protest if it were to do again I had rather die in The life of Hugo a Monastery covered with leaprousie than with the scarlet robe of a Cardinal Yet notwithstanding this man had been so little idle that besides the Concordances of the Bible which he composed and the Commentaries he made upon the whole Corps of holy Scripture he so couragiously employed himself in the exercise of good works that being drawn out of the excellent Order of S. Dominick he retained all his former virtues which found no change in him but that they added to their native beauty the lustre of authority I speak this not to inform Prelates from whom I should receive instruction but to represent to so many of the young Nobility as we now daily behold advanced to Ecclesiastical charges the peril there is in Prelacies which are not guided by the paths of a good conscience It is a monstrous thing said holy S. Bernard to hold the highest place and have the lowest courage Bern. de consid lib. 1. cap. 7 the first Chair and the last life a tongue magnificent and a hand slothfull much noise about you and little fruit the countenance grave and actions light great authority and no more constancy than a weather-cock It were a better sight to behold an Ape on the house top and smoke in a candlestick than a man dignified without merit On the contrary part when science and virtue agree with Nobility to make up a good Church-man it is so glorious a spectacle that it may be said God to produce it on earth hath taken a pattern from himself in Heaven I wish no more faithfull witnesses than this Prelate which I shall present unto you in this first Treatise after I have made a brief Summary of precepts which I have purposely comprised in very few pages to render them the readier for the understanding well knowing there are store of books largely enough dilating on this subject the length of which I have avoided to attend the matter I wish it may have an effect in your hearts worthy of your courage that honouring your dignity for virtue virtue may enoble you with titles of true glorie THE HOLY COURT SECOND TOME THE PRELATE The first SECTION That it is convenient the Nobilitie should govern the Church I Begin by the Altar to measure the Aeternitas mundi ex obedientiâ ad intelligentiam motricem Apudi Matthiam de Viennâ qui liber impressus anno 1482. Temple of the Holy Court and set a Prelate before your eyes who bare Nobility into the house of God and there furnished himself with all the virtues which made him speak like an Oracle and live as a true image of the Divinity The Platonists say the whole order of the world dependeth on Intelligences which bear sway in the motion of the first Heaven and we in imitation of them may say all the good of Christendom proceeds from the examples of Ecclesiastical men to whom the Son of God hath consigned his authority on their brows his word in their mouths his bloud and Church into their hands For if bees engendred of the body of a bull carry in their entrails the very form of that bull from whence they are derived by a much more just title the people Vlysses Aldobran de apibus will bear the marks of those whom God hath given them for Doctours and Fathers whether it be by correspendence of nature through custom or by imitation which ever hold a very great predominance over spirits disposed to receive their impressions Behold the cause why a Prelate who liveth conform to his profession imprinteth the seal of the Son of God on all those souls he governeth and produceth himself in as many objects as he hath imitatours of his virtues As on the contrary part he who liveth ill in great Nobility and dignity is a Seraphin in appearance but a Seraphin without eyes without heart without hands which hath wings of a profane fire able to burn the Propitiatory if God afford not his helping hand And forasmuch as we at this day see the Nobility aspire to Ecclesiastical charges and many fathers to dispose their children thereunto sometimes with more fervour than consideration it hath caused me to undertake this Treatise for the Nobility which dedicate themselves to the Church as well to shew the purity of intention they ought to exercise therein as to give them a fair discovery of the goodly and glorious actions they ought to pursue in the practice thereof I here will first offer you a simple draught which I afterward intend to adorn with the greatness of S. Ambrose as with more lively colours Plato rejoyced to behold Princes and Governours of Common-wealths to become Philosophers and we have cause to praise God when we see the children of Noble houses to dispose themselves to Priesthood not by oblique and sinister ways but with all the conditions which their bloud requireth and sacred dignity exacteth in so noble a subject Why should we deny them Myters Crosiers and eminency in the Church So far is their birth from ministering any occasions of the contrary that it rather affordeth them favour both to undertake such charges with courage and discharge their conscience with all fidelity The reasons hereof are evident For first we must aver that by how much the more honourable the charges are so much the rather they are proper for such as make profession of honour provided always on the other side they have qualities suitable to those ministeries they pretend to exercise And are there any in the world more ambitious of honour than Noblemen Ostentation is the last shirt they put off and where can you find a more solid and eminent honour than that which is derived from the lawfull administration of Ecclesiastical functions Aristotle saith Truths which transmit themselves Arist lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xenophon l. 4. de factis dictis Socratis tribuit etiam Socrati Strabo Geograph l. 14. Aelian l. 14. c. 34. Var. Eus in Chrō Agathias histor l. 2 c. through the common sense of every man get into credit as it were by the decree of nature Now such hath been the esteem of all Nations that Kingdoms and Common-wealths being established upon Religion and temporal jurisdiction as on two columns Religion so much the more excelleth politick government as things divine transcendently surmount humane And for this cause favours priviledges and preheminences have ever been given to Priests in the greatest and most flourishing Monarchies and Common-wealths of the world as we may see in Histories and in the policie of the Aegyptians Assyrians Chaldeans Medes Persians Grecians Romans Gauls and other Nations The honour of Priesthood gained so much on the hearts of all people that the Monarchs of the earth seemed not to rule but with one arm if they made not in one and the same person the alliance of Priesthood and Royalty so that oftentimes
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
and saith It is the mark of the excellencie of our Religion The third a great obedience to Superiours recommended by S. Paul to the Romans Let every soul be subject to superiour Powers The fourth a sweetness and an admirable patience in persecutions Behold what appeared in the publication of the Gospel If you observe any thing like Consider the force of this proof in the progress of the pretended Religion then have you cause to have a good opinion of it But if you therein do see all her proceedings opposite to the same conclude it is not of God And tell me what are her proceedings in the fore-alledged points It cannot be doubted but that the virtue of humilitie First mark is the foundation of faith and one of the most noble characters of Christian Religion Where humilitie Prov. 11. is saith the Wise-man there is wisdom and God is pleased to drie up the roots of proad people Now Ezech. 10. all heresie is inseparably tied to a proud spirit from whence it took beginning derived nourishment and receives increase We might alledge an infinite number of testimonies to this purpose But we do not now tell you Epiphan hoeres 19. Illebertus hoereticus sub Zacharia how two heretick women of the race of Elxay did as it were cause their spittle to be adored nor how one Hildebert gave the paring of his nails to his sectaries for reliques so true is it that heresie being a sprout of the evil spirit still retains the mark of that pride which having once assaied to disturb Heaven never suffers the earth to enjoy repose It is well known how in the last Age one called John Leyden by trade a botcher and ring-leader of Corvin and Florimon Hereticks in Germanie having first published a law of pluralitie of wives went into the field drawing along with him huge troups of unchaste creatures where after he had played the prophet he caused himself to be chosen King took a triple diadem erected a proud pavilion wherein he gave audience established his Court and Potentates choosing out rogues and reprobates at that time attired in cloth of gold and silver and other costly stuffs which having but a little before served for ornaments on Altars were now cut in pieces by the hands of these Harpies and employed to cover infamous bodies that rather deserved to be involved in sulphur and flames When this King of Cardes marched through the Citie you would have taken him for the great Duke of Muscovia or some antick King of Hierusalem A Page mounted on hors-back bare a Bible covered with plates of gold before him another carried a naked sword willing thereby to expreâ—s he was born for the defence of the Gospel Besides he commonly had in his hand a golden globe whereon these words were engraven King of Justice on earth Anne Delphonse the first of fourteen wives this Impostour had married went along with him covered with a mantle furred with ermines clasped with a great buckle all of massie gold This would seem strange if we had not lately known the insolence of rebels and their imaginary regalities which are mounted to such a height of furie that they draw very near to the like frenzie Yet will we not at this time instance hereupon in any thing concerning this article We onely say that to separate Religion from rebellion and the manners of men from doctrine the maximes of Sectaries make an absolute profession of the most enraged vanity that may be observed in the course of human life For if the Scripture doth so strictly recommend Rom. 12. Non alta sapientes sed humilibus consentientes Prov. 35. Ne innitaris prudentia tuae unto us in the practice of humilitie not to make our selves over wise or able not to rest upon our own judgement nor proper prudence to hearken to our fore-fathers to obey Pastours who have lawful succession to work our salvation with fear and trembling at Gods judgements what may we think of a sect which authorizeth a peculiar spirit which hath ever been the seminary of all schisms and disorders which without distinction putteth the Scripture into all hands to judge of points of faith from whence have risen amongst them an infinite number of divisions which teacheth to account as dotages all that which the piety of our fore-fathers reverenced all that the wisest and most religious men of the earth decided which teacheth to spit against light and trample under foot the commandments of Pastours and Prelates to flatter ones self with assurance of salvation and predestination in the greateste orbitancies and neglects of life Verily it is an admirable thing to behold how the petty spirits of artificers and silly women busie themselves herein and to what a degree of pride they come when abused by I know not what imaginary texts of Scripture they grow big with the opinion of their own abilitie What pride more irregular than to see men not content with the Religion of Charlemaigne and S. Lewis nor of the Churches and tombs of their Ancestours to become so curious as to think their Kings and Pastours to be Idolaters and all the better part of mankind bestial from whom they separate themselves as from people infected with a spiritual contagion and do all they can to deifie their own opinions What pharisie ever came near this height of pride If there were any the least spark of humilitie a good soul would say within it self What do I or where am I It is an old saying He that too much believes in himself is a devil to himself I think I am grounded on the word of God but have not all hereticks had the same foundation which they in conclusion found onely to subsist in their own imagination Why should I separate my self from the main bodie of the ancient Church to satisfie the itch of my peculiar judgement It is not credible that so many men of honour and worth who are clear-sighted in all other things should be deceived in this they may have had doubts and opinions as we but they have overcome them by humility and reason they have stuck to the bodie of the tree they have followed the general consent of people which rather live in uniformitie than adhere to noveltie Let them not be figured to me as Idolaters ideots and men superstitious they have far other aims than these The wisest and most temperate of our side believe them not to be damned in their Religion To what purpose then is all this to handle a business apart to be separated from our near alies from Sacraments Church tombs and to be the cause of so many divisions spoils and bloudshed I plainly see we must hereafter live in re-union It is the spirit of God which commandeth it If I have beliefs in my heart different from the ordinary I ought not divulge them to create schisms and scandals I should inform my self I should obey it is fit I
civil life which happeneth to them through depraved habits and inordinate idleness whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide from their tender years or by some other corruptions of a melancholy spirit which they soment to the prejudice of their repose These kind of natures are good neither in the countrey citie house-keeping nor in religion For we find that in all things we must use endeavour and that we came into the world as into a galley where if one cannot manage either the stern or oar he must at the least make a shew to stir his arms and imitate the Philosopher Diogenes who roled his tub up and down wherin it was said he inhabited to busie himself For my August l. â— de Civit. Dei Philo de sacri Abel Cain part I like well those people who banished all idle gods out of their walls and retained such as enjoyned travel For to live and take pains is but one and the same thing and that which the nourishment we take operateth for the preservation of life labour doth the like for accommodation thereof In the fifth station you have women of the sea who Non est ira super iram mulieris Eccles 15. much deceive the world by their fair semblances for they at first appear quiet and peaceable as a sea in the greatest calm having no want of grace or beauty which promiseth much good to those who know them not but one would not believe how they shift away upon the least wind of contradiction which is raised how they are puffed up and become unquiet with anger love avarice jealousie and other passions very active Such an one seeth the flower of the thorn who knoweth not the pricking thereof and such an one beholdeth with admiration those excellent beauties who cannot believe how many pricks and stings they cover under these imaginary sweetnesses You shall therein ordinarily observe very great levity and impatience which maketh them hourly to change their resolution in such sort that they think nothing so miserable as to remain still in one and the same condition I have seen young widows who had washed S. Zeno Hoâ— de continent the bodies of their husbands with their tears wiped them away with their hairs and as it were worn it by force of kisses and who not content with these ardent affections discharging the surplusage of their passion upon their own proper bodies tore their hair pulled their cheeks were rather covered with dust than apparel They died every hour saying they could not live one sole moment without their best-beloved and filled the air and earth with their complaints which was the cause why such as came to the funerals knew not whether they should bewail the dead or the dying Notwithstanding presently after these goodly counterfeitings they began again to reform their hair and change the dust of the pavement into the powder of Cypress to put painting upon their tears to adorn with a carcanet of pearl the neck which they seemed to destine to a halter to seek for Oracles from their looking-glass and to do all things as if death and love conspired to make their feast in one and the same Inn. I have observed others who being yet under the yoak were the best servants in the world but as soon as they saw themselves at liberty there were no worse mistresses than they There are noted to be in the heart of a woman the passions of a tyrant and should they continually have wheels and gibbets at their command the world would become a place of torture and execution Never have I seen passions more hard to vanquish for in the end the sea which threateneth the world to make but one element suffereth it self to be distinguished into ditches by little grains of sand which stayed it with the commission they received thereupon from God but when a woman letteth the reins of her passion go there is not as it were neither law divine or humane which can recal her spirit to reason Fair maids take ever from the modesty of your hearts the laws which may be given you by justice In the sixth degree are the natures of the Ape who Custodi te à muliere mâ—lâ— Prov. 6. have a certain malice spightfull and affected and such spirits may be found of this kind who day and night dream on nothing but mischief They are filled with false opinions sinister judgements disdains smothered choller discontents acerbities in such sort that the ray of the prosperity of a neighbour reflecting on their eyes makes them sigh and groan And as those Apes which sculck in the shop of a Trades-man mar his tools disturb his works scatter his labours and turn all topsie-turvie So these malicious creatures spie occasions to trouble a good affair to dissolve a purpose well intended to overthrow a counsel maturely diliberated to cause a retardation on the most just desires and frustrate the most harmless delights How many times do we behold the sun to rise chearful and resplendent in a bright morning and every one is abashed to see a mist arise which in this serenity doth that which blemishes on a fair body It is said it sometimes proceedeth from a sorceress which darkeneth that glorious eye of the day with her charms And how often have you observed prosperities more radiant than the clearest summers day which have been cloyed with duskie vapours by the secret practises of a woman who biteth the bridle in some nook of a chamber Fair maids malice is an ill trade It ever drinketh down at least the moity of the poison which it mingled for others In the seventh Region there are some kind of owls Mulicrum penus avarissimum or wild-cats certain creatures enemies of day of all conversation all civility and all decorum who having received from God many honest enablements to adorn life and to do good to persons necessitous so lock up their entrails that you may sooner extract honey and manna from flints than get a good turn out of their hands How is it possible they should be courteous to oblige their likes since they are many times cruel to themselves defrauding themselves of the necessities of life which are as it were as common as elements to satisfie a wicked passion of avarice that gnaweth them with a kind of fury For they endure in abundance part of that which the damned suffer in flames perpetually and fearing lest the earth may fail them they bewail what is past they complain of the present they apprehend the future they love life onely to hold money in prison and fear not death but for the expence must be made at their funerals Let us take heed we resemble not those fountains Fountain Garamant Holunicus S. Bonaventura in dieta which are so cold in the day that they cannot be drunk and so hot in the night that none dare come near them Let us do good both in life and death
preservation of a fool and sick man If Rom. 6. Great spirits enemies of the flesh you live according to the flesh you shall die said the Apostle to the Romans All great spirits who have a feeling of their extraction the beauty and nobility of their souls take not the necessities of life but with some shame and sorrow They regard the flesh as the prison of a spirit immortal and think to flatter it is to strangle the beâ—ter part of themselves which resteth in the understanding The Philosopher Plotinus who Plotin Porphiry upon his life was renowned as the worlds Oracle could not endure to have his picture taken saying he had trouble enough to suffer a wretched bodie without multiplying the figures thereof by the help of painting and you imagine it is a virtue of the times to adore it and afford it submissions which pass to the utmost period of servitude How much the more we profit in the libertie of God's children so much the more we proceed in disengagement from sense and enter as into the sanctuarie of souls there to consult on truths and understand reasons which vindicate us from the dregs of the world to give us passage into the societie of Angels It is a strange matter that the subtile Divine Scotus Discourse of Scotus concerning sense Scotus locis disquisit 1. indicatis thinks that to understand and know objects by sensible representations passing through the gate of our sense and striking our imagination is a punishment from original sin He finds it is a harsh subjection to make application to the bodie to derive colours odours and sounds from it which notwithstanding seemeth as innocent as the purchase of bees who suck honie out of flowers and shall we think there can be any felicitie to plunge our judgement into all the voluptuous pleasures of flesh Know we not it many times doth to the soul as the An observation of Camerarius concerning the heron heron to the faulcon He endeavoureth to flie above him and to wet his wings with his excrements to make his flight heavie and render his purpose unprofitable Alas how many times feel we the vigour of our reason enervated by the assaults of concupiscence which contracteth the like advantage from it's ordures for the enthralment of the spirit And why would we second it's violence by our weakness Instance upon the weakness and miserie in service of the body I moreover demand of you what can you hope from so punctually observing your bodie You are not a Geryon with three heads and three throats There needs but a little to fill you For though your concupiscence be infinite yet are your senses finite many times pleasure overwhelms them before they afford themselves the leisure of tasting them If you resolve so curiously to attend the search of pleasures you should desire the spirit of a horse to enjoy them with the more vigour and liberty But what sense is there to have the soul of a man and seek to be glutted with the mite of the earth as if one would feed a Phoenix with carrion on which ravens live when you have done all you can to make your self happie by diversity of worldly pleasures beasts will ever have more than you For their sensitive souls much sooner meet the height of nature and as their pleasures are free from shame so they drag not sorrow after them They are not gnawn with cares by desiring things needless they take what the elements afford them and what the industry of man manures for them know not what it is to find poisonous maladies in the most ardent pleasures sensuality may imagine But admit you were resolved to become a beast with the disciples of Epicurus yet ought you not for all that according to your own limits surpass the bruitishness of beasts And I pray tell me where is the beast which hath never so little generosity would not think it self most miserable if it were condemned to eat and drink perpetually and grow lazy in an idle life They frame themselves very willingly to the exercises nature appointed them for the service of man and a man thinks it a great Philosophy to consecrate all the parts of his bodie to sensuality no whit considering he is made for the contemplation of things Divine for the love and fruition of the first cause Avicen an excellent wit by the unhappiness of his Avicenna lib. de primâ Philosoph 9. c. 1. apud Javellum Notable saying of Avicen birth ranked in the sect of Mahomet coming to consider this false Prophet had placed the beatitude of the other life in the injoying sensual pleasures was so ashamed of it that he shrunk from his Prophet that he might not betray his reason The law saith he which Mahomet gave us considered beatitude and miserie within the limits of the bodie but there are promises and hopes of other blessings much more excellent and which cannot be conceived but by the force of a most purified understanding Which is the cause wise divines ever set their Foelicitas est conjunctio cum primâ Veritate love on the blessings of spirit without any account taken of those of sense in comparison of the felicitie we one day pretend to have in the union of our immortal spirit with the first Verity What can our worldlings answer to this Arabian Should they not blush with shame to see a man bred in the school of Epicurus gone out of it to teach us the Maxim of Christianity 4. Finally to conclude this discourse with a third Reason 3 reason although the service of the bodie were possible Tyranny of ryot and not shameful to you do you not well see it is tyrannical and that Epicurus himself wholly bent to pleasure cut off all he could from nature for this onely cause which made him think over-much care of the body was extreamly opposite to felicitie The Platonists Opinion of Platonists said our souls were of an extraction wholly celestial and sent from heaven to serve God on earth in imitation of the service Angels do to him in heaven but that many of those poor souls forgetting their original instead of going directly to the Temple of virtue stood amuzed in the house of a Magician which was the flesh that enchanted them with his charms had cast them into fetters where they were enforced to suffer a painful bondage from whence there were but two passages wisdom or death To this Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syness hym 3. made allusion in his Hymns complaining his soul from a servant of God was become a slave of matter which had bewitched it by wily practises And verily who can sufficiently express the servitude a soul suffers fast linked to flesh and which onely endeavours to dandle it hoping by this means to give true contentment to the mind First pleasures are not exposed now-adayes to all the world as the water of a
ignorant what answer to give unto the Emperour Ah Sir said she I see you are much hindered in a brave way if it onely rest in your wife that you be not great and happy I freely deprive my self of all yea of your company which is more precious to me then all the Empires of the world rather then prejudice your fortune For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know I love you better then my self And saying this she cut off her hair and voluntarily entred into a Monastery which the other was willing enough to suffer preferring ambition before love a matter very ordinary among great ones Out of all this it may be inferred that women are to be found very virtuous and most constant in their affections But the question I proposed in the second place if in case it so fall out whether amities may be fixed out of marriage between sex and sex is a passage very dangerous and worldlings must not think it strange if I look into it with much precantion It is Rodomanto of Pelagius Jerem in Pelagium a pleasant thing to hear how Pelagius the Arch-heretick talks in S. Jerome For he makes a Rhodomantade suteable to a spirit swoln up with pride and blinded within the opinion of his own worth There are saith he who shut themselves within cells and never see the face of any one woman yet suffer themselves to be enslamed with love and tormented with desires which may very well happen for they are miserable creatures who well deserve to be so handled As for me I freely professe I am daily environed with an host of women and feel not the least spark of concupiscence S. Basil S. Basil de Virginitaâ—e Inclination of sex to sex was of another opinion when he sheweth that a man who perpetually converseth with women and saith he feeleth not any touch thereof participateth not at all of humane nature but rather is some extraordinary prodigie For as he learnedly disputeth in the Book he composed of Virginity the body of a woman is as it were a section and a fragment of that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dangerous autractives in the conversation with women the first man which is the cause he naturally desireth her as a part taken from himself The palm hath not more inclination to the palm nor the iron to the adamant then one sex hath towards another When God created the mother of the living it is written he built as if the Scripture would say That woman is a house Aedificavit dominus costam quà m tulerat de Adam in mulierem Gen. 2. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Basil ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. paedag l. 3. wherein the heart of man lodgeth but too often Sole glances saith this great man are spirituall hands which cause wonderfull effects From thence the first battery of Concupiscence beginneth as saith Clemens Alexandrinus Adde that after the corruption of sinne we have in us an evil source of carnall desire which floweth from the bottome of our soul by our five senses as by so many conduit-pipes Nature is extremely subtil and busie and when one hath a hundred times together by strong hand chased it away a hundred times it returneth It insinuates it self it presseth forward with sweet violences with charming sweetnesses it insensibly spinneth the web and doth what it list Moreover it is seconded with a certain curiosity to know all that which is most pernicious to it It kicketh against the laws of honesty and modesty and thinks the forbiddance of an evil is the greatest of all torments It will know too much to be chaste and makes a snare to it self of proper science O God of purity how many do we now adayes see who to give entrance to a wicked curiosity through too free conversation receive as many wounds as they give glances and as many deaths as beauty shoots arrows against them Solomon who well knew the effect of this passion said Thy eyes shall see forreign women and thy heart shall Prov. 23. Oculi tui videbunt extraneas cor tuum loquetur perversa c. entertain a very evil discourse within thee Thou shalt be as one fast asleep in the midst of the waves of the sea or as a lazy plot who oppressed with drowsinesse hath forsaken the helm Thou wilt say It is true they struck me but I feel no pain of it They have drawn me this way and that way but I am not sensible of it when shall I be awakened to be again drunk with love and to return to my accustomed pleasures See how a senslesse soul talketh which having not well guarded its senses in the first assault delivereth the heart over as a prey and sinks into the bottome of Abysse But to rest within the limits of honest Modest amities with women should alwayes be handled with much precaution amities it is undoubted one cannot use too much precaution so subtil and penetrative are the stings thereof especially when it is sharpned by Beauty Bounty and Benefits Yea misery therein doth sometimes bear so sensible a part that a beautifull and virtuous woman being in her innocency afflicted shooteth Magnus amor est qui de misericordia venit 8. Cant. 6. arrows of victorious love into the heart of man And very well the Philosopher Seneca hath observed that love is great when it grows out of commiseration It is true which Cassidorus said in the book of Cassiod de amicitia Amity that one affection degenerateth insensibly into another Love in the beginning is wholly divine then it becometh humane being yet within the limits of reason From humane it passeth to naturall wherein Degeneration-amity it quickly feels the sting of nature and the first fervour of Concupiscence From naturall it becometh officious entertaining it self with discourses complements complacence offices and services From officious it most times becometh carnall and from carnall absolutely unchaste Iamblichus a Philosopher very curious saith that Observation of Iamblichus applied to the amities of women those who professed to consult with spirits by this divine operation as is pretended saw in the beginning obscurities spectres and night but persisting in their search they perceived the air by little and little waxed bright with a pleasing serenity and the apparitions became more lightsome It falleth out quite otherwise in the matter of Amities indiscreetly tied with women For at first those shevvs are fair and specious but the issues of them if one be not heedfull are black and hideous A soul vuhich feareth God might sometimes be very confident among such as make profession to be none of the honestest because it is prevented by some aversion which hindereth its perdition but virtue consorted by sweet disposition hath another manner of power for it insinuateth it self into the soul with admirations and satisfactions which attract the inclination before the consideration can be permitted to frame
