highest of all to go to meet crosses and afflictions and to embrace them as liveries of Jesus Christ In Mercy it is a high degree to give away temporal things a higher to forgive injuries the highest to oblige them who persecute us It is a high degree to pitie all bodily afflictions a higher to be zealous for souls and highest to compassionate the torments of our Saviour in remembering his Passion In the virtue of Fortitude it is a high degree to overcome the world a higher to subdue the flesh the highest to vanquish your self In Temperance it is a high degree to moderate your eating drinking sleeping watching gaming recreation your tongue words and all gestures of your body a higher to regulate your affections and highest to purifie throughly your thoughts and imaginations In Justice it is a high degree to give unto your Neighbour that which belongeth to him a higher to exact an account of your self and highest to offer up to God all satisfaction which is his due In the virtue of Faith it is a high degree to be well instructed in all that you are to believe a higher to make profession of it in your good works and highest to ratifie when there is necessitie with the loss of goods and life In the virtue of Hope it is a high degree to have good apprehensions of Gods power a higher to repose all your affairs upon his holy providence a higher than that to pray to him and serve him incessantly with fervour and purity but highest of all to trust in him in our most desperate affairs Lastly for the virtue of Charitie which is the accomplishment of all the other you must know there are three kinds of it The first the beginning Charitie The second the proficient The third the perfect Beginning Charitie hath five degrees 1. Dislike of offences past 2. Good resolution of amendment 3. Relish of Gods Word 4. Readiness to good works 5. Compassion of the ill and joy at the prosperity of others Proficient Charity hath five degrees more 1 An extraordinary puritie of Conscience which is cleansed by very frequent examination 2. Weakness of concupiscence 3. Vigorous exercise of the faculties of the inward man For as good operations of the exteriour senses are signs of bodily health so holy occupations of the understanding memory and will are signs of a spiritual life 4. Ready observance of Gods law 5. Relishing knowledge of Heavenly Truth and Maxims Perfect Charity reckoneth also five other degrees 1. To love your enemies 2. To receive contentedly and to suffer all adversities couragiously 3. Not to have any worldly ends but to measure all things by the fear of God 4. To be dis-entangled from all love to creatures 5. To resign your own life to save your neighbours The fifth SECTION Of four Orders of those who aspire to Perfection NOw consider what virtues and in what degree you would practise for there are four sorts of those who aspire to perfection The first are very innocent but little valiant in exercise of virtues The second have besides innocency courage enough to employ themselves in worldly actions but they are very sparing towards God and do measure their perfections by a certain Ell which they will upon no terms exceed like the ox of Susis that drew his usual number of buckets of water out of the Well very willingly but could by no means be brought to go beyond his ordinary proportion The third order is of the Fervent who are innocent couragious and virtuous without restriction but they will not take charge of others supposing they are troubled enough with their own bodies wherein they may be often deceived The fourth rank comprehends those who having with much care profited themselves do charitably refresh the necessities of their neighbour when they are called to his aid thinking that to be good onely to ones self is to be in some sort evil Observe what God requires of you and emulate the most abundant graces But if the multiplicity of these degrees of virtue perplex your mind I will shew you a shorter and easier way to perfection The sixth SECTION A short way to Perfection used by the Ancients THe Ancients were accustomed to reduce all virtue to certain heads and some addicted themselves with so much fervour and perfection to the exercise of one single virtue as possessing that in a supream degree by one link onely they drew insensibly the whole chain of great actions One dedicated all his lifes study to government of the tongue another to abstinence another to meekness another to obedience So that at the death of a holy man named Orus as Pelagius relates it was found he had never lied never sworn never slandered never but upon necessity spoken So Phasius in Cassian said upon his death-bed that the Sun had never seen him take his refection for he fasted every day until sun set So John the Abbot professeth that the Sun had never seen him angry that he had never done his own will nor ever had taught others any thing which he had not first practised himself To arrive at this requires much fortitude of spirit If you desire things more imitable be assured you shall lead a good life if you endeavour continually to practise these three words To abstain To suffer To go forward in well doing as S. Luke saith in the Acts of the Apostles of the Son of God To abstain 1. By refraining from all unlawful things and sometimes even from lawful pleasures through virtue 2. By mortifying concupiscence anger desire of esteem and wealth 3. By well ordering your senses your will your judgement and obtaining always some victory over your self by the mastery of your passions To suffer 1. By enduring the burdens of life with patience esteeming your self happy to partake of our Saviours sufferings which are the noblest marks of your Christianity 2. By endeavouring to use a singular meekness in bearing with the oppressions and imperfections of others 3. By undergoing with advice some bodily austerities 4. By keeping your foot firm in the good you have already begun For as old Marcus the Hermit said The wolf and sheep never couple together nor did change and dislike ever make up a good virtue To go forward in well-doing By becoming serviceable and obliging to all the world every one according to his degree but above all having a catalogue of the works of mercy as well spiritual as temporal continually before your eye as a lesson wherein you must be seriously examined either for life or death eternal And for this purpose some Saints had these words in stead of all books in their Libraries Visito Poto Cibo Redimo Tego Colligo Condo Consule Castiga Solare Remitte Fer Ora. To Visit Quench thirst Feed Redeem Cloath Lodge Bury To Teach Counsel Correct Comfort Pardon Suffer Pray Mans best knowledge is how to oblige man the time will come when death shall strip us to the very bones and
years before his death which makes the truth more remarkable he speaketh clearly that the Soul returneth to heaven if it be well purified from its commerce with earth that heaven is its true Countrey and Element and that it is a great proof of its Divinity that it delighteth to hear of heavenly things as being the affairs proper to it self We must take care not here to judge and condemn Seneca on a doubtfull word as when in his Consolation to Martia he saith That all end by Death and by Death it self He onely there toucheth of Goods and Evils of Honours Riches Pleasures Troubles and the Cares of this present life It is most clear that there is nothing in that Sentence which derogates from the Immortality of the Soul because he concludes that Treatise with the joyes which a happy Soul receiveth in the other life And it is not from our purpose to consider that Seneca sometimes in disputing speaketh by supposition according to the Idaea of others and not according to his own We cannot know better the opinion of an Authour then by his Actions and his Practise and we observe that Seneca hath not onely professed the Immortality of the Soul by words but believeth the effect in secret for he reverenced the Souls of great Personages and did believe them to be in heaven which he testified before he received the Christian Faith when being in a countrey-house of Scipio of Africa he rendred divine honours to his Epist 86. Spirit prostrating himself at the Altar of his Sepulchre and perswading himself he said that his Soul was in heaven not because that he was Generall of the Army but because he lived an honest man and having infinitely obliged his ingratefull countrey he retired himself in a voluntary solitude to his own house to give no fears and jealousies of his greatnesse If we demand where he placed the sovereign good His opinion of the sovereign good and the end of Man we shall find that he established the felicity of this present life to live according to Reason and that of the life to come in the re-union of the Soul with its first beginning which is God From this foundation he hath drawn a rule and propositions which he hath dispersed over all his Books and these are to despise all the goods of the world Honours Empires Riches Reputation Pleasures gorgeous Habiliments stately Buildings great Possessions Gold Silver precious Stones Feasts Theatres Playes and to take all things as accessory and to regard them no more then the moveables of an Inne where we are not but as passengers And above all things to esteem of virtue of the mortification of loose desires of contemplation of eternall virtues of Justice Prudence Fortitude Temperance of Liberality Benignity of Friendship of Constancy in a good course of life of Patience in Tribulation of Courage to support injuries of Sicknesse Banishment Chains Reproaches of Punishments and of Death it self We may affirm that never any man spoke more worthily then he of all these subjects Never Conquerour did subdue Nations with more honour then this great Spirit with a magnificent glory at his feet hath levelled and spurned down all the Kingdomes of Fortune All that he speaketh is vigorons ardent lively His heart when he did write did inflame his style to inflame the hearts of all the world His words followed his thoughts He did speak in true Philosophy but as a king and not as a slave to words and periods His brevity is not without clearnesse His strength hath beauty his beauty hath no affectation he is polished smooth full and entire never languishing impetuous without confusion his discourse is tissued yet nothing unmasculine invincible in his reasoning and agreeable in all things Howsoever we ought not to conclude by his Books that he was a Christian because he wrote them all before he had any knowledge of Christianity and therefore it is not to be wondred at if sometimes he hath Sentences which are not conformable unto our Religion Some one will object that he is admirable in his Writings but his Works carry no correspondency with The answer to the calumniatours of Seneca his Pen. This indeed is the abuse of some spirits grounded on the calumnies of Dion and Suillius which those men may easily see confuted who without passion will open their eyes unto the truth He reproacheth him for his great Riches in lands in gold and silver and sumptuous moveables and layeth to his charge that he had five hundred beds of cedar with feet of ivory It seems that this slanderer was steward of Seneca's house so curious he was in decyphering his estate But all this is but a mere invention for how is it possible that he who according to Cornelius Tacitus did not live but onely on fruit and bread and water and who never had any but his wife to eat with him or two or three friends at most should have five hundred beds of cedar and ivory to serve him at his feasts It is true that he had goods enough but nothing unjustly gotten they were the gifts and largesses of the Emperour And because he had sometimes written that Goods were forbidden to Philosophers he therefore was content to hold them in servitude and not to be commanded by them He was overcome by Nero to carry some splendour in his house as being the chiefest of the Estate and it was put upon him as a sumptuous habit upon some statue We cannot find that he had ever any children but his Books or that he made it his study to enrich his Nephews or his Nieces or to raise a subsistence for his house from the charges greatnesse and riches of the Empire He had the smallest train and pomp that possibly could be and when he had the licence to be at liberty from the Court he lived in an admirable simplicity and which is more he besought Nero with much importunity to discharge him from the unprofitable burden of his riches and to put severall stewards into his houses to receive his revenues but he made answer to him that he did a wrong unto himself to demand that discharge for he had nothing too much and that he had in Rome many slaves enfranchized who were farre more rich then Seneca Yet for all this Reproach is proved to be unjust Dion proceeds further in his slander and alledgeth That he indeared Queens and Princes to him for he wrote their Papers and professed himself a friend to the richest Favourites What is this but to reproach a Courtier with his Trade his Discretion his Civility his Affability which this great personage made very worthily to comply with his Philosophy He married an illustrious Lady and of invaluable wealth What! should he being in that high dignity to please Suillus become suitor to some chamber-maid or for mortifications sake court some countrey girle ought he to bring such a reproach after him to the Court of the
Queens Princesses and Ladies who in the course of the world have flourished in much sanctity beginning from the Court of David and then concluding in our Age to the end the multitude of examples may place the Sun in full splendour before their eyes who take the greatness of their condition for pretext of their remisness For the present because Reason should carry the torch before History I will satisfie my self with publishing this Christian Institution which treateth of the MOTIVES and OBSTACLES men of Qualitie have to Perfection with the practise of virtues most suitable to their condition the whole attended by two books of Histories that very amply contain the good and evil of Courts I consecrate this small labour at the feet of the Church among so many worthy Writers which make her wholly radiant in gold not unlike that Bird which as the Kings of Asia contributed great treasure to the building of a Temple she having no other wealth went thither to present her Feathers It remaineth SIRS that you make the COURT holy and you shall sanctifie the world your examples may do much therein when you shall advance the standard of piety a plentifull Train will follow Behold how all those that have framed their fortune upon vice have built on abysses they have sowed wind as saith the Prophet to reap tempests their hopes are crackt as clouds swoln with the vapours of the earth and their felicity like a golden statue hanged in the Air on a rotten cable hath melted upon their head Never any man hath had good fortune in impiety He that looseth his conscience hath nothing else to gain nor loose Nothing to gain for that nothing remaineth for him but unhappiness and nothing to loose because he hath lost himself So many crimes and impieties daily float on the face of this Age that you must stretch out your arms against iniquity If you have your hearts fixed where God planted them you shall place the confidence of well doing in the life of the most timorous and shame of ill doing upon the brow of the most impudent Your hands shall always be in a readiness to overthrow vice and your feet shall not walk but on Palms of victory The Church extendeth her hands out to you and imploreth the aid of your authoritie and good examples You are in the house of God as Joseph in that of the Lord of Egypt The Master hath put all into your hands defile not the honour of his bed since with his finger he hath imprinted the lustre of his glory on your fronts If you be among men as Mountains over valleys be Mountains of perfume of which Solomon speaketh in the Canticles and not those hills of the Prophet Osee which have nothing but snares and gins to serve for stumbling-blocks to those whom they should enlighten If you be elevated in the world as cliffs above the Sea be watch-towers not rocks If you be Stars be Suns to be the Chariots of light and life and not comets to pour malignity on the four quarters of the world Be ye assured that how much the more you are united to God so much the greater shall you be the more conformable you are to the will of the Sovereign Master so much shall you behold the earth in contempt under your feet and Heaven in Crowns over your heads The DESIGN and ORDER of the Book TO speak properly we have but two great Books the Heaven and the Bible which never perish The others have an Air and a certain continuance amongst men and at the last arrive unto their period But the most part of those who at this day do write do come into the world as drops of rain into the Sea of which the Ocean takes no notice neither of their coming in or their going out In so great a croud of Writers I have put forth my first Tome of the HOLY COURT as under that consideration esteeming that I brought but a little dew into a great River and having spoken some Truths by the way I should bury my self from my birth in the Tomb of so many Books which is excusable by the law of necessity and honourable by the multitude and the qualities of those that write Howsoever I see that GOD who governeth our lives and our pens hath been pleased that this Work should be had in some respect and having exceeded the merit of the Authour it should also exceed his hope producing some fruit and withal some comfort to my travels which I cannot now judge to be ill employed This hath again put my pen into my hand to follow the continuation of it to which so many personages of Honour have brought so many reasons to induce me that having but little leisure to undertake this second Work I have had the less boldness to refuse it Those who complain that my pen hath not swiftly enough followed their desires are to remember that though Slowness be a mother a little to be blamed yet her Children are not deformed The bringing forth of good Books ought not to resemble that of Birds concerning which an Ancient writeth that they come out of the Belly of their mother before they are born we ought to give them form and a long time to foster them in the Mind before they appear in publick For in precipitation it is a poor attempt to be able onely to hope for nothing but to erre hastily to repent at leisure I do more fear the Reproches of precipitation than deliberation for in this mortal condition wherein we live our most perfect Actions are but heavy assays and the most gross proofs of perfection This may be said without any diminution to the merit of some celestial Spirits who make promptitude and goodness to march together with an equal pace it being not expedient that those who cannot follow them should glory in the infirmities contrary to so great abilities For me I content my self with the approvement and admiration of other mens works reserving nothing but industry for my own And though for all my pains I cannot of my self find in my own work satisfaction enough to content the Readers whom I acknowledge so favourable to me yet so it is that I find I have brought something which bears some correspondence with their desires This I can assure them that the contraction of the precepts which I have drawn into so few words being able to stretch them into Volumes are not without their profit and that Histories are made most choice of in that nature where besides their majesty which lays forth the most specious affairs of the Estate of Empires since the beginning of their Christianism they have a certain sweetness with them which sound spirits will find to be so much advanced above all Fables and Romances as the pleasures of Truth do surpass all illusions of Sorcerers You shall here perpetually observe a great Theater of the Divine Providence where God knows I have no other Design than
with the excess thereof for fear that good Offices be turned into misprisions and Charity render it self too importunate But so it is that we must confess that Pieces well wrought are never seen in so great a number as to bring any fastidiousness to them who do know their merit Here do I stop my pen and if there appears any worth in this Volume I look upon it as on the Mirrour planted on the wall of a Temple in Arcadia where those that beheld it in stead of their own face saw the representation of the Divinity which they adored Even so in all this which may bring any profit to the Reader I see nothing of my own but I acknowledge the Father of lights who is the Beginning and the End of all which we do make praise-worthy And I beseech him if there be found any thing attractive in these Discourses that He will like the Load-stone draw up the Readers and carry them to the love of their Creatour to whom is due the tribute of all honour as to him who is the Beginning of all Perfection It is indeed the onely consolation which we can receive from our labours For not to dissemble the Truth he that cares more to write than to live flattering his pen and neglecting his conscience shall have work enough to defend himself from the Scurf the Rat and from Oblivion And when in a passionate life he shall carry with him the applauses of the world it shall be as a small sacrifice unto him of smoke abroad to lodge a fire and tempest in his own house It is reported that the Stars contribute their beams to enlighten the Infernals and I can affirm that all the lights of Understanding and Reputation shall serve onely to inflame the torments of a reprobate soul who shall shut his eyes against God to open them onely to let in Vanity In the end after many Editions of the HOLY COURT as I desired here to put the last hand to it I am now retired into the solitary place of Quinpercorentin for the love of the truth where the honesty of the Inhabitants have made me to find it as my Countrey which other men have taken for a place of banishment There on the banks of the Ocean at the feet of a Saint who is the Tutelar of the Village perceiving that God had sweetened to me all the bitterness both of men and of the times by the infusion of his Paternal Consolation I have composed more Treatises both of Doctrine and Piety to render in some sort my silence profitable to the publick of which one day I will give a good account unto my Readers if God shall grant me life Amongst other things I have digested into good order this Work of the HOLY COURT and I have enriched it with a remarkable Augmentation of the Lives and Elogies of the Illustrious Personages at Court as well in the Old as the New Testament Now I do produce it to the light after that by the singular favour of Heaven the obstacles are removed and Truth acknowledged on the Throne of Lights with which God hath round environed it THE TABLE OF THE Chief CONTENTS of the First Tome of the HOLY COURT FIRST BOOK Motives to stir up Persons of quality to Christian Perfection MOTIVE Page THat the Court and Devotion are not incompatible 1 I. Name of Christian. 2 II. Nobilitie 4 III. Eminent Dignitie 5 IV. Riches 8 V. Corporal endowments 9 VI. Endowments of the mind 11 VII Courage 13 VIII Education 15 IX Court a life of penance 17 X. Gratitude 19 XI Example 21 XII Punishment 22 XIII Reward 24 SECOND BOOK Hinderances that worldly ones have in the path of salvation OBSTACLE Page I. WEak faith 26 II. Errour in faith in Religion 30 III. To live according to opinion 37 IV. Inconstancie of manners 39 V. Masked life 41 VI. Ill mannage of time 43 VII Libertie of tongue 45 VIII Curiosity in bearing affronts 47 IX Carnal love 49 X. Superfluous Attire 51 XI Envie 54 XII Ambition and Avarice 56 Conclusion A bad Courtiers life is a perpetual Obstacle to virtue 58 THIRD BOOK Practice of VIRTUES SECTION Page I. DEvotion for Great-ones 60 II. Wherein consisteth all Devotion and Spiritual life 61 Character of the spiritual man ibid. Character of the carnal man ibid. III. First combat of a spiritual man against ignorance 62 IV. Practice of faith ibid. V. Four other lights to disperse ignorance 64 VI. Twelve Maxims of salvation ibid. VII Twelve Maxims of wisdom 66 VIII Practice of Devotion and Prayer 68 IX Necessitie of confession ibid. X. Practice of confession 69 XI Practice of examen of conscience 71 XII Practice of receiving 72 XIII Practice of hearing Mass 74 XIV Practice of meditation 75 XV. Practice of vocal prayer and spiritual reading and frequenting Sermons 77 XVI Second combat of the spiritual man against pusillanimitie 78 XVII Twelve Maxims to vanquish temptations 79 XVIII Remedies against the passions and temptations growing from every vice 81 XIX Shame in well doing 82 XX. Affection towards creatures ibid. XXI Indiscreet affliction of mind and sadness 83 XXII Third combat of the Spiritual man against impurity 85 XXIII Practise of chastity 85 XXIV Practise of temperance 86 XXV Practise of modesty 87 XXVI Practise of prudence and government in conversation ibid. XXVII Against another impurity to wit desire of having and first of poverty of the rich 89 XXVIII Practise of justice ibid. XXIX Practise of thankfulness 90 XXX Practise of charity 91 XXXI The practise of humility and magnanimity 92 XXXII Practise of patience 93 XXXIII Practise of daily actions 94 Instructions for Married XXXIV Misery of marriages ill managed 96 XXXV Evils of marriage grow from disorders therein committed 99 XXXVI Selected instructions for the married 101 XXXVII Instructions for Widdows 102 To Maids XXXVIII Praises of virginity and of the modesty they ought to observe in their carriage 104 To Fathers and Mothers XXXIX Concerning bringing up and instructing children 107 To Children XL. Of piety towards parents 110 The fourth Book treateth of Impiety of Courts and Unhappy Policie page 114 The fifth Book setteth forth Fortunate Pietie page 137 A TABLE OF THE TITLES and SECTIONS contained in the Second Tome of the HOLY COURT THE PRELATE SECT Page I. THat it is convenient the Nobilitie should govern the Church 165 II. That the Nobilitie should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices but by lawfull ways 167 III. Of the Vocation or calling of a Prelate 168 IV. Virtues requisite in the carriage of a Prelate 169 V. The second virtue of a Prelate which is Fortitude of spirit against Avarice and Riot 170 VI. The third Qualitie of a good Prelate which is purity of life 171 VII The fourth perfection of a Prelate which is observed in Zeal and Charity 172 VIII The fifth excellency of a Prelate which is science and prudence ibid. IX The Motives which noble Prelates have to the duty of their
