condition it suffers their tyranny through constraint So that if it be permitted vs at all moments to abādon the world in thought to haue thereby some feeling of heauenly delights should we be our enemies so farre as to contemne these diuine pleasures in groueling without cease in our miseryes while the only meanes to be touched with it is to thinke on Death since there is no other way in lyfe to fynd the felicity we seeke for We may piously say that the Virgin purest most holy liued on earth a lyfe litle differing from that lyfe which is liued in Heauen her spirit all diuine intertayned it selfe alwayes with the Angels or rather with God himself while she had the glory of bearing him within her sacred wombe or in her armes In so much as her life was a voluntary Death all of loue seeing that through loue she tooke no pleasure but to dye so to possesse more perfectly the onely obiect of her lyfe She prized not her dayes but in the expectation of their last night as knowing its darknes was to produce the brightnes of an eternal day wherof herselfe had beene the Aurora O how sweet would it be to be able to liue in that sort for to dye deliciously It is not a life truly immortall to be alwayes thinking of death if death afford vs immortality How fastidious is the life of the world the Prophet cryes Let vs now then be ioyning our voyce to his cryes and say that death only is to be wished for All the holy Soules which in imitation of my Sauiour haue adorned thēselues with thornes haue been turning the face to the tombwards there to gather Roses With death it is where they termine their dearest hopes So as if they liue content it is not but through the sweet hope which they haue to dye O yee prophane Spirits who sacrifice not but to voluptuousnes pull off the hood of passion that thus blinds you to destroy those aultars of Idolatry whereon you immolate your selues without thinking of it for punishment of your crymes If you will know the true pleasure indeed it consists of thinking of Death as of the Spring that produceth our delights Our Crownes are at the end of their cariere nor shall we euer come to possesse the Soueraygne God to which we aspire with so much feruour and vnrest but by the way of Death When shall I cease to lyue with men sayth Dauid He is euen troubled amidst the greatnesses of the earth His Scepter and his Crowne are so contemptible to him as he would willingly change his Throne with the dunghill of Iob on condition to dye with his constancy To liue is no more then to be sequestred from that which one loues and after God what may we loue After him what may we desire So as if now these holy affections these diuine wishes cannot looke on glory but in passing by the Sepulcher let vs thinke continually on Death as of the way we take which we are yet to make This is the onely meane to render vs content for that these thoughtes are inseparable from the eternall felicity which is promised vs. That it belongeth but only to good Spirits to thinke continually of Death CHAP. IIII. SVCH as know the Art of familiarizing death with life through continual remēbrance of their end do neuer change the countenance in any perils They looke to resume both their bloud and life at once with the same eyes they behold the things which are agreable to them so as they remayne inuincible in their miseryes through the knowledge they haue of their condition Wounds neuer hurt their soules and all the maladies wherewith they may be touched afflict but their body only Their good Spirit habituated with the ordinary encounter of a thousand sad accidents inseparable from life tasts their bitternes in its turne and feeles their thornes without any murmuring The end of all actions ought to be the first ayme of the iudgement that conceiues them if it will shun the griefe of hauing done them So as from the tyme that we are capable of reason are we to serue our selues of it to consider the necessity of our mortall and transitory condition that the continuall obiect of our end may serue as a condition meanes to arriue happily thereunto The wiser sort are those who repent at least for that which they haue done true wisedome consists in not cōmitting folly And what more great may a man admit thē that to neuer thinke of death since it is the end where all our actions receiue their prize or payne Remember thou Death the Wisemā sayth and thou shalt neuer syn O glorious remembrāce who raisest vs to so high a degree of honour as neuer to offend God which is the only
perfection of the Soule next to the knowing him and louing him withall O glorious remembrance which changest our frayle and guilty Nature into one which is wholy innocent O glorious remembrance that makest vs deliciously to breath the ayre of Grace since they liue in the estate to dye euery hower for to liue eternally O glorious remembrance which on earth makest vs the inhabitants of Heauen O glorious remembrance where the Spirit finds both its Good and repose When I represent to my selfe the pittiful estate of our Condition I am afrayd of my selfe for disasters and miseryes do so attend vs at the heeles as there is almost no medium betweene dying and lyuing We sigh without cease the whole ayre we breath our very being that so tumbles alwayes towards its end wisheth not but it s not being whither euery instant leades it without intermission What better thoughtes may we now conceiue then of these verities since it is too true that we are borne vnhappy for to liue miserable vntill the point of dying And the only meane to change this misery into happines is euery moment to thinke vpon it for feare of falling euer into neglect or forgetfulnes of our selues There are feeble Spirits who dare not carry their thoughts vnto the end of the cariere of their life they euen faynt in the mid way their shadow affrights them they feare euery thing they imagine without considering the obiect of their feare subsists not but in their fancy only and how by that meanes to become ingenious to torment themselues To feare death is to feare that which is not since it is but a mere priuatiō and to haue a further feare of the thought is to fly the shadow of his shadow which is nothing Wherein these Spirits do but feed their owne weaknes liuing in death and dying in their life without dreaming once of Death But what goodly matter will they say so to mayntaine their errour for one to thinke of that which naturally all the world abhors Is it not to be miserable inough to be borne and to lyue dye in myseries without one be burying his spirit before his Body through the continual memory of his end It is euen as much as to make ones selfe vnhappy before hand so to dreame of the euils which we cānot auoyd It is inough to endure thē constantly when they arriue without going to meet with thē as if it could euer arriue too late Feeble apparences of Reason Admit that Nature abhorres Death as the ruine of this strait vniō of the body with the soule know we not also how this nature blind in all its passions and brutish in all its feelings takes alwayes the false good for the true not being able to worke but by the Senses which as materiall take its part To belieue now that our miseryes augment by this thought that we lyue dye miserable were much while on the cōtrary we do blunt the point of their thornes in so thinking of them in regard this continuall consideration of our misfortunes in this life makes vs to take the way of vertue for the attayning one day the glory and felicity of the other To imagine it also to be a griefe to dreame assiduously of Death as of an ineuitable euill is a meere imaginatiō which cannot subsist but within it selfe For we are neuer to thinke of Death but as of a necessary good rather then of an infallible euill since otherwise it i◠nothing of it selfe We should only represent to our selues that we are to change both condition and life and how this change can be no wayes made but at the end of our course whither we are continually running and that without pause awhit Our being of it selfe destroyes it selfe by little and litle withall things els of the world besides It is a funerall Torch burning by a Sepulcher that shines as long as the wax of our body lasts while euen the least blast of disaster is able to extinguish it for euer For howbeit the earth be large and spacious yet hath it noe voyd place in its whole extent but where to point euery one his Tombe euen as nature which though fruitfull of it selfe to produce many wonders yet finds an impotency withall to engender twice its lyuing workes The Fables informe vs well how Euridice was delyuered from her chaines in Hell but not from her prison she had the power to approach vnto the bounds of the dismall place of her captiuity but not to set her selfe at liberty So as if the Poets within the Empire which they haue established to themselues haue religiously held this inuiolable law of not to be able to dye twice with what respect ought we to adore the truth so knowne to euery one and so sensible to all the world And the knowledge which we haue thereof should vncessantly draw our pirits to these thoughtes to the end they sstray not in the labyrinths of sin which is the only Death of the Soule When I represent to my selfe the faces which these men of the world do make when they are spoken to of Death I haue much ado to belieue they are capable of reason since they faile thereof in the consideration of this important verity that they are but meere putrefaction and a little dust ready to be cast into the wind in the twinckling of an eye That walke they where they will they but trample their Tombe vnderfoote since the earth seemes to chalēge its earth whereof they are moulded and framed They shut their eares to the discourses that are made to them of Death which they are one day to incurre and open them to hearken to the Clocke whose houres minutes insensibly cōduct them into the Sepulcher whither willingly they would neuer go In so much as howbeit they are hasting euery moment to death yet they dare not be casting their eyes on the way they hould as if the sight could forward their paces wherin truly I can not abide nor excuse their pusillanimity since the danger whereinto they put themselues produceth an irreparable domage This same is an infallible maxime That such as neuer dreame of death do neuer thinke of God forasmuch as one cannot come at him but by Death onely On the other-side not to thinke euer of the end which should crowne our workes were as much as to contemne the meanes of our Saluation and so to forget our Sauiour who with his proper lyfe hath ransomed ours The eye cannot see at one and the selfe same tyme two different obiects in distance one from the other The lyke may we say of the Spirit though it's powers be diuerse yet can it not fasten its affections vpon two subiects at once vnequall and seuerall one from the other If it loue the Earth then is Heauen in contempt with it if it haue an extreme passion of selfe-loue to its lyfe the discourses of death are dreadfull to it And by how much it sequesters it selfe
from thoughtes of its end the lesse approacheth it to God through those very thoghts Lord I will thinke of my last dayes sayd the Prophet for to remember thee This great King and great Saint withall did belieue the memory of Death was inseparable from that of his Mayster since dye he needs must one day himselfe O sweet Death and yet more sweet the remembrance if it be true that it powerfully resists agaynst all manner of vice We cannot know good spirits but throgh good actions there is none better in lyfe then then of preparing ones selfe for death Whatsoeuer we can do which is admirable indeed looseth the whole admiration if it haue not relatiō therunto nor may a man be thought to haue lyued but to dy rather who thinkes not euer of this sweet necessity whereof the law dispenseth with no man The greatest perfection consists for one to know himselfe so as the Spirit cannot make its Eminency appeare but by beholding it selfe in its nature created to render the continuall homage of respect to its Creatour And being abased in this necessary submission it should consider that its immortality boūds vpon eyther an eternall payne or els on a lyke glory and that it is not at all but to be happy for euer or eternally vnhappy Vpon these considerations it may found the verity of its glory since it could not tell how to purchase eyther a iuster or a greater then that of knowing well it selfe For as then its diuine thoughts make it to take it's flight towards the place of its origin not prizing the earth but to purchase there the merit of Crownes which it pretends to possesse in Heauen Among the infinite number of errours which make the greatest part of the world to be guilty of crime this same is one of the most common of al To esteeme forsooth those extremely who are eloquent be it of the tongue or pen and to put them in the rancke of the more excellent Spirits As those also who through a thousand sleights being al very criminal cā tell how to amasse a great deale of riches to ariue to the highest dignityes Thus do the spirits of the world and are so esteemed by such as they But I answere with the Prophet how all their wisedome is folly before God The good spirits indeed are alwaies adhering to good and there is no other in lyfe then that to be allwayes thinking of death for to learne to dy well Since in this apprentiship only are comprized all the sciences of the world Eloquennce hath saued neyther Cicero nor Demosthenes Riches haue vndone Cresus greatnesses haue thrown Belus King of Cyprus out of his Throne into a dunghill To what purpose serues it to know how to talke well if we speake not of things more necessary and more important of our saluauation To what end serues it to be rich since we must needs be a dying miserable On the other side there is no other riches then that of Vertue and I had much rather possesse one aboue then the crownes of all the Kings of the World below What pleasure may a man take to behold himselfe raysed to Thrones since he must needs in a moment be descending into the Sepulcher What is become of all those who haue beene mounting the degrees of Fortune beene seene on the top of most eminent dignities Disastres or time which changes all things haue let them fall into the Tombe so as there remaynes no more of thē but the bare remembrance that sometymes they haue beene Consider we then and boldly let vs say how it belongs to good Spirits only to be euery houre thinking of Death since we dy euery hower That these thoughtes are the most sublime where with a good soule may entertaine it selfe That of al the wayes which may lead vs to Heauen there is none more assured then that of continually thinking of the last instant which must iustify or condemne all the other of our life for that our actiōs take their Rule frō these thoughtes to receiue the price of them All the rest is but vanity and meere folly Out of these thoughtes there is no good Out of these thoughtes there is no repose Who thinks not of death thinks of nothing since al seeme to termine at this last moment The most happy are miserable if this thoght make not vp the greatest part of their happines And the richest are in great necessity if they dreame not of