that its depth was his exaltation He went back again into the kingdome of Sarazens in Africk where being known he was suddenly stoned to death in a popular commotion and buried under a great heap of stones in which place his body long remained unknown to all the world but it pleased God that certain merchants his countrey-men sailing into that countrey saw in the night a Pyramis of fire to rise up over his tomb which caused a curiosity in them to see what it was and coming to dig into it they found this venerable old man who was so gloriously buried in his own triumph they brought him back into his own countrey where he is all this time reverenced out of an antient Devotion of the people which the holy See permitteth rather by way of toleration then expresse Canonization The second Treatise Of HATRED § 1. It s Essence Degrees and Differences WHat a Comet is among stars Hatred is Hatred a hidenus Comet among virtues It is a passion maligne cold pernicious deadly which ever broodeth some egge of the serpent out of which it produceth infinite disastres It is not content to vent its poison in certain places and times but it hateth to the worlds end yea as farre as eternity To set before your eyes the havock it maketh in a soul it is necessary to understand it in all the degrees and dimensions thereof For which purpose you shall observe that Hatred being properly an hostility of the appetite against those things which it apprehendeth to be contrary It s nature to its contentment It hath some similitude with Choler but there is much difference as between pieces engraven and painted which may easily be defaced Choler is more sudden more particular more ardent and more easie to be cured Hatred more radicall more generall more extended more sad and more remedilesse It hath two notable properties whereof the one Its properties consisteth in aversion and flight the other in persecution and dammage There is a Hatred of aversion which is satisfied to flie from all that is contrary to it There is another Enmity which pursueth and avengeth and tends to the destruction of all whatsoever The first property hateth the evill the second wisheth it to the authour of the evill and when it hath once possessed a black soul it maketh terrible progressions and is especially augmented by four very considerable degrees First it beginneth in certain subjects by a simple Its degrees aversion and a hatred of humour which is the cause we have an horrour at all those things that oppose naturall harmony which appears as well in the good constitution of body as in the correspondencies of senses and the faculties of the soul with their objects And although this contrariety be not alwayes evident enough unto us yet there is some feeling which in the beginning maketh us many times to have an aversion from some person whom we never saw and from whom we have never received the least suspicion of affront or dammage Be it out of some disproportion of body of speech of behaviour or whether it be there is some secret disaccord we often hate not well knowing the cause thereof which very easily happeneth to the femall sex For women being full of imaginations the vivacity of fancy furnisheth them with infinite many species of conveniences and inconveniences that cause a diversity of humours which very seldome make a good harmony but if they do it is ever easie enough to be disturbed There are loves and hatreds which cannot be put on and put off as easily as a man would do a shirt which teacheth us it is very hard to make one to love by commands as if we went about to introduce love by cannon-shots The first degree of Hatred is properly called Antipathy and is so generall in nature that it The natural antipathies passeth into things inanimate and into bruit beasts which are no sooner born but they exercise their enmities and warre in the world A little chicken which yet drags her shell after her hath no horrour at a horse nor at an elephant which would seem so terrible creatures to those that know not their qualities but it already feareth the kite and doth no sooner espy him but it hasteneth to be hidden under the wings of the hen Drums made of sheep-skins crack as it is said if another Jo. ◠Por a in Chao ther be strucken near them made of a wolfs hide and such as are made of the skin of a camel scare horses The lion is troubled at the crowing of a cock Cabbages and herb-grace cannot endure each others neighbour-hood such enmity they have and a thousand other such like things are observed in nature wherein there are such expresse and irreconciliable hatreds If man who should moderate his passions by reason suffers himself to run into Antipathies and naturall aversions and doth not represse them by virtue it falleth out they increase and are enflamed out of interest contempt slander ill manners outrages offences or out of simple imaginations of offence which then causeth a second degree of hatred which is a humane hatred consented to with deliberation which putteth Humane hatred it self into the field to exercise its hostilities here by injuries there by wrangling here by forgery there by violence and by all the wayes which passion inventeth to do hurt by Abject courages hate with a cold and cloudy hatred which they long hatch in their hearts through impotency of vindicative strength The haughty and proud do it with noise accompanied Its differences with disdains affronts and insolency All they who love themselves tenderly perpetually swarm in hatreds and aversions seeing themselves countre-buffed and crossed in a thousand objects which they passionately affect All the most violent hatreds come out of love Hatred of love and namely when lovers the most passionate see themselves to be despised despair of amity transporteth them to a◠outrageous hatred finding they have afforded love the most precious thing that is in our dispose to receive scorn There are likewise who without receiving any injury begin to hate out of wearisomnesse in love and coming to know the defects of such as they had the most ardently loved they take revenge upon the abuse of their own judgement by the evill disposition of their own will and do as those people who Quintil. decl 17. Non habent proximorum odia regressum quaecunque nexus accepere naturae quae sanguine visceribúsque constructa sunt non laxantur diducta sed percunt burnt the Gods they had adored Whether hatred arises out of a weary love or whether it proceeds from an irritated love it is ever to be feared and there are not any worse aversions in the world then those which come from the sources of amity Quintillian also hath observed That the Hatreds of neighbours are enmities irrecoverable and wounds which never are cured because bands
catalogue of Kingdomes and Titles as provokes the emulous terrifieth their neighbours and pricketh even those that are removed from them by intervals of distance They apprehend the Dignity of one to presage the danger of all They conjecture that the extent of his jurisdiction bodeth an unattempted servitude to all Kingdomes they fear whatsoever the land provideth and whatsoever monsters the sea nourisheth Greedy Domination that could never yet overcome it self when it hath once been cherished by Fortune it unlearneth nature and forgetteth moderation Moreover the temperature of the Nations as they report is fiery hot and dry swelling with pride patient of hunger and well enduring labour thirsty after glory prone to admire it self and apt to continue the virtue and valour of other Nations I produce not these things as the emanations of my own judgement which for the present is addicted to no Nation but comprehendeth all in Christ but I commemorate the vulgar reports and such things as are openly bruted by many which if they were supprest by a removall of their Causes it could cut off the occasions of many controversies The French on the other side as they write who have had knowledge of them although they are forward to dart reproaches against others unable to endure them and most impatient of contempt yet they know they are of that Nation whereof it was said Animóqūe supersunt Jam propè post animam They boast that they filled the world with the fame of their Arms before the Spaniards could redeem themselves from the diuturnall servitude of the Goths and Vandals That they have managed the Empire of the East and West that they have vanquished Constantinople by assault restored Jerusalem to Christ and Rome to the Pope seven times deprived of it by his enemies They affirm that the Gospel was first preached unto them that the primigeniall adoption of the Sonnes of God was given to them that they have advanced Learning in all Christian Kingdomes the whole world almost becoming Students of our Academy at their Paris in a word they think they have nothing to be contemned they are more apt to desire admirers then able to dispence with contemners From hence it comes to passe that both the Nations being prodigall in the accumulations of their own and envious of the others glory such flames have of late been kindled as will it may be feared become unquenchable Would to God that that Charity which is diffused in us by the spirit would suffocate these super-seminated tares of contentions Oh that it would cut off the occasions of these inhumane strivings then should we have fewer anxieties and more supportable labours of heart knowing by what remedies we might resist so pestilent an evil This is frequently augmented by the servants and favourites of Princes whilst with a familiar but a direfull glory to the greatest Empires they desire to boast the power of their Lords they display all their offensive strength and ability to hurt they presse a secret beneficence and whilst they proceed in these ambitious circulations nay whilst they bewray a fear and discover in themselves a caution by that very sedulity and caution they provoke things not to be feared and act things not to be tolerated Here I appeal to you great Masters of Policy and Participatours of hidden Councels I speak more willingly to you then to your Fortunes Consider how much God hath given you and how much he requireth of you You sit as Gods among men the Arbiters of mankind what shall be each mans lot is the verdict of your Dispensations What good things Felicity intendeth to each individuall person she pronounceth by your mouths what Navies must be prepared what Warres must be prosecured what Cities destroyed what Nations depopulated are the ambiguous effects of your opinions You are judges of the fortunes and bloud of men and of your behaviours and existimation men are judges God the discerner of all things judgeth of your head at the terrible and inevitable audit Every one beholdeth many things by the deception of his own sense uttereth many things from the dictates of affection I cannot believe what is reported that so eminent persons blest with such admirable wits adorned with the glorious gift of prudence and conscious of this frailty of humane affairs can think themselves seated in that heighth to measure all things by the circle of their own advantage that publick plenty should quit the preheminence to their private profit that all things should be serviceable to their amplitude that they should dispose their trust according to the level coyl of love hatred and ambition and that they should sacrifice the bloud of the people to their Fortunes that they therefore love Warres and are affected with Divisions and Confusion hoping thereby to purchase to themselves more beneficiall or honourable commands to close with an opportunity of treasuring up large summes of money and by the necessity of their Ministration to wed themselves to a more faithfull office or to leap into an Authority of a more hopefull permanency but goodnesse forbid that such sordid earthly and narrow cares should be the dishonourable employment of such capacious souls I rather believe that you are incited by emulous anhelations after your Masters glory whereof you have ever been most zealous ever prepared to retaliate his injuries to assert his Majesty and to dilate his Empire but I beseech you by the immortall God and by so many beloved pledges of your Kingdomes to take heed and diligently to beware lest a supervehement appetite of Glory make them averse from the right pursuit of Glory You follow Glory by a muddy search but now all mortall men desire it by a clear acquist Consider where there is the greatest splendour of celestiall virtues either in the loud cracks of thunder possessing all men with sudden fear and when fires and thunderbolts are promiscuously hurl'd about or in a fair day the air being defecated and serene and the pleasure of the light dispelling sadnesse from mens hearts hitherto you have made the power of your Lords sufficiently fearfull now render it sweet and make it amiable for therein onely it is invincible This is not the greatnesse of Princes to be alwayes encompassed with the terrours of his armed men and busied in warlike preparations with a fiery mouth to be alwayes denouncing the cruelties of torments and tortures to condemne these men to fetters those to the sword perpetually to carry about him fire and darts to make his progresse thorow smoaking Cities over the trampled bodies of half dead men and to exhaust all things lest they should be exhausted How much more glorious is it like a fortunate Cornet to prevent and exceed the hopes of all men with causes of rejoycing To repair things ruinous and disordered to conveigh glad tydings of consolation to the pensive soul to recollect things scattered and to reunite things divided By this heavenly solicitude many Kings lending their succour
often observed that Noblemen who have established tyrannie in the world have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their posteritie and as nature is scantie in the propagation of wolves designed for spoil which otherwise would bring all the world into desolation so Almightie God by a secret oeconomie of his divine Providence permitteth not that great men who have made themselves disturbers of publick peace and infringers of laws both divine and human whereof they ought to be protectours should make the bruitishness of their savage souls to survive them in their posterity But as for those who are arranged in the list of sanctitie and modesty God hath as it were immortalized their bloud in their posteritie as we see it happen in worthie and illustrious families But to what value amounteth all this which I have said in comparison of that crown of glorie which God placeth on the heads of Noblemen in the other life when they have virtuously governed in this mortal mansion O what a brave death it is to die under the shadow of the Palms of so many heroical virtues Oh it is the death of a Phoenix to die in the odours of a holy conversation to change his sepulchre into a cradle and even draw life out of the Tomb Oh what an immortalitie it is to survive eternally in the mouths of men but much more to live in Heaven enjoying the knowledge love life and felicitie of God! O Nobles betake your selves betimes and in a good hour to the way of this temple of honour by the exercise of holy virtues which are like Elias chariot all flaming with glory to carrie your purified souls even to the height of the Emperial Heaven THE SECOND BOOK Of Hinderances which worldly men have in the way of SALVATION and PERFECTION The first OBSTACLE Faintness and weakness of Faith Against Atheists HAving sufficiently proved the obligations which Great-ones and men of qualitie have to perfection let us now see the hinderances which may stop the increase thereof as well to take from them all pretext of false libertie as to denote the confusions very frequent in the corruptions of this Age. The first is a certain languor and debilitie of faith which openeth the way to all sorts of vices so that putting all the greatness of the world into a false seeming it beholdeth Paradise and all the blessings of the other life with blear-eyes and clouded with a perpetual eclipse And that you may well Two sects of men conceive this let us observe that in this Age greatly changed by heresie libertie and vice two sorts of men are to be seen whereof the one doth symbolize with just Abel and the other are of the sect of Cain These two brothers began to contend together even in the worlds cradle as Jacob and Esau in the bellie of Rebecca Abel had a soul impressed with a good stamp religious docile pure perpetually fixed in the chaste apprehensions of the Divinitie Cain quite contrary an impious soul greatly infected with the serpents breath black variable wavering in faith and in the virtue of the Divine providence He verily is the father of Atheists and S. Bernard hath properly Bern. serm 24 in Contic Fideicida antequam fratricida Procop. in Genes said He killed faith before he murdered his brother Procopius calleth him the son of the earth because this unfortunate creature perpetually looked downward having already as it were buried in the tomb of oblivion the lights and knowledges of heaven From thence proceeded the irreverence of his unbridled spirit his wicked sacrifices his envie against his brother afterward his furie murder and bloud and lastly a deluge of calamities The onely example of his disaster should suffice to terrifie those who following him in his impietie make themselves undoubtedly the companions of his misfortune but since it also is expedient we proceed herein by discourse and reason I observe the causes and remedies of this infidelitie Faintness and debilitie in Three sorts of consciences from which impiety springs faith and consequently atheism is formed in three sorts of consciences to wit the criminal the bruitish the curious Atheism proceedeth from a criminal conscience when a soul findeth it self involved in a long web of crimes and as it were overwhelmed in the habits of sin In the mean time God doth inwardly Horrible state of a sinful conscience torture prick forward and scourge it and then all bloudy and ulcerous as it is not able longer to remain within it self but tasting so many disturbances in its proper mansion it searcheth evasions and starting-holes expatiateth in the pleasures and delights of the world to dissolve her many griefs and findeth in every thing her gnawing worm She looketh back upon the path of virtue which she hath either forsaken or never trodden as an impossible track the spirit of lies representing it unto her all paved with thorns and briars she re-entereth into herself and saith in her heart that there is none but God who afflicteth her and that necessarily she must free herself from him for our felicities are measured by the ell of our opinion and no man is miserable but he that apprehendeth his own unhappiness Then soothing herself with these humane discourses she herein much laboureth to acquit herself from God from the belief of judgement of hell and the immortality of the soul Notwithstanding she cannot albeit these wicked spirits have scoffed at the mysteries of Religion with their companions as if they would put on a bold fore-head and an impudence strong enough to endure a stroke so dreadful but contend against the essence of God Care findeth them in their bed and is pinned to their silken curtains the thoughts of a Divinitie which they supposed to have totally banished from their hearts in pleasures upon Et ubi Deus non timetur nisi ubi non est Tert. de prescrip 41. Ponam eam possessionem Ericii Isaiah 14. 2. the least afflictions return and make themselves felt with very piercing points which head-long throw them into despair The Prophet Isaiah hath divinely prophesied of such a soul I will make her the inheritance and possession of hedge-hogs Verily the miserable caytif hatcheth in her entrails a thousand little hedge-hogs which as they encrease make their pricks and darts multiply a thousand gnawings a thousand apprehensions as uncapable of repose as apt to afflict a conscience Such heretofore was the state of Nero for this Condition of Nero. barbarous monster who so often had dipped his hand in bloud sought out a bath of delights to bath himself in he ran up and down to prie into all the inventions of the pleasures of the world to rid himself from the arrow which he had in his heart and to dispoil himself for ever of an opinion of the Divinitie This was a matter for him impossible When he was at feasts sports or Theatres the apprehension of God stung his heart as a Bee and
there left the sting If he slept upon roses the shadows of dead men approached to his downie bed to require an account of their bloud He scoffed at religion and feared it one while he despised sacred things and at another time they made him tremble with horrour He sought out waters of expiation to wash his sins and never opened his eyes to those which S. Peter and S. Paul presented to him His soul was torn with pincers within it self as on a perpetual scaffold of exquisite torments when it would issue out of it self it was like a wild colt coursed and chased by men and beasts or as a bull stung with a gad-flie who fain would run for himself yet still findeth himself with himself Judge O Atheists what a life this is The second cause of Atheism is the sensual love Bruitish conscience Clemens Alex. pedag Plotin apud Philo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irrâ—verens infrunitus animus of favours pleasures ease and delights of the world which oftentimes degenerate into the meer bruitishness of a soul which sleepeth in fat and grease so intricated and confounded in earth that it looseth all knowledge of Heaven Clemens Alexandrinus saith that it happeneth to souls which are great lovers of sensual pleasures to engross and thicken themselves in such sort that as Plotinus very learnedly writeth they live not but as a plant These spirits are much enclined to Atheism for as the Wise-man observeth after the concupiscences of the belly cometh unbrideled irreverence which serveth Eccl. 23. 6. Lev. 1. 16. Vesiculam gutturis projicies in loco quo cineres effundi solent â—â— 13. â—aturati sunt â—levaverunt â—â— suum oblâ—â—i sunt mei as a harbinger to impiety God desired not that in offering a bird as a sacrifice unto him the gorge should be presented which is the little magazin of the meat but commanded to cast it into the ashes which is to declare to us that carnal men are most uncapable of celestial things and very fit to be dragged to the dung-hil and ash-heap The more they are affected to things present so much the more yea even in deep draughts they drink down the forgetfulness of Heavenly things All those say with Esau To what use will this goodly prerogative Genes 25. Quid mihi prâ—derunt primogenita of primogeniture serve me this title of the children of God this happiness of future life If there be no sensual pleasures nor carnal contentments in Heaven I will have none They become the true disciples of Alcor Aazoara 2. Mahomet who in his Alcoran describing the Turks Paradise placeth there good water good fruits rings carcanets silken tapestrie hangings and such like All these things they would enjoy but the water which they willingly would change into wine What swine are these The third cause if not of formal Atheism at the â—â—rious conscâ—ence least of weakness and faintness in matter of faith is when a soul will proceed in matters of Religion by politick and humane ways and suffer it self greatly to be pleaâ—ed with curiositie which incessantly moveth it to draw the curtain of holy mysteries to enlighten them with the torch of reason and to behold all that passeth there Such spirits are not so malign nor stupid as the first and second notwithstanding they are weak and very ignorant since they fail in the first rule of wisdom which discovereth to us that it is an absolute folly of a discomposed judgement to be desirous to measure things divine by the rule of sense and humane experience They turmoyl themselves and bate like a hawk upon the perch and often say in their heart that which the Apostle S. Peter observeth in the person of infidels Where are these promises Where is the Pet. 2. 3. Vbi est promissio ubi est aâ—ventus ejus ex quo enim â—ermierunt patres omnia â—erseverant ab initio creaturae coming of the Son of God See you not that times revolve men come and go all things have their ordinary course and we must expect no other miracle They imagine that all the counsels of Heaven should turn and roul according to the projects of their understanding and that if God had his eye open as it is said upon the oeconomie of the world both this and that would succeed as they have contrived in their feeble brain which is a great illusion Such kind of men would willingly speak with spirits to hear them tell tales of the other life they would know as S. John Chrysostom saith what habit what clothing the Son of man weareth covered under the species of the Sacrament how the Angels are formed of what colour the devils are nothing would please them better than to talk with one really possessed to know things future to divulge predictions to behold prodigies and miracles Briefly it seemeth they have no other purpose but to believe in God by the devil Such kind of proceedings are very exorbitant and unfortunate for the reasons which I will presently produce First O you wretched souls who betake your â—easons to settle a soul Impious curiositie pulls out both its eyes selves to this way see you not that by this means you pull out the two eyes which God hath placed within your souls which are as the Sun and Moon in the firmament to wit the eye of faith and that of natural prudence You seem to your selves sharp and clear-sighted and are more blind than moles For tell me for as much as concerneth the light of nature can there be found a folly more gross and absurd than to behold men who are born and bred in Christianity as in their proper element after a thousand and a thousand witnesses of the truth of their religion which even the very marbles do speak and stones proclaim to make themselves so wise and able as to seek out other proofs than those which have won worlds to the Gospel An unworthy way to treat with God You would have a God that should give you new signs tokens to confirm you in faith a God which servilely will be captivated to please the ticklings of your curiositie Senseless men as you are this were not to have a God but a lame Idol Are you not Insuspicabilis secreti reverendaeque majestatis cognitio est deum nosse nisi deum Tert. Apol. 28 very blockish to treat with God much more wickedly than one would do with a mean man If you had passed your word to two friends you would praise him with all freeness that should rest satisfied therewith and would condemn the other whom you should find fearful inconstant and ever upon mistrust yet would you that God should favour your infidelity by extraordinary ways What apparency is there for this All curiosity is damnable Curiositie dangerous Curiositas reum efficit non peritum S. Zeno. Serm. 2. de silii gener Chrys de fato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
probant ratio confirmat elementa loquuntur dâ—â—ones confitentur sed longè major insania si de veritate Evangelii non dubites vivere tamen quasi de ejus falsitate non dubitares Advise to cold Catholicks imitate them in their doctrine If they expect any other arguments it will appear their frenzie would have no other remedies but the searing-iron and fire As for other Catholicks who believe as the faithful and live as infidels pronouncing JESUS CHRIST with their mouth and renouncing him with their hands I pray them to ponder a saying of one of the rarest wits which the world hath a long time had it is Picus Mirandula expressed by him in these words to his nephew It is a prodigious folly not to believe the Gospel the truth whereof is sealed with the bloud of Martyrs innumerable testified by the Apostles proved by miracles confirmed by reason published and declared by the elements and creatures insensible confessed even by the devils But it is a much more notorious folly not to doubt at all of the verity of the Gospel which one professeth and yet to live as if he made no question of the falsitie thereof What a mockery it is to carrie the name of a poor SAVIOUR and to burn with enraged avarice of an humble SAVIOUR and suffer himself to be exposed to tempestuous winds of exorbitant ambition which breatheth nothing but breaches and ship-wracks of a crucified SAVIOUR and to live in a mass of flesh wholly effeminated with delights and curiosities even to the making their spittings to swim in gold of a meek SAVIOUR and to carry under the name of a Christian a Gorgons eye the anger of an Asp the heart of a Tyger a soul full of revenges of gall of bloud of Monsters of beastly bruitishness O God what Christianity is this Salvianus speaketh a word very remarkeable Salvian 4. de guber Dei Omnis Christianorum culpa Divinitatis injuria est Atrocius sub sancti nominis professione peccamus Ipsa errores nostros religio quam profitemur accusat We cannot sin without making our selves capable of spiritual treason in the highest degree the sins of Christians are sacriledges the name which they bear condemneth their life without any other form of process These colds of the north this yciness which some Catholicks shew in their belief is greatly scandalous and prejudicial to verity because the mis-believing which see them live in such exorbitancy cannot perswade themselves they firmly believe the Gospel which they profess but that all their religion is but an exteriour countenance and rather an idle amuzement of words than a true list of virtue This bringeth a horrible prejudice into the Church of God which should even rent our hearts if we yet retained one onely vein of that noble bloud the Martyrs profusely spent for the defence of the truth The remedies for these essential impediments Remedies in the act of Christianitie are to take away and cut off the causes of this infidelity 1. To prepare a conscience chaste and timerous which never wil make it self an hostess for mortal sin and if by chance it give harbor thereunto to dislodge it presently for sins heaped one upon another by a dissolute deadness of confession make a savage and bruitish soul which seeketh nothing but to be freed from God though it be a matter impossible 2. Not to tast the blessings contentments or honours of the world with too much ardour they easily ensnare our affections and make the forgetfulness of Heaven slide into an insensible soul 3. To eschew curiositie principally in matter of religion as the canker of faith We must resemble the Cuttle a very wise fish who during storms fixeth herself firmly upon the rocks without motion amongst the floating thoughts which a dark cloudy conscience may suggest always to hold ones foot on the rock of S. Peter fixed and stable to trust the direction of the Church and not to forsake our hold It is the most palpable folly which Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere sed sapere ad sobrietatem Rom. 1. can creep into the brain of man to desire wisdom contrary to the wisdom of Saints which is humility 4. To exercise your self diligently in good works as prayers abstinencies frequentation of Sacraments and alms-deeds Faith is given to you as an inheritance of Heaven whosoever endeavoureth not to husband it looseth it The second OBSTACLE * * * Cautè hoc caput non nisi cum delectu adhibito legendum Errour in Religion Friendly and wholesom counsel to the Nobilitie of the pretended Religion AN heresie discovered is a face unmasked S. Hieromn the letter to Ctesiphon Haereses ad originem suam revocasse canfutasse Haereticorum sententias prodidisse superassi est Take away the vizard you disarm her pull away this semblance painted with hypocrisie wherewith she hath plaistered her face you sufficiently refute her you need but to know her to overcome her and when the head of her arrows are bare they have no more force Catholick Doctours have hitherto couragiously endeavoured to take from her this veil and adulterated colours yea even she at this time hath so favourably for you unmasked her self that a man must pull out his eyes if he will not behold her deformity in her rebellion justly detested by the sage and moderate of her own side And I beseech them to consider that this egge which they abhor is laid by the Raven that broodeth in their bosom and it is a great blindness to break the egges of the Asp and cherish the serpent which hath laid them Good and generous souls which yet retain some sparks of a French spirit do well see these proceedings are not according to Scripture which so severely recommendeth the honour of Kings and therefore they sound a retreat they fould up their ensigns freely confessing they have erred as men and protesting not to persevere in mischief like devils There are none but enraged spirits that will be healed by the experience of their own ill and bury themselves in their ruin wise men always make a medicine Optimum est aliena insania frui for themselves of others folly Go to then you who after so many voices from Heaven do still stagger and advise if you ought to return to the Romane Church which is the womb of your beginning and bosom of your repose give me leave that I may take this film from your eyes grow not outragious to what purpose should you stand quaking in these frightful agonies Exercise a little patience I do not doubt but you will bless the hand which layeth hold on you when you shall come to see the light I come not with sword in hand to put a religion into your heads with main force I come to you full of compassion of your misery full of affection for your salvation full of the desire of your ease of your contentment of your
various colours of the doves breast which one knoweth not how to distinguish See you not that this is to betray your own manhood What ought you to do to avoid this Obstacle First to enter into your selves to consider what passeth there to behold from what root from what source this tumultuary life proceedeth to take away the cause to suppress the effect To apprehend seriously the end for which man is created to bend all your sinews and arteries to arrive thither to use creatures as means and instruments of happiness by the way of use not fruition To purge the soul from sins which oftentimes raise this storm by a good general Confession and seriously cut off those passions which most seditiously assault you To accommodate all your daily actions by the advise of your Spiritual Father and to make a good resolution strictly to observe it as much as in you lieth To consider how many Pagans to make themselves eminently excellent in some facultie have determined of their own meer motion to be confined to caverns and shaved like fools for avoidance of company and retirement to that which they intended so did Demosthenes the Oratour why should not we to save our souls do that which he did to refine his language If any weakness occur after these good purposes not to disturb your self for it supposing constancy impossible because it falleth out you are inconstant to correct what is past to order what is present to prevent things to come and to fortifie your self even by falls The fifth OBSTACLE Dissimulation ONe of the greatest obstacles of virtue is for that man liveth in the world as on a stage perpetually with a mask on his fore-head every one would seem that which he is not and none will avow what he is Those which come nearest to God are the most simple because the divine nature is simplicity it self The most remote are the most double and palliated This simplicity the prime Simplicity the chief virtue of Saints virtue of Saints which hath guilded the face of the golden Age with its rays is so alienated from the custom of our times that not so much as the name thereof is known It is taken to be fopperie although it be the quintessence of prudence To be simple is to make the heart accord with the What it is to be simple tongue and hands It is to have in all your deportments a natural and genuine sincerity exempt from fraud from vanity and hypocrisie It is a thing almost as rare in Court as a white raven the mask is better beloved than the visage the resemblance than the essence opinion than conscience The most part of Courtiers are monsters with two tongues and two hearts few are there which take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Devise of Amphiaraus not Amphiaraus devise the quite contrary way who said he would be and not seem At this day in matter of virtue men better love to seem what they are not than to be what they seem It were a ridiculous vanity said Saint Gregory Nazianzen if Greg. Nazian in D. Iambie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Ant should take an Ape for a Lion and the poor Ape should afterwards fall into the throat of the Wolf it should be small contentment to be esteemed by this little creature a Lion in fantasie and to be devoured by this other beast in verity And yet notwithstanding corrupt depraved nature doth elect all her virtues and felicities in picture and punishments in essence I have much wondered at an ancient A rare medal of Mark Anthonie medal which Villalpand in his Epistle in the Frontispiece of his book which he dedicated to Philip the third King of Spain affirmeth to have fallen into his hands In this medal was seen on one side the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem with certain Hebrew characters much deformed with rust on the other side there was the figure of Mark Anthonie well engraven with this inscription Solomon This invention came from Herod a great flatterer of Roman Princes on whom he saw his fortunes depended and verily he followed Mark Anthonies standard while good success waited on his colours but afterwards beholding that all yielded to the victorious arms of Augustus Caesar he sought and obtained his favour by all possible subtile endeavours Howsoever he caused this beautiful medal to be made which gave to the veriest sot among Princes the name of the wisest amongst Kings and Mark Anthony who neither had piety nor religion in his soul beheld himself even willingly stamped in this coyn as the true Guardian and Church-warden of the Temple of God so much man affecteth the very shadows of good after he hath lost the substance At this day this passion outragiously predominateth even to furie in all places there is nothing but counterfeiting and affectations Hypocrisie reigneth in painting in habits The kingdom of hypocrisie hypocrisie is in complements hypocrisie is in businesses hypocrisie lodgeth in all ages all sexes all conditions hypocrisie goeth even to Altars Ambition avarice luxury and other vices although deeply rooted forsakes man when he forsakes himself it is onely hypocrisie which attendeth him to his grave and will sleep under his ashes so many golden lies are witnesses thereof which perpetually do enshrine carkasses Man is so made to seem what he is not and to dissemble that which he is so double and so replenished with mutable essences that he himself is deceived in himself and taketh himself for other than he is Men are not contented to corrupt their apparrel their language hair visage soul body sciences arts but they also will violate virtues the daughters of the Divinitie they dispoil them of their natural plumes to cloth vice If there be excess Counterfeit virtues of cruelty in the chastisement of some crime it is called justice if choler be predominant it is termed zeal if effeminacy of heart creep in it is entituled meekness prodigality borroweth the name of mercy niggardliness of good husbandry cowardise of prudence obstinacy of constancy inconstancy of facility and circumspection weakness of courage of humility pride of liberty laziness of tranquility disturbance of spirit of vigilancy precipitation of fervour dulness of good counsel and not to keep promise with any man is said to be equal with all men Saint Gregorie the Great excellently moralizeth Greg. moral 3. c. 22. Job 40. Sunt nonnulla vitia quae ostendunt inse rectitudinis speciem sed ex pravitatis prodeunt infirmitate Reasons against hypocrisie Baseness of this vice this in the book of Job where he sheweth that the most part of men are all gristle which hath the resemblance of bones but not the solidity of bones they have the appearance of virtue but not the firmness What remedy is there for this abuse deep-rooted in nature I will onely produce two reasons well worthy of consideration First that speaking to noble hearts it seemeth to me it is to produce
