Saint Hierome because he Galat. 2. Hebr. 3. 1. â—â—ls Christ in the same Epistle the Apostle and high Priest of our profession and therefore lest he might seeme to thrust himselfe in the ballance with Christ he concealed his title The third and last is given by the same hand and happily to my purpose because hee most pleaded for the abrogation of the Mosaicall rites of which the Hebrewes though Christians were yet zealous Act. 21. 20. as it is plaine in the Acts of the Apostles And therefore lest the mention of his name should breake the sinewes and weaken the force and energy of his doctrine he is plyable to their passion and in a manner denies his owne name And we know that the wise Apostles in the Primitive Church gave way to the Hebrewes in the use of many legall ceremonies untill the full and plenary promulgation of the Gospell that the Church might with more ease be compacted of Jewes and Gentiles and the parts not stirred close the better Saint Clement writes of Gamaliel the great Pharisee and Doctor of the Law that hee was left being now a Christian by the serious appointment of the Apostles in the Councell of the Jewish Elders to qualifie their heate and mitigate their cruelty And in the Acts he acts his part he doth comply Act. 5. with both sides and reach beyond them all This Milkie way went all the godly Prelates who succeeded the Apostles or their Schollers in all Churches keeping an even hand betwixt innovation and stubbornnesse This ever was and is and ever will bee the knowne course of the holy Ghost even in the soules of men especially as he is to borrow of Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Giver Synes in hymnis of Graces But I am forced here to play as I am wont when I relate the foule prankes of the Papists and imitate the Painter who endeavouring to shew to the eye a multitude of men discovereth in some onely their faces in some the tops of their heads in others one onely foot and sometimes a cheeke and one eye stands for a man while he leaves the rest for our imagination to paint which truly performeth a faire deale more in the Table then the Painter He that is stung by a Tarantula I write what I have knowne is presently taken with a strong and violent fit of dancing and he is best cured when the Musitian playes aptly with the current of his humour and bending of his fancie But I feare I play to one that is stung and yet will never be recovered because no good musicke hath a note so high as to consort with her greatnesse It is she that saith in her heart I sit a Queene Rev. 18. 7. Every man hath his way of writing and I have mine I am sure this way delights and illustrates and affords to every man something which he loves and also keeps the devout spirit in action both of him that writes and him that reades CHAP. XIII AFter many stormie dangers and dangerous stormes by sea and by land I arrived safe into my deare Countrey little England My soule doth magnifie the Lord for it And me thoughts I came out of the noise and tumults of other Countries into England as into a silent harbour and haven of rest having as it were left the world behinde mee And if my comparison may lawfully bring two different things together as a soule going out of earth comes into Heaven Truely after the first step upon land I kneeled downe and kissed the very sands and gravell on the shore Being come to London I presented my selfe to my superiours and shewing my faculties declared whence I came But they seemed fearfull having heard that I had formerly suspected their wayes Yet that was but a qualme and I was quickly disposed of and my walke assigned to me I was placed in a Parish wherein there were and are many more Papists then there are people in the Parish in which I am now seated And they were many of them both rich and of quality There are all poore and of a low name Any man may beleeve without straining his faith that comming to England so top-full of the knowledge of Romish abuses and corruptions I wanted nothing but the very last degree of heate to the taking of fire I wanted but an occasion to set one wheele a going that all the rest might goe with it I had gathered experience out of all their affaires but onely their dealings in England And I desired a little thence to make up the Talent In the house where I lived all my imployment was my service of God in my way and exercise in my studies I know my enemies will grant to me that no man amongst them followed his studies with more exact diligence then my selfe But my way differed from theirs for I alwayes carried Schoole Divinity and other learning with an even hand before me that the mildnes of the one might temper the asperity of the other and that the soundnesse of the one might fortifie the weaknesse of the other and that one might bring the other downe to the understandings of people to be instructed by me They were all for the deepe of Divinity All for diving Whence it comes that few of them are handy in the conversion of soules otherwise then by sleight and cunning or able in the faculty of preaching In this house I wrought the cure of a wound which many Priests had beene doing with never any brought to a Citatrice but my selfe I reaped the benefit of gifts in the house indeede they were thrust upon me yet not so great but a great Priest the famous Divel-Tamer whom I used in Counsell secured to me the taking of them in justice Yet this kindled a quarrell such was the tenacious nature of the prime Litigant and grew to a parting And this for a parting blow perhaps my Reader may understand it Agnes a tender soft Girle having rejected the love of a noble young Romane to couple with the heavenly Bridegroome called to her Headsman with the voice of a man as Saint Ambrose delivereth it saying S. Ambr. l. 1. de Virginibus Pereat corpus quod amari potest oculis quibus nolo Let the body perish which can be loved with eyes with which I would not it should be loved He that should have heard the words and not seene the speaker would scarce have thought this had beene little Agnes I speake in the clouds and I am loth to come out of them till I am call'd and urged to speake what ought not to be spoke without a command from necessity CHAP. XIIII MY Superiours now sent me and one of them brought me to one of their greatest houses in England being the house of a very noble personage where they were destitute of a Preacher But I repairing to London while the matter was hot in debating rumour had carried to their eares that I
singing her owne obsequies but because her skinne the root of her feathers and her flesh and entrals the organs of her musick were black he rejected her as an uncleane creature not worthy to teach the world The Ostrich likewise was esteemed profane and never admitted into Gods holy Temple because notwithstanding all his great and glorious furniture of feathers he cannot lift his dull and drossie body above the ground The Moone shineth but because it doth not heat it is not suffered to shine by day It is the property of good to shrowd and cover it selfe God the chiefest good though he filleth heaven and earth with his glory yet he will not be seene Christ though he was perfect God and equall to his Father yet nothing was ordinarily seene in him but a poore homely man Who ever saw the soul of a man his onely jewell as he is a man Christ said to his Apostles Yee are the light of the world And againe Let your light so Math. 5. 4 Ver. 16. shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It must be light and therefore a true light not a counterfeit and seeming light it must be your light every mans owne light it must be a light by which men may see not onely the good light it selfe but also our good works by the light and it must shine onely to the end that our heavenly Father may be glorified All light is commonly said to be derived from the Sun and the cause of all our shining must be alwayes referred and attributed to God And truly when a man for example giveth almes kindled onely with an intention that his neighbour seeing him may glorifie his Father which is in Heaven his intention is cleane and sufficiently good but he must be a man of proofe that giveth place to such intentions for he lieth wide open to the ticklings of vaine-glory and hypocrisie But I feele a scruple Good example is highly vertuous and in some sort worthy of reward especially in persons of eminent quality because good example is more seene more admired and goes with more credit and authority in them and therefore doth more edifie in respect of the high conceit wee have of their wisedome and knowledge Now the hypocrite teacheth as forcibly by example as the sound and throughly vertuous man For we learne in the great Theater of example by what wee outwardly see and the hypocrite is as outwardly faire as the sincere Christian It seemeth now that an hypocrite doth please God in playing the hypocrite Not so because his intention is crooked for he doth not intend to bring an encrease of good to others but of glory to himselfe If good by chance break in upon his action it falleth besides his intention and it belongeth to Gods providence as to it 's proper fountain which crusheth good out of evill As likewise the prodigall man when hee giveth prodigally to the poore doth not intend to fulfill the law of God but to satisfie his owne wilde lust of giving St. John Baptist was a lamp burning and shining Which moved St. Bernard to say Ardere parum lucere vanum lucere ardere perfectum It is S. Bern. in Serm. de nativ S. Io. Bapt. a small thing to burne only a vaine thing to shine onely a perfect thing to both shine and burne Nothing is more naturally proper to the fire then to burne and in the instant in which it first burns it gives light Which is the cause of those golden words in Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the nature Synes Contra Androm of God to do good as of the fire to heat or burne and of the light to give light CHAP. 17. ANd certainly if we search with a curious and piercing eye into the manners of men we shall quickly finde that false Prophets and Deceivers are commonly more queint more various and more polished in their tongues and publike behaviour then God's true and faithfull Messengers who conforme themselves to the simplicity of the Gospel And if we looke neere the matter God prefigured these deceitfull creatures in the creation for hee hath an admirable way of teaching even by every creature it being the property of a cruell beast called the Hyaena to faine the voyce of a man But when the silly Shepheard commeth to his call he ceases to be a man teares him presently and preys upon him Each Testament hath a most fit example Ioab said to Amasa the head of Absolons Army Art thou in health my Brother Could danger lurk under the faire name of 2 Sam. 20. 