answered their desires For in this second Volumn I treat of the Courts of Constantine the Great the two Valentinians Gratian Theodosius the Elder Theodorick in Boetius his cause Clodoveus Clotilda Levigildus Hermingildus and Indegondis in such sort that I have selected the principal sanctities of Great-ones in the first six Ages of Christianity which will not be sleightly valued by those who better love to finish a Work than unboundedly distend it Moreover also to be better than my promise in my first Volumn having taken the Court in general I here descend into particulars and there being four sorts of persons which compose the life of Great-ones that is to say the Prelate the Souldier the States-man and the Court-Ladie I have made a brief Table of the conditions necessary in every state couched in four discourses pursued with as many Books of Histories which contain excellent models of virtues proper to all orders and states of life in persons most eminent I can assure my Reader these Summaries of Precepts which I have so contracted in so few words it being in my power to enlarge them in divers Volumns are not unprofitable and the Histories are so chosen that besides their majesty which unfoldeth the goodliest affairs and passages of Empires in the beginning of their Christianity they have also a certain sweetness which solid spirits shall find as much to transcend fables and modern eloquence as the satisfaction of truth surpasseth the illusions of Sorcerers You shall perpetually therein observe a large Theater of the Divine providence wherein God himself knoweth I have no other aim but to dignifie virtue and depress vice without any reflection upon the persons of these times no more than if I wrote in the Reign of Charlemain or St. Lewis I heartily entreat all those spirits of application who cannot hold their nose over a piece of work unless they find it to suit with their own fantasies imagining that all literature is the eccho of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make glosses upon their own dreams than my Books We are not as yet God be thanked in so miserable an Age that we dare not offer sacrifice to truth without a disguise since it is the glory of Great-ones openly to wage war against vices as their greatest enemies For to speak truly after I had presented my First Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I likewise considered in his Court rich and resplendent lights in all orders which might serve as models for my Treatises but to avoid affectation of all worldly complacence I have purposely declined it my nature and habit having already so alienated me from all worldly pretences that it would prove painfull to me to court any man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to give me for reward For so much as concerneth the form of writing observed by me in this Second Volumn I will truly confess to my Reader that I have therein proceeded rather guided by my proper Genius than art or cunning And although I heretofore have been curious enough to read and observe all what ever Greek or Roman eloquence hath produced of worth yet I confess there is a certain ray of God which encountering with our spirit and mixing with nature is more knowing than all precepts and I may affirm this for the instruction of youth which hath asked my opinion concerning the qualities and conditions of stile True it is I have handled many books written in all Ages and have found the wisest of them to be elevated in conceits and words above the ordinary strain but always free from affectation Others are so passionately enamoured of certain petty courtships of language which are capital enemies of perswasion and which we most especially ought to avoid in discourses of piety the nerves whereof they weaken and blemish the lustre since even those who speak to us out of Chairs by word or writing although in terms discreetly modest make the less impressions on our hearts and many times so seek after their own reputations as they forget how much they are engaged to truth We see some who through over-much wit search out strange ways conceptions different from common understanding words extravagant and in all other things so vehemently adore their own imaginations that they cannot endure any but themselves in paper which is the cause they very seldom meet with the habit of humane understanding as being true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth of ability to controle all and to do nothing Some glory in barrenness and would willingly be displeased with God that he hath more plentifully sown stars in some parts of the Heaven than in others They can brook nothing that is generous without snarling at it and taxing it supposing beauties and splendours are defects because they surpass their capacities Finally there are some who so furnish themselves with the worth of others ceaseless allegations that they frame discourses like to those Helena's all of gold where we can behold nothing but drapery not being able to distinguish the hand from the foot nor the eye from the face I enter not into the consideration of our times having learned rather to regard the Works of the meanest Writers than censure them But to speak sincerely I never thought it fit to advise or pursue such courses And as in this Work I have not wholly declined learning nor ornament of language which I supposed apt for the purpose endeavouring many times to enchase them with seemly accommodation so have I been unwilling to replenish my leaves with Authours and forreign tongues this being undertaken rather to perswade virtue among men eminent than to fill the common places of young Students I likewise have so intermingled my style that not descending into a petty language of complement which had been below my subject I thought to make it intelligible yea even unto those who make no profession of arts or study My onely aim is to speak and to be understood perswaded thereunto by the saying of Philo That speech and thought are two sisters they youngest whereof is created that the eldest may be known I have more laboured upon the weight of sentences than ornaments of words not at all pretending to the honour of earthly pens which we daily behold to grow in so many Authours of this Age who would be much more absolute did they apply themselves to graver subjects and in some sort imitate the Sun who affording admiration to the world hath none himself Notwithstanding it often happeneth not with the most eminent Writers who ordinarily are endowed with much modesty but certain extreamly profane wits to idolatrize their own inventions to condemn all treatises of worth and value that it is impossible to be eloquent in our language but in the expression of vanities and impurities Truly if question were made to judge of French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite as
anima pueri ejus in viscera ejus Eccles 26. 23. Exaltavit vocem ejus de terra in prophetia Tob. 4. 11. of heaven Whom shall I believe touching the verities of God but God himself And verily behold the advise God giveth us to resolve us in doubtful cases which is to follow some great and powerfull authority that may draw our spirits with a strong hand out of so many labyrinths Without it saith S. Augustine there would neither be world rest light wisdom nor religion And if a decisive authority must be chosen where shall we find one more certain than that of a Man-God whose words were prophesies life sanctity actions miracles who by ways secret and incomprehensible advanced the Cross on Capitols and gave a new face to the whole world Now without speaking at this time of the Pentateuc where the Word with his own mouth drew reasons for the immortalitie of the soul against the Sadduces I might alledge the book of Kings where the soul of a little infant returneth into its body at the words of Elias I could produce the true soul of Samuel which returneth from Limbo and speaks to King Saul as the Wiseman rendereth this apparition undoubted which I will shew I might mention the book of Tobias which distinguisheth two places for souls in the other world one of darknes and the other of lights But let us hear Ecclesiastes since Infidels will make an arrow of it against us where after the propositions of the wicked rehearsed in this book to be refuted which must be well observed the Wiseman Eccles 12. 7. decideth and concludes That the body returneth into the earth from whence it came and the spirit to God who gave it Let us hear Wisdom where it is written That the soul of the Just are in the hands of God and Sap. 3. 1. shall not be touched with the torment of death Let us hear the Prophet Daniel who saith Daniel 12. 3. The true Sages shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and that such as instruct many to justice shall be as stars for ever Lastly let us hear our Saviour who speaketh to us clearly and intelligibly in the bloud of all Martyrs Fear not those who kill the bodie and cannot kill the Mat. 10. 28. soul Here will we hold this doctrine of the immortality from his own mouth more than from any other reason he caused us to make it an Article of faith he establisheth upon it all our beatitude why should we then argue and trie new conclusions after the decision of Gods Word 5. I knew well said the wicked man this second Court would condemn me but I am not yet satisfied After nature and faith I appeal to reason I Proofs drawn out of reason will enter into the bottom of my self to know some news of my self What a madness is it to appeal from the decrees of God to reason And yet was this wretch condemned likewise by this tribunal For asking his soul whither wilt thou go What will become of thee after the death of thy body Wilt thou not accompany it in death as thou didst during life I die replieth the soul It is as impossible the light of the Sun become night and fire ice as the soul of man which is the source of life and understanding should be subject to death For from whence should this death and corruption S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes c. 79. proceed If thou hast never so little reason thou well seest what the great S. Thomas and all the Sages of the world said A thing cannot die and be corrupted but by one of three ways either by action of its contrary so heat cold moisture and drought corrupt our bodies by their mutual counter-buffs and continual combates or by the want of subject which serves as a basis or foundation to it so the eye dieth when its organ is corrupted or by defect of the assistance of the cause which hath influence into it so the light faileth in the air when the Sun retireth In which of these three kinds wouldest thou corrupt Substantia intellectualis patitur tantum intelligibiliter qui motus potius est perfectivus quà m corruptivus S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes c. 55. me Should it be by the action of the contrary I am not subject to bodily impressions but to those onely of the mind which are rather to perfect than corrupt me I am not composed of elements I am not hot cold moist nor drie I admit no contrariety But when I (a) (a) (a) Anima parvo continetur corpore continetque res maximâ—s Aenesius platonicus comprehend in my understanding white black water fire life and death I accord all contraries Death saith (b) (b) (b) Lucr. l. 1. Mors coetum dissipat ollis Lucretius is onely made for the things which have a collection of parts and I am most simple Wilt thou rin me by defect of the body I am of a nature different from body It was sometime without me and I shall be a long time without it for I depend not on it but by accident and chance I take somewhat of it as an hostess in this life but I govern it as a mistress for eternity I make use of the organs of senses but I correct senses and when they tell me the Sun is but a foot broad I prove to them by lively reasons it is much greater than the globe of the earth If I borrow fantasies from imagination I make truths of them and in matter of understanding willing and judging which is my proper profession I have properly nothing to do with bodies as the Philosopher Arist l. 2. de anima l. 2. text 21. Aristotle hath well observed saying I could not be before body but I might remain after the death of body and be separated from it as things eternal from corruptible because I have an action dis-entangled from body which is contemplation All that which is idle perisheth in nature but I have no death because not idle I make it my profession to understand to will and to love which I now exercise in a body but which doth not absolutely depend on body I make use of my senses as of my windows when they shall be no more and that the panes of my prison shall be broken I shall not for all that loose sight but shall see the more easily Behold you not how even at this present I never am more knowing than when I sink into the bottom of my self and separate my self from commerce of sense For I am a Mistress said S. Augustine who see better by my own eyes than by those of my servant Wouldest thou destroy me by the want of an influent cause Needs must God fail if I should be so defective on that part since God having created a thing never reduceth the same to nothing Material creatures are corrupted by changing themselves into
the eternall and unquenchable fornace of all chaste affections He hath all his desires limited and replenished since as he sees nothing out of himself so he cannot desire any thing out of himself If you imagine the sea saith S. Augustine Mare co gitas non est hoc Deus omnia quae sunt in terra homines animalia non est hoc Deus Augin Psal 85. it is not God If you imagine the earth with so many rivers which moisten it so many herbs and flowers which enamel it so many trees which cover it so many living creatures which furnish it so many men which inhabite and cultivate it it is not God If you in your thoughts figure the air with all its birds so different in shape so various in plumage so diversified in their notes it is not God If you go up to those Chrystaline and Azure vaults where the Sunne and Moon and so many Starres perform their career with such measure it is not God If you behold in heaven innumerable legions of Angels Spirits of fire and light resplendent before the face of God as lamps of balsamum lighted before the propitiatory it is not God but God is he who comprehendeth all that who bounds it and incomparably surpasseth it All things say Divines are in God by way of eminency as in the Exemplar Cause which mouldeth them as in the Efficient Cause which produceth them as in the Finall Cause which determines them but they are in a manner so elate and exalted that those same which in themselves are inanimate in God are spirit and life All the Creatures we have seen produced in the revolution of so many Ages are as Actours which God Quod factum est in ipso vita erat Joh. 1. who is the great Master of the Comedy which is acted in this world kept hidden behinde the hangings in his Idea's more lively and more lustrous then they be on the stage The World strikes the hour of their Entrances and Exits of their life and death but the great Clock of God in his Eternity hath at one instant strucken all their hours Nothing to him is unexpected nothing unknown nothing new All that which tieth the desires of the most curious all that which suspendeth the admiration of the sagest all which enflameth the hearts of the most passionate Lands and Seas Magazines of Nature Thrones Theatres Arms and Empires all are but a silly drop of dew before the face of God Then how can God but live contented within himself Ecce gentes quasi stilla fitulae quasi momentum staterae reputatae sunt ecce insulae quasi pulvis exiguus Libanus non sufficiet ac ad succedendum Isa 4. 16. since the smallest streams of the fountain which springs from his bosome may suffice a million of worlds O ungratefull and faithlesse soul the same Paradise which God hath for himself he hath prepared for thee he will thou beholdest thy self that thou contemplatest thy self that thou reposest thy self in his heart yet thou flutterest up and down like a silly butterfly among so many creatures so many objects so many desires perpetually hungry ever distant from thy good ever a traitour to thy repose and glory Beggarly soul which beggest every where Miserable soul which in every place findest want in abundance Ignominious soul upon whose front all loves have stamped dishonour when wilt thou rally together all thy desires into one period When wilt thou begin to live the life of God to be satisfied with Gods contentment and to be happy with Gods felicity § 5. That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ THe second Reason that I draw from the second 2. Reason of the onely desire which Jesus had in seeking the glory of his heavenly Father Model which is the Word Incarnate the Rule and Example of all our actions is that Jesus Christ had no other desire on earth but to suffer to be dissolved and to annihilate himself for the glory of his heavenly Father by subjecting rebellious powers to his Sceptre and by gaining souls of which he infinitely was desirous even to the last moment of his life The Plato lib. de ordine universi apud Viennam Philosopher Plato in the Book of the order of the Universe writeth that all the Elements naturally desired to evaporate themselves in the Celestiall Region as it were therein to obtain a more noble and more eminent state of consistence Now the deaf and dumb desire which things inanimate have to be transformed into a nature more delicate is most apparent in the sacred Humanity of the Son of God which although it alwayes remained within the limits of its Essence it notwithstanding had an ineffable sympathy with the Divinity being totally plunged therein as iron in burning coals It in all and through all followed its motions will and ordinances as true dials wait on the Sun nor had it any desire more ordinary then to make a profusion of it self in all it had created Theology teacheth us that albeit the will of God were necessitated in certain actions as in the production of the love which sprang from the sight of God notwithstanding in others it was altogether free able to do and not to do such or such a thing according to his good pleasure as at such or such a time to go or not to go into Jury Able of two good things which were presented to chuse the one or leave the other as to do miracles rather in Jury then in Sidon Able also Nonvolebat in Judaeam ambulare Job 7. 1. to do the things ordained him by his heavenly Father out of motives and reasons such as his wisdome thought best to chuse In all those liberties never pretended he ought but the Glory and Service of his Father Good God what sublimate is made in the limbeck of Love what evaporations and what separations of things even indivisible are made in the five great annihilations which Theology contemplateth in the person of Jesus Christ First the inseparable Word of God seemeth to make a divorce but a divorce of obedience and to separate it self but with a separation alwayes adherent by the condition of a forreign nature transplanted into Radius ex sole portio de summa de spiritu spiritus de Deo Deus Tertul Apol 2. Greg. l. 28 mor. cap. 2. the Divinity Secondly he by a new miracle permitteth that this Humane nature tied to the Divine nature be separated from its subsistence its last determination and substantiall accomplishments Thirdly that Glory be separated from the estate and condition of Glory yielding his glorious soul up as a prey to sadnesse Fourthly he separateth himself not onely from the signs and conditions of a Messias but almost from the resemblance of a man being become us a worm Lastly he draws himself into the interiour of his Quasi ignis effulgens thus ardens in igne soul
to advance Virtue and to beat down vice without reflecting on any of the Personages of these times no more than if I wrote under the reign of Charlemaigne or S. Lewis I must intreat these spirits of Application which know not how to behold a work without making it subject to their own fancies imagining every letter to be the Ecchoes of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make a gloss upon their own Dreams than on my Books We live not yet God be thanked in an Age so miserable that we dare not sacrifice to Truth without a disguise seeing it is the glory of our Grandees that we may openly make war against Vice as against an enemy and not of our party For to speak sincerely having laid my first Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I considered what great and glistering lights there were in all their Orders within his Court which might serve as Models for my Treatise but to avoid the affectation of all compliance with this world I did expresly forbear it my own nature and my long Robe having so far estranged me from all worldly pretences that it would be a disease unto me but to salute a man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to return me for it As concerning the manner of writing which I have observed I shall easily confess unto my Reader that it proceeded rather from my Genius than from Art and though I have been curious enough to observe whatsoever the Greek or Romane Eloquence hath happily brought forth yet I must acknowledge that there is a Ray of God himself which entering into our spirit and mingling with our nature is more knowing and effectual than all precepts whatsoever And this I can affirm for the instruction of youth to those who have demanded my advice concerning the qualities and conditions of stiles It is true I have perused variety of Books written in all Ages and I have acknowledged that the most sensible amongst them have been raised both in their conceptions and their words above the common reach and alwayes without affectation Others have been passionately taken with some fine niceties which are the capital Enemies to perswasion and above all to be eschewed in the Discourses which are made of Piety whose nerves they do infeeble and whose lustres they do foil we may see that those who from the chair do speak unto us either by account or by writing although it be with terms discreet enough yet they leave a less impression on our hearts and sometimes are so violently carried away to serve their own reputation that they forget their engagements to the Truth We may observe some who through too much spirit seek out by-ways of conceptions of common sense and extravagant words and so strongly adore their own thoughts that they can suffer none but themselves on their own paper which is the cause they seldom meet with the right use of humane understanding being the true Citizens of Plato's Common-wealth capable to controul all things but to perform nothing Others there are who glory in a sterility and are willfully angry against God because in some part of the Heavens he placed so many stars These can endure nothing that is generous without snarling or biting at it They conceive Beauty and Light to be blemishes because they are above their capacities Lastly there are some who in their continual Allegations do so lay forth themselves in the praise of others that they make their Discourses like those pictures of Helena which are all of gold There is nothing but Drapery to be seen you cannot distinguish the foot from the hand nor the eye from the ear But I will enter no further into the consideration of our times having learned rather to respect than censure the indifferent Works of our Writers But to speak soundly I never thought it expedient either to perswade unto or to follow the same fashions And as in this work I have not altogether renounced the learning and the ornaments which I thought to be convenient but have inchased them in it so I would not fill my papers with Quotations and strange Languages this Labour being undertaken rather to perswade the Great-ones unto Virtue than to fill the Extracts and Annotations of the Students I have so moderated the style without letting my self loose to the empty language of Complements which had been beneath my Subject that I conceive I have rendered it easie to be understood even to those apprehensions which make no profession at all of learning It is the onely Design that I have to speak so as to be understood perswading my self according to the saying of Philo That Word and Thought are two Sister germanes and that the youngest is born onely to make the eldest known I study more for weight of sentences than for ornament of words pretending nothing to the glory of mundane Quills which we see every day appear amongst so many Authours of this Age who would be more perfect if they would apply themselves to more grave subjects and in some fashion imitate the Sun who being admired thoughout the whole world doth not know how to admire it self Nevertheless it often comes to pass but not to the more lofty Writers who are ordinarily indued with more modesty but to certain men extreamly profane to idolize their own inventions to condemn all Treatises of worth and to esteem that one cannot be eloquent in our tongue if he writes not Vanity or Impureness Certainly if a question were made to judge of the French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite that they may stand in comparison with the beauties of Sion As long as letters and men shall continue there shall continue the praises of so many excellent Books which have come from the hands of so many Illustrious Prelates and other qualified persons nay and of the secular State who have exercised their style on chaste and honourable Arguments and worthy all commendation I speak this by the way having at this time no design to enlarge my self on the recital of the number of those able men who have now the pen in their hands nor praise those of my own Robe who have given their holy labours to the publick and who I know may be followed by a great number of excellent Spirits of the same society For that which concerns me I am acquitted of my promise and I conceive that I have sufficiently expressed in these two Volumes the whole reach of my Design for the rest I conceive that the Books of Devotion which are to be made publick ought to be rare and to be very well digested because there is already extant so great a number of them that the number of the Authours will suddenly exceed the number of the Readers Satiety will cast a cloud on the brightest Beauties and though a thing may be very good yet we ought not to surfet
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
not be possible to God he being Omnipotent Immense Infinite How according to the confession of ancient Philosophers can he replenish all the world with his Divnity and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery in a quite other fashion than the Spirit of God is with the world I admit it For the union of it is truely personal But must it not be confessed the Word in this divine Essence as under title of efficient cause it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world and as under title of final cause it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures so under title of substantial bound it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions Is it not a shamefull thing that man will estimate and set a value upon the Divine Essence If God please not man he shall not be God Should we say man is incapable of this communication And how is it that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God to the prejudice of his own exaltation since it is found as soon in the union of the Word as in the possession of Essence See we not in nature that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth and incorporated with them do create Meteors in the air not any one making resistance to his exaltation What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said This union of God with man might be very fit and Plutarch also Plutarch in Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the communication of the Creatour with the creature pronounced these words That God was not a lover of birds nor other living creatures but a lover of men and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves and delights But this would seem to abase the Divinity Hear what Volusianus said I wonder that he to whom this whole Volusianus Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latetâ— cui parva putatur universilas c. universe is so small can be shut up within the bodie of a little child having a mouth open to crie as others What uncomeliness is there if God be united to a little body Have not Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est and Seneca (b) (b) (b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit Deus à se non decessit August said That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies and that it was a slavery in Great-ones to be unable to be little I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature From whence proceedeth this amazement but from the baseness of our thoughts If we said God being made man ceased to be God and were despoiled of his Empire Greatness Essence there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy not leaving himself when we say humane nature is received into the Word as a small source into a huge river and not loosing its Essence is fixed upon the personality of the Word it self is it not to honour the power majesty and wisdom of God 5. In what were the Divinity abased Can it be in doing a work so noble so singular so divine that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels through times and eternity What is more specious and more sweet than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature to wit of God and man verily say I one composed of an unheard-of composition to render the majesty of his father palbable and visible to the hands and eyes of mortals What dignity to behold in the world a Man-God become a part of the world to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity who proposed this person as the end of his communications the bound of his power the first-born of all creatures who held all Ages in breath for him all hearts in desires all minds in expectation all creatures in prophesies The Book of God hath written me In copite libri scriptum est de me Psal 39. 8. in the beginning of its first page said the Word with the Psalmist All creatures of this great universe all predictions and conceptions of these two great books the world and the Bible tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent sensitive and vegetative All creatures were but leaves and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth The fruit of earth sublime Isaiah 4. 20. We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard Religiose dicendum reverentér audiendum est quis propter hunc hominon gloris honâ—re coronandum Deus omnis creavit Rupert l. 13. de glor Trinit proces Spi. Sancti with reverence It is for this incomparable man that God created the world and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory which covereth his head What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp to praise and declare unto men the Name of God to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort and every one of them to honour this first Essence by so many distinct perfections notwithstanding all to confess their ability cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate which passing through all the spheres of nature grace and glory enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father he manifesteth them to men and making himself an adoring God a loving God an honouring God he adoreth he loveth he honoureth God so much as he is adorable amiable and honourable through all Ages for evermore Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge and love of the Word revealed Let us adore this great sign this eternal character of the living God for whom all signs are Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life wherein we afford him not three things due to him by titles so lawfull Homage Love Imitation Homage by adoring him and offering him some small service directed according to times in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him by an entire comformity of our wils to his Love
both on Gods part before God and in Jesus Christ as being shut up within the Word before they bring forth a word and Auditours should be well instructed if they all heard as saith S. Paulinus with the ear through which Jesus Christ entereth To preach God hatred of vice and love of virtue with a discourse firm and rational and first of all to perswade himself what he wisheth others may practise this is the mark whereat all preaching should aim We have cause to praise God that he hath rendered our Age very fruitfull in men able and sufficient in this kind to whom I bear such respect and whom I so much admire that I seek not to censure them It were to be wished the younger sort would rather frame themselves by their examples than to be surprized with an itch to please certain ears and so many unjoynted judgements All such as judge of Preachers onely by the garb and exteriour shew use to deifie their vices and it is a note one doth not always please God when he seeks over-much to please those who like nothing but extravagancies Care must be had of Citie-bruits and vulgar opinions as the Eagle regardeth flies Light never blushed to be despised by rear-mice and a prime spirit is not troubled at the sinister judgements which the ignorant make so that he learn to cast up his reckoning with God for whom he laboureth Onions hinder the attraction of the adamant and all these popular opinions do nothing but disturb a spirit on which they make impression Solid Devotion 9. LEt us dis-involve what we may the devotion of Sacraments books and sermons from these sophisticate forms which varnish the lustre of it and let us learn to seek it in the purest sources and fountains of our Saviour True Devotion if you desire to know the condition of True devotion 1 Cor. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hermes it beareth the same liveries which S. Paul gives to Charitie It is patient it is not offended with any thing but that which tendeth to the displeasure of God it digesteth all acerbities turning them into its colour and tast it is sweet and benign it hath no emulation but for virtues it doth nothing unfitly it hath not any thing to do with the puffings of vanitie nor ambitions which invade worldly spirits it seeks not its own ends it is not moved with anger to see it self despised it thinks no ill it rejoyceth not at iniquity but enlargeth it self chearfully in the truth it suffereth all it believes all it hopeth all it endureth all It is a devotion always joyfull always content ever active in its dutie not prying through curiositie into others affairs It hath thoughts innocent an eye simple hands clean little noise and much fruit A Devotion which complaineth of none is troubled at nothing which speaks little and doth much which hath more good effects than slight complements more silence than eloquence more humilitie in the interiour than ostent in the exteriour which flieth on all the actions of life as a Bee on flowers and converteth them all into honey Oh what a Treasure of peace what a treasure of love what a treasure of glorie is this devotion There needs but one great word to express great things Disquiet not your self upon the multitude of precepts and books to know how you may arrive to this excellent virtue which soweth the seeds of perfection in the heart The first step you must make towards it is the knowledge of the will of God Know what he would have of you what you of him in what manner he expecteth it and what desire you have to please him That man offendeth in serving who understands not how he should serve and it is ever a main part of obedience to learn how you must obey There are things An Epistle to Demetrias written by an Ancient and translated by a great personage of this Age. forbidden and things commanded some permitted others advised God forbids the evil commandeth the good permits the indifferent adviseth the perfect Who puts himself in a way of devotion puts himself in a way of perfection but who flieth above nature ought not for all that to destroy the law of nature To say one is devout and fails in the duties of common charity which commandeth us to do to our neighbours what we would have done to our selves is to have fair titles and feeble actions That man is not exempt from the law who would do above the law and there is not any more obliged to avoid things not permitted than he who for the love of God denieth himself such as are permitted Devotion is not practised to excuse sins but to perfect virtues A soul truly devout hath three aspects which replenish the whole capacity of the duties it professeth one upon God another on it self the third upon a neighbour It serves in common piety and above common piety that applieth it to all the ordinary actions of our Christianity and the other disposeth it into a more sublime commerce than the common yet contemns not the common It hath its retirement its prayers its meditations guided and digested not for satisfaction of will but edification It keeps all the senses well governed in great equality the tongue under the rule of discretion the heart in a secure peace and towards a neighbour carrieth honey in the mouth charity in the hands and example in all its actions which make it live in all the antipasts of Paradise As there is no corporal riches comparable to Non est census super census salutis corporis non est oblectamentum super cordis gaudium Eccles 30. health so there is not any spiritual wealth in the world that comes near the alacrity which God distilleth into a heart truly and solidly devout freely unloosened from earth to be resigned to Heaven The oyl of consolations said Hugo drieth up in worldly vessels but as for the consolation and joy which is drawn from Devotion it is so exuberant that there is no vessel here below able well to contain it It is necessary the heart break into sighs and Renuit consolari anims mea meâ—â—â— fui Dei delectatus sum exercitatus sum defecit spiritus meâ—s Psal 76. dissolve into desires for the presence of God I call your consciences O devout souls to witness that I were eloquent if I could make to pass through my pen what you feel in your hearts I affirm that if there be any life in the world which is able to nourish and foment the joy whereof I speak it is the Christian life holily and purely led according to the rules of the Word of God and I borrow the proofs of what I say from the great wit Tertullian who Tertul. de spectaculis Haec spectaculâ— sancta perpetua gratuita Quid jâ—â—undius quà m Dei patris Domini recomiliatio quà m veritatis revelstio quà m eâ—â—ris cognitio quà m tantorum