principally for the benefits received that day In invocation the light of heaven is required to know our sins and amend them In discussion an account is asked of our soul running through the hours of the day of thoughts words works and omissions In petition pardon of our sins is implored In the up-shot of all good purposes are made to correct ones self by the assistance of grace If you think to live in such purity that you may find nothing more to examine it is for want of light or application of mind Know there are six things ever to busie the most perfect in their examen The first to ponder the roots of our defects errours Six things in examen to employ the most perfect imperfections The second to see the remedies which may be given thereunto The third to distinguish true and solid virtues from those which are no other than virtues in apparence The fourth to pick out in all our works the intentions and motives which transport us and what the affections are which at that time govern our soul The fifth to see what wanteth of perfection in good works which we do and how they may be performed with the most accomplishment The sixth to compare our gains our losses our encrease our decrease in matter of virtue A particular examen is made when one undertaketh Particular examen to wrastle with one vice alone and to extirpate one sole imperfection For he that will sometime strike at them in gross resembleth the souldier of Sertorius Plutar. in Sertor who tugged at a horses tayl by strength of arm to pull it quite away Another more wise pulled it off hair after hair and so prevailed The like happeneth in our vices and defects He must pull them away by little threads who will effectually correct them Wherefore one riseth in the morning with a thought not to fall that day into such an imperfection and to oppose it in every place as some enemy which one would vanquish After dinner retiring himself apart he doth three things The first to ask an account of his soul of the relapses which have been made into this imperfection The second to note the number making so many pricks with a pen. The third to purpose to arm himself for the rest of the day After supper the like exercise is made and so one findeth out from day to day from week to week from moneth to moneth what profit is made There is no imperfection so deeply rooted which is not pulled away by the grace of God you remaining in the constancy of such an exercise The twelfth SECTION The practice of Communion ALl those who dispose themselves to a life more Christian know they have not a means more wholesom nor effectual to acquire and preserve the grace of God than the Sacrament of the Altar and for this cause it is fit both often and duely to have access thereunto But a beautiful looking-glass Communion without preparation what it is in a golden frame in the house of a blind man an excellent lute in the chamber of the deaf a goodly diamond in a truss of straw a honey-comb in the throat of a dead lyon what availeth all this The blind man seeth not the deaf heareth not the diamond sparkleth not the honey-comb nourisheth not And what profiteth likewise the blessed Sacrament in a faint languishing and indisposed soul Imagine according to that which the learned Eucharist the foundation of Paradise Rupertus saith that the Blessed Sacrament is the fountain of terrestrial Paradise which watereth the whole Church with its delicious refreshings All the faithful draw from thence but all come Three sorts of hearts not with the same disposition Some bring thither a heart of paper that is to say a childish heart which padleth in the water and no whit profiteth Others a heart like a sive that lets all go through and retaineth nothing but a little moysture The rest a heart of a sponge which is abundantly replenished with the favours and mercies of God If you desire to communicate fruitfully make a present to your celestial spouse who is pleased to feed among lilies of a lilie of six leaves There are six remarkable qualities Lilie with six leaves to communicate which must be had to accomplish this exercise Two before communicating desire and puritie Two in communicating humility and charity Two after communicating thanksgiving and renovation of the inward man by the oath of fidelity You must then endeavour from the eve of the day Desire you are to receive to make a furnace of desires in your heart that so you may say with the Prophet Jeremie I feel in my heart a burning fire which fixeth Jer. 20. Factus est iâ— corde meo quasi ignis exaestuans claususque in ossibus meis defeci ferre non sustinens it self even in my bones and the violence thereof is such that I cannot bear it Let us go to this sacred table as the thirsty Hart to the stream of waters as an hungry creature to a feast as the bridegroom to the wedding a thousand times desired as the covetous to a myne of gold as the conquerer to spoils Is not there matter sufficient to serve as a spur to your desires since there is our beginning our origen our treasure our sovereign good The mother of young Tobie sighing said My son Tob. 10. Omnia simul in te uno habentes non debuimus demittere te all our treasures our riches our honours our contentments our delights were in thy person and therefore we ought never to be separated from thee But it is verily in this subject we have true cause to speak these words All is in the sacred Eucharist the body the bloud the soul the life the humanity the divinity of Greatness of the Eucharist Jesus Christ all that which he hath derived from the Eternal Father all that which he hath taken from our nature he yieldeth us in this blessed Sacrament and doth as the bee who robbeth the flowers of his Masters garden to restore all again in honey All the perfections which our Lord hath conferred on his own Person are seasoned to us in this high and majestical mysterie as in a honey-comb It is an extension of the Incarnation of the Son of God He was once hypostatically united to one sole man but here he is united to all men as oftentimes as they receive him by a visceral transfusion of himself as one should melt one piece of waxe within another as saith S. Cyril And then who would not desire such an union of a Saviour so merciful with a sinner so miserable of a sovereign Physitian with a sick man so remediless of a King so powerful with a vassal so wretched of a Father so benign with a son so refractary May we not well say that they which tast not this celestial viand have their rellishes much dulled with the leeks
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
absence so troublesom that to avoid it you must torture your body vilifie your spirit and yield your reputation up as a prey to slander You shall no sooner put the wedge into the block but it shall be done you shall have a soul victoriously elevated over passion which shall rejoyce amidst the tropheys thereof The one and twentieth SECTION Against sadness HAve you never represented to your self the poor Elias lying under the Juniper tree oppressed with melancholly and saying to God with an effectionate heart My God it is enough take Reg. 3. 19. my soul I am no better than my fore-fathers This passion often happeneth in persons who are entered into the list of a life more perfect Anxiety crosseth them sadness gnaweth them melancholy afflicteth Sadness the snare of Satan them and Satan willing ever to fish in a troubled water serves himself with this disturbance of mind to make them return back again to the false pleasures of the world What remdy what practice shall we confront this mischief with Let us use Davids harp to charm this dangerous devil of Saul You are sad say you It much concerneth you to sound your heart that you may know from whence this pensiveness proceeedeth and apply fit remedy thereunto Sometime sadness cometh from an indiscreet zeal when one will of his own accord undertake austerities neither ordered nor digested by counsel He cannot find good success yet is ashamed to go back again which is the cause he is tormented between the hammer and the anvile Sometime it proceedeth from a great immortification Causes of sadness Immortification of passions which at the enterance into a spiritual life he beginning to pick quarrels with them put themselves into the field assailing and turmoyling the mind As it is said a little fish called the wasp of the sea in the dog-days stingeth and disquieteth the repose of other fishes It is perhaps as yet in your soul neither day nor night winter nor summer cold nor heat but good and evil struggle who shall get the upper hand and this war troubleth you Sometime it proceedeth from a great tenderness of heart and a passionate love of ones self It seemeth to a little girle who weepeth in the nook of a chamber that the whole world is interessed in her sorrow and that every body should bemoan her Nothing is like to her unhappiness her burdens are Tears of self-flatterers of lead and all others are as light as feathers or if you weep not with her she becometh the more melancholy and if you do sorrow with her she taketh a higher tone to deplore her grievances There is many times much niceness in our sorrows and oftentimes our tears are nothing else but meer fopperies From this self-love proceedeth vanity and complacence which serve us with worm-wood to season our morsels withal The man who is over-much pleased with himself Self-love necessarily displeaseth many and to gain too great a friend within himself he purchaseth sundry enemies without himself All things cannot happen to his wish and as good successes inebriate him with contentments so evil torture and immoderate contristate him Briefly bad melancholly often riseth Jealous eye from a jealous and envious eye The good hap of another is a straw in his eye which ever will trouble him if charity bring not her helping hand Behold here a lamentable mischief All the perfections of another are ours when we love them in another and when we hate them they are thorns in our eyes which extreamly torment us Have we not pain Parùm alicui est si ipse sis foelix nisi alter fuerit infoelix Salvian de gubern Dei lib. 5. enough within our selves but we must plant crosses in the prosperity of others Sound your heart and see whether your sadness proceeds from one of these five sources or from many of them together Take away the cause by the favour of Gods grace by the help of your endeavour courage and resolution you shall have the effect and enjoy a peaceable soul like Heaven smiling in a bright serenity My sadness say you cometh not from this occasion Would to God it were so You were already sufficiently happy if all I have said were not of force to make you sad From whence cometh it then From the accidents which befal me on every side and if nothing happen to me I am unquiet with mine own self If you think to live wholly without sadness Sadness a plant of our own growing you must frame a new world for your self Sadness is a bitter plant which groweth in your garden you must know at one time or other what tast it hath To think wholly to free your self is to make your self a King in the cards and onely to brave it in paper like the ancient Philosophers who had their hands shorter than their tongues Our Saviour was contristated in the dolorous garden watered with bloudy sweats to teach us the perfection of a Christian is not in being sensible of sorrow but to moderate the same with resolution The best remedy is that which Jesus Christ hath Remedies shewed to us to wit Prayer It is a wonderful contentment to speak to God and to tell him your afflictions Behold you not in a garden-bed how those poor tulips are shut up with melancholy under the shadie coldness of the night And you may well say the Sun within his rays beareth the key to open them For so soon as he riseth and courteth them a little with that eye which exhilarateth total nature behold they unloose themselves dilate themselves and witness their joy for the arrival of this planet The like happeneth to your heart it sometimes long remaineth benummed and frozen for want of having recourse to prayer Learn a little to talk with God by jaculatory prayers Learn to complain your self to God and to seek the remedies of your wounds in his mercies and you will find a great lightening and alacrity The second to have a spiritual Father or a discreet and faithful friend to whom one may unburden his conscience with all confidence and security The cloud how dark or surchaged soever it be in that proportion it emptieth it self cleareth and the heart unburdening its calamities in the ear of another becometh more bright and lustrous Thirdly some spiritual Fathers advise a discipline to suppress interiour sadness by exteriour sorrow But this remedy is not for all sorts of men Saint Hier. ad Rusticum Hypoâ—ratis magis fomentis quà m nostris monitiâ— indiget Remedies of Hypocrates Not to play the Timon Hierom is a better Physitian who ordained for certain melancholy men rather to use the fomentations of Hypocrates than to afflict their bodies and distil their brains in other practices You must take very good heed you make not your self a Timâ—n and hate men and life entertaining your self in hypocondriack humours which throw a mind into the gulf of disturbance God
strangers have had an ill report raised by occasion of their houshold servants who ministred matter of suspition either through excess of their bravery or their gentle garb and handsomness of proportion too lovely either for their age proper to wantonness or the vanity of a haughty spirit or confidence in the favour of their Mistress All that by prudence should be prevented which the world through malice may imagine I desire not to see about you a houshold Steward so spruce nor any servant who may savour of an effeminate Comedian no wanton musician the true instrument of Satan to poison your ear with his warbling Have nothing remiss nothing which may smell of the stage in your family but rather Quires of widdows and virgins to be an honour to your sex and to serve as a recreation in your most innocent delights Let the reading of godly books never be laid aside and let your prayers be so frequent that they may serve as a buckler to repel the fiery arrowes of evil thoughts which ordinarily assail youth Let virtue consummate the good which intemperance had prepared for it self Redeem virgins to present them to the chamber of the spouse Take care of widdows to mingle them as violets amongst virgins and Martyrs It is a garland you shall give to God for his crown of thorns wherein he bare the sins of the world It is very hard and almost impossible to cut away all the seeds of passions which we may call avant-passions because concupiscence sootheth our senses and insinuateth it self very subtilely but it is in the power of the will to dismiss or entertain them The God of nature said in the Gospel evil thoughts homicides adulteries fornications thefts false witness-bearings blasphemies Matth. 15. proceeded from the heart The spirit of man is more propending to evil than good from the first cradle of infancy and in this battel of the spirit and the flesh whereof the Apostle speaketh our soul is almost Galat. 5. 1. wholly floating and knows not to what part to incline No man comes into the world without bringing vice and ill inclinations with him and he is the best who hath the least evil and can preserve a fair body amongst many little infirmities The Prophet said he was troubled and that thereupon Psal 76. he held his peace He tells you one may be angry without sin like Architas the Tarentine who said to his servant I would chastise thee were I not angry which sheweth it was no sin but a simple passion for otherwise anger puts not the Justice of God in execution That which is spoken of one passion may be understood of another It is proper to man to be moved with choller and for a Christian to overcome choller So the flesh desires carnal things and by the itch thereof draweth the soul to mortal pleasures But it is your part to quench the heat of lust by the love of Christ and to conquer the flesh when it seeks liberty by the help of abstinence in such sort that in eating it may search for nourishment not lust and bear about the spirit of God descending into it with a firm and even pace Every man may be subject to passions which are common to nature We are of one and the same clay of the same element Concupiscence may as well be found in silk as in wool It neither fears the purple of Kings nor contemns the poverty of beggers You were better have the disease of stomach than will Rather let the body obey than the spirit and if you must needs make a slippery step do it rather with the foot than modesty not flattering your self before sin with pretence of a future penance which is rather a remedy of misfortunes than an ornament to innocents For you must ever defend your self from wounds where sorrow serves for remedy To Maids The thirty eighth SECTION The praises of virginity and the modesty they ought to observe in their carriage THe great S. Basil calleth virginity the perfume S. Basil apud Melissam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living God and I note from the thirtieth chapter of Exodus this perfume of God which is spoken of was composed of four ingredients to wit of Galbanum Myrrhe Onyx and Incense Galbanum is the juice of an aromatick herb as white as milk and which borrowing its name from milk figureth unto us the whiteness and purity of virginity Myrrhe it is mortification Onyx a kind of little oyster from whence issued a most odoriferous savour signifies its constancy and Incense in flames its patience in tribulations But as for purity I say reasonable nature hath engraven on the hearts of all mortals and namely maids so particular a love of integrity that souls the most prostituted to sin have ever had some remorse and feeling of the honour they had forsaken Should I prove this by a passage of Scripture or a Father it were the less effectual because it may be said chastity ought to be praised by such lips I will evict this verity from the confession of a Pagan to let you understand it is a voice of nature Behold a passage of Seneca whom I have ever much admired Senec. natural quaestion l. 1. c. 16. Est aliqua etiam prostitutae modestia illa corpora publico objecta ludibrio aliquid quo infelix patientia lateat obtendunt adeò lupanar quoque verecunâ—um est It is a wonder saith he that prostituted women still retain some modesty and that those bodies which seem not to be made but to serve as an object for publick uncleanness have ever some veil for their unhappy patience The infamous place it self is in some sort bashfull See the cause why there never hath been any people so loose and exorbitant which afforded not some honour to chastity convinced by their own conscience But we must likewise affirm it was never known to be true purity until the standard was advanced by Jesus Christ and his most Blessed Mother We find even among those who lived in the law of nature some shadows of chastity We have from the relation of Tertullian that one Democritus voluntarily made himself blind by earnest looking on the Sun that he might not behold the corporal beauty of women shutting up two gates from love to open a thousand to wisdom But what chastity is this I pray since himself confesseth he did it not for any other purpose but to be freed from the importunities of lust seeking out therein his own peculiar ends not the honour of the Creatour A Christian Champion proceedeth much otherwise He hath eyes for the works of God and none for concupiscence He pulleth not out his Tertul. Apolog Christianus uxori suae sâ—li masculus nascitur animo adveraùs libidinem caâ—us est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meliss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a O continentiam gehennae sacerdotum diabolus praecipit auditur nihil apud eum refert
Illud praecipuum â—t magis mores commendarent statum quà m statuâ— mores The greatest knowledge in the world is well to act your part It importeth not in what condition of life we are so that we discharge our conscience and the dutie of our places We must so use the matter that our manners may recommend our condition and not derive their worth from our dignities In the fourth place he used infinite care to maintain conjugal chastity in the lives of the married oftentimes shewing by pregnant reasons that lust (o) (o) (o) Luxu â—â— was a fire which burnt the garment of the soul and wasted mountains even to the bottom And because bravery is ordinarily the nest where dishonesty hatcheth he couragiously opposed profuseness in that kind using sharp reprehensions against women vain and dissolute in attyres One day amongst the rest he proved they were as in a perpetual prison loaden with punishments and condemned by their own sentence (p) (p) (p) Excess in apparel Hinc collum catend constring it inde pedes compes includit Nihil refert à uro cerpus oâ—eretur aut ferro si cervix premitur si gravatur incessus nihil pretium juvat nisi quod vos mulieres ne pereat vobis poena â—repidatis Quid interest aliena sententia an vestra vos damnet Hinc vos etiam miserabiliores quà m qui publico jure damnatur quòd illi optant exui vos ligari Lib. 1. de Virginib It is pity saith he to see a woman that hath upon the one part a great chain about her neck and on the other guives about her feet What matter is it whether the body be charged with gold or iron if the neck be alike bowed under a yoak and the gate bindred The price of your bands serves for no use but to give you cause to fear your torments Miserable that you are who condemn your selves by your own proper sentence yea more miserable than criminals for these desire nothing but their own liberty and you love your captivity In the end he much recommended charity justice government of the tongue flight from ill company and modesty in all deportments whence it came to pass that he wrote those admirable books of Offices which set out all Christian virtues with an eminent lustre The good Prelate was in his Bishopprick as the Pilot in the ship the soul in the body the sun in the world labouring in all kinds and having no other repose but the vicissitude of travailes The fourth SECTION His combates and first against Gentilism IT is time now that we behold our strong Gyant Evident danger of Christendom enter into the list against monsters for armed with weapons of light he enterprised sundry battails against Sects vices and the powers of darkness which sought to prevail I will begin his prowess by the encounter he had with Symmachus Governour of the City of Rome who endeavoured by his eloquence and credit to re-advance the prophane superstitions of Gentilism This combat was not small not less glorious for the memory of S. Ambrose with him that will well consider it the danger was very great for the name and design of Julian the Apostata as yet lived in the minds of many men of quality and of maligne spirits who had conspired with time to stifle Christianity making corrupt and imaginary Deities to re-enter into the possession of the world This Symmachus was the Ensign-bearer a subtile man well spoken and of great authority to whom the Emperours had caused a golden Statue to be erected with the title of The Prime man of the Empire both in reputation wisdom and eloquence and for that cause he promised himself he had power enough to set God and the devil upon one and the same Altar He practised to disguise Pagan Religion by his artifices drawing it from the ordures and bruitishnes thereof chanted by Poets to give it a quite other face and represent it with a mask which he had framed out of sundry Philosophers under the reign of Julian to render it the less odious And seeing the times favoured him by reason that after the death of Gratian a most Christian Prince Valentinian who was an infant under the guardianship of an Arian mother held the stern of the Empire he resolved therefore to fish in a troubled water and by surreption obtained certain Edicts in favour of Paganism against which S. Ambrose framed most powerful oppositions I will render you heer the two pleadings in those terms they were pronounced to confront the babble of a Politician with the eloquence of a Saint The understanding Reader shall heet observe two most rich peices of eloquence which I have rendred rather as an Oratour than a Translatour to give them the lustre they deserve I am desirous you may see in the Oration of Symmachus what a bad conscience can do which hath eloquence to disguise truth and how we must ever judge of men rather by their works than their words The Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger for the Altar of Victory exercise of Pagan Religion and revenue of Vestals SACRED MAjESTIES SO soon as this sovereign Court wholly possessed by Note that he feigneth Theodosius as present who knew nothing what had passed you hath seen vice subdued by laws and that you through your piety have tazed out the memory of passed troubles it hath taken upon it the authority which the favour of this happy Age hath afforded and discharging the acerbities long time retained upon the heart thereof hath once again commanded me to bring you its complaints in a solemn Embassage Those that wish us not well have hitherto bereaved us of the honour of your audience thereby to deprive us of the effect of your justice But I now come to acquit me of two obligations the one as Governour of the City the other as Embassadour As Governour I do a work which concerneth the Weal-publick and as Embassadour I present you the supplications of your most humble subjects Dissentions we have no more amongst us for the opinion All the Pâ—gan Senatours agreed not before upon this Embassage is ceased that one to become a great States-man must be particular in his opinions The greatest Empire which Monarchs may enjoy is to reign in the love and estimation of their subjects so is it also a matter intolerable in those that govern the State to nourish their divisions to the hurt of the publick and establish their credit upon the loss of the Princes reputation We are far distant from those imaginations for all our care perpetually watcheth for your interest and for that cause we defend the decrees of our Ancestours the rites of our Country and fatal happiness thereof as a thing which concerneth the glory of your age to which you gave a new lustre when you publickly protested never to enterprise any thing upon customs established by our Ancestours Behold wherefore we most
satisfaction of my mind but the establishment of my fortune Notwithstanding I have wholly left it through a most undoubted knowledge that we cannot resolve on any thing solid therein Judge you what you please but ever a well rectified spirit will be ashamed to profess a science not supported by reason and which knows almost no other trade but to deceive This at that time somewhat startled him but stayed not his purpose so much he loved to deceive himself and so much he resolved to find out this secret in the end But ever as he waded further not discovering firm land he found trouble in a barren labour and much vanitie where he to himself proposed some soliditie Nothing confirmed him so much in contempt of this folly as the discourse he had with Firminus a young man of eminent qualitie sick of the same disease that he was for the curiositie of Astrologie ceased not to incite him as being born of a father an Astrologer a man of honour but so curious that he calculated the very horoscope of cats and dogs that were whelped in his house yet so little had he profited therein that at the same time his son came into the world a servant of his neighbours being delivered of a male-child he foretold according to the rules of his art that both of them being born under one same constellation should run the like fortune which was so false that this Firminus his son being born of a rich family progressed far into the honour of the times whilest the son of the servant notwithstanding the favours of his goodly horoscope waxed old in servitude This young man who made this narration though convinced by his own experience still suffered himself to be beguiled with his proper errour so difficult it is to take away this charm by force of reasons Our Augustine by little and little dispersed those vapours both by the vivacitie of his own excellent judgement and the consideration of others folly He was likewise solicited to attempt a kind of magick much in request among the heathen Philosophers of that Age which was to seek predictions from the shop of the devil by means of the effusion of the bloud of beasts and sometiemes of children But God who as yet held a bridle on this uncollected soul and would not suffer it to be defiled with those black furies gave him in the beginning so much horrour upon all these proceedings that a Negromancer promising him one day to bear away the prize of Poesie in a publick meeting of Poets if he would assure him of a reasonable reward he answered that were the Crown to be given in those games of profit of gold wholly celestial he would not buy it by such kind of ways at the rate of the bloud of a flie Which he partly spake through some sence of pietie partly also by the knowledge he had of the illusion and barrenness of such sciences He was much more troubled about the Articles His Religion of Faith for though from his childhood he was educated in Christian Religion under the wings of his good mother S. Monica yet suffering his mind to mount up unto so many curiosities he had greatly weakened the sence of pietie And being desirous to penetrate all by the help of humane reasons when he began to think on the Christian maxims of Faith he therein beheld much terrour and abyss He came to this condition that not content with the God of his forefathers who taught him holy counsels and the universal voice of the Church he put himself upon masterie now wholly ready to shape a Divinitie on the weak idaeas of his own brain The Manichees at that time swayed in Africk who having found this spirit and seeing he might one day prove a support to their Sect they spared nothing to gain him and he being upon change it was not very hard to bring him into the snare This Sect sprang from one named Manes a Persian by birth and a servant by condition who having inherited the goods of a Mistress whom he served from a good slave which he had been had he remained in that siate became by studie an ill Philosopher and a worse Divine for mingling some old dotages of the magick of Persians with other maxims of Christianitie partly by the help of his purse partly also by an infinitie of impostures derived from his giddy spirit he made himself head of a faction protesting he was the holy Ghost His principal folly consisted in placing two Gods in the world the one good the other bad who had many strange battels The bodie as he said was the creature of the evil God and the soul a portion of the substance of the good enthraled in matter And following these principals he gave a phantastical bodie to the Saviour of the world esteeming it a thing unworthy of the Word to be personally united to the flesh which he held in the number of of things execrable Behold the cause why those who were ingulfed in this Sect made shew to abstain from meat and wine which they termed the dragons gall I do not think that ever Augustine fully consented to all the chymeraes of Manes which were innumerable but at the least he relished this Sect in the opinion it had of the original and nature of the bodie and soul and in many other articles even to the believing as himself witnesseth fables most ridiculous Great God! who thunderest upon the pride of humane spirits and draggest into the dust of the earth those that would go equal with Angels What Eclypse of understanding What abasing of courage in miserable Augustine To say that a man whose eye was so piercing doctrine so eminent and eloquence so divine after he had forsaken the helm of faith and reason became so abandoned as to make himself a partie of the Sect of a barbarous and phantastical slave who in the end for his misdeeds was flayed by the command of the King of Persia as if the skin of this man could no longer cover a soul so wicked Behold whither curiositie transporteth an exorbitant spirit Behold into what so many goodly gifts of grace and nature are dissolved Behold now the Eternal Wisdom besotteth those who forsake him to court the lying fantasies of their imagination A second obstacle went along with this extravagant A second impediment Presumption curiositie to settle him fixedly in errour which was the presumption of his own abilities an inseparable companion of heresie He that once in his brain hath deified crocodiles and dragons not onely adoreth them but will perswade others that he hath reason to set candles before them and burn incense for them It is a terrible blow when one is wounded in the head by his proper judgement whose ill never rests in the mean We come to the end of all by the strength of industrie Stones are pulled forth from the entrails of men the head is opened to make smoak issue