9. Brother or could death hide it selfe under health a perfection of life They could and did For Ioab making forward to kisse him killed him and robbed him both of health and life whom hee had even now saluted with Art thou in health my Brother Surely he did not think of Cain when hee call'd him Brother Judas came to Christ and saying God save thee Master kissed him Hee talks of God and of Salvation Math. 26. 49. God save thee Hee confesses Christ to be his Master Hee kisses too And yet in the same act gives him up into the busie hands of his most deadly enemies Wherefore St. Ambrose one that had a practicall knowledge of the great difference of Spirits which hee had seene in their actions disswading us from the company and conversation of these faith-Impostors saith Nec vos moveat quod formam praetendere videntur S. Ambr. humanam nam et si foris homo cernitur intus bestia fremit let it not move you that they beare outwardly the likenesse and similitude of men for without a man appeareth but within a beast rageth And that which St. Hierome saith of a quiet Sea is of the same colour with the conceit of St. Ambrose Intùs inclusum est periculum intùs est hostis the danger is shut up within within is the S. Hier. ep ad Heliodor Enemy like a rock watching under a calme water St. Cyprian adviseth us to betake our selves presently to our feet and fly from them Simus ab eis tam seperati quà m sunt illi de Ecclesia profugi Let us fly as farre S. Cypr. in ep 3. lib. 1. from them as they have flowne from the purity of the Church and that 's a great way St. Cyprian in the same place exhorteth us very seriously not to deale with them not to eat with them not to speake with them O the foule corruption of our Times O for some zealous power that may reforme the abuses mine eyes have seene It is one of the first endeavours of the Papists in England which they exercise towards the society of men to gaine the good wills of Ministers For if they purchase the Ministers good will and good word they clip the wings of the Law hold him fast that hath a great stroke in matters concerning them
World and laying downe life wee lay downe all and love that layes downe all for one loves one better then all It was an unspeakable act of love not sufficiently utterable by the great Angels of heaven that the most glorious Majesty of God not capable of pain nor yet able with all his power to inflict paine upon himselfe should come down though not in his Majesty and close with a body subject to pain in which hee would experimentally know al that which man could bodily suffer and more then all for no man ever suffered in such a delicate constitution of body and therefore no man ever endured such rage and vehemencie of pain O Lord whither do'st thou come we are creatures yes truly bodily creatures we must be fed cloathed and kept warme we are lyable to paine and shak't with a little pain we turn colour from red to pale Lord the Angels they have likewise fallen and their nature is more noble as being free from grosse and earthy matter What stirred thee to put thy selfe in the livery of our fraile nature thy love thy will thy most loving will Looke upon him ô my soule thou daughter of Jerusalem look upon thy dear Friend who died temporally that thou mayest live eternally and who out of his singular tendernesse would not suffer thee to burn in Hell for a hundred yeeres and then recover thee by which notwithstanding he might have more imprinted in thee the blessed memory of a Redeemer but expresly required in his Articles that if thou wouldest cleave to the benefit of his Passion thou shouldest never come there now look upon him Hee hangs upon the Crosse all naked all torne all bloudie betwixt heaven earth as if he were cast out of heaven and also rejected by earth betwixt two thieves but above them tanquam caput latronum as the Prince of thieves hee has a Crown indeed but such a one as few men will touch no man will take from him and if any rash man will have it hee must teare haire skin and all or it will not come his haire is all clodded with bloud his face clouded with blacke and blue his eyes almost sunk in the swelling of his face his mouth opens hastily for breath to relieve decaying nature the veins of his brest rise beyond themselves and the whole brest rises and fals while the pangs of death doe revell in it Behold hee stretcheth out his armes to imbrace his Persecutors and they naile them to the Crosse that he cannot imbrace them Look you hee sets one leg before another with a desire of comming to them and they naile his legs together that he cannot come Now trust mee hee is all over so pittifully rent I wil think the rest My soule this Christ did for thee and this Christ would have done for thee if thou hadst been the onely Sinner and wanted his help What a grievous mischiefe is sin by which this great great I have not words most great most glorious passion of Christ is trod under foot and spoiled of the latitude of its effect and which maketh Jews of Christians For by sin Christ is every day crucifyed by mee every day forced to bow his head and give up the ghost I have farther to goe If from the price and qualitie of the medicine wee may in reason draw arguments to prove the state and condition of the soare Sin is indeed a grievous wound I never heard of such another Agnosce ô homo saith Saint S. Bern. Serm 3. de Nativit Bernard quà m gravia sint vulnera pro quibus necesse est Dominum Christum vulnerari Acknowledge ô man how grievous those wounds are for which it was necessary our Lord Christ should be wounded He goes on Si non essent haec ad mortem mortem sempiternam nunquam pro eorum remedio Dei filius moreretur Had they not beene even to death and to eternall death the Son of God assuredly had never given his deare life for the remedie If I go to the depth of it the Jewes did not kill Christ sin killed him MEDIT. 4. AS sin killed him so he killeth sin Then let every sinner come my self with them and open his wound and receive his Cure The young of the Pelican are stung by a Serpent and shee bleedeth upon them even the blood wherein her vitall spirits harbour Is a man a Drunkard Let him soberly consider what haste hee makes to purchase a Fever or a surfet which might suddenly passe him away to hell let him ponder how often hee hath drowned reason and grace and quenched the fire of Gods Spirit in himself how often hee hath bowed Gods good creatures and put them besides the just end of their Creation and how often in his cups he hath defiled Gods white and holy Name and beat hard upon his patience and let him now come hither and give all again in teares and cry with the Centurion in the Gospel Lord I am Matth. 8 8. not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe For my house is a sink of dregs and lees and loathsomnesse but speake the word onely and my soul shall be healed And truly ô thou that didst complaine of thirst upon the Crosse I will hereafter thirst with thee Is a man a covetous person Let him search the Scriptures and learn what Saint Paul learned in the third Heaven that the love of money is the root of all evill For 1 Tim. 6. 10. what evill will not a man commit to get the money which hee loves and money being ill-got is not well spent and sooner or later The love of money is the root of all evill Let him think how he sweats and breaks himselfe in catching flyes in gathering dirt and trifles which give no setled rest to his desire and to use the words of a good one quibus solutus corpore non indigebit Diodor apud Max. which when he hath laid down his body he shall not have or have need to have And let him now come hither and be fully satisfied with the unvaluable riches of Christ his precious death let him take off his heart from passing riches and betroth it to Christs passion let him looke upon him with the eyes of faith and conceive in what a poore and neglected manner hee hangs upon the Crosse and lament for his owne manifold oppressions of the poore let him pitty the desolate nakednesse of Christ and in his absence cover the naked and let him say Sweet God I doe heere lay downe all my vain and boundlesse desires and wholly desire thee and nothing but thee and nothing with thee but thee Is a man a burning fire-brand of rage and anger let him understand that irafuror brevis anger is a short madnesse and a long vexation that it subverteth the whole work of Peace and all the fabrick of piety in the heart robbeth it moreover of the sweets of life and leaveth
oyntment in her hand and with her haire hanging readie if need were to wipe his feet againe Then Lazarus with his winding sheet upon his neck And the lame men whom Christ cured carrying their idle crutches under their armes And the blind with the boyes that led them comming after them And then the great streame of devout people shall follow with songs of victory over sinne death and hell And all the mourners shall goe bowing their heads and looking as if they were at hand to give up the Ghost for the name of Christ Hee shall not bee buried without a Sermon and the Text shall bee The good shepheard giveth his life for the sheepe And Ioh. 10 11. in the end of the Sermon not if the time will permit but whether the time will permit or not the Preacher shall take occasion to speake a word or two in the praise of the dead party and say that being God above all Gods hee became man beneath all men the more conveniently to make peace betwixt God and Man that he was of a most sweet nature and that when he spoke hee began ordinarily with Verily verily I say unto you that hee was a vertuous man a good liver for he never sinned in all his life either in thought word or work that hee did many good deeds for being endued with the power of working miracles he lovingly employed it in curing the lame and the blinde in casting out devils in healing the sick in restoring the dead to life and that hee dyed a blessed death for being unjustly condemned mocked spat upon crucified and by those whom he came to redeeme from eternall torments hee took all patiently and dyed praying for his persecutors leaving to them when hee had no temporall thing to give a blessing for a legacie The Sermon being ended and the buriall finished every mourner shall goe home and begin a new life in the imitation of Christ who chose a poore and miserable life when hee had his full choyce of all the life 's in the world And Lord teach mee to goe after him in his steps at least with poverty of spirit CHAP. 8. BEing deepe in the consideration of Christs passion and of the worth and all-sufficiency of it I will declare my beliefe in one point I beleeve that man may merit and I beleeve that men wonder I beleeve it I shall not easily unclasp from this opinion Still I beleeve that man may merit Doe you aske mee what Hell and damnation give leave to the tearme not Heaven or the