must there perhaps long time remain to burn and wear off so many ordures as our soul contracted in worldly affections if we make account to decline the eternity of torments I am amazed when I reflect on the remisness of Catholicks as well in the provision for their own safety as the comfort of their bretherens souls And when I have well weighed the course and progress of this great neglect I find it hath two sources The first is called infidelity the second stupidity which I resolve to convince in two passages of this discourse It is true that after this direfull heresie blown by the breath of the infernal serpent hath for this last Age opposed the verities of our faith besides the lost souls it daily takes away in the torrent of corruption it hath destilled into the minds of Catholicks faintness and infidelities which now adays turmoyl irresolute wits upon many articles and namely that which is now our present object Purgatorie will some Libertine say amidst the fumes of wine and good cheer is not so hot as folk talk Who ever came back to tell us news of it God is mercifull think you he takes delight to burn his children and to cut off the price of his Sons passion who satisfied for our sins Young souls hear this and suck in poison by the ear which choaks their belief and killeth the exercise of good works What shall I say against these infidelities and floating opinions of feeble Catholicks It is not my purpose to cast my self upon a subtile controversie which doth nothing but hale truth hither and thither I will loose no time to touch at many passages I onely to the matter express two reasons drawn from two lights that of nature and the other of faith which are able to evict confession of truth from a man who hath never so little shame or brain 2. It is a strange thing to see the great consent of all Purgatorie proved by the light of nature Ages which agree in a pretention of purgations of the soul so strong powerfull that those lights of nature speak as understandingly as if they were written with the rays of the Sun All the Gentiles who lived out of the law knew not how to gainsay this doctrine For they were sensible of the noble extraction of their soul and knew it was defiled by the body and by sensual works Behold the cause why they tied themselves to The opinion of the Ancients concerning the purgation of souls feeble elements to purifie it one while washing themselves in the streams of fountains another while passing through flames and sometimes seeking other ways to cleanse themselves from pollutions of the flesh But it was a pitifull thing they found prophanation even in sacrifice They were not content to purge themselves in this life but extend it to the souls of the dead constantly believing they stood in need of remedies to free themselves from bodily stains Theophilus Patriark of Antioch in the book he directed to one named Antiochus saith the Gentiles took out of the Scripture all they wrote of punishments in the other life And S. Augustine observeth that having this August 21. de civitate Dei c. 13. idea that all stains of the soul proceeded from the earth they employed the other three elements to purge them as he proveth by texts of the Ancients Synesius Synesius epist ad Joan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise thought there remained certain visible spots in the soul which made it appear they were the crimes wherewith it was contaminated in the body which notwithstanding agrees not very well with the truth we hold of the spirituality of the same soul And I find he spake in this text more like a Platonist than a Christian The Hebrews the Aegyptians Grecians and Romanes all contended for prayers for the dead and the truth of purgatorie The Hebrews three times in the Morus de Missa An excellent observation upon the belief of Purgatorie among the Hebrews Apoc. 21. 16. Civitas in quadro posita est year celebrated the feast of the dead and their Priest mounting up into a chair made expresly and ceremoniously four-square to represent the Citie of the blessed according to S. John rehearsed aloud and audibly the names of the dead to recommend them to the prayers of such as were present prayers so familiar amongst them that they wrote them upon tombs instead of Epitaphs in these terms SIT ANIMA EIUS COLLIGATA IN FASCICULO VIVENTIUM let his soul be bound up in the posey of the living As one would say all the souls of Saints were as an odoriferous posey whereof every elect constituted a flower What is this but to make stones speak against impietie What shall I say of the Aegyptians that were so Notable purgation of Aegyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impressed with the opinion that souls must be purged in the other life in so much as they had been drenched in voluptuous pleasures of the flesh that in the funerals of the dead having opened the bodie they took the heart out of the breast and put it into a little casket then on the bank of Nilus where ordinarily Plutarch in convivio septem Sapientum tombs were erected a herald holding the casket and shewing it to the eyes of heaven protested before all there present the deceased now in question had lived piously and according to the laws of his Ancestours that if he had offended through bodily pleasures they wished his soul might be as well cleansed as they went about to purge the stomack the instrument of the lusts of the living thereupon they threw it into Nilus Behold these poor Pagans how they were moved with a touch from God which cannot lye who says unto them the dead must be purged but as for the rest they know not how Shall I speak of the Grecians And know we not that Plato the prime man of their Nation in his Phedon spake so perspicuously for purgatory that he seemed to have been bred in the Christian schools I will conclude with the Romans And can we be ignorant how in the beginning of the Church under the Emperour Domitian when as yet some Apostles lived Quintilian a most renowned Oratour making Qintil Declam 10. an oration in the City of Rome in a certain pleading concerning a sepulcher which had been enchanted by magick protested in terms most express the truth of purgatory saying The soul being purged of fire went to take place in heaven as we shewed also in the sixteenth maxim If you also require authorities of Pagans who have seen what Christians practised adde to all this that Julius a very ancient Authour speaking Julius Florileg l. 3. of the death of a Lady named Podon observed in plain terms that her husband who was one of the most ancient Christians made offerings for her which he called Tertul. in exhort ad castitat Jam repete apud
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
that we cannot look upon them but if with these defects we also there find a soul wicked ungratefull an enemy to God and men we then conceive such horrour that one had need to be more then a man to endure them Now we were in this estate which I speak of for besides the misfortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides we were enemies to God by having been too much a friend to our selves and which is more we could not have one silly spark of love for him if it were not inspired into us by himself mean while he accepteth us and appropriateth us to himself among all these contrarieties He out of his goodnesse will not lose him who through his own malice delighteth to lose himself he then stretcheth forth his hand unto him when the other tums his back the one flyeth and the other pursueth this fugitive with the pace of his charity even into the shadow of death He calleth him he flatters him he courteth him and not content to pardon him a crime he promiseth him a Kingdome What may one say of so profuse a Bounty How can we in the world so greedily seek for all the contentments of nature seeing the God of nature so roughly handled in the world which he built with his own hands we cannot abide the stinging of a fly a noise a smoke the sight of a thing which is in any sort displeasing a world must be made of gold and silk to satisfie our desires Jesus is the sign of a Contradiction reverenced in appearance and in effect used as a thing of nought O how divinely hath Saint Augustine expressed the humour of a worldly man an enemy to the life of God in the book he wrote of the Christian Combat Jesus was not wise enough according to the opinion of the world He hath indifferently taken upon himself all that which his heavenly Father would not shewing any Aversion from things the most distastefull This is it which is hard to digest It displeaseth the covetous that he coming into the world hath not brought with him a body of gold and pearl It displeaseth the luxurious that he was born of a Virgin It displeaseth the proud that he so patiently suffered injuries It displeaseth the nice that he endured so many afflictions and torments Lastly It pleaseth not the timorous that he dyed Prophane spirits cease not to say but how can that be done in the person of God and in stead of correcting their vices which are very great they find cavills at the perfections of Jesus Christ which are most innocent § 4. The Conclusion against Disdain VVIll we still out of humour love things pleasing It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of body or some other deformity of nature when we are bound to love him to sensuality and have a perpetuall distaste against all which may maintain virtue A Father and a Mother to have an aversion against their own children under colour that they have some defect in nature and in stead of regarding them with an eye full of pity and compassion to comfort their infirmities wipe away their tears and provide for the necessities of their life to leave them at randome in the storm and if out of necessity we must do them some good to throw them out bread in an anger as if they had committed a great crime to come into the world in that rank which the providence of God had prepared for them what a shame is it to entertein amities and petty loves onely to please flesh and bloud that if the eyes find not contentment the heart will no longer observe fidelity This creature which hath heretofore been so much beloved is now forsaken rejected and used like an excommunicate having no other crime but some deformity of body some infirmity or other accident nothing at all in its power to remedy A husband traiterous to Altars and to the Sacrament of Marriage barbarously useth a wife who brought with her the wealth of her parents and her own heart and body in lawfull wedlock but now this carnall man taken in the snare of his lust by a wretch and a prostitute rejecteth a lawfull wife as if she were a serpent or the froth of an enraged Sea elswhere to satiate his brutishnesse to the prejudice of his reputation and the death of his soul Must I here produce the actions of Infidels to confound ours One Mnesippus relateth in Lucian How that he one Lucianus in Toxaride A generous act of a Pagan who teacheth us powerfully to command over our Aversions day seeing a man comely and of eminent condition passing along in a Coach with a woman extreamly unhandsome he was much amazed and said he could not understand why a man of prime quality and of so brave a presence should be seen to stir abroad in the company of a monster Hereupon one that followed the Coach overhearing him said Sir you seem to wonder at what you now see but if I tell you the causes and circumstances thereof you will much more admire Know this Gentleman whom you see in the coach is called Zenothemis and born in the City of Marseilles where he heretofore contracted a firm amity with a neighbour-citizen of his named Menecrates who was at that time one of the chief men of the City as well in wealth as dignities But as all things in the world are exposed to the inconstancy of fortune it happened that having as it is thought given a false sentence he was degâ—â—ded of honour and all his goods were confiseated Every one avoided him as a Monster in this change of fortune but Zenothemis his good friend as if he had loved miseries not men more esteemed him in his adversity then he had done in prosperity and bringing him to his house shewed him huge treasures conjured him to share them with him since such was the laws of amity the other weeping for joy to see himself so enterteined in such sharp necessities said he was not so apprehensive of the want of worldly wealth as of the burthen he had in a daughter ripe for marriage and willing enough but blemished with many deformities She was saith the history but half a woman a body misshapen and limping an eye bleared a face disfigured and besides she had the falling sicknesse with horrible convulsions Neverthelesse this noble heart said unto him Trouble not your self about the marriage of your daughter for I will be her husband The other astonished at such goodnesse God forbid saith he I lay such a burthen upon you No no replyeth the other she shall be mine and instantly he married her making great feasts whilst the poor Father was rapt out of himself with admiration Having married this miserable Creature he honoured her with much regard and made it his glory to shew her in the best company as a trophey of his friendship In the end she brought him a goodly son
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
worm-eaten walls no arms but the anviles of a shop or forge no other musick but their obstreperous clatter no other Master but the necessitie of learning nothing no other lesson but ignorance and misery Behold seeing you might have been reduced to this condition of life what have you done to God before your being to be that which you are He hath not been content to give you bloud wealth qualification spirit and courage but also he alloweth you the happiness of good education which setteth and composeth all the natural parts into a fair way You demand of me whether I judge seriously the education of Great-ones and men of quality to be such I affirm at the least it hath all the possible means and opportunity so to be in which consisteth the knot of obligation we seek for And without going further is it not an uncontrolable proof which sufficiently declareth that even the education of Court is worthy recommendation to say that God seeking out a school for the greatest States-man that ever was in the world chose no other place than the Court of a King You know Education of Moses at Court what a man Moses was how great how eminent how much beloved of Almighty God who elected him to be a conduct and captain of six hundred thousand men at arms to give him a regency over the elements and a power to replenish the four quarters of the world with the greatness of his prodigies What did he to breed him and frame him to so high and supereminent a condition to so heroick virtues Did he suffer him to be bred as other Hebrew children in fear in bondage in poverty which overwhelm the goodliest and best dispositions as soon as they begin to set forward No he brought him to the Court of Pharaoh he caused him to be nourished in the exercises of Nobilitie to swallow all the wisdom of the Aegyptians who then were in reputation to be the wisest men in the world This is it which S. Stephen said in the Acts Eruditum omni sapientia Aegyptiorum Acts 7. 12. Learning and Courtliness of Moses Philo de vita Moses And Philo in the book he hath written of the life of Moses unfolding to us the history of his education saith he learned in the Court of the King of Aegypt Arithmetick Geomitry Musick as well contemplative as practick Philosophie and the secrets of Hierogliphicks But to shew Noblemen how lawful it is to learn Court-civilities and garbs without contracting the vices the same Moses who learned all lawful sciences from the Aegyptian Doctours never would suck milk from nurses of the same Nation which might infuse any bad influence upon his manners God held the very same course in the education Daniel and his companions bred at Court Pueros in quibus nulla esset macula decoros forma eruditos omni sapientia cautos scientia doctos disciplina Dan. 1. of the Prophet Daniel and of those three holy children who planted the trophey of their faith among the burning coles of an oven he caused them to be educated in the Court of King Nebuchadnezzar he caused them to learn the Chaldaik language to be trained in literature to be afterwards presented to the King well instructed in all sorts of sciences From hence you may judge that education of great men is a matter full of worth and recommendation since God who disposeth all with so excellent oeconomy in favour of the just hath pleased to give to his greatest minions and favorites the Courts of Kings for a school And in effect we must aver Why men of qualitie are best bred there is the best education where the best tools and instruments of great actions are and these are found in the houses of personages of qualitie Education of children is begun in the choise of nurses Poor people take such as necessity permitteth many times surcharged with imperfections and disproportions of nature which make corruption creep into the child with the milk the rich and those of quality elect them with all possible advantage which gold credit or authority can procure This choise of nurses is of no small importance The Scripture observeth that King Glossa Lyr. in Daniel Nebuchadnezzar nursed by a Goat Nebuchadnezzar having beē from his infancy exposed in a forrest and nourished by a wild goat contracted thereby brutish manners so that degenerating into a vehement stupidity and most barbarous pride it made him afterwards by the just punishment of heaven return to the life of beasts among whom he had been bred The same happened in the person of the Emperour Caligula a portentous prodigie of man who seemed Dio. Cassius nurse of Caligula to be born for no other purpose but to shew the world the mischief which a great power can perpetrate in a great brutishness It is held this corruption came to him neither from father nor mother who both were reputed the most honest and prudent in the Roman Empire But it is said that perhaps of purpose to make him one day martial they gave him a masculine brave nurse For she was hairy on the face as man she drew a long bowe she ran at the ring she curvetted a horse like a rider but in other kinds she was mischievous and cruel and made her little nurse-child superlatively inheritour of her vices If then the goodness of nurses be one of the principal favours which happeneth in education who will have them if not Noblemen As soon as Ladies and women of qualitie are ready to be brought in bed every one will present them a nurse every one will offer one of their own choise there is not a visitant nor gossip that will not roam from house to house for this purpose and redouble journey after journey It falleth out oftentimes that after the mothers do neglect personally to give their children suck and use so much curiofitie in the election drawn by considerations meerly terrene that overmuch choise maketh them to elect ill The children of rich men become droughty amongst a mass of fountains wherewith they are presented to suck from their infancy and those of poor men amongst the incommodities of nourriture grow up as safforn under hail God counterpoizing to the one their over much sollicitude of human helps and supplying the want in the other Notwithstanding it cannot be denied but that a moderate choise of nurses ever accommodated to Gods greater glory is most available to the infant and that persons of qualitie have this favour much more transcendent than others After the nurses come the governours and governesses The poor creatures are instantly abandoned and cast amongst a little crew of children their ordinary companions and play-fellows and there have they all liberty to besmear one another as a Colliers sack In the houses of great-ones there is always some sage woman who giveth the first tincture and impressions to the souls of children and beginneth to trace on their
in the hearts of men by a presumption of their salvation Christian discipline oppressed by liberty chastity trodden underfoot by unbridled luxury the standard of rebellion advanced against the sacred persons of Kings a million of French exposed to slaughter four thousand Church-vesteries Monsieur de Sainctes in his Book of saâ—cage pillaged five hundered Churches demolished France so many times given over as a prey to strangers corruptions so strange desolations so dreadful acts so barbarous that they make the hair stand an end on the heads of all good men which have never so little understanding A stile of fire were needful or a pen of a damant steeped in bloud to express them Ah poore France France the paradise of earth eye of the world pearl of all beauties How many times by the means of this heresie hast thou seen thy bosom heretofore crowned with ears of corn and guilded with harvests all bristled with battallions How many times hast thou seen the land covered with blades and the sea with ships How many times hast thou felt the arms of thy children to encounter in thy proper entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of brothers hostility flie through thy fat and fruitful fields When hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy bodie When have not rivers of bloud been drawn from thy veins but such bloud as was able to cement together huge bulwarks for the defence of our Countrey or to serve for seed for flower-deluces to make them grow and be advanced in the plains of Palestine and they have been sacrificed to furies Innocency seemed to afford infants shelter from the tempest yet the sword of heresie found a passage into their tender bodies Age rendred old men venerable yet would no pardon be granted to their gray haits moistined with the massacre of their children Virgins were guarded in their mothers arms as a Temple of God yet have they been dishonoured So many personages of eminent quality have served as an aim for their impiety their pains have been sport for them and their deaths a spectacle What hair would not stand an end with horrour and what eye not weep forth bloud when we speak of these disasters which your selves detest Nor can you sufficiently wonder at the crueltie of those who have taken the liberty of such barbarous outrages and so bloudy tragadies I pass over this discourse as over coles covered with ashes and would willingly be silent were it not that as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby to cure the madness of the Milesian maids so must I discover some bloudy effects in the pretended Religion to raise a horrour against it in good souls Why also have you in this time renewed so many wounds which were not well closed and for want of a little obedience so lawfully due to the most just Prince of the world do you make a civil war to exhaust France of gold and bloud after such expence and so many bloud-lettings If these acts seem so base and inhumane to you why abhor you not the sect which produced them If God curse him who is the cause of scandals were it not fit if you have some beliefe stranged from common sense rather a thousand times to stiffle it in the bottom of your conscience than to divulge it with these disturbances divisions and spoil of a Countrey which you should love as men and honour as true Children Were there some stain in the house of our Mother which never was must you therefore call her whore drag her along by the hair and carry fire to burn her house in stead of providing water to quench the flames Is it not better to become patient to sweeten the acerbities of times spare wounds on ulcered bodies or at least to be satisfied with silence in a matter where you can pretend no right of correction What was that so exorbitant which the Church commanded for which you separated your selves and took arms to defend the wranglings of our Apostataes made afterward your Apostles What Maximes have we so rough and unreasonable that they must be taken away with the sword there to plant reformation Consider a little the notable corrections and admirable policies which Arch-hereticks have invented to introduce them into the Church I will here with all sincerity recite the Maximes of the Catholick and the Pretended Maximes of the chief Sectaries of which some have afterward affrighted you and you have disavowed them as you daily do by others God making you plainly see in the inconstancy and great diversitie of your Doctrine the little confidence you should put therein The Catholick Church teacheth that God would have all the world saved as the Apostle hath expressed in the Epistle to Timothie that he desireth good 1 Tim. 2. 4. of which he is the source and that he communicates himself to all his children The Pretended say that God absolutely desires evil yea doth it willingly predestinating men without any regard some to life others to eternal damnation as if a father who had daughters should cut the throat of one most innocent and marry the other wealthily having no reason for it but his will which is most execrable impiety pronounced by the authour of this sect in the book of his Institutions and chapter 21. where he saith Men are not all created to the like condition but that life eternal is pre-ordained for some and eternal damnation for others The Catholick Church speaks of our Saviour with most profound and religious reverence The Calvin in Evang Mat. 27. Institut 2. cap. 16. Authour of the Pretended makes him inferiour to his Father calling him the second King after God and attributing ignorance to him despair on the Cross and the pains of the damned which are things most horrible The Catholick Church holdeth Jesus Christ is the onely and sole Mediatour of redemption and that there is no other name either in heaven or earth in which and by which we can be saved and for that cause she honours it all she can extending and multiplying the fruits of honour and praise not onely in his own person but in his dear friends also which are the blessed Virgin and the Saints whom we pray unto as the fruits of his Cross and take them for Mediatours of intercession grounded therein on the word of God which commandeth the friends of Job to take him for intercessour Job 42. though he were in this transitory life and not at all doubting if the soul of the evil rich man prayed unto Abraham out of hell but we on earth Luc. 16. may be permitted to call to our aid souls so faithful so much honoured by God and whose praises he reckons his own greatness We likewise reverence holy images since it is an ancient custom in the Church the marks whereof we yet behold in Tertullian who might have conversed Tertul de pudicitia c. 7. with the Disciples of the
knowing God nor man To expect a judgement and to live in continual injustice To know that we must return naked to the earth and yet to dispoil the whole world to cloath our selves To build as if one should always live eat and drink as if we should never die some men to trace up and down the streets with a plume of feathers on their head and fetters on their heels women to bestow a fourth part of their life time in dressing and besmearing themselves to make themselves gross on one side and little on another to raise turrets on their heads to put shackels on their heels to be transported with so much sollicitude about a ruff as if they had a Venetian Common-wealth to mannage Others to confound with curtesie whom they would gladly eat with salt Others to kill one another about the interpretation of a word and a thousand such like things which are indeed most impertinent Notwithstanding opinion disguiseth them opinion besotteth them and opinion giveth credit to all this Do you then think it a matter worthy of your generositie to serve follies under the shadow that fools approve them Do you not behold for the second reason that you being free of condition and not having the power to disgest some reasonable service you notwithstanding undergo the basest servitude that may be imagined A young Lacedemonian whom fortune had made a slave rather chose death than to carry a chamber-pot to his Master saying it was unworthy of his condition and yet opinion maketh us to bear a fools bable opinion maketh us carry not in our hands but in the prime piece of man the head a sink of old dotages amassed altogether by light idle fantastick spirits afterward confirmed by laws by the tyranny of custom What shall we call slavery if this be none I call your consciences to witness if you sometimes shall begin to breath in a more free air and see the bright day of the Children of God you in your selves will blame all these inventions of the worldly life which enforce you to feel tormenting racks in your attires in your recreations in the complements of conversation O how often are verified those sayings of the sage Roman inserted by S. Augustine in the sixth book of the Citie of God When you shall come to consider all the trayn of ceremonies A notable saying August l. 6. de Civitate Dei c. 10. Si cui intueri vacet quae faciunt quaeque patiuntur invenient tam indecora honestis tam indigna liberis tam dissimilia sanis ut nemo dubitaturut fuerit furere eos si cum paucioribus furerent nunc sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba Abderites Caelius l. 30. c. 4. and hypocrisies of Court you will find them ill agreeing with honest minds unworthy of free men and not different from fools and in effect you will confess that no creature should doubt to term them follies if the number of sots were less the best veil they have is the multitude of fools Do you not behold a goodly pretext as if moles were the less blind because they have companions in their darkness Behold a point of servitude extreamly unworthy of a noble spirit to say that one condemneth in his conscience an act which he putteth in practice that he instantly may obey a vain opinion of the world It is said the Abderites after they had beheld the tragedie of Andromeda and Medusa became all frantick even from the least to the biggest and ceased not to sing to clap their hands to crie to whistle through the streets and to have no discourse nor thought of any thing but Medusa and Andromeda If then you had entered into their citie you had played the fool for fear to be despised by fools Is not this an intolerable weakness of spirit in a well-composed soul to have good lights and knowledges of Almighty God which incessantly beat upon our understanding and yet to play the fool and to comply with anothers humours For the third reason I say this belief which is given 3. Reason Tyranny of opinion to opinion passeth into a wicked and scandalous tyranny over Christians for by the force of cherishing and fomenting these maxims in the heart of the world they are transferred into nature Vices are not contented to be vices but by this tyrannical law of opinion formed in the ideaes and lives of persons of quality they make themselves to be adored under the colour of virtue Cardinal Jacques de Vitry relateth that a Countrey-fellow A pretty observation of Cardinal Jacques de Vitry carrying one day a young sucking pig to the market certain pleasant wits who had agreed upon this sport every one of them severally encountering him in divers cross ways of the streets and asking him what was his purpose to carry a dog to the market did so intoxicate his brain that beaten out blow after blow with such like interrogations he absolutely perswaded himself that to be true which he first supposed was begun for sport and cast his pig with shame upon the pavement and thinking it a true dog gave the other opportunity to gain by this sleight Behold what the tyrannie of opinions redoubled one upon another can do They made this poor man believe that this pig was a dog although all his senses suggested the contrary And I leave you to think what this torrent of the false Maximes of the world doth not falling with unresistable furie upon a dul and half dead faith It weakeneth all that which is Christian in a soul and planteth a wicked Idol of humane respects which causeth that all actions are measured by the rule of vulgar opinions And if there be yet any reliques of a good conscience this tyrant smothereth them as a Pharao and wholly perverting the nature of things giveth boldness to sin and shame of well-doing to virtue Behold a mean to drench all mankind in the gulf of confusion Is not this then abominable If these considerations of the folly servitude and tyranny of this life which are spun according to the web of the opinions of the world cannot serve for an antidote for our ill at the least think the day will come when truth shall take place and vice vanish into smoke It will happen unto you as to Tigers for whom hunters when they have taken away their whelps affixe looking-glasses in the ways to amuse the savage beasts and in the mean time they save their own lives by the help of flight The Tigers Illusions of Tigers forthwith most affectionately stay thinking they shall draw their little captives from the reflection of this mirrour and set them at liberty in the end they strike it till it is broken loosing together both their young ones and the instrument of their deception These opinions which you now adore these dreams these fantasies which you behold in the specious glasses of the world shall be lost at the hour of
out O profound wisdom O bottomless patience O what an invention it is to swallow one mischief and endure another David made as it were a plaister of the reproaches of Semei for the wound which his parricide son had fixed in his heart If great men govern thus and you so much love greatness why do you not rather imitate them than play the silly mouse seeking to bite that which toucheth you and drenching your selves every time in a glass of water engulf your selves with sadness in the least petty injury The second thing is always to have an assured Retreat into the conscience in affronts retreat in your heart and in the sweetness of a good conscience When a disgrace happeneth to you you are like an unfeathered bird shame fac'd and dejected for that you have believed with confidence that all these loans of fortune were your own You are like a jack-daw trimmed up with the feathers of many birds you have most imprudently thought in your heart that all these garnishments were of your own body and have neglected to make true and natural wings for your self When the birds come to peck at you and take away their own feathers on all sides you then discover your ignominious nakedness but had you preserved the plumage which nature presented to you you had taken a strong and confident flight even to the Temple of repose not caring for these borrowed feathers nor all these silly scriches of these fluttering and unruly birds What a goodly theater is a good conscience And what a beautiful arcenal is it to have still the arms of vertue in a readiness A good man goeth Greatness of an honest man out of these extrinsecal favours and all this specious train of fortune as a fair iewel drawn out of a case True it is the case thereof may seem rich and well adorned with mean and slight embroderies but it-self is far more resplendent than all that ostent Our eyes doe not penetrat sufficiently through this trim of the worlds goodness It is a golden veil which may as well cover snow as a cole as soon as this case is taken away the radiance of this iewel is beheld in the dayes of brightness refulgently shining with the rayes of a constant equality of spirit of an invincible patience and with an inestimable meekness of heart towards all the world Happy night of disgrace thou hast not darkened this fair star but rather made it appear such as it was One of the greatest wits that ever was under heaven M. Aurel. Antonin l. 4. de vita sua the Emperour Antoninus in the fourth book which he wrote of his own life so much commendeth the retirement which a wise man maketh within himself that he assureth us that in all the palaces Delicious abode of the soul gardens orchards delicacies of all the Kings of the world there is nothing so delightful as the house of a good conscience There it is where man is involved in his little shell and retiring himself out of the salt of wates liveth with the dew of heaven there it is where the soul which was wholly scattered in so overwhelming a multitude of affairs foldeth it self within it self there it is where it beginneth to such in its own sap there it is where it accommodateth and prepareth its hive as a busie bee and endeavoureth to gather its hony there it is where it entereth into a new world an intelligible world a peaceable world a world smiling Ibi aeris liquidi serena temperies per sudum igneo colore rutilans with sweet serenity of air and radiant lights as S. Cyprian There it is that we pass into the society of so many eminent and admirable personages who have flourished in the memory of all Ages doing all the good they could and receiving ill from the ungrateful with a pleasing countenance no more troubling themseves then doth the Sun to behold the clouds which he hath drawn out of the mire and fens of the earth to make him a scarff of He knoweth he shall ever have the upper hand and that they may take from him the aspect of mortal eyes but cannot deprive him of his own light It is in this Temple of repose where we behold all the Temple of repose Saints as Eagles in a storm surcharged with sufferings but made invincible with the arms of patience We behold one afflicted in the loss of his goods another in the death of his kindred another in his own body another in his reputation another in all whom tribulation tormenteth in all his members All that is mortal shrinketh under injuries but all these arrows go no further than to the superficies of the skin and touch not the constancy of a well-composed mind which seeth them fall under his feet O what greatness O what felicity Certain ambitious Kings have sought the way to build an Heaven on earth as Cosroes King of Persia who caused a Palace to be built like a Heaven which had the garnishment of a Sun of a Moon and Stars artificially counterfeited he also made below rain to pour down the winds to blow tempests to rage he in this celestial throne beheld radiant beams over his head and all this noise and clamour under his feet That which this Monarch did for meer vanity you may put in practice by a most solid verity You may for the present with the exercise of prayer the grace of Sacraments and a generous contempt of all which is without you raise a heavenly Temple of repose and tranquillity where you shall not fear the bitings of calumny nor the mutations of the world A Pagan amidst the Brave words of Stilpho Erepsâ—è ruinis dornus incendiis undique relucentibus per flammos per sanguinem fugi filios me as quis casus habeat an pejor publico nescio solus senior hostilia circa me omnia videns habeo quicquid mei habui quia nil quicquam meum nisi me puto burning ruins of his Citie unsheathed swords bloud and massacres when the Temples fell upon their gods and all was in confusion could say Behold me escaped from the ruins of my house from the fires which shined on all sides I have found my way through bloud and flames I know not what is become of my daughters perhaps there is somewhat worse put upon them than the sword or fire behold me alone despoiled of all my goods and now become old all hostilities raging round about me Hap what hap may I have whatsoever I at any time possessed for I never esteemed any thing mine own but my self Demand of rich men where their possessions are Of the voluptuous where their loves Of the usurers where their accounts Of the ambitious where their Court All that is lost to them because they thought it their own because they presently sought it in the ashes of their Citie As for my self I will find all my possessions
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 Our life is a musick-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.