that of their mortall condition Whatsoeuer is said if Death be not the obiect of the whole discourse they are but words of smoke that turne into wynd Whatsoeuer is done if Death be not the obiect of the actions all the effects are vnprofitable In fine all glory all good all repose all the contentment of the world consists in thinking alwayes of Death since these thoughtes are the only meanes to atteyne the eternall felicity wherto they termine And a generous Spirit cannot giue forth more pregnant proofes of its goodnes then in thinking on the Death of the body whiles euen of this moment depends the life of the soule How those spirits that thinke continually of Death are eleuated aboue all the Greatnesse of the Earth CHAP. V. IT is impossible to know the world without contemning it since the disastres and miseryes wherewith it is stuft are the continuall obiects of this knowledge And from the point that our iudgment hath broken the visards of the false and imaginary goods which vnder the maske of their goodly apparences deceyue our will it suddenly abhors in them that very same which passionately heertofore it seemed to cherish Whence it happens that we can neuer enter into knowledg of the world but we acquit our selues of it at the same time throgh a sorrow for not hauing despised it sooner since all its goods are but in apparence onely and its euils in effect So as if it be a Tree we may boldly say that miseryes are the leaues therof misfortunes the branches and death the fruit And it is vnder the shadow of this vnhappy Tree where our forefathers haue built our first tombe Man may seeme to disguise himselfe if he will vnder the richest ornaments of Greanes with the fayrest liueries of Fortune Well may he trample Scepters and Crownes vnderfoot in the proudest condition whereto Nature and Lot might haue raysed him vp He is yet the same I meane a peece of corruption shut vp in a skin of flesh whereof the wormes haue taken possession already from the momēt of his birth Let him measure as long as he will a thousand tymes a day the ample spaces of the world with this proud ambition to make a conquest of them all yet he must be fayne to let them fall if he would find the true measures of them without compasse enclosed all within seauen foot of earth which shall marke out his Tombe If he assemble with the same ambition all the Thrones of Kings
whence hath it receiued the being and the light it hath If it had as many tongues as beames it would haue published at once both his glory and thy forgetfulnes Confesse then the errour of it if thou wouldst haue men iustly to attribute wisedome to thee Ceobulus come thou in thy turne lykewise to visit the King of Sages not in his Pallace but in the litle house which the harbingers of death haue appointed for him Thou bestowest thy tyme but ill for thou shouldest be making of verses and thou art full of them thy selfe to wit of wormes So as if thou loue thy Poesy so much make verses on thy wormes describe thy miseries and neuer speake but of thy misfortunes otherwise shalt thou loose the Surname thou hast of a Sage Thou seest well how the science thou professest teacheth not but vanity how all the world is the great maister of it True wisedome consists in possessing all the vertues and thou yet liuest in the hope of atteyning the first which is to know ones selfe Salomon was wiser then thou art and yet with all his knowledge and wisedome both was he taxed of folly He hath beene the greatest of the world this little trench which thou seest conteyneth all his greatnesses The lands of his Empire are comprised within this litle hillocke of earth whereinto he is reduced if thou wilt forgo thy vanity behould somwhat neere his miseries and thou shal learn all the Sciences of the world in the meditation of his nothing You Sages of the world if you establish the foundation of your glory on your prudence all is but vanity Behold contemplate and publish freely the truth you know I for my part will not learne other science then that of liuing wel since this is the science of the Eternity which hath for obiect an immortall glory A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Helena CHAP. XI RETVRNE thou O Menalaus with thy Army to the conquest of this fayre Helena to triumph now at last vpon her vtmost spoyles Imagine the Tombe wherein she is enclosed to be the the proud Troy which deteynes her from thee Marshall thy Army about her Sepulcher and let the valiantest of thy soldiers well armed against the horrour and affrightes of all the infections of the world giue the first onset to this fortresse of miseryes There is no need to reduce her into ashes since she is wholy full of ashes now Encourage then thy Captains to the assaults Thou hast now no more to deale with an infinite number of men but rather with an infinite number of wormes as owners possessors of the subiect of thy victory But me thinkes some new Achilles or some Aiax hath already demolished the rampiers of this litle Troy wherein thy Helena is captiued Approach then braue Menalaus with napkin at thy nose teares in thine eyes sighs in thy mouth and plaintes in thy soule to behold the Idoll of thy passions and the obiect of the triumphes Behold this fayre Helena whome the greatest Monarks of the world haue adored Behold this fayre Helena whome Theseus tooke away and Paris rauished as a thrall of her perfections Behold this fayre Helena who hath peopled Greece with widdowes and Orphans Behold his fayre Helena who hath drowned a good part of the earth with a deluge of bloud Behold this fayre Helena the wonder of all the wonders in the world the shame of ages past the despayre of such as are to come the miracle of her present age Behold this fayre Helena whome Paynters neuer durst to represent nor haue Poets beene able euer to prayse inough Behold this fayre Helena whome no man hath admired but with Idolatry Behold this fayre Helena whose merits haue armed the one part of the world agaynst the other as if for â—er alone they would haue vtterly destroied the Vniuerse Behold at last this fayre Helena whose lyfe hath cost a million of deathes behold this stinking carcasse which heere you see this heape of putrifyed bones and this lump of infection full of wormes Commaund thy imagination to represent her vnto thee in that estate she was in at such tyme as thou adoredst her on the Throne of her graces for to acknowledge sensibly the differeÌ„ce Demand of her head what is become of that fayre golden hayre of hers so alwayes curled where Loue had wrought a thousand Labyrinths to make a thousand of the freest Soules to waÌ„derin Her hayre I say whose flash dazeled the eyes and whose wreathes captiued harts Where is that Alabaster brow where Maiesties appeared in troupes as alwaies ready to impose new lawes of respect to mortals Where are her eyes which you termed The eyes of Loue since he had not beene blind but for her sake Or rather those two fayre stars eclipsed from whence thou receiuedst both the good and the euill influences of thy life say we yet more those two fayre Suns arriued now at their last West whose splendour euer blinded the whole world What is become of them we can hardly discerne the dreadfull ruines of their being Where may that godly feature be whose flowers alwayes spread and disclosed the winter reuereÌ„ced much Where is that mouth of Coral whose voyce was an oracle of good euill fortunes Where is that necke of Iuory that snowy bosome and all the other parts of that body where Nature had imployed the last endeauours of her power I see nothing but wormes I smell nothing but a stinke All is vanished quite away The flesh of that Maiesticall brow lets her hydeous bones appeare Those fayre eyes shew forth the holes where the wormes haue built their Sepulcher The flowers of this visage are changed into thornes and this mouth sometimes of Corall is now become a sinke of Infection And for the rest of the parts of the body being al of the same nature with the whole we may know the peece by the patterne Menalaus behold the subiect of thy affection of thy pleasures of thy paynes and of thy triumphes Behold her whome thou so deerely louedst so highly reuerencedst â—or whome thou hast a thousand tymes put â—hy Scepter thy Crowne yea all Greece in daunger with thy life and honour Behold thy vanity discouered consider thy â—hame contemplate thy folly This heape of Ashes hath made thee to reduce into ashes the proudest Citty of the world This stinking Carkasse hath been conuinced in dying for putting a Million of men to death This Colossus of miseries full of infection hath changed the most flourishing Empire of the world into a meere dunghil Muster vp thine Army about this Sepulcher that thy Captaynes and Souldiers may lament with thee thy folly bewayling the tyme they haue imployed for the conquest of this heape of stinking earth So as if the Ghosts wherewith she hath peopled Hell were able to breake their prisons they would bring a new warre vpon thee as the partner of all the crymes which they haue committed in following thee I attend
hands Behold the lesser defects of women whiles of discretion I conceale the greater but I belieue in vayne since all the world beholds thē wel inough so as if they would yet see more sensible verityes of their miserable condition let them approach to this Tombe You Courtiers I coniure you by the power of those Beauties which you haue adored so much to come hither and behould their ruine What say I nay horrour infection and putrefaction rather Theseus send thou hither thy ghost to this body where thou hadst lodged so long a tyme both thy hart and soule Behold this faire Helena whome thou hadst stolne away with the perill of thy life as idolatrous of her imaginary perfections Search now in her the baytes that charmed thee so the charmes that rauisht thee the bewty that made thee such a thrall and all those sweetnesses which haue forged the chaynes of thy seruitude Those bayts now haue no more force but to allure the wormes those charmes haue no more power but to conserue the infection and those bewties and sweetnesses changing the nature do afford amazements rather then any whit of Loue. But yet me thinks thou art well reuenged For this cruell Tyrant who had reduced thee so by little and little into ashes is euen now but ashes her selfe This mercylesse woman who would seeme to loue no man is hated of all the world This proud Dame who made her selfe adored serues as a victime to the wormes and sport to the winds Yesterday her bewty did please thee so much as thou hadst no eyes but to admire her to day is her foulenesse so hideous as thou hast no contempt but for her Yesterday thou sighedst for her loue to day the same hart euen sighes for her miseryes Yesterday her perfections did rauish thy soule to make them adored and to day her defects extort thy teares and sighes to bewayle in their fashion their ruine Looke then see heere that which thou hast loued so much and that which thou hatest so maynely See heere what thou hast admired with astonishment that which thou abhorrest with so much reason what cruell change is this from thy selfe with thy selfe or rather from the subiect of thy loue with the same subiect it selfe Shall I dare to say that this stinking Carkasse heere is the fayre Helena That this heape of rotten bones are the sad spoyles of her perfectiōs And that this little Ashes is the dolefull head of that wonder of the world Paris Returne thou from Hell into the earth agayne for to see the cause of thy disastres Approach to this Sepulcher and contemplate the infection corruption neere at hand with thou hast adored vnder the name of Helena How many tymes hast thou beene kneeling before this carkasse before these rotten bones How many mischiefes hast thou run into How many perils hast thou escaped How many seas hast thou crossed ouer How many euils hast thou suffered for to possesse this heape of wormes Thou verily belieuedst thou hadst all the riches of the world in thy ship whiles thou hadst thy Helena therein The Coffer is opē behold now wherein consist thy treasures Art thou not ashamed for hauing so made loue to this heape of Ashes and for hauing sighed so a thousand a thousand tymes after this stinking Earth Thus the glory of the world doth passe away all flyes into the Tombe Your Courtiers come yield you a last homage of visit to this Idol of your passions I haue heard indeed the Persians heertofore haue adored the Sun and that there haue beene other Paynims who in their brutishnes haue adord likewise diuers sorts of beasts but I haue neuer seene a more prodigious thing then now at this day while they adore euen Clay Corruption and Infection There is nothing more certayne then that in adoring women they become Idolatours of their putrefaction since their body is a sacke of worms Behold the goodly subiect of your watchings of your troubles of your extrauagancies How is it possible this heape of ashes heere should affoard you such ill dayes and so long nights That this sinke of infection should make you shed so many teares and send so many sighes into the wind Are you not iealous trow you that the wormes should possesse this subiect of your affection Can your wayward courages ere endure these wormes should be taking their Fees thereof in your presence to your scorne For they glut themselues of the one part of what you haue adored and for the other they make a dunghill of it These are no Fables these Looke smell your selues all is but misery and stench So passeth the glory of the world away I inuite you my Dames to a feast which the corruption of Helena's body makes vnto the wormes in the presence of Heauen Earth This Tombe which you see is the Hall where the banquet is prepared come you hither in troupes attyred all in the richest Ornaments you haue as you would go vnto a wedding-feast I licence you herin to bring a glasse with you hanging at your girdle for to admire with an dolatrous eye the good Graces you haue And if you affoard any whir of intermission at all cast but your eyes awhile vpon this stinking carcasse heere since it is the body of your shadow and the originall of your liuing pourtraicts You now see inough that you are but ashes but earth but clay but meere putrefaction and infection and yet suffer neuertheles your selues to called Goddesses and to heape yet more cryme vpon crime you accept the Sacrifices I haue not seene nor read of so prodigious Metamorphoses that euen very Clay should be raised vpon a Throne and the wormes and corruption should be meriting of titles of immortall glory You suffer them to be kneeling before you and feare not the while least the wind of your vanities be carrying away the dust whereof you are framed You walke vpon cloth of gold and after your death are the beasts trampling vnder foote your stinking earth You suffer them to kneele before you Alas what a sight to humble ones selfe before a dunghill Decke vp and adorne your carkasse as long as you please the stench at last shall discouer the miseries thereof to the sight of all the world This handfull of ashes which you see heere is the beautifull Helena whose allurements charmed harts and whose charmes did rauish soules And yet notwithstanding is there left no more of her then the meere infection which was bred with her I do euen laugh at all your vanities my Dames mocke at those who admire thē so When as your bewties do assaile me I breake the very crust of them approching to the corruption which is within it makes me hate them more then euer any man had loued them heretofore I take pleasure somtyme to behold your sweetnesses your allurements your nyceties but it is only to be touched with compassion of your miseries For whatsoeuer