glory of it But if we merit hell why not Heaven The reason offereth it selfe we merit Hell by doing ill and wee in our owne persons are the onely Authors of ill Sinne is begotten betwixt the malice and corruption of our owne wills But he that is said to merit heaven is likewise supposed to merit it by well-doing that is by the solid acts of Christian vertues and the faire exercise of such vertues proceedeth not from us being sonnes of wrath but from grace in Christ Jesus And therefore by what Art can we merit when that by which we are thought to merit is not wrought and accomplished by us but by the strong and over-swaying force of a superiour power not forcing our will to a good action but sweetly drawing both to it and through it Ate habeo saith S. Austin quicquid boni habeo St. Aug. super Psal 70. What good soever I have I have from thee O Lord from my selfe the evill Yea verily Grace is so truly and so naturally the supernaturall gift of God and every degree of it that a grave Councell condemning the Massilienses or Semipelagians who affirmed that the beginning of salvation was derived from us and did consist in a naturall desire prayer endeavour or labour by which wee procure the help of Grace necessary to salvation saith Si quis per invocationem humanam gratiam Dei dicit conferri Conc. Araus 2. Can. 3. non autem ipsam gratiam facere ut invocetur à nobis cōtradicit Isaiae Prophetae c. Whosoever affirmeth that the Grace of God is given by our prayers and not Grace to cause that it be prayed for by us contradicts the Prophet Esay or the Apostle speaking the same thing to the Romans I was found of them that sought me not I was made Rom. 10. 20. manifest unto them that asked not after mee In verity if the Foure and twenty Elders in Heaven the place of highest perfection threw downe their Crownes before the Throne of God ascribing to him all glory Rev. 4. 10. 11. honour and power the name of Merit in heavenly things as the word in a true sense importeth howsoever they crutch it up handsomly cannot be spoke without a Soloecisme both in phrase and beliefe The man committed a Soloecisme that looked and pointed towards earth when he spoke of Heaven And true Christian humility ought even to speake humbly But even the doctrine of the Papists is bold and venturous Those habits of vertues say they which God the Lord of all spirituall Treasure infuseth into the soule are produced by God without us or our ayde and cooperation but the acts of those habits that is the exercises of vertue are so produced by Grace in us that wee also must freely and readily concurre if we meane to put a price upon them and make them meritorious to their production But the will concurreth not except enabled with actuall grace and the childe I meane the action that is borne altogether resembleth grace as it is a vertuous action and they will not call it a meritorious action but as vertuous and therefore the merit belongs to Grace not to our wills or us and partly to the grace by the motion of which wee concurre with grace And it is the opinion of the prime Divines amongst them that a work though very good and honest and true gold if performed without any paine and difficulty if mingled with no gall no wormwood may indeed merit certaine degrees of blessednesse but shall in no wise be satisfactory For as it is proper say these Doctors to a good work in respect of the goodnesse and honesty of it to be meritorious so it is made proper also by another law to a painfull and toilsome work to render satisfaction for sinne committed And thus they both satisfie for their sinnes which merited hell and by a surplussage of goodnesse merit Heaven And very often the roughnesse asperity with which God handles them is greater they tell us then the satisfaction due on their part which falling betwixt God and man drops into his Treasury of Indulgences whom they make halfe a God and halfe a man there to lye in the same roome with the copious redemption of Christ and be conferred when and to whom his Holinesse shall please who having two Treasuries seldome gives out of one but hee takes into the other They seeme to stand upon
but who can say now look you even now it encreaseth though hee may say it hath encreased since I saw it last CHAP. 11. ONe passage more from Spaine and then I my selfe passe from it that I may leave something to come by the next Post if they stirre mee farther By great chance there came to my hands a Booke called Regulae Societatis Iesu The Rules of the Jesuits which Booke they have not formerly suffered to be printed but onely in the Jesuits Colledge at Rome And this Book their Superiours alone make use of and are permitted to have It containeth in part a strange kinde of direction how to square and fashion their Novices in the time of their two yeares Noviship and especially how to sift them and search into their lifes and natures at their first entrance The quick and angry disposition most pleases them because in persons owing such dispositions all the passions are more lively and stirring How also to dispose of their young-men in the divers wayes of their naturall inclinations and how to deale with them according to their severall tempers and chiefely if they begin to look another way and to lean from them And how when they send Letters from house to house to mark them with private stamps in the inside lest the character going alone should bee counterfeit with many more cunning pleats of Jesuiticall government And it is one of their daily brags that they live under Rule we without Rule But were their Rules seasoned with more Christianity and lesse policie they would be more Christian My Reader shall have his Rules likewise and live under them if he please Thus much before I begin It is not obscure to mee that these irreligious orders of Religion fit and prepare their young subjects in their Noviships by turning and twining their wills with the sight of strange pictures and with the manifold acts of blind obedience for great businesse hereafter perhaps for the killing of Kings The Doway-Monk gave Pius quintus in my presence no better name then old doting Foole because he called in the Bâ—ll which he had published against Queen Elizabeth wherein notwithstanding hee did absolve her subjects from their Oath of Allegeance and from all obedience to her and expresly commanded them to â—ake Arms against her RULE 1. LEt your understanding which is the first and superiour faculty of your soul stand not under but over all your other faculties and take a survay of your Nature And not this onely but also learne exactly the maine course and moreover the divers turnings of your owne secret disposition For knowing perfectly our owne natures wee can best direct them a proper way to God And the man that perceiveth himselfe to be jealous or angry or otherwise deficient by nature will upon occasion more easily suspect an errour in himselfe then in others and consequently discover acknowledge and suppresse with all readinesse the tumults of Passion and indeed will be more sound and able in the managing of all his affaires as well temporall as spirituall Every man is composed of a man and a beast and the beast is given to the man to be tamed and governed by him he that desireth to tame a beast desireth also chiefly to know the secrets of his nature and all the qâ—â—int tricks of his inclination This distinction in man of man from himselfe riseth from the two parts or portions of the reasonable soule the intellectuall or superiour part and thâ— inferiour otherwise called the sensuall part which though it may be said if you will say so a part of the reasonable soule while it continueth in the body is void of reason and it is hard to direct one void of reason This is all Be Master of your selfe The wise Master will know and by his knowledge governe RULE 2. ROot evill Habits out of your Soule and plant their contraries Decline from evill and doe good sayes the Royall Prophet For as a habit is gained and Psal 34. 14 strengthened by a frequent repetition and multiplication of Acts which are of the same stampe and colour with the habit as a habit of swearing is gained and strengthened by swearing often so it is abated by disturbing and abolished by destroying the course of such acts as a habit of swearing is abated and abolished by him that having often sworne now seldome or never sweareth It is not one or a few acts which generate a habit nor a small cessation from them which utterly corrupts it And therefore Children entring upon the first yeare of knowledge and discretion plant vertuous habits with great ease in their souls and with much more facilitie then people whose yeeres and sinnes are many though much enabled with knowledge wisdome and experience The Reason is open They are like faire paper ready to take any inscription these have much weedingworke before they can turn to a new Plantation Here I beseech thee learne to remember thy Creatour in the days of thy youth Eccl. 12. 1. It was a Law in the days of old that Manna should be gathered in the morning And the rich orient Pearle is begot of the morning dew God requireth of you the sweetnesse of the morning the breake of the day and the dawning of your life Note that we may sin grievously put on by custome though suddenly rashly and without reflexion because wee have not abandoned the custome and certain danger of sinning RULE 3. BEcause nothing can possibly stand without a Foundation the Foundation of the spirituall edifice and Temple of God in your soule can be no other but Humilitie Humilitie lyeth very low And the deeper the Foundation is laid the more strong will be the building and more able to beare the injuries of Time assaults of the weather And this as all other Foundations must be laid in the ground in a deep and profound consideration that you are all earth on the one side and on the other side all filth all barrennesse according to that of the Prophet Esay Wee are all as an unclean thing Esay 64. 6. and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags Rags are of small use in themselves but filthy rags are abominable It little mattereth in whose name hee speaketh these words for every man may fit them to himselfe And according to that of our deare Saviour When yee shall have done all those Lu. 17. 10. things which are commanded you say wee are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe Humilitie doth not consist in esteeming our selves the greatest sinners for then it should consist in a lye because we are not all the greatest but in esteeming our selves great sinners and ready to be the greatest if God should pull away himselfe from us and feeble workers with Gods grace Our Saviours case was different for hee was most humble yet could not esteeme himselfe a sinner O Humilitie saith Saint Bernard Quà m facilè S. Bern.