of our impatience the guardian of temperance the seal of virginitie the advocate of offenders the consolation of the afflicted the sepulture of the dying For the just are buried in prayer as the Phenix Praise of prayer in perfumes Prayer doth all A Christian without prayer is a Bee without sting who will neither make honey nor wax It is to little purpose to propose unto you the mysteries of faith and the maxims of Christian wisdom if you use not meditation to ruminate them It is as meat cast into a stomack without digestion which will do more hurt than good not of its own nature but by your indisposition which is bad From hence proceed the desolations of the earth From hence are derived so many fals so many miseries for that men apply not themselves to tast the things of God in prayer That which ought to incite us to this exercise is Necessitie of prayer first the necessitie which is so great that in matter of spiritual life it is as requisite to pray as in the animal to breath We are choaked with flesh and fat Oâ— meum aperui attraxi spiritum and the flames of concupiscence unless we upon all occasions open our mouthes to take the gentle air of God Secondly the pleasures we therein take in process of time is verily that which the prophet Isaiah calleth Sabbatum delicatum the delicate Sabbath As Isaiah 58. Sabbatum delicatum Pleasure Sola prima ac luminosissima veritas cibus est nostri intellectus Sola prima inundantissimáque bonitas cibus nostri nobilis ac sublimis affectus Perfection of the soul Albert. de virtut c. 37. much as to say the delicious repose of the soul The corporal eye as saith the learned Prelate William of Paris maketh its repast upon the beauty of the fields the flowers the heavens the stars and on all the objects which are found in this universe But the eye of contemplation by the means of prayer nourisheth it self with the excellencie of God and the perfections of Jesus Thirdly the puritie and perfection of the soul which is derived from this exercise ought to serve us as a special spur There it is saith Albertus Magnus where we carrie our mouthes even to the source and wel-spring of virtue There it is where God is known and knowing him that we love him and in loving him we search him in searching him we take pains and in taking pains we find him In the fourth place we have the example of our Pernoctans in oratione Dei Luc. 6. 12. Saviour who for our instruction spent the nights in prayer the example of the Apostles and all Saints who have practiced and recommended this exercise to us The ninth SECTION The necessitie of Confession MEn resemble snails every one carrieth his own house with him a house wholy replenished with darkness although it ever seem lightsom A house which hath neither door nor window though therein be a thousand witnesses which see all that passeth with as many eyes as heaven hath stars A house composed of labyrinths yet cannot the Host hide himself in it A house whereinto the sun peepeth not and yet may even the very least atoms be seen A house wherein there are perpetual pleadings yet never any issue of process but with issue of life Finally a house which hath two faces altogether different the one called hell the other Paradise In a word this house whereof I speak is the conscience It is full of darkness for the thoughts Nullus molestior oculus cuique suo Bern. l. â—5 de confiderat of men are involved in such a cloud of obscuritie that neither the devils nor Angels themselves see any thing therein yet is it lightsom for ever the eye of proper conscience reflecteth thereon There is no door nor window for all is very close shut up yet do a thousand witnesses fix their eyes thereon for the conscience alone is called a thousand-witnesses It is composed of labyrinths for there are all flexibilities and subtil mazes in this labyrinth the host Putásne Deus è vicino ego sum non Deus de longe Hierem. 23. cannot hide himself for it is ever day-pierced by the eye of God before whom neither the abyss nor hell it self hath darkness enough to hide it The sun peepeth not in there for in effect its light which displayeth all the objects of the world before our eyes cannot discover the simplest of our thoughts yet may the very least atoms be seen for there is not any thing so subtil which can free it self from the eyes of God They perpetually plead there for every moment Aula Sathanae hortus deliciarum aureum reclinatorium Bernard de interiori domo Ambr. in illud rerela Domino viam tuam the conscience chalengeth us even upon the least sins and the issue of the process concludeth not but with the end of life because at that very hour the decisive sentence of our eternitie is given In fine this house hath two faces whereof the one is called hell to wit the evil conscience and the other Paradise that is the good and innocent which we cannot throughly settle in this great corruption of the heart of man but by a good confession Too much shade hurteth seeds which begin to Idem grow darkness duls them and the eye of the sun serves them as a father Assure your self the buds of virtue hold the same course there must be day to bring them into the light and he who will hide his life shall loose all the fruit he may hope thereof Bernard de interiori domo cap. 37. Confession is the price of our immortalitie the citie of refuge given us by God but if it be once ill managed it is not a confession but a double confusion for feigned miserie excludeth true mercie nor did ever presumption well accord with pitie Among the most especial exercises of devotion are confession communion meditation spiritual lection and the fruit we derive from the word of God Concerning the practise of confession we will onely speak with much brevitie thereof for at this present there are great store of books which teach this method Hear a true observation made by Saint August tract 12. in Joan. Augustine That the beginning of our good works is the accusation of our evil If you desire utterly to forsake the animal life to submit to the spiritual put in the fore-front a good general confession Gulielm Paris de Sacrament Poenitent l. 12. Matth. 17. Confession saith S. Ambrose is the price of our immortality It is the tribute of Heaven signified by the piece of coyn which S. Peter found in the mouth of a fish Necessity seems to require it for the reasons which General confession the beginning of spiritual life follow First how many sins are left by the way how many by culpable ignorance sometimes through fear and shame
after which caused an excellent wit to say that it drew life out of its blows and made a dug of its wounds Oh happy soul that resembleth this generous plant and which repleat with pious desires holy affections and sincere intentions produceth apprehensions and works a thousand times more precious than myrrhe when in the meditation the rays of Jesus Christ who is the true Sun of justice strikes the heart The practice of prayer consisteth in mental vocal Necessity and easiness of meditation and mixt Mental is that which is exercised in the heart vocal which is formed in the mouth mixt participateth of both Think it not to be a new thing not severed from your profession to meditate It were so if one would make your brain serve as a lymbeck for subtile and extravagant raptures disguised in new words and forms But when one speaketh of meditation he adviseth you to ponder and ruminate the points and maximes which concern your salvation with all sweetness that fruit most agreeable to your condition may be derived from thence The faintness weakness infidelity ignorance driness which reigneth in your souls cometh from no other source but the want of consideration Take this worthy exercise couragiously in hand and you shall feel your heart fattened with the unction of the Holy Ghost and your soul of a wilderness to become a little Paradise of God Be not affrighted hereat as if it were a thing impossible for you use a little method and you shall find nothing more easie and familiar What have you so natural in vital life as to breath And what more proper in the intellectual than to think Your soul hath no other operation for night and day it is employed in this exercise The Sun casteth forth beams and our soul thoughts Gather together onely those wandering thoughts which are scattered amongst so many objects into your center which is God Employ one part of the spitit industrie invention discourse which you are endowed withal for the mannaging of worldly affairs Employ them I say in the work of your salvation and you shall do wonders I undertake not here to raise you above the earth nor in the beginning to plunge you into the seven degrees of contemplation whereof S. Bonaventure speaketh in the treatise he composed thereof I speak not to you of fire unction extasie speculation tast of What you must understand to meditate well repose or glory but I speak that in few words which you may read more at large in the works of so many worthy men who have written upon that subject First know what meditation is secondly how it is ordered Meditation properly is a prayer of the heart by Definition of meditation which we humbly attentively and affectionately seek the truth which concerns our salvation thereby to guid us to the exercise of Christian virtues That you may meditate well you must know the causes degrees matter and form of meditation The Causes principal cause thereof is God who infuseth himself into our soul to frame a good thought as the Sun doth upon the earth to produce a flower It is a goodly thing to have the spirit subtile and fruitful It is to work without the Sun saith Origen to think to do any thing here without the grace of the Holy Ghost The first degree which leadeth to good and serious prayer is a good life and principally purity of heart tranquility of spirit desire to make your self an inward man Saint Augustine reciteth a saying of Porphyrius very remarkeable which he deriveth Aug. l. 9. de civit Dei c. 23. Deus omnium Pater nullius indiget sed nobis est benè cum cum adramus ipsam vitam precâ—m ad cum sacientes pâ—r inquisitionem imitationem de ipse from the mouth of this perfidious man as one should pull a thing stoln out of a thiefs coffer God the Creatour and Father of this whole Universe hath no need of our service but it is our good to serve him and adore him making of our life a perpetual prayer by a diligent enquiry of his perfections and imitation of his virtues Observe then the first degree of good prayer is good life The second as well this Authour hath noted is the perquisition to wit the search of verities by thinking on the things meditated which are the sundry considerations suggested to us by the spirit in the exercise of meditation The third is the affection which springeth from these considerations Our understanding is the steel and our will the flint As soon as they touch one another we see the sparkes of holy affections to flie out We must bray together the matters of prayer as Aromatick spices with the discussion of our understanding before we can extract good odours The fourth is the imitation and fruit of things we meditate on It is the mark at which our thoughts should aim otherwise if one should pretend nothing else but a vain business of the mind it would be to as much purpose to drive away butter-flies as to meditate Good meditation and good action ought to be entertained as two sisters holding one another by the robe As for the matter of meditation you must know Matter of meditation that all meditations are drawn from three books The first and most inferiour is the book of the great Three books of meditation world where one studieth to come by knowledge of the creature to the Creatour The second is the book of the little world where man studieth himself his beginning his end qualities habits faculties actions functions and the rest The third is the book of the Heavenly Father Jesus Christ our Saviour who verily is a guilded book limmed with the rays of the Divinity imprinted with all the characters of sanctity and from thence an infinitie of matter is drawn as those of benefits of four last things of the life death and passion of Jesus and of all the other mysteries You must digest every one in his time according to the opportunity tast and capacity of those who meditate Some appropriate meditations to every day of the week others make their circuit according to the moneth others follow the order of the mysteries and life of our Saviour as they are couched in so many books written of these matters The practice and form of meditation consisteth in six things The first to divide the subject you would Practise and form contained in six articles meditate on into certain points according to the appointment of some Directour or the help of a book Article 1 As if you meditate upon the knowledge of ones self to take for the first point what man is by nature For the second what he is by sin For the third what he may be by grace The second a little before the hour appointed for Article 2 meditation to call into memory the points which you would meditate on The third after you have implored the
willeth us to take moderate pleasure in creatures which he hath made for our content and ease that we may enjoy them in time and place every one according to his condition profession and rule of wisdom Synesius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pleasure lays hold of the soul Somnus balnea dolorem mitigant S. Thom. 2. q. 138. Date siceram merentibus vinum iis qui amaro sunt animo Prov. 2. the Creatour hath given the feeling of pleasure to sense to serve as an arrest to the soul and to hold it in good quarter with the body Saint Thomas among the remedies of sadness prescribes sleep and bathing The Scripture it self counselleth us to give wine and other fitting draughts for them to drink who have their hearts oppressed with bitterness If one think to make a great sacrifice to God resting perpetually stretched and involved in a pensive austeritie of spirit as being desirous to avoid all pleasures of life he deceiveth himself It hath happened that many running in their own opinion to Paradise by this path according to peculiar fancie have found themselves on the borders of hell Fourthly to remember our life is a musick-musick-book musick- Our life is a musick-book seldom shall you find there many white notes together in the same line black are mixed among them and all together make an excellent harmonie God gives us a lesson in a little book which hath but two pages the one is called Consolation the other Desolation It is fit for each of them to take its turn In the day of adversity think of prosperity In the day of prosperity remember your self of adversity That great Prelate of Cyrenum Synes in hymno said that the Divine Providence hath mingled our life as one would do wine and water in a cup some drink the purest some the most compound but all tast a commixtion Fifthly if you exactly compare our condition to that of an infinite number of miserable creatures who groan in so many tedious and disastrous torments you will find your fardel but a dew But we have a certain malignity of spirit which ever looks back on the good it hath not to envy it and never considers the evil from whence it is freed to render thanks to God Behold some are in the bottom of a dungeon in fetters others are bowed in painful labours from the rising to the setting Sun to get their bred Some have the megrim in their head the gout in their feet and hands the stone in their kidneys Others are overwhelmed with business loss misfortunes strange and portentous accidents yet carry it out with courage Your heart is nipped with a little sadness and behold you despair what effeminacie of spirit is this It is said hares seeing themselves pursued on every side had one day resolved to drown themselves but coming to the brink of a river and beholding frighted frogs who cast themselves at all adventure in the water to escape Courage said they we are not yet the most miserable treatures of the world behold those who are more fearfull than we Ah how often should we say the same if we saw the miseries of others Sixthly is it not a goodly thing to behold a man Unworthines of sadness who probably speaking is in the favour of God who is here nourished with Sacraments with Christs body and bloud with the word of his Master who liveth among so many helps and comforts spiritual and temporal who expecteth a resurrection a Paradise a life eternally happy and happily eternal in so beautifull a societie of Saints to frame pensiveness and scruples to himself of his own head to afflict himself like a Pagan or a damned soul that hath no further hope It is related that God one day to give an antipast of beatitude to a holy man turmoiled with sundry cogitations caused an unknown little bird to chant in his ear in so melodious a manner that instantly his troubled spirit became clean and pure and held him rapt many years in the most tastfull delicacies may be imagined O if you often had strong imaginations of Paradise how your melancholy would melt and dissolve as snow before the Sun-beams Lastly sing spiritual canticles labour employ Noble tears your spirit without anxiety and if needs you will weep lament your imperfections bewail the miseries of the poor sorrow for your curiositie lament the passion of your spouse grieve and sigh at your impatience after this glory of Paradise weep over the deluge on the earth look back like a chast dove on Dulces lachrimae sunt ipsi fletus jucundi quibus restrintur ardor animi quasi relaxatus evaporat affectus the ark of your good father Noe the father of repose and consolation Then will I say of such tears with S. Ambrose O the delicious tears O the pleasing complaints which extinguish the fervours of our mind and make our affections sweetly to evaporate The two and twentieth SECTION The third combate of the spiritual man against impuritie ALl impuritie of life ariseth from three sources whereof S. John speaketh concupisence of Joan. 2. Three sources of impietie the flesh concupiscence of the eyes and pride of life Let us now see the practice of virtues which oppose these three sorts of impurities Against concupiscence of the flesh temperance chastitie modestie do wage war Against the concupiscence of eyes to wit the unbridled desires of temporal blessings povertie justice charitie mercie gratitude Against pride of life humilitie obedience magnanimitie patience clemencie The three and twentieth SECTION Practice of Chastitie CHastitie is a virtue which represseth the impure lust of the flesh a celestial virtue an Angelical virtue which maketh heaven and Angels descend upon the earth and in this kingdom of mortalitie planteth the image and titles of immortality Clemens Alexandrinus maketh mention of certain Clemen Alex. strommat enchanted mountains at the foot whereof was heard a voice as of people preparing themselves for battel a little further the encounter and conflict and on the top songs and triumphs Behold as it Three sorts of chastitie were the condition of three sorts of chastitie With some it beginneth with labour and uncertaintie there is at the first toil and resistance against lust but the even thereof is not known With others it is become more manly as being already practiced in combats With others it triumpheth after a long habit yet notwithstanding whilest here on earth it abideth it is never absolutely secured The acts thereof are Acts. I. To renounce all unlawfull voluptuousness of the flesh II. To abstain from carnal acts not onely those which are unlawfull but sometime such as are permitted among married folk upon just occasion or for some certain time which is very ordinarie or perpetually which is singular and remarkable in the lives of some Saints So Martianus lived with his wife Pulcheria and Henry the Emperour with the Empress Chunegundis III.
womb but how much more it cost to make him anew drawing forth so much labour sweat and bloud from the Son of God who annihilated himself for him cherishing and fostering him saith Thomas Aquinas in his Treatise of Beatitude in such sort that one not well instructed by Faith would say Man were the God of God himself Hereupon we will beg that we may not frustrate the merit of the life of God given to eternize ours and we will practise some kind of mortification to bear God in our flesh as saith S. Paul to conform our selves to the sufferings of the King of the afflicted Saturday which is the day wherein God rested from the Creation of the world we will meditate upon the rest the blessed enjoy in Heaven There is no more poverty no sickness no grief no care no calumnie no persecution no heat no cold no night no alteration no confusion no noise The body resteth five or six foot under ground freed from the relapsing employments of a frail and dying life It is in the grave as in an impregnable fortress where it no longer fears debts serjeants prisons nor fetters And the soul when it is glorified leadeth the life of God himself a vital life an amiable life an inexhaustible life for which we must sigh and labour and beg it often of God with the tears of our eyes and the groans of our heart as saith S. dugustine It is requisite the same day to make a review of the whole week to examine the state of your soul your passions affections intentions aims proceedings and progressions And especially at the moneths end to consider diligently what God would have of us what we of him and what course we take to please both him and our selves what desire we have of perfection what obstacles what defects what resistance what means and to mannage all our endeavours under the protection of our great Captain Jesus Christ The eighteenth SECTION Devotion for the hours of the day THe Church likewise assigneth us a practice of Devotion for every hour of the day if we will apply it right For as if she meant of a Christian champion to make a true Bird of the Sun which saluteth that bright Star almost every hour seeming to applaud by its songs and the clapping of its wings so she requireth that in imitation thereof we loose not God out of sight all the day long but keep perpetual centinel to worship and pray to him At the break of day Not to say any thing of our nightly exercise The Church inviteth us in the Hymn of S. Ambrose to ask five things the protection of God for all that day peace government of the sense guard of the heart and Mortification of the flesh At the third Hour from the rising of the Sun the hour wherein the Holy Ghost descended in the likeness of fiery tongues upon the Apostles we pray to the Holy Ghost so to replenish our understandings our wills our senses our hearts our tongues our mouthes with vigour and flame that we may by our good example enkindle our neighbours At the sixth Which is noon we look up to our Son of Justice to intreat of him four things that is alienation from the heat of concupiscence mortification of anger health of body and peace of mind At the ninth Which is about three a clock when the Sun is now declining towards the west we cast our eye upon our great Star and desire him as he is the immoveable Centre about which the whole world is turned and holdeth the beginning and continuance of light in his hand first to grant us a happy evening secondly a constancy in virtue thirdly a good end At evening When darkness draweth near we beseech the Divine Majesty to gather unto him our hearts oppressed with sin and distracted by so great diversity of actions to cleanse them and to direct them in the way of Eternity that when we shall be deprived of this temporal light we may make a sweet retreat into the bosom of God who is the fountain of Intellectual light and that having finished our life as we have ended this present day we may receive the prize of Beatitude At going to bed Now that darkness covereth the face of the earth we will shelter our selves like little birds under Gods wing beseeching him to keep us according to his accustomed goodness in his protection to drive away evil dreams and the illusions of night from our sleep hindering the crafty surprizals of our adversary who goeth up and down like a roaring Lion besetting the sheep-fold These devotions are grave authentick and sufficient throughly to instruct a soul that will practise them The nineteenth SECTION Of Confession a very necessary Act of Devotion and advice thereupon I Place Confession and Communion amongst the weekly devotions because for such as desire to lead a pure life there is no excess if at the weeks end they acquit themselves of this duty And although I have lately spoken enough according to my scope of the practise of these exercises in Treatises upon this subject and that to write more concerning them after so many books were but to bring a drop of water to the river yet am I obliged by the necessity of my design to tell you in few words that to make your Confession good it ought to have the properties of a looking-glass Solidity lively representation and clearness Solidity 1. In going to it with much consideration of your own misery sins and imperfections 2. Much reverence towards the Majesty of God 3. A reasonable examination of your conscience 4. A dislike of your offences more for Gods sake than out of any other consideration Lively representation 1. In avoiding confessions made by rote which have always one and the same tune or such as are over drie and not sufficiently explained or such as are too historical and full of superfluitie 2. In representing perspicuously the State of your soul and succinctly discovering how you have behaved your self Fiist in those acts of devotion which concern more particularly the Divine Service accusing your self of impure intentions negligences irreverences voluntary distractions contempt of holy things coldness in Faith and evil thoughts Secondly towards your self in the direction both of your interiour and exteriour namely in sins of vanity pride sensuality intemperance curiosity impurity idleness pusillanimity anger envy jealousie quarrels aversion impatience murmuring lies detraction injuries swearing breach of promise impertinent and idle discourse flattery scoffing and mockery Thirdly towards your neighbours as well supeperiours and equals as inferiours unfolding the defects that may have happened in the duties which Charity or Justice oblige you to render to every one according to his degree Here examine every word and you shall find matter for accusation Clearness of Confession consisteth in explaining your selves in simple honest and significant terms S. Bernard in his book of the Interiour house which is the Conscience hath