the obiects whose beauty heeretofore thou hast adored then represeÌ„t to thy selfe according to the argument thou canst draw from the nature of their being what is become of them or what are they like to be If it be some proud pallace wherin the order the riches the magnificence the industry of the workeman be in dispute about glory to know who shall carry away the prize consider that Tyme destroyes it at all howers and that it shall neuer giue ouer till it see the ruines of it If the charmes of Art do charme the sight in admiration of the fayrest colours laid on a rich subiect think but a little of the fraylty of those accidents For all the beautifullest colours that are do fetch their birrh from that of flowers And can we see any thing more changeable or of so small a date as they So as if the allurements of the beauties of Nature do rauish thy soule by thy eyes defeÌ„d thy self forth with through the knowledge thou hast of their misery since in effect the fayrest Lady in the world is but a masse of flesh which corrupts euery moment vntill such tyme as it be wholy formed to corruption and this corruption into wormes As for all other things whatsoeuer which thou mayest haue seene being no whit more noble then it thou Mayst well be iudging of their defects by the consequence In so much as whatsoeuer the HeaueÌ„s haue glittering the Earth rare Nature gay Art more admirable if thou seruest thy selfe of the touchstone of thy iudgement to know the matter which supports the image thou shalt soone find all to be no more then dust and so mayest feare least it happen to fly in thine eyes to make thee blind if thou lookest but too neere vpon it The Tombe of the Pleasures of the Sense of Hearing CHAP. XVI YOV Soules of the world who suffer your liberty to be taken away through your eares with the deceiptful charmes of Syrens You I say who sigh for ioy for delectation and extasy amidst the pleasures of a sweet harmony eyther of voyces or instruments leÌ„d your guilty eares to heare the reasons which seeme to condemne your errours I doubt not a whit but the purling of a siluer brook the sweet running murmur of a fountayne the pretty warbling of birds and the amourous accents of a delicate voyce ioyned with the sweet allurements of the melody of a Lute are of force inough to captiue your spirits vnder the empire of a thousaÌ„d sorts of delights But yet returne a little from this wandering of yours Content your selfe with the losse of liberty and saue your reason to repayre your domage At such tyme as you stand listening to the humming noyse of this riuer to the murmur of this fountayne imagine this truth the while That all passeth away that all slides along like to the waues Their language preacheth nought els Those birds euen call for death at the sound of their chaunting like the Swan And if the harmony of a voice or Lute so charme you coÌ„sider awhile how the pleasure of this melody is formed of the ayre and that in the same instant it resolues into ayre agayne so as the delights euen dy in their birth You let your eares be tickled with the charmes of EloqueÌ„ce imagine you that since it is true that as neither Cicero nor Demosthenes were exempt from the Tombe or corruption with al their fayre elocution so shall you neuer be able to perswade death with al your gallant discourses to prolong the terme of your life but a moment True Eloquence consists in preaching Vertue and true Harmony to hould reason alwayes at accord with the Will for to desire nothing but what is iust The Tombe of the other Pleasures that are affected to the Senses CHAP. XVII OPEN your eyes you worldlings to discouer playnly the truth of your crymes You take your pleasures to cherish daintily your bodyes as if you knew not their miseryes But why say I your pleasures Can you take any contentment to stuffe your putrified body with a new matter of corruption Whatsoeuer you eat is a symbole of Death so shall you dy in eating You do nothing but heape dung vpon dung add but infectioÌ„ to infection I graunt that your life passeth euer its dayes in continuall banquetting But I would fayne haue you let me see the pleasure which is left you of all this good cheere at the latter course Is this a contentment trow you to haue the Belly stuffed with a thousand ordures to put your spirit on the racke with the stinking fume of meates not well concocted which arise vp in the brayne Is it well with you to haue the head drousy the pulse distempered the spirit benummed reason astray Behold heere a part of the delights which succeed your delights and you haue no care but to pamper your bodyes as if you lyued but onely for them not considering the meane while how the same very food which affoards them lyfe euen brings them to death Inebriate your selfe with these brutish pleasures and by the example of the new Epicures haue no passion but to conserue them yet of necessity must the imaginary paradise of your lyfe conclude in a true Hell on the day of your death For all these roses shal be changed into thornes in that last moment Glut you and crumme your bodies for to satiate the wormes withall But this is nothing as yet Your soules being the companions of your euills must needs be euerlastingly punished in an eternity of paynes O dreadfull Eternity It seemes in a fashion that those men of the world may well be excusing their vanity that causes them to carry both amber and muske about them since they are all full of of infection and corruption which makes me belieue that they feare least men come to sent the stench of their miseries so engage them or rather inforce them to serue themselues of this cunning In effect all these odours and these perfumes smell so strong of earth as we cannot loue the smoke without runing into danger of the fire So as those who tye their spirit to these vayne idea's of pleasures are in loue with shadows and despise the bodyes They smell very well that smell not ill and such as habituate their bodyes to Perfumes can neuer endure the stinke of the mortuary Torches which shall encompasse their bâ—d at the houre of death I speake to you my Ladyes who doe so passionately affect these foolish vanityes I remit you euer to the instant of Death for to receyue the iudgement of your actions full of shame and reproach Deale you so as your soule may sauour well rather then the body since the one may euery moment be cited to the presence of God and the other serues as a prey for the worms It were better your teeth should sauour il then your actions for those are subiect to corruption and these heere shall liue eternally
eyther in payne or glory I leaue you to thinke of these important verityes For the pleasures of Touching being of the selfe same nature with the rest and hauing no more solid foundatiō then they we may draw the consequence of the same argumēt with them and conclude how this imaginary pleasure cannot seeeme to cleaue but to weaker spirits who loue only the earth because its obiect is so vile and base as we had need to abase our selues to obserue its aymes Let vs resume the ayres of our former discourses and say that the pleasures of the world do not subsist in the world but through the name onely which is giuen them For in effect they are nothing but a dreame the shadow of a shadow whose body we neuer possesse Such as loue them are not capable of loue since they fix their affections on the pourtraicts onely of imagination and of the Idea's which the wind defaceth euery moment True contentmēt consists in thinking alwayes of death And this is the onely pleasure of lyfe since it termines in the delights of Eternity How he who hath imposed the Law of Death vpon vs hath suffered al the paynes therof together CHAP. XVIII I NOTE an excesse of loue in the History of that great King who being touched with a generous desire to banish vice for euer from his Kingdome to bring in Vertue there to reigne in peace among an infinite number of Lawes which he imposed on his subiects the payne of pulling out the eyes was decreed for his punishment that should violate the most important of thē The ill lucke was that his only Sonne should fall the first into that cryme What shall he do And what shal he resolue vpon For to quit himselfe from the assaults both of loue and pitty which nature gaue him euery moment he could not do since the halfe of his bloud takes away fury from the other halfe What likelihood for one to arme himselfe against himselfe to excite his arme to vengeance to destroy his body He hath no loue but for the guilty how shall he haue passion to destroy him He sees not but by his eyes and how shall he be able to see him blind In fine he sits not on his Throne but to keepe him the place how shall he possibly mount this throne to prononce the sentence of his punishment Of necessity yet the errour must be punished if he wil not soyle the splendour of his iustice which is the richest ornament of his Crowne and the onely vertue that makes him worthy of his Empire Nature assayles him powerfully Loue giues him a thousand batteryes and euen Pitty often wrings the weapons from his hands and yet Reason for all that seemes to carry away the victory There is no remedy but needs must he yield to Nature Loue and Pitty but yet finds he a way to make Iustice triumph in satisfying the law He puls out one of his sonnes eyes for one halfe of the punishment and causes another to be pluckt forth from himselfe for to finish the chasticement What excesse of Goodnes Let vs draw now the mysticall Allegory from this history and say That our Redeemer represents this iust King at such tyme as in the terrestrial Paradise he imposed this law of obedience vnder paine of death vpon man being the Sonne of his hands as the noblest worke of his Creation This man being the first borne becomes lykewyse at that same very tyme the first guilty in contemning the commaundements of his Soueraygne He eats that fatall Apple or rather opens with his murderous teeth that vnlucky box of Pandora stuffed with all manner of euills The punishment euen followes his offence so neere as he instantly incurres the payne of death But what a prodigy of loue The Creator being touched with the miseryes of his creature takes away the rigour of the law without destroying it quite or infringing the same I meane that he seuers death from death in causing the guilty to arise agayne from his ashes for to liue eternally And the meanes wherof he serues himselfe is to dye with him and in the Chalice of his passion to drinke all the bitternes of death for to chāge the nature therof In such sort as this way of death conducts vs now to eternall lyfe O sweet Death a thousand tymes more plesing thē whatsoeuer is most pleasing in the world O sweet Death a hundred and a hundred tymes more delicious then all the pleasures vnited together O sweet Death where the body finds repose the spirit contentmēt the soule its whole felicity O sweet Death the only hope of the afflicted the sole consolation of the wisest and the last remedy for all the euils of the world O sweet Death and a thousand tymes more admirable then his goodnes that imposed the law since through the same very Goodnes he would needs be suffering the paine it selfe for to take away the payne Who durst refuse to drinke in his turne in the Chalice where God himselfe hath quenched his thirst Let vs go thē very holily to Death for to go cheerefully thither is to make loue and vertue lead vs into the sepulcher if we meane to find therein a second cradle where we may be reborne anew neuer to dye any more I cannot forget that goodly Custome of the Egyptians that when as a Sonne being armed with fury should passe to that extremity of cruelty as to take away the life from him who had giuen him the same he incurred this sweet punishment withall to be shut vp for three whole dayes in prison togeather with the body whose Parricide he was I should thinke that such as had imposed the law had this beliefe that the terrible and dreadfull obiect of the cryme was a torment of force inough for the guilty to extort the last teares from his eyes the vtmost playntes from his soule For in effect Nature neuer belyes it selfe it is alwayes it selfe it may well affoard some intermission of loue of pitty but yet at last it snatches the hart from the bowels through a violēce worthy of it selfe Let vs see now the backside of this Meddall so to draw forth the mistery out of this moral verity We represent to day this guilty sonne since we haue put our Redeemer to Death who is the common Father of our soules The punishment which the law of his Iustice hath now imposed vpon vs it to looke cōtinually on this Tree of the Crosse whereon our crymes haue made him to expire for to repayre their enormity withall O sweet punishment For spilling the bloud of him who hath filled our veynes the law exacts no more of vs then teares For hauing nayled him on the Crosse Iustice enioynes vs no other payne then that of nayling our eyes on the same pillar wherupon he is nayled For hauing crowned him with thorns he would haue vs to trample vnder foote the roses of our pleasures In fine