added being still out of him or derived from that which is not in him and consequently no part of his Blessednesse nor any thing which can throw the infamy of change upon him We may judge what is possible to be done by what is done And if things are possible to be done a power must be which can doe them And they cannot come from him when he does them but because they were first in him For nihil dat quod non habet vel formaliter vel eminenter no Giver giveth but what hee hath either so as it is given or in a better straine And they cannot be in God but as they are himselfe and infinite God doth not depend of the world but the world of God If the world had never yet beene he had still remained the same God most great most glorious A King though without subjects because all things bee they future or onely possible are as actuall and present to him Omnipotent able to make the creatures we now see and farre more excellent to which we are not warranted to say he will ever bend his power For therefore God leaveth many things undone which reason teacheth us may be done to preach this doctrine that creatures are not his upholders Contemplation in us is a most noble exercise because performed by the most honourable faculty of the soule the understanding and by the highest and most elevated acts of the minde What then may we thinke of contemplation in God Synesius having turned his speech to God hath a sweet expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eye Synes in hymnis of thy selfe For his understanding is the great eye with which he throughly sees himselfe Besides the eternall generation of Christ the divine Word of which the Prophet Esay Who shall declare his generation was is and shall be for ever as likewise Es 53. 8. the procession of the holy Ghost Thou art my sonne this day have I begotten thee Hee Ps 2. 7. meanes a long day diem eternitatis the day of eternity a day so long that there is but one of them in all the yeare and yet the yeare is the onely true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it is all and wholly in it selfe and hath neither end nor beginning a day that never yet made roome for night nor shall ever be intercepted with darknesse The Heavens are alwaies in motion the Sun takes no rest Fire is alwayes in action The Sea never sleepes The Soule is alwayes busie in the exercise of her powers The Heart alwayes panting The Eyes are alwayes active when they are open Life keepes the Pulse in continuall beating and the Breath alwayes a passenger comming or going These are numbred amongst the choicest of Gods creatures and therefore beare more likenesse of him in themselves then meaner things These ever worke and was he ever idle CHAP. IV. ANother application of the former story is to give us in a perfect forme the shape of their consideration and contemplation But why must they needs consider and contemplate in a Monastery And if they will contemplate there why is every man disinteressed from a lawfull calling by which he may concurre to the benefit of the Common-wealth Homo nascitur Reipublicae sayes the Civill-Law A man is borne for the Common-wealth And the reason which Aristotle gives why a man may not kill himselfe is because hee may not lop himself from the Common-wealth of which he is a branch They answer with Saint Austin vindicating the Monks upbraided S. Aug. l. 1. de Morib Eccl. c. 31. by the Manichees Videntur nonnullis res humanas plus quam oportet deseruisse non intelligentibus quantum eorum animus or ationibus prosit They seeme to some men to have forsaken humane affaires more then they ought to have done not understanding how much they exalt them by prayer But without question the Monkes of Saint Austins time were no such idle bodies as now they are For then every man had his practicall course of life to which his education had instructed him and they which had none laboured in Gardens and other plats of ground digging and sowing and eating their bread in the sweat of their brows Nor is it a reasonable discourse that because some few of the old Christians flying from the bloody hands of their persecutors hid themselves in Woods Wildernesses and secret Caves and corners wee shall step over the like cause and take hold of the like action Shall we make to our selves an imitation of the rest of Heaven without undergoing the toyle which goes before it of which toyle the rest of Heaven is the reward And they lose a faire number of waighty occasions which the world affords and which God ministers as the food of vertue and the gates of victory and they are faine to referre all to the first Act of entring into the Monastery or they would be much to seeke When I was a Romane the Pope was solicited by the Embassadours of Spaine to give leave that the great increase of Monkes and Friers in their Countrey might be restrained and the reason was given because it was feared that the warres and the Monasteries pulling severall wayes would unpeople the Common-wealth and deprive the King of subjects necessary to his Dominion If such a grievance may rise from the excesse why may not a reasonable complaint be made of every knowing and able member of a Common-wealth that buries his Talents in a Monastery and seekes onely himselfe In a Christian Common-wealth the good of the Church ought not to be preferred before the good of the Common-wealth when by such an action of preference the Common-wealth is endamaged because by the Common-wealth the Church stands and the Church is but a good part of the Common-wealth And after all why cannot they consider their owne estates and the condition of the world in which they are and contemplate of high things and admire Gods creatures either in their chambers if they were in the world or in the fields as Isaac of whom we reade And Isaac went out to Gen. 24. 63. meditate in the field at the even-tide My Reader shall not want matter for such a purpose if he will be doing Meditation 1. One a man like us labours and straines himselfe to know throughly the nature of the Angels their office their properties and how one Angel differeth from another in the perfection of nature and glory This learned man presumeth to instruct the world in strange things and to say that there are nine Orders or Quires of Angels and that some out of every Quire fell from God and moreover is bold to tell us that Michael the Arch-Angel in Heaven sitteth above Gabriel and Raphael the Seraphin above them both and that so many Angels may well stand together without much thrustingupon a needles point while the silly creature soaring above himselfe forgets himselfe and the maine point and knowes not what he is
to speake with a Jusuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity THe fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practical men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall insallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a strange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded of holy practise and heavenly contemplation The Devill standeth ready to dash out our braines to destroy the body and to devoure the soule to disturbe the peace of nature to confound the elements to mingle Heaven and Earth to trouble all wishing earnestly and earnestly entreating that God would turne away his milde face his gentle eyes and say Goe my Executioner revenge my cause upon the World And yet God will not O the delicacie of the Divine sweetnesse Learne the nature of the Devill In one thing especially the fall of the Angels was like the fall of man For as man was more
the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that finde it Matth. 7. 14 Thus it is profitable for the rich man to be rich if his heart stand off from his riches because he hath a faire opportunity and more occasion to exercise charity then the poore man as likewise it is gainefull for the poore man to be a poore man if hee take it as a ground of content obedience and humility For otherwise God is no niggard of his gifts Indeed perfection must sell all and give it to the poore all that which a man loveth vainely and if all to the poore part to himselfe being poore when all is sold The World is a dunghill covered with Snow The Sunne shines the Snow melts and the dunghill appeareth It shines like a Glow-worme but it warmes not Millions of Angels have fallen from God their places are void they are places in the Court places of great gaine and honour We are brought upon a stage a Theater of triall He that acteth the part of an honest man shall have a place Yet forgetting by what noble person and for what honourable end wee were sent hither we licke the honey as John Damascen speaketh and doe not looke Jo. Dam. in vit Barl. Ios downe upon the Dragon gaping to devoure us One rideth hallowing after the hounds another quarrelleth with the poore for money to buy a purchase A third earnestly asketh security for eight in the hundred But where is one that duely considereth he was made to supply the most honourable place of an Angel This World is via the way Heaven patria the Countrey Is he not an idle passenger that gives himselfe over to delight in those things which occurre in his journey and with which he cannot stay or that marrieth his heart to a painted Inne from which in the breake of day his occasions call him We cannot labour so vehemently to gaine the goods and friendship of the world but with distrust of Gods providence We doe not remember him that said Seeke yee Matth. 