it self in a bloudie tempest of three Ages in the contradiction of a thousand Sects From whence it proceedeth that the crueltie of Tyrants hath served for encouragement to the faithful and the bloud of Martyrs for seed to posterity Where can a Religion be found which with such innocency and purity of life such humility solidity sanctity and which is more with the arms of disgraces poverty despicable contempt austerity and torments hath changed the estate and face of the world hath planted the Cross in the capital Citie of the Empire above the thunder-bearing Eagles of the Emperours and the ashes of a poor fisherman massacred for this law above the Diadems of Kings What would the ancient Caesars say if they rose again from their graves to behold in Rome where all the Monarchies were established and incorporated where all the devils and furies were cantonnized as in their last and strongest fortress in Rome from whence came all the fulminating thunders and bloudy Edicts against Christians where the sword of persecution was sharpened to reap a harvest of heads where was a Pantheon the magazin Wonderful proceeding of all their false Deities to see there the state of the supream * * * Alii nec minùs Christiani a liter sentiunt Bishop of Christians to see there a Church erected to Peter the fisher-man much more magnificent than ever was the Pantheon Say human wisdom if the SAVIOUR of the world at the age of twelve years when he began publickly to testifie he was come to redeem the Kingdom of his Father from violent and unjust usurpers had asked counsel of you touching the proceedings which ought to be held in this business what had you advised him Had you not demanded of him where are your treasures Have you not inexhaustible riches to oppose an Empire which hath a hundred and fiftie millions of revenew No I pretend to have no other riches but poverty Have you some five hundred thousand men in pay for ten years to maintain one army on Nilus another on Euphrates one on Rhene another on the Ocean another within the entrails of the Romane Empire No I purpose not to levie for execution of this design but twelve poor men sea-faring men without strength without industrie arms or so much as a staff Have you a thousand brave Oratours men of great learning eminent eloquence who will endeavour by the charms of their flowing tongues to attract the people and dispose them to their wills No I have none but simple ignorant people ideots that go out to preach the Cross What would you have said thereupon O folly how do you think to come to honour by ignominie to riches by povertie to greatness by the infamious punishment of the Cross to immortalilitie by a bloudie death And yet behold it is done What say you Is there in all this process any thing that is human Must we search out other miracles for confirmation of faith Adde hereunto that the devils craftily counterfeited Sanctitie an irrefragable argument wisdom power force by deceitful violent and bruitish ways but never could they constantly feign humilitie patience purity sanctity Sects which have taken this dissembled mask have not been able long time to keep it they all have shivered and broken with pride presumption private and publick impurities with ordures of execrable sacriledges The spirit onely of Christianitie hath always appeared as a true spirit of piety humility patience charity continency chastity mansuetude contempt of the world virtues so noble so elate so heroick that the life alone of a Christian being with conformity directed fairly to the doctrine of our SAVIOUR is a perpetual miracle able to convert worlds All that which the great Philosophers of this Universe could not attain with the flight of their feathers the Christian toucheth with his hand he hath demonstrated more in his works than they have said in their books they have built Common-wealths on paper and our religion hath raised Monarchies of real virtues And if the wicked who stagger in their belief had addicted themselves to the exercise of good works never would infidelity have made prey upon their understandings but for that they suffered themselves to be transported with the overflow of pride presumption curiositie of toys vanities and carnal sensualities of the world God in just vengeance suffereth them to fall into a reprobate sense Oh lost soul which givest way to this faintness and remisness in thy religion consider a little attentively all that I have said hereupon And if truth content thee not thou mayest well hereafter expect the lot of Cain the absence from the face of God perpetually frightful anxiety terrours and menaces from heaven the indignation of the sovereign Judge the hatred of men the ill success of thy affairs extraordinary maladies desolation the life of a sad howling wolf a tragick death and detestation of thy posterity Even Atheists amongst the confusions of Paganism have seldom or never found assurance therein some have been sacrificed to flames as Diagoras others Diog. laert Paulus Diac. l. 15. eaten up with lice as Pherecydes others devoured by dogs as Lucian others thunder-shot in a hath and turned to ashes in the twinkling of an eye as Olympias others have suddenly lost human speech and have bellowed like bulls and in this roaring have yielded up their souls as Simon Thuvan a wicked pedant Polydor. l. 5. in the year 1201. others have burst in pieces in an infamous privie infecting the sinks and publick sewers with their souls much more stinking as did the wicked Arius others have lost their scepter and eyes as a King of the Bulgarians who was deprived and blinded by his own father Trebellius as soon as Sabel l. 6. Lun 85. he returned from a Monastery where he had retired himself with armed power to chastise the Atheism of his son We are not yet in an Age so caytife where brave and couragious Magistrates are wanting to bridle the impudency of those who would advance these detestable Maximes of impiety We have seen in fresh memory the Decree of that great and illustrious Parliament of Paris that condemned to the fire the Authours of such abominations which powerfully stayed the violent course of black and beastly impieties that dispread themselves under the mask of goodness which shewed an heroick zeal both of the glory of God and general integrity and maintenance of laws for which God hath reserved to them a crown of immortality This Decree hath been attended with favours from heaven which even in an instant hath sweetened notably these punishments and invited the blessings of all good men that have with thanksgiving lifted their hands to heaven We had seen a little before the ashes of some to flie in the wind perhaps into the eyes of those which Picus Mir. Ep. 1. Magna insania Evangelio non credere cujus vevitatem sanguis Martyrum clamat Apostolicae resonant voces prodigia
my sufferings in satisfaction and my patience for sacrifice THE FOVRTH BOOK Of the impietie of COURTS The unhappie Politician HItherto having proposed the motives and obstacles that men of qualitie find in the way of Christian perfection I have made a collection of the most wholesom instructions which may guid them to the wisdom of heaven Consequently I purpose according as time and leasure will permit to write the historie of the holy Courts pursuing the course which I proposed in the Preface But this volume being become big alreadie in the press requireth nothing but the seal upon it Behold the cause why I have been willing to affix it thereon with two books of grave and admirable histories which may serve as a scantling of the whole piece I intend The scope of all this work is to declare a most worthy saying of S. Augustine That nothing is so miserable as the prosperitie of the wicked nothing so happie as true and solid pietie To bring these two verities into their full lustre of light as well by example as precept I have chosen two Courts very different The one is the Court of Herod the other of Theodosius the younger In the one the disasters of impietie are beheld in the other the happiness of virtue Verily I have cast the eye of my consideration upon divers histories and have seen none which may make great men more sensibly apprehend how those who rule in Courts and places of dignitie by meere policie and humane prudence accommodating Religion to their own interest are deceived than the life and death of this unfortunate King of Judea He had an infinite natural judgement an admirable penetrating wit a courage unspeakably dauntless A man who derived from nothing advanced his fortune even to the Regal throne and established it amongst so many thornie affairs as to make himself admired by the wisest of the world But because he built upon this Maxim of impietie that Religion and Law must be made to serve our proper interests he led a life full of crimes and disturbances concluded with the most disastrous death that may be imagined That also which hath made me resolve upon this historie drawn from Josephus with some other little fragments and memorials dilating it according to the talent of my stile without using any other transcription is that besides the unhappie Polititian you shall read therein Innocencie persecuted in the life of a Lady who hath been a true mirrour of patience and whom I purpose to propose as one of the greatest ornaments of our holy Court It is from hence I may truly gather a most beautiful rose amongst the sharpest throns shew calmest serenitie in the roughest storms and seek the honey-comb in the lions throat since I in Herods Court endeavour to find out the patient and chast Mariamne the true Table of innocencie Mariamne wife of Herod the picture of patience unworthily used The sufferance of this poor Queen would deserve to be consecrated with a pen of Adamant in the Temple of Eternitie since she is able to dazle the eyes of the most hardie to replenish the mouthes of the most eloquent and ravish the minds of those who admire no vulgar things God who ever raiseth the glorie of his Elect as it were upon the depth of the greatest miseries seeing the soul of this Princess amongst the most eminent and illustrious thought he must give her a large field for encounter to reap the richest palms of patience and he gave her Herod a bad husband a barbarous persecutour an infamous executioner but ever more sutable to the patient Mariamne in the qualitie of a persecutour and a hang-man than in the office of a husband To conceive the strength of this anvil we must know the force of the hammer which beateth on it To speak sufficiently of the singular virtue of this Queen we must thereunto oppose the malice of Herod we necessarily must behold how this disloyal man holding his life scepter and crown from the house of Mariamne for recompēce therof took from her her scepter crown and life after he had drawn her bowels out causing her nearest of kin to be put to death before her eyes then casting her all bloudie upon the pyle where the bodies of her parents and brethren were burned as the last sacrifice of his furie yet never at all startling her invincible patience Every man speaketh of Herod as of a man of morter steeped in bloud as of a Tyrant who would murder mercie it self but every one knoweth not the wiles he used to possess himself both of the Queen Mariamne and scepter of David oppressing the one with all ingratitude and governing the other with unspeakable mischief About some fiftie years before the Nativity of our The estate of the Kingdom of Judea before Herod came to the crown Lord and Saviour the kingdom of Judea which had subsisted although amongst strange eclypses and horrible vicissitudes from King David almost a thousand years after it had so many times tottered and so often by many shocks and concussions been established in the end found its total ruin and tomb in the discord of two brothers At that time Hircanus Hircanus reigned a good man but a bad King who neither had fortitude valour nor courage He used as much remisness in his charge as he practiced innocencie in his manners His overmuch easiness made him degenerate into a certain stupiditie and being unapt to do ill he rendered himself capable to be an instrument of all kind of evils by being too easie for the impressions of another He acknowledging his own weakness freely resigned the dignitie and burden of rule to his brother Aristobulus a valiant and Aristobulus hardie man who had little success and many enterprises In the mean time Palestine during the inconstant Antipater the father of Herod affected the Kingdom of Judea wavering of this Royaltie was much courted by her neighbours but above all by Antipater father of Herod an Idumcan by Nation an Arabian in manners wealthie factious able to overturn a large Empire by his subtil wiles had for a long time a plot upon the Kingdom of Judea He well foresaw it would be a matter very difficult for him to force a passage for his wicked ends whilst this couragious lion Aristobulus bare sway but were he dismounted and Hircanus seated again in his throne all would be in his own power What doth this Arabian then he soweth in the souls and minds of the people seeds of revolt against Aristobulus saying They were very remiss and disloyal so to suffer Hircanus their lawful King to be dethroned to whom nature had granted Empire to transfer the Kingdom to a mutinous and turbulent spirit who quickly would with ill manage make them feel the ruin and desolation of all Palestine That they had forsaken a King blame-worthie in nothing but in surplusage of goodness to take another who having made entry into principality
her the news thereof The Empress saluted him very courteously and disposed her heart to speak to him touching a certain sum of money she desired to give for the entertainment of his Monks but the good man divining the thoughts of her heart saith to her Madame trouble not your self for this money there are other affairs which more concern you know you very shortly must depart out of this world and now you ought to have but one care which is to entertain your soul in that state you desire it should part out of this life Eudoxia at the first was amazed at this discourse It seemeth souls as Plato saith go not but with grief out of fair bodies but this was too much disengaged to do in the end of those days any unresigned act After she had a long time talked to Euthymius as one would with Angels she gave him the last adieu full of hope to see him at the Rendez-vous of all good men Returning into Ierusalem she had no other care but to set a seal upon all her good works then distributing whatsoever she had to the poor she expected the stroke of death freely and resignedly her soul was taken out of her body throughly ripened for Heaven as fruit which onely expects the hand of the Master to gather it She was about threescore years of age having survived Theodosius her husband and Pulcheria Flaccilla Marina Arcadia for all of them went before her into the other world she was married at twenty years of age she spent twenty nine in Court and as it were eleven in Jerusalem she deceased in the year of our Lord 459. the 21. year of Pope Leo and the 4. of the Emperour Leo Successour of Martianus A woman very miraculous among women who seemeth so much to have transcended the ordinary of her sex as men surpass beasts More than an Age is required ere nature can produce such creatures They are born as the Phenix from five hundred to five hundred yeare yea much more rare A great beauty great wit great fortune a great virtue great combats great victories to be born in a poor cottage as a snail in his shell and issue out to shew it self upon the throne of an Empire and die in an hermitage all is great all is admirable in this Princess But nothing more great nothing more admirable than to behold a golden vessel with sails of linnen and cordage of silk counterbuffed by so many storms over whelmed and even accounted as lost in the end happily to arrive at the haven Behold her Potraicture and Elogie AVGVSTA EVDOXIA EUDOXIA AUGUSTA THEODOSII JUNIORIS CONJUX EX HUMILI FORTUNA IN MAGNUM IMPERIUM TRANSCRIPTA SCEPTRUM VIRTUTIBUS SUPERAVIT CELESTIS INSTAR PRODIGII FOEMINA INGENIO FORMA VITA SCRIPTIS ET RELIGIONE CLARISSIMA CUM VICENIS NUPTA ANNOS XXIX EGISSET IN IMPERIO ET UNDECIM FERME IN PALESTINA HIEROSOLIMIS RELIGIOSISSIMO EXITU VITAM CLAUSIT ANNO CHRISTI CDLX AETATIS LIX Upon the picture of EUDOXIA Fortune unparallel'd beauty her own A spirit that admits no Paragon Divine immense although it seem to be 'T was but the Temple of the Deitie HEr example drew an infinite number of great Ladies to contempt of pleasures and vanities of Court to seek the Temple of repose in the deserts of the holy Land Among others Queen Eudoxia her Grand-child who as we have said was married into Africk treading the world under foot with a generous resolution came with her Crown to do homage at the tomb of her Grand-mother kissed her ashes as of a holy Empress and was so ravished with the many monuments of virtue she had erected in the holy Land that there she would pass the residue of her days and choose her tomb at the foot of that from whence she derived her bloud and name It is a great loss to us that the learned books written by this Royal hand have been scattered for those varieties of Homer which are extant are not Eudoxia's Photius much more subtile than Zonaras to judge of the works of antiquity maketh no mention thereof in the recital of the writings of this divine spirit but of her Octoteuch which he witnesseth to be a worthy heroick and admirable piece Behold that which is most remarkeable in the Court of Theodosius And verily for as much as concerneth the person of the Emperour he did enough to make himself a Saint by living so mortified in his passions in the delights of a flourishing Court It is a meer bruitishness a very plague of mans soul to make no account of Princes but of certain braggards vain brain-sick and turbulent spirits who fill histories with vain-glorious bravadoes whoredoms murders and treacheries these are they of whom the spirit of flesh an enemy of God proclaimeth false praises and such an one seemeth to himself sufficiently great when there appeareth a power in him to do ill A calm spirit united docible temperate though he have not so many gifts of nature is a thousand times to be preferred before these vain-glorious and audacious who are onely wise in their own opinion valiant in rashness happy in vice and great in the imagination of fools It is good to have the piety of Theodosius and to let over-much facility work in praying and pray in working to have the beak and plumage of an Eagle and the mildness of a Dove to lay the hide of a Lion at the feet of the Stature of piety As for Pulcheria she was the mirrour of perfection among the great Princesses of the earth yet not without her spots but still giving water to wash them away And for Eudoxia you find in her what to take what to leave many things to imitate few to reject but an infinite number to admire Behold in the end the Fortunate Pietie which I have set before your eyes as a golden statue not onely to behold it in passing by but to guild your manners with the rays and adorn your greatness with the glory thereof Who will not admire the prosperity of the Empire of Constantinople in the manage of Theodosius of Pulcheria of Martianus under the rule of piety and not say Behold the world which trembleth in all the parts thereof under the prodigious armies of Barbarians who seem desirous to rend the earth and wholly carry it away in fire and bloud from the center Behold the Roman Empire which hath trodden under foot all Scepters and Crowns of the earth ruined dis-membred torn in a thousand pieces in the hands of a vitious Emperour who buried it under the shivers of his Scepter and behold on the other side God who preserveth his Theodosius his Pulcheria his Martianus among these formidable inundations which cast all the world into a deluge as heretofore he did Noe in the revengefull waters which poured down from Heaven to drown the impurities of the earth What nurse was ever so carefull to drive a flie from the face of her little infant while
unfold according to the succession of Ages the Elogies of great men who in the practice of the world flourished in all piety to cast confusion upon the foreheads of such who being heirs of their bloud and fortunes alienate themselves so far from their merit Yet cannot I absolutely promise any thing First because the exercise of preaching and other ministeries afford me little leisure to write and although I might have some time for this purpose yet have I some other labours upon the holy Scripture of a longer task which would require their season Secondly I see many worthy men who much more ably can perform it than my self my talent is small and my pen is slow it can hasten nothing I must ponder my works before I publish them though very imperfect They ever seem to me too soon to take flight and light I would as it were perpetually hold them by the wings Briefly it is no small labour to find so many Saints in Courts You know the Philosopher who searched for men with a candle at noon-tide and had much ado to find any How much more difficult think you is it to meet with Saints especially in the decrepitness of this Age wherein there is little vigour and many maladies If you require books of me I say give me Saints although verily I rather should endeavour to engrave sanctity in my manners than writings The time will come when books shall be gnawn by moths on earth and works in Heaven esteemed LAUS DEO THE HOLY COURT THE SECOND TOME TREATING OF The PRELATE The SOULDIER The STATES-MAN The LADIE Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS Translated into English by Sr. T. H. DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM LONDON Printed by WILLIAM BENTLEY and are to be sold by John Williams at the Crown in St. Pauls Church-yard 1650. To the RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD D'SACKVILE Earl of DORSET Baron of BUCKHURST Lord Chamberlain to the Queens Majestie Knight of the Noble Order of the Garter and of his Majesties most Honourable PRIVIE-COUNCEL RIGHT HONOURABLE THe eminent and well deserved place your Honor holds in the Court of her Majesty to whose gracious favour the first part of my Work was heretofore humbly consecrated emboldens me in the adventure of this present address to your Honour nor shall there I hope any notable disproportion appear to the eyes of the judicious that I thus purposely select your Honour to wait on her HIGHNES in a printed Dedication who at Court in so near a degree daily attend on her Sacred person The great and general applause with which France hath entertained the whole Work in the original gave encouragement to my pen to continue that first labour in the translation of this Second piece Here may be seen the Court of a great and glorious Prince standing conspicuous to all eyes like a goodly fabrick raised on four fundamental columns two of which the Souldier and the Sates-man may not improperly seem to reflect on your Honour The first when in the fair occasions of his Majesties fit employments his just reason shall at any time call you forth into action The second in the present and frequent use he hath of your well matured counsels Both which by masculine courage and sober wisdom aptly personated in CONSANTINE and BOETIUS are here presented to the life as strong patterns for imitation It is your Honours patronage that thus brings them with the rest into the fruition of English air and me by this opportunity into the grateful acknowledgement of many favours received from your Honour which since I cannot make known by more real demonstrations I offer this poor endeavour to supply the plentifull desires of him who resolves to persist The humble devoted servant of your Honour T. H. TO THE WISDOM of GOD INCARNATE ETernal WISDOM Supream INTELLIGENCE behold me prostrate before the abyss of your great and Divine lights to offer up the homage of my person and book acknowledging the nothing both of the one and other and protesting to have neither spirit nor pen which is not of You and for You who are the source of good thoughts and accomplishment of all praise-worthy discourses The Design and Order of this BOOK WE have to speak properly but two great Books Heaven and the Bible which shall never perish The rest bear some sway and have some lasting among men yet in conclusion we find their ends but the most part of those which are written in these days fall into the world as drops of rayn into the sea of which the Ocean neither feeleth the approach nor departure I exposed my first Tome of the HOLY COURT amidst such a throng of Writers as it were with this conceit thinking I carried a little dew into a great River and that when I had spoken some truths as it were passing along I should in my birth bury my self in the tomb of so many volumns which is excusable by the law of necessity and honourable for the multitude and quality of those which are there to be found Notwithstanding I see that God who guideth our lives and pens hath been pleased this work should gain some estimation and that as it hath exceeded the merits of its Authour so hath it surmounted his hope exposing it self with some fruit and comfort by an endeavour which I shall never think ill employed This hath again put the pen into my hand to continue what I had begun whereunto such Honourable personages have perswaded me with motives so reasonable that having small ability to undertake a second labour I had likewise less power to refuse it Such as complain my pen hath not soon enough satisfied their desires must remember that though tardiness be a mother somewhat unpleasing yet are not the children therefore deformed The production of good Books should not resemble that of certain birds which according to the saying of an Ancient issue from their mothers before they are born Symposius but we must a long time form and foment them in our minds that they may appear in publick for it is a very poor business by precipitation to be able to hope no other thing but through haste to fail that you may repent at leisure I rather fear the reproach of rashness than delay because in this mortal state wherein we live all our perfectest actions are no other than gross essays of perfection This may be spoken without extenuating the worth of some celestial wits who make expedition and goodness walk hand in hand it being absurd that those who are unable to imitate them should boast infirmities opposite to their abilities For my part I content my self to afford good liking and admiration to the Works of others reserving nothing else but labour for mine own And although notwithstanding my endeavour I never find sufficient satisfaction in this Book to please those Readers whom I have found so propitious yet doubt not but I have in some sort
remembering what had passed in the Roman Empire he saw that those Emperours who had shewed themselves most fervent in the superstition of false gods and were the greatest persecutours of Christians had been infamous and unhappy not beloved of the people without name not honoured issueless and and for the most part odious and execrable to posterity He then imagined that this Religion which professed so much sanctity and was grown up in the tempests of three hundred years had something divine in it and that perhaps it would not be amiss to invoke in this great labyrinth of affairs the God of his mother As he then went up and down revolving these discourses in the bottom of his thoughts casting his eyes up to Heaven he perceived about the evening the figure of a great Cross all composed of most resplendent light which seemed unto him to bear these Characters IN HOC VINCE Vanquish in this sign This was much more important than the bowe in Heaven which Augustus Caesar saw about the sun when he entered into Rome to take possession of the Empire Notwithstanding Constantine and the Captains who observed this sign in Heaven had some distrust because of the figure of the Cross which till then was ever accounted of an ill presage Now as the Emperour slept in the night in great perplexity of cogitations it seemed that the God of the Christians appeared unto him with the same sign which he had seen the day before commanding him expresly to carry it hereafter in his Ensigns Following this vision he caused a Banner to be made in the manner as Eusebius describeth it who had seen it It was as a launce all of gold which had a piece of wood athwart in form of a Cross from whence hung a rich imbroidery in which was the image of the Emperour and about it a Crown of gold and pearl which bare in the middle the two first letters of the name of our Saviour This was from that time forward his prime Banner which the Romans called the Labarum It was no otherwise different from the standards of the Roman Bands but that it carried the sacred cypher of this venerable Title which was not understood by all the world but held by the Pagans as some devise of the fantasie of spirit The war against Maxentius having so prosperously succeeded as we have said under this propitious standard Constantine held the Saviour of the world in great veneration and made the Edicts which we know in favor of Christians Notwithstanding he for a long time deferred his publick and solemn profession thereof whether it were that the course of great warlike enterprizes and affairs diverted his mind or whether he feared to distast the prime men of the Empire by this change It is likewise thought that his wife Fausta whom he in the beginning much affected greatly weakened his love to Christianity in such sort that the Christians ceased not to be still ill intreated in this remisness of the Emperour In the Absolute coÌ„version of the Emperour end after the calamitie of the death of his son and wife so tragically happened in his own house he seriously opened his eyes about the nineteenth year of his Empire to seek remedy for his evils Zosimus a Pagan leadeth us as it were not thinking of it to the knowledge of the time and manner of his Baptism For he saith that Constantine after the death of Crispus and Fausta had great remorse of conscience and that not wholly having abjured Paganism he sought from South-sayers and Pagan Philosophers as others adde the means to purifie himself from the bloud which he so unfortunately had shed It is said that one Sopater the wisest of the Discourse of Sopater Platonists who had sometime lived in his Court told him these stains of bloud would stick on souls and never be washed out and that if they departed this life without punishment they would re-enter into other bodies to expiate in the end those crimes which they had committed and that there was no other remedy The Emperour found this Philosophie very harsh and his spirit being much tormented with very strange disturbances behold saith Zosimus an Aegyptian newly come from Spain to Rome note that he meaneth the great Bishop Hosius who was sent at the same time into Aegypt by Pope Sylvester This Aegyptian saith he having insinuated himself into the favour of some Ladies of the Court found by their means access to the Emperour who failed not to propose unto him the difficulties and troubles of his conscience This man answered him that his Majesty should not need to disquiet himself hereupon and that there was no crime so enormous which might not be expiated by the remedies which are practised in Christian Religion To this the Emperour very willingly hearkened and resolved all delayes laid apart to become a Christian See here the beginning of the Baptism of Constantine His Baptism As for the sequel it is a question much perplexed for some would have him to be baptized in the suburbs of Nicomedia upon the point of death and others at Rome by S. Sylvester about the 19th year of his Empire I say briefly to decide this difficulty that it is a most unreasonable belief to think that Constantine the Great called by the general voice of the holy Fathers The holy and Religious Emperour Constantine recorded in memorials and publick registers of the Church which are recited before Altars as the chief of Orthodox Princes Constantine whom the Arians yea the most refractory which have been after him never durst declare of their faction to have been christened at his death by the hand of an Arian Bishop out of the communion of the Catholick Church There is not one to be found who favoureth this opinion but Eusebius who hath been an Ensign-bearer of the Arians and who no more ought to be credited in this article than a Pagan Historian it being most unequal to take him for a Judge who had made himself a party in this affair And if some passages be found somewhat doubtful in the Chronicle of S. Hierom which seem to support this errour it is easie to consider that this Doctour who was a merchant enriched with infinite variety of learning hath made many pieces which he rather translated and compiled from others than composed upon his own invention and the learned are not ignorant that his Chronicle is accounted in this kind of books as a work formed from observations and opinions of Eusebius which should not at all alter the estimation we have of Constantine acknowledged and averred by so many other passages of the same Doctour And if S. Ambrose in the funeral Oration of Theodosius said that Constantine received Baptism being in extremity we must not Iâ— ultimis coâ—stitutus therefore infer that he was baptized by Arian in the last instant of his life otherwise he would not call him in the same passage a Monarch of great