not this a sweet lyfe So as if Time strike the houre of its retrayt from its first disposition to death it deduceth a last for to yield vp it selfe into the hands of him that created it In vaine doth euill seeke to afflict its senses the light of its constancy would be alwayes appearing through the shadowes of its sad countenance To what condition soeuer had it beene raysed vnto it takes no care to quit the greatnesses because it had neuer tyed its affections thereunto The Sun may well arise and sett agayne yet she beholds it alwayes with the selfe same eye It s East and West are equall to it though they be different attending without anxiety the West of the torch of its lyfe The labour which it hath to prepare it selfe for death is not very great since still it hath lyued in this preparation Notwithstanding as we cannot employ all our tyme in so important a busines it deliciously spends the remaynder of its lyfe therein It smyles to behold all the world to weep about its bed and being not able to speake any more to cōplaine of their plaints it sighs to heare them sigh For it suffers not but what it sees others to suffer All the griefe is in the body and if it seeme a litle to reflect vpon it it is but a griefe of loue with sighing in expectation of its last sigh for to behold the onely obiect of its good Let the wyfe cry the children pull their hayre and the neerest of its kyn be carying on their visage the sadnes which they haue in their hart let the best friends be partners of this condolement and euery one in his fashion complayn of the disaster so befalne him yet she alone stands praysing the heauens for it and blesseth the day and houre now ready to produce this last moment where the eternity of its glory should begin Well may death seeme to make its visage pale but not the hart for loe it appeares in these last extremes more refulgent then euer lyke a cādle which is ready to go forth it hath the voyce of a dying Swan which is able to charme all the dolours that enuirone it round The Diuells are astonished to behold it so deuoyd of astonishment the force of its inuincible courage doth so weaken their power as they are constrayned to pretend nothing to triumph at In such sort as with the armes of Vertue it caryes away the crowne vnto the end of the race euen dying with the desire it hath to dye rather then of sorrow for not lyuing long inough Thus through force of the sighes of loue it sends forth at last through a last push of loue the last sigh from the bowels and so flyes away vpon its wings vnto the fellowship of the Angels into Heauen where its holy thoughtes had now along tyme established their dwelling O sweet dwelling O happy death which conducts vs thither O welcome dwelling and most delicious the moment which affoards the Eternity thereof The Picture of the Life and Death of a sinfull Soule CHAP. XX. OF all the miserable conditions wherto a man may be reduced that same of lyuing in Mortall Sin is the most vnhappy and vnfortunate The Slaues in the Galleyes are a great deale more happy then such a one For their bondage is limited to a terme and that of sin to a payne of an eternall seruitude It is impossible a guilty man should liue content in the midst of all the pleasures of the world for his cryme is his hangman and torture If he be present at bāquets the remembrance of his offences is mingling of some aloes in his delicious meates If he quench his thirst with the sweetest nectar in the world the same very thought wil be distilling a droppe of gaule into his Cuppe If he walk into some goodly garden the imaginatiō of his faults being alwayes present with him makes him to feele the Thornes of the Roses he admires If he go a hunting the Torturer of his guilty conscience runs after him Let him goe where he wil through the world his cryme is his shadow which followes him throughout Whatsoeuer he doth he is euer ready to thinke of what shal become of him what fortune soeuer he possesseth it is neuer great inough to put his spirit in repose The least accident that happens to him brings him to Deathes doore because that finding himself to be guilty he lyues alwais on the poynt of paying for his cryme If it rayne he imagins straight the Heauens are prepared to powre a new deluge vpon him for to punish him with If it thunder he perswades himself presently that the lightening hath no other ayme then to light on his guilty head If the weather be fayre he sees a sommer without a winter within for his brutish passions produce a continual tempest in his soule If fortune present him with Scepters he regards them but as one apprehending thē shortly to be taken away from him since he deserues them not In fine he wanders in vaine in the labyrinth of all vanityes and returnes to himselfe agayne at all tymes to confesse of force that he is the most wretched of the world in the most of all his greatnesses If he be taken with a sicknes behold him on the racke there are not Priests inough to be found nor Religions to confesse him yet knowes he not what to say For the nūber of his offences are without number and his troubled memory can but only represēt to him the least part of them The disease seemes to presse him hard in the meane tyme his paynes do put him anew on the racke Of all whatsoeuer is represented vnto him there is nothing likes him so much as the Phisitian doth but he is now in the point to try his last remedy after he hath turned ouer all his old Bookes The Doctours are assembled togeather about his bed but it is only to bid him Adieu in a language which he vnderstands not Behold all the comfort they giue him in so much as to see the Phisitians so assembled about him and set by his bed in chayres of Grauity one would say they were the Princes of the Senate that come to pronounce the sentence of Death vpon this guilty wretch He hearkens attentiuely to them without hearing them For the feare he hath of vnderstanding all which they say makes him euen deafe to the halfe The Syncopes are the Hangmen which present themselues to him for to execute this cruell sentence of Death Then the hope of his curing begins to leaue him Behold him yet once againe in the strongest pangs of his agony He would confesse the euil he hath done and that which he endures doth hinder him from it He would recount the history of his life but the dolours of his present Death will not permit him to do it His hart through its vehement sighes his eyes through their forced teares and his Soule by
its necessary sighes do pray his tongue ech one in its fashion to disclose their crymes but the same cannot speake the rigour of a thousand punishmēts makes it to be dumbe On the other side his spirit in the disorder wherein it finds it selfe can haue no other thoughts then those of sorrow for eternally abandoning that which it loues so deerly He knowes not how to expresse a last farewell to his pleasures Whatsoeuer represents it selfe to his eyes are so many obiects that renew his payne If he take heed vnto the beames of the Sun with peere into his chamber window for to take their leaue of his eyes he remembers immediately all the pleasures he hath taken through help of their fayre light in a thousand and a thousand places where it hath beene a witnes of those errors of his If the weather be foule he thinkes vpon that tyme which he hath ill spent imagining withall that the Heauens being touched with compassion of his disasters do euen weepe before hand and bewayle the losse they endure of his Soule It seemes to him that the sound of the bells doth call him to the tombe and that of the Trumpets vnto iudgement He sees nothing about him that astonishes him not He heares nothing that affrights him not He feeles nothing but his miseryes his tōgue is all of gaule wheresoeuer he layes his hand vpon himselfe he touches but the dunghill of his corruption If his spirit seeme to returne to him againe by intermission of the traunce wherein he is he quite forgets the hope of good through the ill he hath committed not being able to dispose his soule to any repentāce The sight of his friends importunes him that of his children afflicts him and the presence of his wyfe serues him as a new addition to his sorrow They behold him not but weeping he is neuer strooken with other noyse then with that of the cryes and plaints of his domestickes The Phisitian goes his wayes out of the chamber to giue place to the Cōfessour And the one knowing not how to cure the body the other hath difficulty to heale the soule by reason of the despayre wherein he is entangled Iudge now to what estate must he needs be brought His speach that fayles him by litle and litle His sight is dimme with his iudgement and all his other senses receyue the first assaults of Death They present him with the Crosse but in vayne for if his thoughtes be free he thinkes but of that which he beares of force They may cry lōg inough to him to recommend himselfe vnto God the deafnes he hath had before to his holy inspirations doth astonish him now also at this houre How many deaths endures he before his death How many dolorous sighs casts he forth into the ayre before the breathing his last All the punishments of the world cannot equall that which he endures For passing out of one litle Hel of paines he enters into a new which shall not haue end but with eternity What good then would he not willingly haue wrought But his wishes are as so many new subiects of griefe in this impotency whence he is neuer to see himselfe deliuered Into what amazement is he brought The Sunne denyes him its light so as if he behold his misfortunes it is but onely by the light of the mortuary Torches which giue him light but to conduct him to the tombe O how the Houre of these last extreames drawes forth in length Ech moment of his lyfe snatches out the hart from his bosome euery moment without putting him to death On which side soeuer he turnes himselfe both horrour and despaire beset him round He caryes Death in his soule for that which he is to incurre Death on his body for that which he now endures Death in his senses since they dye by little and little in so much as all his life is but a liuing Death that consumes him slowly to reduce him into ashes Being now brought to these streights the wicked spirits imploy the last endeauors of their power for to carry away the victory after so many conflicts had What meanes of resistance where there is no pulse no motiō no voyce no tongue His spirit is now in extremes as well as his life and his hart being hardened is now ready to send forth its last sigh in its insensibility as if it dyed in dying His eyes are now no more eyes for they see no more His eares may no more be called so for they heare not awhit and all the other senses as parts precede the ruine of their whole The Soule only resists the cruell assaults of Death in beholding its enemyes in continuall expectation of their prey but the hower presseth it must surrender O cruel necessity In fine for to finish this bloudy Tragedy the Deuils carry it away to Hell for recompence of the seruices which it had yealded to them And this is the lamentable end of synfull Soule You Soules of the world who liue not but throgh the life of your pleasures behold the fearefull Death where the life termines And since the heauens the earth the elemēts whatsoeuer els in nature moues changes without cease do you thinke to find any constancy and stability in your delights Know you not that with the very same action wherewith you runne along withall your contentments you run vnto your Death and that during the tyme it selfe that Tyme affoards them vnto you he takes euen them away from you We loose euery houre what we possesse what care soeuer we take in conseruing the same My Ladyes Keep well your gallāt beauties from the burning of the Sunne If that of the Sunne or of the fire be not able to marre them yet that of Age and Tyme doth ruine them notwithstanding all the industry of Vanity which you haue to employ about them Put your fayre Bodyes into the racke of another body of iron to conserue the proportion therof yet tyme but derides your inuentions For it assayles you within and you defend your selues but without only You haue dared the Heauens inough with an arrogant eye you must needs be stooping with the head now at last for to looke on the earth whence you are formed You must needs bow the necke to the yoke of your miseryes and resume agayne the first forme of your corruption In going to dauncing to feasts and to walke abroad you go to Death In vayne do you command your Coachman then to cary you to such a place since Tyme as I haue said conducts him also that caryes you thither In so much as on which side soeuer you turne your selues you approach vnto the tombe After you haue tasted all the pleasures of the world what shal be left you of all but a griefe of the offences in the soule the sad remembrance of their priuation in the memory this sadnes in the hart for hauing made it to sigh so after your ruine
as he stood in competēcy with his brother-in-Law about the Crowne of the whole world at once yet notwithstanding his miseries made him an homicide of himselfe through a stroke of despaire Maximus came to the Empire from the lowest degree of a seruile condition but from the tyme that he was on the ridge of Greatnesse did Fortune make him to descēd so low by the same degrees he mounted vp with as his Misfortunes had no relation with his Prosperities Thus passeth the glory of the world leauing a great deale more astonishment behind then euer it afforded admiration If a great Architect should seeme to perswade vs to belieue that our dwelling house were on the point of falling and that we were in daunger to be buried in its ruines I would imagine with my selfe we should lyue alwaies in payne to auoyd the effects of his presages seeking with all sollicitude the meanes to eschew those perils So as if I turne the Meddall it wil appeare this tottering and ruinous house to be nothing els then that of the world wherof that great Architect who hath layd the first foundations hath affoarded vs the truth of this assurance that it shall fall to ruine very soone The Heauen and the Earth shall passe away What solidity then can we establish heere beneath in this soyle as well of Pouerty as of Infamy since it shakes vnder our feet through its continuall vitissitude The ruines thereof appeare without cease before our eyes in the course of its deficiency our life pursues the same way And neuertheles with what blindnes do we fall a sleep in the ship of our deliciousnes not considering how it floats vpon the stormy sea of the world as abundant in shipwrackes as the land of Mishaps We must neuer turne away our eyes from the obiect of Inconstancy since it is naturall to all that which hath subsistence heere beneath The Monarchy began with the Assyrians It passed to the Persians from the Persians to the Macedonians from the Macedonians to the Romanes and at this day the Empire is in Germany In so much as after that this so famous and illustrious a Crowne shall haue run through the foure corners of the earth it shall resolue into earth following the course of those that shal haue possessed the title eyther by right of hazard or by the right of Birth So as if Heauē Earth do passe whatsoeuer shall beare the image of the creation is cōprized within this reuolution of Ages where all concludes in a last end There is nothing so great in the world as the Hart which contemnes all Greatnesses Tyme as Mayster of all which is in Nature le ts forth Crownes and Scepters to Kings to some for a day to others for a moneth to some others for a yeare and to others for more but after the terme is expired it giues no more dayes one succeds in the place of another vnder one and the selfe same Law of condition Let the infinite number of Kings heere present themselues that haue raygned vpon Earth and if euery one hath had his Crowne it may likewise be sayd that ech hath had his Tombe Then seeke not Greatnesses my Soule but in vertue and in the glorious contempt of things of the Earth Thou seest how Magnificences haue not charmes but for a day their glittering fadeth with their light and what foundation soeuer they haue they carry in their being the Necessity of their ruine To what end shouldst thou raise thy Ambition vpon Thrones if they be States of vnhappines and inconstancy Enuy not Kings their Crownes nor Scepters since it is the title of a transitory glory Felicity cōsists not for to rule with Empire but rather to find repose of life in the condition wherin he is borne And what more sweet repose can one looke for then that of desiring nothing in the world This is a pleasing paine to be alwayes in vnrest to find that soueraigne good which we seeke for I would say that Eternity where delightes are durable in their excesse When thou shouldst be exalted aboue all the Greatnes of the Earth what happines and what contentement would be left thee since the Tyme of their possession glides without respit with the