6. 33 first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnes and all these things shall be added unto you We must first by Gods helpe seeke God and his righteousnesse and then by the helpe of God and his righteousnesse seeke the reward of righteousnesse the Kingdome of God and all these things these cum contemptu will follow as being of the traine and servants to the King and Kingdome Rule 3. BEware alwayes of a warme and stirring peece of deceit call'd the flesh An enemy out of doores may stand before he enter till he is benummed in every joynt with cold And if he strive for entrance perhaps he may be tooke in the trespasse But the flesh is alwayes at home with us fed by us cloathed by us is almost all the visible part of our selves We daily feed and cloath our deadly enemy every man is a malicious enemy to himself man consisteth of the flesh and spirit and the flesh warreth against the spirit there is a civill sedition in this little Common-wealth of man Consider therefore that as in dried dirt hogs in which onely our Lord suffered the Devill to enter can finde no soft place for their wallowing So neither can the Devill keep his residence and revels in a body dryed with fasting Parcus cibus venter esuriens S. Hier. ep ad Furiam tridianis jejuniis praefertur saith Saint Hierom A sparing diet and a hungry belly is preferred before a fast of three dayes And afterwards he compares extraordinary fasting with a violent shoure destroying the fields We shall doe well and wisely to keepe the rebell-flesh to a dyet to keepe it low and leane For the gate of Heaven is so narrow that good Saint Bartholmew was compelled to leave his skin behinde him in the passage And by drawing its body through a narrow circle the Serpent putteth off its old skin and becommeth young againe Alexander havâ—ng but an outward enemy to buckle with slept alwayes in the field holding a silver ball in his hand that if sleepe should fully seise him the ball dropping into a sounding vessell might restore him againe to his senses And this he tooke by observation from the watchfull nature of the Crane being the experience of his travels For the Crane whose turne it is to watch out the night taking up one of his legs and a stone in it preventeth sound sleeping with attending to the danger of a sound by the fall of the stone The more neare the enemy is to us the more carefully we ought to watch and nothing can be more neare to us then we to our selves It is not requir'd that if thy eye shall offend thee thou shalt presently pluck it out and cast it from thee And therefore Tertullian comparing the perfect and heroicall vertues of Christians with the cleaner acts of the most cleane amongst the Heathens their prime Philosophers and accusing Democritus for pulling out his eyes because he could not see a woman without desiring what not being obtained moved him to grieve saith At Christianus salvis Tert. in Appologetice cap. 46. oculis foeminam videt animo adversus libidinem caecus est but a Christian seeth a woman and yet preserveth his eyes his heart is blinde to lust Rectifie the soule and regulate the acts which guide the sense And if the sense be dangerously vaine and offensive away with it Use it not in those acts in which the danger lurketh Bee a rigorous keeper of Davids covenant with his eyes For amongst all the sinnes which man committeth we may better dally and play with any then with the sinne of the flesh and the occasions of it one temptation commeth so close upon another and every one perswadeth so prettily flesh taking to flesh The reason of this exposition is because when the eye is not used in dealing with vaine objects it is pull'd out and cast away from them though not from him that ownes it And the literall sense of holy Scripture is alwayes the meaning of the holy Ghost but onely when Scripture seemingly jarres with it self This resolution of shutting the windows will in the execution keep out the vain love of woman whom we ought not vainly to love Did I say love Give me my word again It cannot be true love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionys speaks Dion Areop c. 4. de divin nom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Idoll of love or rather a falling from true love Behold the basenesse of it in Holophernes that when he conquer'd others could not make peace at home and conquer himselfe but because he suffer'd himselfe to be conquer'd God suffered him to be conquer'd Iud. 16. 9. Sandalia rapuerunt oculos ejus the Sandals of Judith snatched away his eyes so base and such a creeping creature is lust and they did not take away his eyes gently but caught them with a snatch the temptations of lust
I am very wel contented with the sweete condition in which thy wisdome hath placed me Thou art wisdom it self other wisdome is not wisdom but as conformable to thy wisedome And I doe most humbly yeeld up my selse to comply with the ranke and quality in which I am by thy royall appointment And I remaine indifferent to have or to want to be sicke or in health to dye or to live As thou pleasest so be it And if I could learne thy farther and utmost pleasure I would goe through the world to effect it though I should labour to death in the performance An Act of the feare of God O Lord I feare thee because as thou hast made me of nothing so thou canst reduce me to nothing in one turne of an instant Which perhaps would be a greater losse of my selfe then to be lost in Hell Because then I should not be thy creature I should have no being no dependance of thee but should be lost branches tree roote and all It had beene better for Judas that he had never beene borne because then hee should never have tasted of life or being But when he was Judas which was better for him not to be or to be miserable thou onely knowest I feare thee because as thou art infinitely mercifull so thy justice is infinite And because sinne being but a temporall thing quickly committed and past over and sometimes as soone almost forgot as committed a meere flash is answered notwithstanding with eternall punishment as fighting against an eternall God And yet I feare thee not as a slave but as a sonne For I have more love towards thee then feare of thee though I much feare thee And also my hope weighs down my feare And though all this be true teach me to worke out my salvation with feare and trembling with a great feare which may cause trembling An Act of Praising God O God I doe praise thee for thy most infinite goodnesse thy most infinite power and for all thy most infinite attributes and perfections If thou hadst not beene what thou art I had never beene what I am Yet I praise thee for the first although the other had not followed and yet I praise thee because it followed I doe praise thee for all the benefits which have beene or shall be hereafter bestowed upon the humane nature of Christ and upon all thy Saints and Angels one of which is the continuance of glory Upon men women and children from the beginning of the world to the end of it and especially upon thy chosen vessels for all thy benefits upon ignorant persons who did not know thee and therefore could not love thee nor keepe thy commandements for all thy benefits upon wicked persons that would not and upon dumbe and unsensible creatures that could not praise thee And upon me a vile one Thy blessed name be blessed by thy selfe and by thy Angels and Saints for ever and by men women and children while they live and by all creatures till they cease to be creatures And let all the people say Amen We must be seriously carefull that these Acts in their exercise be true and goe to the bottome of the heart not faigned and superficiall Rule 7. WHen any thing comes to you by way of speciall blessing or gift kneele downe in some private place and receive it as immediately from the hands of God saying O God This is not the gift of destiny or chance of men or Angels it is thy gift onely it passes from thee to me by creatures appointed for the just execution of thy good pleasure upon whom in this respect I beg a blessing If thou hadst not first ordained it for me it could not have thus passed from hand to hand and at last beene reached to me From thee therefore I take it O thou sunne sea fountain spring treasure of all goodnesse O thou good and gracious giver of all good gifts and graces O thou good and perfect giver of every good and perfect gift Catch all occasions to speake of God and praise him and stretch out the discourse as farre as you can And be heartily glad when you heare the holy name of God glorified or his goodnesse mercie justice or other excellencies magnified Yea out of the Devils temptations raise occasions to praise God which is a most short and compendiarie way to divert him as when the Devill hammereth evill words and actions into your minde as he doth especially when you are angry to bee used at any times turne upon him and say Blessed be God that keepeth my feete from falling Hallowed be his name who threw downe proud Lucifer from the gates of Heaven And alwayes reserve a time wherein to blesse God privately for the gifts which others do praise in you And being dispraised rejoyce Rule 8. HAve alwayes some pious and short sayings floating upon thy memory at the end of thy tongue and in thy