the deluge which after it had born the whole world in the bowels thereof amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of universal nature reposed on the mountains of Armenia So S. Monica when she so long time had carried in her entrails and heart a spirit as great as this universe among so many tears and dolours so soon as she was delivered of this painful burden went to take her rest on the mountains of Sion A little before her death beholding Heaven from a high window which opened on a garden she seemed there already to mark out her lodging so much she witnessed resentment and extasie towards her son Augustine who at that time made this admirable colloquie with her couched by him afterward in his Confessions The conclusion was that she said unto him My son I have now no more obligations to the world you have discharged all the promises of Heaven to me and I have consummated all the hopes I might have on earth seeing you a Catholick and which is more resolved to perfection of the life you have embraced When it shall please God to call me I am like fruit ripe and falling that holdeth on nothing Soon after she betook her to her bed being surprized with a feaver which she presently felt to be the messenger of her last hour Behold the cause why she being fortified with arms and assistances necessary for this combat took leave of Augustine and his brother there present affectionately entreating them to remember her soul at the Altar onely meditating on Heaven and neglecting the thought of the land of Africa which she had seemed at other times to desire for the sepulcher of her body And as her other son said unto her Madame my mother we as yet are not there we hope to close your eyes in our own countrey and burie you in the tomb of your husband this holy woman seeing this man would still tie her to the present life and divert her from cogitation of death which to her was most sweet beheld him with a severe eye and then turning her self towards her son Augustine Hearken saith she what he saith as if we absent from Africa must needs be further from God She often cast her dying eyes towards this son who was her precious conquest and who in her sickness served her with most particular assistances affirming that Augustine had ever been a good son towards her and though he had cost her many sorrows he never had forgotten the respect due to a mother Verily there was a great sympathie between the soul of such a mother and such a son which was infinitely augmented after this happy conversion and therefore we must give to nature that which belongs to it The child Adeodatus seeing his Grand-mother in the last agony as possessing the affections of his father threw out pitifull out-cries in which he could not be pacified And S. Augustine who endeavoured to comfort them all upon so happy a death withheld his tears for a time by violence but needs must he in the end give passage to plaints so reasonable The Saint died as a Phenix among Palms and they having rendered the last duties to her pursued the way begun directly for Africk Behold how the conversion of S. Augustine passed and though many cooperated therein yet next unto God S. Ambrose hath ever been reputed the principal Agent and for that cause his great disciple said of him (b) (b) (b) Aug. contra Julianum Pelagianum l. 1. c. 6. Excellens Dei dispensator quâ—m veneror ut patrem in Christo enim Jesu per Evangelium ipse me genuit eo Christi ministerio lavacrum Regenerationis accepi Ambrose is the excellent steward of the great father of the family whom I reverence as my true father for he hath begotten me in Jesus Christ by the virtue of the Gospel and God hath been pleased to make use of his service to regenerate me by Baptism Whilest stars and elements shall continue it will be an immortal glory to the Bishop Ambrose to have given the Church a S. Augustine of whom Volusianus spake one word worth a thousand (c) (c) (c) Volusian Epist 2. Vir est totius gloriae capax Augustinus In aliis sacerdotibus absque detrimento cultus divini toleratur inscitia at cum ad Antistitem Augustinum venitur Legi deest quicquid ab eo contigerit ignorari Augustine is a man capable of all the glorie of the world There is much difference between him and other Bishops The ignorance of one Church-man alone prejudiceth not Religion but when we come to Bishop Augustine if he be ignorant of any thing it is not he but the law which is defective because this man is as knowing as the law it self The eleventh SECTION The affairs of S. Ambrose with the Empeperours Valentinian the father and Gratian the son LEt us leave the particulars of the life of S. Ambrose to pursue our principal design which is to represent it in the great and couragious actions he enterprized with the Monarchs of the world Let us not behold this Eagle beating his wings in the lower region of the ayr but consider him among lightenings tempests and whirl-winds how he plays with thunder-claps and ever hath his eye where the day breaketh The state of Christianitie stood then in need of a The state of Christendom brave Prelate to establish it in the Court of Great-ones The memory of Jâ—lian the Apostata who endeavoured with all his power to restore Idols was yet very fresh it being not above ten years past since he died and yet lived in the minds of many Pagans of eminent quality who had strong desires to pursue his purpose On the other side the Arians who saw themselves so mightily supported by the Emperour Constans made a great party and incessantly embroyled the affairs of Religion Jovinian a most Catholick Emperour who succeeded Julian passed away as a lightening in a reign of seven moneths After him Valentinian swayed the Empire who had in truth good relishes of Religion but withal a warlick spirit and who to entertain himself in so great a diversitie of humours and sects whereon he saw this Empire to be built much propended to petty accommodations which for some time appeased the evil but took not away the root He made associate of the Empire his brother Valens who being a very good Catholick in the beginning of his reign suffered himself to be deceived by an Arian woman and did afterward exercise black cruelties against the faithfull till such time as defeated by the Goths and wounded in an encounter he was burnt alive by his enemies in a shepherds cottage whereunto he was retired so rendering up his soul in the bloud and flames where with he had filled the Church of God The association of this wicked brother caused much disorder in the affairs of Christendom and often slackened the good resolutions of Valentinian by coldness and
land of an enemy that the least disturbance should be given to Ecclesiasticks Behold you not here a life worthy of a French Cavalier Oh Nobilitie this man was not a petty Royster who makes boast to fight in a meadow but a souldier who during the wars with the English kept the field of battel three times thirty days together against those brave souldiers who would oppose him from whence he went out all sparkling with glory and wonders I would here willingly adde a Bertrand of Gueselin Count of Longuevil Constable of France whose life Monsieur Menard hath given us written by a pen of that ancient Age in old language you shall see a man who after he had solemnly dedicated in the offertory of a Mass his soul body and arms at the Altars fought six or seven times hand to hand exercised strange feats of battel and arms stood in the midst of combates bold and confident as in his chamber being otherwise furious strong and stout in the press You should see a man sage in counsels prompt in execution whom an enemy found near at hand when he thought him thirty leagues off A man in all things else free from fraud or dissimulation chearfull courteous obliging and liberal of his own employing his moveables and the jewels of his wife for relief of poor souldiers Then you may judge whether to be valiant you may live in the Court of a Christian Prince like a little Turk Where is your judgement and where your reason The fifth SECTION Against Duels I Do assure my self some will not forget to tell A condemnation of Rodomontadoes and Duels you that to be valiant men of the times you must be outragious in slanders in blasphemies in audacious words in duels challenges which are the mighty valours of this Age. Well then my souldier following this course you will learn to swear and blaspheme I speak not how great this crime is nor how much you render your â—â—ngue punishable in disposing it to this language of devils but I will say one thing which is very certain those which seek for glory out of vice have not alwayes been made eminently prosperous All you may doe in purchasing hell by these execrable oathes will bee to acquire the goodly qualities of a base clown And as concerning Duels I undoubtedly hold Authours of duels that if this infamous souldier who hath abused you were willing to speak the truth which his conscience will dictate to him he rather gives it you for an honest coverture of cowardice than for true valour The world is not so doltish as to measure courage by the model of Moors slaves and horse-boys who were the first executours of these but cheries How can you perswade us that a confused mass of these petty mutiners who have nothing else in their mouthes but these duels may be valiant men We are not so ignorant but that we well know courage never makes good alliance with servitude and effeminacy But the most part of this kind of men are servile spirits who submit to an infinite number of shamefull and tyrannical laws for a little smoak They are bodies withered with laziness who are Laziness many times entangled in their garters and stand in need to have rings for winter and summer to change according to the seasons They fear the lancet of Juvenal 1. l. 1 Satyr the Surgeon they crie out aloud for a sleight fever and will needs be tended like women in child-bed Imagine with your self what valour can be herein Were they beaten and stampt into powder in a morter a hundred of such like Rodomonts would not make up one half ounce of warlick fortitude But there is a little despair and rage which boyleth in a passionate heart to counterfeit virtue God forbid we should take chaff for gold hemlock for parsley or an Ape for a man We know valour by report of great Captains resteth in mature deliberation and coolness as in its true element When I behold one of these silly braggards who hasteneth to the field for a base fear of some shame or upon some liver-heat which tormenteth him I make as much reckoning of it as if I saw an angry hen Do you think Sichem was a couragious man for enduring to be circumcised for the love of Dinah My opinion is it was an act of much cowardice to permit himself to be cut with a razor in the most shamefull part of his body to please a silly female Jew who when it was done had great cause to turn this painfull sacrifice into scorn and laughter This poor Courtier to satisfie a wily wench for a foolish imagination of point of honour hasteneth to be cut in pieces in the field unhappy man he thinketh to marry Dinah and finds Proserpina he proposeth to himself a worldly glory that may rank him in the number of the valiant and meeteth a bloudy death which at one blow killeth body and soul Let me die if it be not the poorest thing to behold them in such adventures For if one did see them they would make those burst with laughing at their idleness who were willing to bemoan their misery I have drawn from this massacre such as were more amazed than a bridled goose and more ghastly than a dead man four days after his funeral taken from his sepulcher These silly creatures endured all this to make a wretched bruit run up and down in Paris that they were in the end beaten and had with so many cold sweats of deaths done that which their Lackeys who are somewhat more stupid would a hundred times with more willingness of heart have undertaken Behold you not who is worthy either of compassion or contempt Yet you flatter them with a pretext of courage which you enforce them to purchase at a costly rate When you applaud such actions and tell how brave a combate was performed behind the Charter-house and that both of them came thither with much resolution you are men guilty of bloud It should suffice you to have your judgements so dull in the estimation which ought to be made upon valour without rendering your tongues so tragical Their trembling swords would become very lazie to consummate the mysteries of furies if your words armed not despair to play out the rest of the game Perhaps you will say you know those who have fought duels who notwithstanding were valiant in Armies I deny not this I affirm not that a valiant man cannot fight a duel but I deny that he is valiant for fighting a duel David had been an adulterer and became a Saint but it is not for having been an adulterer that he was a Saint nor shall any one have the reputation of valour among understanding men for committing a crime For if this duel were ever an infallible mark of courage I demand wherefore have we seen those who have shewed themselves most importunate to provoke others to combat most fiery to hasten thither most
it were a prime virtue of your profession Believe me it is the worm which gnaweth all great actions the moth which eateth all the vigour of spirit the stain which defileth al the fairest ornaments of life the labyrinth which hindereth all generous designs the rock which wracketh all vessels the gulf which devoureth bodies and souls The wise Secretaries of nature have observed that Divers kinds of love all creatures which have the breath of fire have the tayl of a Dragon Nor likewise do we ever see carnal love vehemently enflamed but that it produceth some serpentine hydeous and disasterous issue I affirm fire penetrateth into the marrow of the total nature of the Universe but hath effects very different according to the subjects wherein it resideth It otherwise scorcheth in Heaven otherwise in hell otherwise in the bodies of beasts otherwise in sulphur and gun-powder and such like bodies able to receive its action It filleth the stars in Heaven with a flame full of lustre and honour It tormenteth the damned in hell it entertaineth the life of creatures it wasteth all bodies drie or oily to reduce them either into ashes or smoak Take my comparison and say with me there are lovers who burn as Heaven others as hell others as bodies well composed others as oyl and wood The first lovers have the ardours of Heaven who entertain chaste and spiritual love for things Divine These are pleasures which the jealous eye cannot espie the slanderous tongue cannot bite bad report is not accustomed to defame which equals have no cause to envie nor can Tyrants armed with horrour of so many torments find the means how to take it from Martyrs When we love God we find him every where we speak to him every where we serve him every where and every where we feel the services done to him have their recompence We talk to him as well in the whales belly as in the flaming furnace witness Jonas and the three children who found Chappels wholly built in the entrails of fishes and flames because the love of God the wisest architect of the world had framed such for them The second lovers burn as hell who live perpetually in stinking wicked and infamous concupiscences in dark extraordinary and desperate passions who are in sensuality as in an abyss fettered with a long chain of servitude never having any part of the air or light of the children of God The third are as bodies mixed who entertain conjugal honest and moderate amities such as are found in good marriages which are used according to God in all honour and sanctity Those of the fourth order enkindle one another as so many little bodies that daily minister fuel to the fire wasting spirit flesh and means in certain frivolous and giddly loves which after much use make men of vapour ashes and smoak You now adays shal find that affections purely conjugal are very rare and celestial loves much more but every where there are many men who burn like hell or pitch There are four sorts of love which have been great Four sorts of love enemies and still are to the reputation of a good souldier the one is the love of sensuality the other of fantasie the third of servitude and the fourth of fury On what side soever you turn your face assure your self Sir you shall find nothing beautifull in this ugly beast Love of sensuality which subsisteth onely in voluptousness Love of sensuality of body is a bruitish base and wandering love which is ever employed to spie out and trade for flesh having no other design but to satiate an unworthy concupiscence more unsatisfied than fire the abyss and hell If nature had created you some Mustapha to grow fat in a Seraglio that you had never heard speech of good or honour it were tollerable but to see a brave souldier well born and bred up to pass his life in laying snares for chastity to search out of both sexes such as make traffick of the sins of others to train up a wicked servant to be the messenger of your passions to promise swear forswear to seduce poor forsaken maids to cast them from necessity into disgrace and from disgrace into despair how can it be but abominable Think you the earth is made to be replenished with your sins and charities to be instituted to support your crimes It is idleness that serves as a store-house for your passions and it is your remisness which doth not so much as vouchsafe to seek out a remedy If you be resolved to lead such a life give up your sword for you dishonour it It is no reason that it alone should retain the virginity which all your other members have lost You cannot well serve two mistresses Venus and Bellona since they are so different And go not about to propose to your self that Sampson David and Caesar made them well accord together believe me when they came to be lascivious they ceased to be valiant It was neither with the looking-glass nor comb of Dalila that Sampson slew a thousand Philistines but with the jaw-bone of an Ass Whilest he preserved himself from women he was a sun and a thunder-blot a sun to enlighten his Nation a thunder-bolt to destroy the Philistines So soon as a woman had shaved him he of a sun became a coal of a thunder-bolt a vapour and of a man a lame jade who from the field of battel was sent to mill no longer having eyes but to deplore the disaster of his loves with tears of bloud When David in the list overthrew the Giant he had not then received the wound from Bath-sheba's eye But after he had seen her at the fountain his eyes ceased not to cast forth flouds and love dried up all his Laurels that they had very much ado to wax green again in the water of so many tears Hold it also for undoubted that Caesar being in the snows of the Gauls thought not of committing adulteries at Rome the business or war took from him all the taste of love and never did he submit to the imaginations of a beast till he retained no more designs worthy of a man Voluptuousness never acteth any thing great but hath destroyed all that is great And when God is pleased to overthrow Empires he chooseth souldiers who have chaste hands to chastise the effeminate So Arbaces vanquisheth Sardanapalus So Alexander who would not look upon Queens his prisoners but with an eye of chastity defeated the Persians bond-slaves to luxury So the Gothes gained the Empire of Rome as saith Salvianus God being willing to purge the earth which the Romans had defiled by the arms of a Nation more chaste than themselves it being reasonable that those should enjoy their goods who would have no share in their vices The love of fantasie is more sottish than malicious Love of fantasie or sordid There be Cavaliers who perswade themselves they are the bravest men of their Age
poverty that he with much straitness enjoyed the necessities of life Crispus having manured his spirit with learning very couragiously addicted himself to the exercise of arms wherein he very well expressed the Genius and dexterity of his father but with much more grace and sweetness For Histories assure us he was of visage most amiable full of attractives and admiration which made upon the minds of men so much the more impression as they were ingrafted in a singular modesty and a goodness so natural that no man could near hand behold it without affection O God what fury is there in dishonest love and how much did it disturb the house of Constantine If Lords and Ladies who give admittance to affections and thoughts unlawful did well consider the acerbities which attend this passion they would rather tear their hearts out with their nails than pollute them with such ordures It is not without cause what the wise Aristophanes hath said that love was banished So Simon the MagiciaÌ„ said that the soul of Helena had put fire trouble and jealousie among the Angelâ— but that taking from thâ— this object of concupiscence he had accorded them Phâ—â—astrius de haeres from Heaven as a trouble-feast and disturber of the repose of Divinities The truth is where this passion setteth foot it exileth from thence innocency and tranquility two the most precious pearls of life and and were there wicked loves in Heaven there would no longer be felicities Happy is that life which hath no eyes for those carnal beauties and is all eyes to preserve it self especially in the beginning from such surprizals The miserable Fausta wife of Constantine daughter of Maximian who had received good education in the house of her father and was of a very sensual humour even so far as to controle the devotions of her husband and pick quarrels against Religion which she would never embrace had in this disorder vehement dispositions sinisterly to admit the love which the beauty of Crispus might easily afford her This divine feature standing always as an object for the wanton eyes of the Empress enkindled so much fire in her veins that another flame must be found to quench it The children which she had by her husband were nothing to her in comparison of Crispus Crispus was in her heart Crispus in her thought Crispus in her discourse wherein she yet had some temper fearing to discover her passion Yet could she not forbear but say Crispus was the idaea of perfect men and the incomparable son whose worth and virtue would survive with the world It was much wondered how a step-mother should entertain so much good opinion of the son of her husband yet she having hitherto lived within the limits of honour it was interpreted all these affections were sincere and innocent Crispus who then thought not upon his own defence in a combat that was nothing but courtesie took all these favours as witnesses of a most unspotted amity reciprocally rendering to her much respect wherewith she shewed her self not a little troubled desiring he would treat with her in a more free fashion for love had already despoiled her of majesty Saint Augustine hath very well said that he who will punish an exorbitant spirit must leave it in its own hands to serve both as a scaffold and executioner to it self The unfortunate Fausta who had already given over-free passage to sin felt accesses of ice and fire of desires of affrightments of confidence and remorse Her conscience accused her in the bottom of her heart and ceased not to shew her the enormity of this fault when by the help of impudency she thought to have quenched these little sparkles of goodness which God soweth in the most forsaken hearts She knew not how or where to begin this pernicious design Crispus seemed to be too chaste his Christian religion made him in her opinion too austere his spirit was as yet too tender and not capable of a most powerful wickednes and although he should consent where may faithfull complices be found fit occasions and liberty to content an infamous desire The pain which ordinarily attendeth crimes the rigour of a Constantine jealous of his bed the infamy and apprehensions of punishments coming to fall upon her thoughts made her well to see both the abyss and horrour but passion transported her hood-wincked beyond all considerations so that one day taking her opportunitie she accosted the young Prince with words which sufficiently testified her a lost woman But he who would not at the first put her into confusion with modestie declined what she had said and interpreted it far from her thought She who would no longer appear a Lucrece being much troubled he should understand in a chast sense what she had spoken to an ill purpose unfolds her self so freely that the wise Crispus no further able to suffer this blushless spirit spake a word to her rough and hopeless That if she persisted in this infamous desire he would give the Emperour notice and thereupon flew from her like a lightening and withdrew leaving her in a despair and rage not sufficiently to be expressed All her love then turned into a diabolical hatred which suggested Love turned into rage furies and black thoughts resolving with her self to use him as as the wife of Potiâ—â—ar did Joseph She served her self with all the arms of grief which were at that time very natural to her ceasing not to weep and sigh before her husband as if she had afflicted her self for anothers sin yet had she so much cunning that she feigned to hide her tears and smother her sighs to render the disguise more dangerous by a pretext of modesty The Emperour seeing her in this plight asked the A wicked calumny cause of her sadness She answered it was fit for his Majesty not to know it He the more persisted to understand what she feigned to conceal pressing and interrogating her to draw her calumny from her with as much earnestness as one would a truth In the end she declared with many counterfeit horrours and words cruelly modest That his son Crispus would have enterprized upon the honour of his bed but God be thanked her faith inviolable put her under safety free from such dangers And that she demanded no other satisfaction from this miserable man who was fled but the remorse of his wicked conscience Constantine recommending silence unto her entered into a black and deep anger proposing unto himself that the retreat of his son was a note of his crime he determined therefore to put him speedily to death and for this purpose calling one of his servants the most trusty and best resolved for executions having under great oaths and execrations obliged him to secresie gives him express commandment to meet with his son Crispus as soon as he could to treat warily with him not affrighting nor giving him the least suspition and withal to fail not to serve him at his
which might slide into the heat of contention and guided all the affairs to peace In the end Arius Condemnation of Arius is condemned and a form of faith conceived for the equality of the Word with the Father whereat many Arians much amazed failed not to strike sail and yield themselves to the plurality of voices fearing least their contestation might ruin their reputation with the Emperour It is thought Eusebius the Historiographer was of this number a man of the time who knew how to comply readily with the humour of those who had authority and force in their hands As for the other Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia who had maintained the faction of Arius with much passion he saw himself shamefully fallen from the opinion of his great credit and durst not refuse to sign the doctrine of the Councel Greatly was he streightned in another Session to pronounce excommunication upon Arius his creature saying he was consenting to the decision of the Councel under shadow of some perplexed words which he made use of to cover his opinion The fathers shutting up their eyes to all human reasons and fortifying their arms against favour surprized this Eusebius and Theognis Bishop of Nice in the condemnation of Arius which they would not sign declaring them upō this refusal deprived of their Bishopricks They interposed the authority of the Emperour who suspended the execution on such condition that they gave satisfaction to the Councel Never were men more humbled namely Eusebius who thought himself the all-predominant for he was constrained speedily to retire and address his request to the Bishops in terms most suppliant in which he protested wholly to submit himself to the decrees of the Councel yet notwithstanding he spared not to embroil matters with an infinity of wiles and malice which made the Emperour open his eyes to confirm their sentence who had condemned him and send him into banishment with subrogation of another in his place though he afterward by ordinary submission was repealed At that time happened a marvellous labyrinth of affairs in which began the combats of great S. Athanasius which are to take up another S. Athanasius History besides this it extending much further beyond the years of Constantine As for the success of Arius after the banishment of ten years he still intermedling with factions found means to be heard in another Councel of Jerusalem where feigning a penitence artificially counterfeited he handled the matter so by the practises of Eusebius who was then in favour that he was absolved with commandment given to the good Alexander Bishop of Constantinople to receive him into the communion of the Church The holy Prelate stoutly refused it knowing well it was an hypocrisie which tended to annul the decrees of the Councel of Nice and bring confusion into the Church But Eusebius of Nicomedia ceased not to make armed inhibitions threatening that in case of refusal he would deprive him of his Bishoprick He who cared not so much for the loss of his dignity as the safety of the Church forsook all these subtilities of Theologie and exhorting his people to a fast of seven days by the counsel of S. James of Nisibis who was then present spared not to macerate his body with austerities and present to God day and night his humble supplications to divert this scourge In the end the affair being very shortly to be determined he prostrated his face against the earth before the Altar and said My God if it be true that Arius ought to morrow to be received into the communion of the faithfull I beseech you let your poor servant Alexander go in peace and not loose the faithfull people with the wicked But if you be resolved to preserve your Church and I may be assured you will do it look on the threats of Eusebius and deliver not your inheritance to the scorn of the wicked but rather take Arius out of this world lest we receiving him may seem to introduce heresie and impiety into your house The next day Arius went early in the morning End of Arius from the Emperours Palace very well accompanied with Eusebius and walked in pomp through the streets of Constantinople He was a man more subtile than confident and it is thought the apprehensions he had of the issue of this combat put terrour in him and this terrour caused him to step out of the way Behold the cause why being by chance in the market-place of Constantinople he retired into a publick place of ease to satisfie the necessities of nature Socrates holdeth he cast forth a great quantity of bloud and thereupon falling into a swoon not being able to be holpen he yielded up his wicked soul by a just punishment from Heaven leaving to posterity a perpetual detestation of his life with a horrour of the very place of his death Eusebius caused the body to be intrerred Alexander breathed again and all the Church triumphed upon the admiration of the judgements of God seeing that he who had raised so many bloudy tragedies was dead in his own bloud and after he had infected the soundest parts of the world with his poison vomited up his contagious soul in the publick infections drawing on his criminal head the execration of all Ages The twelfth SECTION The government of Constantine HAving shewed unto you the greatness of Constantine Constant 19. Constantinople erected in matters of Religion let us now behold it in his politick government It is no slight note of the vigour of his spirit that he enterprized to make another Rome and so prosperously to have perfected this his design There is found among the Gentiles a certain Epigram in the ruines of ancient Rome which said It stood in need of Gods to make it but there was but one God necessary to destroy it What may we say of the courage prudence happy success of the Emperour in the establishment of Constantinople We will not make him a God as the Pagans but say he was a man singularly assisted by the providence of God in the greatness of his undertaking He perceived in this new change of Religion there were in Rome many harsh spirits and that even among the principal whom he could not reclaim to Christianity as his zeal fervently desired Behold whether desirous to consecrate to God a place better purified from Idols where he might be served with more consent and better judgement or whether he were transported with the desire of honour and the memory of posterity he resolved to build a City which should bear his name and be as it were the master-piece of a great Monarch For this purpose he had some desire to build on the ruins of Troy the Great thinking the fame of the place renowned for its unhappiness through all the parts of the habitable world might contribute somewhat to the glory of his name but he having laid the foundations God gave him notice in sleep that this was not the place
but I pronounce you must so repress all motions which comhat against reason that they sparkle not in publick both to your own disadvantage and the ill example of those who behold you Philosophers have noted that thunders which stir about break of day are the most dangerous and you shall observe if a man in the first rays of his dignity early discover covetousness love hatred revenge avarice and other passions which much hasten to the prejudice of the publick and that the voice of the people be raised up as the roaring of thunder he looseth as much reputation as if he were already corrupted in mind Discretion will also shew you the way how to manage your dignity in a manner neither too harsh arrogant nor haughty but sweet affible and communicative and with it to retain an honest and temperate gravity thereby to villifie the character which God hath imprinted on those whom he calleth to charges and commands It was a pleasant mockery to behold those Kings of Aegypt appear daily in new habits with the figures of beasts birds and fishes to put terrour upon the people and give subject to Poets to make fables of Protous This affected gravity is not in the manners of Great men who naturally love nothing of singularity above others but the eminence of their excellent qualities Our spirits are not so base and childish as to be satisfied with semblances they desire some thing more solid and he is ever best esteemed among the wise who is more respected for the interiour than the outward seeming Discretion will discover unto you the conditions manners inclinations abilities and wants of those whom you are to govern and with a finger shew you the bent which way you must encline to lay hold of men It is at this day no small matter to mannage humours which are as different as they are incompatible The problem of the wolf the goat and the colewort is daily renewed If a ferri-man find himself much troubled to pass these three things severally from one side of the river to the other that the wolf may do no hurt to the goat nor the goat to the colewort in his absence what prudence think you must a States-man have to accord so many dogs and hares hawks and doves Saint Gregorie saith Paradise hath nothing in it but blessed souls and hell is filled with miserable but the world wherein we live containeth merchants very different You shall behold under your government a great number of simple innocent poor and afflicted creatures Think A notable practise given by King Theodorick to Cassiodorus Proprio censu neglecto sine invidiâ lucri morum divitias retulisti Et unde vix solet reportari patientiâ— silentium voces militaverunt tibi loudantium God hath principally created you for them open your heart with an amorous compassion extend to them the bowels of your charity stretch out affectionately to them your helpfull hands take their requests lend ear to their cries cause their affairs to be speedily dispatched not drawing them along in delays which may devour them strengthen your arm against those that oppress them redeem the prey out of the Lions throat and the Harpies talons For this it is that Kings Princes States and Officers are made To actions of this kind is it that God promiseth all the blessings of Heaven and admirations of earth For this sort of processes are crowns of glory prepared By this means a man diveth into the bottom of the heart and good opinion of people This is the cause that one hath so many souls and lives at command as there are men who the more sweetly breath air by the liberality wherewith they are obliged The greatness of man before God is not to replenish earth with armies and make rivers of bloud and to raise up mountains of dead bodies but to do justice to a poor orphan to wipe away the tears of a forlorn widow to steep in oyl as the Scripture speaketh the yoke of people which live on gall and worm-wood For not touching here any thing in particular we know that in all Realms of Christendom there are very many persons who sigh under necessities almost intolerable to the most savage and who daily charge eares with complaints and Altars with vows for their deliverance Now that we have a King so well disposed to justice and near his person so sage a Councel a Parliament so zealous for the publick good so many honourable men endowed with so sincere intentions when may we reasonably expect the comfort of people if not at this hour when miseries are eminent clamours piercing and dispositions very good Alas if there be any thing in the world wherein a great States-man may be seen to oblige the present and replenish the future times with admiration of his virtues it is in procuring the advancement of so holy an affair for which Heaven is in expectation and the hands of so many thousands of people are daily lifted upon Altars Such and so many Officers for not having had any other aim in charges but the accommodation of their own affairs have passed away like phantasms leaving nothing here behind them but ordure nor bearing ought with them into the other world but crimes They have found that the souls of the wounded Anima vulneratorum clamavit Deus in ul am abire non patitur have cried to Heaven against them and that God hath not let it pass without revenge as speaketh holy Job in the four and twentieth Chapter where he at large explicateth both the calamity of the poor and the chastisement of the rich who persecute them But all those who have constantly addicted themselves to the maintenance of justice and the consolation of afflicted persons besides the Crowns which they enjoy in Heaven live gloriously in the memory of men Their mouthes which are opened for justice after Regnantis facultas tunc â—â—ditior cùm râ—mittiâ— acquirit nobiles thesauros famâ— neglectâ— vilitate pecuniae Cassiod l. 1. Epist 16. they are shut up as Temples are truly worthy to have lillies and roses strewed on the marble which incloseth them and that their posterity may also reap the good odour of the virtues of their noble ancestours which hath made it march with up-rear'd head before the face of the people You on the other part shall behold travels and laudable actions which good judgement will invite you to recompence wherein you must shew your self generous and liberal For although virtue be always well enough payed with its own merit yet must we affirm it to be one of the greatest disorders which may happen in a State when in sowing benefits nought else is reaped but ingratitude and that to be capable of rewards one must become remarkeable in crimes On the other side there will be many defects presented that must be corrected which are either of persons very well conditioned fallen into some slight offence by surprize and