he passed in continual apprehensions thornie affairs perilous voyages sinister distrusts frosty fears of death barbarous cruelties remorses of conscience the forerunners of hell leaving besides a short and unfortunate posterity Behold his Picture and Elogie HERODES ASCALONITA HERODES ASCALONITA VULTU FERUS ANIMO BARBARUS LUTO ET SANGUINE MACERATUS A QUO NIHIL AD SUMMAM CRUDELITATEM PRAETER DEICIDIUM ABFUIT DEICIDIO VOLUNTAS NON DEFUIT VULPINA FRAUDE REGNUM JUDEAE INVASIT AN. MUNDI TER MILLESSIMO NONGENTESSIMO SEXAGESSIMO QUINTO REGNAVIT IRAE SERVUS JURIS DOMINUS FORTUNA FOELIX CYCLOPAEA VITA INFOELICISSIMUS DESIIT CAELESTI PLAGA FERALIS MORBI ANNO REGNI TRICESSIMO SEPTIMO VITAE FERME SEPTUAGESSIMO CHRISTI OCTAVO Vpon the Picture of HEROD A man no whit with civil grace indu'd Of visage hydeous of manners rude A monster made of massacres and bloud That boldly God Heav'n Natures laws withstood Ill words within no certain limits fall But who once mentions Herod speaketh all BY the carriage of this Court one may see whither vice transporteth great fortunes In the person of Aristobulus and Hircanus you behold that the canker is to a body less dangerous than the discord of brothers to a state In the person of Antipater a friend for advantage who seeketh to fish in a troubled water in the end fisheth his fill but is drowned in the act to teach you there is no policie so great as to be an honest man and that he who prepareth snares for another diggeth his own grave In the person of Pompey an Aribitratour who worketh his own ends under the colour of justice who buildeth his ambition on the ruins of state in the end the earth which faileth him for his conquests denieth him a sepulchre He found no more Countries to conquer and scarcely had he six foot of earth to make him a tomb In that of Hircanus too much credulity too much facility to please others humours too much pusillanimity in the government of Justice which head-long threw him into a life as miserable as his death was cruel and bloudy In that of Anthonie a passionate Judge who turneth with all winds and suffereth himself to be carried along by the stronger without consideration of Justice In that of Joseph and Sohemus that it is perilous to treat with women though free from ill purpose and much more dangerous to reveal a secret which who will safely keep must make his heart a sepulchre for it In that of young Aristobulus how the most beautifull hopes are storm-beaten in the bud and that you must walk upon the prosperitie of the world as on ice that it must be handled like glass fearing always they break not in the lustre of their brightness In that of Alexandra a boundless ambition designs without effect afflictions devoid of consolations torments without patience and a death without deserts and all this because she gave not a good temper of virtue to her soul In that of the sons of Mariamne innocency perfecuted and a little vanity of tongue desperately revenged In that of yong Antipater policy deceived the cloud of humane hopes cracked punishment and revenge ever attending an offender In the person of Herod an enraged ambition which giveth motion to all his crimes a double soul crafty cautelous politick mischievous bloudy barbarous savage and withal in the best of his tricks benummed doltish dall thinking to make a fortune to the prejudice of religion and conscience A goodly fortune to make himself great and live in the hatred of all the world in the remorses of a Cyclopean conscience a thousand times aday to call upon death not being able to die and in the end to die in a body leaprous stinking louzey and death to tear his soul from him with scabs stench and lice to make it survive its torments in an eternity of flames See you not here fair fruits of humane wisdom impiety and atheism In that of Mariamne a soul raised above the highest sphere of true greatness a soul truly royal holy religious courteous mercifull wise affable and endowed with an incomparable patience who as an Eagle strong of wing and courage soaring above the storms of the world maketh her self Mistress of tempests and thunders which for that they had served as an exercise of her constancy and perpetual battels for her life shall through all Ages attend the immortality of her glory THE FIFTH BOOK Fortunate Pietie WE have hitherto beheld a Court which rather resembleth Polyphemus cave than a Kings Palace to teach Great-ones there is no bruitishness so savage wherinto ingratitude towards God and vice doth not precipitate a forsaken soul Let us now see that as unbridled passions are of power to make a hell of a Princes Court so the practice of piety and other virtues make it a true Paradise Behold the Court of Theodosius the Younger a Prince who seemed to be born for nothing else but to allye the scepter to virtues and manifest what royal greatness can do guided by the rules of pietie It is no small miracle to behold a holy King If Ring of God God affected the curiositie of wearing a ring as well in effect as the Scripture attributeth it to him in allegorie the most agreeable characters he would engrave therein were the names of good Kings who are his most lively representations as those who wed together power and goodness two inseparable pieces of God but very incompatible in the life of man such are the corruptions of this Age. Some live in Four sorts of life the world transported with the torrents thereof and that is weakness Others flie the world and in flying oft-times carry it along with them and this is an illusion Others separate themselves as well in body as affection and this is prudence But few are found who bearing the world on their shoulders through necessity do tread it under-foot by contempt of vanities That is it which this great Prince hath done whose Court we here describe for being seated among people he built a desert in his heart and in a vast Ocean of affairs he lived as fishes which keep silence within the loud noise of waves and preserve their plump substance fresh in the brackish waters I go not about to place Theodosius the Younger in the rank of the bravest and most heroick spirits you hereafter shall see others more couragious and warlick but I purposely have selected this history drawn from the Chronicle of Alexandria Zonaras Zozomen Raderius and others to teach certain vain-glorious people who make no account but of those trifling spirits fierce mutinous and unquiet stampt with the coyn of impiety how much they miss of their reckoning seeing this Emperour with the sole arms of piety and modesty carried himself in a very long and most prosperous reign amidst horrible tempests which seemed ready to rend the world and other rash Princes who made shew to swallow earth and seas were drowned in a glass
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
to be compared with the beauties of Sion Whilest there are letters and men there shall ever be praise for the excellent Books which come from the pens of so many worthy Prelates and other persons of quality yea even from the Laity who have exercised their style upon arguments chaste honourable and well-worthy of all recommendation I speak this as it were by the way having at this time no purpose to enlarge upon recital of an infinite number of able men who stand ready with pen in hand nor likewise to commend those of my habit who have exposed their excellent labours to publick view and which I know might be well waited on by a large number of choice wits of the same Society But for as much as concerneth my self I have already discharged my promise and doubt not but that in these four models I have sufficiently comprized the whole scope of my design For the rest I think the Books of devotion that are published ought to be rare and extraordinarily well digested because such is the quantity of them that the number of Authours will quickly exceed the proportion of Readers Distast is a worm which sticketh on the most resplendent beauties and although a thing may be excellent we must not therefore glut any man with superfluity lest good offices turn into contempt and charity make it self tiresom Yet so it is that we must confess pieces well selected and curiously handled can never so superabound in number as to offend those who can distinguish of merit For if it be true as I have heard that there are many good and learned Religious men of divers Orders who prepare themselves to write upon this same subject I am very glad and protest it shall be acceptable to me because so they may perfect what I have begun with more profit than my self Note here the cause why I stay my pen and if there be ought good in this Volumn I look upon it as that mirrour which was fixed on the wall of the Arcadian Temple where those who beheld themselves saw in stead of their faces the representation of Pausan in Arcadicis the Divinity they adored So in all this which here may profit my Reader I see nothing of mine own but in it acknowledge the Father of Light who is the source and end of all which is in us esteemed laudable and whom I humbly beseech if there be any thing attractive in this Discourse he would be pleased to draw it upward as the adamant transporting such as shall read it to the love of their CREATOUR to whom is due the tribute of all honours as to Him who is the beginning of all perfections This is the onely comfort of our labour For not to dissemble a truth he that more regardeth to write than to live courting his pen and neglecting his own conscience shall always have trouble enough to defend himself from mothes rats and oblivion Centrum terrae validius accenditur ex limpiditate flamma caelestis Viennâ ex Ptolomaei Almagesto And though he should be laden with the applauses of the whole world in a passionate life it were but to gain a silly sacrifice of smoke without him to harbour fire and tempests within his own house It is said the Stars by contribution of their rays strengthen the activity of hell fire and I may say all the lights of understanding and reputation will serve but to encrease the torments of a reprobate soul who shuts his eyes against God not to open them to other object than vanitie TO THE NOBILITIE Dedicated to the CHURCH SIRS THe benefits you have received from God and examples the Weal-publick expecteth from you are so essential obligations of duty that when we speak of the piety of Great-ones you instantly are selected out to hold the first rank therein and to be the cause that virtues which ever are voluntary may turn as it were into title of necessity For to joyn the Clergie to Nobilitie is to connect two things together which are both in Nature and the Gospel very eminent It is to profess ones self an honest man by birth and dignity to stand on a pinacle and serve as a torch to change your word into law and life into example The Bishops of all Ages have been esteemed amongst men as the stars in the firmament whereof the Prophet Daniel speaketh as the Senatours of Heaven the Fathers of the Commonwealth the Interpreters Daniel 12. 3. Dionys 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Ecclesiasticâ Hierarchiâ of God the Mediatours of the marriage contracted between the Lamb and the Heavenly Jerusalem This is the cause why we ever think it is to desire a good work to desire a Bishoprick taking the words of the Apostle in a sense which flattereth sensuality informeth not the conscience but now that the passage to Offices and secular dignities is closed up from many with bars of gold and silver whom birth seemeth to invite thereunto they hope to repair themselves on the spoils of the Church where such as proceed by sensual and worldly ways oftentimes find poison and death hidden under a seeming sweetness For Sirs we must tell you your dignities how eminent soever they be are like the roof of the Temple in Jerusalem which had flowers among guilded prickles in my opinion to teach Bishops that Myters bordered with Villalpandus upon Ezechiel out of Josephus de bello Judaico lib. 6. c. 6. gold and diversified with stones have notwithstanding their points and prickings Had we as many eyes open towards Heaven as Heaven openeth to behold here below the most secret actions of men we should be strucken with horrour to see an Ecclesistical dignity fall to the lot of a depraved soul which changeth all the abilities thereof to incentives for sin and to make of his proper honours the true snares of his soul But it is a common disaster that the smoke which in the book of Tobie driveth away the devils doth here daily surprize men We stick on apparences and if we retain some Maxims of verity we use them as letters written with the juyce of a lemon which can hardly be read but by the help of fire So that when the day of Judgement shall manifest it self by fire and that at the departure of the soul Hermanus Hugo de primâ scribendi origine flames shall be presented to enlighten it even to the bottom of the conscience then shall it be when all the knowledge of virtue which we here on earth retain so poor and languishing shall appear with enflamed characters for our condemnation It is an admirable thing which the good Cardinal Hugo who flourished about four hundred years ago as he lay on his death-bed where with much advantage the vanities of the world are discovered and when perhaps some too indiscreetly flattered him upon the splendour of his dignity spake in the voice of an Oracle Take away these vanities for I
before you the four sorts of conversions by reason they will not be unprofitable to make us discover the singular oeconomy of God in that whereof we are now about to treat The Saviour of the world used all these pieces in the conversion of S. Augustine as we may observe in his progression For first concerning attraction of sympathy or natural conformity it is true that this great man was of an excellent nature and though The oeconomy of God in the conversion of S. Aug. it were a long time smothered up in flesh and bloud yet was it as a sun in eclipse which should one day appear in full liberty and illuminate the bodie which then was its obstacle In his most tender infancy he made amorous inclinations to his Creatour appear For then he had recourse to prayer as to a Sanctuary of his small afflictions and like a child placing felicity in that which touched him nearest according to his esteem he ardently besought God that he might escape the chastisement of rods and disgraces of the school He was of an humour free and liberal gracious mild affable obliging and full of compassion toward men in want which is a good way to represent great actions of virtue and dispose one to receive the spirit of God in abundance Affections with tears of sweetness and devotion were to him very familiar which appeared on the day of his being made Priest some time after his conversion for he spared not to weep in that ceremony where by chance a simple man interpreting that this happened to him through disturbance that he was not yet a Bishop who so well deserved it he came near to comfort him saying He should be patient that Priesthood was the next degree to the dignity of a Bishop and that in time he should enjoy the accomplishment of his desire S. Augustine afterward related this speech to his friends as an example of the errour of judgements made upon mens actions As for his vices he had nothing therein black or hydeous for his loves though inordinate were bounded in limits most tolerable and his ambitions were not haughty and disdainful but consisting onely in a sleight vanity to make shew of that which he had either of wit or learning a passion very natural to those who feel themselves endowed with any perfections Otherwise he had no design pretence engagements as have they who often cover their petty interests with the pretext of piety and are ever ready to imbrace the Religion wherein they find most accommodation for their temporalaffairs Augustine was so free from worldly avarice that he knew not what it was to make a fortune or reach at wealth Scarce would he ever learn to carry a key possess money in a coffer and take accounts as observeth Possidonius in his life All his mind was upon books and all his intentions aimed to the finding out of truth that he might offer homage to her for all he had and faithfully serve her all his life after he once had well known her These dispositions gave a full passage to such as were to treat with him On the other part attraction of motion which commeth from good example was to him very advantagious in the person of his good mother S. Monica And if certain people as the Lycians took the name of their mothers as of those whom they thought most contributed to the production of man into the Herod l. 2. world Augustine had great cause to take the title of his nobility from S. Monica who brought him forth more profitably for the life of grace than that of nature This woman verily was the pearl of women whose life had not great lightnings of extasies not raptures for all her virtues passed with little noyse like The qualities of S. Monica to great rivers that glide along with peaceful majesty but all was there very inward as in her who ever was hidden within the better part of her self Much hath she done in affoarding a S. Augustine to the Church and whosoever cannot discover the secret virtues of the sun let him content himself to measure it by his rays She pretended to consecrate her Virginity to Altars God drew her to marriage to gain from her a Doctour for his Church This Saint knew not as yet what she did when in her tender years by a laudable custom she rose from her bed in the deep silence of night to offer her prayers to God and when she shortned her diet at each repast to divide the moity of her life with the poor but the spirit of God which guided her disposed her then by these actions to some matter of importance She was married to a Pagan and one of a humour very untractable which she so softened by her long and discreet patience that in the end he set aside all his moody extravagancies as it is said the furious Unicorn sleeps in a maidens bosom It was with her a great consolation to have married an infidel and after some years to see him dye a Christian saying to God She had received a lion and restored a lamb All her care aimed onely at this son whom she first saw ingulfed in a life most licentious afterward by mishap involved in the heresy of the Manichees The poor mother endured nine entire years the throws of this spiritual child-birth the most sensibly that may be imagined What grief and sighs in her retirement What fancies in her sleep What prayers in the Church What alms in necessities of the poor What prudence and discretion in all her proceedings She sought out all the passages into this spirit which she could imagine but seeing it was a torrent not to be restrained by her forces she peaceably expected the assistance of Heaven She despaired not of his malady through fear to cure him She undertook not in the fervent accesses of his feaver to upbraid his disorders She went not about manacing him with fire and cauteries But did as God who acteth no ill but ever so useth the matter that the evil is extenuated When she could not speak to her son she caused the apple of her eyes to speak to God deploring all night and watering the Altars not with bloud of victims but that of her soul which were her tears We may say that as the waters which have pearls in them run for the most part to the south so this holy woman being in Africk a Southern Region Aquae defluentes ad Austrum generant margaritas Tarentinus Philosophus became in the abundance of her tears the true fountain of the South fit to bear a great pearl which afterward brought forth for Christendom many millions of pearls Never had the Angel Rephael so much care of young Toby as this celestial intelligence of her son being perpetually in Centinel and observing the visitations of Gods providence Her Paralitick was ready at the fish-pool and expected nothing but the stirring of the water Behold she
was seen to shine in his face which was the cause every one desired to speak to him for his conversation nor was any one weary of his company Augustine having met with this Simplicianus whom he called the Man of God throughly openeth his heart unto him relating all the disturbances of his life passed Simplicianus most tenderly embraceth him and shews the Port now much nearer than he imagined For as he mentioning that among other readings he had perused the books of Plato translated by Victorinus a Senatour and heretofore Professour of Rhetorick in the Citie of Rome I like very well saith this good old man that you have read the books of Plato rather than the impieties of other Philosophers I doubt not but you have observed many passages in this good Authour which make for our Religion but since you have read the Translation of Victorinus and much esteem of it why do you not imitate him in his conversion You must understand that I most familiarly knew him when we were at Rome he was a very learned old man having his hairs grown white in the long study of all sorts of sciences which he taught manured and illustrated the space of so many years partly in declaming partly by writing There was not almost a Senatour in Rome which acknowledged him not for his Master and he arrived to such a degree of reputation that they erected a Statue unto him in consideration of his great learning Who could ever have hoped in the decrepitness whereunto he was come to see him born again among the little children of the Church Notwithstanding to shew you the force of Gods spirit after the reading of almost all the books in the world he set himself in the end of his age to peruse the Bible and other Writings of Christians where he found himself surprized at unawares saying afterward to me Simplicianus know I am a Christian I thinking he meant to scoff me I will not said I believe any thing till I see you at Church And imagine you replied he the walls of a Church make a Christian He spake this much fearing to offend the Cedars of Libanus which were his parents eminent in qualitie though Infidels but he afterward was well resolved never to blush more for the Gospel Let us go saith he to the Church I am a Christian I was at this word so transported with joy I could no longer contain my self I led him to the Church and caused him to be instructed in the Articles of our Faith and commanded a name to be given him among those that required holy Baptism When he came to make his profession of faith some one thinking to please him would have him pronounce in secret No saith the good old man in publick It is no longer fit to be ashamed of so glorious an action As soon as he was mounted into an eminent place to pronounce the Articles of his belief all the world which knew him began to crie Victorinus Victorinus The admiration was so great the contentment so universal the joy so sensible that it seemed every one would snatch him from thence to set him in his heart Oh God! how you honour those that faithfully serve you Behold him now who in stead of tying himself to those dying Palms of Rhetorick is fastened to the tree of life which never perisheth and is eternized with a glorious memorie in the estimation of Christendom Who would not think himself most happie by following his example to participate in his crowns For mine own part I will truly confess unto you dear son that at such time as Julian the Apostata forbade all the Christians to use humane learning I was as much addicted to it as any man of mine age being then in the flower of youth very curious but seeing matter of faith was in question I most freely forsooke those Syrens to arrive at the haven of salvation where I speedily hope to enjoy your companie For so excellent a nature as yours is not made to be lost It were over-much to resist the inspirations of God your age and fashion require you to lay arms aside This discourse quickened with love reason wisdom and examples so sensible penetrated far into the heart of S. Augustine causing him to speak these words which he did afterwards couch in his Confessions I knew not what to answer convinced by varieties Confes l. 8. c. 5. Non erat omnino quod responderem veritate convictus nisi tantùm verba lenta somnolenta modò ecce modò sed modò modò non hahebant modum sine paululùm in longum ibat so palpable but in dull and drowsie words saying always this shall soon very soon be yet had this soon no measure in it nor did this delay I desired find any end God recharged again and laid a fresh battery upon Augustine by the mouth of a secular man A certain gentleman of Africa called Pontianus who following the Emperours Court came to visit him in his lodging found by chance on the table the Epistles of Saint Paul This being a man much given to devotion and who knew Augustine to have a wandering wit in the curiosities of prophane books smiled to see him now seeking out his entertainment with an Apostle Augustine replied there was no cause of wonder for it was now become his principal exercise The gentleman seeing him in this good humour sets before him divers discourses of piety and among others some narrations of the life of Saint Anthonie Wherewith Augustine and his companion Alipius were ravished having never before heard this great Saint spoken of So little curious were they to know that which could not be omitted but by such as were willing to be perpetually ignorant of themselves The other proceeding in his discourse represented to them the companies of Religious then in great account esteemed by all the world as the paps of the Bride replenished with celestial odours which streamed even as far as the deserts with immortal sources of their milk and added that they had a Monasterie in the suburbs of Milan erected by Saint Ambrose wherein were many great examples of virtue They heard this man with some small shame to be ignorant of so large a treasure even at their gate whilest they turned over the writings of many wits which lived in flames tormented where they are and applauded where they are not This good man seeing they relished this excellent discourse following the point said Being one day at Trier with three gentlemen my companions as the Emperour after dinner beheld the Turneys and race of horses with all his Court it came into our heads to go take the air in certain gardens near the Citie Two of the four of us walking along arrived by chance at a little Cel where they found Hermits and a book of the life of Saint Anthonie One takes it up reads and admireth it and in reading is so moved that he determined in
which said these words as it were singing Take and read often repeating them Admiration stopped the floud of tears and he began to examine in himself whether such a voice could come from any neighbour-place by some ordinary means All which well weighed he found it could not be humane but that God by this voice instructed him what he was to do He went from this place thither where he left S. Pauls Epistles with his friend Alipius imagining that as S. Anthonie had been converted by the reading of one word in the Gospel on which he casually happened God might likewise work somewhat in his soul by the words of his Apostle He openeth the book with a holy horrour and the first sentence he encountered was that which said It was time to live no longer in good cheer feasts and the Rom. 13. Non in commessationibus ebriâ—tatibus non in cubilibus imjudicitiis non in contentione aemulatione sed induimini Dominum Jesum Christum carnis providentiam ne â—â—ceritis in concupiscentiis vestris drunkenness of the world That it was time to live no longer in unchast beds quarrels vanities and emulations but that we must be clothed with Jesus Christ as with a robe of glory no more obeying the flesh nor the concupiscence of the heart There was no need to read any further Behold in an instant the ray of God which did directly beat upon his heart and opened to him a delicious serenitie Behold him throughly resolved He sheweth this passage to his faithfull Alipius as the decisive sentence of a long process which he had with sensuality And Alipius casting his eyes upon the subsequent words found (a) (a) (a) Rom. 14. Infirmum autem â—n â—â—ae reâ—ipite Receive him who is weak in faith Behold me said he If you determine to forsake the world take me for your companion They rose and went both to the good S. Monica Mother saith Augustine you shall not need to take the pains to find me out a wife Behold me a Catholick and which is more resolved to leave the world to live in continency The resolution is made and concluded with God there is no means at all to retire Had not God withheld the soul of this holy widdow of Naim it was already upon her lips to flie out for joy beholding this dead son this son of so many tears to come unexpectedly out of his tomb and present himself before her eyes with a splendour of incomparable light She made bon-fires of joy in her heart and triumphed with celestial alacritie blessing God who had stretched out the power of his arm on this conversion and who by the bounty of a true father had surmounted the vows of an afflicted mother Augustine in the mean while thought sweetly to begin his retreat from the Rhetorick Lectures wherein he was engaged There yet remained but twenty days to the time of vacation which had the continuance of twenty years to a man who then entertained far other affections notwithstanding through great wisdom and modesty he would not break with exteriour pomp by publishing a change of life in the Citie of Milan but suffered the time to steal away with little noise When the term expired he quietly discharged himself thereof and likewise freed himself from the importunity of fathers who passionately sought him to be Tutour to their children for his great capacity he alledging for his excuse that the exercise of the School had brought a difficulty of breathing and an indisposition of the breast upon him which threatened him with a ptysick if he desisted not This was very true but yet not the principal point of his resolution Behold how this great man avoided the occasions of ostentation and the divers interpretations he might make to himself for a gloss of actions and although God as he said had put into his heart flaming darts and juniper-coals against slanderous tongues he chose rather to take away occasion of calumny than to see himself put upon the necessity of defending himself very far different therein from the nature of those who make great flourishes to end them in nothing After he was discharged from his professon of Rhetorick he retired himself into the Grange of Verecundus where he stayed a long time as yet a Catachumen leading a most Angelical life spent wholly in prayer and the study of holy letters From thence he wrote to S. Ambrose of the errours of his passed life and the estate wherein he presently was by the grace of God as also of the aid he had contributed to his conversion demanding besides what book he should read the better to prepare himself for the grace of Baptism S. Ambrose certified him of the contentment he took in this so particular visitation of God and advised him to read the Prophet Isaiah but he seeing he could not yet understand it did defer it till another time wherein he might be better practised in holy Scriptures In the end the day so many times desired being S. Ambrose baptized S. Augustine come wherein he was to be born anew by Baptism it being in the thirty fourth year of his age as Cardinal Baronius accounteth it he went from the Grange of Verecundus to the Citie of Milan where he was christened by the hand of Saint Ambrose and had for companion of his Baptisin his faithful friend Alipius and his onely son Adeodatus at that time about fifteen years of age so prodigious a wit that his father could not think upon it without astonishment I had nothing Horrori â—â—ibi erat istud ingenium therein saith he my God but sin the rest is from you who so well know how to reform our deformities But all was there admirable for at the age between fifteen and sixteen years he already surpassed many great and learned men He also verified the saying of Sages affirming these such sparkling wits are not for any long continuance upon earth for he died some years after his return into Africk leaving a repose in the father who already apprehended the course of this Ingenium nimis mature magnum non est vitale youth and although he grieved to see him taken away in the flower of his age yet on the other side he was much comforted in the innocency of his life hope of his immortality knowing it was the will of the gardener who had gathered the fruit according to his good pleasure to lay it up in store After this baptism there were nothing but hymns songs lights of eternal verities thanksgiving and tears of joy This done he must take the way of Africa and they The death of S. Monica were now arrived to the port of Ostia expecting the opportunity of navigation when the holy and venerable mother Monica of fifty six years of age and worn with many labours rendered to nature her tribute and soul to its Creatour This admirable woman resembleth the Ark in