pleasures where with they are quickned In such sort as if at the rising of the sunne thou receyuest Sacrifices in homage at the setting thou shalt find thy selfe stript by Fortune or by Death Fixe not thy thoughts then but on the obiects which hould touch with Tyme nor seeke thou euer to runne after things that fly away Thy immortall nature cannot eye but Eternity sigh then incessantly after its Glory if thou wilt one day haue it in possession There be some who seeke their repose all their pleasure in Riches as if Gould had this Vertue to eternize their contentments Set not thy hart vpon things of the world saith the Apostle When the Poets would speake of Riches they put before vs the Gould of the riuers of Hebrus and Paectolus to let vs see how they fly away from our eyes as the waters Put case a man should possesse all the treasures of the earth yet should he not seeme to be richer awhit for all that since he were but the guardian and not the owner of those treasures Riches consist not in possessing much but rather in contenting ones selfe with a little Cresus could neuer satisfy his couetous desire during his life which induced his enemies to fill his Body with the gould wherewith he could not fill his Soule What Folly to seeke Eternity in Riches where is ordinarily found but Death This very man heere made accompt to stuffe his Coffers with Gould Syluer knew at last that his Treasures were so many fatall Instruments that serued for nothing but to take away his life so as being deceiued in his hopes he became sollicitous to conserue very charily the meanes of his losse of his ruine He therfore that goes to seeke for the Riches of the East puts himselfe to the mercy of the waues and in seeking the repose of his life approaches so neere to Death as he is distant from it no more than the thicknes of the shipboard What feeblenesse of humane Spirit to put in hazard whatsoeuer one holdes most deere on Earth for the purchase of a little Earth I had rather a great deale be Iob on the dunghill then Cresus on the woodpile for the one flouted at Fortune in his miseries and the other had recourse to Solon to repent himselfe for not hauing followed the way of Pouerty rather then that of Riches since the latter led him to Death Crates the Theban considering that he floted without cease within this vast sea of the world despised Riches for feare to suffer Shipwracke with so heauy a fraight The Wheele may well run about but can neuer get forth of the lymits of its Circle so lykewise man may well trauayle runne ouer the
world to heape vp treasures but he fetches the turne only of the Circle of his lyfe the while of necessity most the Ship be landing at this last port of the Sepulcher where he finds himselfe as poore as when he entred into the cradle I know not for whome the Richman trauayles for before the iourney of his trauayle be finished his dayes are runne out and being on the point to reape the fruite of his passed paines death gathers those of the repose of his lyfe The Mercinary soules who lend forth their conscience to Interest insteed of their Money sell as in told Coyne the portion they pretend in Heauen for a little Earth Blind as they be they spin the web of their captiuity forge the Armes which are one day to reuenge the enormity of their crymes Abused soules they consider not how all the Gould of the world is yet now in the world howbeit the greatest part therof hath beene possessed by an infinite number of Mortals and so shall leaue them behind them as others how rich soeuer they be now without carrying ought els into the Tombe but griefe for not hauing made so good vse of them as they should To what point of misery was reduced the impious Richman of the Ghospell in a moment after he had possessed an infinite number of Treasures He behoulds himself in estate of begging a drop of water for to quench his thirst To what end serued all his pleasures past but to augment his present paynes He employed his Riches to purchase Hell and all his goods to gayne the euill he endures O humane Folly To put ones selfe in hazard to loose Eternity for enioying of a fading Treasure Good is not good but as permanent and yet looke they after transitory delights that subsist not but in flying Demaund they of Cyrus what hath he done with all his Riches he will answere he hath left them in the soyle that brought them forth Xerxes hath enioyed theÌ„ as well as he and as he so hath he borne no part thereof into his Sepulcher They may cause monuments to be built to their Memory but Tyme that deuoures all hath wrought new Tombes for their Tombes in such fort as if yet there be memory of their death it is but onely by reason of their lyfe They make a question which of the two was more rich eyther Alexander or Diogenes the one whose Ambition could not be bounded with the whole extent of the Earth and the other whose desire hopes were shut vp in the space of his Tub. For me I do hould with Diogenes since he is the richest who is best content I could neuer yet imagine the pleasure which Caligula tooke to wallow vpoÌ„ Gold for if the lustre of that mettall contented his eyes he might haue beheld himselfe a far of since the eye requires a distance proportioned to the force or feeblenes of its lookes but deceaued as he was he considered not the while how this Gould He differed not awhit but only in colour since they were both of Earth And in effect they can not authorize its pleasure but through the relatioÌ„ which was there of the nature of the one with that of the other The Poets represent to vs how the Goulden fleece was guarded by a Dragon lyke as the Goulden Aples of Hesperides and the Morall which may be gathered from these Fables is nothing els but the danger and payne which is inseparable from the conquest of Treasures The Historians obserue that in all the Countries where this mettall abounds the inhabitants are so poore as they haue scarse a ragge of linnen to couer their nakednesse withall What may we imagine in contemplation of this Verity but that all the Gould of the Earth cannot tell how to enrich a maÌ„ while the riches of the world are borne and dye in a pouerty worthy of compassion Then seeke not my Soule other Riches then those of Eternity Thou canst not tell how to buy heauen withall the gold of the earth and without the enioying of its felicities all goods are counterfait al Sweetnesses but full of Bitternes Imagine thee now to lyue vnder the Reigne of a goulden Age and that through an excesse of Fortune thou treadest vnder foot all the Pearles of the Ocean and all the goulden haruest of the Indies And not to loose thy selfe in this imagination consider the estate of this felicity tast in conceyt a part of the pleasures which thou wert to possesse if effects should answere to thy thoughts and then boldly confesse with the Wiseman how all these transitory goodes are treasures of Vanity that in the iust pretensions thou hast to an Eternall glory all these atomes of Greatnes can serue thee no more but for obiect of thy contempt Suppose thou wert the absolute Mistresse of the world what good couldst thou hope for in the fruition therof if all be replete with euils Crimes haue Temples there Vices haue Aultars All the Idolls are of goulden Calues and such as make professioÌ„ to follow Vertue are within the order of a malady of a contagious Spirit according to the common opinion So as through a Law of Tyme the most laudable Actions are subiect to reproaches Leaue then all the goods of the Earth to the Earth since thou art not borne for them seeke as a pledge in the sweet thoughtes of Eternity for the accomplishmeÌ„t of thy delightes The world is not able to satiate thy desires since it hath nothing in it that is not transitory And howbeit it be susteyned in its inconstancy it leaues not to wax old in changing to ruine it selfe by little and little in ruyning all things Thinke neuer then but of Eternity Speake not but of Eternity Let thy desires and thy Hopes regard but Eternity Let alwayes Eternity be in thy memory the conteÌ„pt of the world within thy hart If thou beest capabel of Hatred be it but for the Earth and if thou beest capable of Loue be it but for Heauen since it is the mansion of Eternity There are others who seeke their contentment in magnificent Pallaces as if they were shelters of proofe against disasters and misfortunes Charles the VIII tooke pleasure to build very proud Fabrikes as belieuing it may be to close his eyes in dying through the Splendour of their wonders but his lot an Enemy of his hopes snatched away his last breath being sound of health vpon a straw bed and in place encompassed round with Misery Heliogabalus likewise was deceued of his purpose for being on the point when the â—enormity of his Crymes had passed sentence of his Death on behalfe of the Gods he shuts himselfe in the fairest hall of his Pallace and prepares for his Enemies all the Richest instruments of Death he could recouer as thinking to sweeten the bitternes thereof with so goodly armes but his foresight was vnprofitable for the Gods permitted that as he had tasted the
are alwayes in pledge with you but therein ought you to consider the while how the glory which enuirons you seemes to fetch the same course which the Sunne doth and how it flyes away without cease towards its West whence it shall neuer rise agayne Be it so that your lookes seeme to astonish the stoutest and that they fauour the more happy Those lookes in their sternesse cannot wound but the culpable no-engage in their sweetnes but spirits which feed of smoke There is no doubt but your power is admired but not enuyed of the wiser because the greatnes of your might concludes very ordinarily in vanity We must confesse that the honour life of men are in your hāds But you must needs confesse withall that your heades also are beneath the Sword which is fastened to the feeling of Heauen or rather suspended in the ayre by a little threed and how the least of your crymes may pul vpon you the chastisement therof So as if you take pleasure to bath you in the bloud of Innoēccy as an Otho or a Caligula the diuine Iustice prepares your last bath in your proper bloud where your Soule suffers Shipwracke with your body What then are your delights In what garden do you gather their flowers Verily you haue all things at your wish but what pleasure is it to wish for transitory goods whose priuatiō causeth a great deale more sorrow then the fruition afforded contentment If your Crownes and Scepters are agreable to you during life they will cause a horrour at your Death for that you ought to giue accompt of your swaying them You are but Lieutenants onely in the Land of God during the tyme of your Reigne The hower approaches wherein you are to iustify the Soueraigne actions of all the moments of your life to know in truth in what fashion you haue disposed of the Greatnesses and of the Treasures whereof you were no more then meere Depositarians Do you now then referre all your pleasures to this last instant and you shall know how the way is a great deale more thorny then that of a low condition and voyd of Enuy. Tell vs I pray thee Lucullus what are become of the delights of thy proud Feasts I admit that the prodigality of thy Magnificences hath vnpeopled the ayre of Birds and the sea of fishes and that Art hath exposed to view as in a stall her last inuentions to glut the appetite of thy foolishnes Where are now those contentments Where is this Pompe where is this lustre where are the Pallaces of these banquets where are the Cupps of Gould where the Meate where the Cookes where are the Stewards where the Guesse and the wayters of thy Feasts All is slid away without their memory And if the Historyes Lucullus do yet remember thee it is but onely to represent thy folly to Posterity What contentment may they take in feasts if the sweet wines wherwith they satiate their hunger be chaunged to corruption They take pleasure to deuour their pleasure like as in the Chase they find contentment in running after their sports The hony which they put into the mouth becomes bitter in the stomacke for what incōmodities seeme they not to suffer who haue filled their belly withall the sortes of Meats And to what shame and infamy submit they not themselues while they drown their reason in wine their honour and their conscience all at once is it not to be cruell to ones selfe to precipitate his paces to the Tomb-wards as if we dyed not soone inough Againe for whome take we the paines to treat our bodyes so if not for the wormes since the flesh is destined to them All the fat which we gather is but for them for the small tyme we lyue is not to be put into accompt Why consider they not how euery Banquet hath its last course euery wedding-day its morrow and that the ioy of these feasts seemes to passe away as swift as the day which lends them light What a goodly custome was it among the Pagans to serue in at the last course of their Bāquets an Anatomy vpon the table in signe how the wormes were shortly to reduce the bodies of the inuited to that estate How many are there now adayes who in the blindnes of Epicurisme put all their Gallantry in making of good Cheere But what excesse of Bestiality the while to take such pleasure to pamper the body on the way of death whither it runs posting without cease I graunt thou hast drowned to day thy Troubles in thy Glasses and hast glutted thine appetite with meats the most delicious of the world what shal be left thee therof to morrow but gaule in the mouth frō the surfet of thy riot I say but bitternes in thy hart repentance in thy soule Thy Crosses renew againe more strong then euer by reason of the priuation of thy delighs Thou must begin againe to morrow to sooth thy sensuality and the day following the same tormēts which thou hast suffered now already shall succeed thy ioy So as when all the lyfe should be a feast the last seruice thereof were alwaies to be feared since a life of Roses brings forth a death of Thornes Cramme then thy body withall sorts of meats as long as thou wilt he that shall haue fasted the while shal be a great deale more content then thou vpon the last day of thy Banquets So as if thou hast the aduantage to be fatter then he the wormes shall fare the better for it in thy graue You sensles Soules that loue but the pleasures of the Table I aduertise you betimes that the Feast is ended and the Company brooke vp ech one is retired with himselfe But there is now another manner of news which is that many of your Cōpanions are dead one as Ninus with too much drinke another with feeding ouer much as Messina He there hath fetched an eternall sleepe as Bogrias he heere hath cut his wiues throat in his wine as Thessalius To what end thinke you They are the last seruices which misfortune presents at the last Course of your feasts the poyson whereof is couered with sugar take you heed then play not with such formidable Enemies It is all that you can do to eschew the dangers in the world with the light you haue of Reason and you are drowning the same in your Banquets without feare of suffering Shipwracke with it Away with these Pleasures of smoke which fill not the body but with new matter of putrifaction I abhor you detest you with a hatred which shall neuer dy Since my God hath put Thornes on his head why should not I be putting them in my hart I will from henceforth quench my Thirst within his Chalice and gather the fruits of my nourishment in his desarts My Sauiour hath fasted all his life and shall I pamper my selfe euery moment Let death come vpon me rather then such a wish I loue thee