of pretious things received from the love of subjects The river which glideth along said he though it do no other spoil still worketh out its channel so companies of souldiers which pass through towns and villages though military discipline be there observed fail not to bring thither with them much damage and therefore it was his pleasure the places should be recompenced which had been overcharged For the same reason he appointed fifteen hundred crowns of alms to be delivered to the venerable Bishop S Severinus to distribute them among the peasants which he knew had been vexed with the harbouring of certain warlick companies Verily as it is no smal temerity in particular men who have neither any charge nor knowledge of affairs to argue great men upon tributes and the husbanding of their treasures so would it be a neglect to conceal from them upon occasions the moderation they ought to use herein since it is so exactly recommended by the law of God and published in all histories If a stranger raised from the bottom of barbarism shewed himself so Religious in matters of subsidies towards men whom his arms had newly made tributary Princes and Lords of Christendom have good cause to consider what they ow to a people which is given them as to Fathers and Protectours of the publick There is no doubt but the exorbitancies committed in such like affairs are most important charges of conscience which much clog a soul in the agonies of death and in the dreadful judgement of Almighty God There is also to be seen an Edict of the same Prince where having understood that in the payment of taxes the rich made the heaviest part of the burden to fall upon the shoulders of the meaner and that the undertakers of this business ill behaved themselves therein he detesteth all these abuses as injuries done to his own person and gave full liberty to those who had been wronged to complain to him that such order might be taken as he should judge reasonable This manner of proceeding made him so beloved that other Princes having passed away like dreams of one night he reigned thirty years in a most supereminent degree of respect which those even of the religion contrary to his own bare him The third Maxim given him by Boetius was to make himself most exact in the exercise of justice because it is the basis of thrones and the spirit which animateth all government and he so deeply impressed this in his heart that the desire he had to render every one what was his was changed in him to a most ardent thirst and a continual hunger He selected out the most untainted and uncorrupted Governours he could find and spake these words unto them related by Cassiodorus Use the matters so that Judges of Provinces may be very careful in the observation of laws that Tribunals spare not to thunder out sentences against ill manners that theeves may fear the gates of your Palaces that the a dulterer may tremble before a chast Officer that the forger may feel horrour at the voice of a Herauld and that all crimes may be banished from our territory That no man oppress the poor that persecutours be apprehended and pursued as disturbers of publick repose You shall make a general peace when you have beaten down the authours of mischiefs which are committed Let Cassioder ra◠l. 22 Mihipropria cura dilapsi est postquam generalem coepicogitare custodiam Opto mei◠benè sed quod possit esse commune Captains contain their souldiers in all manner of discipline in such sort that the labourer the merchant the sailer and the artificer may understand arms are not made but for their defence I will not likewise that my nearest allies be pardoned in any case of justice since I have taken the Common-wealth into my charge I have despoiled my self of my proper interests I wish well to mine but in the generality Pursuing the maxims I will recount an admirable passage which he used among others to make his justice remarkable A Roman Lady left widow by Manuscriptum P. Sirmundi Joannes Magnus Laurentius Venetus the death of her husband had lost a son born of this marriage who was secretly stoln from her and in servitude bred up in another Province This child grown up a young man received notice from a good hand that he was of free extraction and son of a Ladie whose name was given him her aboad and all circumstances which caused him to undertake a voyage to Rome with intention to make himself known unto her He came directly to his mother who was much perplexed with certain love-affairs having betrothed her self to a man who often promised her marriage yet never accomplished it This lover then absent and detained by urgent affairs very far from Rome the Ladie had the space of about thirtie days free wherein she kept this young man in her house acknowledging him and particularly avowing him for her son throughly convinced by evident tokens so that then her charitie was so great towards him that she ceased not to weep for joy in the recovery of her loss The thirtie days expired the Lover returned and seeing this guest newly come to her house demandeth of the Lady what man he was and from whence he came She freely answered he was her son He whether moved by jealousie thinking this might be but a colour or that pretēding the marriage of the widow he would not have a charge of children plainly told her if she sent not away this found child from her lodging never should she have any share in his affection The unhappy creature surprized with love to serve his passion renounceth her own entrals and readily banisheth from her house this son over whom she had so many tears The young man seeing himself as between the hammer and the anvil in so great a necessitie of his affairs hasteneth to require justice of the King who most willingly heard him and commanded the Lady should be brought before him to be confronted by him She stoutly denied all the pretensions of this young man saying He was an impostor and ungrateful who not contenting himself to have received the charities of a poor creature in her house needs would challenge the inheritance of children The son on the other side wept bitterly and gave assurance she had acknowledged him for her own very lively represēting all the proofs which passion and interest put into his mouth The King sounded all passages to enter into the heart of the Lady and asked her whether she were not resolved to marry again She answered if she met with a man suitable to her she would do what God should inspire her The King replied Behold him here since you have lodged this guest thirtie days in your house and have acknowledged him so freely what is the cause why you may not marry him The Lady answered He had not any means which ever is necessary for houshold expence
the Sacraments of the Church for this last hour knowing the cause wherefore they came beheld them with a confident countenance and said Perform your Commission boldly It is long since I knew that death alone must open the gates of this prison for me And having spoken this he contained himself some while in a deep silence recommending to God this last act of his life and consigning to him his soul which during this imprisonment he had so often whitened with his tears and purified as in a precious limbeck of eternal charities wherein all great souls are deified This done he went forward with a settled pace to the place of execution which the King would have very secret not to excite the people where seeing himself Behold here saith he the Theater which I have long desired I protest before the face of the living God and his holy Saints that I have ever had most sincere intentions for the good of the State nor am I culpable of any of these crimes objected against me If my innocencie be now opprest there shall come a better posteritie which shall draw aside the curtain and entertain the rays of truth O Rome O Rome would to God thou mightest â—e purified by my bloud and I to be the last victim sacrificed for publick safetie I will not now accuse him who condemned me desiring God rather may open his eyes to see the justice of my cause and the plots practised upon his own soul Behold the recompence I gain for becoming hoarie in his service but God is the faithful witness of all my actions and in his bosom is it now where I lay down my life my bodie my soul and all my interests There was but one poor gentle-man waiter that accompanied him in this passage who as he poured out tears near unto him Boetius earnestly beholding him said Where is your resolution leave these tears for the miserable and tell my father-in-law my wife and children that I have done nothing here unworthie of their honour and that they act nothing unworthie of me by bewailing me with plaints which would be little honourable for the condition of my death but that they rather take this accident as a gift from Heaven They well know I have ever told them it is not here where we should expect repose but in the place where I hope to prepare them a room These words spoken they proceeded to execution by the barbarous commandment given by Theodorick I have read in a very ancient manuscript from whence I have drawn some particulars couched therein that a cruel torture was inflicted on this holy man long time streyning a coard about his fore-head in such sort that his eyes started out of his head and that in the end they knocked him down with a leaver which I cannot think to be probable seeing all other constantly affirm his head was cut off by the hand of a hangman and Martianus who most eloquently wrote his life addeth that by miracle he some space of time held his head in his own hands like another S. Denys until he gave up the ghost before the Altar of a Chappel very near to the place of his execution His bodie was interred in the Church of Saint Augustine to whom he had a particular devotion and his name put among the Martyrs as Baronius observeth because he died partly for the defence of the Catholick Church against the Arians The place of his imprisonment hath been preserved as a great monument of piety his tomb honoured with verses such as that time could afford where among other things this title is given him BOETIUS IN COELO MAGNUS ET OMNI PERSPECTUS MUNDO The King stayed not a whit after this to put Symmachus his father-in-law to death and to confiscate all the goods both of the one and other which was a very lamentable thing yet notwithstanding the couragious Rusticiana bare the death of her father and husband with so great constancy that she deserved to draw all succeeding Ages into admiration for she spake most freely to the King reproching him with his disloyalty and honoured these two eminent souls as Saints much offended with her self if at any time nature won tears from her eyes as judging them too base to be sacrificed to so flourishing a memory The vengeance of God slackened not long to fall Procop. lib. 4. upon the guiltie head of Theodorick for few days after this act as he continually lived in the representations of his crime his imagination was so troubled that being at the table when they came to serve up the great head of a fish he figured to himself it was the head of Symmachus the last of all butchered and although much endeavour was used to remove this fantasie from him it was impossible to give remedy but he rose from the table like a man affrighted crying out murder and felt instantly such a quaking over all his body and besides such convulsions in all his members that he must needs presently be carried to his bed where he was visited by his Phisitian to whom he complained with much horrour that he had shed bloud which would perpetually bleed against him The feaver and frenzie carried him hence into the other world where he had a marvellous account to make of whom we know no more particulars yet Saint Gregorie witnesseth that he learned from the mouth of a man Greg. l. 4. 30 worthy of credit that the same day he died at Rome certain honourable persons being at Lipari a little Island of Sicilie in the Cell of an Hermit who lived in the reputation of great sanctitie he said unto them Know ye that King Theodorick is no more They replying Nay not so we left him alive and in health Notwithstanding saith he I can well assure you he died to day in Rome and which is more is judged condemned and thrown into the store-houses of subterranean fire which we here call the Cauldron of Vulcan And it was a Olla Vulcani strange thing that they being returned to Rome understood the death of this wretched King to have been at that very time told by the Hermit which was held for a most manifest judgement of God and made all those to tremble who heard the relation thereof Athalaricus his grand-child by his daughter although an infant succeeded to his estates under the regency of his mother Amalazunta who restored all the goods had been confiseated to the widow that lived afterward until Justinian got the Empire from the Goths by the means of Bellasartus at which time she made all the images and statues of Theodorick to be broken causing also another process to be framed against him after his death Alas great God who governest the state of this Universe and makest the pillars of Heaven to shake under thy foot-steps what is man who will practise wiles in a matter of policie contrary to thy eternal Maxims How hath this wretch ended
your Baptism which blotteth out all sins according to your maxims I were no sooner washed but I should fear to plunge my self again into an infinity of occasions which might dayly present themselves to my understanding Then would you threaten me with the judgement-day and Hell with terrours able to over whelm my mind Consider whether it would not be more to the purpose to let me persevere in my Sect therein performing all the good I may Can you think that for all this I should be excluded from the mercy of God who will save all men The wise Clotilda replyed thereunto Sir I beseeth your Majesty not to flatter your self with this specious title of mercy for there will be none in the other world for those who have performed it in this without profit Now is the time that God spareth not to stretch out his arms for your obedience if you despise him you will loose him without recovery One can never do too much for eternall life and whatsoever we suffer Paradise may still be purchased at a good penny-worth Alas Sir why do you find so many difficulties in our Religion Think you God doth wrong in desiring to make you believe things which you cannot conceive by humane reason It is he who hath made the soul of man and who accommodateth all the wheels thereof nor is there any one of them which moveth not at his pleasure What marvel is it if man offer the homage of his understanding to God If weakness submit to strength littleness to greatness the finite to the infinite that which is nothing to him who is an abyss of essence goodness wisedom and light If you make a promise to any of your servants although it be unreasonable and almost incredible yet would you have him to believe it without reply and that he take no other ground for this belief but the greatness and infallible word of your Majesty One man exacteth faith of another though both of them are but earth and dust and you think the Sovereign Creatour of Heaven and earth is unjust to make us believe that which our bruitish senses cannot comprehend Is this the submission and obedience we ow Eternal Truth Why should not I believe that three are but one that is to say three persons one onely God since I dayly find my memory understanding and will make but one soul Wherefore should we scorn to adore a Crucified man The Cross is so far from weakening my belief that there is not any thing which more confirmeth it For if the Saviour of the world had come as your Majesty to the conquest of the universe with legions horses treasures and arms he should in my opinion retain that esteem which great Captains hold but when I consider that by the punishment of the Cross he hath reduced the whole world under his laws and planted the instrument of his excessive dolours even on the top of Capitols and the heads of Monarchs I affirm that all is of God in such an affair since there is nothing in it of man Alas Sir if you have a faithful servant who would suffer himself to be tormented and crucified to make you Master of a rebellious Fort would not you find more glory in his loyalty than ignominy in his torments And think you if the Eternal Wisdom having taken a humane body and voluntarily exposed it to extream rigour to wash our offences in his bloud and subdue the pride and curiosities of the earth to the power of Heaven it hath done ought therein reprehensible Have we not much more cause to adore the infinite plenty of his charities than to dispute upon honours which onely consist in the opinion of the world I beseech your Majesty figure not to your self our Religion as an irksome and austere Law when you have submitted to the yoak God will afford you so much grace that all these difficulties which you apprehend will no more burden you than feathers do birds And although it should happen you after Baptism fall into some sin which God by his grace will divert the bloud of Jesus Christ is a fountain which perpetually distilleth in the Sacraments of the Church to wash away all our iniquities Sir I fear least you too long defer to resign your self to the many advertisements which you have received from Heaven If you weigh the favours that God hath done to your Majesty having set a Crown on your head at the age of fifteen years having preserved you against so many factions defended you from so many perils adorned you with so much glory honoured you with so many prosperours successes you shall find he hath reason to require at this time from you what he demandeth of your by my mouth What know you whether he have chosen out yâ—â—r person to make you a pattern to all other Kings and constitute you such in France as Constantine hath been in the Roman Empire which will render you glorious in the memory of men and happy in Heaven to all eternity Verily Sir if you yield not your self up to my words you ought to submit to the bloud of so many worthy Martyrs who have already professed this faith in your Kingdom you ought to submit to so many great Confessours as knowing as Oracles of as good life as Angels who denounce truth unto you You ought to submit to miracles that are every day visibly done at the Sepulcher of great S. Martin which is an incomparable treasure in your Kingdom Sweet-heart answereth the King say no more you are too learned for me and I fear least you should perswade me to that which I have no desire to believe and although you had convinced my soul to dispose it to this belief think you it would be lawful for me so soon to make profession of your faith You see I am King of an infinite people and have ever at my commanda great Nobility who acknowledge no other Gods but those of the Country Do you believe that all spirits are so easy to be curbed and that when I shall go about to take a strange God will it not make them murmur and perhaps forge pretexts to embroil something in my Kingdom For Religion and the State are two pieces which mutually touch one another very near one cannot almost stir the one without the other the surest way is not to fall upon it and to let the world pass along as our predecessours found it Clotilda well saw this apprehension was one of the mainest obstacles of his salvation and she already had given good remedy thereunto practising the dispositions of all the greatest of the Court. Behold the cause why she most stoutly replyed thereunto Sir it is to apprehend fantasies to form to your self such imaginations You are a Prince too absolute and too well beloved to fear these commotions but rather much otherwise I assure you upon mine honour your people are already much disposed to receive our Religion and your Nobility
there so ill intreated that he more hastily returned than came thither laden with confusion and in short time heard the discomfiture of his Armies and victory of the Jews whereupon he entered into so desperate sury that he resolved to retire hastily again to Jerusalem and to make of the whole Citie but one tomb But the hand of God had already designed his for Joseph Ben Gerion it happened being in his coach his horses frighted extraordinarily upon the meeting and roar of an Elephant gave him so boysterous a stroke that thrown on the ground he received a mortal wound the fire and venom whereof crept so far into his hurts that he seemed to burn alive like the damned feeling inexplicable dolours throughout all his body which became a nest of vermin and having his soul turmoyled with Specters and Furies that gave him no repose At which time the miserable Atheist coming to himself after a drunkenness of so many years spake these words JUSTUM EST SUBDITUM ESSE DEO ET MORTALEM NON PARIA DEO SENTIRE professing there was a Great God to whom we must submit and never with him contest when being in the bed of death he acknowledged impiety had been the original of al his evils and that should God restore him to his health he would fill Jerusalem with gifts and wonders even to the becoming a Jew and ever proclaim the glory of the Creatour But the gates of mercy were already shut up against this disloyal man who had no true repentance his hour was come which made him die all wasted with putrefaction insupportable to his Army who could not endure the stench troublesom to himself and execrable to the memory of all mankind The Prophets and holy Fathers mention him as a damned soul and the figure of Antichrist to teach the wicked out of the deportment of this man that there is not any one withdraws from God but flies from his mercy and falls into the hands of his justice which pursueth Libertines beyond the gates of hell III. MAXIM Of the Excellencie of the DIVINITIE THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That Great men are Gods on earth whose favours we should adore That all greatness is wretched before the Majesty of God who alone is to be adored THere is not any thing hath more perplexed Divers opinions of the Divinity the minds of men since the beginning of the world than the diverse opinions of the Deitie since the wisest when they had spent all their abilities upon this question found nothing more certain than uncertainty One would wonder why the knowledge of the true God being so important for man hath been so many Ages obscured and covered in a great abyss of darkness even from those who thought themselves the most clear-sighted in the knowledge of total Nature But who sees not it is an evident punishment for sin and a most just effect of Gods vengeance who hath permitted truth to be hidden from man because man would conceal himself from truth even in the shadow of death and nothing They vanished in their thoughts said Evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis obscuratum est insipiens cor eâ—rum Rom. 1. God in this life handleth the wicked as the damned the Apostle and their senseless hearts were obscured But that which herein is very considerable is that God hath ever handled wicked men like the damned for the unhappy souls condemned to hell have an idaea of the beatitude they have lost which serves for an executioner And infidels after shipwrack of faith and truth which they abandoned fail not still to retain an opinion of the excellency of the Divinity not knowing what it is nor why they should stick to it It was that wherein Plinie esteemed men more miserable than beasts For creatures not made for the knowledge and fruition of a God are troubled at nothing nor make any question thereupon contenting themselves peaceably to enjoy innocent favours of Nature but the curiosity man hath had through all Ages to be informed of the state of the Sovereign cause is a strong conviction of his infidelity He findeth himself obliged to seek into the knowledge of God which as saith Tertullian is the first vesture of the soul but this knowledge flieth him so long as he renounceth faith innocency and reason the prime pieces of the intellectual life From thence grew the great diversity of gods heaped Diversity of Gods Plin. l. 2. c. 7. one upon another by the Gentiles For poor humane nature overwhelmed partly by the greatness of this sovereign Essence partly also clouded by its own ignorance misery and sin being unable to understand a God most Onely and Simple with one sole touch of the soul hath made an impertinent dissection of it dividing it into as many parts as there are errours on the Altars of Gentiles whilest every one sought to adore that which most flattered his imagination or sensuality They who were more spiritual have deified virtues as Chastity Concord Intelligence Hope Honour Clemency and Faith Other more absurd have tied themselves to the worship of creatures as the Aegyptians Some who questionless were sottish have framed gods in humane shape some old others young and many perpetually infants They have made them male and female black white winged and deformed They made some to rise out of a wind others from the sea and divers from rocks They who were more fearfull and superstitious adored the feaver and tempests not for esteem of their worth but through horrour of their malignity They ware their gods shut up in rings and many times submitted to monsters denying themselves repose and repast to satisfie their superstition It is the misery which S. Augustine deplored in his Citie of God after Plinie the Historian and other Authours who handled this subject But such as amidst this great obscurity of Sects God of flatterers thought themselves more gentile and refined in conversation taking other ways and leaving old superstitions began to canonize Emperours Princes and the Great-ones of the earth saying There were no Divinities more visible and propitious than these seeing they daily became the distributours of glory and worldly fortunes The Athenians who vaunted to Remarkeable punishment of flattery Senec. Suasor 1. have the most subtile wits of the earth quickly suffered themselves to fall into such like flatteries whereof we have a very notable passage in Seneca who telleth us that Mark Anthonie being a Prince extreamly dissolute was instantly called god Bacchus by his flatterers and soon came to such shameless impudence as to suffer this title to be engraven upon his statues Behold the cause why entering into the Citie of Athens all the men of quality marching before him and desirous to be acceptable with him both through humour and affection of favour they failed not to introduce him with the title of Bacchus nay willing to over-value him above other people they added the hearty offer of
1. dist 41. Manifest reason the will of God could not be unjust and that praedestination proceeded besides the grace of God by most secret merits which were discovered to this divine eye that discerneth all the actions of men 4. Is there a soul so replenished with contradiction which averreth not That what God doth in a certain time he determined to do it in his eternity Now Faith teacheth us he in that time by him determined rendereth life eternal to the just for reward of their merit as himself pronounceth in S. Matthew (c) (c) (c) Matth. 25. Answer to objections And therefore it is necessary to confess God before all Ages was resolved to give the Crown of glory not indifferently but in consideration of good life and laudable virtues And for this it is to no purpose to say the end of our intentions goeth before the means whereby some infer God first decreed beatitude which is the end then considered good works which are the address to this end For I answer when the end possesseth the place of salary as this here doth the merit is always presupposed before the recompence And although the Master of a Tourneament wisheth the prize to one of his favourites yet his first intention is he shall deserve it by his valour God taketh the like inclinations in this great list of salvation he wisheth all the world palms but willeth it to them who well know how to make use of the helps of his grace Thus the most ancient and gravest Fathers of the The doctrine of the most ancient Fathers concerning praedestination Church thought this sentence they agreed on before the impostures of Pelagians in the golden Age of the Church through a most purified ray And to this purpose Tertullian said (d) (d) (d) Tertul. de resur carnis Deus de suo optimus de nostro justus God who is very good of his own was ever just of ours And S. Hilarie said most perspicuously (e) (e) (e) Hilar. in Psal 64. Non res indiscreti judicii electio est sed ex delectu meriti discretio est That Election was not an effect of judgement indiscreet but that from the choice of merit proceeded the distinction made for glorie S. Epiphanius expressed the like opinion That there was no exception of persons in the proceeding of God but that it passed according to the merit or demerit of every one Behold what we may gather from the soundest tradition of the Church (f) (f) (f) The second point of reasons That God is glorified in that he hath our works for praedestination to glory But if we now weigh the second Article whereon we insist which is the glory of God it is an easie matter to see this opinion which appropriateth a certain fatality of divine decrees without other knowledge of cause agreeth not with this immense bounty of God nor the sincere will he hath to save all the world It is not suitable to his justice nor to his promises or menaces he makes to virtues or vices besides it tormenteth minds weakens the zeal of souls and throweth liberty and despair into manners Why should not a miserable reprobate have cause The complaint a Reprobate may make hereupon to say Ah my Lord where are the bowels of goodness and mercy which all pens testifie all voices proclaim and laws establish Is it then of honey for others and of worm-wood for me How cometh it to pass without any knowledge of merit you drew this man from the great mass of corruption to make him a son of your adoption a coheir of your glory and have left me as a black victim marked with a character of Death What importeth it me that in this first choice you made you did not condemn me without knowledge of cause to think no good for me was to think ill enough for me Was I then able to row against the torrent of your power Could I intrude into your Paradise which you have fitly disposed like the Halcyons nest whereunto nothing can enter but its own bird You have built your Palace of a certain number of chosen pieces in such sort that the account thereof being made and proportions valued one small grain might not be added to encrease the number What could I do in this dreadfull exclusion but accuse your bounty and deplore my unhappiness Behold what a reprobate soul may object and Aug. de verbo Apost ser 11. Si posset loquipecus dicere Deo quare istum fecisti hominem me peculem Answer to objections Glossa in Danielem it were bootless to answer that a bruit beast might complain in this fashion that God had not made it a man or the like might be alledged for infants who die without Baptism For as concerning beasts nothing is taken from them rather much given when from nothing being and life is afforded them with contentments of nature and as for little infants they endure no evil and are no more disturbed to be deprived of the sight of God than was Nebuchadnezzar for the Scepter of Babylon when he in his infancy was bred among shepheards thinking himself the son of a Peasant and wholly ignorant of his Royal extraction But to say A man who dies at the age of discretion and is delivered over to eternal flames was condemned by God without any other fore-sight of his works is it not a cruelty not worthy of ought but Calvinism as if a father might be excusable in marrying one daughter richly and cutting the others throat to set her on a pyle He who would judge wisely must flie the very shadow of an opinion so damnable and all which may seem to favour it 6. Now as concerning the Doctrine which establisheth The fruits of Gods glory derived from our Maxim Praedestination upon grace and prevision of good works it seems to stretch far towards the point of Gods greatest glory It discovereth us his science in attributing unto him an infinite survey over all the actions of Adams children before all Ages by which it seasonably fore-saw all that was to be done by all particulars in so great a revolution of times It in an instant affordeth us this most innocent knowledge seeing we learn by the same way that the prescience which God hath of our works is no more the cause of our happiness than my memory of the fireing of Rome which happened under Nero or than mine eye of the whiteness of snow and fresh verdure of meadows by its simple aspects Nothing happeneth because God fore-saw Qui non est praescius omnium futurorum non est Deus Aug. de civit Dei l. 5. c. 9. it but God fore-saw it because it should so happen by motion of our free-will and not by the laws of necessity Moreover the Justice of the great Master is very eminent in this action for we do not say he works at random and seeks to make boast