drew from the City and made them so like their lodgings they had at Rome that they were so ravished therewith as it seemed their houses by miracle had been transferred from Rome to Constantinople The two chief Churches were those of the Apostles and of S. Sophia to whom Constantine gave beginning but the greatness of the work is due to the Emperour Justinian Our great Monarch who had his eye open over all forgot not to establish a good Colledge in his City whereunto he drew the choise of learned men in all professions dignifying and adorning it with immunities and great priviledges in such sort that Aurelius Victor called him the nursing-Father of learning and pursuing this design he took a particular care to erect a good Library and above all to furnish it with good store of holy books well written the superintendency whereof he gave to Eusebius of Caesarea Behold the estate of his Constantinople which he by Edict commanded to be called New Rome and Sozomen assureth that in multitude of people in abundance and riches it surpassed the ancient which is not very hard for any to believe who will consider Rome in the absence of Emperours being then but as a Palace disinhabited yet could not Baronius endure S. Gregory Nazianzens speech who said Constantinople as much in his time excelled the other Cities as Heaven surpasseth earth This would suffice to shew the politick prudence of great Constantine but it shineth also in other points of which I think this to be most considerable that he held for the space of thirty years an Empire so great in a time wherein the Emperours had ordinarily so short a reign that they resembled those creatures which enjoyed but one day of life in an age when the people were so apt to revolt that the sea had not more agitations than all Kingdoms had vicissitudes in an establishment of Religon very new wherein commotions are commonly most dangerous We may well say this Prince had something in him above all that which is humane to cement together an Empire of so long continuance in affairs so discordant It is true that he tolerated the sects of Pagans for meer necessity otherwise he must have killed the whole world to make a new of it The wise Prince well saw it was a thing impossible to annihilate superstition in an instant which had taken such deep root for a thousand years about which time Rome was built but in this civil peace which he gave to all the East he insensibly undermined the foundations of impiety and verily by little and little it perished in his hands His spirit sparkling like a fire could not rest but seeing the Magistrates of the Empire were moreover busie yet not discharging the duty of their places and that by the greatness of their power they made themselves too absolute he altered the whole government dividing their charges and multiplying the offices of the Empire For which Zosimus blameth him not considering it was the policy of Augustus Caesar reputed one of the most ablest Princes of the world and that he who will consider the state of the Empire established by Constantine shall find so much order in this great diversity so much wisdom in inventions so much courage in executions so much stability in continuance that he shall have more cause to admire the deep counsels of the Emperour than find what to blame in his government The same Zosimus as a Courtier and a Pagan extreamly displeased with great liberalities which Constantine exercised towards the Churches furiously taxeth him upon the matter of tributes Tributes saying He invented new and exacted them with much violence And yet notwithstanding there are no tributes under Constantine the use whereof is not observed to have been in the Age of the former Emperours For concerning the impost of a certain sum of gold and silver paid by merchants from four years to four which the Grecians called Chrysargyros although the name were then new the manner of it could not be so since the Historiographer Lampridius in the life of Alexander Severus makes mention of the gold of merchants And as for that which was also imposed upon prostitute women it was likewise under the reign of the same Alexander So that he who will compare that which is done before Constantine and that after him in this article shall there find much moderation in his proceedings For so far was it from him to surcharge the people that he gave a relaxation of the fourth part of tributes which is so much as if a King after the space of four years passed should free his people for a year from ordinary subsides which would be no small liberality Now concerning the violence whereof this man complaineth the Edicts of Constantine testifie that he would not have any man to be so much as imprisoned for monies due to his coffers True it is he had Cod. Theod. l. 2. de exactionibus a list of the names of men of quality in the Empire with a taxe of their revenews to enforce them to publick necessities and by this means discharge the poor Otherwise it is well known this Prince was Cod. Theod. l. 2. tit 2. Victor so zealous for justice that he would not suffer even the letters of favour obtained from him should have any power to the prejudice of ancient laws And that if any of his favourites had a process and would beg of him to interpose his authority for him he would leave him to justice willing rather to afford him coin out of his coffer than one sole word of favour which might dispose the Judges to bend the ballance more to one side than another He had his eye upon his Officers and retained them in their duties discovering and chastising corruptions and banishing with his whole endeavour all crimes that were against the law of God and publick tranquility He was much seconded in the administration of affairs by the diligence of Ablavius the greatest favourite of the Prince and Superintendent of Justice who was verily a man of Judgement had he not blemished the gifts of God with unfatiable avarice He was surnamed The Baloon of fortune for the many changes which happened in his person For it is held that he was of very base extraction born in Constantinople then called Byzantium and that a Mathematician arrived in this City upon the instant the mother of Ablavius was to be delivered This man weary of his way and very hungry went into an Inne where he cals for dinner his hostess was very busie to provide it for him at which time one came to entreat her to assist a neighbour of hers in her child-birth for she practiced the office of a Midwife This made her forsake her guest to help the poor creature who was said to be in great danger if she gave not remedy The business being dispatched she returned to her guest who was very angry and murmured with much
to all the great virtues which concern the Weal-publick It oftentimes happeneth that those who flie from charges and affairs under pretext of tranquilitie of spirit if they be not well rectified therein find instead of repose a specious sluggishness and those who make profession of arms if they take not good heed suffering all the innocencie of the Golden Age to languish make themselves virtues of the iron Age but your conditions which have a certain temperance of a life more sweet accompanied with laudable employments open the way to you which maketh and crowneth merits Yet is there need of a soul very able to preserve it self sincerely in charges among so many corruptions and of a heart perfectly purified to link it wholly to the interests of God who with three fingers of his power supporteth Estates and Empires That is the cause why I offer this Treatise not so much to give Maxims of State of which there are always enough to be found as sometimes to awaken a good conscience which is a true ray reflected from the eternall Law to the end that among so many temptations of Honour and such burdens of affairs it may not lose any part of its vigour If you deign to spend some hours of your leasure hereon it perhaps wil not be unprofitable for at least that will let you see a States-man as rare as a Phenix and as pure as an Angel But if this consideration furnish you with any good thoughts for your perfection I shall esteem my self well recompensed for the service which I in this work have vowed to your eminent qualities THE STATES MAN The first SECTION The excellencie of Politick Virtue I Have ever made account of the division of virtues which the Platonists use when they call the one Purgative the other Illuminative the third Civil and the last Exemplar Purgative virtues are those which give to our souls the first tincture of sanctity For they take our heart wholly possessed as it is yet with earthly passions and discharge it from so many imperfections which ordinarily corrupt nature to give it a tast of heavenly things Illuminative afford us day-light when we have vanquished the agitations of sense establish us in the sweetness of some repose where we begin to behold the entrances progresses and issues of the world wherein we are placed and the course of this great Comedy called life The Civil draw us out of our selves to apply us to our neighbour and to render every one his due according to his degree in the good conversion betwixt man and man Exemplar proceed much further in perfection for they expose themselves in publick to serve as models for others and appear in charges and dignities in the government of Kingdoms Provinces Cities and Communalties This is it which I call here the virtue of a States-man taking the word generally not only for those who are engaged in the manage of Monarchies Sovereignties and Re-publicks but also for such as exercise justice and other principal charges of civil life We must Excellentibus ingeniit citius defueritars quâ civem regant quà m quâ hostem superent Tit. Liv. lib. 2. affirm this politick virtue which maketh true States-men is a rare piece and as it were the cream and most purified part of wisdom seeing that not contenting it self with a lazy knowledge of virtue it laboureth to build adorn and establish the civil world by the maintenance of justice without which in the amplest Kingdoms are the greatest thefts If the world be a harp as saith the eloquent Sinesius D. Tho. 22. q 58. Justicia legalis praeclarior omnibus moralibus quia bonum commune preâ—minet bono singulari Tertul. l. 2. adversus Marcion Bonitaâ— Dei operata est mundum justitia modulata est justice windeth up the strings stirreth the fingers toucheth the instrument giveth life to the airs and maketh all the excellent harmonies If the world be a musick-Musick-book framed of days and nights as of white and black notes justice directeth and composeth If it be a ring justice is the diamond If it be an eye justice is the soul If it be a Temple justice is the Altar All yieldeth to this virtue and as it is enchaced in all laudable actions so all laudable actions are incorporated in justice It is an engine much more powerful in effect than was that of Archimedes in idaea for it doth that in Kingdoms which this man could never so much as imagine in his mind though ambitious enough in inventions It maketh I say Heaven to descend on earth and earth to mount up to Heaven Heaven to descend in introducing a life wholly celestial in the uncivil conversation of men earth to mount up in drawing it from dreggs and corruption of a covetous and bloudy life to enlighten it with rays of a prudent knowledge to embelish it with virtues diversifie it with beauties and settle it in the center of repose God maketh so much account of an honest man Genes 8. v. 27. according to the Hebrew text recommended to the government of others that having chosen Noah to command over onely seaven souls shut up in the Ark as in a moving prison he calleth him his Heart for to say truly we must have the heart of God to bring forth counsels sufficiently able to save men and to be in the same instant the mouth of God to pronounce the Oracles of truth God asketh Job who is the man on earth Job 8. 33. Ordinem Coeli that shall make the musick of Heaven To which I would willingly answer It is a good Justicier For in what consisteth this harmony of Heaven We are not in my opinion to imagine it according to the dotages of some Philosophers who of it have made unto themselves a celestial musick composed of voyces and sounds formed by the mutual encounter of those admirable Globes The harmony of Heaven is nought else but the good order of the sun the moon stars day and night and seasons which daily progress along with a regular pace and measured motion not erring in the least point This order which is so excellent and divine in Heaven is introduced upon earth by the means of justice which guideth and governeth all the actions of men within the circuits and limits of duty so sagely and divinely that he who would observe so many singular laws which books recommend unto us should quickly make earth become a little Heaven For the same reason Origen interpreting Isay 66. Coelum miki sedes est Efficiuntur sedes Dei facti prius conversatione peritia coelestes Orig. Philostr l. 1. c. 18. this passage of Isay where God saith Heaven is his Throne sheweth that the Paradise and Heaven of God upon earth is justice from whence it cometh to pass that such as use it as they ought are wholly celestial in science life and conversation Was it not this consideration which drew the Babylonians to build
such as these ought to be handled with much sweetness and clemency or they are covert vices of some wicked consciences which you neither ought nor may as yet manifest and here much industry and wisdom must be used to dislodge sin and draw the winding serpent out of his den as by the hand of the wise woman spoken of in Scripture or they are publick sins of men resolved who sin without hope of amendment to the infection of a Common-wealth and here is it you are to strengthen your self with all your power to take away the evil and evil men These are the precepts which S. Bonaventure giveth in his Treatise of the Wings of the Seraphin This discretion whereof I speak will shew you the manner of proceeding in affairs for it much importeth to lay hold of them by a certain handle which rendereth them much more easie We see by experience that those who make them spectacles of chrystal cut into diamond points for one pistolet on a table think they see a huge treasure in such sort their eyes are filled with illusions and yet their hand if they know not the secret will be much troubled to find out the piece of gold they seek for This daily happeneth in the course of the world affairs have an infinity of faces which present themselves to our thoughts even then when they are most subtile but they are hollow imaginations and he is really an able man who knoweth how to lay his finger upon the point of a business and grasp it as it is said at the right end You expect not here I should speak to you of the mannage of revenues artillerie arms sea-affairs fortifications petitions and decrees they being matters much alienated from my profession from whence I can derive no glory but by the confession of mine own ignorance Every one must look into the substance extent and the quality of affairs he treateth must learn what is profitable to be known for the discharge of his place inform himself of that which he cannot of himself fore-know willingly hearken to advices examine and weigh them with maturity Avoid above all six obstacles of good affairs which are Disorder Confusion Passion Sollicitude Irresolution Precipitation to do all things warily and peaceably so that no anxiety be shewed like unto Sejanus a man who had more spirit Actu otiosiâ— similliâ—us Velleius than conscience and of whom it is said that in the middest of his greatest employments he seemed ever idle There are some who give out many precepts upon every office and do as if one should make a large discourse to a man by teaching him to go Experience which is a wise Mistress so soon as she encountereth with a man endowed with some capacity sheweth him much more than books Finally your last liverie is Courage which is exceedingly necessary for men of your profession Calistenes a disciple of Aristotle observeth that the earthquake of the Isle of Delos was an unlucky presage to the Cities of Buris and Helice which were swallowed up in a gulf So when the bodies of States-men which are as this Island of the Sun tremble and bow to favour what may we expect but an absolute desolation of Provinces It is necessary to have a great courage to strengthen the arm against so great authority of iniquities and violences of men of quality who will confound elements and mix stars with the dust of the earth to come to the end of their exorbitant pretensions A great courage say I to resist the secret allurements which occur on the part of allies and friends especially of powerfull women to whom nature hath afforded such dangerous attractives that it is many times much easier to defend ones self from the horns of bulls the tusks of bores and the throat of Lions than from the cunning practises of such creatures A great courage in the manage of affairs and words that are to be used with certain persons who are quickly angry and heated in their harness what a brave virtue is it to endure and temper them with a mildness of spirit peaceable and charitable as it is said that with a honey-comb fountains of troubled water are cleansed and purified An Ancient said that Avicen de diluviis he who can well suffer an injury is worthy of an Empire his onely silence will disarm a passionate man and throw prostrate at his feet the same who seemed See La journée to roar over his head A great courage also to tolerate the ingratefull who often cast stones against those who gave them honey like unto those Atlantes who shot arrows against the Sun A great courage likewise in the bad success of affairs which cannot always prosper according to the measure of our travel and good desires And to tell you it in a word a very able courage when a man is ready to suffer the loss of office disgrace banishment poverty imprisonment and permit rather to have the heart turned out of your belly than any good resolution to be pulled from you which may be conceived for the Weal publick If you desire to arrive at these precious endowments let the Scripture be ever represented before your eyes as the pillar of clouds and flames which conducted the army of the living God There it is where you shall learn maxims of State scored out with most vigorous reflections of the wisdom of God and where you shall trample under foot with a generous contempt so many illusions which wretched souls seek for in the mouth of Pythonisses and Sorcerers Read the books of Wisdom the Prophets the book of holy Job and the divine Psalms of the King chosen out according to Gods own heart Consider the stream of so many Histories written in this theater of wonders which are characters of fire wherewith the Divine Providence is pleased to be figured to mortal eyes that we may learn the punishment of crimes and the crowns of virtues Represent unto your selves often in your idaeaes those great States-men who have flourished in the course of all Ages and derive light and fire from their examples to illuminate and inflame you in the self same list Behold him who had been refined above all others in the school of God I mean Moses Who Moses Dei de proximo arbiter Tertul. de Monogamiâ— August l. 22. contr Faust cap. 69. hath there been more humble in refusing charges more obedient in accepting them more faithfull in exercising them more industrious in executing the commandements of God more vigilant in government of the people more severe in the correction of vices more patient in sufferance of the infirmities of subjects and more zealous in the cordial love he bare to the whole world With these gifts he became the God of Monarchs he ruined the state of his enemies he unloosed the chains of an infinite number of slaves he opened seas he manured wildernesses he marched in the front of six hundred thousand
become powerfull in the minds of subjects by strong hand whereas such as are of race noble and illustrious cannot have so few other parts but that they may easily enter into hearts as into a house which the virtue of Ancestours hath beforehand wholly purchased for them And though this seem expedient in all places yet is it much more necessary in a State where is a great number of noble men and generous spirits and where every one thinks himself sufficient enough to perform that which another doth Presumption equalleth them all in ability at the least according to their imaginations were it not that the uncontrolable supereminencie of houses makes them yield to reason And although base nobility be very shamefull yet is it much more tolerable than a servile spirit which hath power in its hands without any moderation There are four things saith the Wise-man which cause earth-quakes here below A servant imperious Proverâ— 30. a rich fool a woman scornfull when she is married and a maid-servant become the heir of her Mistress that is saith he the fourth thing which the world cannot endure Education maketh manners and every one is readily that which he hath learned in youth were it not that through a great strength of courage ill inclinations are resisted Boetius who in his excellent Nobility was endowed with so sweet a temper of spirit seemed to be created of God to govern men On the other part his family which was rich and powerfull gave also much increase to his command as that which alienated him from the corruptions that easily fasten on a necessitous fortune A man who feareth poverty is ever to be feared and a rich innocent cannot meet with any thing more dangerous than a hungry judge Saint Thomas hath said very well that a poverty Lib. 4. cap. 15. de rogim Princip virtuous and free from covetousness is an admirable quality for a States-man but where shall we now adays find such a poverty in a time when riot is so exorbitant that the greatest houses are therewith impeached The innocent riches of our great Consul fell out to be much to the purpose so that they might be employed for aid of the poor in a time which happened in one of the sickliest Ages of the world ruined by so many incursions of Barbarians not naming the other scourges which then fought against the sins of men The second SECTION The eminent wisdom and learning of Boetius EXperience the wisest Mistress of the world hath sometimes caused the saying of Plato to be questioned who thought Common-wealths happy when they fell into the hands of Philosophers or of men who sought to become Philosophers For in effect it is observed that those so knowing men meet not always with the bent of common understanding having their spirits more estranged from civil life They please themselves with great Ideaes as if they conversed in the Common-wealth of Plato with demy-gods not at all yielding to infirmities of nature And although they use some endeavour to render themselves conversable yet doth the sweetness of repose inebriate and withdraw them from affairs but if they force themselves to attend them noise amazeth them diversitie of humours not always suitable to their understanding distasteth them labour somewhat painfull overwhelmeth them and the heap of so many incident occasions confoundeth them Adde hereunto that there is much malice in the manners of men not found in books and that their actions being very innocent when they come to measure others by their own level they find themselves deceived Besides the sedentary and retired life spent in the entertainment of their books rendereth them very timorous and softeneth their brow which should always be as it were of brass to endure the shock of strong impudencies which may insinuate themselves into the corruptions of the times This may be confirmed by the example of Theodates King of the Goths who with all the Philosophy of Plato wherein he was exceedingly studious very ill mannaged his affairs As also by Michael the Emperour surnamed of the Grecians Parapanicius as who would say The Schollar for he perpetually had table-books and pens in his hand to compose Orations Verses and Histories resigning the whole government of his affairs to an Eunuch named Nicephorus who through his insatiable avarice drew much hatred upon the head of this Emperour I verily affirm if you take learning in these excesses one may very well say that it would not onely become unprofitable but also dangerous to principality It is not my intention to prove learned men are capable of the mannage of great affairs for the onely consideration of the advantage they have in letters for then Governours of Provinces were to be taken out of the Regencies of schools but I say that sciences well mannaged adde a marvellous lustre to one in government For first they vindicate him from stupidity and a savage life which maketh a man without sight or knowledge of virtue to be in a State as was Poliphemus made blind by Ulysses in his den Besides they cleanse refine and store the soul made to know great and divine lights Afterwards they open the understanding by the reading of so many excellent books and even unloose the tongue which is an instrument very necessary to mannage hearts Finally they make a man more mild civil and courteous and I could say also more awfull and worthy of credit For if some unhappy Princes were produced who being unfurnished of other talents have made ill use of letters by abusing them through want of judgement as one may all the best things in the world this nothing at all in substance lesseneth the truth of our proposition since we may oppose against them a large list of Law-makers Princes and Governours who have exceedingly well made use of the knowledge of learning For if we make account of the policie of God which is ever the most assured know we not that he having chosen Moses to constitute him the Governour of so great a State was willing he might have a good tast of all the sciences then in request among the Aegyptians And Philo saith that he there learned Arithmetick Geometrie Musick and all the greatest secrets of their Philosophie contained in their Hieroglyphicks Know we not that Solomon had a heart as large as the sea wherein God lodged so many knowledges of things both divine and humane that he penetrated whatsoever the understanding of man enlightened with rays from God might comprehend Are we so little versed in History that we cannot reckon up the names of all the greatest Princes who have been very learned as Alexander Julius Caesar Augustus Adrian Antoninus Constantine Theodosius Gratian Charlemaigne Alphonsus yea even Solyman the great Turk What a could of witnesses should we have did we now collect all the names and histories of learned States-men For if letters give ornament to such as are wholly eminent in military profession by a much stronger
mirrour what perfection My eyes dazle in beholding her actions and my pen fails in writing her praises What a courage that a young maid not above fifteen or sixteen years of age entereth into a Kingdom with intention to conquer it for God much otherwise than the Caesars who so many times have devoured it by ambition What a prudence to tolerate the conversation of a step-mother whilest she medled not with her Religion What liberty of spirit and what strength of words to defend her faith so soon as she saw her self assailed in this virtue which was more dear unto her than the apple of her eye What patience to endure to be dragged along upon the pavement by the hair to be beaten even to bloud to be thrown into the river to be used like the dust of the earth for the honour of Jâ—sus Christ not challenging any one not complaining not seeming offended nay not telling her husband into whose bosom she poured forth her most secret thoughts the affront she had received for fear to break peace with a creature who deserved the hatred of all the world What wisdom what grace what eloquence used she in the conversion of her husband What love for his soul what zeal for his salvation what care for his direction What authority to stop with a word the armies of the father and son instantly ready to encounter What resignation of her own will in this separation from her husband And what a heart of diamond against a thousand strokes of dolours to take thankfully a death so bloudy so tragical so pitifull To see her self at an instant bereaved of a son and a husband and of all things in the world offering up unto God in all her afflictions the obedience of her heart prayers of her lips and victims of all the parts of her body What triumph when after her death her brother-in-law who had participated of her good instructions in rememberance of her and her husband was absolutely converted to the Catholick faith and changing the whole face of the Kingdom repealed the banished restored the Bishops to their Sees Religion into force Laws into authority and the whole Province into peace What miracle to see sage Indegondis on the top of all her tropheys whereof she tendereth homage to God in the glory of Saints How ought we here to render to her the offerings of our most humble services Behold here the limits which I proposed to my self so to give an end at last to these Histories having thought it more fit and suitable to my employments to abbreviate my self in these four Models than unboundedly enlarge them yet it hath been somewhat difficult with me to make a resolution to put forth this second Volume among so many duties of our ordinary functions being thereunto sollicited by entreaties which held as it were the place of commands And I may well say I were stupid and ungratefull if I should not confess to have been much excited to prosecute this labour by the honourable invitations which my Lord Bishop of Bellay hath used towards me in his Works I cannot set too high a price upon his recommendation in such a subject For he is verily one of the most able and flourishing wits that ever handled a pen. To see the number of his books one might say he began to write so soon as to live and to consider their worth it is a wonder how so many graces and beauties which other attain not but with much labour encreased with him as in a soil natural for eloquence If there be any slight discourses who amuse themselves to argue upon some words of his writings it is not a matter unusual seeing we are now in an Age where there are some who revive the example of those corrupted Grecians that preferred a sauce made by the Cook Mithecus before the divine Works of Phidias If this piece have given you any contentment take the pains to read it over again sometimes at your leisure tasting the Maxims therein with an utilitie worthy of its subject For believe me the precipitation now adays used in slightly running over all sorts of books causeth a certain indigestion in the mind wherewith it is rather choaked than nourished Reading is never good if the understanding take not occasion thereby to negotiate by meditation and industrie that which concerneth the health and ornament thereof 1 TIM 1. To the King of Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be honour and glorie given for ever and evermore THE HOLY COURT MAXIMS OF CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST THE PROPHANE COVRT Divided into three Parts WHEREOF The I. Treateth of the Divinitie The II. Treateth of the Government of this life The III. Treateth of the State of the other World THE THIRD TOME Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS and 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 LADIE FRANCES Countess of PORTLAND and Baroness WESTON RIGHT HONOURABLE THe excellent endowments of your soul acknowledged even by envie and admired by truth together with your known propension to the reading of pious Books invites me to this Dedication as proper for your sweet retirements and consonant to my intentions which onely aim in some measure to express my humblest respects to your Honour The matters herein handled are Instructions apt to inform the mind by way of Maxims learned discourses made familiar to less able understandings and choise Histories exemplifying both that so all sorts of Readers though of different capacitie disproportionable judgement may find somewhat to entertain their curiositie My scope Excellent LADIE in this Translation is through your Honours hand and under so noble a Patronage to convey the third Part of the HOLY COURT into English light which as the first breathed air under the benign aspect of her sacred Majestie may also hope in this latter piece with like happiness to be crowned with your Honors chearful acceptation The height of my ambition is by this poor way to serve you since more ample demonstrations are wanting to my weak abilities as likewise not to doubt your noble disposition will be satisfied with such my humble acknowledgements The advancement of virtue and depression of vice is my Authour's scope throughout the whole Work which he elegantly pursues and victoriously atchieveth Triumphs of that kind best become his grave and serious pen whilest my task is faithfully in our language to imitate his living figures though in dead and discoloured forms and confidently to tell your Honour that I will ever be The most Obsequious Servant of Your Commands T. H. TO MONSIEUR MONSIEUR THE PRINCE SIR THe excellency of the subject I handle in these discourses makes me reflect on that of your Greatness to offer you a Work which being conceived by your authority must needs seek for
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
the first book of the sermon made on the mountain interpreteth all that of punishments in the other life When in the fourth Chapter of Tobie it is written of bread to be put upon the graves of the dead S. Chrysostom Homily thirty two upon S. Matthew referreth this passage to the custom of the ancient Church which called both the Priests and the poor purposely to pray for the dead When mention is made in the fourth of Kings of a solemn fast made for Saul Bede makes no question but it was for the quiet of his soul For S. Paul sheweth in the first to the Corinthians fifteenth Chapter that it was the custom to mortifie and macerate ones self for the dead and the second of Machabees saith it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for them Who knew more and who saw more in all this than the great S. Augustine who on the thirty seventh Psalm hath these words My God make me such in my life that I may not Aug. in Psal 37. Talem me reddas cui emendatorio igne non sit opus need the fire of Purgatorie after my death Hath the Roman Church hired all these so ancient Fathers to write such texts in its behalf Is it not a shame that a brainless Libertine with the eyes of a bat should mock at all these lights 4. Doubtless will some say these reasons are forcible The manner of Purgatory but I understand not where this purgatorie is and how souls are there tormented To that I answer the Church which walketh reservedly in its ordinances ever grounded on the word of God onely obligeth us to hold as an article of faith a third place for the purgation of souls which is neither Paradise nor hel As for circumstances of the place and manner Nyss de anima resurrectione Chrysost homil de Beatorum premiis Beda l. 3. hist Angl. â—9 of sensible torments it hath decryed nothing thereof as an article of our belief School Divines ordinarily set purgatorie in a subterranean place which is very probable It may also be that souls may be purged in the air in the sphear of fire and in divers parts of the elementary world according to the opinion of S. Gregory Nyssen S. Chrysostom and S. Gregory the great It dependeth on the prerogative of Gods power and the ministery of Angels As for punishments it is most certain the first consisteth Miris sed veris modis August in suspension from the sight of God a matter very dolorous to a soul which being out of the body far absented from its source is as would the globe of the earth be were it out of its place or like unto fire shut up in the bowels of mount Aetna It naturally desireth to rejoyn it self to God and the least retardation it feels from such felicitie is most sensible unto it It mourneth to be deprived from an infinite comfort when the thirst is most ardent and to see it self bereaved by its own fault yea such an one as might easily have been avoided The second is the pain of sense which is exercised by fire the great executioner of Gods justice and sometimes also by other wayes known to his providence as S. Bonaventure and holy Bede teach us If you say you cannot comprehend how a material thing worketh on a spiritual I ask of you again this soul which is in your bodie is it of any other kind than those in purgatorie And yet see you not how it daily suffereth in the bodie See you not how all the dolours of mortal flesh rebound back again by an amorous simpathy and a counter-buff wholly necessarie to the bottom of our soul And yet you ask how it can suffer Is it not true our soul containeth in it the root of understanding all sensible knowledge framed and accomplished by the help of the bodies organs Is it not true that being in the bodie it understandeth and feeleth with dependance on the bodie But separated doth it loose this root of understanding and knowledge Verily no For it then understandeth with independence on the body To speak also according to the opinion of some it may feel out of the body not onely by a knowledge naked and intellectual but experimental in some sort not unlike the understanding exercised in the bodie But there is no more corporal organ which is as the chariot of feeling What importeth it God by his power cannot he supply the organ of bodie and necessitate the soul immediately to feel the sharpness of fire as if it were still in the bodie And which is more some Divines think there would be no inconvenience to say the soul were revested by God with a bodie of air as in a sheath wherewith it should have Corink de purgatorio p. 529. the same sympathy it had before with the bodie it informed and this bodie being incorruptibly burnt as that of the damned should cause a painful quality to arise to torment it which I notwithstanding think not so probable But I rather believe the fire not being contrarie of its nature to the spirit might for all that be chosen and appointed by the singular disposition of providence to be unto the soul an afflicting sign in that it representeth to it in its flames the anger of an offended God as it shall be said in the subsequent Maxim Alas O Christians God grant we may be ignorant of this eternal and temporal fire and may rather be purged in this life than expect it in the other 5. When I come to the second point of this discourse Against the dulness of those who understand it not I cannot wonder enough at our stupidity lethargy we believe purgatorie and bely our belief by our works What may we hope in the other life living so negligently and remislely God is mercifull Behold our ordinarie saying But see we not in Scriptures the hand of God armed with fiery tempests over the infamous Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha and the bodies which sacrificed themselves in the flames of prodigious luxurie roasted and broyled under the breath of the anger of the Omnipotent See we not a whole world buried in the waters of a deluge waves of the Ocean rushing as in a citie sacked on the heads of offenders the sea becoming altogether the executioner and tomb of sinners See we not those beautifull Angels so beloved of God and so worthy of favour which also came most resplendent out of his hands lost by one thought of pride scorched and precipitated into dungeons of eternal flames Think we to be more to God than those cities replenished with an infinite number of souls than a whole world than legions of Angels Let us not flatter our selves by a presumptuous confidence of a mercy not due to a negligence so faint and dissolute The truth is no uncleanness enetreth into Paradise The truth is the eyes of the supream Judge cannot endure pollution