his torments Let Lelius Cooles discouer in his countenance the terrour and the anguish of his hart vpon the Cliffes of the Sea from whence he was cast downe headlong Let Martius Neuola mixing the wind of his sighs with those that enkindled the flames which consumed him conueigh to our eares the sad harmony of his last groanes Let Virgilia the wife of Lertius the Romā relate to vs at leasure the traunces of Martyring of a hart impoysoned by the cūning Enemy who by litle and litle extinguished her in a long course of yeares to make her sensible by degrees of all the rigors of death Let Emilia represent to vs in her despayre the anguishes of a dying Soule amidst the presse of her disastres Let the wyfe of Brutus send to our eyes the smoake of the burning coales that consumed her bowels to let vs feele the heat wherewith she was burned Let Messina before she pluckt out the Hart from her bosome partake vs with her torments where through a Sentence of her fury she condemned her self in making the one part of her Body to serue as a Hangmā to destroy the other Let Eugenia making a halter of the silke of her Harpe giue vs some testimony of the dolour of her precipitous Death Let Cleopatrae infect the Ayre with the Poyson which deuoured her life for to make vs Companions of her euils All these kinds of Martyrings these Tortures these dolours these vncouth tormēts and these euils without example and these tyrannies exercised by men more cruell thē Tygres and Beares can admit no comparison with the least paine of the damned The Thornes of these sufferances are Roses and the bitternes of these anguishes is but hony One moment of the paines in hell is more intollerable then an Age of Afflictions in this world Let them lend their eares to the lamentable cryes of Ampilaus King of the Pyroti when as being fastened to his rich Couch with the rude chaines of a thousand dolours procured through a Sciatica his torments pluckt out the hart from his bosome without snatching away the life and with a cruell encounter drew his Soule to his lips without suffering it to go forth To bewaile the rage whereto his euill had brought him makes him to throw out fire by the eyes rather then to power out water to complaine with Sighes of the excesse of his sufferances learnes him a language so dreadfull as the noyse of Thunder is not more terrible thē that of his voyce made hoarse with the force of crying They do well to decke his bed with the richest ornaments that may be found to bring him rest while his body is a Bush of Thornes wherewith his Soule is straytly hedged in In such sort as the points of its thornes do afford him a thousād prickes of dolour martyrings whose very thought is full of horrour They may cast their lookes of pitty on him long inough while Cruelty which incessantly butchers him makes them so feeble in his succour as he alwaies breaths in the death of his paines without being able euer to dye But turne we the Medall and lend the eare of our imagination to the warnings of of that great King Pharao bound in hell on a bedd of deuouring flames which burne without consuming him and which consume him without reducing him to ashes What inequality of euills and what difference of cryes The one in tyme feeles very piercing dolours vpon a couch of Thornes and the other suffers a thousand paynes all eternall vpon a bed of fire He there yields vp his miserable lyfe to the last shocke of a cruell torment and he heere reuiuing allwayes of his Ashes amidst his punishment lyues not but to dye in his sufferances of a death eternally lyuing The former comforts himselfe with the hope of a Tombe the latter finds increase of his torments in the despayre of euer seeing an end Let them thinke a litle on the sensible tormēts wherwith Tegonus that great Prince of Almaine was afflicted when as his hart serued before hand as a Coffin for the worms which gnawed him without cease to deuoure his lyfe A punishment as cruell as prodigious this was a lyuing death gliding in his bosom where it forged darts of incomparable dolour for to martyr him withal He wants for nothing in the midst of his Greatnesses and yet wants he all since all fayles him of his content His subiects are about him to receyue his Commaundements but he knowes not what to commaund them for his succour The remedyes they offer him are vnprofitable in the ignorance of his malady for the skilfullest Phisitians of them vnderstand not the cause therof which makes thē ingenious without thinking of it to afflict him a new in steeping his mouth with a thousand sorts of bitternesses He cryes out in the extremity of his languours but ech one by his eyes makes answere to his tongue in weeping at the noyse of his sobs and his complaynts And after hauing suffered as many deaths as he sent forth sighes he payed at last the tribute which he owed to Nature Cast yet the view of your imagination vpon the backside of the Medall to heare the cryes a great deale more hideous of another Prince abiding in Hell being touched with the malady of a worme which gnawes him eternally without deuouring him He sees all his Subiects about him as culpable as he but in the astonishment they are in they answere him but by the eyes only as vnable to succour him or to helpe themselues The Deuils are his Phisitians who not knowing the meanes to cure him inuental sorts of punishmēts to tyrannize his Soule But what difference of paynes That Prince of the world findes this consolation in his afflictions that after the wormes shall haue deuoured his Hart his life shall haue an end with the end of their prey and consequently his punishment And on the contrary this Prince of Hell finds alwaies the begining of his euills in the end of his paines The worme that gnawes him is immortall like as the prey which it deuoures In so much as his dolours remaine extreme in their excesse The one turning his Face to the Tomb-wards beholds there his sufferance buryed with him and the other sees himselfe buryed yet lyuing within a tombe of Fire which through a cruell property entertaines that which it burnes to the end it may neuer wāt matter What may be imagined more insupportable then the torment wherewith Charles King of Nauarre dyed of The Phisitians knowing he had a very little life left him in the body employed this vayne deuice for his comfort forsooth to sow him vp in a sheet steept in Aqua-vitae of purpose to prolong his life but the ill lucke was that the seruant who had sowed him therein burnt the end of his threed insteed of cutting it asunder where to say better he burnt the whole sheet and the King that was shut within Represent we to our selues now the
haue heere beneath extends any further then the Sepulcher Euen as at your birth you were wrapped in Clouts so likewise dying wil they be foulding you in a sheete how rich soeuer you be And your Diademe shall remaine in your Pallace for to Crowne others withall in the selfe same way where they are to follow you since they likewise are continually to dye But this is not all you are also to passe the examine of your life before a soueraigne Iudge and dreadfull in his Iustice. You shal haue no other succour thē that of your workes If they be good their recompence is prepared and if they be naught then paynes attend them In what amazement and in what terrour is a Soule brought vnto before the face of his God whiles his crymes accuse him and condemne him to euerlasting fires O how the Iudgements of God are different frō those of men cryes that great Saint You delicate Soules whome a little griefe makes to looke pale with feare astonishment and feeblenes what will you do in Hell where euills are in their excesse without finding any end in them The noyse of a fly troubles you and that of a Caroch hinders you from sleepe Ah! What shall that be in those darcksome places where the dreadfull cryes of the Torturers and of the guilty shall continually strike your eares If you passe but one might only in the world without a winke of sleep you fall to complayning after you haue fetched a thousand a thousand sighes in expectation of day there below within those obscure dwellings the darcknesses are eternall like as the disorders and disquietnesses are One winters day killes you quite within the goodly prisons of your chambers a summers-day within that of your Halles built of proofe agaynst the heate of the sun for to auoyd alike the incommodityes both of cold and heate And in Hell shall you alwayes burne if the cold of ice doe not giue you some respites to the tormentes of your fires and by that meanes one punishmēt come to succeed another Hēce it is that the Prophet cryes Lord haue pitty vpon me in the day of thy Iustice. O day full of horrour amazement Where the liuing flames after they haue deuoured the world shall prosecute the guilty Soules in the deepest Abysses for to exercise the Iustice of the Omnipotent What vnprofitable cryes what vaine lamēts They may sigh long inough for the voyce of their repentance shal be so feeble as it shall not be able euer to cōuey its accēts to the cares of God But what disorder also of a iust cruelty The innocent shall curse the guilty Father and shall reioyce in his torments as in so many effects of the diuine Iustice for the punishments of the damned make a part of the felicity of the happy Spirits reioycing in the Iustice of God as well as in his Mercy The cryes of the accursed Soules O Lord are as so many Canticles of thy Glory since they publish incessantly the truth of thy Iustice. O impious Soules in your voluntary blindnes Why will you not suffer your reason to see how the pleasures you tast in this world do bring the consequence of the euills which you suffer in the other When will you confesse that the hope which makes you to imbrace with so much affection the future is vayne and deceiptfull that it hath for foundation of its promises but the argument of your Misfortunes You run after imaginary goods in the end of your Carriers you shall find but true euils Since repose seemes as naturally sweet vnto vs why haue we not the Eternity therof Our lyfe is a new Hell of annoyes and disquietnes and yet neuertheles within the Hell of this life we build to our selues another Hel to lyue there eternally What a prodigy of cruelty do we seeme to exercise agaynst our selues for to sell an immortall felicity for a moment of pleasures So as if the ioy which is promised vs hath not baites which are powerfull inough to attract vs to it let the payne which followes the offence purify our desires iustify all our enterprises O how S. Augustine makes on this subiect a sweet harmony to resound in our eares when he sayth I loue thee not Lord for the feare I haue of thy Hell nor for the hope of thy Paradise but rather for the loue of thy selfe How many mercinary Soules do we see in the world who haue no other obiect in their actions thē that of Glory or that of Payne in a word who loue not God but for his Paradise nor feare him awhit but for his hel What affectiō As if vertue had not Charmes inough to make it selfe beloued without the helpe of recompence and of paine Alas Lord what manner of respects would the wicked affoard you in this world if you could be without Paradise or if you had not a Hell for to exercise your Iustice in since with all your felicities your punishments they so deepely forget the Greatnesse of your infinite Glory and your equall power as to liue without yeilding to your diuine Maiesty but the least homage of thoght Who as if they were Gods themselues on earth regard not Heauen but to looke on the Starres My Soule Loue then thy God for his owne sake since he is perfectly louely nor euer thinke of his Paradise but in thinking of him since he is thy soueraigne Good Feare him in like manner without musing on the Thunders of his Iustice with an amourous feare which hath for obiect but Humility and Respect So as if in this world the Good be alwaies good content thy selfe with the satisfaction which is inseparable to it For Vertue hath this proper to it that of it selfe it recompenceth those who put its precepts in practice euen as Vice incessantly racks and tortures those who follow it All laudable actions produce in generous harts certaine feelings of ioy so extreme as when Renowne shall haue no Laurels nor Palmes for to crowne them with yet he that is the Authour of them shal not cōplayne thereof since he hath beene already rewarded for it euen before he lookt for any certaine recompence at all And the cōtrary is noted in pernicious criminall effects Payne can hardly be seuered from the Offendour nor the Hangman from the Guilty A secret torment glides in his entrailes and himselfe serues as a Hangman against himselfe for to tyrannize vpon himselfe So true it is that diuine Vertue of it selfe communicates the good of its Nature and Vice the euill But let vs not go forth of Hell with our thoughts for not to enter thereinto in effect Flatter not your selues so my Dames as to thinke that Hell belonges not to you it is for the guilty Iudge your selues without passion whether you be exempt frō cryme or no since at all tymes at euery moment you offend God diuers wayes If you will mount vp to Heauen after your