Heirs of this Royal Line to death to satisfie his ambition and content his tyranny Who dictated to the Prophet Daniel (a) (a) (a) Dan. 9. 26. that after the Edict of King Artaxerxes granted in favour of the re-establishment of the Temple there should be seventy weeks to the birth of Christ that is to say the space of 490. years which was found true by calculation of the best Historians Who made the Prophet Aggeus speak with this thundering majesty Agg. 2. and worthy the lips of the God of Hosts WITHIN A SHORT TIME I WILL MOVE HEAVEN EARTH AND SEA THE DESIRED BY AL NATIONS OF THE WORLD SHAL COME AND I WIL REPLENISH THIS HOUSE WITH GLORY Was it not the same Spirit which afterward wrought those great mysteries we see who then shewed them to his faithfull servants It is he who guided the pen of Isaiah when he proclaimed the Messias should Isaiah 7. be born of a Virgin he who revealed to the Prophet Micah this birth should happen in Bethlehem Micah 5. he who opened the eyes of Zacharie to see him in the Zach. 9. triumph he afterwards made in Jerusalem he who deciphered to David all the particularities of his passion Psal 2. in the second Psalm This great consent of Prophets without design or art astonished the Jews who had the Scriptures in their hands and could reckon up all the versicles of their Bible They well saw it was the uncontroulable voice of Prophets but their vanity had so blinded them that they rather wished to have no Messias than to acknowledge him poor according to the world although his very poverty had been reckoned by the Prophets in the number of his greatnesses 3. Perhaps it will appear to be less strange that the Strange testimony of Gentilism Hebrews who were a chosen people had so many revelations touching the Word of God But who will not be rapt with admiration to consider the words which the wisest the greatest and most glorious of Gentilism left to posterity concerning this mystery I speak not of Trismegistus of Pythagoras of Numenius nor of others whose writings may be called in question I speak of Plato Aristotle Cicero How came that into Plato's mind which he so eloquently afterward couched in the fourth book of his laws to wit (a) (a) (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato l. 4. de legibus That God should be to men the rule and measure of all things and principally if it were so or ought to be so in any part of the world that there were a Man-God From whence think you came it that Aristotle who proceeded so advisedly in all his Maxims let this word fall (b) (b) (b) Non esse Diis immortalibus indecorum hominis induere naturam quo ab erroribus sevocentur mortales Caelius refert l. 17. c. 34. That it was no unbeseeming thing for the Gods immortal to revest themselves with humane nature to destroy the errours which were crept into the world Who suggested to Cicero one of the wisest Politicians that ever was amongst men what he wrote in his Book of a Common-wealth (c) (c) (c) Cicer. l. 3. de Rep. Nec erit alia lex Romae alia Athenis alia nunc alia posthac sed apud omnes gentes omni tempore una lex Deus ille legis hujus inventor disceptator lator c. Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alâ—c Te duce siqua manent sceleris vestigia nostri irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras Virgil. That the time would come there should be no other law at Rome than at Athens but that amongst all Nations and in all times there should be one same eternal and immutable law one common Master and Emperour over all which should be God himself the inventour teacher and introducer of this law and that he who obeyed him not should flie from himself as a despiser of his own nature But in this alone that he would not obey he were grievously chastised although he might escape all other punishment It were a thing superfluous to alledge here the verses of the Sybils which it is known were so express that many of the principal of the Gentiles were converted to Christianity by reading the testimonies these divine women rendered of the Word Incarnate We all likewise know God to make this argument the more visible permitted a little before the Nativity of our Saviour that Virgil the most eminent of all Poets composed that his excellent work where he expresseth in Latin verse the conceptions of Sybilla Cumaea and speaketh plainly of a child which should be sent from Heaven to pardon the sins of men and fill the earth with blessings And to shew this was not alone in the minds of particulars we read that towards the reign of Augustus Julius Marathus foretold Nature should bring forth a King for the worlds Empire Which so amazed the Senate according to the relation of Suetonius (d) (d) (d) Sueton. in Aug. 54. the Historian that they forbade to breed up children which should be born within the time this South-sayer had prefixed Doth not Josephus (e) (e) (e) Joseph l. 7. c. 11. de bello Judaico also make mention of the prediction which said Nations come from Judea should become Masters of the universe The Romans understood not this language but applied it some to Augustus others to Vespasian until such time as truth drew aside the curtain and made the accomplishment of these predictions perspicuously appear in the Person of our Saviour Nay not so much as Porphirie yea Mahomet and Porphyrius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 devils but give some Elogie of honour to Jesus Porphirie in the Treatise he made of the blessings of Philosophie saith It is a great matter that devils themselves have spoken in favour of Jesus confessing him to be endowed with singular pietie for which cause he entered into possession of most happie immortalitie And Mahomet Alcoran Azoar 1. 4. 11. 13. That the spirit of God bare record to Christ the Son of Mary that the soul of God was given him that he is the Messenger Spirit and Word of God that his doctrine is perfect and enlighteneth the Old Testament O God of the universe how powerfull is verity to derive testimonies in favour of his Word from the very lips of the most prophane 4. Let us adde also some divine reasons in this brevitie Reasons of seemliness whereunto we have voluntarily confined our selves Who sees not that humane understanding constrained by the consideration of mysteries doth homage also to the Incarnation of the Son of God Where is that darkness which can hinder the bright day of faith What can Infidels say That this mystery is impossible Impossible how Either on Gods part or mans or from the repugnance of humane understanding with such like propositions because by their saying they involve contractions How would it
the power of God in his Saints caused a fair Church to be built to this most blessed woman and a Cross to be erected in the place where she left him which was called the Cross of the place Thus was God pleased to ratifie by so great miracles the pardon Constantia had given to Prince Charls I will shut up this discourse with a passage of so rare clemency of a Monarch offended in the honour of a daughter of his by a mean vassal as it seems could never have fallen but into the heart of a Charlemaigne It is to this purpose recounted that one Eginardus Curio l. 2. rerum Chronologicarum who was Secretary to the Prince having placed his affections much higher than his condition admitted made love to one of his daughters which was in mine opinion natural who seeing this man of a brave spirit and a grace suitable thought not him too low for her whom merit had so eminently raised above his birth She affected him and gave him too free access Goodness and in dulgence of Charlemaigne to her person so far as to suffer him to have recourse unto her to laugh and sport in her chamber on evenings which ought to have been kept as a sanctuary wherein relicks are preserved It happened upon a winters night these two amorous hearts having inwardly so much fire that they scarcely could think upon the cold Eginardus ever hastening his approches and being very negligent in his returns had somewhat too much slackened his departure The snow mean while raised a rampart which troubled them both when he thought to go out Time pressed him to leave her and heaven had stopped up the way of his passage It was not tolerable for him to go forward Eginardus feared to be known by his feet and the Lady thought it not any matter at all to see the prints of such steps about her door They being much perplexed love which taketh the diadem of majesty from Queens so soon as they submit to its tyranny made her do an act for a lover which had she done for a poor man it would have been the means to place her among the great Saints of her time She tooke this Gentleman upon her shoulders and carried him all the length of the Court to his chamber he never setting foot to the ground that so the next day no impression might be seen of his footing It is true which a holy Father saith that if hell lay on the shoulders of love love would find courage enough to bear it But it hath more facilitie to undertake than prudence to hide it self the eye of God not permitting these follies should either be concealed or unpunished Charlemaign who had not so much affection in store for women that he spent not some nights in studie watched this night and hearing a noise opened the window and perceived this prettie prank at which he could not tell whether he were best to be angrie or to laugh The next day in a great assembly of Lords and in the presence of his daughter and Eginardus he proposed the matter past in covert tearms asking what punishment might a servant seem worthie of who made use of a Kings daughter as of a Mule and caused himself to be carried on her shoulders in the midst of winter through night snow and all sharpness of the season Every one gave hereupon his opinion and there was not any who condemned not this insolent man to death The Princess and Secretarie changed colour thinking nothing remained for them but to be flayed alive But the Emperour looking on his Secretarie with a smooth brow said Eginardus hadst thou loved the Princess my daughter thou oughtest to have come freely to her father who should dispose of her libertie and not to play these pranks which have made thee worthy of death were not my clemency much greater than the respect thou hast born to my person I now at this present give thee two lives the one in preserving thine the other in delivering her to thee in whom thy soul more survives than in the body it animateth Take thy fair portress in marriage and both of you learn to fear God and to play the good husbands These lovers thought they were in an instant drawn out of the depth of Hell to ascend to heaven and all the Court stood infinitly in admiration of this judgement It appears by the narration what was the mild temper of Charlemaign in this point and that he followed the counsel of S. Ambrose who advised a Father named Epist l. 8. ep 64. Si bonam duxit acquisioit tibi gratiam Si erravit accipiendo meliores facies refutando deteriores Sisinnius to receive his son with a wife he had taken for love For receiving them both said he you will make them better rejecting them render them worse The goodness of these great hearts for all that justifieth not the errours of youth which grievously offendeth when it undertaketh resolutions in this kind not consulting with those to whom it oweth life XIII MAXIM Of the Epicurean life THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That the flesh must be daintily used and all possible contentment given to the mind That life without crosses and flesh void of mortification is the sepulcher of a living man EXperience teacheth us there is in the World a sect of reformed Epicures who do not openly profess the bruitishness of those infamous spirits which are drenched in gourmandize and lust but take Maxims more refined that have as they say no other aim but to make a man truly contented For which purpose they promise themselves to drive all objects from their minds which may bring the least disgust and to afford the bodie all pleasures which may preserve it in a flourishing health accompanied with grace vigour and vivacity of senses Here may the judicious observe that such was the The Philosophie of Epicurus swayeth in the world doctrine of ancient Epicurus For although many make a monster of him all drowned in ordure and prodigious pleasure yet it is very easie to prove that he never went about to countenance those bruitish ones who through exorbitance of lusts ruin all the contentments of the mind and bodie But he wholly inclined to find out all the pleasures of nature and to banish any impediments which might make impression on the soul or bodie For which cause I think Thedor l. 2. Therap Nicet 2. Thesau c. 1. Tertul. apol c. 38. Hieron 2. in Jovin Laertius lib. 10. Senec. l. de vitâ beatâ Theodoret mistook him when he made him so gluttonous as to contend with Jupiter about a sop and that Nicetas who representeth him so licourish after honied tarts well understood him not For Tertullian S. Hierom Laertius and Seneca who better noted his doctrine assure us he was a very sober man and speaketh not in his writings but of pulse and fruits not for the honour he bare to
answer to that there is very much difference between the condition of things eternal and temporal Angels entered almost as soon into felicitie as into being because they were placed in the upper region of the world where miseries cannot approch and who having besides a singular knowledge of God's favour stood not in need to be aided by the counterpoize of adversities But as for us we are not onely born in a soil which is as fertile in calamities as forrests in brids and rivers in fish but besides we are extream ignorant of God's grace when we long enjoy prosperity which is the cause that adversity though necessarily tied to our condition maketh us notably open our eyes to know the felicities which follow it and to understand from what source they proceed As for that which concerneth the Divinity it cannot to speak properly endure any thing contrary by reason of the condition of it's essence which is fully replenished with all sorts of beatitude God said Philon is incommunicable to tribulations he is alwayes vigorous ever free from dolour or pain perpetually in action without weariness still plunged in a sea of most pure delights as being the height end and aim of felicitie Thereupon unable to suffer as he is God and and yet willing to undergo some special part in the great sacrifice of patience which began with the world he took a body and in that body drank the cup of the passion shewing evidently to all mortals that tribulations by their darkness avail to the brightest rayes of glorie which S. Augustine spake in very express terms The onely Son born of the substance of the Father and Vnicus ille de Patris substantiâ Natus aequalit Patri in formâ Dei Verbum quo facta sunt omnia non habebat ubi flagellaretur ad hoc autem earne indutus est ut sine flagello non esset August Quia eras acceptus Deo necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te Tob. 12. 13. Reg. 4. 2. 9. S. Aug. l. 2. de mirab Scrip. Obsecro ut siat in me duplex spiritus tuus equal to the Father in Divine essence the Word by which all things were created had nothing to suffer as God and is clothed with our flesh to participate in our punishments 2. The second reason which visibly sheweth the secret of Divine providence in the tribulation of the Just is that God being the Sovereign Sanctitie was necessarily to procure and plant it in the souls of his elect by all the most effectual wayes which his wisdom had ordained Now there is not any shorter way to virtue than a well mannaged affliction and therefore it was necessarie to maintain adversity in the world as the nource of great and generous actions of Christianity It was necessarie saith the Scripture to trie thee by tribulation because thou wast acceptable to God It is a matter almost impossible to preserve a great virtue in perpetual prosperity one must be more than a man and to have a double spirit which is excellently well observed by S. Augustine upon the words of Elizeus I intreat your spirit may be doubled in me Elizeus saith he begged the spirit of Elias might be double in him because he was to live in the favour of Court and worldly prosperities where the way is more slippery and dangers most frequent His Master Elias had passed his life in many persecutions wherefore a single spirit was sufficient for his direction adversity being not so difficultly borne as prosperity But insomuch as eminent fortunes are subject to deep drunkenesses and supine forgetfulness of God the Prophet saith by an instinct of the Divinity Let your Fiat in me duplex spiritus Boet. de conso l. 2. pros 8. spirit be doubled in me Prosperity under the shew of felicitie deceiveth us tribulation is ever true the one flatters us the other instructeth us the one tied up our senses and reason the other unbinds them the one is windy empty giddy ignorant the other sober reserved and prudent the one withdraweth us from real good by the allurements of vanity the other reduceth us by a wholesome way into the duty from whence we wandered S. Bernard saith excellently Prosperity is in Quando hoc incautis non fuit ad disciplinam quod ignis ad ceram quod solis radius ad nivem velglaciem Sapiens David sapiens Solomon sed blandientibus nimis secundis rebus alter de parte alter ex toto desipuit Magnus qui incidens in adversa non excidit vel parum a sapientia ne minor cui praesens faelicitas si arrisit non irrisit weak and inconsiderate souls as fire to wax and the sun's rayes to snow David was very wise and Solomon much more yet both charmed by the great success of affairs lost understanding the one at least in in part the other wholly We must affirm there is need of a strong spirit to subsist in adversity without change of reason or constancie but it is much more hard to tast very pleasing prosperities and not be deceived This is the cause why wise providence ever to keep virtue in breath ceaseth not to excercise it in this honourable list of great souls and we behold that following these proceedings it thence deriveth great advantages and many beauties The Scripture noteth that Job (a) (a) (a) Job 42. Merserus in Job returning into the lustre of his former state gave titles to his three daughters much observed for he called one by the name of Day the other Cassia or as some Interpreters say Amber and the third Amaltaeas Horn so the Septuagint translate it We must not think so holy a man would herein do any slight thing or not to some purpose But if we believe Holy Fathers upon it he meant by these three names to signifie the three conditions of fortune The first which was before his great adversities is compared to the day rejoycing us with the natural sweetness of it's serenity The second which was that of his calamity to amber because it is properly in tribulation where virtue diffuseth her good odours It resembleth aromatick spices which more shew their virtue when they are pounded and brought into powder in a morter or incense which never lets it so much appear what it is as when it is cast on coals so that this motto of the Wiseman may be attributed to it (b) (b) (b) Quasi ignis refulgens thus ardens in igne Eccles 50. 10. A resplendent fire and incense burning in the fire In the end issuing forth of tedious tribulations and having been hardened and fortified under storms it openeth it's bosom and unfoldeth admirable fruits which fitly make it to be called the Horn of abundance Whereof we say with S. Ambrose (c) (c) (c) Est ergo beatitudo in doloribus quos plena suavitatis virtus comprimit coercet ipsa sibi domesticis opibus abundans vel ad
any doth notwithstanding particularly bind himself to patience Let us conclude with four excellent instructions to be observed in adversity which are expressed in the book of Job (l) (l) (l) Job 1. Tunc surrexit seidis vestimenta sua tonse capite corruens in terram adoravit dixit Nudus egressus sum c. for it is said He rent his garments and having cut off his hair and prostrated himself on the earth adored and said Naked I came out of my mothers womb and naked I return into earth Note that rising up he rent his garments to shew he couragiously discharged himself of all exteriour blessings which are riches and possessions signified by garments He cut his hair which was a sign he put the whole bodie into the hands of God to dispose of it at his pleasure For as those Ancients sacrificing a victim first pulled off the hair and threw into the fire to testifie the whole bodie was already ordained to sacrifice so such as for ceremony gave their hair to temples protested they were dedicated to the service of the Divinity to whom the vow was made In the third instance he prostrated himself on the earth acknowledging his beginning by a most holy humility And for conclusion he prayed and adored with much reverence Behold all you should practise in tribulation well expressed in this mirrour of patience First are you afflicted with loss of goods either by some unexpected chance or by some tyranny and injustice Abate not your courage but considering the nullity of all earthly blessings and the greatness of eternal riches say My God although I have endeavoured hitherto to preserve the wealth thou gavest me as an instrument of many good deeds yet if thou hast ordained in the sacred counsel of thy providence that I must be deprived of them for my much greater spiritual avail I from this time renounce them with all my heart and am ready to be despoiled even to the last nakedness the more perfectly to enter into the imitation of thy poverty Say with S. Lewis Divitia mea Christus desixt caetera Omnis copia qua Deus meus non est mibi inopia est Archbishop of Tholouse Jesus is all my riches and with him I am content in the want of all other wealth All plenty which is not God is mere penurie to me If you be tormented with bodily pain by maladies by death of allies say My God to whom belongs this afflicted bodie Is it not to thee Is not this one of thy members It now endureth some pain since thou hast so appointed and it complains and groaneth under the scourge where are so many precepts of patience where is the love of suffering where conformity to the cross S. Olalla a Virgin Quam juvas bos apices le gere qui tus Christe trophea notant Prudent about thirteen or fourteen years of age as she was martyred and her bodie torn with iron hooks beheld her members all bloudy and said O my God what a brave thing is it to read these characters where I see thy trophies and monuments imprinted with iron on my bodie and written in my bloud A creature so tender so delicate shall she shew such courage in the midst of torments such transfixing pains and cannot I resolve to suffer a little evil with some manner of patience If be the death of an ally behold that bodie not in the state wherein it now appears but in the bright lustre of glorie wherewith you shall behold it in the day of the Resurrection wiping away your tears say what Ruricius did Let them bewail the dead who cannot have any hope of Resurrection Let the dead Fleant â—ntuos qui spom resurrectionis habere non possunt Flems mortui mortuos suos quos in perpetuim existimant interiisse lament their dead friends whom they account dead for ever In the third place arm your self with profound humility and looking on the earth from whence your body came say My God it is against my pride thy rod is lifted up in this tribulation Shall such a creature as I drawn out of the dust become proud against thy commandments and so often shake off the yoke of thy Law I now acknowledge from the bottom of my soul the abjectness of my nothing and protest with all resentments of heart my dependence on thee The little hearb called trefoyl foldeth up the three leaves it beareth when thunder roareth thereby willing to tell us it will not lift a creast nor raise a bristle against Heaven Lightening also which teareth huge trees asunder never falls upon it My God I hear thy hand murmuring over my head in this great affliction and I involve me within my self and behold the element whereinto I must be reduced to do the homage my mortality oweth thee Exercise not the power of thy thunders against a worm of the earth against a reed which serves for a sport to the wind Lastly take courage what you may in the accidents Factus in agonia prolixius erabat Domine quid multiplicati sunt qui tribulant me Multi insargunt adversum me multidicunt animae meâ— non est solus ipsi in Deo ejus Tu autem Domine susceptor meus c. that happen and by the imitation of our Saviour retire into the bosom of prayer which is a sovereign means to calm all storms Jesus prayed in his agony and the more his sadness encreased the more the multiplied his prayers Say in imitation of him My God why are my persecutours so encreased Many rise up against me Many say to my soul there is no salvation for it in God But Lord thou art my Protectour and my glorie thou art he who wilt make me exalt my head above all mine enemies The fourteenth EXAMPLE upon the fourteenth MAXIM Of Constancie in Tribulation ELEONORA WE are able to endure more than we think For there are none but slight evils which cause us readily to deplore and which raise a great noise like to those brooks that purl among pibbles whilest great-ones pass through a generous soul as huge rivers which drive their waves along with a peacefull majesty This manifestly appeareth in the death of Sosa and Maffaeus hist Indicar l. 16. Eleonora related by Maffaeus in the sixteenth book of his history of the Indies This Sosa was by Nation a Portingale a man of quality pious rich liberal and valiant married to one of the most virtuous women in the whole Kingdom They having been already some good time in the Indies and enflamed with the desire of seeing their dear Countrey again embarked at Cochin with their children very young some gentlemen and officers and with about six hundred men The beginning of their navigation was very prosperous but being arrived at Capo de bona speranza they there found the despair of their return A westerly wind beat them back with all violence clouds gathered thunders
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
a harder matter for him to preserve souls he created than to derive them from nothing He will because he engageth his Eternal word to give us this assurance yea he will because it is manifested to us by the light of nature One cannot believe a God unless he believe him just and it is impossible to think him just without the belief of an immortal soul as S. Clement reasoneth after Clemens 3. Recogn his Master the great S. Peter For what a stupdity is it to imagine this father of spirits who accommodated the most silly creatures with all the conveniencies of nature hath neglected man so far as to afford him a most lively knowledge and a most ardent thirst of immortality which principally appeareth in the most holy and worthy souls to hold a heart in torment never affording it any means to be satisfied since in all nature he never grants any inclination to any creature whatsoever but that he provideth for its accomplishment But which is more into what mind of a Tartarian can this imagination fall that a sovereign Cause most intelligent very good and Omnipotent should be pleased to burn virtue here with a slow fire to tear it among thorns to tie it on wheels afterward to equal the soul of the most virtuous man of the earth with that of murderers Sardanapaluses and Cyclopes Never should these base thoughts take possession of the heart of man if he had not villified his reason with great sins and drowned his soul in the confusion of bodie Put these prophane spirits a little upon the proof of their opinion and let them consider the reasons of Plinie of Lucretius of Panecus and Soranus they are not men who speak but hogs that grunt They tell you the soul is not seen at its passage out of the body as if the corporal eye were made to see a soul spiritual Doth one see the air the winds odours and the sphere of fire which our soul incomparably surpasseth in subtilitie They ask what doth this soul separated Plin. l. 7. c. 55. Vbi cogitatiâ— illi Quomodo visus auditus aut qued sine his bonum Quae deinde sedes Quae malum ista dementia iterari vitam worte where is its sight its hearing pleasure tast touching and what good can it have without the help of sense Spirits dulled with matter which never gave themselves leisure to find out the curious operations of the soul in the understanding and love whereupon it lives of its own wealth They curiously enquire where so many souls may abide as if hell were not big enough to contain all the Atheists Lastly they adde it is to tyrannize over a soul to make it survive after death Who sees not it is the fear they have of God's judgement causeth them to speak in this manner And are not they well worthy of all unhappiness since they so readily become the enemies of an eternal happiness Let us cut off the stream of so many other reasons and say at this present This should teach us to treat with the dead by way of much respect and most tender charity as with the living It should teach us to use our soul as an eternal substance What would it avail us to gain all the world and The care to be had of the soul loose that which God deigned to redeem by his death Let us forsake all these inferiour and frivolous thoughts which nail us to the earth and so basely fasten us to the inordinate care for our bodies Let us manure our soul let us trim it up as a plot fit to receive impressions of the divinity Let us prepare it for the great day of God which must make the separation of a part so divine from these mortal members Let all that die which may yield to death Let the contexture of humours and elements dissolve as weak works of nature But let us regard this victorious spirit which hath escaped the chains of time and laws of death Let us contemn the remainders of an age already so much tainted by corruption Let us enter into this universality of times and into the possession of Diet iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas aeterni natalis est Sen. ep 102. of eternity This day which we apprehend as the last of our life is the first of our felicities It is the birth of another eternal day which must draw aside the curtain and discover to us the secrets of nature It is the day that must produce us to these great and divine lights which we behold with the eye of faith in this vale of tears and miseries It is the day which must put us between the arms of the father after the course of a profuse life turmoyled with such storms and so many disturbances Let us daily dispose us to this passage as to the entrance into our happiness Let us not betray its honour Let us not wither up its glory Let us not deface the character which God hath given it We are at this present in the world as in the belly of nature little infants destitute of air and light which look towards and contemplate the blessed souls What a pleasure is it to go out of a dungeon so dark a prison so streight from such ordures and miseries to enter into those spacious Temples of eternal splendours where our being never shall have end our knowledge admit ignorance nor love suffer change The sixteenth EXAMPLE upon the sixteenth MAXIM Of the return of Souls GOd who boundeth Heaven and limiteth earth ordaineth also its place to each creature suitable to the nature and qualities thereof The body after death is committed to the earth from whence it came and the soul goes to the place appointed it according to its merit or demerit And as it is not lawful for the dead body to forsake the tomb to converse with the living so the soul is not permitted to go out of the lists Gods justice ordained for it to entermeddle in worldly affairs Notwithstanding as the divine power often causeth the resurrection of the dead for the confirmation of our faith so it appointeth sometimes the return of souls for proof of their immortality I would not any wise in this point favour all the shallow imaginations which entitle sottish apprehensions of the mind with the name of visions but it is undoubted there is no Country in the world nor time throughout Ages which hath not afforded some great example of apparition of spirits by known witnesses and the judgements of most eminent Mitte quoque advivus aliquâ—â— ex mortuit Scriptura lestatur De cura pro mortuis c. 15. c. c. 10. Luc 14. personages S. Augustine holds it is a doctrine grounded on Scripture experience and reason which cannot be gain-said without some note of impudence although he much deny that all the dreams we have of the dead are ever their souls which return again Such was the belief of
For if there be any it must infallibly be taken off with the file of justice The torment of purgatorie is executed with sharp transfixing pains since that imperious element which raiseth so many terrours in our world hath there the place of an officer The continuance thereof is long by certain revelations that some souls have been there many years its perseverance activity dreadful since the soul is immortal and incorruptible to its torments This made the hair stand an end on the heads of all Saints And Job 11. Semper enim quasi tumentes super me fluctus timui Deum pondus ejus ferre non potui when the great man Job all composed of innocency sanctity thought on this justice of God he conceived himself to be as a little fish crouch'd in the water that heareth all the storms rouling over its head S. Augustine grown hoary in a thousand valourous battails for defence of the Church apprehendeth purgatory the elect souls who build all in gold and silver and pretious stones fear the trial of fire and we with our edifices of stubble straw and hay walk with exalted crests as if we had all the assurances of our salvation Where are we if this torch of justice awaken us not Quis poterit habitare de vobis cum igne devorante Perhaps we have made a bargain with this fire and these punishments or that we are torment-proof not to feel them Is there any man who hath learned to abide among burning coals We are so tender so nice so impatient so the lovers of our selves that one ounce weigheth a pound with us O worldlings who shall weep over you since you know not how to bewail your selves Your bodies are dainty both by nature and education yea your souls much more you cannot endure the stinging of a bee the very sight of a Surgeons lancet affrights you and yet you daily entangle your selves in a thousand vanities a thousand courtships and a thousand worldly loves which defile your soul and must at a dear rate be discharged in the other world We know the Christians of the Indies newly converted when they felt some temptations contrary to the law of God ran to their chimney hearths and thrust their hands into the flames saying Sin soul if thou canst abide fire if not go no further Do the like touch if not in effect at least by consideration the devouring flames of Gods Justice And if they seem strange unto you engage not your self in them by your sensualities 6. From the slight apprehension we have of Purgatory Rigour of the living against the souls in Purgatory proceedeth another stupidity very unreasonable which is that we are very little careful of the souls of the dead a matter very worthy of blame for two principal reasons The first is that the providence of God which disposeth all with so great sweetness hath as it were tied the salvation of these good souls to the fervour of our prayers and would have us to be as mediatours and intercessours of their felicity which is verily one of the greatest titles of honour we can receive It is a note of Divinity to have power to oblige men faith an Ancient and Plin. l. 2. c. 7. Deus est mortali benefacere mortalem haec ad aeternam gloriam via there is no shorter way to eternal glory Now God gives us the means to oblige not mortals but immortal souls and to oblige them in a cause so great and eminent that if all the treasures and lives of the world were dissolved into one mass they could not reach to the least degree of the felicity you may procure to these faithfull souls By obliging them in this kind you gain eternal friends who will entertain no thoughts but such as may tend to render you the like and to bear you into the bosom of beatitude and yet this being most easie for you as a matter which consisteth in some prayers alms deeds and good works you neglect it Is not this a prodigious carelesness The second reason is that by such negligence we betray our soul which enclineth out of a natural propension to the sweetness and mercy we exercise even towards beasts It is the argument which the Math. 12. 11. Quis erit ex vobis homo qui habeat evem unam si ceciderit haec sabbatho in foveam manum tentabit levabit eam Her Thren De excelso misit ignem in â—ssibus meis erudivit me c. Vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum c. Son of God made use of If a horse an Ox a sheep fall into a ditch there is neither festival nor sabbath withholds every one who is able stretcheth out a hand and draws it forth And behold here not a beast but a soul created to the image of God irradiated with the most excellent lineaments of his beauty which is to live with Angels eternally fallen into a ditch fallen into a boyling furnace who is afflicted tormented imploreth the help of all the world and whilest we slacken to succour it hath these mournful words of Jeremie Alas God the just avenger of crimes committed against his divine Majesty hath poured fire into my bones to chastise me Behold me in the nets of justice behold me now desolate pensive and disconsolate both night and day All afflicteth me in this said abode but nothing is so irksom as the burden of mine iniquities and ingratitudes It is a yoke which surchargeth my neck like lead and pulls me down into the torments from whence I cannot go without O vos omnes qui transitis per viam attendite videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus Quoniam vindemiavit me ut locutus est Dominus in die furoris sui your charities O you my dear kindred friends and allies who pass through the Church-yard made the depositary of my bones consider and see with the eyes of faith whether there be any dolour comparable to mine since God hath cut me off on the day of his indignation with a strong and inevitable arm O ingrateful and disloyal son it is the soul of thy father which speaketh unto thee in this manner and says unto thee Son I have passed my life as the spider stil spinning ever seeking after worldly wealth perpetually exhausting my proper substance to enrich thee I lived on gall and cares that thou mightest swim in rose-water I travelled over lands and seas to build a silver bridge for thy fortune to set thee on flower-de-luces and employments of a Kingdom where is thy retribution My son I complain not my eye being shut my body was troublesom to thee in thy house and thou couldst not endure it it was a dung-hil must be yielded up to the earth but I complain that thou being well informed thy father had an immortal soul which thou mightest comfort by thy good works thou trayterously employedst the money