appointed him and that he necessarily must change the countrey whereat being much amazed yet still persisting in his design as not throughly satisfied upon the will of God it is held the tools and instruments of work-men were insensibly transported over the sea to the other shore and that an Eagle setling upon the Level of the Master-Architect took it up and hastened to bear it directly to Byzantium for that is the City whither Zonar Glycâ—â— Constantine forsaking the ruins of Troy transferred his great designs It had heretofore been a very fair City but as arms strike at all which is eminent so had it been infinitely ransacked by many wars happening in the revolution of affairs and Ages Yet it still supported it self with some manner of reputation when this great Prince determined to amplify enrich and perfect it throughly there to fix the seat of his Empire It is added that himself marched round about the wals holding in his hand a half-pike designing the circuit of his future Constantinople and as he still went measuring up and down by the aym of his eye one of his favourites said to him Emperour how long will it be ere you make an end I will finish saith he when he stayes that goeth before me Which made men think there was some heavenly intelligence that conducted his enterprize At the same time he thought he saw in sleep a very ancient Lady which in an instant was turned into a most beautiful virgin whom he adorned and attyred setting his Diadem on her head Observe what is said of the beginnings of Constantinople whether such things happened with all these circumstances or whether we naturally love to tell some strange tales in favour of antiquity as if these fictions were able to give it the more credit One thing is most undoubted which Zosimus although an enemy to Constantine is enforced to admire that the manage of this great design was so prosperous that in five or six years a goodly City was seen on foot which extended about one league in circuit beyond the walls of Byzantium Constantine who had a holy desire to equal it to ancient Rome spared nothing of all that which the invention of men might find out courage undertake and power execute He there built Palaces Theaters Amphitheaters Cirques Galleries and other edifices infinitely admirable so that S. Hierom had reason to say that Constantine to attyre his Constantinople despoiled all the other Provinces It is a Maxim among Great-ones that to make a huge Dragon it is fit he first devour many little serpents and to raise a great City many much less must be ruined to serve for food unto it The greatnesses of God are good deeds those of the world are naturally destructions for they eat and devour their neighbours as the tree which we call the Ivie which insensibly draweth the juice of plants growing near unto it It is not expedient there should be many greatnesses in the world they would drie rivers up as did the army of Xerxes and would impoverish each other by their mutual contestations Yet notwithstanding needs must there be Majesty in the civil world to the proportion of elementary And for this cause God made Kings taking a pattern from himself commandeth we honour them as his living images Kings make the greatnesses of the world which are the effects of their powers Needs must there be a Constantinople that posterity may see Constantine on the back side of the medal for I think his virtues have represented him on the other side very honourable At the least it is a thing exceeding laudable and well considered by S. Augustine that in this infinite store of Pagans which he must yet of necessity tolerate the Emperour permitted not either Temples of Idols Sacrifices or Pagan ceremonies Well might he be curious to cause from all parts to be brought ancient statues of marble brass and other matter which represented Jupiter Cybile Mercury Apollo Castor and Pollux and so many false Divinities which he set up in Theaters Amphitheaters or Races where the courses of horses were used and in other publick places Eusebius followed by Baronius holdeth it was to expose them to the scorn of the people which is very hard to believe for I should rather think that these pieces being the most exquisit workmanships of the world and that Constantine vehemently desiring the beauty of this City could not then resolve upon such a Jewish zeal as to break and deface them but contented himself with the distribution of them into profane places to give lustre to his enterprizes Yet must we say that though we at this present are out of the danger of Idolatry rich men of this Age have no reason to set up so readily in their Halls and cabiners Junâ—'s Venuses and Diana's and so many histories of the Tertul. l. de Idol cap. 6. Metamorphosis with scandalous nakedness Tertullian an eager spirit pursueth all this as a crime and proveth in the book he composed of Idolatry that all those who cooperate in such works do worse than if they sacrificed to Idols the bloud of beasts For they offer saith he their spirit their industry their travel and their estate to Sathan and though they have no intention of sin they minister matter to other of offending God Behold the cause why Constantine although he were in an Age wherein Paganism being still in much request it was very difficult to take away all these figures notwithstanding he disguised them as much as he could witness that a great statue of Apollo being brought to Constantinople one of the best pieces that ever had been seen in those elder times he caused a Constantine to be made of this Apollo changing it into his own image and commanding some parcels of the venerable nails of our Saviour to be enchased over his head It is in my opinion to this same image that he added a golden globe in the hand thereof and over it a Cross with this inscription Tibi Christe Urbem commendo Besides he made three Crosses to be erected the most magnificent that might then be imagined set in the midst of a publick place the statue of the Prophet Daniel among the Lions all covered over with plates of gold to represent a figure of the Resurrection And as for his Palace he caused to be pourtraid at the very entrance thereof the history of the Passion in a most exquisit work wrought and tissued with pretious stones very much resembling Mosayk work All of it being finished he made the dedication of the City on the tenth of May and as it is very probably supposed the five and twentieth of his Empire consecrating it to God in memory of the glorious Virgin Mary and doing great acts of liberty to the people which he commanded by his Edicts to be continued for perpetuity Codin addeth that he caused also sumptuous edifices there to be built for the Christians Senatours which he
the 1. Decad. chap. 12. 13. Agreat man having qualities and virtues of mind and body most innumerable and that his fortune being very great be had notwithstanding equalled it by his industry and merit Behold a testimony from the mouth of an enemy I would here willingly demand of Machiavel who in the Treatise he composed of a Prince said That he which in all things would hold a strict profession of an honest man cannot long continue in the company of such others as are of no esteem and that it is necessary for a Prince who will maintain his own power to learn how he may sometimes be wicked and to practise it according to the necessity of affairs And in his State-Discourses well discovereth he is of opinion a Prince should cherish the Religion which most suteth with his designs whatsoever they be I should willingly know of all those that pursue Admirable providence of God above all humane Policy the like Maxims with this corrupt spirit what they would here answer me upon the progression of the fortune of Constantine Verily behold here a Statewisedom whereunto the pen of this Secretary who pretended ability in some petty humane tracks cannot arrive Behold a light whereat all these eyes are dazeld Behold an abyss where all carnal men are lost if we will well reckon them up we shall find twelve or thirteen who in several ways argue upon the Diadem with Constantine By what degrees hath the divine providence conducted him to the Sovereignity of the Empires of the world Is it by those which Monsieur Nicholas Machiavel hath prepared to lead his Prince in If one must dispoil himself of innocency to be re-invested with the robe Imperial why did Constantine take the way of Empire by that of sanctitie If use must be made of Religion as of an instrument of State and that taken which hath the most credit in the opinion of the people why went he about to chuse Christian Religion at that time when the most part of the world was ingulfed in Gentilism Behold Maxentius who according to the ordinary custom of the people of Rome caused the pretended books of Sybilles to be turned over consulted with Augures offered sacrifices This gave him a reputation of piety with a people as much infidel as him self Why did not Constantine pursue the same ways Why did he set the sign of the Cross on his Standards esteemed fatal and of ill presage in the minds of the most part of his army What favour might he then expect from Christians Would he draw treasures from them They were despoiled of all Pretended he to raise huge armies of them for his service They were so cut down that one onely month saw seventeen thousand heads upon the ground Did he perswade himself there was much strength in their religion They were all either massacred maimed or banished Did he look for counsel They were men esteemed void of learning or policy Did he hope for credit They were trampled under foot like dirt in the streets Why then did a man reputed of so excellent judgement confine his interests to these miserable creatures He stood in need for the accōmodation of his affairs of a Roman Senate and it was Pagan He wanted good Captains they were in a manner all Gentiles He must have Forts and they all held for ancient superstition What doth he go about And yet behold in a time wherein his affairs least seemed to require it he takes the marks of Christianitie and with them hasteneth to assail the Army of Maxentius composed of a hundred threescore and ten thousand footmen and eighteen thousand horse he himself according to the relation of those who lived in the very same time having in this conflict but very small troops From whence cometh it that he in so short a time and with so few people defeated such formidable powers Not to bely the matter had these men been but earthen statues they might make resistance Had they but been an army of sheep they might weary the souldiers of Constantine to cut their throats From whence comes it they were so soon defeated From whence comes it that Maxentius so basely betook himself to the stratagem of a bridge which he prepared for his enemie From whence comes it that a Roman Senate which had confirmed so many Edicts against the Cross a people bred up in the horrour of the crucified should readily receive a man who entred into Rome with the Cross and the name of the crucified upon his Standard From whence comes it that on the triumphall Arch dedicated to him he would have no mention of Roman Gods At the least according to the counsel of the Sectaries of the Florentine Secretary he should dissemble his religion he should give way to time he should make himself outwardly a Diocletian and inwardly if needs he would a Constantine Will any one say he was at that time a man victorious who came to give law and not receive it But who saw not that his fortune being as yet in the bud he was to walk towards Empires as on thorns fearing above all things to irritate in the change of Religion the principall spirits of the East and West who were passionately affected towards their Sect I affirm Maxentius the Defendor of the Gods ruinated himself by his ill government Lycinius was yet on foot and verily Lycinius an ancient souldier who had waxed old in arms and had never arrived to the Empire but by his valour drew in the end all the partie of Gentilism with forces innumerable both by sea and land which seemed able to swallow many worlds He made use of the counsell of Monsieur Machiavel he protested he took arms for the defence of the Gods and Altars of ancient Rligion against a man who sought to introduce a barbarous Sect into the World Was not this a matter very specious in the times when the superstition of Gentiles was exalted by Edicts of Emperours to the highest degree of honour Lycinius notwithstanding is beaten overthrown ruined both by sea and land although he were one of the most inventive in the subtilities of the art millitary of the most resolute for execution and the most stubborn to make up again a desperate fortune O you Nobilitie what shall we say hereupon Must we not confess there is one God in heaven and not any other God but that of Constantine who giveth Kingdoms establisheth Scepters and cementeth Crowns If all this proceeding had been an extravagancie of passion we might attribute one part of it to the hazard of Wars the other to the valour of Souldiers and the last to the heat of the first encounters But to hold an Empire thirtie and one years with so great an equality so accomplished a felicitie so secure a peace from the time of his last conquest what may one answer to this From whence is it that Constantine having forsaken ancient Rome of purpose to build a fair Citie
of the good of his fellow and it was a matter as rare to see a quarrel as a monster brought from the utmost limits of Africk Needs must I confess I took a singular content when one day passing through a street I heard two old men who discoursed in their language of forreign Countreys and the one said to his companion that duels and quarrels were used there the other would not believe him at all thinking that two men who bare one and the same figure could not contend one with another but he persisted and said he knew it to be true and that the source of all their debates was to say It is mine It is not It is so Yea No. This narration so enkindled them that This narration is found in the lives of the holy Anchorets they resolved to imitate those of whom they spake and to have at least once in their lives a quarrel But what endeavour soever they used they would never confidently say Yea No. For as soon as one had pronounced Yea and began to make shew of contestation the other said Take it I yield it I leave you to think whether any thing might be seen more pure than these souls In their commerces they so much feared to wrong their neighbours that you would have said they studied to deceive themselves for fear to get from another and if any one had gained ought by some mis-reckoning he was half dead and rose oftentimes at midnight to hasten to make restitution it being otherwise impossible for him to enjoy any repose I saw their Palace which was a very beautifull piece but the manner of suits and processes were there very rare yet had I notwithstanding a vehement desire to hear them plead at which time it was told me that the next day a notable cause was to come to a hearing I failed not to be present thereat and saw two men of the same condition like those of whom S. Chrysostom wrote the history who pleaded for a treasure Chrys hom 30 ad Popul Antio The matter was the one had sold his land and the other had bought it The seller quickly laid hold of his money and the buyer being entered into possession had begun to till the field to have corn from thence but not thinking thereof he found gold in it for coming to plow the land he made discovery of a great treasure But he as much astonished as if he had found some venemous creature or some mischievous piece of witch-craft went directly to the seller to advertise him of what had passed and wished him to take his gold again but the other being unwilling to understand him in that kind caused him to be called before the Judges This was a business then handled with so much concourse of people that never have I seen a cause so notorious I had much ado to understand any thing of it but certain broken words The plaintive spake How Must men be used thus You have sold me a field and not given me notice there was a treasure hidden in it why have you deceived me why have you used such foul play with me The defendant lifted up his hands to Heaven and said I swear and protest unto you by the faith of an honest man that I did not this purposely I sold you my land in all simplicity not having the least suspition that there was any treasure Well Sir if you sold it with a sincere intention saith the other to him God pardon you but I pray you come and take away your treasure He again Why should I take it It belongs to you The other To me What injustice is this I bought land and not gold You purchased the land answered the defendant and all the appurtenances it is reason that you possess all The poor plaintif replied sighing Would you use me in this fashion and charge me with such unhappiness Rather take your land again I will not said his adversary it belongeth to you Good God deliver me from such an unfortunate chance I will have care how I engage my self in the like In the end the treasure was adjudged to him that bought the land whereat he was much troubled so that his friends had business enough to comfort him Oh Age Oh goodness Oh golden poverty How much art thou now estranged from our manners I saw not there the Tornielle nor criminal process for crimes were banished from thence both by great severity of laws and the excellent disposition of the people Every one was made to render an account very exactly of the means he had to live on And there was a certain girdle as that of which Nicholas Damascene speaketh in his Policie wherewith the just wideness of the wast was measured and if any one were grown too gross he had much ado to escape unless he brought good witness that this happened not to him through idleness or excess of diet If a detractour were found all his teeth were knocked out one after another If a thief melted gold was poured down his throat If an homicide he was put to be fed on by vulturs in an iron cage If a blasphemer his lips were seared with a hot iron and his mouth so wed up If a drunkard he was put into a sack and thrown into the water If one unchaste he was burnt with a soft fire such horrour had they of vice Great volumes would be necessary to recount all the wonders of this celestial Agathopolis which require some other scope than that which I have undertaken I will content my self to tell you for conclusion that I saw in the middest of the Citie a great Pyramis of white marble on which was set the statue of Justice clothed with a robe all embroidered with stars holding in one hand a book of laws and in the other an ear of corn about her were also pourtrayed in embossed work truth wisdom and the arts and somewhat lower were beheld the statues of all the great States-men with certain excellent precepts of Policie engraven in brass some copies whereof I have drawn out which I my Politician desire to impart unto you The fifth SECTION Sage Precepts drawn out of the Monuments of the divine Agathopolis HE is the greatest States-man who to himself seemeth the least Imagine not your greatness consisteth wholly to set up the Common-wealth of Plato and Xenophon in your own imagination nor to lay together a huge heap of precepts nor to know Cabales or mysteries nor to make profession of great subtilities and stratagems we have seen by the experience of all Ages that in affairs there is a certain stroke of the Divine Providence which dazeleth all the wise disarmeth the strong and blindeth all the most politick with their own proper lights Ordinarily the most unhappy in States have been those who have made the greatest shew of knowledge to deceive under humane Policie That is it which ruined Jeroboam which undid Saul which overthrew the
of the bosom thereof as a man treacherous and put into the hands of the Guard to lead him to Pavia the place of his imprisonment He was not suffered to speak with his father-in-law Symmachus for all those who were honoured with his friendship are sequestred scarcely had he the means to give the last adieu to his wife Rusticiana who seeing her husband suddenly fallen from so eminent a dignitie into such disaster could not contain from saying unto him with scalding tears Syr is this then it which your innocencie hath deserved If the King be resolved to put you to death why suffereth he still a piece of your self to live which hath ever been so dear unto you I have courage enough to follow you either in exile imprisonment or death But Boetius replied again in few words that he might not any further increase her grief Madam the hour is not yet come trouble not your self to see me suffer for justice It is a title of honour which God hath reserved for his children The education which you have derived from your good father and the instructions you have received from me give me occasion to hope you will bear this accident with a Christian resolution My daughter it is not fit that our tears which fall from so much a higher place as we have been bred in greatness may shew any dejection in the estimation of men Support your self a little under your burthen and open your heart to the consolations of heaven since those of earth are mingled with so much acerbities Then turning to his children all dissolved into tears My children saith he God hereafter will become your father Make provision of great virtues which have ever been the inheritance of our house for all other blessings are but dust and wind This is the lesson which God giveth you in the change of my fortune Comfort your good mother by the dutie of faithfull obedience and live in hope Perhaps you shall see me again if it please God sooner than you imagine These words were arrows that pierced these faithfull hearts with most just resentments of nature which could not quickly end notwithstanding all the lenitives that might be applied The sixth SECTION The imprisonment of Boetius THe great changes of fortune which suddenly happen have this property in them that they strike our souls as waves not foreseen and give us the blow before we have leisure to understand our selves The poor Boetius seeing himself between four walls sequestered from the Citie which had served as a theater of glory for all his house taken away from the love of his own bereft of his library and all the most precious accommodations of life shut up as a victim destined for a bloudy sacrifice found himself in the beginning surprized with an over-whelming sadness as he hath left expressed in writing He bewailed with broken sighs his innocency unworthily handled he traced in his thoughts the marks of his former fortune he cast his eyes upon his forsaken family which seemed to him in the Lions throat he called into memory the unworthiness of his accusers who had been heard against him the ingratitude of the Senate that had condemned him for being faithfull unto them the cruelty with which this sentence was executed the wrack of his means the loss of his reputation and all the black horrours which a man declared criminal of treason figureth to himself In this abyss of disturbances he was displeased as Eâ—eu cur durs miseros a verteriâ— Ã â—e Et stentes oculis claudere saeâ—â— negas Lib. 1. Metr 1. it were with death which layeth hold on so many young men that desire nothing but to live and deigned not so much as to shut up his eyes which he perpetually moistened with his tears Hereupon we may see that the most couragious spirits in these accidents so strange and unexpected ever pay some tribute to the natural passions of men But likewise on the other side we shall observe the power which a well rectified judgement hath over it self when we behold it to dissipate all the troubles and agitations of the heart by the vivacity of reason and use of precepts of wisdom which he most exactly practised in this his captivity We have also the book of his Consolation composed in this prison which is verily in the judgement of learned men one of the most excellent pieces of work that may be framed on this subject where he introduceth Philosophie who visiting and awakening him from this dead sleep of sadness What Boetius saith she are you be then whom I have fed with my milk whom I have cherished with so good nutriments and bred up until you arrived to the strength of mans estate Verily I have given you arms which would strengthen you against all the strokes of fortune were it not that you have forsaken them Know you me no longer From whence proceedeth this silence Tell me is it out of shame or stupidity I had rather it were derived from a just bashfulness but as far as I can perceive you are become wholly senseless Will you say nothing to me Ah poor man he is not absolutely lost but so near as I can guess he hath a Lethargie a common disease with those who suffer themselves to be transported with illusions of the mind He hath forgot himself but he will recover when he shall know me Let us onely wipe his eyes surcharged with terrestrial humours and covered with a thick cloud of the world This done Boetius came to himself and framed an admirable Dialogue with this Queen of spirits to which I remit the Reader contenting my self to observe here the principal arguments which served him for his Consolation to the end we may learn with him in our afflictions to fix our resolution on the will of God and suck honey from the rock as the Scripture speaketh The first reason proposed to him by this Wisdom Lib. 1. pros 6. Maximus somes salutis vera de mundi gubernatione sententia descended from Heaven was to ask of him what opinion he had of the Providence of God and whether he thought the world moved by chance or were governed by reason God forbid saith Boetius that Iever come to this degree of folly as to think that all here below is casually done I know God ruleth in the world as in an house built by his own hands and that nothing happeneth in the affairs of men but either by his command or permission Thereupon Philosophie crieth out Just God! it is verily marvellous that a man who hath such an understanding of the Divine Providence can be sick of the disease wherewith I see you surprized My friend you entered into the world as into a list or circle whereof this Providence hath made the circuit with his own hands It is fit you Lib. 1. pros 1. alibi patiently suffer all that which happeneth to you within these limits as an ordinance