influences make them to blow forth At last they lay you on a bed most refulgent all gorgeous in riches and whereon it seemes as if the happy Arabia had powred forth a part of its odours and to attract the sleepe more sweetly into your eyes you cause to be sent for some pleasing Musike of a Voyce which rauishes your senses with so much sweetnes as they dye with ioy without dying notwithstanding Are not these great pleasures trow you if they could last I speake to Soules who seeke their Paradise on Earth But the common calamity so preuailes as these delights euē dy in their birth their priuation affords them a great deale more torments then doth their presence produce sweetnesses Let vs cast now our eyes at the last on the backside of this Medall consider the cruel Metamorphosis of these contentments in the intollerable punishments which Eternally torment a damned Soule Let vs behould the cruell exercise of its paynfull progresse in Hell You must take no great heed to the terms of Day of Mattins of Euening or Morning-calles whereof I serue my selfe in this ensuing description for that I am forced thereunto to keepe some order in my discourse The deuils in the morning then come to awake this damned Soule howbeit indeed she sleepeth not a wincke through the dreadfull noyse of their howlings These are the Chambermaydes which fetch her out of her bed all of fire for to conduct her into a Cabinet all of Ice not of Myrrors for she durst not haue lookt thereinto for feare of the feare of her selfe so hideous and dreadful she is These wicked Spirits do help to dresse her after they haue made her take a draught of Sulphure within a rotten Vessell where the worms do breed in sholes One combes her head and that with a combe of iron with sharp points which makes the bloud to follow Another colors her cheekes with the red of Spayne with a pensill of fire He there washes her face with puddle water scalding hot withall and he heere puts on a robe of liuing coales on her backe and in this equipage a new Deuill more hideous then death presents himselfe to her serues her as an Vsher to conduct her to a burning Chariot to conuey her not to a Temple but to the foote of a dreadfull Aultar where she is cruely sacrificed without loosing her life They lead her afterwards in the same chariot into a dismall Pallace where she finds the tables couered and set with all sorts of poysonous and contagious Serpents wherwith they feast her All that dinner while a hideous noyse of howlings and dreadful cryes serues for the Musike to charme her eares withall After repast is she brought backe agayne to her Cabinet where all the obiects of horrour and amazement are assembled togeather for to afflict the sense of her sight And after that a Deuill sings her an Ayre whose ditty is the Sentence of her condemnation and this verity the burden of it How the paynes she endures shall be eternall What a Song The tyme of her walking approaches they bring then the fyery Chariot before the gate of her darkesome Pallace She mounts into it and thence rage despayre fury and cruelty draw her into an obscure forrest of Cypres where the Owles and Rauens do screech incessantly so as she heares but the noyse of death not being able to procure death She is now returned she finds the same Table spread agayne and with the like Cates whereof she feeds of force to the noyse of a like Musike to that of dinner Being risen from Table the Deuill that hath the charge to wayte vpon her comes againe into her Cabinet and sings her likewise the same Canzonet of her dreadful Sentence with the selfe same burden as before How the paynes which she endures shal be eternall In the meane tyme they bring her to a bed of thornes whereinto they cast her at such tyme as she was wont to take her rest in the world and thus passeth she ouer the night in these torments without euer seing any end thereof Is not this a fearefull life Behould my Dames the exercise of those who haue imitated you in your pleasures Behold the employments of their whole progresse These are no fables I tell you for like as the noise of the swindge of the world doth hinder you from hearing the sweet harmony of the motions of the Heauens so the selfe same noyse seemes to hinder you likewise from vnderstanding the hideous cryes of a Cain of a Pharao of an impious Richmā and of a thousand of others your like who haue hitherto after so lōg a tyme beene burning in Hell and so shall burne for euer without hope to see any end of their panes That depends now on you my Dames to chuse to you one of these two liues heere If you be tasting of hony in your youth you shall haue but bitternes in your old age If you gather the Roses in your spring the Thornes shal be reserued for your winter Chuse hardly behold your selues expressed as Vlisses at the entrance of two wayes far different the one from the other That of Vertue is stwowed with Nettles and couered with Stones that of Vice is enamelled with flowers and bordered with brookes whose sweet murmur inuites you to follow the traces of their course So as if you would needs know where both these ways do termine themselues the one in eternall Death and the other in Life And herein the example of an infinite number which haue beene saued by the one lost by the other may seeme to put you out of doubt All the Saints in word all those who are in Paradise haue held the first al the dāned haue wretchedly followed the other Demaund you of the Rich-man what way he tooke he will answere you that he hath alwayes walked vpon Flowers that he neuer met with Thornes till the arriuall at his Sepulcher Make you the same demaund of Lazarus you shall heare of him that he hath neuer trod but vpon the Earth all couered with bryars nettles and sharpe stones and that euen at the end of his trauailes he found the beginning of his glory Thinke not my Dames to be gathering of the Flowers in this world and then to be reaping of the Fruits in the other All things are created in a Species of Contraries which serues as a Ciment to hould them togeather The faire weather of your life seemes to menace Rayne at your Death and God graunt it be not a Floud of vnprofitable teares where without thinking thereof you find not your Shipwracke The calme of your daies presages the storm of your nights and take heed you find not some rocke in the tyme of the tempest I must needs confesse how the Poets haue hid very excellent verities vnder the veyle of their Fables that Cerberus with three heades whome they figure to vs in hell is nothing els but the
to put him to silence in so much as his teares and sighes are feigne to speake for him to his dying daughter who makes him answere in the same language both of the eyes hart without being able to let fall a word Her mother hath her eyes glued vpon her pale and diffigured countenance and in this dumbe action of hers whereto an excesse of dolour hath brought her she suffers a great deale more payne to see her dye then she had pangs before to bring her forth And so in order al those that loued her and whome she dearely loued came in to yield her this last duty of visit But howbeit they premeditated somewhat to say vnto her their tongues became mute at their approch and their eyes made supply of discourse in their fashion For what meanes is there to speake in a dolefull place where Death goes imposing an eternall silence The Priest approacheth to the bed with a Crucifix in his hand which he presents to this foule sicke wretch she takes it with a trembling hād knowing it to be the Crosse whereupon the Omnipotent Iudge was nayled If she cast her eyes vpon his Crowne of Thornes she drawes them into her hart by her lookes in remembring the roses which she had deliciously troad vnder her feet during her lyfe But there is now no more tyme to be carying the same into the soule because her senses as halfe dead are vnsensible of their prickings If she reguard the visage of this her Sauiour all couered with comtempt she sinckes downe with the confusion of the outrages that she hath done to herself remembring the guilty care which she hath taken in playstering her face of earth and ruyning in that manner with a sacrilegious hand the sacred workmanship of heauen and of Nature and for hauing imployed the better part of her tyme in these errours to the disparagement of her soule as if the same were corruptible like the body The torments which her God and her Iudge hath suffered for her vpon this Crosse which she holds in her hand and which she neuer had borne in her hart do shamefully vpbrayd her now for the delights of her lyfe Then falls she a sighing at it but her sighs of wind are taken but for wind she weepes thereat but her teares of water are taken but for a litle water since she cannot wipe away the blot of her crymes because their spring deriues not from the hart and that her teares proceed from the feare of present death rather then from a sorrow of lyfe past There need no other witnesses to condemne her withall then the wounds of her Sauiour for as he had suffered all the paines of the world so she had tasted all the pleasures Alas if she could but turne backe againe and returne to the midst of the course of her life if her words might haue the same vertue which those of Iosue had for to cōmaund the Sunne to returne backe agayne to its East to affoard her leasure to do penaunce in is it not credible my Dames but that she would be dipping the bread of her nourishment within the water of her teares for to bewayle her sins But that is in vayne to desire the returne of life since she must dy and the houre is already strook Alas how many liuing deathes deuoure this poore body before her life be snatched away at last What strange torment seemes to racke her soule she dyes with sorrow for not being able to liue any longer and notwithstanding euery moment of life is to her an age of dolour She is so engulfed in tormēts as she imagines that all the afflictions in the Earth are assembled in her Chamber or rather in her Soule since now she is brought into extremes through the force of anguish Sorrow for the past apprehension of the future horrour of the Sepulcher and the vncertainty she is in of her saluatiō do hould her spirit continually on the racke That little which she sees is but to bid Adieu to the light that little which she vnderstands is for her last and being thus brought into this extremity now it is when the diuel lets her see to the life the pourtrait of all the offences which she hath euer committed to the end the enormity of them being ioyned with their number might make her to turne her face to despaire To make yet an exact Confession all her Spirits are in disorder and the powers of her Soule so feeble as they can serue but for resentment of her euills She would fayne speake but a mortall stuttering with-holdes her tongue halfe tyed and on the other side the smart of the payne which she suffers is so sharpe as she cannot open the mouth but to cry A dolour without cease torments her continually her dying life is wandring euery moment in the punishments she is in when she finds her selfe it is but to loose her selfe agayne in her syncopes which are the forerunners of her Death The eyes bolt out of her head as if they had this knowledge that they were vnprofitable vnto her her mouth awry and halfe open giues passage by the eye vnto her bowells to behold the torments she is in It is now tyme my Dames you present her with a Mirrour for to employ her last reguards on the sad contemplation of the dreadfull ruines of her beauty what faces makes she the while her hideous looke affrights not only little children but euen likewise the most couragious Behold your selues my Dames within this glasse if you will but apparantly see the faults which are hiddē vnder your own from point to point or rather vnder the Spanish white wherewith you are paynted Behold into what estate are reduced your alluremēts your charmes your sweetnesses and your bayts which you so put in the rancke of adorable things These are no Fables no Illusions nor Enchantements these you haue seen the other day this foule dying wretch with a lustre of beauty that dazeled all the world who to day seemes to mooue you to pitty and horrour at once Marke well all her actions but quickned with dolour and dread these are the true examples of those which you shall one day suffer it may be to morrow or euen to day who knowes And then dare you waxe so proud of your beauty as you do while the crust thereof is now thus broken as you see in the presence of so many persons who haue seene how the inside was all but full of corruption In this meane while the sicke person dyes by litle and litle It is now tyme to make the funerall of those fayre eyes since their light is thus extinct The Priest may cry in her eares long inough for death hath taken vp his lodging there and euery one knowes that she is deafe Her hands her feet are without motion as well as without heat the hart seemes to beate as yet but it is onely to bid Adieu to the Soule which is
now a departing and to tell you whither I leaue you to thinke Such a life such a death Let me only say That the Iudgements of God are far different from those of men Approach then to this corpes you profane Spirits through a sensible sorrow of hauing euer heertofore adored its Beautyes participate with its death Behold its hayre which once you termed golden and wherwith Loue vsed to serue himselfe to tye the Freest the lustre now is vanished from it the beauty is defaced nor can it serue for ought but to mooue pitty That brow heertofore so full of Maiesty in your eyes and where the Graces appeared in troupes these are your termes is now become an obiect of hate coÌ„tempt Those eyes which you called your Sunns resemble now two Torches newly put out whose stinke driues away as many as approch vnto them The Roses of those cheekes are changed into Thornes the coral lips are now of alabaster the iuory neck is now of earth the bosom now is no more of snow but all of ashes finally this whole beautifull body is flesh no more but euen durt And if you will not belieue me approach neerer you shall resent the infection thereof Behould O you Courtiers the Idoll of your Passions What a shame is it now for you to haue adored this carkasse so full of wormes and putrifaction You made of its presence during its lyfe an imaginary Paradise and now you would make it a true Hell Heertofore you could not liue without seeing her dayly and at this time you euen dye with the onely beholding her It is not yet three dayes since you kissed the picture with an action of Idolatry now at this present you dare not to cast your eyes vpon the originall so dreadfull and formidable it is RepreseÌ„t vnto you then for your satisfaction that all the fayrest Dames of the world shal be reduced one day to this piteous estate and that all their graces which are borrowed of Art accompany them no more then as a day of the Spring in so much as if they waxe old they passe the most part of their age out of themselues For without disseÌ„bling with the tymes a Dame when she is growne in yeares is fayre no more she liues no longer in the world they put her in the ranke of things which are past whose memory is lost Looke when a beautifull face comes to your view and make you at that instant an Anatomy of it if you cast your eyes vpoÌ„ her faire eyes represent to your selfe in that moment how they are subiect to 63. diseases all different one from another and that one drop of defluxion produceth a contagion in those who behold theÌ„ Her nose which you iudg so curious is as a Siluer box ful of ointments for one cannot defend himselfe froÌ„ the infectioÌ„ which issueth thence but with Muske and Ciuet. Her mouth is ordinarily infected with the corruption of her teeth If the Hands of this faire body seeme to please you know you not how she steepes theÌ„ euery day in lye for to make them white I would say that she is fayne to wash them euery moment to take away the spots foulnes of them In fine whatsoeuer you see of this beautifull body is but playster what appeares not otherwise but mere corruptioÌ„ Dresse then and tricke vp your selues you Dames as long as you please yet shall you not change for all that the nature you are of If you charme the world through your false allurements the world charmes you with its vayne promises Do not flatter your selues you are but clay infection and corruption So as if neuertheles you enforce any loue it is but through imposture for that couering your face with a new visage it is easy to deceiue those who haue no iudgement but in the eyes If then you would leaue of Vanity muse alwaies vpon Death since you may happen dy at any houre be it in banquetting be it in walking Go whither you wil your paces conduct you to the Tombe And at such tyme as you stand before your Glasse in the action of washing your face imagine how it shall putrify one day and perhaps to morrow and that al the care you take to make it white will not hinder the wormes froÌ„ deuouring the same Yet after you haue imployed about it a whole phiall of sweet water shed at least one salt teare of sorrow for your sins to wash your most enormous Soule What a shame is it then for you to trick trimme vp your body so euery day wherof the wormes haue already taken possession and to abandon your soule on the dunghill of your Miseryes whereunto your crymes haue brought you Hearken to the Hower that euen now strickes what know you whether if shal be your last do you find your selfe trow you in a good estate to present your selfe before a dreadful Iudge who hath so many Hells to punish the guilty Your companion is dead already and you take no heed but euen run after her euery moment without cease or without any respit How then is it possible that you can runne so to Death in the estate of damnation wherein you are Rather imitate the Parthians who in flying triumphed of their enemyes And weepe for sorrow of your life in running to Death and sigh in way of repentance to the last gaspe Imitate also that great Personage who caused himselfe to be paynted on a Bâ—ere with his face bare his hands ioyned together euen in the very same posture wherein he was to be layd forth after his Death and euery morning would he go to make his prayer before this picture which succeeded so happily with him as he dyed without any trouble or disquietnes Syrs I haue represented to you in the beginning of my Booke how there is nothing assured in this world the which me thinkes should oblige you first to lift vp your eyes to Heauen for to see the Eternity of the glory which is there promised vnto you and then as all dazeled to cast them downe agayne with the helpe of your imagination into Hel whose punishments also in part I haue described to you Then returning to your self consider how these felicities and Eternall paines depend on a moment and this is the moment of Death whereunto you approach euery houre Repose your selfe then euery day for a quarter of an houre vpon this dolefull Couch where this late beautiful Dame hath expired diuert your Spirit in this tyme of grace to thinke vpon that which you would then be thinking of when you shall come to be tyed thereunto with the chaynes of dolour anguish And these be the true Thoughtes of Eternity FINIS