in grace and enjoy in the other thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glorie So be it The fourteenth SECTION Of the time proper for spiritual reading BElieve me you shall do well at this time of the morning when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts to use some spiritual reading sometimes of the precepts sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences He that will live in the exercise of God's presence must pray and read frequently When you pray you speak to God and when you read God speaks to you Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue Observe you not how colours as Philosophie teacheth have a certain light which in the night time is obscured and buried as it were in matter But as soon as the Sun riseth and diâ—playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness he awakes them and makes them appear in their true lustre So may we truly say that we have all some seeds of knowledge which would be quite choaked as it were with the vapours arising â—rom our passions did not the wisdom of God which speaketh in the holy Scripture and in good spiritual books stir them up and give them light and vigour to enflame the course of our actions to virtue Always before you take a book in hand invoke the Father of light to direct your reading Read little if you have but little leisure but with attention and make a pause at some sentence which all that day may come into your memory You will find that good books teach nothing but truth command nothing but virtue and promise nothing but happiness The fifteenth SECTION An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ to be used at the Communion JOhn 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 30. For my yoke is easie and my burden is light Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets John 15. 12. This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you 13. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you 45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Luke 5. 35. Be ye mercifull as your Father also is mercifull 23. Judge not and ye shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned forgive and it shall be forgiven 30. Give and it shall be given unto you Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Luke 12. 36. Let your loyns be girded about and your lights burning 37. And ye your selves like unto men that wait for the Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately Luke 21. 34. Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this life John 5. 28. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice 29. And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation The sixteenth SECTION What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament AT the Celebration of the Sacrament you shall endeavour to stir up in your self a great reverence of this incomparable Majestie who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence and say O God dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy well-beloved Son At this present I offer up to thee in the union thereof my understanding my will my memorie my thoughts my words my works my sufferings and consolations my good my life all that I have and all that I can ever pretend unto Afterwards at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God or when the Angelical Hymn called by the Ancients Trisagion is pronounced may be said as followeth being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom TO thee the Creatour of all things visible and invisible To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings To thee the Fountain of life and immortalitie To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world be given as is due all praise honour and worship Let the Sun Moon and Quires of Stars the Air Earth Sea and all that is in the Celestial Elementarie world bless thee Let thy Jerusalem thy Church from the first-born thereof alreadie enrolled in Heaven glorifie thee Let the elect souls of Apostles Martyrs and Prophets Let Angels Arch-Angels Thrones Dominations Principalities Powers and Virutes Let the dreadfull Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glorie Save us O thou that dwellest in Heaven the palace of thy Majestie O Lord Jesus thou art the everlasting Son of the Father When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou clothedst thy self with flesh in the Virgins womb When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father and shalt judge both the quick and the dead O Lord help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud
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
few know the meaning yet it is a granted truth that we must bid a long farewel to all such things of life as can extend no further than life it self a granted truth that we must inherit serpents and worms in a house of darkness How excellent a lesson might be learned from hence to know it once well we must study it every day Every where we see watches and clocks some of gold some of silver others beset with precious stones they give us notice of all hours except that which must be our last and since they cannot strike that hour we must make it sound in our conscience The very instant that you are reading this a thousand and perhaps a thousand souls loos'd from their bodies are presented before Gods tribunal what would you do if you were now to bear them company Omnia ista contemnito quibus solutus corpore non indigebis said Diodore In a word despise timely whilest you are in the body those things whereof you shall have no need when you are out of the body The twelfth your soul shall go forth and of all her followers in life shall onely be attended by good and evil If she be surprized in sin hell shall be her share hell the great lake of Gods wrath hell the common shore of all the filth of the world hell the store-house of eternal fire hell a bottomless depth where there is no evil but must be expected nor good that can be hoped These twelve considerations are very fit to be meditated upon monethly at leisure The second SECTION Seven paths of Eternitie which lead the soul to great Virtues THese twelve Considerations well weighed make us take a serious resolution to proceed directly to good whereof if you desire further demonstration Bonaventure points us out seven fair paths and seven great gates which lead us in a strait line to this blessed eternity and I wish we had as much courage to follow them as he grace to unfold them First seeing the beginning of your virtue and felicity consisteth in the knowledge of God and in the state of the next life of which we cannot without some crime be ignorant and which we can never know but with profit you must understand that the first gate of eternity is To have good and sincere intentions in the performance of eternal things To take a strong resolution to work out your salvatioÌ„ at what rate soever To account all temporal things as wandering birds which look upon us from a bough of some tree make us a little chirping musick and then flie away To think that to bear a vicious mind in a fair ornament of fortune is to keep a leaden blade in an ivory sheath To banish evil hypocritical impure and mercenary intentions throughout all the course of your life and exercise of your charge to go towards God To do for God To aim at the honour and glory of God above all things You are no little way on your journey when you have gone this path Thence you come to the second which is the Meditation of eternal things wherein the Kingly Prophet exercised himself like a stout Champion when he said I have considered the days of old the years of ancient times Psal 77. 5. This good intention which you take to advance to Eternity will imprint daily in your thoughts an eternal God an eternal Paradise an everlasting hell an everlasting life and as Iacobs flocks by looking upoÌ„ the streaked rods brought forth ring-streaked and spotted cattel so all you do in contemplating this eternity will be coloured with eternity And if any temporal pleasure or opportunity to commit a sin were offered you would say as Demosthenes the Oratour did of the beautiful Lais when he was asked an excessive sum of money to behold her I will not buy repentance so dear I am not so ill a Merchant as to sell the eternal for the temporal Having passed through this gate you will come to the third which is the gate of Light called Contemplation of Eternal things Here is it that we see the divine things not onely by form of argument and discourse as if we cast up some account but with the light of our illuminated understanding as if we should behold with a glance of the eye an excellent piece of some eminent Master almost with an extasie of admiration So Tiburtius saw Paradise when he walked upon burning coals so all the Saints beheld Beatitude when amidst so many afflictions they remained immoveable drowning the pain of their bodies in the overflowing content of the minds From this step we necessarily light upon the fourth gate which is most servent love of Eternal things for as saith Thomas Aquinas very well the sight of temporal beauty begetteth temporal love oftentimes filling the soul with fire and flame so the contemplation of eternity begetteth eternal love which is an ardent affection towards God and all that appertaineth to his glory as was that of S. Mary Magdalen who saith in Origen That Heaven and the Angels are a burthen to her and that she could live no longer except â—he beheld him who made both Heaven and the Angels she had crossed seas armed with monsters and tempests without any sails but those of her desires to reach her Beloved She had past through flames and grapled a thousand times with lances and swords to cast her self at his feet The perfect love of God is a wonderfull Alchimie when we have attained it it changeth iron to Gold ignominies to Crowns and all sufferings to delights At the fifth gate which is called the Revelation of Eternal things God speaketh in the ear of the heart and replenisheth the soul with extraordinary light and knowledge darting even here upon it as saith Gerson some lightening flashes of Paradise as when a torch casteth some beams through the chinks of a door or window And as the knowledge of the understanding is nothing without the fervour of the will from this gate we go on to the sixth called the Tast of Experience by which we begin to relish the joys of Paradise in this life and contentments which cannot be expressed A hundred thousand tongues may discourse to you the sweetness of honey but you can never have such knowledge of it as by tast so a world full of books may tell you wonders of the science of God but you can never understand it exactly but by the tast of experience True science as Thomas Aquinas saith upon the Canticles consisteth more in relish than in knowledge In sapore non in sapere I had rather have the feeling which a simple soul hath with God than all the definition of Philosophers Lastly the seventh gate of Eternity is called The deifying or divinized operation which S. Dionysius termeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is when a soul worketh all its actions by eternal principles in imitation of the Incarnate Word and a perfect union with God Clemens Alexandrinus called him that
worshipped but the belly luxury gaming and uncleanness Many make walks and races wherein none can run far without stumbling for they resemble the list of Atalanta and Hippomenes rather than the race where S. Paul exhorted Christians to run there the sences flattered with a thousand delightfull objects many times put themselves in array there the bloud is enflamed the tongue untied concupiscence enkindled there licentiousness often rendeth the vail which until then was over the face of modesty and impudently becomes portress to love These are the sacriledges which drie up years breed disorder amongst seasons barrenness in the bowels of the earth and despair in our miseries The seventh SECTION The four conditions of recreation YOur recreation must have four especial things choise of persons good intention innocency moderation Choise of persons in avoiding evil company as the most dangerous shelf of life for the friendship of wicked men is like a bundle of thorns tied together to burn and crackle in the fire Your friendship must be virtuous faithful disinterested if you mean to have any fruits of it Good intention as to cherish health and strength that they may serve the soul for a good man should seek good even in play and at meals like the saint who rose in the night and fed with a poor hungry brother that he might not be ashamed of eating at a disorderly hour Innocency for much consideration must be used therein lest nature should dissolve into bruitish life un worthy a generous heart Behind comes gluttony intemperate gaming foolish jesting and detraction in this age hard to be avoided The book most ordinary in companies of men is man himself Now very few take delight to disourse of the Old and New Testament nay not so much as of the old Roman Councels Aegyptian Pyramids or ancient wars of Caesars Men study books of the time talk of garbs clothes looks conditions business customs alliances and though we have no intent to wrong any yet is it very easie in such variety of discourse to let fall many words of far less value than silence it is an excellent quality to still good matter into company either upon accasion by question consequence narration or proposition as the reverend Jaquinot observes in his Address Moderation For as the wise man saith Prov. 25. 16. We glut our selves with hony so ought we to have a care that recreations made to refresh the mind tend not by excess to dissoluteness You must observe what the time place and persons require and to pass the time must not exceed your self by profuseness The eighth SECTION Of vicious conversation and first of impertinent THe Hebrews say play anger the cup and conversation are the windows of the soul through which she is many times seen more than she would be he is wise who makes use of meetings and company as of a file to polish his mind and to make it continually more apt for its functions Vicious conversation may be reduced almost to three heads that is impertinent vain evil Impertinent as the clownish foolish troublesom which many have through want of discretion fashion and civility Theophrastus one of the quaintest wits of antiquity relateth some passages which he saith he observed in his time arguing a great weakness of judgement some saith he lay hold on one that is going about business of concernment to tell him something as they pretend of great importance which when told is nothing but foolery Others invite a travellour newly come out of the countrey very weary to walk up and down others pull a man out of a ship ready to weigh anchor to entertain him with follies on the shore others come to bear witness after the cause is judged and bring with much sweat a Pphysitian to the dead others pretend to know the way and undertake to lead the rest but go wrong at the very first and protest they have forgot it Others make rude enquiry into business and ask a General of an Army whither he goes and what is his design Some also there are saith he so rustick that not admitting any thing worth admiration in civil life they stand still to look upon an ox as men in rapture and in company have no better behaviour than to take their dog by the muzzle and say what a fine dog this is well he keeps the house Such conversation is able greatly to vilifie a man and to take from him all estimation he can gain in his profession The ninth SECTION Of vain conversation VAin conversation is that of talkers flatterers vain-glorious and the like poor Theophrastus in my opinion was much tormented with a talker since he so well describeth one who with much passion praised his wife told what he dreamed the last night what he had to dinner that he had a weakness of stomack From thence taking flight he discoursed of times and assured him the men of ours came not near the ancients in any thing Then he told him that corn was cheap that there were many strangers in the city that if it would rain the year would be fruitfull that he had a field to be ploughed that Damippus gave the greatest wax light at an offering that there were so many stairs in such a building that he had counted them with a thousand of the like Such people adds the Author are more to be feared than a feaver He that would live in quiet must seldom keep them company Horace mentions one very like who put him into a great sweat and when he saw he was so tired that he knew not which way to turn himself I see Sir saith he that I am troublesom but there is no remedy since I have met with you I must needs wait on you for God be thanked I have nothing else to do Flatterers are much more acceptable though many times more dangerous for they will tell you that all the world cast their eyes upon you that you are much esteemed that the whole town talks of such a fortunate action of yours that you have an excellent wit a handsom body a good grace winning behaviour that every thing becomes you and that it seems Nature when she had made you broke her mold because she never since framed the like If you speak they bid silence to all the world then extol your words as oracles and if you jest at any they burst with laughter to please you and deifie your imperfections This is that which poysons freindship and blinds humane life The Vain-glorious will for the most part entertain you with commendations of themselves and have a thousand petty singularities in their carriage their attire their speech their houses their attendants to shew that they have something more than others The aforesaid Authour saith he hath observed some that held it a great honour to have a Blackamore lackey that they might be the more noted and if they sacrificed an ox they nailed the horns at their gates to
on thy part what ingratitudes on mine Preserve me in what is thine and wash away with the precious bloud of thy Son what is mine Shelter me under the wings of thy protection from so many shadows apparitions and snares of the father of darkness and grant that though sleep close my eys yet my heart may never be shut to thy love Lastly fall asleep upon some good thought that your night as the Prophet saith may be enlightened with the delights of God and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep supply it with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of heart as the just did of old called for this reason The crickets of the night Thus shall you lead a life full of honour quiet and satisfaction to your self and shall make every day a step to Eternity The marks which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination are eleven principall 1. Faith lively simple and firm 2. Purity of life exempt ordinarily from grievous sins 3. Tribulation 4. Clemency and mercy 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth 6. Humility 7. Charity to your neighbour 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament 9. Affection to the word of God 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue which you have upon occasion exercised You will find this Diary little in volume but great in virtue if relishing it well you begin to put it in practice It contains many things worthy to be meditated at leisure for they are grave and wise precepts choisely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers Though they seem short they cost not the less pains Remember that famous Artist Myrmecides employed more time to make a Bee than an unskilfull workman to build a house EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY In the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5. 3. Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Psal 184. 22. My dayes are like the dayes of an hireling Untill the day break and the shadows flie away Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6. Beginning a good work In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal 40. 7. 8. In good Inspirations The Lord God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious neither turned away back Isaiah 50. 5. At Church How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts Psal 84. 1. Before reading Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Samuel 3. 9. Speaking My heart is inditing a good matter I speak of the things which I have made touching the King Psal 45. 1. Eating Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Psal 145. In Prosperity If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth If I prefer not thee above my chief joy Psal 137. 6. Adversity The Lord killeth and maketh alive 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glorie Luke 24. 26. Troubles Surely man walketh in a vain shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 6. Calumnies If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Praises Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glorie Psal 115. 1. Against vain hope As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image Psalm 73. 20. Pride Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased Luke 14. 11. Covetousness It is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20. 35. Luxury Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ 1. Cor. 6. 15. Envy He that loveth not his brother abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. Gluttony The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 14. 17. Anger Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. Sloth Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48. 10. Rules of Faith God cannot be known but by himself What is to be understood of God is to be learned by God Hilar lib. 5. de Trin. God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions In simplicity must we seek him in piety profess him Idem lib. 10. Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set Prov. 22. 28. Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholick Church Consent of people and nations Authority begun by miracles nourished by hope encreased by charity confirmed by antiquity August lib. De utilitate credendi To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance is insolent madness Idem Epist 118. Let us follow universality antiquity consent Let us hold that which is believed every where always by all Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus Acts of Faith Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Marc. 9. 24. I know that my Redeemer liveth c. Job 19. 25. Hope Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal 24. 4. I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him Psal 90. 15. Charity Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 25 26. Feed me O Lord thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity This I request this I desire that vehement love may throughly pierce me fill me and change me into it self Blosius PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions For the Church WE beseech thee O Lord graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church that she being delivered from all adversitie and errour may serve thee in safety and freedom through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the King WE beseech thee O Lord that thy servant CHARLS by thy gracious appointment our King and Governour may be enriched with all encrease of virtue whereby he may be able to eschew evil and to follow Thee the Way the Truth and the Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Friend ALmighty and ever-living Lord God have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternall salvation that through thy grace he may desire those things which please thee and with his whole endeavour perform the same through Jesus Christ our Lord. For Peace O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give that both our hearts may be set
approching near the light love their own darkness They hate the light of their salvation as the shadow of death and think that if you give them eyes to see their blindness you take away their life If they seem Christians they yet have nothing but the name and the appearance the book of Jesus is shut from them or if they make a shew to read they may name the letters but never can produce one right good word 4. Others destroy themselves by false lights who being wedded to their own opinions and adoring the Chimera's of their spirit think themselves full of knowledge just and happy that the sun riseth onely for them and that all the rest of the world is in darkness they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductours but at the end of their career they find too late that this pretended light was but an Ignis fatuus which led them to a precipice of eternal flames It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eye-sight and the worst of all temptations is for a man to be a devil to himself 5. Those ruin themselves with too much light who have all Gods law by heart but never have any heart to that law They know the Scriptures all learning and sciences they understand every thing but themselves they can find spots in the sun they can give new names to the stars they perswade themselves that God is all that they apprehend But after all this heap of knowledge they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaob and can produce nothing but bloud and frogs They embroil and trouble the world they stain their own lives and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins It would be more expedient for them rather than have such light to carry fire wherewith to be burning in the love of God and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge All learning which is not joyned with a good life is like a picture in the air which hath no table to make it subsist It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit like the Prophets except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues Aspirations O Fountain of all brightness before whom night can have no vail who seest the day spring out of thy bosom to spread it self over all nature will thou have no pitie upon my blindness will there be no medicine for my eyes which have so often grown dull heavy with earthly humours O Lord I want light being always so blind to my own sins So many years are past wherein I have dwelt with my self and yet know not what I am Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great and see all my crimes in little I too often believe my own judgement and adore my own opinions as gods and goddesses and if thou send me any light I make so ill use of it that I dazle my self even in the brightness of thy day making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage if I were so happy as to know it But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee I will onely contemplate thee O life of all beauties and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes that I may the better apprehend the mystery of thy bounties O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerfull that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory The Gospel upon Thursday the fourth week in Lent S. Luke the 7. Of the widows son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour ANd it came to pass afterward he went into a Citie that is called Naim and there went with him his Disciples and a very great multitude And when he came nigh to the gate of the Citie behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the Citie with her whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not And he came near and touched the Coffin And they that carried it stood still and he said Young man I say to thee Arise And he that was dead sate up and began to speak And he gave him to his mother and fear took them all and they magnified God saying That a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people And this saying went forth into all Jewry of him and into all the Countrey about Moralities JEsus met at the Gates of Naim which is interpreted the Town of Beauties a young man carried to burial to shew us that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the laws of death We fear death and there is almost nothing more immortal here below every thing dies but death it self We see him always in the Gospels we touch him every day by our experiences and yet neither the Gospels make us sufficiently faithfull nor our experiences well advised 2. If we behold death by his natural face he seems a little strange to us because we have not seen him well acted We lay upon him sithes bows and arrows we put upon him ugly antick faces we compass him round about with terrours and illusions of all which he never so much as thought It is a profound sleep in which nature lets it self fail insensibly when she is tired with the disquiets of this life It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh It is an execution of Gods will and a decree common to all the world To be disquieted and drawn by the ears to pay a debt which so many millions of men of all conditions have paid before us is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torrent We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us we die piece-meal every day we assay death so often in our sleep discreet men expect him fools despise him and the most disdainfull persons must entertain him Shall we not know and endeavour to do that one thing well which being once well performed will give us life for ever Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon than to stay late amongst the occasions of sin 3. It is not death but a wicked life we have cause to fear That onely lies heavy and both troubles us and keeps us from understanding and tasting the sweets of death He that can die to so many little dead and dying things which makes us die every day by our unwillingness to forsake them shall find that death is nothing to him But we would fain in death carry the world with us upon our shoulders to the grave and that is a thing we cannot do We would avoid the judgement of a just God and that is a thing which we should not so much as think Let us clear our accounts