applaudeth as not to hope to be paid for his praises They are subject to much credulity whether it be through some easiness of nature too weak or by overmuch presumption and self-love in such sort that they quickly esteem themselves fair and worthy to be beloved by those who feign affection not seeing that fishes are taken with nets and women with the credulity of their light belief They undertake designs to make servants who are not of the order of Arch-angels to serve them as Raphael did Tobie not pretending power over their hearts and honours They are infinitly delighted to see a man prostrate at their feet especially when he hath some qualities which put him into the estimation of the world It is a glory among the quaintest to have gained slaves who love their chains and who will no longer live nor die but for them This is the cause they counterfeit themselves to be little Idols and take many sacrifices of smoak and although they at that time have not any intention to offend God notwithstanding they suffer themselves to dissolve among so many offers of services complement and protestations and in the end feel it is a very hard matter to defend ones self from an enemy who onely assaulteth us with gold and incense Drops of rain are composed of nothing but water and do by their continual fall penetrate stones so much sweetness of words submissions and observances redoubled one upon another are able to make a rock rent in sunder how can they but transport a woman who issuing from a bone faileth not to retain all the softness of flesh Love sometimes hath wings to fall upon its prey with a full souce and sometimes it goeth along with a crooked pace That which it cannot obtain by a prompt heat it expecteth from a constant importunity From thence ensue private conversation and disorders which make tales in cities stage-plaies bloudy tragedies which being begun behind a curtain are many times ended at the gallows I do not find a better remedy to stop the beginnings of lust than to behold the end thereof A Lady who solicited in matter of dishonour in the first baits shall draw the curtain and behold a huge gulf of scandals injuries rages and despairs will as willingly descend into Hell alive as consent to this bruitish passion She will seasonably proceed to remedies and unfold her heart in the secret of Confession will discover the deceipt of it and by this means avoid an infinity of disasters Thrice yea four-fold happy is she who will take these words as an Oracle and enchace them in her heart to remember them eternally The eight SECTION Discretion in the mannage of affairs WHen we have begun to polish our selves by these virtues Discretion will regularly apply us to conversation and affairs every one A title which the Wiseman expresseth by the word Sensata Eccles 7. And S. Paul useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2. much recōmending to women the care of houshold affairs according to her qualities A woman is a poor thing which hath no imployment nor discretion as there are many to be found who having lived to the age of ninety years have not learned any thing but to dress and undress themselves Why should we have a reasonable soul were it not to enrich it with knowledges which are necessary to us both for our selves the government of those which fall into our hands As we profess not to be wise so we have not made a vow of stupidity We should love as our eye-sight the reading of good books which teach us how to become better for they are wise companions and honest entertainments from whence we never behold jealousies nor scandals to arise It is not a very barren delight to behold women who as soon as they have made a silly complement have nothing else to say unless they talk of their ruffs or some such kind of trifles At the least I wish those who never have been willing to learn to speak would one day practise to hold their peace But they deafen the world with their prattle and daily deliver an Iliad of speeches wherein there is not so much as one good word Tell me not these maids so knowing are more subject to caution I would not have them I say unto you all learned as the Sybils and Muses but who will envy them an honest science of things which serve for the direction of manners There is none but spiders and such little creatures that turn flowers into poison We ought not to fear that a maid to whom good foundations of humility and devotion are given will abuse this celestial manna which is found in sage Writers I have learned from one full of wisdom and experience that for one young virgin instructed in learning which hath failed in her honour twenty other have been found of the ignorant who have so much the more grosly erred as they had the less knowledge of their fault I intend not by this counsel proposed which is to perfect them by reading that therefore we give liberty to the curiosity of reading of all sorts of books and namely those which treat of loves though in a very gentile manner for they have a little sting in them soft as silk which insensibly enters into the heart and when they describe this passion unto you with so many exquisite terms and honest inventions they create so beautifull loves that in seeking to imitate them we produce such as are deformed If we must become learned we ought to do it in that manner as the Saints Tecla Catharina Eudoxia Marcella Paula Fabiola Eustochium who with the spoils of Egypt furnished the Cross and Altars of our Saviour Nor would I advise a virgin to go and hide her self in a granary or cave to devour books It is fit she season her reading with works proper to her profession Let us never suffer her to be idle but so soon as age rendereth her capable let us give her some little direction and exercise in the house For why should we be ashamed to work with the needle since Augustius Caesar the founder of Empires reputed such kind of imploiments not unworthy of his daughters and that the Romans many years preserved as a relick the distaff of Queen Tanaquilla much more charily than the lance or sword of Romulus thinking it was more necessary to give women examples of industry than furnish men with idaeaes of war One would not believe how much the earnestness some have upon a good piece of work diverteth all other passions which may embroil the spirit but whosoever will make trial shall find that innocencie is never better lodged than at the sign of labour I leave you to think when a maid hath endeavoured to learn from her tender years matters fit for housewivery even to the kitchin what a goodly light is in that house whether it proceed from a father or from a husband for
some beggers whose misery she assisted Her whole heart went towards God her feet to the Church her hands to alms her eys to reading books of devotion her arms to exercises and works of her sex all her body to sacrifices and victims of her soul Observe you young maids who read these pages of what wood God useth to frame Saints and that never any happeneth to produce the miracles which Clotilda did in the conversion of a Kingdom not acting wonders of virtue in the interiour of the soul The King her uncle was so ravished with these pretious parts that the excess of his admiration turned into a furious jealousy for beholding this spirit more masculine than he could have wished and fearing least she might be possessed by some other besides himself he had no purpose to marry her but kept her so straightly that one would have said to have seen him he was the dragon in fables that ever stood centinel near the golden apple But oh silly humane prudence which still rowing against the current of the providence of God findest as many precipices in passion as thou openest snares for innoceny This man notwithstanding all his endeavours which went the contrary way bred up in his house a maid whom God had already destined to chastise his cruelty and make he unwitting thereof his Scepter tributary to a valorous husband who was to marry Clotilda and joyn the Kingdom of virtues to the force of his arms The second SECTION Clodovaeus requireth Clotilda in marriage CLodovaeus King of France a man born to make it appear what valour may produce when it is supported by piety dayly advanced his conquests among the Gauls yet still in so many victories remained a slave to Idolatry God was willing to win him to himself by the ways of chast love and by the means of a wife which should sanctifie his person and house The fame of the beauty and virtues of Clotilda which spread through neighbour Kingdoms with so sweet an odour failed not to approach him at that time when he was upon terms to take a wife in lawful marriage Love which many times surprizeth as well by the ear as the eye so enkindled him at the report made by his Embassadours of the perfections of this divine maid that he no longer retained either heart or thought but for her He affected what he never saw with a love mixed with reverence felt a more noble flame than he was wont which scorched him with a generous passion and excited him to require this Princess as the type of his felicities The difficulties proposed upon the effecting of this marriage augmented desire in him For he was of a vigorous spirit who measured all by the greatness of his own courage and resolved to break through obstacles to crown his purposes He addressed himself to his great favourite Arelianus and having opened unto him the project of this marriage would needs instantly dispatch him upon a solemn Embassage to confer with the maid and treat with the King her uncle This man who understood the suspicions and apprehensions of Gombaut made it appear unto him that the conquest of the golden fleece and the marriage of Clotilda were almost one and the same thing and that no access could be had to this maid without first speaking to this bull who threw flames and fire through his throat Clodovaeus conjureth him to use all possible industries to satisfie his passion assuring him he could not oblige him in any matter whereof he would be more sensible Aurelianus obeyeth and taking a ring from the Kings finger with certain other Jewels to present the Lady hastened towards Burgundy I cannot here conceal that which Baronius the Father of Ecclesiastical History was unwilling to omit seeing it is witnessed by good Authours and hath nothing incredible therein but onely with such who think it is a note of wisdom to seem very incredulous We know by what hath been spoken before that Clotilda seldom appeared in publick if it were not at Church and cast her eyes on very few but the poor God made use of this disposition for her good for Aurelianus having learned this Lady dayly conversed willingly with needy persons and that it was necessary to seem of this quality to speak unto her without suspicion took the habit of a beggar and as the servant of Abraham sent by the first Father of believers treated the loves of Isaac in requiring water of Rebecca who was to be his future spouse so this man managing the commssion of marriage for the prime King of the faithful resolved to beg alms of Clotilda to find means of access to her and for this cause he stood at the gate of a Church among a great rabble of beggers expecting till Mass were done that he might see the Princess come forth She failed not to perform acts of charity to all the poor according to her custom and perceiving this man who seemed of a generous aspect in these miserable rags felt her heart seized with extraordinary piety beholding one of so good carriage reduced to such misery and without any further enquiry she gave him a piece of gold Aurelianus seeing this royal hand so charitably stretched out to succour a counterfeit want whether he were transported with joy or whether he were desirous to make himself observed by some act he lifted up the sleeves of the Princess which according to the fashion of robes than usually worn covered all even to her hands and having bared her right hand kissed it with much reverence Clotilda blushed heartily thereat yet passed on further not shewing any resentment nor blaming the begger as some Authours adde Well saith she in secret to an old Lady who was her confident friend Have you observed what this begger did The other replied It was a very easie matter to note it since this act had painted her forehead with a most lively scarlet But yet said Clotilda to her what think you of it The Lady answered smiling What can I els think but that your rare perfections joyned to your liberality have transported him For my part I suppose said the Princess he hath some other design and if you think good we will cause him to come to the Palace to beg alms and thereupon take occasion to be informed of his person Aurelianus failed not to entertain this commandement which was the scope of his desire and accordingly to pass to the place assigned him where Clotilda beholding him soundly chid him for his boldness in lifting up the sleeve of her garment and kissing her hand He who was a most queint Courtier found out his evasion and said The custom of his countrey permitted to kiss the lips of Ladies at salutation but the happiness of his condition having abased him so low he could not aspire to the face Behold the cause why he contented himself with the hand it being a thing very reasonable to kiss a hand which is the source of
birth under your favour It is the third Part of a Court absolutely holy which not unlike the Citie S. John saw in his profound comtemplations cannot ascend from our manners to Heaven unless it descend from Heaven into our manners I likewise endeavour to fashion it in Books by the model of things celestial to imprint it on lives and I now undertake the defence of truth which constituting your salvation and composing your happiness well deserve to be the most serious employments of your mind It is true Sir all Maxims of State that depend not on the Maxims of God are effects of carnal prudence which end in flesh and all fortunes that rest not on him who with three fingers supporteth the globe of the earth rather pursue the way of precipices than the path of exaltation The wisdom of the world loves nothing so much as that whereof it is most ignorant it runs after honour not knowing what honour is ever hungry and still needy nor having any other aim but to make it self a Mistress over giddie spirits to become the slave of all passions Which maketh me say there are none but the blind who seek after it the miserable who find it the sottish who serve it and the forlorn who tie themselves to its principles But the wisdom of Heaven which I in these Maxims present you is so transcendently sublime above all humane inventions as the light of stars surpasseth the petty sparklings and slitting fires of the earth It is that which leisurely marcheth by holy paths to the sources of day-light and as being present before the throne of God beholdeth glory and felicitie unfolded in his hands It is the element of great souls such as yours and when they once are throughly settled therein they find tastfulness which turneth into nutriment and nutriment which passeth to immortalitie Your prudence may read in your own experience what I express in my Treatises nor need you go any further than your own life to meet with the proofs of these excellent verities You know Sir how the Divine Providence in the first flower of your age drew you from ill ways and snatched you out of the hands of infidelity as a Constantine from the palace of Diocletian to serve as a Buckler for the Church whereof impietie would have made you a persecutour This Providence knew so well how to separate bloud from manners that it caused you to demolish what your Ancestours had raised and preserving their dignity without touching their errours to make of the unhappiness of their judgement the beginning of your felicity From thence you see with what success the hand of God hath conducted you to the height of this most eminent glory wherein France at this present beholds you as a Prince accomplished in the experience of affairs and times the Father of good counsels the undertaker of great actions endowed with a spirit which seems an eternal fire and to be parallel'd by nothing but the goodness of your own heart You live peaceable as in the right sphere of true greatness where you perpetually reflect on two Poles God and the King You seek for the one in the other and you walk to the God of life by the most lively of his Images His Arms are beheld to prosper in your hands as well as his Edicts in your mouth You have born thunder and Olives throughout France under your protection awfull at one time and amiable at another but ever prosperous in both Yea fully to crown your happiness the Divine goodness hath afforded you a house flourishing in riches and honours which comprehendeth in its latitude two Princes of the bloud to serve as pillars for the State It gave you a wife who hath made of her fruitfulness the trophey of her virtues and entered by love into an eclipse to become the Mother of lights and bring forth children to bear the hope of Flower-de-luces The eldest Son whom your Excellency hath committed as a sacred pledge to our Colledge at Bourges would trouble us to tell you from whence he hath taken such and so many splendours and sparkling flames of wit which dazle the eyes of those who have the honour to be near him were not you his Father He is a Pearl who maketh it appear by the equality of his Orient that if Nature have equalled his birth to the greatest on earth he will equal his virtues to his extraction SIR I speak this ingeniously that you may both behold in your own Person what I treat in my books as also understand that true piety soweth the seeds of the most solid greatness But besides the relation this Design seems to have to the pleasure of God over you I find much obligation to offer it you as a slender testimony of a singular gratitude in our Superiours and our whole Societie which would willingly suffer their affections to pass through my pen if it had as much eloquence as the main body tenders respect and zeal to your service You have been pleased to make it known by your good purposes to love it by election defend it by justice honour it with your opinion encrease it with your liberalities and if your benefits be ornaments unto it your judgement serve for Apologies I received a notable portion in your favours whilest you resided in Bourges where your Excellency called me to deliver the Word of God and to confess your virtues in my discourses as I must acknowledge my discourses to proceed from your virtues It was by your conversation I perceived that as there is nothing too high for your understanding so there is not any thing too low for your bounty God hath bestowed on you the gift which the Scripture attributeth to the Patriarch Joseph to oblige hearts with sweetness not unlike the Engines of Archimedes which made water mount in descending so yours causeth not your humility to descend but to make it re-ascend to the source of the prime sublimity Which done not presuming any thing in regard of your Excellency but daring all through your courtesie I present these MAXIMS of the Holy Court of which many will make their reading others their precepts but you will I hope frame your virtues of them on earth to make them your Crowns in Heaven So wisheth SIR Your most humble and most obsequious servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Design and Order of the BOOK I Find Courteous Reader my Works do insensibly encrease under the savour of thy good opinion as plants sprout under the aspect of the most benign stars I had confined my self to that which concerneth the Historie of Courts and still rest in the same resolution But saw a piece verie necessarie in these times wanting in my Work which was the Treatise of MAXIMS and majestie of our Religion I almost durst not undertake it so much the subject seemed to require judgement preparation and abilitie But God having inspired me with a strong conceit I might be
favoured by those to whom he hath given full power over me submitted the slenderness of my wit to the power of their wills perswading myself a silly nothing may become a matter important in their hands You know how having a purpose to frame a Christian Institution in the HOLY COVRT for men of qualitie I began with their obligation to Pietie and consequently shewed the Obstacles must be vanquished to arrive thither Then I gave precepts of the principal virtues most concern them which were waited on with the Histories of Courts abbreviated into four Models In this that the good Court may triumph I represent a combat of two Courts the Holy and Counterfeit the Religious and Prophane wherein I unsold the victories of the chief Maxims of Christianitie divided into three Parts whereof the one treateth of the Diviuitie the other of the Government of this present life and the third of the State of the other world You may behold how divine the subject is and that the other Books were onely to prepare you to these great lights the rays whereof I diffused I must needs tell you that being surpassed by so many excellent men who have worthily handled a pen I have in this seriously sought to go beyond my self I have contracted large subjects into little Tracts which hath been no small labour there being not a Maxim whereof I could not have compiled an ample Volume But imagining conceptions are like hairs which more easily may be filletted up than dissheveled I have endeavoured to give you more substance in this Book than words and amplifications And seeing all the subjects are very serious I have sweetened them with excellent Examples to afford fit nourishment both to Eagles and Doves All which I now offer you in this is more than my promise thinking it better to give without promise than to promise and not give Your affection sets an edge upon my industrie and if labour waste the bodie for your avail and reserve works of the wit for posteritie it shall be as a Cedar which causing the death of the living seems to give life to the dead This Tome being replenished with important considerations cannot be for him who cursorily reads it with those delicious loyterings which sleightly furnish out the titles of Books and thence derive nothing but wind Give me Gentle Reader the contentment that God may be glorified in your manners by reading this as I here seek to honour him in his works MAXIMS OF THE HOLY COURT AGAINST THE PROPHANE COVERT First Part touching the DIVINITIE The first MAXIM Of Religion PROPHANE COURT HOLY COURT That matters of faith being invisible and uncertain we must tie our selves to the world which is visible and certain That matters of faith being most certain and very excellent we should fix the whole order of our life unto it 1. THere is nothing so reasonable in nature as to desire good nothing so eminent as to know much nothing so absolute as to have the power of all but there is not any thing so profitable as to proceed to true wisdom by a mysterious ignorance and to be in in created light by blindness The soul becometh another world by the means of knowledge or rather as God createth a world in essence that frameth another in Idaea But if truth and love do not co-operate therein man tormenteth himself in his knowledges and createth evils without end from which he cannot free himself no not by issuing out of life The Prophane Court say you leads you into a visible world but it is to behold miseries in it To a world certain but it is to teach you that happiness being therein un certain loss is undoubted All we have in The happines to be born a Christian the world is base caityf and difficult without knowledge of the true God It is but a laboursom turmoyl of affairs an amazement of transitory pleasures an illusion of deceitfull blessings which trouble us and starve us in stead of satisfying our desires or nourishing our hopes But the knowledge of God is the root Scire justitiam virtutem tuam radix est immortalitatis Sap. c. 15. 3. of immortalitie I then require of you O Reader that in the beginning of this discourse you adore the wisdom of God over you who hath selected you out of the Mass of so many Infidels to inrole you in the number of his children and hath drawn you from the confusions of so great darkness to call you into the light of Christianity Behold so many people covered under the veil of shadie night born in errour to live in bruitishness and die in despair of eternal salvation and you are enlightened by the rays of God illuminated by his wisdom guided by his direction covered with his protection nourished with his bloud animated with his life are made participant of his felicity If you be desirous in some measure to observe the Three tokens of the perfection of a thing S. Thomas 1. p. q. 6. excellency of your Faith and Religion consider the perfection of any thing is known by three principal notes Essence Operation and Repose All which you have visible in the wisdom of Heaven you profess His Essence is of an infallible verity his Operations miraculous and his Repose an unchangeable happiness For what assurance more solid than to have a God Solidity of our religion Incarnate for Authour who is come to cast the seeds of a golden Age and adopt a new world in the bloud of an eternal Testament Who can better teach us the secrets of God than God himself I cannot account Varro apud Vincen. tom 2. Illum quidem eruditorem elige quem magis mireris in suis nihil magnisicum docebit qui à se nihil didicerit him said Varro a skilfull Master who learns nothing of himself And he hath understood all in the bosom of his Eternal Father and from his own wisdom which is no other than his Essence He was promised from the beginning of the world preached through all Ages given as a pledge to the memory of all mankind so long before his coming was appointed his time birth life and death He came at his prefixed time all environed with prodigies and miracles all composed of virtues making greatness to proceed out of the lowliness of his humble and painfull life as lightening-flashes break through the obscurity of night 2. What foundations think you hath he laid of The foundations of faith your faith Men believe men upon a little piece of paper yea very often upon the breath of a silly word And Jesus would not be believed but by writing his Law with the rays of an infinite number of Prophesies which were verified in his Person with the bloud of more than ten millions of Martyrs who suffered for his doctrine with miracles so visible and irreprochable that they changed even executioners into Confessours and Tyrants into Martyrs To speak plainly he