heart like Arrowes in a Quiver which thou mayst at every turne dart into the lap of thy beloved and use upon every call of occasion As at the sight or hearing of anothers misery This very stroke might have bruised me as it hath my neighbour why was not I the man I might have beene as easily found out amongst the crowde as he But I am Gods favorite And I should bee more wicked then he that is most wicked if God should with-draw his grace favour and helpes from me At the sight of a blinde man Lord I see thee daily in thy creatures O thou that art the eye of thy selfe and that lookest through the clouds upon the world I can looke up to thee At the sight of a lame man I might have beene like this poore imperfect creature but now I will bestirre my selfe and goe readily to thy house and there say and not saintly but heartily O Lord O God O Lord God thou art the giver and preserver of all things When thou lookest up to Heaven say That way lies my Countrey wherein God shines out upon his Saints and Angels to whom they now sing with heavenly musicke and most melodious harmony mee thinkes I heare their voices What good power will draw the curtaines of Heaven that I may likewise see their glory And when downe to the earth I doe or can walke daily over the loathsome carcasses and rotten bones of thousands that have beene gallant men and women and beene carried up and downe in coaches and when I have done all I must die This way lieth hell O the confusion that is there O the darknesse In sorrow How can I be troubled when God and his Angels rejoyce continually In joy I will rejoyce in the Lord againe I say I will rejoyce At other times My tongue and lips which have concurred to speake against thee shall now joyne their forces but what to doe to speake of the marvellous things which thou hast done in our dayes and in the ages before us My hands that have
verbis Apost if they merit salvation they merited likewise the death of Christ But Saint Austin saith Neque enim illum ad nos merita nostra bona sed peccata duxerunt our merits did not draw him to us but our sinnes The Protestants have onely two Sacraments because Christ intended to give life and to maintaine it They have Baptisme to give spirituall life and the Sacrament of the Eucharist or the Lords Supper to keepe and cherish it The Papists have seven Sacraments as there are seven Planets and because there are seven deadly sinnes And yet if every visible signe of an invisible gift be a Sacrament the old Law was exceedingly stored with Sacraments The Protestants give Christ to be eaten by faith the Papists wholly and carnally and in the same manner as he is in Heaven And therefore the sacred institution is maimed and the poore Laity deprived of the Cup because they are beleeved to take all Christ his body ex vi verborum and his bloud soule Divinity and the blessed Trinity it selfe per concomitantiaem in regard that Christ cannot be parted The Protestants teach according to S. Paul that a Bishop may be the husband of one wife which the Papists 1. Tim. 3. 2 would faine turn to one Bishoprick or Benefice but S. Paul cuts them off having his children Verse 4. in subjection with all gravity Both the Bishop and Priest with the Papists professe to live a most Angelicall life and to carry with them out of the world an unspotted robe of chastity And yet while they bring glory to their Church by a compulsive restraint of the Clergy from an honest and lawfull act they ruine the precious soules of many thousands of thousands as appeareth by the great and grievous complaints of many devout persons in the Councell of Trent and by the beaten and ordinary practise of their Priests who by force turned from the true channell runne over all bankes into all beastlinesse And I have from their owne mouths two matters of notable importance First that indeed marriage had beene granted to Priests in the Councell of Trent had they not upon the suggestion of the Jesuits feared poverty and contempt By which it is as cleere as Gods Sunne that they more aime in their adventures at the glory of the Church their visible Mother then of God their invisible Father Secondly that the Jesuits hewed the Councell into this conceit for this end lest because the Jesuits can throw off their habit at their pleasure all their able men should have left them and runne a wiving And it is a great reason of a great rule they have that no Jesuit may be a Bishop or Cardinall without an extraordinary command and dispensation from the Pope because their houses would then be deplumed of Schollers I feare the religious persons of the Church of Rome clad so meanely in the greater part thinke themselves as great as the greatest Tertullian saith of Diogenes Superbos Platonis thoros alia superbia deculcat he kicks the pride of Plato being altogether Tert. Apol. cap. 46. as proud as he The Protestants are alwaies humble suppliants to God for the remission of their sinnes and still laying open before him and recounting the sins of their youth And the uncertainty holds them alwayes in a feare and trembling and in a meeke submission to God The Priest in Confession will give to the Papists a full and absolute forgivenesse of all their sinnes whensoever they please to read or tell them over And yet nothing is more dangerous to an ignorant soule then a deceitfull security they beleeve their sinnes are forgiven and the care is past Confession cannot be necessary necessitate absoluta that is necessary to salvation or in the list of Sacraments For why did the Greeke Church the most devout and most learned Church in the world and the Nursery of our greatest Doctors moved onely with one abuse ushered by Confession abolish it Can the abuse of a Sacrament amongst reasonable creatures and sensible of their owne condition deface the use of it And therefore doubtlesse they held it by the title of a good and pious custome not in the name of a Sacrament Turne another way God who commandeth every servant of his to keepe the dores of his senses and by all honest violence to prevent the entrance of sinne upon the soule will he give a Sacrament wherein the soule shal under the pretty color of sanctity stand open to all kindes of uncleannesse And he that commandeth me to shut my eares against lewd discourses will he now out-goe himselfe and command me to heare them They reply the relations are now in mourning and delivered in a dolorous and humble manner But the disease being catching we cannot be too cautious and it is not likely that God would linke a holy Sacrament with a knowne temptation It is a knowne truth that these confessions and especially of women when they relate the Acts and circumstances of their fleshly sinnes doe make strange motions not onely in the minds but also in the bodies of their Priests which their Authors confesse even out of Confession Confession as they use it is an optick instrument through which they looke neerely upon the soule that according to that sight they may governe And therefore it is one of the private rules amongst the Jesuits that in all their consultations which are many the Bell having rung them together the Ghostly Father especially shall be present and his counsell most observed And although the Generals of their Orders checked by the Popes have given publike commands to the contrary yet they are all but a face and a flourish Confession thought a Sacrament is to many the bane of perfection For leaning heavie upon the pretended strength and efficacie of the absolution they bate much of the sorrow which is the principall part of true repentance The Protestants keepe one day in the weeke holy in obedience to the Commandement given with a Memento Remember the Sabbath day to keepe it holy and other Euod 20. 8. speciall dayes according to an appointment squared by the rule of the ancient Church The Papists have many Holy-dayes and yet doe not seriously observe the Sabbath insomuch that the Jesuits boast their Founder to have complained much of Sabbath-breaking A Councell held under Guntranus Concil sub Guntrano complaines too Videmus populum Christianum temerario more diem Dominicum contemptui tradere we see the silly people animated with a rash custome contemne the Lords day First keepe the Commandement and then let your devotion stretch as God shall enable it In this point they are like themselves when they say their prayers For let my Reader imagine that he seeth two persons on their knees praying The one speaketh distinctly and lifteth up his eyes hands heart and voice together and in a fit time maketh an end The other looketh here and there and runneth with his tongue and