gate against all hopes and opens it to all despairs Ask of S. John (b) (b) (b) Lacus ira Dei magnus sâ—agnus ignis Apoc. 14. 20. what hell is he will tell you aloud and plainly hell is the great lake of Gods anger It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent And what do the damned there (c) (c) (c) Life of the damned Horreo verutem mordacem mortem vivacem horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis vitae morientis Gulielm Paris de univ p. 1. c. 55. Locus purâ— felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati They burn and smoak On what live they On the gall of dragons What air breath they That of burning coals What stars and lights have they The fire of their torments What nights Of palpable darkness What beds The couches of aspicks and basilisks What language speak they Blasphemies What order have they amongst them Confusion What hope Despair What patience Rage O hell O hell Avant O gnawing worm avant O living death avant death which never dies avant life which daily not dying dies I speak not here of the pain of sense excercised by this pittiless element which worketh upon souls as I have shewed you in the beginning of this discourse I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures gibbets tortures snakes burning pincers and all the instruments of terrours I onely speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God Imagine within your self a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris who in a Treatise he made of the universe pertinently sheweth that as Paradise is the house of all felicity so hell must be the receptacle of all miserie and calamity Now the blessed besides beauty of the glory of their bodies the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God which is the period of their essential felicitie So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournfull incomparably dolorous and according to its nature infinite which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities And what is this object Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire and horrid legions of divels That truly is horrible but that is not yet the top of their supream miserie What is it then I do assure my self you will at first be astonished with what I shall say and will hold it as a paradox but it is undoubted The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intollerable evil and that with just cause Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned and heigth of their notable calamities is light I say light of science and knowledge To understand this you The souls of the damned tormented by their lights Aspectus Christalli terribilis must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts who prepareth to chastise the wicked he representeth him unto us like a hydeous christal mirrour that is to say God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature as of a mirrour of Christal and a terrible light in which and through which it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God and the evil incurred by drenching it self into the sad habitation of the reprobate It seeth how in loosing God it hath lost a good delicious fruitfull infinite everlasting incomprehensible a good for which it was created and formed by the hands of God A good which is meerly and absolutely lost by its infidelity ingratitude wickedness perverse obstinacy in sin A good which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacitie And that which is also more terrible is that as God is replenished with a full and most plentifull felicitie because he hath all his contentments assembled together so the damned soul by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years and hath them all as present in thought From these two lights and two knowledges in the damned soul spring as it were two snakes fastened both to the one and other side of its heart which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juyce and marrow of its substance The holy man Boetius the eye of the Roman Senate Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer c. and ornament of the Church lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is when he saith there needeth neither wheels tortures nor gibbets to punish the wicked He who might onely shew them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash and say unto them behold wretched creatures behold what you have lost by your folly the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible that no keen raisour devouring flames gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment Now I leave you to think if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse what may a damned soul that sees in this hydeous chrystal not for a moment but through all moments of eternity the infinite good it hath lost the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees it self involved Then is it yea perpetually gnawn torn and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause it to break into furies and unprofitable frenzies O Palace of God saith it which I have lost O ugly dens of dragons whereinto I am head-long thrown O brightness of Paradise which shalt be nothing to me O hydeous darkness which shalt eternally be my inheritance O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls with whom I should eternally have lived had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes O infernal countenances of enraged divels which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions O torrent of delights which pourest thy self upon those blessed spirits how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch sulphur and scortching flames enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger O couch of King Solomon how have I given thee away for a bed of coals O God O God whom I have lost and whom I cannot loose I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains O eternity It is then true that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world thou wouldest rather feel these torments than
wisdom and authority of S. Boniface the Martyr who converted Germany sent thither by Gregory the second and who flourished about nine hundred years ago This great Apostle of the Northern parts left goodly writings to posterity being most learned and we have to this day some Epistles of his taken out of good libraries In the one and twentieth of his letters written to S. Bonifacius ep 21. Aldeburgus he makes mention of a man who was raised again to life in his time the miracle much known and verified before all the world for to prove he proceeded very fair into knowledges of the other life he advertised many men of note of most secret sins never opened to any living man and exhorted them for Gods sake to true pennance He likewise foretold the death of Ceelredus King of Mercia who reigned with much tyranny and rapine whereof he received the reward This great Prelate S. Boniface then in Germany sought to inform himself particularly of this wonder and afterward couched in the forementioned Epistle the discourse he had with this late raised man How he asked many questions concerning events happened to him in this so dangerous passage he tels the storie and relates it with tears in his eyes Alas how much other are our knowledges at the separation of the soul from the bodie than they are in this present life We here onely see through two little holes which are our two eyes the bark of objects a very little distance but the instant of death discovers unto us much other truths Represent unto your self said he a blind man who never saw any thing if some one come and take away the film giving him sight he would then behold things spoken of in a much other manner than he imagined The like happened to me for my soul leaving my body about midnight I instantly saw the whole world with the extension of its lands and seas that water it as if it had been abbreviated in a table although to say truth it was not the universe which was abbridged but the sight of the spirit dilated by disengagement from the bodie The world was all encompassed with fire which seemed to me of an excessive greatness and ready to swallow all the elements if its impetuous course had not been stayed by the measures of Gods hand At the same time I perceived our Saviour in the quality of a Judge environed with an infinite number of Angels indued with marvellous brightness and excellent beautie on the other side devils in dreadfull shapes which I cannot now well describe since my soul is returned to my body At the same instant souls newly unloosened from all parts in so prodigious numbers that I could never believe there had been so many creatures in the world Then was a rigorous examen made of crimes committed in the life past And I saw very few souls who had holily lived whilest they were as yet in this mortal flesh to fly unto heaven with palms and Crowns Others were reserved to be purged as gold in the furnace and to follow the steps of those happie warriours who had gone before them As for those who went from this life out of the state of grace and were in mortal sin it was a horrible thing to see the tyrannie with which the devils used them For I perceived in places under the earth pits which vomited fire and flames on the brinks whereof I saw those souls in such manner as we shall see some fatal birds who bewailed lamented their disasters with dreadful complaints able to rent rocks and marbles asunder Then they were thrown into precipices of fire bidding a long adieu to all pleasures without hope ever to behold the face of God nor pleasing light of the Sun or to have fruition of any other reflection but the flames of their torments I who saw these strange passages leave you to think with what terrour I expected the last sentence of my judge The evil spirits began to accuse me with all violence you would have said they had reckoned all the steps of my life so rigorously they mustered up all the slightest actions But nothing at that time was so insupportable to me as mine own conscience For the sins which I heretofore imagined to be light were presented unto me in spirit as horrid phantasms which seemed to reproch me with mine ingratitude towards God and to say I am the pleasure thou hast obeyed I am the ambition whose slave thou wast I am the avarice which was the aim of all thy actions Behold so many sins which are thy children Thou begatest them Thou so much didst love them as to prefer them before thy Saviour It is an admirable thing that I likewise saw the specter of a man whom I had heretofore wounded though yet alive He seemed to be present at this Judgement and to require of me an account of his bloud All these horrours had already engulphed me into an inconsolable sadness expecting nought at all but the stroke of thunder and sentence of my Judge at which time my good Angel disposed himself to produce some good works I had heretofore done One cannot say nor believe the comfort a soul then feels in the rememberance of virtues it exercised in the bodie Happy a thousand-fold the hands which sow alms on earth to reap them in heaven It seemed to me I saw so many stars of a favourable influence when I beheld this little good I had done with Gods grace Lastly sentence was pronounced that for instruction of many I should again return into life I must confess unto you that amongst so many troubles of mind so many fears and frights which I suffered before the decision of my affairs except devils and hell nothing so much struck me with horrour as to see my bodie for which a burial was prepared Is it possible said I to my self that to serve this carrion I so often have forsaken my God! Is it possible that to fatten this dunghil I dispised my soul That I so adored my prison and fetters as to ballance them with the Cross and nails of my Saviour Jesus For this cause I had some repugnance to reenter into this bodie which seemed to me a little hell But my soul coming back into it I remained the space of seven dayes quite stupid and so lastly strove with my self till bloud gushed from mine eyes as not having tears sufficient to bemoan my sins Behold me ready to declare and witness to all mortals by an authentike example the words of the Wiseman who saith MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA ET IN Eccl. 3. AETERNUM NON PECCABIS REMEMBER ALL VVILL PASSE AT THE LAST HOUR AND THOU SHALT NEVER OFFEND I beseech the Reader who peruseth these lines to put the affairs of his conscience in order and if he love any thing in the world to love it for life eternal XIX MAXIM Of Sovereign Happiness THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT It is a
sin but by resigning her self to death But on the contrarie you observe some of the Gentiles who professed the happiness of the soul in the other life and the resurrection even on their tombs We at this day read in Rome the Epitaph of Lucius and Flavius two friends who witnessed In caelo spiritus unus adest Vt in die censorio sine impedimento facilius resurgam Brisson They would have but one grave on earth since their souls make but one in Heaven And that of Aulus Egnatius who maketh mention That all his life-time he learned nothing but to live and die from whence he now deriveth the joys of beatitude And that of Felicianus who having led a solitarie life saith He did so to rise again with the more facility being freed from trouble at the day of Judgement Where the Interpreters under this word Trouble understand his wife What voice of nature is this What touch of God What impression of verity In the Evangelical law besides the passages of S. Matthew 22. of S. John 5. of S. Paul 1. to the Corinthians 15. the Saviour of the world remained fourty days upon earth after his resurrection that he might be seen reviewed touched handled and manifested to more than five hundred people assembled together as writeth S. Paul in the fore-alledged place of purpose most deeply to engraft the mysterie of resurrection in the hearts of the faithfull 2. And as for that which concerneth reason this belief was acknowledged to be so plausible and conform to humane understanding that never hath there been any who doubted it were it not some hereticks furious infamous and devillish as the Gnosticks Carpocratians Priscillianists Bardesanites Albigenses and such like enemies of God and nature or Epicures and Libertines who finding themselves guilty of many crimes have rather desired not to be perswaded of the end of souls and bodies to burie their punishments with their life For which cause they framed gross and sensual reasons touching this truth unworthily blaspheming that which their carnal spirit could not comprehend What impossibility should there be in resurrection Reason of possibility to an Omnipotent hand We must necessarily say it comes either from matter or form the final or efficient cause It cannot come from matter since our bodies being consumed by death the first matter still remaineth and after a thing is once created never is it meerly reduced into nothing Shall it be said that God who made thee of nothing cannot make thee again of the remainders of matter and that he hath less power over dust than over nothing The Philosopher Heraclitus saith birth is a river which never dries up because nature is in the world as a workman in his shop who with soft clay makes and unmakes what he list Think we the God of nature cannot have the like power over our flesh that nature hath over the worlds Proceeds the impediment from form It cannot since the soul which is the form of bodie remaineth incorruptible and hath a very strong inclinatiion to its re-union Proceeds it from the end No since Resurrection is so the end of man that without Leoin l. 2. de mirac c. 52. it he cannot obtain beatitude for which he is created perfect felicitie being not onely the good of the soul but of the whole man Will then impediment arise from the efficient Wonders of nature cause And is it not an indignity to deny to the Sovereign power of god the restauration of a body he made being we daily see so many wonders in nature whereof we can yield no reason Why doth a liquor extracted from herbs by a certain distillation never corrupt Why is water seven times purged not subject to corruption Why doth amber draw a straw along which other mettals repel Why do the lees of wine poured to the root of vines make them fruitfull How with so base ingredients are so goodly and admirable glasses made Why do men by the help of a fornace and a limbeck daily make of dead and putrified things so wonderous essences What prostitution of understanding to think that the great Architect having made our bodies to pass through this great fornace of the world and through all the searces his divine providence ordaineth cannot render them more beautifull and resplendent than ever What should hinder him Length of time There is no prescription for him Multitude of men That no more troubles him than millions of waves do the Ocean since all Nations before him are but one drop of dew The condition of glorions bodies COnsider I pray the state of glorified bodies and observe that there commonly are four things irksom to a mortal bodie sorrow weight weakness and deformity These four scourges of our mortality shall cease in the Resurrection being banished by gifts quite contrarie to their defects We may truly say among the miseries of bodie there is not almost any comparable to pains and maladies which are in number so divers in their continuance so tedious in their impressions so sharp that it is not without reason an Ancient said health was the chief of Divinities and an incomparable blessing For what is a soul inforced perpetually to inhabit a sickly bodie but a Queen in a tottering and ruinous house but a bird of Paradise in an evil cage and an Intelligence tied to attend on a sick man As the bodie very sound serves the soul for a house of pleasure so that which is continually crazy is a perpetual prison Now observe that against the encounters of all sorts of pains and maladies God communicateth to glorified bodies the chief gift which is impassibility wherewith they shall be exempt not onely Apoc. 21. Abstergeâ— Deus omnem lachrymain ab oculis eorum c. Isai 49. Non esurient neque sitient neque percutiet eos aestus from death but from hunger thirst infirmities and all the diseases of this frail and momentarie life O God what a favour is the banishment from so many stones gravels gouts nephreticks collicks sciaticks from so many pains of teeth head heart so many plagues and sundry symptoms of malladies which afflict a humane body This good if maturely weighed will be thought very great by such as have some experience of the incommodities of this life Adde also thereunto a singular Theological reason that this gift shall not be in us by a simple privation as the non-essence which the Epicureans imagined but by a flourishing quality communicated by God to our bodies and which shall have the force to exclude all whatsoever is contrarie and painful onely admitting the sweet impressions of light colours melodies odours and other things pleasing to sense Note I say quality Scot. in 4. distinct 49. q. 13. Durand d. 15. 44. q. 4. num 13. for I am not ignorant Divines dispute concerning the true cause of the impassibility of a glorified bodie and that some place it in a virtue and external
protection which God will give them to stay the effect of hurtfull causes In such wise that according to the opinion of those Doctours glorious bodies shall be impassible as were the three Children in the fornace of Babylon not that their bodies were impenetrable to fire but because God hindered the action of flames on their bodies But I had rather say with S. Thomas it is done by a quality internal 1. part q. 97. art 1. and 5. q. 82. art 1. and adherent to the bodies of the blessed Because this manner besides that it is sweet easie and suitable to the magnificence of God is more noble more natural and nearer approaching to the condition of celestial bodies Against the second incommodity of mortal body which is terrestrial weight we shall have subtility a gift much to be desired and which also opposeth the beastliness and stupidity that insensibly cause aversion in reasonable and intellectual nature We cannot Damascen l. 4. de side c. ultim and Ambros l. 10. in Luc. cap. ultimo be ignorant that many Divines place this subtility of glorious bodies in a virtue they shall have to penetrate the most massy objects not bruising or breaking them like a spirit and that it were an errour either to say it were impossible to the divine power or was not done by our Saviour when he came out of his mothers womb or when he entered into the chamber Notwithstanding I think this penetration of bodies should be judged as extraordinarie to a blessed bodie without having any necessarie dependance Durand in 4. d. 44. q. 5. D. Thom. in 4. l. 4. q. 2. art 2. and 5. q. 83. ◠2. of its condition But I had rather believe with S. Thomas Doctour Durandus the Roman Catechism that this gift of subtility whereof question is here made consisteth in a great vigour of sense proceeding from a perfect disposition of organs and a tenderness of spirits and besides in an entire subjection and admirable pliantness of the body to the soul and of appetites to reason a matter which I esteem more than the penetration of Semiramis wals The third blemish of our bodies which is weakness and infirmity shall be excluded by the grace force and agility which will bring to pass that the blessed may go from one place to another not by a simple ability and equality of the motion of steps going forward but an impetuousness as would be that of an eagle who should fall upon her prey or of an arrow shot by a strong hand according to S. Augustines opinion August l. 22. de Civit. c. ultim Vbi volet spiritus ibi protinus erit corpus Isaiah 40. Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem Doctour Scotus thinks this agility will proceed from the force of the soul with substraction of weight which shall at that time be taken away from the body in this state of immortality Others think this weight shall onely be suspended and interdicted in its effect not for ever but for the space the blessed shall desire who besides this admirable lightness shall have great and sprightly forces Lastly the fourth accident of this mortal and corruptible state is deformity which hath sometimes been so troublesom to many souls little couragious greatly faithless that there have been such found in Pagan antiquity who voluntarily deprived themselves of life to be delivered from the shame and grief they conceived to be born in a body notably deformed Beauty although it be often decried since it began Of beauty to serve for a bait and to be an instrument to sin yet it must be confessed when it contracteth good alliance with the spirit and virtue namely that of chastity it hath qualities so lovely and excellencies so noble that without arms or guards it exerciseth power even over the hearts of Monarchs Zeno said grace of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 body was a Voice of flower a flower of voice voice of flower because it draweth amity to it as the flower of a garden not crying out nor tormenting it self a flower of voice because it is one of the most flowery eloquences among the attractives of nature Earthly sovereignties often employ the whole extent of their power to make themselves beloved yet never attain it but this as the rayes of the sun not breaking either gate or window gets enterance for it self in humane heart and not alledging any other reason nor affording patience of resolution transporteth a soul which lives more in that it loveth than in that it animateth And yet what is temporal beauty but a transitory charm an illusion of senses a voluntarie imposture a slave of pleasure a flower which hath but a moment of life a dyal on which we never look but whilest the sun shines on it What is humane beauty but a dunghil covered with snow a glass painted with false colours a prey pursued by many dogs a dangerous Hostess in a frail house a sugered fruit in a feast which some dare not touch for respect and others gourmandize through sensuality Go trust so fading a good Go betake you to so unhappy a snare Go tie your contentments to so slippery a knot What else will happen unto you but to court a fantasie which loosening your hold will leave you nothing but the sorrow of your illusions If beauties must be loved let us love them in the state wherein they shall never cease to be beauties let us love them in the glory of their resurrection where they shall be placed as Queens in their thrones The beauty of glorified bodies saith Durandus the Durand in 4. de 44. q. 8. Divine consisteth in three things First in a pure and resplendent colour conjoyned to a most perfect and distinct proportion of all members without the least blemish or defect able to give the least aversion Secondly in a singular smoothness as would be that of a mirrour receiving the Sun beams directly Thirdly in an interiour light which as other Doctours with a general consent do adde will diffuse it self over the body with an incomparable lustre if it happen not that the blessed to manifest themselves to feeble and mortal eyes stay the course of the rays of glory as did our Saviour in the conference he had with the two pilgrims of Emaus O Beauties which never tarnish O lights which Daniel 12. Qui docti fuerint fulgebunt tanquam splendor firmamenti c. Math. 13. Fulgebunt justi sicut sol in regno Patris eorum know not what it is to be eclipsed O house of God! O Temple of peace When will the great day come which shall devest us from all we have mortal to put us into the bosom of immortality But we must confess that among all the considerations may be had upon this subject we have not any more pleasant or effectual than the triumphant Resurrection of our Saviour which is the root and hope
Lion and his body be hoary like the feathers of an eagle worn with old age I adde also to his conceit that God by these representations of four living creatures seemed to say to him O Nebuchadnezzar whilest thou didst sin onely against men I came with the slow pace of an ox to punish thy offences I suffered thee with much sweetness as a man but when thou grewest proud impious atheistical and tottering in the knowledge of the Divinity I fell upon thy crowned head as the eagle upon her prey reducing thee to a bruitish life and if thou goest forward I will pull thee in pieces as if thou hadst passed through the teeth of a Lion This makes me say that God tolerateth sins for some time which are of their own nature very enormous but as for impieties either he speedily chastiseth them in the heat of crime or reserveth them to unspeakable avengements See you not in the history of Kings how he tolerated David defiled with murder 2 Par. p. 26. 18 adultery nine whole months without taking notice of his fault But so soon as Ozias took the incensory to do an act of sacriledge and impiety behold him instantly strucken with leaprousie in the most eminent part of his body Why so Because other sins are many times committed through infirmity incitement or frailty but this which strikes at Gods jurisdiction proceeds from an advised and deliberate malice Behold the cause wherefore God maketh arrows of all wood and vengeance of all creatures to punish it according to its demerit Adde also hereunto a very remarkable proof which is that the Sovereign Judge Observation upon the chastisement of impiety though oftentimes sending his Prophets to stay the crimes of adultery of oppression of injustice and other like suffered them to pass on in an ordinary way yet when he dispatched messengers to confound idolatry and impiety which was raised in Bethel by Jeroboam Reg. 3. 13. he made them flie like eagles and impetuous storms This is verified in Jeroboam King of Israel who began to offer incense to Idols when a Prophet came out of Jerusalem and arrived as the Interpreters observe in Bethel before the incensing was finished which happened in a very short time If one ask how this man of God in less than the space of a sacrifice performed about six leagues for it was as far distant from Bethel to Jerusalem it is answered God bare him on the wings of winds because he went of purpose to destroy atheism and impiety which was hatched among the Israelites And verily being come before this sacrilegious Altar he cried out aloud to Jeroboam's face O Altar Altar listen for much better Altare Altare haec dicit Dominus c. is it to speak to these stones than to an Atheist God hath said and it shall happen an infant shall be born of the house of David called Josias who shall sacrifice the priests which now incense to Idols on their own Altars and there shall he turn their bones into dust Which was afterward performed I now demand if the celestial Father proceeded with such rigour against those who altered some ceremony of the ancient Law that he was not contented to fall speedily upon them more swift than eagles and tempests but caused bones of the dead to be taken out of sepulchers whereunto the right of nature had confined them to burn and consume them on the Altar which they had profaned what will become of those who since the venerable mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God run into horrible sins of infidelity and trample under foot the bloud of the Testament Perhaps you yet conceive not sufficiently the greatnes of this crime but I will make it appear unto you by a powerfull reason S. Denys the Dionys c. 1. de divin nominib Areopagite saith that Being is the most intimate most necessarie most universal and most perfect of all things because it containeth in eminency all perfections which are not but participation of Being And if this essence be strongly rooted in all creatures so that there is none but God who can annihilate it what shall we say of the essence of the Sovereign Creatour which originally containeth all essences God to speak properly being nothing but his own essence There is no doubt but it is an excellency wholly incomprehensible Now we must necessarily infer that by how much the more a thing is excellent so much the more the crimes which assail it are punishable Behold the cause why one cannot almost find pains suitable to Atheism and impiety which resist the essence of God The horrible punishments of the wicked for the sin of Impietie I Moreover affirm if in a time when the Divinity was not yet fully published it notwithstanding inflicted fearfull punishments both on the living and dead who had before-time offended what will become of it after the publication of the Gospel and the coming of the Word Incarnate who maketh speak unto us for the confirmation of his law and word the bloud of so many millions of Martyrs who died for defence of the truth who hath opened to us on earth so many mouthes of Apostles Evangelists Doctours singular in wisdom and sanctity as there are stars in heaven who likewise gave speech to stones and marbles of those ancient Churches to instruct us in our Religion The stone shall crie out in Habac. 2. 11. Lapiâ— de pariete clamabit the midst of walls saith the Prophet Habacuc Nay I demand which is the more tolerable either to despise Joseph in the fetters of bondage or to offer him an affront on Pharaoh's royal chariot Every man of judgement will tell me there is no comparison and that he who yielded not honour to Joseph being a captive seemed not worthy punishment but to deny him honour when Pharaoh having placed him in a chariot of glory caused to be proclaimed by a Herauld of arms Abrec Abrec Let all the world bow the knee before Joseph was a crime of treason We then inferre if the Jews for having neglected Jesus Christ in bonds in opprobries in torments and the pains of the Cross were chastised with hydeous punishments to all posterity what may we expect for such as revile heaven and dishonour Jesus Christ in the chariot of his triumph after they had seen and manifestly known as by ways more than humane that he put all the glory power wisdom and sanctity of the whole universe under his feet and having now also after sixteen hundred years and more through all the parts of the habitable world both Altars and Sacrifices where he hath received services and homages of so many Myters Scepters and Crowns from wise and holy men that it would be easier to number the sands of the sea than to keep an account of them But if you still doubt the punishment of the Jews for the sin of impietie do but read Histories both divine and humane to