comfort It is that which cooleth our ardours drieth our tears breaketh our setters and dissipateth our annoys If we be in darkness it is the light if we be anxious it giveth counsel If we be in a labyrinth of errours it is the thread which guideth us if in danger of shipwrak it is the haven and if we be at the gates of death it is life Away with all curiosities southsayers sorceresses and superstitions unworthy the name of a Christian Fie upon despaire and minds affliction Let us learn in all things which appertain to us speedily and effectually to fix our selves on the will of the will of the omnipotent let us continually say God seeth this affair since nothing escapeth the quickness of his eye He loves me as his child because he is goodness it self He is just because he is the measure of all justice He is potent because there is not any thing can resist his will Let us expect awhile the trouble I endure is but a flying cloud and God will do all for the best Let us say with S. Augustine O Sovereign Father who governest the vast frame of heaven I submit to thy direction Lead me on the August de civit Dei c. 8. l. 8. Duc me summe pater vasti moderatorolympi quacumque placuit nulla parendi est mora Aasum impiger fac nolle comitabor gemens malusque patiar facere quod licuit bono right hand lead me on the left turn to what side thou pleasest I follow thee without reply or delay For what should I get by resistance but to be dragged weeping and to bear becoming evil what I might do sincerely becoming good Heaven earth and sea said Nicephorus Gregorius (a) (a) (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niceph. Greg. l. 7. fight against a wicked man as a fugitive from Providence and a disturber of Justice Let us learn to sleep securely in this conformity to the will of God as a little infant on the teat of his nurse It is at the sight of this providence that Jonas buried in the belly of a whale and covered under the Oceans waves made a chappel of the devouring gulph which was to have been his punishment speaking affectionately to God (b) (b) (b) Jon. 2. 4. Omnes fluctus gurgites tui super me transierunt veruntamen rursus videbo templum sanctum tuum Behold all thy waves and abysses pass over my head yet I despaire not to behold thee in thy Temple It was in sight of this that the Patriarch Noe shut up in the Arke whilst wrathful heaven thundered over the earth the winds were unfettered the pillars of the world tottered with fatal convulsions whilst men and houses were torn in pieces to serve as a pastime for the Sea and that yels of beasts mingled with the cries of so many mortals ecchoed round about lastly when all the world swam he rested in an incomparable tranquillity adoring the counsels of Gods justice Sacred Providence we prostrate on the earth adore thee vindicate us from the bondage of our passions make us die to so many dead things of mortals that we hereafter may live in thy delight The fourth EXAMPLE upon the fourth MAXIM Divers observations upon Providence LEt us a little withdraw our minds from discourses to the consideration of examples like those who labouring on some curious works refresh their eyes with beholding the verdure of meadows or lustre of Emeralds Volumes might be compiled without end by him who would follow the foot-steps of divine Providence in so great a labyrinth of times and Histories so innumerable But it is not my purpose in these abbreviations where I endeavour to suppress much and well express a few things If you behold this Providence in nature there are eternal miracles which astonished the wise animated all voices gave matter to all pens and filled all the books in the world On what side soever we turn our eyes we meet this great Mistress with a hundred Providence of God in the ordinary works of nature arms and as many hands which incessantly travel to do us good It enlighteneth us in the beautie of stars and lights it warmeth us in flames it refresheth us in the air it delighteth us in the enamel of meadows it moisteneth us in the streaming of chrystal fountains it profiteth and enricheth in the fertility of fields so many trees and shrubs such diversity of fruits such wholesome hearbs such a great Vid. Senec. l. 4. de benef quantity of viands so well divided into all the seasons of the year so many living creatures some whereof come from the water others from the earth the rest from the air every part of the world bringing its tribute so many medicinable waters so many rivers which afford such delicious shores to the land for commerce and all humane accommodation I now let all this pass and coming to matters more particular demand of you who was the cause Particular providence over divers â—ountries Joannes Metellus that in the Canary Island called Ferro when it is roasted with droughts and heaven affordeth no succour by showers nor rivers by waters there is found a huge tree which seemes to change all the leaves thereof into as many petty fountains for every on distilleth water and all render it in such abundance that it sufficeth both men and their flocks Who doth all this good husbandry but the divine Providence And who is it supplies scarcity of rain in Egypt commandeth Nilus to over-flow the fields in his limited time to bear in his inundations the wealth of Pharos but it Who maketh Antidotes grow in places where poysons spring but its wisdom If Africk have many serpents there are Psylles which destroy them If other countries breed store of makes there are Ashen flowers which drive them away If Egypt hath a Crocodile â—istoria Sinarum part 4. it affords an Indian rat which bursteth it There are likewise trees to be found which having venemous roots upon one side yield a remedy on the other By what hand are framed so many wonders of nature which make books incessantly speak but by that of this great Work-man But if you on the other side will consider it in the Admirable â—rotection of â—en in rare accidents protection of men what doth it not by the ministery of its good Angels I see upon one side in histories the little King Mithridates involved in lightening-flashes whilst he innocently sleepeth in his infant cradle the flames consuming his clothes and linnens and not touching his body at all To whom think you should I attribute this On the other side I ponder the prodigie so loudly Philippus Anthologia Graec. l. 1. proclaim'd in the Greek Antholigie of a ship-wrack equally surprizing a father and a son which took away the life of the father and gave the son leave to arrive in a safe harbour having no other vessel but the corps of his deceased father
adhere to silly inventions of their own spirit and you would almost say the Father the Holy Ghost and the Word of God it self were nothing with them in comparison of particular devotions of some Saints or some slight observances which they practise according to their own fancie But if one happen to reprove them upon it they are uncivilly offended therewith and think such as speak with reason are not within the compass of the upright judgement of faith I affirm these kind of proceedings are not according to the order of the Church the which honoureth all Saints yea and the blessed Virgin in a degree infinitely beneath the Divine Majesty nor doth it honour them but to honour God in them and by them But if some abuse mysteries must we therefore overthrow Altars If some popular spirits ill instructed grow superstitious must one therefore become a Libertine Must innocency be forsaken the more to hate the guilty It is a pittifull thing to see good spirits who make profession of Catholick Religion and have in some things good apprehensions of piety to take such liberty of words to themselves that we know not what to make of them Ought not they to consider that a popular errour is one thing and a position of the Church another If some particulars introduce exorbitant devotions let them reject blame and condemn them We neither undertake to defend nor justifie them But when we speak of the invocation of Saints of their Reliques Canonizations Indulgences of the authority of our Holy Father of the Institution of Religious Orders and so many such like which are authorized by general Councels and by the belief of all antiquity doth not a good judgement see that to go about to oppose these Maxims is to do that which S. Augustine speaketh To suffer ones self to run into a folly which hastneth to the height of insolencie He who admitteth a leak in a ship drowns it who divideth Religion hath none at all who resolves to believe this and reject that believes nothing All that which cometh from one same authority ought to be believed with like equality Our faith is not grounded upon natural judgement upon wit and discourse but on the submission we ow to God and the Church which is the Interpretess of his counsels He who abideth therein abides in true wisedom who goeth out of it shall find nothing but an Ocean of disturbances and the shipwrack of his faith The second order of Libertines is of Neuters wavering and distrustfull who are almost upon the indifferencie of Religions and hold their faith as a hawk without leashes It quickly flies a way and leaveth them to replenish more setled brains and more capable souls In this number you have many squeazy stomachs who affect to be Masters in matter of Religion and are extream greedy of all sorts of innovations And if there be some bold spirit who with sensual reason censureth the mysteries of our Religion that man is according to their tast a brave fellow and his books deserve to be bound up in gold and purple The Bible is not wise enough for them their spirit of rebellion findeth faults and contradictions therein They are in search of hidden mysteries as were the Argonautes who went out to win the golden fleece And could they lay hold on Mahomets Alcoran they will not spare to read it the more to confound themselves in the labyrinth of their errours After they have run all over sounded all quoted all they find themselves empty and have nothing so assured as incertainty nothing so undoubted as the loss of their faith which they have almost wholly transformed into a cursed Neutrality the head-long descent of a horrible precipice The third order comprehendeth idle loyterers and people of the throat and kitchen who bear in their ensign for devise that which is said to have been inscribed on Sardanapalus his tomb Drink eat fill thy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self in the ordures of flesh and think thou hast nothing but that which thou affordest to thy sensualitie They all say with Epicurus As for my self I cannot understand any felicitie unless it be in palates in lips in ears in the belly and all that which is common to us with beasts These kind of men have not so much to do as other they are not sollicitous concerning the secrets of nature curious books mystical Cabals the Gospel not Turkish Alcoran they have found their God in themselves and indeed will acknowledge no other but the belly Their continual employment is to furnish out tables for it which are its Altars and to offer unto it dishes and sauces in sacrifice The fourth region containeth the malign covert and narrow observers who yet still retain some fear of the smoke of the faggot behold the cause why they dare not declare themselves in open manner They enter into the fold as wolves clothed in a sheeps skin and tell the sheep they are much affected to their conservation but that the dogs must be taken away which do nothing but deafen their ears with barking both day and night These are such as sow propositions with a double meaning and have ever a back-shop to hide themselves in such as say Catholick religion is good if it were purged from so many superstitions such as deceive young men under colour of doctrine and when they have hit upon a curious spirit whom they esteem retentive of a secret recommended they draw the curtain aside and reveal the mysteries of iniquity to him They are such as make disguises and differences which no man imagined and make truth combat against A theism with so feeble arms that it were much better defended to be left to its own nakedness such as have a store-house of evil books more impure than the stable of Augaeus out of which they derive all their profanations cloying the ears of the simple with a thousand objections ever made in the name of a third person who never dreamt of them Lastly such as silently build the Babylon of execrable confusions The fifth rank comprehendeth all those who have sold their souls to ambition and particular interest and have nothing of religion but seeming and ceremonies They are such as would make no scruple to set a foot upon the throat of their best friends to raise their own fortune higher Such as live fattened up with the Altar being many times enemies of the Altar Such as lift their children aloft with an arm of silver through all the ways of injustice above the heads of men and make the Church a prey to their ambition Such as are present at Divine Service with postures of a puppet-player Such as go to Gods word as to a Comedy to see and to be seen more for Adonis than Jesus and who in conclusion turn all piety into scoffs retaining nothing of it but a fantasm to serve their own ends The sixth manner is of such Vt introierunt quidam homines
a stable foot to receive it willingly with a spirit infinitely peacefull afterward to be fortified by Sacraments of the Church with most exemplar devotion and having given the last adieus to his good subjects to go out of the world and all glorious honours as joyfull as from a prison But God with drew this stroke when life held but by a slender threed and heard the many prayers made throughout all France He restored you to life at the same time he had given it you He setled the pillars of this State which then tottered over our heads He raised our joys again which were faded and gave us that we would not loose to gain the whole world It is SIR to tell you you must perform all God requireth at your sacred hands and so to profit in sanctitie that the earth may one day give you in reward of piety the Altars you have raised to Heaven by the valour of your arms To the King of all Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be given honour and glory for ever and ever THE CHRISTIAN DIARY THE AUTHOURS DESIGN OF the practice of Virtues I have already spoken in my Book of the HOLY COURT This is a small Pattern thereof in every days action It should employ your heart rather than your eyes or hand It is short to read but if you practice it you will in one day find years and ages of felicitie Indeed we have at this present many spiritual Books which eccho one another This Age is as fruitfull in words as barren in works Enclining to speak much to do nothing evapourating the best part of wit by pen or tongue Nevertheless in matters of Devotion it is apparent that a man cannot say too much that which he can never do enough and that in so great a penurie of worthy acts we should not be sparing of good words I present you with this short Treatise carry it in your hand as the clock which a great Prince wore in a Ring it striketh every hour of the day and agreeth with Reason as true dials with the Sun If you read it with attention you will find it great in its littleness rich in its povertie and large in its brevitie Great books make men sometimes more learned seldom more innocent This reduceth wisdom to practice and prosperity to devotion By often reading it and doing what it directeth you shall know what it is for it hath no other character of its worth than that of your virtues THE CHRISTIAN DIARY The First PART The first SECTION The Importance of well ordering every Action of the day A Wise Hermit as Pelagius a Greek Authour relates being demanded if the way to perfection were very long said That the Virtues accompany one another and if a man would himself he might in one day attain to a proportionable measure of Divinitie Indeed our Virtues are all conjoyned in our Actions our Actions in the Hours the Hours in the Day the Days in the Moneth the Moneths in the Year and the Years in the Ages Every day is a little map of our life and the way to be soon perfect is to use much consideration and perfection in the performance of every days action See here a draught thereof the lineaments of which I have taken in part from one endued with much wisdom religion integrity whom I would willingly name did I not fear to offend his humility which can suffer all things but his own praises The second SECTION At Waking THe Sun hath long since for your benefit chased away the shades of night to delight you with the sight of the wonderfull works of God and your curtains are yet undrawn to entertain you with a shadow of death Arise out of bed and consider that this great star which makes you begin the course of this day must this day run about ten or twelve millions of leagues and you how many steps will you proceed towards virtue This unwearied Harbinger is gone to take you up a lodging in the grave Each minute is so much deducted from your life Will you not follow the counsel of the Son of God and work while it is day A long night will shortly cover you with its wings in which you will not have the power to work Suppose every day a day in Harvest suppose it a Market-day suppose it a day wherein you are to work in a golden Mine suppose it a ring which you are to engrave and ennammel with your actions to be at night presented on Gods Altar Set before you the excellent consideration of S. Bernard That your actions in passing pass not away for every good work is a grain of seed for eternal life Say with the famous Painter Xeuxes Aeternitati pingo I paint for eternity Follow the counsel of Thomas Aquinas Do every action in the name of Jesus Christ desiring to have the approbation and good affections of all the Church Militant and Triumphant Do it as if the glory of God the welfare of all the world and your whole salvation depended on it and as if that were to set the seal to all your works Contrive over night the good works you are to do the next day on what points you are to meditate what sin you are to vanquish what virtue you are to practice what business you are to do that with a well-digested foresight you may give birth to every thing in its own time This is Ariadnes clew which guides our actions in the great labyrinth of Time without which all would go to confusion Be curious sometimes to know of what colour the dawning of the day is prevent the light as the Wiseman adviseth to praise God Take heed of imitating that Epicurean swine who boasted that he had grown old without seeing the Sun either rise or set It is a good custom to rise betimes but hardly perswaded to Ladies and those Antipodes to Nature who change the night into day and the day into night The famous Apollonius being very early at Vespasian's gate and finding him stirring from thence conjectured that he was worthy to govern an Empire and said to his companion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This man surely will be Emperour he is so early That unto which you are to dispose the day may be divided into four parts Devotion Practice of Virtues Business and Recreation Devotion should bear the light and open the door to all our actions As soon as you awake make an account you are to give the first fruits of your reason your sense and faculties to the Divine Majesty Let the Memory immediately call to mind that the works of God must be done Let the Understanding cast an ejaculation upon its Creatour like a flash of lightening Let the Will enflame it self with love of him Let the Heart let flie the burning shafts of desires and celestial affections Let the Mouth and Tongue labour to pronounce some vocal prayer to the most blessed Trinitie Let the Hands lift
give the world notice of their offering and to conclude were so great self-lovers that they made Epitaphs even upon their dogs specifying their age qualities and conditions These are testimonies of a soul very frivolous and destitute of all Humility The tenth SECTION Of evil Conversation EVil Conversation is the worst of all as is that of the Harsh who make themselves unsociable in company that of the Opinionated who bear for their motto It is so and It is not so ever contradicting even the clearest truths that of the Crafty and Deceitfull who endeavour to discover all the secrets of others whilest they disguise themselves with a mask of dissimulation and intricate speech feigning ignorance of what they know knowledge of what they are ignorant forgetfulness of promise good will to those they would circumvent and many such like That of the Proud who scorn and despise all but themselves That of the Cholerick who are displeased upon every accident That of Scoffers Buffons and Slanderers who are obscene biting and offensive in all occasions It were a long business to examine all these particularly and I had freely unfolded them in a Treatise of Manners and Passion wherein I hoped to give the Reader satisfaction but that the design of this little book diverted me It were to small purpose to make so long a work of it and it is always better to conclude well than to enlarge ill The eleventh SECTION The Conditions of good Conversations I Tell you in brief S. Bernard Thomas Aquinas and other learned men are of opinion that in Conversation we ought to be affable and pleasing yet not too familiar nor inquisitive into other mens business not suspicious not light not riotous not discontented not affected not imperious not cross not exceptious not jeering not freâ—full not triviall not churlish not too ceremonious not too talkative not too soft and compliant not cholerick not too reserved not proud not vain all those through vanity which is onely rich in fooleries discourse perpetually of themselves as if they were deities But we must govern our selves with great discretion and modesty we must play but not debase our selves laugh but not to excess take recreation but not to effeminacy be constant but not obstinate prudent but not crafty simple but not stupid concealing ill furthering good correcting our own faults by those we dislike in others always bringing home some fruit from this garden of Graces and if acquainted with any secret fit to be concealed we must make our breast its tomb You will find there are ordinarily five qualities which make conversation pleasant The first is an obliging way which sweetly scattereth benefits from which in their due time and place spring up recompences This desire of doing good to all the world is a bait we must keep ever in the water for by it men are taken more easily than fishes And such there have been who by giving a glass of water opportunely have obtained a Kingdom as we see in the story of Thaumastus and King Agrippa The second Affability joyned with a grace and sweet behaviour which hath a most powerfull charm over souls naturally enclined to honesty To do good and not to do it handsomely is nothing A benefit given with grudging is a stony loaf onely taken for necessity The third a quick and wary prudence to discern the dispositions capacities manners humours affections and aims of those with whom we converse and to suit our carriage to every mans temper The fourth Humility without sottishness or servile baseness which teacheth to yield to reason and not to presume upon our own strength The fifth whereof we have already spoken is a discreet Patience to bear with men and business unmoved so that you may keep your heart always in a good posture even in unexpected and thorny accidents He that understands this mystery well deserves to command men being here placed by virtue in a degree next the Angels A good rule for conversing well is to propose unto your self for pattern one of a perfect conversation So S. Augustine referred those that desired to profit in virtue to the conversation of S. Paulinus Vade in Campaniam disce Paulinum But the most effectuall precept is to think how the Incarnate Word would converse if he were in our room by his example we shall do as Joseph in Aegypt of whom the Scripture Psal 105. according to the Hebrew phrase saith he tied the Princes of Pharaoh's Court about his heart The Reverend Gontery a man of great Judgement and no less virtue hath written a little Treatise of Conversation wherein he descendeth very far to particulars He that will read it shall find wise instructions in it The twelfth SECTION Conclusion of the Diary AT night before you go to bed you are to make the examen of Conscience which is the little Consistory of the soul as Philo terms it where having given thanks to God and invoked his holy grace you must recall your thoughts your words your actions your faults and neglects to account that you may see the gain the loss and reckonings of that day to further good to correct evil remitting the one to your own discretion and the other to Gods mercy Esteem this saying of S. Bernard in his book of the the Interiour house as an oratle that one of the chiefest mirrours to behold God in is a reasonable soul which finds it self out There we must seat the Conscience in a Throne with a Sceptre in her hand and all passions and imperfections at her feet There she must take the liberty to say to you Wicked servant thou hast lost a day what sluggishness at thy rising what negligence in labour how great words how little works Why this curious questioning this rash judgement these wandering eyes these straying thoughts Should you have been angry for so slight a cause upon such an occasion should you so freely have censured and murmured at the actions of another should you have taken your refection so sensually and sought your ease in and by all things so greedily and so of the rest If by the grace of God you shall find some kind of virtues yet must you well pick and sift them as the perfume which was to be set before the Tabernacle to present them before the face of God and say in conclusion with all humility as the devout Southwell Quod fui Domine ignosce quod sum corrige quod ero dirige O Lord forgive what I have been correct what I am direct what I shall be This done say some vocall prayer to shut the day up happily with some acts of contrition of faith of hope of supplication for your self and friends Say here O Light of the Children of light bright day which hast no evening The world is buried in the darkness of night and this day quite finished wherein I see as in a little Map how my life shall end O God what benefits do I see in it
books of the Trinity S. Thomas of Canterbury rested between the arms of France whilest Henry of England thundered sentences and proscriptions of death against him If one countrey become a step-mother another proves a Mother and the Divine Providence the worlds great Harbinger ever findeth some petty work to entertain its elected But if there be no means to escape and that servitudes must be undergone prisons and chains and that scaffolds must be bloudied to satisfie the revenge of an enemy Then is the time when a spirit well habituated in the continuall exercises of virtue entreth into the centre of the soul and beholdeth as from a high fortresse the vicissitude of humane things which here below have in them nothing immovable but their proper unstedfastnesse Then it is when despising these veils of body composed of our inferiour elements it now entereth in thought into the region of Intelligencies then it is when it accosteth the legions of so many Martyrs who on their bodies have received as many wounds as they had members and have moistned the sacred palms of their victories in the effusion of their bloud All which is humane yieldeth to the Tyranny of persecutours but the immortall spirit makes it self a large way all bordered with lawrels in the Temple of glory and reputation and like to the dove of the Prophet whose wings were of silver taketh a high and exalted flight to declare to all ages the innocency of a great courage and to make its relicks survive in Cabinets and in the memory of all good men How many have we seen die on Scaffolds who with the sweetnesse of their countenances terrified the most terrible aspects of executioners They spake they did they suffered they ordered their deaths as matter of Triumph they comforted others in their suffering at a time when they had much to do not to complain themselves They acted together all the parts of wisdome and came off so well in every one as if they onely had undertaken this one It was a great thing for them to do but to do it so exactly is that which for ever makes them the more admirable and it was a matter incredible that speaking so well they yet suffered better in an occasion where words have no credit works no time violence no relaxation nor enmity Compassion The third Treatise Of DESIRE § 1. Whether we should desire any thing in the world The Nature the Diversity and description of Desire THe Sages make a question whether it be a thing to be wished to have no Desire And there are of them who Whether it be good to have no desire think that to live happy and contented we must banish all desires For they are amusements which perpetually entertain us with the time to come which put us on the Rack and burn us by our proper thoughts Desires are the Echoes of our loves which mock us and counterfeit certain voices essences and personages which ordinarily are made of nought else but wind But now say others to have no desires is to have no soul no sense no reason it is to be a fly not a man The Seraphins in Isaiah stand by Gods side yet cease not to clap their wings to signifie unto us there is no soul so perfect and contented which hath not the heart still excited with some generous desire Trees are purified by the winds agitation rivers are cleansed and purged in their perpetuall currents and the heart by desires If we would have no desires we must not talk any more of eating and drinking we must no longer have this young lover sigh after his beloved we must not then admit learned men to make love to wisdome That wrastlers burn with affection of prizes due to their valour and that the souldier covers himself with his wounds to embellish his garlands all ought to be indifferent to us and that is the way quickly to runne into the nature of rocks and stones We must here make a notable distinction of desires insomuch some are naturall given by God to man for the preservation of himself Others are artificiall which arising out of an exorbitant will are nothing but floud and ebb but agitations and tempests Desires are like number one cannot name any so great but that it is capable of addition Hence it proceedeth that the world is replenished The world replenished with desiring souls Psal 50 v. 12. Tabescere fecisti animam meam alia versio liquescere fecisti ut timeam desiderium ejus Eos felicitas ingrata subterfluit ut semper pleni spei vacui commodorum praesentibus caâ—eant dum furura prospectant In Psal 92. Richardâ—â— de S. Victore in Psal 80. An excellent picture of desire with desiring and suffering souls and that there is not almost any one who is not in expectation and breathes not the air of the Region of desires The most part of men resemble the moth which gnaws a garment and in gnawing eateth its own house For by the eagernesse of desiring the future they lose all the pleasure of the present and demolish their fortune by their greedinesse to raise it That is it which the Panegyrick wittily expressed pronounced before Constantine the sonne Felicity glideth by us as the water which streameth along under bridges when still full of hope we rest unfurnished of contentments Desiring hearts saith S Augustine are as those great-bellied women to whom the eternall word hath denounced a Curse in the Gospel All the world would be but a morsell in the mouth of mans heart saith Richardus de sancto Victore since its wishes are infinite and that it is evident that in Infinity what part soever you assigne you are still at the beginning If you desire that I make you a picture of the nature and perquisits of Desire I will tell you it is a strange countrey whereunto the prodigall Child sailed when he forsook his fathers house to undertake a banishment a Country where corn is still in grasse vines in the bud trees perpetually in blossome and birds alwayes in the shell You neither see corn fruit nor any thing fully shaped all is there onely in expectation It is a Countrey full of figures phantasmes illusions and hopes which are dreames without sleep a Countrey where the inhabitants are never without feavers one is no sooner gone but another cometh into its place There dwelleth Covetousnesse a great woman meagre lean starven having round about her a huge swarm of winged boyes of which some are altogether languishing others cast her a thousand smiles as she passeth along upon her self she hath an infinite number of horsleeches which suck upon her to the marrow Time looketh on her afarre off and never cometh near her shewing her an enchanted looking-glasse wherein she seeth a thousand and a thousand false colours which amuse her and when she hath sported enough she hath nothing to dinner but smoke Behold the table of Covetousnesse grounded upon The