lips so fast that apprehension cannot over-take him talketh with any man and then againe runneth away with his lips but stayeth long in his prayer Which now of these prayers is most acceptable to the Divine will The Spaniards have a form of salutation which is alwayes used as a prologue to their discourses and it is ever the same both in words and forme and it consisteth of severall sentences one answering to another And it is pretty matter of mirth to heare how they runne it over Even so the Papists deale with their Latin prayers when they recite as the terme is so many Pater-nosters and so many Ave-Maries And these Latin prayers were but an earthly invention of man with a politicke purpose to keepe all Churches in Union with the Latin Church and in subjection to it I pity the poore Nuns that spend more then halfe their time of waking in running over what they understand not And I have some pitie for the English Papists who are taught that it is an act of greater merit to pray in Latin though not understood then in English because it hath more of obedience and greater affinity and is more coincident with Church-service The Protestants quarrell about ceremonies But the Popish Priests in my knowledge have opposed one another in such a tumultuous manner that they drew on both sides great persons and whole States into their faction once againe verifying that of Pliny Montes duo inter se Plin. 2. c. 83 Nat. Hist concurrerunt crepitu maximo assultantes recedentesque inter eos flamma fumoque in coelum exeunte two great Mountaines ran violently one against another smoke and fire rising up towards Heaven with a great noise The Pope suffers them to cast away themselves and their deare time upon discourses that hang like rotten carcasses upon a Gibbet which every small winde bereaves of a limbe or two Because the Psalmist singeth of the holy City Jerusalem Her foundation is Psal 87. 1. in the holy Mountains the Virgin Mary is holy in the foundation and consequently free from originall sin Thus the Jesuits But the Dominicans fight likewise with Scripture Non surrexit say they major Johanne Baptista There rose not a greater then John the Bapt. To which the Jesuits answer merrily Indeed there rose not a greater then he but he was not as great as the Virgin because she had never fallen and therefore could not rise If I could part the fray they should let goe this vanity of vanities and preach Christ crucified a little more A plaine Monke said and I was his Auditour that he would never beleeve the words cited out of the Fathers by the Jesuits except he had them in the Fathers because the Jesuits are such knowne corrupters of good things And corruptio optimi pessima the corruption of the best things is the worst of corruptions Certaine papers of an old Monk came to my hands here in England out of which amongst others I tooke this note Dissentiones inter Jesuitas 1 Incarceratos in castro Wisbicensi 2 D. Paget aliosque nobiles Anglos in Belgio 3 Sacerdotes appellantes 4 Milites Anglos in Belgio 5 Benedictinos in Belgio 6 Alumnos Seminariorum Romae alibi He meanes Valladolid for another place 7 Moniales Gravelingae Bruxellae caet I have given it as I found it and so I leave it The Protestants proceed humbly in the preaching of the Gospel without paint or fallacie The Papists ground much upon miracles and yet confesse the world hath beene much deluded by them I have beene resident the space of eight yeares a quarter of my age in their chiefest and most eminent Cities and places of abode and yet was never present at the working of a Miracle Besides the working of Miracles is not an undeceivable signe of the true Faith God hath wrought Miracles by an Heretick Bishop yea by the old Romans for example in the defence of the innocent or to give waight and authority to a close and covered truth What if I should grant that the Papists may worke Miracles in the proofe of the doctrine which teacheth a Trinity of persons in the God-head the Incarnation of Christ the redemption of the world by the shedding of his bloud But I will not bee so liberall Yet God hath wrought Miracles by wicked and unbeleeving people though not to sanctifie their wickednesse and countenance their unbeliefe The famous Epistle of Gregory the great to Austin the Apostle of England will easily Greg. ep ad Aug. S. Just fix and fasten this point And long before his dayes Saint Justine the Martyr was of the same minde Licet saith he haeretici miracula faciant hoc tamen non confirmat haereticos in errore quia miraculorum effectio non semper est pietatis signum demonstratio ut Dominus ostendit cum ei dicunt Domine nonne in nomine tuo prophetavimus Although Hereticks worke Miracles this notwithstanding doth not confirme them in their errour because the working of Miracles is not alwayes an infallible demonstration of piety as Christ sheweth when they say to him Lord have we not in thy name Prophecied cast out Devils The Papists have the name of good and recollected people I can passe my judgement not upon the hearts but upon the lives of three Families which I saw One of which was wholly taken up with sporting gaming hunting revelling The Masters of the other were Spaniards in all their discourses rather then Englishmen which I was sorry to heare And one of them frequented our Churches with his body but not with his heart otherwise they were morall men But Origen speakes as if he knew them Multo nocentior est haereticus bonae vitae plus in doctrina sua habet authoritatis eo qui doctrinam conversatione maculat An Heretick of a good life is much more hurtfull and bringeth more authority to his doctrine then he that spotteth his doctrine with his life And afterwards Idcirco sollicite caveamus haereticos qui conversationis optimae sunt quorum forte vitam non tam Deus quam Diabolus instruxit Therefore let us take diligent heed of Hereticks who are of a refined conversation whose lives perhaps not God but the Devill hath-ordered Their very orders of Religions are even frivolous in many points of their Institutions For if they fore-see a sinne in the exercise of obedience they may not question the suffciencie of the command And both they and their Priests may with more leave and a lesse breach of Law commit Fornication or Adultery or Sodomy or beastiality a thousand times over then marry although Gods Law was antecedent to their vow of chastity and is of more validity yea though we should grant their vow as the vow to be ratified with some limitation by another Law of God because the matter of the vow is of greater perfection It came from the Monke of Doway that not long agoe it was a custome
kindes of deformity the filthinesse and deformity of all other sins Which is one of the reasons why it is said in Saint James Whosoever shall keepe the James 2. 10. whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all Another cause is The sinner which breakes charity with God and offends him in one point the way being now open and the reasons why he ought not to offend God violated is ready of himselfe to offend him in another and in all and will if power or occasions be not wanting For he can never give a good reason either taken from something in God or from something concerning himselfe why he should offend God in one point and not in another because he can never give a good reason why he should offend him at all and every offence of God is most contrary to reason Sinne is the chiefest evill or rather all evill and therefore so contrary to God the chiefest good or rather all good that although it is permitted because directed to a good end by his Providence yet neither can it be so much as fathered by his Omnipotence nor suffered by his Justice nor yet approved by his wisedome And is it not a most wicked businesse to commit an act of that soule quality that Gods Providence must presently to worke and turn it to Good or he lies open to a reproach for having suffered evill and there must be that which wee name a thing in the world and God the Creator of all things must not be the cause of it nor have any hand in it and God must be forced to strike with his justice as if he delighted in our destruction And if he will know all and be God he must be compell'd to looke upon that which his wisedome cannot like because it hath no being in him as it is the folly of sinne nor any connexion with his wisdome I am certain I thinke not of all this when I sinne Sinne is the destruction of Grace I have said enough And Thomas Aquinas disputing Tho. Aqui. 1. 2. q. 113. art 9. ad 2. of the difference betwixt the justification of a sinner and the creation of the world in the worth of the Act saith Bonum gratiae unius majus est quam bonum naturae totius universi the good of grace in one man though not raised above one degree is a greater good then all the good of nature pertaining to the world then the Sunne Moone Starres Earth Sea then any thing I ever saw or naturally can see then the soule of man with Gods Image in it though of so pure a substance that it cannot bee seene And Grace in the soule may be fitly compared to the light of the Sunne in the world For as there are degrees and differences of this outward light suiting with the time of the day So there is the light of Nature that is of Reason in us the light of Learning the light of Experience the light of Grace This faire light of the Sunne the light of Grace we in the meane time crucifying and killing Christ is all darkened with sinne as the Sunne it selfe was darkened when Christ hung dying upon the Crosse Sinne is the Consumption of goodnesse the death of the soule mans beter part and that by which he resembles his Creatour and i◠allied to God One evill thought is a secret conspiracie against God and all the triumphant Court of Heaven By every bad word wee scornefully spet in our Saviours face And with every ill action we buffet him This to speake the best of it is Jewish cruelty What a Christian turn'd Jew Now my eyes shut your selves unworthy to behold Gods good light or his Creatures by it whose Maker I have abused and strived to disenthrone though all Creatures and my selfe should have fallen with him With sorrow of heart I will open my owne sinnes before him whether open or secret which must be the more grievous because I was ashamed to act them before men The desperation of Cain shal not come neere me Mentiris S. Aug. in Gen. 4. super major est iniquitas mea Caine saith Saint Austin major est Dei pietas quam omnis iniquitas Caine thou liest Gods mercie is greater then all sin CHAP. XIIII BUt doe not mine eyes runne all this while have not teares opened them True teares of repentance as Chrysologus Chrysol speaketh extinguunt gehennam put out and extinguish Hell-fire which all good men preach to be unquenchable Wee see that when darke clouds cover the Heavens they seeme as it were possessed with horrour and sadnes yet the winde hath no sooner beate upon them shakē them into little drops of Psal 126. 