fearfull maladie 135 His notorious cruelty even in his extreamest sickness ibid. His miserable death ibid. Hermingildus his retreat and conversion 325 His father's letter to him and his to his father 326 He is wickedly betrayed by Goizintha 328 His letter to his wife and his undaunted resolution 330 His death 331 His young son Hermingildus died not long after 332 A notable Observation upon the habit of a High-Priest 93 Hilarion of Costa a reverend Father 388 Hippocrates his desire how to cure the itch of ambition 56 House of the Moth. 25 House of Swallows ibid. A notable Doctrine of Hugo 61 Humility defined 468 Humiliation of Death 350 State of Humilitie 18 All the world teacheth us the lesson of Humilitie 56 The kingdom of Hypocrisie 11 Reasons against Hypocrisie ibid. Baseness of Hypocrisie ibid. Hypocrisie confuted in the great School of the world 42 Hypocrisie condemned by the Law of Heaven ibid. Deformity of Hypocrisie ibid. I JAcques de Vitry his pretty Observation 39 Idleness the business of some Great men 44 Abuse of an Idolatrous spirit 13 Jesus one and the same for Nobles and Plebeians 3 Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ 376 He is the Concurrence of all perfections ibid. Three Excellencies of Jesus in which all other are included ibid. His Sanctity Wisdom and Power 377 Practice of the love of Jesus reduced to three heads ibid. Miracles of the person of Jesus 442 Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit ibid. Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour Jesus ibid. Imitation of Jesus Christ the abridgement of Wisdom 3 Images of Emperours how much reverenced 13 Impietie hath its misery 36 Impietie condemned in the Tribunal of Nature 420 Impietie chastised 451 Against Toleration of Impietie 452 Impuritie of life ariseth from three sources 85 Reasons against Inconstancie 40 Inconstancie of men 236 Indegondis transporteth the Catholick Faith into Spain 323 The persecutions of Indegondis 324 By her mediation there is a Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son 327 The glory and greatness of that man who knows how to suffer Injuries 40 Observation of Isaiah 30. 8 406 Belief of Judgement most general 430 Judea in what condition before Herod came to the Crown 89 The causes of the corruption of Julian 373 The School of Julian ibid. How he became depraved 374 He is a Christian for policie and an Infidel in soul ibid. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls ibid. His subtility to invade the Empire ibid. His Embassage ibid. His remarkable punishment ibid. He had ill success with the qualities that Machiavel furnished him with 260 Jupiter painting goats in the Clouds what it meaneth 14 Justina an Arian requireth a Church in Milan 206 Justice and Mercy the two Arms of God 22 Necessity of Justice with its acts 89 Justice without favour very remarkable ibid. Justice of Belizarius and Aurelianus 226 Justice defined 468 K KNowledge of good and evil doth make the sin more foul 23 Knowledge of ones self very hard 69 No certain Knowledge of four things 440 L LAcedaemonians practice 381 LAdies excellent in pietie 388 Sordid Liberalitie of Emmanuel Comenus 91 Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines 449 Arrogancy of Libertinism 450 The Table of Philo of the manners of Libertines ibid. Punishment of God upon Libertines ibid. Evil of a sleight Lie 145 Lying the key of vice 469 A Life led by opinion is ridiculous 8 Condition of this Life well described 65 Man must lead a Pilgrims Life in this world 72 Our Life is a musick-Musick-book 84 Four sorts of Life 137 Opinion of the other Life 403 Life and Death the two poles of the World ibid. Divers kinds of Life ibid. Life was given to Cain for a punishment 414 Disturbances of Life 435 Divers wayes of humane Life according to Saint Gregorie ibid. The choice of conditions of Life is hazardous ibid. Miseries of this present Life 436 Of the Lilie with six leaves 72 Divers kinds of Love 228 229 Love turned into rage 244 The baseness of Love 375 Love of invisible things most penetrating ibid. Worldly Lovers being converted are the most servent in the Love of God illustrated by a comparison 379 Excellency of Love 399 Division of Love ibid. There is a possibility in man to love his enemies ibid. Effects of the Love of enemies in the Law of Nature 400 Loyalty of a wife to her husband 352 Lust ruineth Empires 154 Lust is a fire that burneth the garment of the soul 182 Luxurie the sin of the heel 195 Lycinius his condition 242 His end 242 Lycurgus his greatness 3 M MAgnanimitie 468 MAn a Stage-player upon the Theatre of the world 12 Three sorts of Man in every man 61 Character of the carnal and spiritual Man ibid. Of the nature and dignity of man what he hath been what he is and what he shall be 64 Man hath more non-essence than essence 350 Mans ingratitude towards God 346 Mutability of men ibid. Miseries of an indebted man 352 It is dangerous to disoblige pious and learned Men. 379 Diversitie of Men. 413 Monument of the Empress Marie 418 Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass 74 Mass a sacrifice ibid. Instructions for the Married 96 Mariamne's accusation and pitifull death 124 Martianus of whom a marvellous accident 150 His good success ibid. A great Massacre at Thessalonica 214 Maxims very dangerous used by Hereticks 183 Maxentius acteth a strange Tragedie 240 He is defeated by Constantine 241 Maximian the Baloon of Fortune 239 A remarkable speech of Maximus 79 Maximus overthrown and put to death 209 210 Meditation its definition 75 Necessity and easiness of Meditation ibid. What you must understand to Meditate well ibid. Practice and Form of Meditation consisteth in six-things 76 Seven ways to dilate ones self in Meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts ibid. Modestie important 87 Modestie of a son of S. Lewis 418 Modestie defined 468 The actions of Modestie ibid. Marvellous contempt of money 227 Monica the mother of S. Augustine her qualities 193 Her death 198 A singular saying of Sir Thomas Moor. 90 Mother of Macchabees persecuted 348 N NAtures evils 355 NAtures voice 370 Nature delighteth in contrarieties 412 Nature the price of time 43 Nebucadnezzar nursed by a Goat 16 Nero his folly 12 Notable action of Noah 414 Nobility the first gift of God 4 Nobility not tied to bloud ibid. Against such as betray their Nobility 5 Nobility of Noah wherein ibid. Nobility of Eleazar and his excellent speech ibid. Priviledges of Nobility 8 Noble-men why ill educated 16 Nobility very much corrupted 17 Noble-mens particular obligation 20 Noble-men examples of great importance in the world 21 Noble-men appeal from the sentence of Labour 51 Disorders in corrupt Nobility 218 219 Novelty in Religion dangerous 31 Novelty ever suspected by the Wise 32 O OAths of Magistrates 90 OBedience defined 468 The qualities of an Officer 272 Onocratalus his instinct 417 Souls in the torrent of Opinion 37
imitate your Graces profitable and well-seasoned retirements I wish excellent Lady there were any thing wherein I might better expresse the devoted service I ow to your eminent self and illustrious Family but since weak endeauours can produce but slender effects and noble dispositions do readily pardon incident imperfections I will rest in the cheerefull hope of Excuse and in the ardent Vow of a studious willingnesse to become worthy the Title of Your Graces humblest and most obsequious servant THOMAS HAWKINS To my Lord MY LORD THE DUKE OF ANGVIEN ELDEST SONNE OF MY LORD THE PRINCE MY LORD I Finish the Holy-Court in my Books when your age inviteth you to begin it in your manners and for your first exercise of arms I offer you the Combats and Empire over Passions which is greater then that of the world There it is where you shall know the industry of a warre which nature wageth and reason teacheth us which is never too soon learned and which is ordinarily but too late understood Princes in other battels speak with mouths of fire and make use of a million of hands but in this which I represent they are alone and therein employ but the moitie of themselves one part of Man being revolted against the other Besides all the honour of the uictory rests in themselves arms fortresses and Regiments not at all participating therein and if they prove fortunate in these encountres they stand in the esteem of wise men for Demy-Gods Their quality obligeth them to this duty more then other men since Passions are winds which in popular life raise but little waves but in them stir up mountains of water For which I am perswaded that as you so dearly have loved the labours of my Pen and sought for your instruction out of my Books I could not do a better service or more suitable to your age then by arming you against these plagues which have so often tarnished Diadems on the brow of Cesars and turned Conquerours into Slaves Sir I promise my self much from your Greatnesse in this Conquest seeing it already hath given testimonies to the world worthy of your eminent Birth which oblige you to virtue out of a necessity as strong as your disposition is sweet VVit which is as the principall Genius of your house hath in you cast forth glimmers that have flown throughout Europe when you publickly answered throughout all Philosophy in an age wherein other Princes begin to learn the first elements You have placed wisedome on the highest Throne of Glory and it by your mouth hath rendred Oracles to instruct the learned and astonish Doctours In the first season of life which so many other spend in delights you have heightned the lights of your understanding by the labour and industry of study living as certain Plants which bear the figure of Starres all invironed with Thorns It is time that all your Brightnesse change into Fire and since Sciences are but Colours which appeare not in the night-time if Virtue do not illuminate them they must be gilded with the rayes of your good life and enkindled with the ardours of your courage as you very happily have already begun Sir I do assure my self that of all those things you know you will onely approve the good and that of all such as you can you will do none but the just This is it you owe to the King to whom you have the honour to be so near This is it which the education of the most prudent of Fathers and the tender care of the best of mothers exact This is it that France which looketh on you as a Sien of its Lillies wisheth This is it which bloud the mostnoble on Earth breeding the most happy in the world and that face where Grace and Majesty make so sweet a commixion cease not to promise us As there is nothing little in you so we must not endure any thing imperfect and if that which we take to be spots in the Sun be Stars it plainly sheweth us that all must be splendour in your condition and that we must not expect years since the wit of Princes in much swifter then time Your great Vncle who gained the battel of Cerisoles said to those who upbraided him with his youth that he did not cut with his beard but with his sword and I am perswaded that you will imitate his valour to take part in his glory yea even in this your minority wherein the Kings colours being already to fly under your name My Lord remember the throne of the Sun among the Egyptians was supported by Lyons and that you must be all heart to support that of our most Christian King in imitation of the great Prince to whom you ow your Birth For whose sake I wish you as many blessings as Heaven promiseth you esteeming my self most happy to be able to contribute my labours and services to the glory of your education since I have the honour to call my self by just title SIR Your most humble and most affectionate servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN A TASTE OF THE SEVERALL DISPOSITIONS OF MEN VVhich serves for a Foundation to the Discourse of PASSIONS THE HOLY COURT was not as yet sufficiently beautified with the eminent lustre of Glory wherein I represented it but it was necessary that taking possession of the Empire over passions it should wear a crown which it hath gained by its travell and wrought by its proper virtues In this last Tome dear Reader I present thee the absolute reformation of the soul by eternall principles and the victory over powers which oppose Reason Thou art not ignorant that Angels and bruit beasts are but of one piece the one being wholly Spirit and the other Flesh But Man a middle creature between Angels and bruit beasts participateth both of flesh and Spirit by an admirable tye which in him occasioneth continuall war of Passions which are properly commotions of animall and sensitive nature caused by the imagination of good and evil with some alteration of body They take their origen from two Appetites of which the Concupiscible causeth Love Hatred Desire Aversion Joy and Sadnesse The Irascible causeth Hope Despair Boldnesse Fear and Anger To this ordinary number I add Shamefastnesse Envy Jealousie and Compassion to accomplish our work in all its parts All Passions are generally in all men but all appear not in all There is a certain mixture in nature which is the cause that the worst have something of good and the best something of bad Now note that as the Platonists distinguish five sorts of divels to wit Fiery Airy Aquatick Terrestriall and Subterranean so humane spirits are divided into as many forms which produce merveilous diversities in every nature The Fiery are Spirits of fire whereof some seem to be enkindled with the purest flames of stars which are magnanimous pure vigorous bold intelligent active amiable and munâ—ficent And of this sort are the most illustrious of Kings and of Queens
my discourse put any prejudice upon the virtuous and civil Amities which may be between persons of different sex who are endowed with singular and excellent virtues and who manage their affections with admirable discretion which although rarely may be done and if there be any who abuse it it is not fit by reason of blasted members to blame sound parts and suspect them of corruption nor to censure the actions of many great Saints who being obliged by duty to converse with other sex then their own have therein comported themselves with so much prudence and charinesse S. Augustine in the fourth Book of the City of God saith The Ancients had three Goddesses of Love one for the irregular another for the married and a third for Virgins We must not think the kingdome of hell perpetually swayeth upon the earth to speak with the Wise-man and that one cannot look on a woman not take in the fire of evil love How many be theâ—e who wholly are estranged from all tender and affectionate inclinations Briars and thorns are as full of courtesie as their greetings and the ice of Scythia is not more cold then their conversation How many do we find who having their spirits wholly possessed by other passions one of Ambition another of Avarice another of Revenge another of Envy another transported by the sollicitude of a suit and the turmoil of a family who think very little upon love How many other are there from whom study affairs and charges wherein they strive supereminently to transcend free their minds from all other thoughts And how many Ladies see we in the world with a countenance ever smiling of a humour chearfull and conversation most pleasing who make love to wits and spirits as Bees to flowers but have with the body no commerce at all But if this may sometimes proceed from humour by a much stronger reason we must think great souls that are powerfully possessed by the love of God which replenisheth the whole latitude of their hearts and who live in continuall exercises of prayer and mortification may converse with women for the affairs of salvation by a conversation sweetly grave and simply prudent not changing the love which they bear to the virtue of chastity It is an act of a base or maligne spirit to measure all by ones own self and to think that what he would do in a slippery occasion must be done by all such who are farre otherwise eminent in grace and virtue then are the ordinary sort of men The Authour of the theatre of Nature holdeth The Basilisk cannot be enchanted that the Basilisk alone among serpents cannot be enchanted and I dare affirm there are men who have the like priviledge and have their eyes love-proof and their hearts shut up against all the assaults of concupiscence whether it proceed from singular habits of virtue or whether it be some very extraordinary gift from God Democritus voluntarily made himself Tertul. Apologeticuâ— blind by looking stedfastly on the beams of the sun to free himself from the importunities of the love of women He perhaps shut up two gates against love to open a thousand to his imagination Origen deprived himself of the distinction of sex to rebate the stings of sensuality which bred him much mischief Grace and the gift of God doth more then all the endeavours of men it forsaketh not those who by obligation of their charge and out of the necessity of their profession converse with women within all the limits and due proportions of decorum The Ecclesiasticall History assureth us that the glorious The extraordinary practice of S. Athanasius S. Athanasius seeing himself persecuted by the Arrians with rage thirsty of his bloud and not knowing whom to trust hid himself in the night-time in the house of a devout Virgin where he was long concealed and protected against the fury of his persecutours Whosoever will weigh this shall find it an extraordinary Soz. l. 5. c 6. Palladius act for the history saith the Virgin was a miracle of beauty and being not fully twenty years of age had made a vow to preserve a perpetuall virginity to God It much amazed her at first seeing the great Prelate had chosen her little habitation for the place of his retreat but he assuring her it was the will of God she enterteined him with an open heart and served him with so much purity obedience and reverence that she seemed to have lodged an Angel not a Man in her house She furnished him with all necessaries for life she washed his feet yea she borrowed Books for him with singular heed that he might entertain time in this his imprisonment Cardinall Baronius calleth this history into question and thinks it an invention of Arrius his side but there is very little apparence seeing the Arrians of that time never objected it to S. Athanasius as being a matter out of their knowledge And although this great man in his Apology hath said nothing of it where he speaketh of his flights and retreats this notwithstanding nothing at all lesseneth the truth of it since there are many things may very innocently be done by prudent men which are not necessary to be published to all the world And needs must he have had little judgement to have vaunted this accident before his enemies whereof they would have taken but too much occasion to calumniate him And as for that which Baronius saith that it onely belonged to widows to wash the feet of Saints it is true according to the ordinary proceedings of the Church and the liberty of its functions but here the question is of an outrageous persecution and of an act out of common practice and there is not any reason which can essicaciously prove this history to be invented seeing it is faithfully set down by Sozomen and Palladius two great admirers of the virtues of S. Athanasius whereof the one giveth so evident proofs that he witnesseth he had seen the same Virgin when she was seventy years old and saith this relation was confirmed to him by Priests of Alexandria I hold it more admirable then imitable and that although the Hebrew Children were once preserved in the fornace by miracle one must not therefore desperately throw himself through imprudence among coles but ever confesse the hand of God is able to safeguard those in perils who have not despaired in the peril but who by necessity become therein engaged What shall we say of S. John Chrysostome Is Lusiaca Amity of S. John Chrysostome with a Lady named Olympias there a man more austere in his life and more vehement in the matters of virtuous Amities It is a strange thing to reade the letters he writes from the place of his banishment to his dear Olympias He saluteth her with opennesse of most ardent affections he calleth her his Saint and his venerable Lady sometimes he instructs and encourageth her by sublime grave discourses addressing Epistles to
notwithstanding it is not enough to will good unlesse one therein observe circumstances and measures requisite for its accomplishment One of the best rules for the passion of which we treat is to adapt To adapt our selves to our hope ones self to his hopes to see what comports with his birth his breeding his capacity his genius his knowledge his power his credit and his pains and not rashly to be stirred up with the desire of things above his strength unlesse he will disturb his life and hasten his death The world is a great Sepulchre of so many little Phaetons who will guide the sun and hours although Spes impii tanquam lanugo est quae à ven to tollitur tanquam spuma gracâ—lis quae à procella dispergitur tanquam fumus qui à vento diffusus est tanquam memoria hospitis uniâ—s dici praetereuâ—tis Sap. 5. 15. their life be but a continuall deviation they have no other honour but to be fallen from on high and to have used more temerity in affairs then ability such hopes also are very well compared by the Wiseman To those little downs of flowers scattered in the air to the froth which floateth on the water and is instantly dissipated by a tempest to smoke which vanisheth under the blast of winds and to the memory of a traveller who passeth by an Inne By the sight of a bird we judge of her flight by the genius of men we make conjectures of their fortunes needs must there be much extravagancy when a man in all kinds little proposeth to himself nothing but great things I well know the divine Providence the worker of wonders delighteth sometimes to strike a stroke with its own hand drawing out men of most base extraction to bear them to the highest tops of worldly greatnesse It is that which forged a Diademe for â—ulgotius l. 3. c. 4. Pupienus upon the same anvil whereof his father hammered Iron That which changed Martianus his spade into a Sceptre That which taught Valentinian Idem l. 6. c. 10. to make crowns by twisting ropes That which shewed Justine in a Carpenters-shop how to build a Throne for himself That which drew Petrus Damianus from the midst of sheep to be made a Cardinall and Gregory the seventh out of a Joyners house to give him a Popes Mytre But one Swallow makes not a summer nor one accident from an extraordinary hand which happeneth scarcely in an age makes not all fortunes S. John saith that the measure of an Angel is the measure of a man but this is not but in the celestiall city of Hierusalem where we shall be as the Angel Apoc. 21. 1â— of God Here our thoughts are high our aims great but the limit of our power little He who doth well understand what he can wills but what is reasonable and shall find that the modesty of wishes makes life more commodious and happinesse more undoubted To this first rule of the moderation of hopes we To ground them well must add a second which is to give them good foundations to the end we be not constrained to see the indiscretion of our desires punished by the small successe of our pretentions There are some who infinitely confide in the words of Astrologers and to speak plainly it is a prodigious thing to hear the predictions they make upon the life and fortunes of men which cause amazement among the wise and love in the curious as at the time when they answered to the Edict of the Emperour Vitellius who commanded them to leave the city that they would obey on such condition that Theodorus Merechista hist Rom. fol. 86. he instantly should leave life which so fell out Yet we must say that although God should write down in the book of stars the successes of our life which cannot be easily agreed unto yet ever would they be extremely encumbred nor ever happen out of a fatall necessity That is the cause why for some presages which hit right there are many other notably false which makes it sufficiently appear that God hath reserved to himself the full knowledge of what shall befall us Among other qualities which the holy Canticle gives him it forgeteth Coma ejus nigra quafi Corvus Cant. 5. 11. not to say He had hair as black as the feather of a Crow Where you shall observe rhe hairs mystically signifie the Thoughts and when the Scripture termeth them black it will declare the obscurity and depth of Gods councels over the wisdome of men Tertullian Tertul. Homo divini cura ingenii Deus in omnia sufficit nec potest esse suae perspicaciae praevaricator said man was the care of the understanding of God who provideth for all and who cannot be a prevaricatour of his own providence Can we think men are permitted to enter into those great abysses of knowledg and to take the rains of nature into their hands think we that a man who doth not alwayes very plainly see what lies before his feet can assuredly behold that which is infinitely exalted above his head Where have not Astrologers sowed lyes where is it that great ones who hearkened unto them as to their Gospel were not filled with disastrous successes By their saying all which is born Gen. 38. 27. at Rome comes into the world like unto little Zara already marked with red There are some who consume themselves with anxieties and cares of their life-time to verifie the words of an Astrologer and who instead of scarlet find perhaps in the other world a Powerfull friends may serve for a support for Hope Fatis accede Diisque cole foelices Lucan Maledictus homo qui ponit carnem brachium suum Jer. 17. 3. Robe of flames It is a wretched support to tye ones hopes to so great an uncertainty I find the favour of great and powerfull friends is much more certain for God establisheth them on earth as his images to be the treasurers of felicity and distributers of good hap When they be just upright and gratefull men of merit have some cause to hope of their good affections and an Antient said that we must approach near to the Destinies and the Gods and honour the happy But how many are there who adhering too much unto men make to themselves an arm of flesh without bones and a fortune as frail as Reeds Others make themselves brave fellow with their sword and expect all from their valour Others from their wit and eloquence Others from their gold Others from dexterity in businesses All this may do well when a great integrity of long services puts these good qualities into action but if it happen you have some ray of hope grounded upon some good title do as Job and keep it hidden as long as is To hope without vanity fit in your bosome for fear that discovering it you lose the pretended effects thereof There are who tell all
now at Placuit ut qui sibi ipsis voluntariè violentam inferunt mortem nulla prorsus pro illis in oblatione commemoratio fiat Ex Concil Braccarensi primo c. 34. Caus 23. q 5 in Glossa Laym p. 116 this time we stand in a clear light communicated unto us by Councels and School-Divinity and know it is not at all lawfull so farre as that a Decree hath decided that a Virgin ought rather to suffer the losse of virginity of body by a manifest violence then of her own accord to tear out her soul Yet Doctours do not condemne him who throws himself down headlong to avoid a burning nor him who putteth fire to the powder of a ship taken with Pirats wherein he cannot doubt but he must perish but he hastneth his end to take a prey from his enemy and to sacrifice himself for a Publick good The Doctrine which blameth every other act of Despair is conform to the opinion of the best Philosophers who held it is to die like a licentious beast to go out of this life without his warrant by whose leave we entred into it Seneca who had been of another opinion changed it afterward at the end of his dayes nor would he use violence against himself wherewith Nero was amazed and sent him the sentence of death which he received with a marvellous courage shewing that if he sealed not his former opinion with his bloud it was not for want of resolution but that he had acquired more light For my part I probably Bundem quem nos Jovem intelligunt rectorem universi cui nomen omue convenit think he was at that time a Christian although not declared and it is to no purpose to alledge that he in his last words maketh mention of a Jupiter Liberator since he explicateth it in his writings shewing that by this word he understands no other God then the sovereign Monarch of the Universe We ought not to take this glory from him since Nat. quaest lib. 3. S. Hier. l. de Scriptoribus Ecclesiast S. Hierome so clearly giveth it him placing him in the number of Christian Authours and Confessours of Jesus Christ And that Flavius Dexter a notable Historian who flourished in S. Augustines time and who wrote the History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ our Saviour to the year 430. expresly saith in the year 64. De Christiana re bene sensit factúsque Christianus occultus But if this be so it cannot have been but in the last year of Seneca's life which is 66. of our Lord when the holy Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul returning thither the second time made Christianity in that place to be resplendent From whence it comes that they much labour in vain who alledge many passages out of Seneca's book composed in his Paganism to disapprove our opinion § 3. Humane Remedies of Despair THe cause of Despair and the condition of those who Despair being sufficiently known we must fortifie our selves against this pernicious passion with all the courage and prudence we can use If we consider the humane Remedies they will teach us that the inconstancy of things on the earth which overwhelme us may raise us that the state of this inferiour world is as a wheel whereon we do nought but go up and come down and that when we have the most happinesse then is the time we fall to the lowest degree of misery When the unfortunate are descended into abysses the De carcer◠catenisque interdum quis egreditur ad regnum Zonaras in Michael prosperous leap up in their places We have seen of them as the Wise-man observeth that have mounted to Empires from the deep dungeons of a prison as did Michael the Emperour who was unexpectedly snatched out of the hands of Leo when he had resolved to burn him alive was taken from black Caverns born to the Palace as yet nasty and all horrid and on his Imperiall Throne made to file off the fetters on his feet for that the key of them could not be found The proud Sesostris King of Egypt who pompously walked along in a chariot harnessed out with Kings was diverted from his insolency by one of those miserable Princes who taught him a lesson of the revolution of humane things by the resemblance of the wheels of the chariot of triumph whereuhto pride had lifted him Experience will tell us that many for having lightly believed their evil fortune were deprived of very great prosperities and became unfortunate for no other reason but that they thought themselves such before their time Perseverance will instruct us that in worldly affairs as are marriages offices benefices suits in law commerce good turns and recompences we must not still fall off out of mood but patiently expect the hour of our good hap whilst there is any reasonable likelihood Scardion in the third Book of his History recounteth an excellent passage of Pope Innocent the Seventh who employed a famous Painter named Andrew Mattineus in adorning his Chappel of the Vatican This brave work-man bent himself to it with affection and therein used his most exquisite inventions hoping that he who set him awork would largely requite his merit in so notable a power to oblige all the world He notwithstanding saw his labours daily to go on but felt no rewards coming which one day put him into Choler with a resolution to be revenged by some trick of his Art The Pope had commanded him to paint the seven deadly Sins but he instead of taking his proportions for seven places added thereunto an eighth wherein he purposed to make a hideous monster Innocent more fully informing himself of his design the Painter answered he left this place there to represent Ingratitude as the most capitall of all Vices The Pope well understanding what he would say smiled and said Matineus I give consent thou paint Ingratitude as ugly as thou pleasest but on this condition that thou place Patience directly over against it which of all Virtues is the most courageous from which thou art very much alienated being unable a little to expect patiently the good I have resolved to do thee and presently he gave him a good Benefice for his sons preferment Lastly commonly fame will shew us there are people whose ears are like those gates through which nothing was suffered to passe but direfull things They burden themselves with all the worst and become eloquent in the mishap of their friends as if they infinitely obliged them by learning their disastres We shall easily find a remedy for the evil we apprehend by not being over credulous in giving ear to these news-carriers whom Poets will have to be the messengers of Hell Constancy will assure us that the evil opinion one hath of his own affairs troubleth the whole businesse that we must persevere to the end and albeit the tempest turmoil us never to forsake the helm though tossed in the midst of surges