at once when it is born with us and Utility of melancholy proportioned to the functions of our mind and motions of our body It is a land which seemeth somewhat dry but it hideth great treasures What would become Saturnus fuerit opti mè constitutus largitur scientiae profunditatem of subtilty of wit weight of judgement in conceits invention in sciences indefatigable labour in affairs constancy in resolutions a corrective for light humours beseemlinesse in modesty perseverance in devotion strength in meditation constancy in serious life patience in contempt exercise of humility if the Melancholick temperature and Saturnian influence did not thereto contribute solidity It 's that which maketh great Captains sage Counsellours of State divine Philosophers and the most famous Religious From whence it cometh that the Antiens called it the passion of Demy-gods Onely heed must be taken it run not into some excesse and render not nature sharp criticall Abditas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gellius l. 18 cap. 7. presumptuous inflexible and odious For by that means certain spirits too much do sooth their own humour using therein not any correction make themselves among company that which Aconite is among plants They are insupportable in conversation and Sad spirits oft-times mingling vanity with sharpnesse there is not any thing wherein they will not find somewhat to reprehend in words in sciences in affairs in sport in recreation in voyce in garb in habits and because nothing pleaseth them they many times displease all the world It is a great prudence in such as feel themselves naturally disposed to Melancholy to cultivate their mind and to take from it all which may make it harsh by a perpetuall countrepoise of sweetnesse and mildnesse The wicked Rutilius thought all the Anachorets Rutilius in Itinerat and Religious were sick of Bellerophon's disease which is a furious sadnesse but he is grosly deceived For it is undoubted there are great Religious persons who drawing nought out of Melancholy but solidity and constancy do associate unto it out of virtue a singular serenity of life so that it is a hard matter to find any of a humour more pliant and pleasing Palladius Pallad in hist Laufia in his Lausiac History maketh mention of a famous Abbot named Apolon who was the father and master of about five hundred Monks whom he maintained in so perfect alacrity that their countenances seemed to bear the characters of Celestiall tranquillity There were none sad and if any one seemed to be touched with heavinesse the good Abbot drove it away by his discourse as swiftly as the Northern wind dispelleth the clouds saying unto them It was for Jews for Gentiles and for sinnes to be contristated but good religious men ought to entertain an eternall commerce with Joy S. Athanasius saith of S. Anthony that his face S. Athan. c. 40. in vita S. Anton. was a looking-glasse wherein God caused the sanctity of his mind to be resplendent and that he alwayes seemed chearfull as if the bloomings of his heart had Dionyfius exiguus in vita S. Pachomii put his venerable face all into blossome So much saith Denis surnamed the little S. Pachomius a man very eminent who in body altogether dissolved with austerities and maladies did in conversation retain the vigour of holy alacrity It is an imitation of the Saviour of the world who according to the Prophet Esay was to be neither sad nor tempestuous And as pious Anna of whom is spoken in the first book of Non erit tristis neque turbulenrus Isa 42. 4. 1 Regum Vultus ejus non sunt amplius in diversa mutad Kings forsook all the countenances and crabbed looks which sadnesse caused in her so soon as she had conceived the little Samuel so we must inferre that a soul which is honoured with the spirituall conception of Jesus formed in his heart is able to drive away all the disturbances of dolour Otherwise if this evill humour of Sadnesse be cherished without breaking it upon all occasions by convenient diversions and the direction of reason it encreaseth with age and being aided by evil dispositions of body it often degenerateth into shamefull follies and hideous frenzies From thence are come those Melancholicks of whom Gallen speaketh Gal. c. 6. l. 3 de locis affectis whereof one thought himself to be an earthen-pot the other imagined he was a cock and ceased not to crow and clap his wings the other feared that Atlas would let the heavens fall And Trallianus assureth Trallian l. 1 cap 16. there was a woman who continually kept her hand very closely shut fearing lest the world which in her opinion was held between her fingers might escape her Such Melancholies saith S. Jerome stand more in need of Hippocrates his remedies then the discourses of Philosophers But laying aside these Sadnesses of naturall Melancholy it is fit to know that which proceedeth from a tedious anxiety of heart is very hurtfull to the practice of virtue and may be cured by the resolution and courage of a well-disposed will It is the malady which the Grecian calls Acedia against which Cassian wrote Cassian lib. de spiritu Acediae a whole book shewing it fastneth very easily upon persons who make profession of Devotion if they use not labour and study to divert it And verily there are people in no sort fit for Religion nor the exercises of Meditation who neverthelesse are therein embarked through levity or ignorance never having well weighed the greatnesse of that vocation But if they meet some spirituall Directours either indiscreetly Zealous or little experienced they will raise them from earth and instantly apply them to the highest contemplations drawing them from handy labours and employments of civil life I would willingly ask what can they else do but fall into the passion of slothfulnesse into anxieties and languors which make life unprofitable to them In the mean time they who have undertaken the charge to guide them in their Labyrinth make them many times believe these drynesse and disrelishes are the visitations of God who will try them and that they must go on and not faint nor suffer the honour of their crown to wither And there are who living as beasts in a meer lazinesse of spirit imagine it is an Inaction which causeth a cessation from all the functions of their soul to let the Spirit of God to work in them Hereupon we see some Devoters so well practised in this mystery that they abandon all the correspondencies due to a husband all the care of their children all the providence they ought to have for their family and houshold affairs to satisfie the fancies of their mind It is not Devotion which teacheth them this nor is it fit that Libertines hereby take occasion to condemn the exercise of piety It is an errour must be corrected and speedily such spirits must be reduced to labour and
He is never damnified but alwayes equall to himself because he admitteth not Age but is one day composed of Eternity One may object here that to hope for any thing from another it is not alwayes necessary he be absolutely greater or more worthy then we We hope from artificers we hope likewise from our servants the performance of businesses which we put into their hands and therefore one might inferre that it is not a proposition contrary to reason to say that God can hope something from us as are the praises and service which we are bound to render to him as were likewise our conversion To that I answer it is true that the greatest Monarchs of the earth may hope from the meanest persons of their God is independent of all creatures and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinity of his persections kingdome because they are men and have dependence of men and in this God greatly humbleth great men when he makes them see that all this glorious pomp of their fortune which seems to afford matter of jealousie to heaven and of new laws to earth subsisteth not but by the commerce of merchants and by the labour and sweat of peasants all which makes no impression on the Divinity It exspecteth say you our praises as if God were not his owne praise to himself as if he stood in need of a mortall mouth to honour an Essence Tanquam momentum staterae sie est ante te orbis terrarum Sap. 11 3. Resoluto mundo diis in unum confusis cessante naturâ acquiesâ—â— sibi cogitati onibus suis traditus Sence ep 9. immortall Were all the lipps of men the most eloquent at this present covered under ashes what would it concern him All the world is before him no more then the turn of a ballance Hath not he the morning starres round about his awfull throne I mean those great Angels all replenished with lights and perfections who praise him incessantly And were the world annihilated and the very Angels confounded in the masse of starres and elements he would ever be God alwayes as great as himself and even left alone to his thoughts in his own thoughts he would find heaven But yet you will say he may expect our conversion which partly dependeth on our selves since he who made us without us will not save us without us It is easie to reply thereupon that God hath no need of the God hath no need of our conversion to encrease his glory Fasciculum suum super terram sundavit Amos 6. conversion of men to augment his glory but to establish their salvation and should he have need he continually hath his elect before him in the book of his prescience without blotting forth or thereunto adding any names Think you he expecteth till we have done to judge of our works He knoweth from all eternity what we must do in such or such an occasion his prescience not imposing any necessity upon our free-will This great God sitting in the highest part of heaven continually Manet spectator cunctorum Deus visionisque ejus praesens aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum qualitate concurrit Boet. l. 5. p. 6. beholdeth all the actions of men and the eternity of his vision perpetually present infallibly meeteth with the quality of our merits It letteth us go according to the current of the stream and the choice of our liberty but if he would proceed with absolute power there is no will so determinate upon evil which can resist him And therefore we must conclude his account is already made both within himself and without himself he not any whit depending on the future It is more clear then the day that God cannot hope God supporteth all good hopes by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence Sperastis in Domino in seculis aeternis in Domino Deo forti in perpetuum Isa 16. 2. but it is likewise most manifest that he supporteth all good hopes by reason of the capacity of his Essence of his power and of his goodnesse and therefore Esay speaks very notably You have put your hope in our Lord who is in eternall ages In our Lord I say the true God whose strength is not limitted by length of time Men are weak and God is the God of the strong Men sometimes preserve for a time but God guardeth us eternally Men have their wills as changeable as their power is limitted but God besides that he is of a constancy unshaken exerciseth a power unbounded Where then may we better lodge our hopes then in the Divinity There it is where our second modell I meane the holy We must place our hopes in God by the example of the holy Humanity of Jesus Christ In te projectus sum ex uteâ—o spes mea ab ube ribus matrismeae For what reasons our Lord prayed humanity of Jesus placed all his hope My God my Hope I did cast my self between thy arms so soon as I began to be born in the world and at my going from my mothers bosome But one may here aske of theology If Jesus had the virtue of Hope what is it then he might hope I answer that if he might pray he might hope For prayer and namely a request is not made but with hope to obtein that we seek for Now who doubteth but that Jesus prayed on earth and doth he not also pray now in heaven He prayed saith Theology for four reasons First for the exercise of his virtue which is most excellent Secondly for our example Thirdly for the accomplishment of his commission and lastly for necessity I am not ignorant that S. John Damascen hath said that Christ prayed not but in appearance Damascen l. 4. de side insomuch as prayer being properly an ascension of the mind to God it could not be that the soul of Jesus Christ should mount anew into the Divinity since from the day of his Conception it was there as it were enchased not being able to be separated from it one sole moment But this question is satisfied by saying with Vazquez that it is true that our Lord in regard of the person of the Word could not pray having in this kind no superiour but by reason of the Humanity which might be wanting and indigent without the help of the Divinity therefore he mounted up to the source of the word not by vision and beatifick love which he already enjoyed but by the knowledge of science infused and by a new desire to impetrate something of his heavenly Father I say he already had Beatitude and that he was as it were engulfed in lights of glory he notwithstanding had not yet glorification of his body exaltation of his name extent of his Church from one pole to the other which made him pray and to say with S. John I beseech thee O Father make me glorious and resplendent before the face of all Creatures as I was from
them with all the inventions of their Nation for to surprize him there was one that would gain him to her another that would keep him another that would draw him from one sin to another even unto the bottome of hell It is farre more easie to become a fool with a woman then to make her wise he had endeavoured perhaps to covert them to his Religion but they perverted him and drew him to theirs He took their loves and afterward He is perverted in Religion their behaviour and at last their Superstition Every one of these women would bring her God into esteem and thought not her self to have any credit in her love if she did not make her false Deity to partake thereof they made such Gods as had no honester Title then the sinnes of debauched women As soon as he had made an Idol for one he must do the like for another all there went by the Emulation of their brains weak in reason and ardent in their passions They reckon about six Temples built round about Jerusalem to the Gods of six principall Nations But it was not sufficient to make these Gods they must be adored and presented with Sacrifices and Incense to content his Loves And he did not all this in shews onely nor dissimulation but his heart as the Scripture saith was wholly turned aside from the true God and fell as S. Austin saith into the depth of the gulf of Idolatry What might the admirers of his great Temple have said or rather the true worshippers of the great God What discourse might so many Kings and Queens have held that had had in so high esteem the wisdome of Solomon The report of his Loves and his Superstitions ran throughout all Kingdomes as a story unheard of which caused laughter enough to wicked ones as tears to good people and astonishment to the whole world How art thou faln from heaven O fair starre of the The dissipation of his estate morning Thou faithfull fore-runner of the King of Lamps which wert adorned with the purest and most innocent flames of the firmament who hath made thee to become a coal and who could bury thy lights in a dung-hill This lamentable King lost that great wisdome that made him esteemed over the whole world and became stupid leaving the care of all the affairs of his Kingdome All those great riches were exhausted and cast as it were into the gulf of Luxury He began to over-charge his people to maintain his infamous pleasures which made all their minds revolt against him The Prophets and Priests could not relish with him by reason of his changing Religion All the understanding Nobility did abhorre him seeing him so plunged in his filth The Commons desired nothing but to shake off the yoke that they could no longer bear God raised him up Rebellions on every side which prepared themselves â—â— overthrow his Empire But no man took it so much to heart as Jeroboam an able and subtil man whom he had advanced and employed in gatheâ—â—ng his Tributes for him It was he to whom he Prophet Ahaziah gave ten pieces of his garmeâ—t fore-telling him that he should reign over to Tribes of Israel and that was the cause that the King would have put him to death but he fled â—nto Egypt and returned under weak Rehoboam thâ— successour of Solomon who despising the counsels of the Antients that exhorted him to give his people content trusted to that of the young ones without brains which perswaded him to hold his own and that the people would not be brought under but by rigour Which made him to be forsaken by ten Tribes at once which cast themselves into the arms of Jeroboam who made a change of Religion and State in Samaria without ever being able either himself or his successours to bring them unto obedience again See here how Kingdomes change their Masters for the sins of lasciviousnesse impiety and oppressions of the people which are then greatly to be feared when despair hath brought them to fear nothing One may ask for a conclusion what became The estate of Solomon in the other world of this wise Solomon Whether he died in his sinne or whether he repented Whether he were saved or damned This is a Common place that hath exercised many excellent pens which have handled this subject curiously and eloquently I love not to do things done already I shall say onely that we may alwayes take the most favourable opinions which can with any likelihood defend themselves in favour of the safety of great persons There are some number of the holy Fathers which speak very openly thereof and perswade themselves that he repented S. Jerome upon the Prophet Ezekiel saith That although the founder of this great Temple sinned yet he was converted to God by a true repentance and for proof hereof he alledges the Book of the Proverbs in the four and twentieth Chapter that saith Novissimè ego egi poenitentiam respexi ut eligerem disciplinam that is At the last I repented and looked back that I might chuse instruction Although these words are not found in our Bible as he also draws them from the Septuagint and to uphold his opinion he will have Solomon to have written the Book of the Proverbs after his fall which is very hard to verifie And elsewhere also the same Authour upon the first Chapter of Ecclesiastes saith That this Book is the repentance of Solomon according to the Hebrews S. Ambrose in the second book of the Apology of David Chap. 3. puts Samson David and Solomon in the number of sinners converted Erraverunt tamen ut homines sed peccata sua tanquam justi agnoverunt Behold here that which is most formall without collecting many ambiguous passages S. Gregory the Great in the second book of his Morals Chap. 2. S. Prosper S. Eucherius Prosp lib. 2. de praedict cap. 27. Solomon clatus in senio fornicatus animo corpore Domiuo ipsum deserente malè obiit and amongst the Modern Tostat Bellarmine and Maldonat condemne him Tertullian Augustine Cyril of Alexandria Gregory Nyssen Isidore Bernard Chrysostome and Rupert leave this question doubtfull and undecided And to say truly this is all which can be said modestly and humanely and also the truestin a matter where there is nothing more certain then incertainty For to say that he hath composed the Book of Ecclesiastes after that he was deprived of his Kingdome and of all the Vanities is a story of the Rabbins which are little to be believed further also this Book is properly a Dialogue of divers men that dispute one against the other and bring forth good and bad sentences although the Authour of the Book doth take the good part To say that which Bonaventure saith That not one of the sacred Authours was damned if it be true the reason is because they lived well and not because they have written well For the kingdome of God saith
Univers When he undertook any businesse of importance he fasted and prayed extraordinarily and caused it to be recommended to the devotions of the good servants of God and when he had a good issue of it his thanksgivings were seen in all places on all occasions He neglected nothing and when men thought him overwhelm'd with the greatest businesses of war they were astonish'd that amidst them he took his time for some petty Ordinance of Policy He lov'd Learning especially Divinity and Law This was it that made him conceive a magnificent design to leave monuments of it to posterity that should last longer then the Temples and the Pyramids of Egypt And for this purpose being a man very judicious he made choyce of the mostable men in the whole Empire to collect all the laws of the Emperours his predecessours which he augmented and enriched with his own so that this book was called Justinians Code Afterward he gave a charge to Tribonian who was accomplish'd in that profession to compile all the Resolves of the antient Lawyers which he did with a most exact diligence and at length compos'd those famous Pandects or Digests divided into fifty Books He caus'd also the Institutions which contein the Principles of Law and are as it were the elements of that excellent doctrine to be added to them And for what concerns Divinity he published a certain work of the Incarnation and abundance of Ordinances for the government of Ecclesiasticall persons wherein Baronius finds fault that he entred sometimes a little too far into the Sanctuary He was not much advanced in the years of his reign when an horrible conspiracy was raised against him which was on the point to ruine all his affairs and although I have already touch'd it in my first volumn in the History of Eulogius yet I will decipher here more particularly the reasons and the remedies of it Many have attributed the totall cause of it to the new Subsidies that the Emperour imposed upon the people to maintein the war that he had already enterprised but there was yet more poyson and which sprang from an higher source which was that the house of the Emperour Anastasius which had preceded Justine the Unkle of our Justinian and which cherished alwayes the most violent passion to continue themselves in that Empire was not quite extinct but had two principall Chieftains Pompey and Hypatius who thought they had heads well enough made to wear a Diademe These men when they saw that the affairs of State were disposed to a commotion and that the Malignant Vapours were gathered together on all sides to make up clouds did as the Sorcerers do who mix the work of the Devil to assist the effects of nature They knew that the Emperour began to be ill-belov'd both for the imposts and for the rigid and inflexible severity that he used in the government of his Empire which seemed insupportable to the spirits of so many Libertines who would live according to their own discretion in the permission of all crimes They fail'd not to lay hold on this opportunity and underhand to sowe in the spirits of men the seeds of Division There was then in Constantinople two popular factions of men belonging to the Theatre which were called the Green and the Blew by reason of the Liveries by which they were distinguished State-Policy suffer'd them and chose rather to foment the one against the other then to extinguish them But the conspiratours for that time united them by artifices and by money to bandy them against Justinian The Chieftains ceas'd not to scatter venemous speeches amongst the people and to say What are we then made to suffer eternally the Empire of these Cow-keepers the Unkle is dead and the Nephue hath succeeded him which is a Crow hatched of an evil Egg. Was it not enough that he learned in governing beasts to handle us as a Shepheard but he must become a Butcher and be pleas'd with nothing but with the fleaing and the massacring of his people What have we any more to hope for under him since he hath put us in a condition of fearing every thing Do we expect that the Empresse which is the worst of Furies should give him counsels of mildnesse for us or that Bellisarius which is the fatall instrument of his cruelty should deliver us out of his hands All our safety is in our selves all our good is in our resistance Shall we doubt to obey necessity which constrains us and the justice of our cause which is our guide We ought to set upon this goodly Emperour while his state is yet tottering and ill-settled without staying till he fortifie himself to our ruine We have amongst us the blood of the true Cesars Pompey and Hypatius the Protectours of the people and the most accomplish'd of all Princes it is those that we ought to reverence and that we ought to carry upon our shoulders to the Empire These words at length enflamed the sedition which began by a small handfull of Mutiners which a Provost of the City endeavoured to suppresse and apprehended three that were the ringleaders of the Rebellion but the people ran suddenly in an huddle and plucked them out of his hands by violence The Alarm was given to the Palace and the Emperour dispatch'd instantly some souldiers to quell the Mutiners but they were beaten back for the number of the seditious grew greater every moment as a Ball of snow that rouls from the top of a mountain Behold in a little time the whole City in arms with a rage so violent and a sight so hideous that it seemed that Hell had opened it self that day to vomit out all its Furies upon the earth The men ran to fire and sword the women with their hair about their ears and howling like so many Megera's made themselves arms of what ere they met with There was not any even to the children that did not seem to be little devils flying athwart the flames The Regiments of the Herules which the King a little before had converted to Christianity were at that time quartered in the City of Constantinople who failed not according to the Orders of the Emperour to oppose themselves against the fury of the people These having been barbarous souldiers without all compassion made at first a great massacre The incensed Citizens fall upon them on all parts to beat them out their courts of Guard are burned by the hands of the seditious and their companies much worsted some were run through with Partisans others knock'd on the head with Leavers the affrighted women from the tops of the houses make themselves parties in the quarrell and cease not to throw down boyling water and stones upon them These wild-Boars thus chaffed seeing the blood of their companions run in rivers through the streets rally all their forces and take Torches to fire the Churches and houses which they performed with so much violence that one might see in an instant