5. rain but the Heavens begin to grow cleare and by little and little to look with a most pleasant face upon the world For they that sow in teares shall reape in joy Because the seed-time was wet and troublesome it shall be faire weather and Sun-shine all the harvest The shedding of teares from the eyes of a true Penitent is a spirituall Baptisme by which the soule is renewed in Christ and when will the Sunne shine if not after so sweet a shower Could I behold such a sweet shower falling from another I hope I should learne to drop my Luke 7. 5. 37. 38. selfe Saint Luke hath an eminent example And behold Behold a watch-word some great matter the Scripture hath to say And behold a Woman in the City A Woman what Woman why she the woman so much talkt of the Sinner A Woman in the City which was a sinner she desires not to be knowne or call'd by any other name but sinner And if you call sinner where are you She is quick of hearing on that part and she knowes you meane her and is ready to answer that 's my name here I come And what with her now she is come Why this Woman the sinner when shee knew that Jesus sat at meate in the Pharisees house brought an Alablaster Box of oyntment Now take a view of her behaviour And stood at his feete She durst not looke higher then his feete and lower she could not looke and she was willing to be trod upon if he pleased Behinde him She did not thinke her selfe worthy that he should look upon her or that she so wretched a sinner and yet not a sinner but the sinner should behold his blessed face Weeping All this while the clouds have beene in gathering now it raines But where fell the raine And began to wash his feete How with what with teares now I understand you she stood but her teares fell and her heart with them With teares With raine-water that never had beene foule never mingled with any kinde of uncleannesse it was a washing raine water that came but even now from Heaven Here is not all And did wipe them with the haires of her head and kissed his feete and anointed them with the ointment and
we are deprived The evils of punishment come from God flow naturally from him as from their true source cause Go aske the Prophet Amos he will say as much Amos 3. 6 Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it God hath nothing to doe with sinne but foure wayes in all which he stands off and comes not neere it In the hindrance in the sufferance in turning it to good ends and in appointing the punishment And all the evils of punishment which God ever heaped upon man on earth and in Hell or is able to heape are not fit punishment my drift is not equall to the mischiefe of one sinne though the Papists thinke otherwise of their veniall sinnes God alwayes punishing under the desert of sinne as he alwayes rewards above vertue as being more prone to the acts of mercie then of justice And neither all Gods Creatures nor God himselfe be it spoken with due reverence and respect to his omnipotencie can shower downe so great evils upon man as he daily pulleth upon himselfe For they can onely sting his body with the evils of punishment he staineth his owne soule with the evill of sin And therefore Saint Chrysostomes Paradox out of which he hath dreined a most learned Homily is not a Paradox Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso No man is hurt but by himselfe For it is plaine that matters of punishment may be turned to vertue which doth not hurt but alwayes from sinne comes dammage and hurt because more is lost then gain'd though all the world bee gain'd it being sure that by sinne God is lost and cannot be gain'd Sinne to speak gently is the sleepe of the soule For as he that sleepeth feares oftentimes what is not to be feared As to be drowned in deepe waters to fall from the top of a high rock into the Sea to be devoured by a Beare or a Lion or some such vaine thing of which he dreames but the Thiefe who comes now in earnest to cut his throat he feares not So the sinner feares some few shadowes of danger but not the sinne that kils him O foolish Horse that starts at the shadow of a tree and when the Drums and Trumpets sound runs gladly among the Pikes thrusting himselfe upon true danger And as he that sleepeth beleeves oftentimes that he is in full possession of that which hee hath not He dreames of gold and of a Palace and in the act the cobwebs of his poore Cottage drop upon his face and wake him The sinner being in danger dreames of safety and wakes environed with danger And lastly as he that sleepeth performes oftentimes the worke of a waking man but imperfectly He speakes but brokenly and with little sense He rises and walkes but seldome without a fall So the habits of vertues being destroyed in a sinner have left a warmth and facility behinde them which seeme vertuous when they are not and therefore delude exceedingly both the person and all the witnesses of his carriage And such a person is more dangerously sicke then the Hypocrite who knoweth his errour or may be soone convinced of it by the light of nature Phoenix in Homer under whose government Achilles was brought up to that great height and perfection of knowledge was directed by the rules of naturall prudence to be two Masters to him For the Poet describes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a director not onely of his words but of his deeds also But he that is warmed with such a heate when the fire is gone beleeves that he is hot rejoyceth in it and little thinkes what kinde of warmth it is wherewith he is heated From these premises I gather what I had lost I had lost the princely robe of justice the rich garment of needle-worke wherewith the Kings daughter was adorned after the losse of which my soule was not the Kings daughter I had lost the name dignity and credit of Gods good childe the speciall providence and protection with which he shrouds as a Hen her Chickens covers and spreads himselfe over the just O t is warme being under his wings and all the more speciall helpes which imparting to them he denies to sinners I had lost I had lost faith and except hope all infused vertues which are the strength veines and sinewes of the soule by which she is enabled to doe well and orderly in order to salvation and which are as it were the faire pearles with which she is beautified I had lost O I had lost the most unvaluable benefit of Christs merits Christ could not say then to his Father of me Father give him me I have bought him I had lost God and therefore was robbed of all good He that is every where was gone from me He was out of my reach out of my call and hee would not heare me but called by earnest repentance a hard taske and not possibly to bee compassed without his powerfull assistance that was farre from me And which is the top of admiration I had lost my selfe and could by no meanes learne whither I was gone Had I gone out into the streets and asked all passengers if any good man or woman could tell where I was Had I said neighbour pray have you found me I am lost Whatsoever my neighbours had said all sound Christians would have answered that I was lost and so lost that I could never be found but by an infinite power and that for their parts they knew not where I was Indeed I neither know nor shall ever know fully what I had lost Go now all Merchants and Tradesmen henceforth hold your peace speak no more of your losses by Sea or Land I had lost more then Land and Sea themselves And having lost all good I staid not there but also was over-whelmed with all evill It is a great evill of disgrace to be the childe of a wicked man or willing to serve him Sin had made me the childe of the Devill and more subject then a childe a slave to him and sinne And therefore Christ said to sinners Yee are of your Father the Devill He said likewise Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sinne is the servant of sinne Sin then being all over evill and all the evill that is and I having committed sinne and so being the willing servant of sinne what a strange kinde of evill was I that served so great an evill when we all know the servant is not higher then his Master but much under him Here is a secret It is an evill chance to a house when it fals into the most hard hands of a cruell murderer or bloody traitor But sin had changed me into the most unhappy dwelling of the Devill And I that once feared to see the Devill and who if I had seene him would have runne much more feared to come neare him or to dwell with him in the same house or chamber had then tooke both him and Hell-fire that