great spectacle of the Creatures thereby to ascend to the Creatour is not unprofitable for a good understanding that which teaches to reason and discourse is good for every occasion but the Morall Politicall and History make up the best part of a Kings Library and if hee make a little digression into Musick and Painting it cannot but be commendable Promote that knowledge that puffs not up vain spirits but that rather which humbles the solid ones for by learning that which we know not we understand our Ignorance and know by experience that one might make a great Library of that which is beyond the knowledge of the most learned in the World There are none but those that know little and which know ill who take upon them to have a sufficiency of knowledge they crackle like little Rivulets whereas the greater Rivers run quietly That Prince which by reason that he hath studied will carry all his counsell in his own head shews that he hath little profited by his study for in this mortall life a man is so far wise as he seeks still to become so but after that he thinks that he hath atteined it and hath no more need of others help then he begins to be out of the way The use of wisedome is to become wise as that of the eye is to see The wisedome of a King may be seen by a reasonable tincture of Learning by the knowledge that he hath of himself and the frail flourishing of all humane things by the discreetnesse of his words by his modesty in prosperity by his constancy in adversity It will shew it self by a Greatnesse without Affectation a Majesty without Pride an Humimity without Contempt a Comelinesse without Striving where every thing declares a King without any shew of making him seem so it will shew it self by its Temperance by the moderating of his passions and by Prudence in the government of his life and estate This is to have deeply studied to be able to overcome his Anger to disarm Revenge to moderate a Victory to overcome Concupiscence to regulate his Affection to keep under Ambition to restrain his Tongue to over-rule his Delights to asswage his Discontents to live like a Saint and speak like an Oracle This is exceedingly to have profited in wisedome to be able to proceed in all affairs according to the laws of true prudence But the false maketh that its principall which is but the accessary it takes Greatnesse and Pleasures for the chief ayme of a Kings life it consults little it judgeth ill it decreeth nothing But the true Prudence can look unto the end can take a right mark in all businesses it doth all things with advice it brings Judgement without Passion in all occurrences and gives an effectuall order for the performance of all that which hath been wisely concluded the remembrance of that past the understanding of the present and foreseeing of that to come makes up its whole perfection a quick apprehension prepares an accutenesse works it good advice orders foreseeing confirms and performance crowns it It is by these steps that a Prince ascends to the Throne of wisdome which is an unestimable Gift and the true favour of the Deity Saint Lewis whose life might have been the school of the ablest Philosophers although he bore in his mind the best maximes of Empires yet ceased not to reade good Books and as he had seen in the time of his imprisonment in the East that a Sarazen Prince had a Library of the Books of his Law he caused the like to be made at his return in his Palace where he spent many hours and would converse freely with men of learning and desert Demetrius Phalereus advised Kings to instruct themselves often by reading for that there one may learn of the dead which they cannot know by the living The next to Wisedome followeth Justice which performs in a manner the chief duty that is required of a Prince and Royalty seems to be nothing else but an excellent science of Justice as Justice is taken for that habit of virtue by which we render to every one the right that belongs to him Tertullian said That Goodnesse had created the World but that Justice had made the Concords thereof This wise mother of Harmonies ceaseth not to open an ear to the dissents that are made in the World to correct the disagreeing Voices by its own love and to bring all to its own end Ambition inventeth extravagant sounds Covetousnesse sends forth enraged cries tyranny makes an infernall Musick but Justice corrects all these excesses and if it meet with valiant and incorrupt souls to serve it as an instrument it sends forth incomparable Melodies which delight the ears of God and rejoyce the whole fabrick of Nature There are two great Virtues which make all the equalities of mans life Truth equals the understanding to all the objects and Justice the hearts to that which is right Lying and Injustice make every where great inequalities which fill Kingdomes with Disorder Consciences with Crimes and the World with Confusion But Truth and Justice render light to dark things strength to feeble certainty to doubtfull and order to the confused We naturally take a delight to behold the fair bow in heaven which compasseth the air with a crown of glory but Alcuin the School-master of Charlemagne writes That that which makes it the more admired is for that amongst its other beauties it carrieth the ensigns of Justice It shews the fire and the water in its red and blew colours to instruct us that Justice holds the fire in its power to consume the wicked and the water to bring refreshment to those scorching heats of calamities that trouble the miserable Justice is Gods profession and an Antient said that his continuall exercise was to weigh the hearts and the works of men and to distribute rewards and ordain chastisements according to the good and ill deserving of every one in particular The Scripture saith that he is glorious and magnificent but that these magnificences are chiefly seen upon the mountains of wounds and robberies when he beats down with an invincible arm the great ones of the earth loaden with the spoils of iniquitie The Hebrews said that Good took such delight in Justice that he had bestowed even the Saphires of his own Throne to engrave the Law thereon The Saviour of the world is named the Just by the holy Ghost in the writings of his Apostles not in dissimulation but by his Essence All the great Imitatours of God have honoured this quality and have held it in the number of their dearest delights Job maketh it his crown and his garment David his virtue Solomon his wisdome Josias his love Augustus his exercise and Trajan his honour The memory of so many Conflicts Sieges Battels Conquests Triumphs whereby the life of this great Emperour was so famous are found but in the record of a few lines but that which remaineth engraven
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
acknowledges not their God Further yet being a Philistim by Nation a Sophister by Profession an Impostour by Artifice he hath been able easily to make some of the pranks of his trade slip into his History Adde to this that being but a mean fellow he was advanced first by Justin and afterwards by Justinian to great offices yet being a man extremely jealous and ambitious he thought himself not high enough and bore a mortall hatred to John the superintendent of Justice to Tribonian the great favorite of Justinian and not content with tearing them in his History he falls upon the Emperour that had honoured them with his favours Every one that hath the common sense of a reasonable man sees plainly that it is a most unworthy thing that a servant a domestick taken from the dust of the earth raised even to the great Offices of the Empire should leave a Railing History to posterity written in an hole and by a singular treason against his Lord and Master of whom he held his life and honour And beyond all this that he should speak things in his Book that must needs have been very publick and visible to all the world that so many other Historians who were near that time and might speak with all freedom do not so much as mention To this it will be answered that it is not onely a Procopius that condemnes Justinian but that he himself hath black'd himself eternally by the ill usage which he shewed the Pope Vigilius and by the heresie which he fomented and authorised about the period of his life To speak truth there being nothing to be preferred before the fidelity which we owe to our Religion the honour which we ought to render to the common Father of all Christendome and to the Apostolick See if this Emperour were directly convinced of these two crimes and dyed without Repentance I should be the first man that would subscribe to his condemnation But there is a notable difference between that which escapes by errour and by surprize and that which is practised by design and obstinacy It is true that the Pope Vigilius was at first hardly used at Constantinople by the Empresse Theodora but his Election being not held at the beginning for Canonicall he being one whom the Romans had chased away with stones and whom he himself had deposed and banished from the usurpation which he had made upon Sylverius his Predecessour by a bold attempt causing himself afterward to be Canonically chosen it is no wonder if in this doubt of his dignity and certainty of his crime committed against the person of a lawfull Pope he was not honoured as high Priest but accused as guilty It suffices that as soon as Justinian knew that he had been afterward declared the sovereign Pastour of the Church by the ordinary Forms he rendred to him the respects due to his Character and permitted him to exercise his Functions with all liberty in Constantinople It is true that he had also some difference with him about the condemnation of three Articles or rather of three persons Theodore Ibas and Theodoret but in the end the Emperour yielded and permitted all to the discretion of the Pope As for the Heresie which is objected to him it hath rather been an errour of suprise then a resolute opinion with obstinacy against the decisions of the Church without which it cannot be a formall Heresie There arose in his time an Opinion that held That the body of our Saviour was incorruptible even before the Resurrection and that he was not subject to the naturall and irreprehensible passions of other men Many Bishops many great learned Friars and abundance of illustrious persons professe that Belief and Justinian deceived by a zeal not well regulated which he had to the person of our Lord fell into it not that he doubted but the two Natures were in Jesus Christ and that his body was consubstantiall with ours but he could not endure the word Corruptible when the flesh of our Lord was spoken of If he had onely meant an exemption from the corruption and rottennesse to which our bodies are reduced his opinion had been but commendable but to intend to take away from the Sonne of God the naturall passions of hunger thirst wearinesse and other like is to be farre wide from the Catholick Faith Yet since that that Opinion had not been yet by name and expresly decided by the preceding Councels and that many Bishops had the same thought and that the Pope very much busied by the warres of the Gothes had not yet interposed thereon it is not credible that it was an Heresie framed in the spirit of the Emperour but rather an errour And since that he abstained from promulgating it as he had projected and ordained by Will that the Patriarch Eutychus that had been banished for opposing this Opinion should be called back by Justin his Successour It is evident that he repented at the last period of his life and that Euagrius who had a strong tincture of the venom of Procopius did him wrong to condemne him to hell for I leave it to every judicious man to weigh which we ought rather to believe a mean Historian angered or the voyce of a generall Councel assembled after Justinians death No man certainly can call it into doubt but that the authority of a Councel infinitely passes the opinion of one onely man Now it is so that besides the testimonies of S. Gregory and Pope Agathon heretofore alledged The sixth Councel speaking of the Emperour Justinian calls him alwayes Most Christian Prince Emperour of pious Memory And in the end Holy Monarch and who is in the number of the Blessed The German that hath Commented upon the railing History of Procopius is constrained to confesse that he hath read even in the best Copies of that Councel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justinian that is among the Saints But he being an enemy of his memory eludes that Epithite and sayes that it hath been attributed to most wicked Emperours pretending by this means to diminish the lustre of Justinian I acknowledg that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy or Sacred sometimes signifies that which is Inviolable and that in this manner it was given to all the Emperours but I defie him to find one sole Text that saies of a dead Emperour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is in the company of the Saints who is not reckoned amongst the Blessed that live in heaven This onely is enough to stop the mouth of all those that are of a contrary opinion and to maintain this great Monarch in the possession of an high and happy renown which he hath so justly purchased It is he that above all the Emperours hath expressed a most ardent Zeal towards the person of our Lord to whom he dedicated the stateliest Church which was at that time in the whole Universe It is he that consecrated an Altar to him composed of all the most
Nero who by Anicetus the same man who before killed his mother did raise a horrible calumny against the honour of his wife and caused this instrument of the devil to affirm that he had played with the Empresse on which he caused her to be banished and poor Octavia as a guilty person did suffer under that wicked sentence and was banished into the Isle of Pandaluria and because Poppea could not sleep in quiet with Nero as long as Octavia was alive he filled up his cruelty and by a most unworthy death he sacrificed her to the appetite of that most bold woman whom afterwards he killed with a spum of his foot on the end of his life and of his Empire My pen is weary to describe so many horrours and doth go over them as on so many burning coals but my Reader it is to represent unto you that this pernicious caitiste causing the poyson of his evill actions to diffuse it self into the veins of all the city of Rome The world was in its heighth of iniquity when S. Paul and Seneca meeting together at one time did endeavour to cure the maladies of this wicked Court the one by Philosophy the other by the Gospel Behold here the manners learning abilities and the successe both of the one and of the other Who hath not Seneca in veneration a good Authour Johannes Sarisburiensis saith hath not the understanding of a reasonable man He is known by all knowing men in his Writings and mis-known by some in his Manners and his Life Suillius a Roman Advocate accused for corruption and banished by the counsell of Seneca at what time he was imployed in the government of Affairs did write a defaming Book against that great From whence proceeded the calumnies against Seneca personage which two Greek Historians but men of small judgement Dion and Xiphiline have followed and in many things have blamed him with as much passion as impertinence This Opinion hath infected divers spirits who either for want of capacity or application do discourse unto us of Seneca as of a man quite contrary to his Books which hath made me diligently to examine his Life to take away the abuse and to give you an Idaea of that puissant Genius with as much clearnesse as sincerity Know then that he was a Roman by his Extract His birth and Bloud He was born at Corduba a city in Spain which was then under the Empire of Rome and full of Italians who being born almost in all the parts of the world were yet born within the Circle of their Empire His father was of an ordinary family a Gentleman of no great account removed from the observation of the world and as farre from command as from ambition addicted above all things to the study of Eloquence reasonably learned but of an admirable memory for having but once heard them he would readily rehearse two thousand names and two hundred verses His mother was named Helvia one of the most beautifull women in the Empire full of understanding and judgement of a high virtue and a rare modesty she had some knowledge in letters and an extraordinary capacity to increase that knowledge if time and custome had given her leave to take an advantage of it His elder brother was called Novatus or Gallion and had a great command in the Empire His younger brother was named Mela a man farre from ambition who lived in the house and studied Eloquence with his Father who in that regard did preferre him in his own judgement above his brothers But Seneca was nourished and advanced in Rome His Education and Spirit in the time of Augustus Cesar he received his first elements of learning under the Discipline of his father and afterwards studied Philosophy under Attalus and Socion In his first years he made the vigour of his Spirit the force of Eloquence and the abundance of Learning to appear so fully in him that he was admired by the most knowing men But that great spirit did by degrees consume his body which was lean and thin and troubled with defluxions and the ptisick which would have brought him to his grave if the cruelty of Nero had not prevented it He was obliged to make an Oration in publick before The fury of Caligula against him Caligula the Emperour concerning which that monster in nature who could not endure any thing that was great and praisefull and by a malignity of manners envied all professours of Learning did pronounce aloud that he had too much spirit and that they must kill him which had presently been put in execution if one of the Mistresses of the Emperour who knew Seneca and favoured him for his Eloquence had not perswaded him that he was not worth killing a lean poor fellow and one whom death would suddenly of it self take away from the world Howbeit he lived many years afterwards and increased in knowledge as in age and as much in Eloquence as in them both attending a more favourable time to make a manifestation of it Claudius succeeded the Emperour Caligula who was not a man for Seneca and though he was indued with extraordinary qualities for a Courtier yet the favour of the times did not much smile upon them His clear spirit and his brave works made him to be known in the house of Germanicus a Prince of the Bloud who was poysoned in the flower of his age and left behind him children of great consideration namely two Princesses who made themselves diversly talked of in Rome the one was Julia the other Agrippina the mother of Nero. This Julia took an affection to Seneca being much pleased with the beauty Dion doth distinguish them in his 9. Book and Suetonius chap. 29. of his spirit and the grace of his discourse He daily frequented the house of Germanicus being no lesse in discretion then in favour and wisely judged that these two high-born Princesses might one day contribute to the making of his fortunes But the Court is an uncertain sea where sometime a tempest doth arise when a calm is expected The favour of Julia in the stead of advancing Seneca did suppresse him and did almost overwhelm him without any hope of rising again although in the end it was in effect the cause of all his reputation It came to passe that Messalina the wife to the Emperour Claudius the most insatiable woman in her lusts that Nature ever produced did conceive an enraged hatred against the house of Germanicus and especially against the Princesse Julia because she was highly esteemed for her rare beauty and the high spirit of Messalina could not endure that any Lady should be praised at Court for her beauty but her self Besides she perceived that her husband whom she absolutely governed did make very much of that young Princesse she therefore caused her to be falsly accused for prostituting her honour and procured her to be banished the Court. An inquiry was made after those who
did frequent her house Seneca was named amongst the foremost Calumny against Julia and Seneca and by calumny invelopped in the same accusation whether it was suspected that he had treated of love with her or whether it was thought that he was an accomplice in her excesses and had flattered her in her passion without giving her advice It is true that our Seneca was then in the flower of his age and was none of those fullen and stern Stoicks that had put the world into a fright He had a gentle spirit discreet and agreeable to women but he was too advised to let his passions flie so high as to commit any loose act in the house of the Cesars Dion his greatest enemy doth justifie him in this businesse and doth confesse that all this accusation was most unjustly grounded and that Messalina was so depraved and so corrupted with the inordinatenesse of filthy lusts that no credit was to be given to her Neverthelesse she ceased not to bear down the innocent with the weight of her power she condemned the Princesse to banishment and afterwards to death as Dion and Suetonius do affirm It did much afflict her that Seneca was alive who by divers sentences in the Senate was allotted to death but the good Emperour Claudius was most unwilling to extinguish in that Spirit the Glory of Eloquence and of the Empire desired his life of the Senate and was contented that he should be banished into the Isle of Corsica where at the beginning he was touched with a melancholy amazement to find himself separated from the pleasures of the Court to live amongst the rocks and people as ungentle as the rocks but he imployed all his Philosophy to comfort himself and to temper the eagernesse of his fortune with the tranquility of his mind Here his spirit being delivered from the noise and the tumults of Rome and the servitudes of the Court did altogether reflect upon it self and found there those Lights and those Treasures which before lay undiscovered to him Tribulation is to men as a spurre to incite them to the production of brave works and of generous actions and this appeared in Seneca who in this Seneca benished to Corsica where he composed excellent works place of banishment did write most excellent Treatises neither did his conversation with those rude inhabitants alter the graces or the beauty of his language He treated there with the Intelligences and dived into the Contemplation of the World He took off the vail from Nature that she might the better be seen in her majesty Howsoever in that solitary place he had sometimes his hours of affection beholding himself severed from his mother whom he tenderly loved and whom in that affliction he comforted w th a letter which might pass for a good book He passionately desired the company of his brothers and some personages of Honour who loved him with as much sincerity as profession There was some that think it strange in Seneca that he should desire and endeavour his return and that in his consolatory letter to Polybius he did write the praises of the Emperour Claudius who did banish Seneca did well to desire and procure his liberty him But have not they somthing to do who exact more perfection in Seneca a man at that time of the world then is required in a Prophet where is the bird that doth not sometimes beat his bill against the cage to find out the door to his liberty Jeremy was exceeding patient and yet he humbly besought K. Zedekiah to draw him out of prison where he had suffered much and much feared that he should be committed again unto it Doth not S. Paul say that liberty is better then slavery that one is to be supported by necessity and the other to be procured by reason What fault hath Seneca done that in his exile he wrote unto Polybius a great favourite a letter consolatory on the death of his brother and inserted in it a few good words to appease the Emperour Should he have spared a period or two to deliver himself from a banishment where he had continued for the space of eight years I should no way approve him for bestowing flatteries on a wicked man which should be an act unworthy of a Philosopher for a generous spirit had better to endure the extremity of evil then praise a tyrant and give applauses to his person You may observe how carefull he is in that Tract to give not so much as one Complement to Messalina who was a very bad woman although she had the command of all he onely praised an Emperour who in that time wherein he wrote his Consolation to Polybius was in good reputation and made the face of the Empire look farre otherwise then it did in the Reign of Caligula his predecessour He is so discreet that all the praises he doth give him are no more then wishes Let the Powers of Heaven preserve him long on The excellent Complement of Seneca earth Let him surmount the years and the acts of Augustus and as long as he shall be mortall let there not any die in his house Let him give us a long sonne to be Master of the Roman Empire having approved him by his long fidelity And let him have him rather for his Colleague then for his Successour Afterwards he addresseth himself to Fortune speaketh unto her Take heed O Fortune how thou makest thy approaches to him Let not thy power be seen in his person but by thy bounties Let him redresse the calamities of mankind and re-establish all that which the fury of his Predecessour hath ruined and made desolate Let that fair Starre which is risen when the world was falling into the Abysmes continue alwayes to illuminate the Universe Let him pacifie Germany and let him open England Let him gain and surmount the Triumphs of his Father His Clemency which is the first of his Virtues doth promise that I shall not be a Spectatour onely and that he hath not cast me down to raise me up no more But why say I cast down he hath upheld me from the hour that I fell into my misfortune when they would have thrown me headlong down he interposed and by the moderation of his divine hands he laid me gently on the earth He hath entreated the Senate for me and not content himself to give me life he hath desired it of others that I might enjoy the Grant with more assurance Let him deal with me as he pleaseth I assure my self that his Justice will find my cause to be good or his Clemency will make it so It is all one to me whether I am judged not guilty by his Equity or whether I am made innocent by his Bounty In the mean time I rejoyce in my miseries with a sensible consolation to see the course of his Mercy which goes through the Universe and which every day doth call forth the Banished from this
in it But in my opinion it is unworthy the gravity of so great a personage and I know not to what purpose it is to revile the Ashes of the Dead although it is not forbidden to write a true History to leave a horrour to posterity in recording the lives of the wicked This howsoever may serve for instruction not to play with wasps or incense those who have the pen in their hand and can eternally proscribe their Adversaries After this sport he was imployed upon the Earnest He is made Minister of State and Agrippina mother of the young Emperour desiring to confirm her self in the Monarchy and to govern by her son did supply him with two creatures men of gteat capacity and fidelity Burrus for Arms and Seneca for Laws The first was severe in his conversation the other was of a mild and pleasing disposition They both agreed even to their deaths in the government of the Affairs of State Then it was that Seneca did enter into those great imployments and exercised that high wisdome which he had acquired for the Government of the Empire He began with his Prince who was the first and the most amiable object of all his troubles and although at the first he did expresse himself very tractable and agreeable to all the world yet Seneca perceived in his infancy the His judgement on Nero. marks of a cruel and bloudy nature and told to his intimate friends that he nourished a young lion whom he endeavoured to make tractable but if he should taste once of the bloud of men he would return to his first nature And this was the occasion that at that time he did write for him the two Divine Books of Clemency where with variety of remarkable proofs he doth establish the Excellency the Beauty and the Profit of candor of Spirit and the advantage which redounds unto a Prince to govern his Subjects with Bounty and Love On the contrary he remonstrates the horrour and disastres of Tyrants who would prevail by Cruelty in the management of their Estates All his endeavour tended that way wisely foreseeing that Nero would fall into extreme Cruelties and for that cause he did willingly give way that he should delight himself in Comedies in Musick and such Exercises of softnesse hoping that in some manner it would make more civil his savage nature He also composed for him many eloquent Orations which the young Emperour would pronounce with great grace to the generall admiration both of the Senate and the people He made also many excellent Ordinances some He put his State in good order whereof by the report of Dion were engraved upon a pillar of silver and were read every year at the renewing of the Senate He hated all the inventions the deceits and tricks of State as a trade of iniquity and did ground himself on the eternall principles of Justice by which he kept the Empire in a profound peace in great abundance and a sure felicity So that in a manner Frontine makes a true narration he saith that Seneca had so redressed all abuses that it seems he had brought goodnesse into the Empire and called the Gods from heaven to be conversant again with men In which he made use of the Philosophy of the Stoicks not that which is so rigid and so sullen but that which he had tryed and seasoned for that designe to give to the world a taste thereof His opinions for the The Maximes of Seneca most part are Rationall Sacred and Divine If he speaks of God it is in the same sense as the Of God Saviour of the world did discover to the Samaritan He professeth openly that God is a Spirit and that the difference betwixt God and us is that the better part of us is Spirit but that God is all Spirit most Pure Eternall Infinite the Creatour of the great works of Nature which we behold with our eyes If he speaketh of true Worship and the most sincere Of Religion Religion which we ought to imploy to honour and adore the sovereign King of the Universe he doth sufficiently declare that the worship of God ought to be in Spirit and in Truth as our Saviour hath prescribed When you figure God saith he represent a great Spirit but peaceable and reverend by the sweetnesse of his Majesty a friend to men and who is alwayes present with them who is not pleased with bloudy Sacrifices for what delight can he take in the butchery of so many innocent creatures The true Sacrifice of the great God is a pure Spirit an upright understanding of him and a good Conscience We ought not to heap stones upon stones to raise a Temple to him for what need hath he of it the most agreeable Temple that we can build for God is to consecrate him in our hearts Lactantius hath so much Lactan. div Instit lib. â— cap. 25. esteemed of this passage that in the sixth Book of his Institutions he doth oppose it to the Gentiles as a buckler of our Christianity If there be a question about the Presence of God Of the divine presence Epist 83. which above all things the masters of spirituall life do commend in their Instructions he saith That it is to no purpose to conceal ones self from man and that there is nothing hid from God who is present in our hearts and in our most secret thoughts If we rest in the Contemplation of the Divine Providence Of Providence which is the foundation of our life he believeth a Providence which reacheth over all And in a Tract which he hath composed he pertinently doth answer those who are amazed why Evil arriveth to good people since so great and so good a God hath a care of their wayes He saith That it is the chastisement of a Father an exercise of Virtue and that what we take to be a great Evil is oftentimes the occasion of a great Good that such is the course and order of the world according to the Divine dispensation to which we ought to submit our selves If we consider the Immorrality of the Soul which Of the Immorrality of the Soul Juvâ—e de 〈◊〉 animaâ—â—â— qâ—â—rere â—mò credere Epist 102. is the foundatton of our Faith and of all virtuous actions it is certain that he had a good opinion of it and professerh in his 102. Epistle That he delightneth not onely according to Reason to search after the Eâ—ernity of the Soul but to believe it and he complaineth that a letter received from a friend did interrupt him in that Contemplation which seemed to him so palpable that it was rather to him an agreeable Vision that he had in a Dream then any Discourse in Philosophy And in the end of the Epistle he speaketh of wonders of the originall of the Soul and the return of it to God And in the Preface of the first Book of Naturall Questions which he did write some few
whether in reverence to the man or for fear to precipitate the death of such a Minister of the State by too hasty an execution demanded counsel of Fannius his Captain what in this case he ought to do who did advise him to execute the command of the Emperour and this was done by a sloth fatall to all of the Conspiracy some Ladies onely excepted who shewed themselves more courageous then the Senatours and the Cavalliers Howsoever he having not the heart to carry these heavy tidings did deliver his Commission to a Centurion who informed him with the last of all necessities Seneca without troubling himself desired so much liberty as to make his Will which was refused him On which he turned to his friends and said That since it was not permitted to him to acknowledge their merit that he would leave unto them the very best of all he had which was the Image of his Life in which if they would please to call to mind how he had passed it in so many commendable Exercises they should enjoy for their recompence the reputation of a faithfull and a constant friendship And this he spake not out of arrogance but as it were by the authotity of a Father when he bids his last Farewell unto his Children recommending to them to imitate him in what he had done well and so said S. Paul to his Disciples Be you imitatours of me as I am of Jesus Christ This made their hearts to melt and they began all to weep but he did endeavour to wipe away their tears mingling sweetnesse with reproaches What do you mean he said where are the Precepts of Philosophy where is that Reason so long prepared against all the chances of humane Life who is he that can be ignorant of the cruelty of Nero and who did not see that after the death of his mother and his brother there nothing remained but to adde unto it the murder of his Master and Governour After this Discourse which served for them all he embraced his wife gave her his last farewell and having fortified her against the terrours of the present dangers he did intreat and conjure her to moderate her grief and to sweeten the sorrows of her dear husband by the consideration of his life which was without reproach He loved most tenderly that virtuous Lady and did not cherish his own life but for her sake saying sometimes That he would spare himself a little the more becausâ— in an old man there lived a young woman who deserved that he should take care for her and being not able to obtain from his dear Paulina that she should love him more fervently her love being in the highest degree of perfection she should obtain from him that he should use himself for her sake with the more indulgence This fair Lady observing all that had passed said That there was no longer life for her after the death of him whom she loved above all things in the world and that she would keep him company in the other world On that word he stood a little in a pause and would not contradict her as well for the glory of the action as for the love which he did bear her and for the fear he had to leave so dear a person to the affronts of an enemy be therefore said unto her My dear Love I have shewed you the sweetnesse and the allurements of life but I see you preferre unto it the honour of a generous death I will not envy the example of your Virtue and although the constancy in our death shall be equall in us both yet yours shall be alwayes more glorious then mine for you contribute unto it a courage which is above your sex Having said this they caused their veins to be opened by one hand in the presence one of the other and because the body of her husband was attenuated by great abstinence and the bloud did issue but slowly from him he gave order that there should be a new incision made in the veins of his legs and of his feet The poor old man did endeavour to put himself all into bloud and indured cruel dolours but more in the body of his dear wife then in his own which was the reason that he caused her to be conveighed into another chamber to mitigate a little the sorrows which one had for the other in beholding themselves to die with so much violence It is a wonderfull thing that this great man had so untroubled and so ready a spirit in so fatall an act He called his Secretary to whom he did dictate his last Thoughts which were full of a generous constancy In the mean time Nero having no particular hatred against Paulina and considering that the death of so innocent a Lady would but render himself and his cruelty more abhorred did command that her veins should be stopped and the bloud stanched which it appeared that she suffered to her greater grief both by the short time that she out-lived her husband and by the inviolable faith which she did bear unto his ashes and she looked ever after as she were some prodigy such abundance of bloud and so much spirits she had lost Seneca was yet remaining in the tedious pangs of death when upon advice he demanded poyson of his Physicians which had no operation at all his members being already cold and his body shut up against all the forces of the poyson He caused himself therefore to be carried to a Bath and taking some of the warm water he sprinkled his servants with it that stood about him saying according to Cornelius Tacitus That he offered that water to Jove the deliverer after which words he entred into the stove and was stifled with the vapour that did arise from it Many grave Personages have conceived that he died a Christian and though it is no easie matter to perswade those to this opinion who are possessed with another and who speak but with little consideration on this subject yet there are not wanting grounds to prove the truth thereof Flavius Dexter a most antient Historian who hath composed a small Chronicle from the Nativity of our Saviour unto the fourth Age affirmeth in expresse terms that in the sixty fourth year Seneca entertained good thoughts of Christianity and that he died a Christian although not a declared one S. Hierome in the Book of Ecclesiasticall Authours doth put him in the number of Saints that is to say of those who acknowledge and confesse Jesus Christ Tertullian a most grave Authour saith that he was one although not openly S. Augustine in the City of God alledgeth many excellent passages of a Book which Seneca undoubtedly did write against the Superstition of the Pagans in which he overthrows all the Heathenish Religion of Rome although he doth not vigorously perswade them to change it for fear of troubling the Estate This Book was afterwards condemned and burned by the Enemies of our Religion The holy Doctor doth