the images of the things which we have received in our senses and in our imagination when we were awake and is as the Eccho which brings a repetition of the actions of the day Our soul hath this mark of its immortality that it is in a perpetuall motion without any interruption after the manner of the heavenly Globes and of the intelligences When the body is laid fast by the charming sweetnesses of sleep and the night makes a league with all the actions of the day the soul makes not any with its operations it meditates it reasons it speaks it is in action it negotiates and without parting from its body flies beyond all lands and seas to enjoy a friend She opens her self with joy pricks her self with sorrow interesses her self in businesses and not being able to use the members of her body serves her self with her own members and her own faculties for the satisfaction of her desire And as sword-players cease not sometimes to fence without arms and to use gestures as if there passed a reall combate so our spirit whiles we sleep carries her self away and does every thing in Idea as if it were seconded by the body Such is the state and naturall condition of Dreams as Tertullian hath well explained it in his Book concerning the Soul But beyond this it is expedient to note that there is something in them of extraordinary and Divine which made the Stoicks say that Providence carefull of our preservation gave us Dreaming as a domestick Oracle to inform us of our good and evils This cannot be understood commonly of all Dreams the truth being such that there are five sorts of them which Macrobius following the Antients names the Phantasme the Raving the Vision the Oracle and the figurative Dream we ought not to relie much upon Phantasmes which are as shadows which present themselves to our imagination in the very first cloud of sleep nor of Ravings which follow ordinarily the state of the passions and affections of our soul and of our body as Artemidorus reasons in the beginning of his work but much on Vision which without following the paths trodden the day before by our senses make us see and discover things in our sleep which we experiment when we are awake to be the self same which we saw when we were asleep And as for Oracle which expresses to us apparitions of God and Angels or certain grave persons that seem to speak to us and to advertise us of what we have to do or not to do it cannot be but very considerable as also the Figurative Dream which shews us under Figures and Symbols the divers accidents of things profitable either to the common good or to our particular conduct I have been willing to clear this with more day to make us know the excellent gifts of the divine Goodnesse communicated to our Patriarch in that interpretation which he gave to Dreams To speak truth it was a kind of Prophecy which being properly a manifestation of Truths elevated above the ordinary knowledge of man clearly discovered it self in Joseph in the declaration which he made of things so hidden and so little penetrable to the understanding of the most learned men of Egypt Saint Thomas disputes touching the excellency of Prophecies and sayes That those are more sublime that are purely intellectuall then others that are made by similitudes But although those of our Joseph were revealed by Riddles and by Figures yet they mount for all that to an high point of excellency forasmuch as they were by this means more proportioned to the capacity of a Nation that loved them more when they were involved in the shadows and in the clouds of those Figures then if they had been naked and totally unmixt with corporall Idea's And I think that the great excellency of a master and of a teacher is to accommodate himself to the spirit of those to whom he would perswade the verities of his Doctrine Now it discovers to us at present that this first Courtier of the chosen people had something of Divine that prepared him to great actions inasmuch as from his little child-hood he was exercised by those mysterious Dreams and amorous of Heaven and of the Startes that enlightned him in the silence of a delicious night and brought him the presages of his future greatnesse God hath often spoken to his most faithfull servants by the means of Dreams as to Mordecai to the Wise-men of the East to Saint Joseph the spouse of the most holy Virgin and the observation of them is not bad when one perceives in them some extraordinary thing and which tends to a good end by lawful and commendable means It is true that Aristotle thought that Dreams came not from God because if that had any likelihood that favour would be for none but for the Philosophers and for eminent persons but we must pardon a wise worldly man if he knew not the admirable commerce and the sweet discourses that the Spirit of God is pleased to make with simple and innocent souls which being empty of themselves are filled advantageously with the Deity Such was little Joseph when he saw in a Dream his sheaf of corn that exalted it self above those of his brethren and when he beheld the Sun and the Moon with the eleven Stars that came to worship him and do him reverence This probably seemed to him a presage of a great happinesse seeing that according to the Maximes of Astrampsychus in his book of Dreams it is a mark of felicity to see the stars in ones sleep He had not been then refined at Court when he boasted of that Dream by a childish innocence and related it to his brothers who conceived so much jealousie from it that they resolved upon his destruction Here is a second work of Providence which pleases her self in doing the works of her trade and in conducting to the haven those whom she hath taken in charge by turning her back to them His brothers saith S. Gregory sold him for fear lest he should be worshipped according to his Dream and he was worshipped because he was sold Envy which is properly a sadnesse for the honour and welfare of another forasmuch as that it seems to us to tend to the diminution of ours finds objects in all places it enters into Jacobs family a family of Saints to teach us saith Saint Ambrose that the servants of God have not escaped Passions but conquered them He that in the Government of all Egypt found nothing but admiration amongst strangers meets with envy amongst his brethren and amongst those of whom charity should have been adored though she had been persecuted in all the habitable world There is not a more subtil poyson then that of asps nor a more deadly envy then that of brothers and especially of those that make profession of wisdome and of holinesse This animall Passion that makes at length a sinne of the spirit feels her self most conveniently
say shall come to passe under thy Reign Behold a strange Prophecy and some body may wonder that Elisha did not cause that wicked man to be strangled that was to make all those tragedies for how many mothers are there that would have choaked their own children at their breast if they had foreseen that after they had sucked their milk they would one day assume the spirit of an hangmand to tyrannize over mankind Yet Elisha rejects not that Hazael but consecrates him King by his speech because that he knew that it was a disposition of God who would make use of him as of the rod of his fury to chastise the Idolatries of his Kings and the sins of his People All men of God have this property to submit themselves exceedingly to Gods will although it seems to will and permit things strangely lamentable In conclusion as Predictions are very ticklish and flatter the intention of those that promise themselves Empires and wonders they animate also the heart of those that have wicked undertakings and one ought never to permit any one to take consulations with Astrologers and Southsayers about the life and fortune of great men This Embassadour returning to the Court deceived his King giving him all hopes of a life and when he doubted least of death strangled him with a wet napkin paying himself with a Kingdome for a recompence of his wickednesse And although it was a disposition of God that Benhadad should be deprived of his Sceptre yet it failed not to be a crime in Hazael The last rancounter that Elisha had at Court was with King Joash who went to see him a little before his death and this Prince foreseeing that he would quickly depart out of this world said to him weeping that he was the Father the Chariot and the Conductour of his Kingdome and of all his People expressing that he was afflicted with the regret of his losse above all the things of the world But Elisha to comfort him made him take his bow and arrows and put his hand upon the Kings hand as to guide it after that he commanded the window to be set open towards Syria and caused the King to let flie an arrow which he accompanied with Propheticall words saying That it was the arrow of salvation whose feathers God himself did guide and that it was a messenger that prophesied to him that he should combate and destroy the Syrians enemies of his people After that he bad Joash again strike the ground with the point of a dart that he had in his hand which he did three times and the Prophet told him that he should carry away as many victories over the King of Syria but if he had stricken till seven times he should have ruined him even to the utmost consummation A little while after Elisha dyed with an high reputation of sanctity and an extreme regret of all the orders of the kingdome and was interred in a place where he raised afterward a dead man by the touching of his bones God rendring every thing wonderfull in him even to his very ashes It appears by all this discourse that this personage had not a Piety idle and fearfull amorous of its own small preservation without caring for the publick good but he had an heart filled with generous flames for the protection of his people and an incomparable security to shew to Princes the estate of their conscience He supported all the Realm by his prayers by his exhortations by his heroick actions and the losse of one such man was the overthrow of the prime Pillar of the State ISAIAH JEREMIAH ISAIAH THE PROPHET IEREMIAH THE PROPHET THe Prophet Isaiah hath engraved his spirit in his Book and cannot be commended more advantageously then by his works He that would make him great Elogies after so sublime a Prophecy would seem to intend to shew the Sun with a torch The things that are most excellent make themselves known by themselves as God and the Light and I may say all the words that this divine Personage hath left us are as many characters of his Immortality It is with a very just title that we put him amongst the holy Courtiers for he was born at the Court of Judea and some hold that he was the nephew of King Amasiah This birth so elevated and so many fair hopes which might flatter him to make him follow the course of the great ambitions of the world did no way shake the force of his spirit It was a soul consecrated to things Divine that sacrificed the first fires of his youth by the most pure flames of Angels Never did Prophet enter into that Ministery with more authority and disposition of heaven He had a sublime vision in which he saw the Majesty of God seated upon a Throne of Glory environ'd with Seraphims that were transported through the admiration of his greatnesse God in person created him his Prophet the Seraphim a messenger of the sovereign power purified his lips with a Carbuncle from whence proceeded a celestiall fire that if he had got any pollutions at the Court where tongues are so free they might be taken away by that sacred touch He offered himself to God with an heart full of chearfulnesse to carry his word before Kings and Subjects without fearing their menaces or their furies And he acquitted himself all his life time worthily of that duty and prophesied more then fourscore and ten years not ceasing to exhort to counsel to rebuke to instruct to comfort and to perform all the exercises of his charge His Eloquence is as elevated as his birth he speaks every where like a King with a speech firm lofty and thundering that passes all the inventions of man When he threatens and fore-tells the calamities of Nations it is so much lightning kindled by the breath of Seraphims that proceeds out of this Divine mouth that pierces the rocks that shakes the mountains that crushes the highest cedars into dust the nations into fear and the Kings into respect When he comforts they are rivers of milk and honey that flow from his tongue and spread themselves with incomparable sweetnesses into afflicted hearts When he describes the perfections and the reign of the Messias they are the amorous extasies of a spirit melted by the heats of Jesus that strikes burns and penetrates him more then seven hundred years before his Birth The holinesse of his Life marched alwayes hand in hand with his Doctrine He was a man dead to all worldly things that lived but by the raptures of his deified spirit He loved singularly the poor and comforted them in all their necessities He spake to Kings and reproved their sins with an heroick constancy worthy of his Bloud and Ministery At the same time as Romulus began the Court of Rome Isaiah saw that of Judea where he experimented great changes and strange diversities according to the revolutions of humane things He passed his youth under his uncle Amasiah who
observe that he never spake ill of the Christians although he hath violently inveighed against the Jews which testifieth that he was endued with some good thoughts in the favour of it His brother Gallio being Proconsul in Achaia would never judge S. Paul for any fact of Religion although the Jews did presse him to it with much importunity Adde to this that our Seneca two years before his death did live a retired life under the colour of indisposition of body and would no more frequent the Temples of the Heathen as also that he would not procure his own death before the Emperour expresly had commanded it as being then of the opinion of the Christians who did forbid self-murder and also that at last that he did forbid the vain pomp and the vain ceremonies at his Funerals These Reasons being weighed do draw unto this Conclusion That it is more beseeming our Religion to conceive well of the Salvation of Seneca then to condemne him The strongest Objection which can be made against this Opinion is That at his death Cornelius Tacitus doth make him to invoke on Jove the Liberatour But no esteem ought to be given to this Argument for Tacitus could not understand that which was altogether out of his knowledge seeing that Seneca did never make open profession of Christianity but kept that thought totally concealed from Nero and all the Heathen And we ought not to be amazed that he was not comprised in that search which was made for Christians it being sufficiently manifest that many illustrious Christians have lived in the Courts of the Heathen Emperours and dissembled their Religion they being not bound in conscience to declare it at all times to run wilfully into Martyrdome Moreover this Historian above named hath written divers things very lightly especially when he maketh mention of the Religion of the Jews and Christians which he describes rather according to his own Idaea then any wayes according to the truth insomuch that when Seneca at his death implored Jesus the Deliverer he did not forbear to translate Jesus into Jove As rashly as this he leaves recorded to posterity that the Jews are descended from the hill Ida the name of which he saith the Jews do bear and that they worship the head of an Asse as also that the Christians confessed that they were Incendiaries and that they burned the city of Rome under Nero. But we find by S. Paul himself in his Epistle written from Rome unto the Philippians that he had many Christians in the house of Nero and Linus the successour of S. Peter who was there present at that time doth rank Seneca amongst them with an high title of commendation and though his History hath been corrupted by the Hereticks and the Ignorant it is never the lesse received in those Points which are comformable to the other Fathers of the Church so that Tacitus in this ought not to be considered This Name then of Redeemer or Deliverer whereof Tacitus maketh mention and this sprinkling of the water which the Faithfull were accustomed to present to God in the manner of Libation doth imploy some secret of which he never heard And as for that Objection that there are some opinions in Seneca's Books which are not conformable to the Christian Religigion it is of no value seeing those Works were composed before his Christianity And to that which others do alledge that he himself was the authour of his own death it is most manifestly false seeing he did not suffer a vein to be opened before the expresse commandment of the Emperour who had pronounced against him the sentence of Death as I have said already which was afterwards executed according to the fashion of those times in which by the permission of Magistrates the houshold-servants of the party condemned performed that office which belonged to the publick executioner of Justice Besides this in the beginning of Christianity Seneca who had but a light tincture of it could not yet know that it was not allowable for him to assist his at his death seeing that many Christian Virgins have killed themselves to divert the violations by their designed ravishers and yet have not been condemned for it S. Paul returning to Rome according to the Calculation of Baronius did find that Seneca was dead and that he was deprived of a great help in the propagation of the Gospel Howsoever he desisted not with all his endeavour to advance with S. Peter the Christian Religion which by and by they shall both bedew with their bloud For Nero to fill up the horrour of his crimes did begin the first Persecution against the Christians And it is our glory saith Tertullian that he was in the head of our Persecutours The wicked Prince perceiving that he could not wipe away the evill reputation with which he was defamed for the burning of Rome did cause the Christians to be accused and did torment them with outrageous and inhumane punishments Some were nailed to Crosses distilling their bloud drop by drop in extremity of pain Others by cruel inventions were covered with the skins of savage beasts and exposed to bandogs who would fly upon them with a most violent rage and tear them in pieces Others being fastned to blocks were burned by degrees by fire with Diabolicall art and sport insomuch that in the Evening when the Sun made haste to bed to be no longer polluted with such horrible spectacles the bodies of the Faithfull being all on fire did serve as torches for the reprobate joyes of the Heathen Nero would be then in his gardens to glut his barbarous eyes with the Torments of those innocent Souls Happy ye Stars who in the combats of that laborious night did behold so many victorious Souls ascend from the midst of the flames to take possession of the Temple of eternall Lights The Infidels themselves had compassion on them knowing that it was an artifice of Nero's to sacrifice those poor Victims to his brutish cruelty Not long after S. Peter and S. Paul did find themselves to be involved in the same Persecution for as they endeavoured themselves to perswade Chastity to some Christian Ladies against the allurements and surprisals of the Emperour he grew enraged at it and commanded them to be locked up in close prison from whence some few dayes after they were taken forth to go to their Execution where S. Peter was crucified with his head downwards and S. Paul was beheaded after they had converted many Souls and even the Executioners themselves They kissed one another with tears of joy and with an assured pace they marched to their place of torment as to a garden inamelled with the most delightfull beauties of Nature At every minute their sacred mouths did call upon the name of their most beloved Master and the pleasures they resented to excommunicate with him in his Sufferings did not permit them to have the least fear of that which of all fears is the most horrible in
from the Pope to which he said he never condiscended and withall that he had maintained servants affectioned to the Religion of the Church of Rome in which if he had offended God the true Church and the Protestants he demanded pardon A new Dean A Heretick who had taken a wild possession of his afflicted Soul being present at his death according to the Order he had received did perswade him to speak any thing in the favour of his own party after which he prostrated himself on the earth and having pronounced a prayer or two he laid his head upon the block which the Executioner with one blow divided from his body The Earl of Murray who was the creature of Gods judgement on wicked Murray Queen Elizabeth for the ruining at once of this Commanders life and his sisters hopes being returned into Scotland where after so much perfidiousnes he resolved to triumph in the bloudy spoils of his nearest kinswoman was killed by a Pistol bullet shot by the hand of one Hamilton who was one of the chiefest of the Nobility of that Kingdom and now at last that uncontrouled Ambition which did blow up so many storms is extinguished in its own bloud he not witnessing at his death any Act of Christianity His good sister did much lament his despoiled body but above all his soul which being snatched away by sudden death had not the leisure to repent the actual Crimes of his life nor the blasphemies of his mouth 10. Nevertheless she found her self fast bound The Queens languishments in prison with the chains which this malicious contriver had linked for her destruction and under the shadow of this pretended marriage with the Duke of Norfolk although she deported her self in it with all discretion yet she was persecuted again â—o absolutely resolved were mischief and misfortune to pursue her to her grave and at the same time when she thought to have seen the beams of her dear liberty she had double guards set upon her to afflict her with all the rigour that was possible Of the four and fourty years of her life which God had dispenced to her she suffered almost the half of them under the cruelty of a tedious imprisonment where she had a thousand times been overcome with melancholy were it not for the consolations which she did draw from the fountain of true piety Pope Pius the fifth understanding that she was denied the assistance of Priests did permit her to communicate her self unto him which oftentimes she did and oftentimes the consecrated Host was privately sent unto her by those whom he intrusted Besides this she being a most knowing Princess who had her education in France from five years of age and always loved good letters and understood and spoke six languages did improve her understanding and her time by the assiduity of reading which did much sweeten the afflictions of her captivity During the time of those persecutions she received the comfort of benediction from divers Popes who secreetly did send some Fathers to her who being as industrious as couragious did find out a way to see her and to fortifie her in the true Religion and to discourse with her on heavenly things which was the sweetest Manna which she tasted in that wilderness She always protested in the singular confidence which she had in God that no violence should separate her from the ancient religion and that it should be unto her a peculiar gift from heaven to seal her confession with her bloud Henry the third of France honouring her dignity and alliance forgot not to send divers Ambassadours to comfort her although for certain reasons of State he did never act effectually for her deliverance We have yet living in Paris a venerable man of four-score years of age full of Virtue Honour and Merit who did visite her in her captivity by the commandment of the said Henry and who oftentimes hath assured me that no man could see that excellent Queen without raptures of celestial joy She loved the French naturally and was magnificent in her gifts and finding her self at that time unprovided of those things which she desired not to enjoy but onely to distribute amongst her friends she did take a Ring of Diamonds which was left her and her own table-Table-book which she gave to this good Gentleman who shewed them to me for the rareness of the work It is true indeed the book was very rich being covered with crimson Velvet and garnished with clapses and on the corners with plates of Gold but she did guild it far more with her royal words telling him that it was one of the misfortunes of her imprisonment that she was not able to present a gift unto him that was worthy of his merit Howsoever she would tender to him that small gift which would be the more observable for the profit it should bring him having written in it some few but remarkable observations which should conduce much to his advantage and but little to her own In the mean time this great soul passed many years weeping on the banks of this cruel Babylon where she heard nothing spoken but what carried the sounds with it of chains and prisons and the massacres of Catholicks She was perpetually sick in body and overwhelmed with the bitterness of mind but amongst all the cares of her cruel and tedious imprisonment nothing came more near her heart than the danger of her son a young Prince in the hands of Hereticks and abandoned to their Doctrine receiving his first principles from their errours and exposed as a prey to their conspiracies This was the occasion that some years before her death she wrote a long letter to the Queen of England in which behold some notable expressions MADAM COncerning what is brought to my knowledge A pithy and couragious letter to the Queen of England touching the late conspiracies executed in Scotland against my poor Son finding by my own example that I have a just occasion to fear the sad consequence it is most necessary that before I depart this world I should imploy all the strength and life that is left me to discharge my heart plainly to you by my complaints which are as just as they are lamentable I desire that after my death this letter may serve you as a perpetual rememberance which in the deepest characters I would imprint in your conscience as well for my discharge unto posterity as to the shame and confusion of all those who under your Warrant have so unworthily and so cruelly used me And because their designs their practises and proceedings though never so detestable have always prevailed on your side against my most just Remonstrances and all the sincerity of my deportment and the force which you have in your hands warp and byass the common capacities of men I will therefore have my recourse to the living God our onely Judge who under him hath equally and immediately established us for the Government of