I doubt very much least death do astonish you but if you neuer do thinke vpon it it will astonish you a great deale worse when you shall see it indeed If to liue and dy be but one and the selfe same thing make the Thought of death while you liue so familiar to your selfe that you neuer thinke of any other thing since you neuer do other thing but dy So as if to feare it and neuer to thinke of it do make its visage the lesse hideous I would counsayle you to banish this Thought out of your spirit but so as you be in good estate But on the contrary the forgetfulnes you haue of it makes it so dreadfull vnto you at the least remembrance therof that comes into your mynd as you seeme almost to be in danger of dying by the only feare of dying I cannot abide the weaknes of those spirits who apprehend an euill so much which they cānot auoyd whereas the euill of the feare which they haue is often tymes a great deale more bitter then that which they feare But the only meane to be cured of this feare is to liue alwayes in that of God For the strōgest apprehension of Death proceeds from the great number of the Offences which one hath committed in his life A good man feares rather to liue too long then to dy too soone because he hopes for the recompence of his trauayles at the end of his course whiles the wicked can attend but for the chastizement of his sins So as for to banish this feare from our soule we had need to haue banished the offences thence The innocēt hath no feare but for the iudgement of God this feare is inseparable frō his loue he feares him not but through loue so as this very feare produceth contētment and banisheth sadnes in the meane tyme. I leaue you this truth to meditate vpon that a life of Roses brings forth a death of Thornes Let vs say now for Conclusion of this worke that if one will auoyd this manner of Death he must alwayes be thinking of Death There is nothing more sweet then these thoughts nothing more welcome thē this remembrance Without the thoughts of Death there is no pleasure in life without the thoughts of Death there is no comfort in anoyes without the thoughtes of Death there is no remedy for our euils In fyne to finish all he who is alwayes thinking of Death doth thinke continually of the meanes of attaining eternal life O sweet thoghtes I would not haue my spirit to be capable of a thought but onely to thinke euery moment of death since it is the onely good the onely contentment and the only Repose of lyfe A goodly Consideration and very important both for lyfe and death CHAP. XXI I SHOVLD thinke there were no greater pleasures in the world then to contemne thē all at once since in effect the best spirits do neuer find repose but in the contempt thereof I know well there are certayne chast Pleasures which we cannot misse but as the soule hath its senses affected lyke vnto the body we are to hinder our spirit from mixing its feelings with those of Nature euer feeble and frayle therby not to tast its delights too deliciously Our iudgement hath beene giuen vs as a Torch to guide our steps by our actions and our thoughtes in this sea of the world wherein we are as Slaues in the Galley of our bodyes and the pleasures we seeke therein are the rockes where we find our shipwracke I know well also that we are to be strongly armed for to defend our selues while our proper senses do so warre vpon vs. But in this manner of combat the excesse of payne produceth the excesse of glory let vs breake the crust to see this verity discouered The greatest Saynts and the wisest men haue beene forced to confesse after a thousand proofes of experience that we can not tast any manner of contentment without the grace of God Thou Couetous man in vayne thou rests thy vn-rests on the coffers of thy treasures I deny thee to be held content for if thou reasonest euen reason condemnes thee If thou seruest thy selfe of thy iudgement to be able to do it what argument soeuer thou makest it but fully concludes agaynst thy opinions So as thou cāst neuer enter into the knowledg of thy vayne pleasures without departing from that of thy selfe In a word thou canst not be a man and be content togeather in thy miserable condition since reason and thy contentmēt can neuer subsist in one subiect Thou Ambitious man I would lend thee wings for to fly to the heauens of fortune it seemes to me already that I see thee seated in her throne but looke what greatnes soeuer thou possessest thou dar'st not say for al that thou wert well content for feare the truth should happē to bely thee And knowest thou not how Ambition and Repose do alwayes breake fellowship the one with the other That Pleasure and Feare cannot couple together and that desires as well as hopes do make the soule to be thirsty Represent to thy selfe then the disquietnes which thou findst in thy greatnesses since thy Ambition cannot limit its ayme within their fruition How the pleasures of thy possessiōs are mixt with the feare of their short durance that by vehemently wishing more more thou makst thy selfe vnhappy In such sort as thou maiest not dare to cal thy selfe happy without flattering thy selfe or rather without blushing for shame You Courtiers let me see the pictures of your felicities bring to light what seemes most to afford it the lustre and splendour it hath I graunt that in the midst of the spring tyme of your life loue and fortune with a prodigall hand haue bestowed vpon you what they had most rare beautifull with them yet would you dare to maynteyne with al this that you are content during the reigne of your Empire Whereas if any one haue the boldnes to perswade weake spirits thereunto let him truly recount vs the history of his pleasures I know that he will streight be shewing vs some Roses but I know withall that he wil be hiding the Thornes vnder their leaues as frayle as his contentments though they were of the flowers of a restles remembrance gathered in the sad memory of things past since delights are of the same nature alwayes dying and subiect to receiue their tombe frō the very same day they first sprong vp As for the presents of Fortune if she giue them with one hand she takes them away agayne with the other So as her fauorites are ordinarily the most vnhappy of all because that in snatching away the goods from thē agayne which she hath once bestowed vpon them she dragges them often along for to bury thē vnder their ruines And will you call that a pleasure My Dames you have but one fayre wedding day in all your lyfe whose feast you do secretly celebrate in
of the Soule and al the dolours wherwith our life is touched Now then if it be true that we dye euery moment is not euery moment I pray a Death to vs Let vs go then my soule to God since he cals vs the Sunne lends vs not its light but to shew vs the way to him The Starres shine not in heauen but to let vs see the pathes trackes therof So as if the Moone do hide her self frō our eyes by Interstitions it cannot be but of choler as sensible of the contempt we shew of her light Let vs go to this holy Land of Promise and passe the Red Sea of sufferance and punishments in exāple of our Sauiour who with no other reason then that of his Loue would purchase through his bloud the Glory he atteyned to The world can afford vs but Death Death but a Tombe and the Tombe but an infinite number of wormes which shal be fed with our carcasse They runne after the world the world is nought but misery they do loue then to be miserable What blindnes my Soule to sigh after our mishaps passionately to cherish the subiect of our losse Let vs go to this Eternity where the delights euer present raigne with in the Order of a continuall moment Let vs get forth of this mouing circle and breake the chaynes of this shameful seruitude wherein to Syn hath brought vs. Away with the world since whatsoeuer is in it is but myre and dust it is but smoke to the eyes putrifaction to the nostrills the noyse of thunder and tempests to the eares thornes to the hands smart to our feeling All those who put any trust therein are vtterly deceyued All those who follow it are absolutely lost All those that honour it are wholy despised and all those who sacrifice to its Idols shal be one day sacrificed themselues in expiation of their crimes Besides we see how all that know it do abandon it for if it promise a Scepter it reaches vs a Shephooke Thrones are seated on the brimme of a precipice nor doth it euer affoard vs any good turne but as the vigill of some misfortune Away then with the world and all that is within it since all its wōders now are but dust Whatsoeuer it hath more rare is but Earth whatsoeuer it hath more fayre is but wind Euery King is no more but a heape of Worms where Horrour Terrour and Infection astonish and offend the senses that approch vnto it Corruption sayth the Wiseman speaking of man vaunt thou as much as thou wilt behould thy selfe brought vnto the first nothing of thy first Being Let vs not liue my Soule but for Eternity since it is the true spring of lyfe Out of Eternity is there no repose out of Eternity no pleasure out of Eternity all hope is vayne Who thinkes not of Eternity thinkes of nothing since out of Eternity all things are false Let vs behould but Eternity my Soule as the onely obiect of glory All flyes away except Eternity it is it alone which is able to satiate our defires and termine our hopes I will no other comfort in all my annoyes then that of Eternity I will no other solace in all my miseryes then that of Eternity After it do I desire nothing after it do I looke for nothing I lyue not but for it and my hart sighes not but after it All discourses are displeasing to me except those of Eternity It is the But and end of all my actions it is the obiect of my thoughtes I labour but to gather its fruits al my vigils point at the pretensions of its Crownes My eyes contemne all the obiects except those that conuey my spirits to its sweet Idea's as to the only Paradise I find in this world Whatsoeuer I do I iudge my selfe vnprofitable if I refer not my actions to this diuine cause whatsoeuer I thinke whatsoeuer I say and whatsoeuer I imagine all is but vanity if those thoughtes if those words those imaginatiōs rely not in some fashion on Eternity In fine my Soule if thou wilt tast on Earth the delightes of Heauen thinke continually of Eternity for in it only it is where the accomplishment of all true contentments doth consist The Glory of Paradise AATER that rich Salomon had a thousand tymes contented his Eyes in admiration of the fairest obiects which are found in Nature That his Eares euer charmed with a sweet Harmony had deliciously tasted in their fashion the most sensible repasts they are affected to That his Mouth had relished the most delicate meates where the Tongue finds the perfection of its delight after I say he had quenched the thirst of his desires in the sea of all contentments of the world and satisfied the appetite of his senses in the accomplishment of the purest delicacies he cries out aloud That all was full of vanity The Pompe of these magnificences may well represent themselues to his remēbrance but he cryes out before it That it is but vanity His riches his Greatnesses his Triumphes all his pleasures serued him as a subiect within knowledge of their Nature for to exclayme very confidently that all was full of vanity What pleasures now after these delights may mortalls tast What Riches may they now possesse after these Treasures To what Greatnes may they aspire which is not comprized within that of his Empire To what sort of prosperities may they pretend which is not lesse then his happines And yet neuertheles after a long possession of honours delights which were inseparable to his soueraigne absolute power he publisheth this truth that all is full of smoke and wind and that nothing is sure heere beneath but death nor present but miseries Soules of the world what thinke you of that you reason not somtimes in your selues to discouer the weaknes of the foundation whereon your hopes are piched You loue your pleasures but if it be true that knowledge should alwayes precede Loue why know you not the nature of the Obiect before it predominate the power of your affections Agayne you loue not thinges at any tyme but to possesse them Ah what know you not the delights of the world do passe before our eyes as a lightning that in their excesse they incessantly find their ruyne you thinke your selfe content to day because nothing afflicts you do you cal that pleasure to runne after pleasure for it is impossible for you to possesse that imaginary contentment but in running after it since it flyes so away without resting Let them represent to themselues the greatest contētments that may be receyued in the world at the same tyme let all the diuers Spirits who haue tasted the vayne Sweetnesses appeare to tell vs in secret what remaines to them thereof Thou Miser tell vs I pray thee what pleasure hast thou to shut vp thy goulden Earth within thy coffers to lend it to the interest of thy conscience and to make it