by a writing signed under their own hands have authentically protested to the Queen of England that the Earls of Murray Morton and Lidington were the Counsellers and Authours of the horrible Parricide committed against the King the good Queen always professing that she did forbid them to do any thing whatsoever that might any way reflect upon her honour or offend her conscience Also this unfortunate Earl of Morton who was afterward Cambden part 3. pag. 336. convicted and executed for this murder did totally discharge the Queen from having any hand in the Kings death and named the Conspiratours who by writing had obliged themselves one to another to defend the murder of his Royal Majesty John Hebron Cambden pag. 128. an 1567. Paris and Daglis who prepared the Myne being put to the Rack to accuse the Innocent Queen did absolutely discharge her protesting before God and his Angels that she was free from all fault and that Murray and Morton did give them commandment to perform it Buchanan a Pensionar of Murrays who Cambden pag. 105. cried down this Queen by his venemous pen being touched at last with the remorse of conscience with tears demanded pardon of her Son King James And being sick to death desired that his life might be prolonged either to clear the integrity of Queen Mary by the light of Truth or by his own bloud to wash away the stains of his reproches Some Protestants being amazed to hear him speak in this manner in the apprehension he had of Gods judgements to fall upon him did give forth that his old age had made him to doat This which I now write was afterwards acknowledged as we shall see anon by a publick and solemn sentence of the principal Nobility of England who although Lutherans and enemies being chosen to examine the business did highly publish the Innocence of this Queen And now Detractours what have you to say Do you not behold wherewith to make your shame to blush and the despite of so many infamous Historians to increase who have made black her whiteness Nay some of the Catholicks themselves being but little versed in the discerning of History having suffered themselves to be surprized concerning this subject not considering that all this calumnie is derived from the Book of Buchanan being corrupted to it by the bastard Murray who promised to make him Patriarch of Scotland if ever he should come unto the Crown And this is it which made this Apostate to write a detestable libel against the honour of this Queen which was condemned afterwards by the Estates of Scotland and retracted by the Authour himself But some Hugenots of the Consistory who are the most pestilent slanderers that ever the earth brought forth have not ceased to give some countenance to this fable and illusion of mankind although it was legally condemned of falshood by the most apparent of all their party It is an unhappiness of most men that they are wilfully given to believe the worst whether by an inclination they have unto it or whether by a difficulty to forsake and to put off that which first they entertained in their belief The most virtuous Queen Dido doth pass perpetually through the world for a woman lost in love although indeed she died in the defence of her chastity chusing rather to be devoured by the flames of fire than to be given in marriage as Tertullian doth affirm 6. But to take into my hand again the thread of The rash love of the Earl of Bothuel my discourse Some time after the Kings death Bothuel who was one of the most powerfull Earls of Scotland did prevent to court this Queen in the way of marriage and the rather because the Earl of Murray had promised her unto him for the recompence of this treason This motion came directly cross to her heart although as yet she did not know that this pernicious man had imbrued his hands in her Husbands bloud having always found him most faithfull in his service But as the report thereof increased she grew very angry with all those who offered to renew the motion to her alledging that there was no apparance that he should be propounded for a husband to her who is suspected for so detestable an act no although he indeed were innocent Besides that she urged that he was already tied in marriage to another woman But Murray the Bastard and other of the conspiratours who with an obstinate resolution had undertaken this business did justifie this Crime by the Judges of their faction and gave the Queen to understand that his first wife was not lawfully contracted to him and therefore she was removed from him All this was not able to perswade her who was wonderfully troubled with the dismalness of these late events which was the occasion that Bothuel being transported with love and assured of the high reputation which he had in the Kingdom did draw forth into the fields with five hundred horse where corvetting before them a wild presumption did invade him to take away the Queen as she returned from Sterlin to which place she was gone to see her Son and to bring him with her to her Castle at Dunbar At which place having with strange submissions demanded pardon for his boldness He represented to her the contract of his marriage signed by the Earl of Murray and the principal of the Nobility of the Kingdom who thought very well of it by that means to remedy the publick calamities of the Kingdom Moreover he protested to her that he would never over-value himself for the Honour he should receive from her Majesty nor for the greatness of his unexpected fortune with which the greatest Monarch on the earth might proudly content himself but that he would always continue her most humble and most obedient servant In this manner did this Philistine adore the Ark in its captivity But she moderating her passion did represent unto him that to proceed in this nature was to overthrow the whole business before it was established that she would be absolutely brought to Edinborough the chiefest Citie of her Kingdom where she would take a resolution to do that which should seem good unto Her On this occasion it came about that the Earl of Murray who had removed himself a little to be the less suspected of the murder did return to Court and brought with him the Suite of the Assassinate rewarding him for it with the obtainment of the bravest Lady in the world as the recompence of his murder He ceased not to importune her to take Bothuel Cambden part 1. pag. 3. doth shew that this marriage was brought about by the fraud and the pressing solicitations of the Earl of Murray for her husband declaring his innocence publickly avouched the splendour of his house the exploits of his courage the proofs of his fidelity which did render him most worthy of her love He added that being alone and without assistance she was no
of a licentious King and of a wanton mother whose head the King did cause to be cut off for her unchastness The one from five years of age was brought up in France with so much piety gravity and honour that nothing more could be added or desired The other had a licentious Education under the bad Example of her licentious parents The one had an excellent an active and a clear spirit resembling the quality of the Sun The other was of a crafty malignant and a sullen Nature resembling the condition of a Cornet The one was experienced in the knowledge of tongues and sciences as much as was necessary for an honest Lady who ought not to appear too learned The other gave her self to such a vanity of study that oftentimes she committed some extravagances as when she undertook to translate the five books of the Consolation of Boetius to comfort her self on the Conversion of Henrie the Fourth The one did speak and write with an extraordinary clearness and an accurate smoothness The other in her expressions was harsh and did much perplex her thoughts as may appear in a subscription of a Letter written with her own hand and directed to Henrie the Fourth after his Conversion Vostre saeur sice soit a la virille avec novelle Je n'ay que faire Elizabeth R. which is in English Your Sister if it be after the old fashion with the new I have nothing but to do Elizabeth R I leave to the most liberal Interpreter to divine what she meaneth by it The one had a generous free and a credulous heart The other was malicious obstinate and deceitfull The one loved honour to which her condition had obliged her The other had a furious and bloudy Ambition and spared none to improve the interest of her Greatness The one retained an admirable constancy in her ancient Religion by reason whereof though she was outragiously persecuted yet she omitted nothing in her devotion The other did put on Religion as she did her mask making her self a Heretick amongst Hereticks and a Catholick amongst Catholicks for when in the reign of her sister Mary she made a high and solemn profession of the Roman Faith she afterwards counterfeited her belief and betrayed that character to authorize heresie and rebellion against the Church The one feared God and finding her self the Relict of Francis the Second at seventeen years of age she had rather stoop to the marriage yoke to give life unto a King than to live inordinately and under the veil of widow-hood to conceal her secret wantonness The other who had not so strict a conscience did find a way to reconcile Ambition and Love and lived not married and not a maid and though I am unwilling to believe that she lived so salt and melting a life as some have affirmed yet I cannot deny but that she had her Favourites and her Minyons which Cambden her own Historiographer doth not conceal The one studied for the advancement of Virtue The other for the advancement onely of vain Reputation The one held forth a generous liberty in all her actions The other painted her life and covered her vices with great pretences she extreamly feared the censure of Posterity which made her with so much artifice to indeer unto her the ablest men of forreign Countreys and entertained mercenary quills to increase her glory thinking by that means to conceal her Defects and blind the eyes of mankind Wherefore we ought not to give too much belief to some Historians though otherwise men of esteem who deliver many and great praises having received many and great Presents Men of that quality are always credulous enough and are not accustomed to bark at those who do feed them with bread The one was very religious in her promises the other was captious and inconstant and this most visibly she made apparent to the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henrie the Third of France who was come into England to espouse her and though the Contract of the Marriage was confirmed both on the one side and the other and though the Marriage-Ring was given yet she broke all for the Caprichiousness of one night and to obey the cries of some Maids of Honour who besought her that she would not marry The one was full of bounty to her poor Subjects to whom she could not do all the good she desired by reason of the Rebellions that were stirred up in her Kingdom The other was carefull enough not to tax her Subjects with Imposts or with Subsidies which caused her to be beloved of her people who in all the virtues of a Prince do cherish nothing more than a moderation in their Subsidies The one was indued with an extream sweetness of disposition which sometimes did seem to lie too open and defenceless as when with out seeing justice done she pardoned great Crimes which tended to the diminution of her Authority The other was naturally cruel a lover of bloud and one who horribly tormented the Catholicks and too easily would bring the Heads of her Great-ones upon the Scaffold to obtain the honour and title of being just among popular Spirits To conclude one reigned like a Dove and the other like a Bird of prey It is a horrible thing to read the History of her Reign written by her Admirers where in stead of the Contemplation of Virtues and of Beauties you shall observe in every page the Rages of Accusers bloudy Judgements Proscriptions Massacres which I alledge not in any disparagement to the Nation which I love with a true Christian charity but to the ignominie and the shame of Heresie It seems to me when I read the Life of Elizabeth that I enter into the Countrey of the Anthropophagi where I behold nothing but men drawn upon Sledges Hang-men tearing out of bowels and dividing carkases into quarters which are still dropping bloud and hanging in the most remarkable places of the Citie as the tapestry of the ancient cruelty of the Puritans I assure my self that those who are now in authority under so gracious a Prince do reflect upon it with as much horrour as my self and by their moderation will endeavour to wipe away the stains of so bloudy a Time Who is he then that is not amazed to see Virtue so forsaken and the best Queen in the world to lead so tempestuous a life persecuted in her estate in her body in her honour in her own person in the person of her friends despoiled outraged dishonoured torn by bloudy calumines drawn to unjust Tribunals locked up in so many prisons abandoned by those most near unto her and sacrificed by her kinred to the vengeance of her enemies and that in so tragical a manner and by so barbarous a hand And how comes it to pass that the other being laden with crimes did mount on the Throne by ways unexpected and did continue there by uncontrouled power and reigned as if she had all good Fortune at her own
report of the Hereticks themselves as it appeareth in the Book of Cambden who hath wrote the Life of Cambden pag. 493. Elizabeth and who doth not deny but that Walsingham did open and make up the letters again which Gifford brought him counterfeiting in them what he thought good And he himself confesseth that it was the judgement of the most rational men that the Secretaries of the Queen of Scotland were seduced and corrupted with money And it is certain that Amanuensium absentium qui pretio corrupti videbantur testintonio oppressa est they demanded a Recompence of Walsingham who told them that they ought to content themselves with their lives And added that in condemning their Mistress without producing the Witnesses they had not proceeded according to the Rules of Justice Observe here the judgement of the Hugenots themselves her most cruel Enemies I speak of those who have some sparks of a good conscience and not of those Incendiaries who write Rapsodies full of ignorance and folly All this may serve for an invincible proof of her innocence but her evil Judges The unjust Judgement who had sold themselves to iniquity did not cease to proceed further even to the Sentence of Condemnation which they carried to the Queen of England and was presented to the Parliament for the publication of it Thither Elizabeth did come in person with a studied Speech where she gave thanks to God for the Deliverance from this danger and thanks to her Subjects for the affection to their Queen Afterwards coming to the work in hand she shewed her self to be extreamly afflicted for the Queen of Scotland that a Person of her Sex Estate and Bloud should be convicted to have conspired against her Adding that she was most willing to pardon her and to abandon her own life if it would render the affairs of England more flourishing but in this effect she would neither prejudice her self nor the good of her Kingdom In this action she came with a heart full of vengeance however she would put upon it the reputation of Sweetness and of Clemency imitating the Herods and Tyberius Caesar who never did worse than when they spake best and laughed in their hearts when they distilled the tears of Crocodiles from their eyes With joyned hands she desired that her Parliament would but demand that thing of her which most willingly she would not grant Sometimes she would flatter them with the Respects and cordial Affections they did bear her on purpose to incite them to pursue this business Sometimes she seemed to be weary of their too much zeal Sometimes she said she would preserve her self And sometimes she said she would abandon her own preservation to exercise her clemency Her spirit which was greatly given to dissimulation made never more leaps nor daunced more Rounds than in this business And to speak the truth she perplexed her self in her own labyrinth and endeavouring too much to hide her self she laid her self more open saying unto those who demanded the death of the Queen of Scotland I pray and conjure you to content your self with an Answer without an Answer I approve your judgement and comprehend the reasons but I pray you excuse the carefull and the doubtfull thought which doth torment me and take in good part the gracious affection which I bear you and this Answer if it be of that worth as you esteem it for an Answer If I say I will not do what you demand peradventure I shall say more than I think If that I will do it I shall precipitate my self to my ruin whom you are willing to preserve In the end the Sentence of Death was confirmed by the Authority of Parliament and Beal was sent to the Queen of Scotland to carry her the news of her mournfull Condemnation and to acquaint her that the Estates demanded the Execution to be dispatched for Justice Security and Necessity Her great heart was no way dejected at this so violent a Rigour and damnable Injustice but listing up her eyes and her hands to Heaven she gave thanks to God demanding immediately a Priest to administer to her the Sacrament and to dispose her to die Paulet Execrable indignity who had the guard of her did use her after this most barbarously commanding the Officers of her house to beat down the cloth of State that was in her chamber but when he observed that no man would touch it and that they onely answered him by tears and lamentations which would have softened the heart of any man he performed the Execution by the Guard and took from the poor Prisoner all the marks of Royalty to make her behold her Funeral alive and to make her heart to bleed with a mortal wound before the bloud were drawn from the veins of her body by the hands of the Hang-man But Elizabeth did yet deferre the Execution whether it were for the fear of sorreign Princes being not able to see clear enough into their power and protection or whether it were to gain the imaginary Reputation of Mercy or whether by degrees she would consume this poor sacrifice by a small fire prolonging the languors of her imprisonment The other was resolved to write unto her not in a base and begging stile to crave her life but to demand an honest Burial Behold her letters to that effect MADAM I Give thanks to God with all my heart who by the Sentence of Death hath been pleased to put an end to the tedious pilgrimage of my life I desire not that it may be prolonged having had too long a time to trie the bitterness of it I onely beseech your Majestie that since I am to expect no favour from some Zealous Ministers of State who hold the first place in your Councels I may receive from You onely and from no other these following favours In the first place I desire that since it is not allowed me to hope for a Burial in England according to the Solemnities of the Roman Church practised by the ancient Kings your Ancestours and mine and that in Scotland they have forced and violated the Ashes of my Grand-fathers that my Bodie when my Adversaries shall be satiated with my innocent bloud may be carried by my own servants into some holy Land and above all if it may be into France to be there interred where the Bones of the Queen my most honoured Mother are lodged to the end my poor Bodie which knew no rest whiles joyned to my soul might now find rest being separated from it Secondly I beseech Your Majestie in the apprehension which I have of the tyrannie of those to whose power You abandon me that I may not suffer in any private place but in the view of my servants and other people who may give a testimonie of my faith and of my obedience to the true Church and defend the remnant of my life and my last sighâ— against the false Reports which my Adversaries may contrive
upon as a man slâ—d down from Heaven whose excellent Qualities did promise him the fullness of glory But he suddenly observed the Affairs of the Kingdom His return to England to be greatly perplexed by reason of the horrible divorce which Henry the Eight resolved on who indeavoured at once to separate himself from his wife and from the Church of God He much desired that Pool who was Famous for knowledge and integrity should approve his intention to the end that finding no assistance from Truth he might beg some apparence from the opinions of men This was no small temptation to this young Prelate The Combat in his spirit who was not altogether so austere as to distast all honour of preferment nor so little versed in Court as not to look on the King as the Original from whence it flowed He a long time consulted with himself to find a mean which might make his conscience to accord with the will of the King His integrity which was to him as another Birth did dispute in his heart with the Interest of his Fortune and he sought after the means to temper them into one One day he thought he had found it and addressed himself to the Court to expose his advise unto the King which was an advise more pleasing than just and he had then a care that the liberty of his words should not hinder the pretences to his dignity O who is he that is able to Counsel a King in his passion If you alledge unto him too much of Justice you hazard your Fortune If you comply unto him with too much Gentleness you do betray your heart The words of a Prince are the surnace which doth prove you where you may behold some to burn and consume away like straw and others to come forth purified like Gold The spirit of God did seize on the heart and the tongue of this wise Councellour he forgot all the worldly and flattering reasons he had prepared to open onely his eyes unto the Truth How Sir said be unto the â—â—ng to labour a divorce He took part with God from Queen Katharine after so many years of your marriage who hath brought you issue to succeed you in the Crown It is true that she was given a spouse to your elder Brother but he died in his youth before his marriage was consummated And you have espoused the Queen in the face of the Church with a dispensation as authentical as the Pope could give and which he granted with your consent at the request of the King your Father of glorious memory And since your Majesty hath had a secret Repugnance caused by a respect to him to whom you ow your Birth that can bring no prejudice to the publick Faith nor to the consummation of a marriage followed by such fruits and Benedictions as ordinarily do attend that mutual commerce Alas Sir your Majesty hath consecrated its Reign by so many Royal virtues and excellent Examples which have acquired you the love and admiration of Christendom will it now eclipse so pure a life and so Triumphant a reputation by a stain which cannot be washed away but by the effusion of the bloud of all your Realm Your Majesty hath sacrificed both its Scepter and its pen by the obedience which it hath rendered to the holy Sea and by the book which it hath made in the defence of the Church Cannot it honestly cast off those Laws which it hath authorized by a publick Testimony What will your people say who have so just an apprehension of Religion What will forreign Princes say who have conceived so high an opinion of your Merit Those who do Counsel you to that divorce are the most capital Enemies of your glorie who do draw upon you the indignation of God the censure of the Sovereign Priest the arms of a great estate who being offended at this affront will conjure your ruin That which hath droven you to it is onely a passion of youth which ought to be moderated it is had Counsel from which you should retire your self it is a mischief which you should labour to avoid In this case the advice which doth least please you will be the best The precipitation of so hazardous an Act can bring nothing but repentance This I speak unto your Majesty being driven to it by the fervent zeal which I have unto the safety of its Soul and by the tender respect which I have always born to your Royal Person I must beseech it that I may not be surprized in so important an affair as this marriage is which had his Ordinance in heaven and its happiness on earth This was boldly spoken by a Man who saw that in accommodating his humour to the King he incontinently entered into the possession of the richest benefits of the Kingdom and that crossing his design he exposed his liberty his Estate his life to most apparent danger Nevertheless he had the constancy to make him this grave Remonstrance without following the Example of those which flatter all evil actions and make Divinity to speak that which the interest of their Fortunes doth suggest unto them Henry the Eighth grown more hardened Henry the Eighth was no way softened at this so grave an Oration but on the contrary he had a most earnest desire to arrest his Cosin Pool and to put him to death which had been put in Execution if the hand of God had not withheld the blow He very well observed that the heart of the King was impoysoned with lust and choler even to the despair of all remedy Wherefore not long after finding his opportunity he asked leave of the King under some pretence to go out of the Kingdom and did abandon himself to a willing banishment because he would not offend his conscience He came Pool banished himself into France and stayed sometime in Avignon from thence he traveled to Padua and from Padua to Venice where he was acknowledged and esteemed for one of the chiefest men of Christendom and renowned Pool made Cardinal for excellent quallities In the end God being pleased to demonstrate that there is nothing lost in serving him and that honours are not onely for them who by a politick suppleness do accommodate themselves unto the Times and the lusts of great men he stirred up the spirit of Paul the third a great lover of learned men who made him Cardinal with approbation of all the world So that forsaking a Bishoprick in England for the satisfying of his conscience and the defence of the truth he obtained by his merit so high a place of Eminence in the Church which all the Crimes of a conscience prostituted to evil could never procure unto them Henry who had already declared war against God and all his Saints by his divorce was inflamed with choler by reason of the retreat and the promotion of this holy man causing him to be proscribed over all England and promising fifty
Saint Paul doth not consist in words To build upon the Promises which were made to David concerning 1 Par. 2. 9. Solomon if there be some favourable there are also others that say That if he leave God he shall be cast away by God for ever To alledge that he was buried in the Sepulchre of his father how many of the damned have had a quiet death and a stately buriall To bring forth all the kindnesses and favours of God towards him are but so many reproaches of his unthankfulnesse The argument which is drawn from the negative which they esteem ordinarily very weak is here too strong for his condemnation For whence comes it that Nathan his Master and Partizan who wrote the Books of the Kings or caused them to be continued by Aziah and Haddo his disciples whence comes it I say that Authours so affectionate to Solomon so zealous for the honour of their Nation having undertaken to give us his story and having forgotten nothing of the least things even to the numbering of Solomons horses after they have so expresly spoken of his sinne have not added his repentance This thing was too much important for the glory of God for the reputation of their Master for the edification of their people for the example of other Kings to passe it over in silence Surely we might well accuse them either of great malice or of grosse stupidity a thing which cannot happen to Prophets which write by the inspiration of God Further who knows not that repentance ought to be followed by outward actions and conformable to the movings of the heart Who will not avouch that it ought to be testified by a renouncing of sins and all things that have drawn us to offend Where is it then spoken that Solomon had dismissed one onely of his thousand women which were those nets of his destruction Where is it written that he destroyed the Temples and beat down the Images which he had erected at the solicitations of his Mistresses We know all the contrary that these Abominations remained standing untill King Josiah who caused them to be overthrown That which causes the more fear is that by how much the more a man comes near the great understanding which they attribute to the Devils by so much also he takes the greater part in their punishment when he falls into any grievous sinne The great lights of these rare Spirits turned themselves into the flames of their punishments and their knowledge serves for nothing but to nourish the more the worm of Conscience Now as Solomon was advantaged by understanding and wisdome aboue other men and that he fell into the sinne of Apostacie and turning from God there is great danger lest God turned from him his Mercy which is used more ordinarily towards those that sinne by ignorance although culpable Adde unto all this that those which in their old age continue in the sins of unthankfulnesse which they have contracted by long habits are very hard to cure because that old men become more hardned in evil more despising all admonitions which are made to them by presuming on the authority which they think is due to their age Further also their luxury is not onely a sinne of the flesh which then lesse feels the violence of great temptations but a spirituall sinne which proceeds from a spirituall and enraged concupiscence which makes them offered professedly rather then by frailty He that shall The conclusion touching Solomons salvation well weigh this shall find that it is better to leave to the secret mercy of God that which one cannot attain by reason and to fear every thing in this life even to the gifts of heaven and ones own surenesse thereby JUSTINIAN CHARLEMAGNE Or CHARLES THE GREAT IVSTINIAN EMPEROVR CHARLEMAINE EMPEROVR AND K. OF FRANCE PRovidence is an excellent work-woman which renews yet every day in the world that which God did in the terrestriall Paradise He took clay to make a Man the most excellent piece of all the Creatures and she takes some men of the earth to make them Sovereigns and Demi-gods in the Universe This Emperour that hath filled the world with his brave Deeds and the Ages with his memory was of a very base extraction which served to him as a cloud of glory and caused a marvellous day to spring out of the deep of his obscurity The beginning of his Nobility came from his uncle Justine who having been born a Cow-herd mounted by the stairs of Virtue and of Valour even to the Throne of the Emperours of Constantinople Nature had furnished him with a good understanding with a body well made and robustuous and God had inspired into him from his most tender years a particular grace of Devotion which rendered him good officious and charitable towards all the world As he was keeping the Cows he saw passing by some men of warre who were going in an expedition against the Infidels he perswaded himself that he was very fit for that employment and stout enough to give good strokes to the enemies of God and his Religion Upon this thought he sold a cow that was his own buyes a sword and the rest of the small equipage of a Souldier bids adieu to his kindred goes and lists himself and suddenly of a peasant becomes a man of war Yet Procopius makes him so poor that he gives him nothing but a little bread in a scrip when he entred into Constantinople He passed through all the proofs of a long and laborious warfare in which he behaved himself with an exact discipline a great dexterity a courage invincible and above all with a discretion that made him lovely and gained the hearts of all the world He came to the office of an Ensign of a Lieutenant of a Captain of the Guard of a Collonel of a Generall and in the end was put amongst the Counts of the Court that were the greatest Lords of the Imperiall house Anastasius at that time was Emperour happening to die Amantius his high Chamberlain who was a very rich and a great monied man had a very earnest desire to make himself Emperour But he was disfavoured by nature having not been born a perfect man he thought therefore that he should never be liked by the Militia in so high a dignity and would needs make it fall upon Theocritus who was his creature that he might reign in him and by him with a full satisfaction of his whole desires To this end he opened his treasures and resolved to make great distributions of money to the souldiers committing the managery of the hors-men to the Earl Justin who he knew was well affected by all the world and very capable to favour his canvasing But the men of warre looking upon the hand that gave the gold and not upon the coffer from whence it came nor the design of him that did it unexpectedly proclaimed Justin Emperour whereto the Senate and the People shewed a strong inclination