was there known to all the world and the disdain of that ungratefull Nation closed the hands of his great bounty Is it not a great unhappiness to be weary and tyred with often communicating to be wicked because God is good and to shut up our selves close when he would impart himself to us Men make little account of great benefits and spiritual helps for that they have them present They must lose those favours to know them well and seek outragiously without effect what they have kickt away with contempt because it was easily possest 2. The choices and elections of God are not to be comprehended within our thoughts but they should be adored by our hearts He is Master of his own favours and doth what he will in the Kingdoms of Nature Grace and Glory He makes vessels of Potters earth of gold and silver He makes Holy-dayes and working-dayes saith the Wiseman his liberalites are as free to him as his thoughts We must not examine the reason why he doth elevate some and abase others Our eye must not be wicked because his heart is good Let us content our selves that he loves the humble and to know that the lowest place of all is most secure No man is made reprobate without justice no man is saved without mercy God creates men to repair in many that which he hath made and also to punish in the persons of many that which he hath not made 3. Jesus doth not cure his brethren and yet cures strangers to shew that his powers are not tied to any nation but his own will So likewise the graces of God are not to be measured according to the nature of him who receives them but by the pure bounty of him who gives them The humility of some doth call him when the presumption of others doth estrange him The weak grounds of a dying law did no good to the Jews who disdained the grace of Jesus Christ And that disdain deprived them of their adoption of the glory of the New Testament of all the promises and of all Magistracy They lost all because they would keep their own wills Let us learn by the grace of God to desire earnestly that good which we would obtain effectually Persons distasted and surfetted cannot advance much in a spiritual life And he that seeks after perfection coldly shall never find it Aspirations THy beauties most sweet Jesus are without stain thy goodness without reproch and thy conversation without importunity God forbid I should be of the number of those souls which are distasted with Monna and languish after the onions of Egypt The more I taste thee the more I incline to do thee honour Familiarity with an infinite thing begets no contempt but onely from those whom thou doest despise for their own faults O what high secrets are thy favours O what Abysses are thy graces We may wish and run But except thou cooperate nothing is done If thou cease to work all is undone I put all my happiness into thy hands It is thou alone which knowest how to chuse what we most need by thy Sovereign wisdom and thou givest it by thy extream bounty The Gospel upon Tuesday the third week in Lent S. Matth. 18. If thy brother offend thee tell him of it alone BUt if thy brother shall offend against thee go and rebuke him between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou shalt gain thy brother and if he will not hear thee joyn with thee besides one or two that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand And if he will not hear them tell the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the Heathen and the Publican Amen I say to you whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven Again I say to you that if two of you shall consent upon earth concerning every thing whatsoever they ask it shall be done to them of my Father which is in heaven for where there be two or three gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them Then came Peter unto him and said Lord how often shall my brother offend against me and I forgive him until seven times Jesus said to him I say not to thee until seven times but until seventy times seven times Moralities 1. THe heavens are happy that they go always in one measure and in so great a revolution of ages do not make one false step but man is naturally subject to fail He is full of imperfections and if he have any virtues he carries them like dust against the wind or snow against the sun This is the reason which teaches him that he needs good advice 2. It is somewhat hard to give right correction but much harder to receive it profitably Some are so very fair spoken that they praise all which they see and because they will find nothing amiss they are ordinarily good to no body They shew to those whom they flatter their virtues in great and their faults in little they will say to those who are plunged in great disorders they have no other fault but that they are not sufficiently carefull of their own health Others do correct with such sharpness and violence that they wound their own hearts to cure other mens and seem to have a greater mind to please their own passions than to amend those whom they would instruct Correction should be accompanied with sweetness but it must carry withall a little vigour to make a right temper and to keep a mean between softness and austerity Jesus in the Prophet Isaiah is called both a rod and a flower to shew us according to Origen that he carries severity mingled with sweetness to use either of them according to the diversity of persons 3. It is not a very easie thing to receive brotherly correction patiently we are so far in love with being well thought of And after we have lost the tree of life which is virtue it self we would keep the bark of it which is onely reputation All shadows proceed from those bodies upon which somewhat shines honour is the child of a known virtue and many when they cannot get one lawfull are willing to have a Bastard This is the cause why so many resemble those serpents which requite them with poison who sing to them pleasant songs Whatsoever is spoken to instruct them makes them passionate and dart out angry speeches against those who speak to them mild and gentle words of truth and tending to their salvation Rest assured you can never get perfection except you count it a glorie to learn and discover your own imperfections 4. There is nothing of more force than the prayers of just men which are animated by the same spirit and cimented together with perfect concord They are most powerfull both in heaven and earth When they desire what
time Jesus sanctified it by his sacred touch He took the Bason which being in his hands became greater and more full of Majesty than all the Ocean Our spots which eternity could not wash clean are taken away at Baptism by one onely drop of water sanctified by his blessing He prevents the bath of his bloud by the bath of an element which he doth expresly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament to teach us what purity of life of heart of faith of intentions and affections we must bring to the holy Eucharist It is necessary to chase away all strange gods which are sins and passions before we receive the God of Israel we must wash our selves in the waters of repentance and change our attire by a new conversation Is it too much for us to give flesh for flesh the body of a miserable man for that of Jesus Christ The consideration of our sins should bring up the bloud of blushing into our cheeks since they were the onely cause why he shed his most precious bloud upon the Cross for us Alas the Heavens are not pure before his most pure Spirit which purifies all nature Then how can we go to him with so many voluntary stains and deformities Is it not to cast flowers upon a dung-hill and to drive Swine to a clear fountain when we will go to Jesus the Authour of innocency carrying with us the steps and spots of our hanious sins 3. Jesus would not onely take upon himself the form of man but also of a base servant as S. Paul saith It was the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies which made David say That Moah should be the Bason of his hope expressing thereby that he would humble the Moabites so low that they should serve onely to bring water to wash unclean houses Alas who would have said that the Messias was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite What force hath conquered him what arms have brought him under but onely love How can we then become proud and burn incense to that Idol called Point of honour when we see how our God humbled himself in this action Observe with what preparation the Evangelist said that his Heavenly Father had put all into his hands that he came from God and went to God yet in stead of taking the worlds Scepter he takes a Bason and humbles himself to the most servile offices And if the waters of this Bason cannot burst in us the foul impostume of vanity we must expect no other remedy but the eternal flames of hell fire Aspirations OKing of Lovers and Master of all holy Loves Thou lovest for an end and till the accomplishment of that end It appertains onely to thee to teach the Art of loving well since thou hast practised it so admirably Thou art none of those delicate friends who onely make love to beauties to gold and silk thou lovest our very poverty and our miseries because they serve for objects of thy charity Let proud Michol laugh while she list to see my dear David made as a water-bearer I honour him as much in that posture as I would sitting upon the throne of all the world I look upon him holding this Bason as upon him that holds the vast seas in his hands O my merciful Jesus I beseech thee wash wash again and make clean my most sinfull soul Be it as black as hell being in thy hands it may become more white than that Dove with silver wings of which the Prophet speaks I go I run to the fountain I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters I desire affectionately to humble my self but I know not where to find so low a place as thine when thou thus wast humbled before Judas to wash his traiterours feet Upon the Garden of Mount Olivet Moralities 1. JEsus enters into a Garden to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man The first Adam stole the fruit and the second is ordained to make satisfaction It is a strange thing that he chose the places of our delights for suffering his pains and never lookt upon our most dainty sweets but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows Gardens are made for recreations but our Saviour finds there onely desolation The Olives which are tokens of peace denounce war unto him The plants there do groan the flowers are but flowers of death and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and bloud He that shall study well this Garden must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips to make his heart become another manner of Garden where Jesus should be planted as the onely Tree of Life which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice 2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great Combats which began with sweat and bloud but ended with the loss of his life There were three marvellous Agonies of God and Death of Joy and Sorrow of the Soul and Flesh of Jesus God and Death were two incomparable things since God is the first and the most universal of all lives who banisheth from him all the operations of death and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our redemption The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights whereunto nothing which displeased could have access and yet Jesus suffered sorrow to give him a mortal blow even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity He afflicted himself for us because we knew not what it was to afflict our selves for him and he descended by our steps to the very anguishes of death to make us rise by his death to the greatest joyes of life To be short there was a great duel between the affectionate love and the virginal flesh of Jesus His soul did naturally love a body which was so obedient and his body followed wholly the inclinations of his soul There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties that their separation must needs be most dolorous Yet Jesus would have it so and signed the decree by sweating bloud And as if it had been too little to weep for our sins with two eyes he suffered as many eyes as he had veins to be made in his body to shed for us tears of his own bloud 3. Observe here how this soul of Jesus amongst those great anguishes continued always constant like the Needle of a Sea-compass in a storm He prays he exhorts he orders he reproves and he encourages he is like the Heavens which amongst so many motions and agitations lose no part of their measure or proportion Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his Heavenly Father he tears himself from himself to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death amongst all his inclinations to life to teach us that principal lesson of Christianity which is to desire onely what God will
He pacifieth Heaven by sweetening the sharpness of his Heavenly Father quenching by his wounds the fire which was kindled of his just anger Every thing smileth upon this great Peace-maker Nature leaveth her mourning and putteth on robes of chearfulness to congratulate with him his great and admirable conquests It is in him that the Heavenly Father by a singular delight hath poured out the fullness of all Graces to make us an eternal dwelling and to reconcile all in him and by him pacifying by his bloud from the Cross all that is upon earth and in Heaven This is our Joshua of whom the Scripture speaketh that he clears all differences and appeaseth all battels No stroke of any hammer or other iron was heard at the building of Solomon's Temple and behold the Church which is the Temple of the living God doth edifie souls with a marvellous tranquilitie 2. The Sun is not so well set forth by his beams as our Saviour is magnificently adorned with his wounds Those are the characters which he hath engraved upon his flesh alter a hundred ingenious fashions The Ladies count their pearls and diamonds but our Saviour keeps his wounds in the highest attire of his Magnificences It is from thence that the beauty of his body taketh a new state of glory and our faith in the resurrection is confirmed that the good fill themselves with hope miscreants with terrour and Martyrs find wherewith to enflame their courage These divine wounds open themselves as so many mouthes to plead our cause before the Celestial Father Our Saviour Jesus never spake better for us than by the voice of his precious Bloud Great inquiry hath been made for those mountains of myrrh and frankincense which Solomon promiseth in the Canticles but now we have found them in the wounds of Jesus It is from thence that there cometh forth a million of sanctified exhalations of sweetness of peace and propitiation as from an eternal Sanctuary A man may say they are like the Carbuncle which melteth the wax upon which it is imprinted for they melt our hearts by a most profitable impression At this sight the Eternal Father calms his countenance and the sword of his Justice returneth into the sheath Shall not we be worthy of all miseries if we do not arm these wounds against us which are so effectual in our behalf And if this bloud of our Abel after it hath reconciled his cruel executioners should find just matter to condemn us for our ingratitudes John the Second King of Portugal had made a sacred vow never to refuse any thing which should be asked of him in the virtue of our Saviour's wounds which made him give all his silver vessel to a poor gentleman that had found out the word And why should not we give our selves to God who both buyeth and requireth us by the wounds of Jesus 3. Jesus inspireth the sacred breath of his mouth upon the Apostles as upon the first fruits of Christianity to repair the first breath and respiration of lives which the Authour of our race did so miserably lose If we can obtain a part of this we shall be like the wheels of Ezechiels mysterious chariot which are filled with the spirit of life That great Divine called Matthias Vienna said That light was the substance of colours and the spirit of Jesus is the same of all our virtues If we live of his flesh there is great reason we should be animated by his Spirit Happy a thousand times are they who are possessed with the the Spirit of Jesus which is to their spirit as the apple of the eye S. Thomas was deprived of this amorous communication by reason of his incredulitie He would see with his eyes and feel with his hands that which should rather be comprehended by faith which is an eye blessedly blind which knoweth all within its own blindness and is also a hand which remaining on earth goeth to find God in Heaven Aspirations GReat Peace-maker of the world who by the effusion of thy precious bloud hast pacified the wars of fourty ages which went before thy death This word of peace hath cost thee many battels many sweats and labours to cement this agreement of Heaven and earth of sence and reason of God and man Behold thou art at this present like the Dove of Noah's Ark thou hast escaped a great deluge of passions and many torrents of dolours thrown head-long one upon another Thou bringest us the green Olive branch to be the mark of thy eternal alliances What Shall my soul be so audacious and disordered as to talk to thee of war when thou speakest to her of peace To offer thee a weapon when thou offerest her the Articles of her reconciliation signed with thy precious bloud Oh what earth could open wide enough her bosom to swallow me if I should live like a little Abiram with a hand armed against Heaven which pours out for me nothing but flowers and roses Reign O my sweet Saviour within all the conquered powers of my soul and within my heart as a conquest which thou hast gotten by so many titles I will swear upon thy wounds which after they have been the monuments of thy fidelity shall be the adored Altars of my vows and sacrifices I will promise thereupon an inviolable fidelity to thy service I will live no more but for thee since thou hast killed my death in thy life and makest my life flourish within thy triumphant Resurrection FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the first three TOMES of the HOLY COURT A Aâ—dâ—rites Fol 38 Abdâ—lâ—â—in 7 Abraham the Hermit 86 Abstinence defined 468 The Aâ—â—rons of men must be directed to one assured Butt 67 Apprehension of Affronts 47 Retreat into the Conscience in Affronts is a good remedy against them 58 Aglae a noble Dame 379 She is a worldly Widow ibid. She is in love ibid. Her admirable Conversion 380 Her devotion in enquiry after Martyrs ibid. Her speech to Boniface her Steward ibid. Agrippa Grand-child of Herod 3â—2 His flatterie ibid. Alexander son of Mariamne imprisoned 130 Alms the works of God 9 Ambition an itch 56 It is a forreign vice ibid. It is the life of a slave 57 The Ambitious are miserable ibid. Extream disaster of an Ambitions man ib. Ambitious men travel for Rachel and find 〈◊〉 58 Ambition was the God of Antiochus 347 Sr. Ambrose 175 His Calling ib. His Election 176 His rare endowments 179 His government ib. He cherisheth the Religious 181 He took away superstitions and excesses ib. His puritie of invention ib. His Oration against Symmachus 184 He refuteth Symmachus his strongest arguments ib. His answer concerning the dearth 186 His greatness in the Conversion of Sr. Augustine 188 He speaketh unto the two souls of his Pupils 211 His brave speech to Theodorick 214 The majestie of Sr. Ambrose 205 His prudence and charitie 209 He is persecuted by Justice 206 Resolution of Sr.
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-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
when it comes to extend it self in the world and to draw it to it The natâ—â—e of love Lib. 1 de civit â—8 Amor inhians labere quâ—â— amatuâ— cupiditâ— est idem â—mor habens cóque fruenâ— letitia est fugiens quod adversatur el timor est quod si acciderit eitristitia est proinde mala sunt ista si malus est amor bona si bonus self it is called love But if you consider it in the condition wherein it gathereth together all Creatures to the first cause and makes its works re-ascend to God they say it then takes the name of Pleasure which is a most happy satisfaction of to all Nature in its Authour So love is a circle which turns from good to good by an everlasting revolution Now if you desire I should in few words explicate the nature thereof its origen progresse causes qualities and effects you must observe a notable doctrine of S. Augustine who saith That Love whilest it is in the search of what it loveth is called Desire and when it enjoyeth the thing beloved it is changed into joy But if it avoid that thing which is contrary to it either in effect or opinion it is Fear and if the Fear hath its effect by the arrivall of the evil it apprehendeth it turns into Sadnesse This love takes sundry countenances according to divers Circumstances I agree all this is said with good reason yet notwithstanding we must affirm with divines that this Oracle of Doctours hath in this difinition rather comprised the cause the effects and progresses of love then its essence and nature For to speak properly love is neither Desire Fear Joy nor Sadnesse but A Complacence of the Appetite or will in an object conveniont 5. Definition of love either according to verity or apparence But if we will speak more generally we say it is nothing but an inclination Richard de Medvill dist 27. l. 3. Art 1. q. 1. propending and moving to a good which is conform to it For by the definition we include all the kinds of love which are divided principallly into three branches to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable It s division love Naturall love consisteth in things inanimate which have their sympathies and Antipathies As Palmes male and female Amber and straw Iron and the Adamant Animall love is that Beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of beasts to seek for that which is fit for them and to be pleased in the enjoying what they fought for Reasonable love is an Act which pursueth and accepteth the good represented by the understanding wherein we may also comprehend Angelicall and Divine love which S. Denis addeth to these three kinds whereof we speak Reasonable love is also divided into love of Amity and love of Concupiscence Love of Amity which wisheth good to the thing beloved for it self without enquiry into its own proper interesse As when it desired to one Health knowledge grace virtues wealth honours without pretence of any benefit to it self This Gabriel d. 27. q. 1. l. 3. is to affect with a love of amity which is very rare now a daies so mercenary are affections and when this love is not onely Affective as Divines speak contenting it self with bare desires but Effective by plentifully opening hauds to liberality it mounteth to a huge degree of Complacence Love of Concupiscence is an interessed love which causeth one to love a thing not for it self but for the pleasure and commodity derived from it or to be hoped in time to be dersved from it So the Horseman desireth beauty strength and courage in his horse and dog not for their sakes but his own contentment Such love is worldly love commonly defiled with base and animall consideration nor is ever purified but when it for God loveth that which cannot in it self be lovely Behold the nature and Essence of Love in its whole latitude Now to speak of the proceedings of the soul in its loves The first step it makes when it beginneth to love is the degree of the conformity of the will with The steps and progressions of â—ove the good is proposed The senses imagination understanding give it notice of some Beauty Goodnesse or Commoditie which it conceiveth to be fit for it Thereupon it beginneth to take fire and to have sparks of desires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which make it to wish the good proposed unto it Thence it passeth to the second Degree which is that of Sharp-sweet Complacence which pleasingly each moment holds it fixed upon the thoughts of its object Sometimes between hope to possesse it another while between fear to lose it and many other passions which accompany this as yet suffering Complacence From this degree it goes to the third which is inqui +sitioâ— and motion where love putteth on wings to fly speedily into the bosome of its repose employing all possible means for its contentment and if it be favoured in its pursuit it advanceth to the fourth degree which is union esteemed the principall scope of Amities From this union ariseth another Complacence which is not painfull and dolorous but satisfied and pleased in the fruition of its object which is the heighth of love By the sides of love are lodged Beauty and Goodnesse for that as S. Denis saith they are the objects Its causes and motive of love which are so allied together that the Grecians call them by one self same name The Sages have ever sought for the true causes which dispose the wils of men to love and there are many different opinions upon this point Some hold it is a quality which God imprinteth on nature others imagine it comes from the aspect of starres and from divers constellations Others make it to proceed from Parents and education others from a certain Harmony and consonancy of hearts which meeting in accord upon the same Tone have a naturall correspondence Lastly the Maxime of Divines and Philosophers much swayeth which saith that Fair and Good make all loves I hold that to accord these opinions a notable distinction must be made of three loves which we have proposed in the beginning to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable Forasmuch as concerneth Naturall or Animall love besides the order of nature it is God which giveth to each creature necessary inclinations to arrive at their end Well there may be influency of starres which bear sway over humours and bodies and with the starres bands of bloud temperature of Humours education and secret qualities which tie creatures with the knot of a certain love the cause whereof is not well known For how many are there who love things which are neither lovely nor good I not onely say in effect but in their own opinion and judgement yet are they thereunto fastned by some Tie nor can they free themselves from it but by the absolute power of Reason Do we not daily find by experience that a Man who is
displeaseth All which hath contented them discontenteth one knows not into what posture to put himself to give satisfaction Good words vex them services distast them submissions torment them contradictions make them mad It seemeth Sauls devil possesseth them and that they 1 Reg. 18. 10. know not themselves they hate by humour as if they had loved without consideration of merit But we must say that of all the plagues of Amity there is none so fatall to it as the discovery of a secret by Treason and Infidelity That is it which Petrus 8. Infidelity Petrus Blesenfis l. de amie c. 6. Plutarch in Julio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blesensis called the blow without noise under the shadow of Amity It is that which Brutus gave to great Cesar and which was the cause that the valorous Emperour long tumbled to and fro among his murderers and defending himself from every blow they gave him covered his eyes with his garment not enduring the treachery of a man whom he had loved and obliged above all other But saying Ah son art thou then one of these He suffered himself as a victime to be butchered ashamed to behold the day light which made him see so black a mischief And what is there more to be deplored then to behold a generous heart which dilates it self in the presence of a pretended friend and powreth out unto him all he hath in his soul whilst the wretch shooting back envenomed shafts against all the raies of Amity maketh a prey of his goodnesse and a trophey of his sincerity abandoning him to the discretion of such as persecute him There are some who suffer themselves to fall into these Infidelities by the surprizall of some wicked spirits who wholly govern them and who draw out of them all they have in their hearts either by craft or power which rendreth them lesse culpable but not innocent Others run to it with the malignity of a Devill and joyfully triumph Sient novatulla acut◠fecisti dolum propterea Deus destructte when they have prospered in an Act so base and barbarous Do not these kind of people deserve to be accounted the horrour of nature the scorn of Ages the execration of mankind And shall we not believe that if Pythagoras Metempsychosis were in being their souls would put on no other bodies but of Hyena's Rats or Owls to fly in an eternall night and never to be illustrated with one sole ray of the bright day of Amity Now if you desire to know the things which are Psal 51. 4. Six perfections which preserve Amity of power perpetually to uphold Amity I must tell you it subsisteth in honesty good disposition communication Bounty Patience and Fidelity Assure your self you will not long be a good friend if you study not to be ever virtuous The heart of a wicked man saith the Prophet is a Cor impurum quasi mare servens Isa 57. turmoyled sea which never rests it hath as many changes as the waves in the Ocean as many agitations as Tempests which with Amity is incompatible of its own nature peacefull and which enterteins the mind in a constant situation What is the cause the blessed are never weary of loving but that they perpetually find in God new beauties and perfections The body is finite and quickly thrusts forth all its qualities which with time rather fade then flourish but our spirit is profound as an abysse and our soul tendeth in some sort Dum unusquisque se sub umbra alterius obscurare volebat tan quam res percussa claritas utrumque radiabat S. Hilar. In Honorat to Infinity Hence it comes that two friends seriously disposing themselves to perfection daily receive some new lustre which rendreth them lovely so that increasing in goodnesse by degrees they insensibly love some better thing Saint Hilary of Arles said of two good friends that they sought to hide themselves in the shadow of one another but that thence their humility was reflected as from a solid bottome which made its lights the more resplendent Yet would I not that your virtue should be austere Humour and unmanaged but seasoned with a good disposition and a certain cordiality which is the best temper of Amity There are some who love so coldly that their love is as a day in winter when the Sun is involved in grosse vapours and shews nothing but sadnesse which is extreamly troublesome for it is better to receive a manifest Correction then to endure a hidden Amity to speak with the Wiseman Melior est manifesta correptio quam amor absconditus Prov. 27. and you shall find many women who better love harsh men then such as are neither one nor other He is no good friend who rejoyceth not at the presence of his friend who is not sorry for his absence yet not opposing the conformity we should have with Vid. Chrys ep p. 715 716. 1 Thes 2. 3. the divine Providence S. Chrysostome in the letters he wrote to his dear Olympias observed these sensible affections in S. Paul for he was much troubled at the absence of his best friends and desired to see their faces as he saith where this great Prelate insisteth upon Tertul. de velandis c. 12. Quis audebit oculis suis premere faciem clausam faciem non sentientē faciem ut ita dixerim tristem on the word face and sayes it is good right that we desire the face of our friend because it is the place where the soul sheweth it self in all its senses There is not any man saith Tertullian unlesse he hath little to do delighteth to hold long discourse before a face shut up a visage sensible of nothing and which to say truly cannot but be melancholy in this posture This hindreth not but that the use of veils is very laudable in time and place among religious women who make profession of penance and the fore-alledged Authour who ardently urgeth virgins to this observance gives them an example of Arabian women who were so veiled that they had but one eye free to guide them and to Contente sunt dimidiatâ fruiluce quà m totam faciem prostituere Idem de velandis Virg. cap. 14. receive a half light which caused a Roman Queen to say that they were miserable women who went so because they might take in love but not give it out again But contrariwise they were most happy to be delivered from a thousand importunities of wanton eyes which do nothing but court beauties Howsoever true amity is necessarily accompanied with some tendernesse and sensibility which causeth one to be perpetually anxious for such as he loveth Love in the heart is an exhalation in a cloud it cannot continue idle there It daily formeth a thousand imaginations and brings forth a thousand cares It findeth out an infinity of inventions to advance the good of the beloved It openeth it self in his prosperities it shuts it self up in
for pretexts to cover their passions some saying It is a touch from heaven and an effect of their Horoscope which cannot be diverted Others Casus in culpam transit Velleius Pater culus complain they are bewitched and that they feel the power of magick Others cast all the blame upon devils who notwithstanding think not so much of them as they may imagine for love comes easily enough from naturall causes without going about to seek for it in the bottome of the Abysse I here remember what Pliny recounteth of one Cresin who manured a piece of ground which yielded him fruit in abundance while Plin. l. 18. c. 16. his neighbours lands were extreamly poor and barren for which cause he was accused to have enchanted them Otherwise said his accuser his inheritance could not raise such a revenue while others stand in so wretched a Condition But he pleading his cause did nothing else but bring forth a lusty daughter of his well Filiam validam bene curatam fed and well bred who took pains in his garden with strong carts and stout oxen vvhich ploughed his land and the vvhole equipage of his Tillage in very good order He then cryed out aloud before the Judges Behold the art magick and charms of Cresin vvilling to shew that we must not seek for hidden and extraordinary causes where ordinary are so evident So in the like case we may say it is a thing most ridiculous Haec sunt veneficia mea Quirites to see a body composed according to nature found and very strong which hath fire in the spirits and bloud in the veins which continually feeds high lies soft and perpetually converseth among women the most handsome to complain of celestiall influences or the sorseries of Venus Totall Nature especially since Interiour causes of love the corruption of sin conspireth to make love It sets Reason to sale if it carefully take not heed and insensibly draweth it to its side There is not almost a stone whereunder some scorpion lyeth not there is not a place where concupiscence spreadeth not out some net for us It fighteth against our selves makes use of our members as of the Instruments of its battels and the Organs of its wiles There is sedition within and warre without and never any repose but by the singular grace of God Tertullian writes the chastity Tertull. de Velandis Continentia majoris ardoris laboratior of men is the more painfull the fervour of concupiscence being the more fiery in their sex and one may justly say that such as persist all their life time in great resistances and notable victories are Martyrs of purity who having passed through fire and water hasten to a place of refreshment We have all one domestick enemy which is our own body that perpetually Rebellion of the flesh S. Climach de castita te grad 15. in fine Quomodo illum vinciam quam ut amem a natura suscepimus Est cooperator hostis adjutator atque adversarias auxiliator simul infidiator c. almost opposeth the dispositions of the spirit If I go about to fetter it saith S. John Climachus it gets out of my hands If I will judge it it grows into favour with me If I intend to punish it it flatters me If I will hate it Nature commandeth me to love it If I will fly from it it saith it is tyed to my soul for the whole time of my life If I will destroy it with one hand I repair it with another Is it too much cherished it the more violently assaults me Is it too much mortified it cannot almost creep watching withers it sleep on the other side fatteneth it whips torment it and dandlings corrupt it By treating it ill I endanger my life by pampering it I incurre death This sheweth how Saints fortified themselves with much precaution diligently observing the condition of Nature the causes of temptations and the maladies of the soul thereby the more successefully to practise the cure They who are most retired said the fore-alledged Authour fail not to feel domestick warres but such as indifferently expose themselves to objects are violently both within and without assaulted The beauty and handsomnesse of one sex is a sweet Beauty imperious Nomen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 49. Alii reddunt fetam alii pulchâ—it udinem ut sept naginta Interpretes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 poison to the other which entreth in by the eyes and maketh strange havock And I wonder not at all that the Scripture compares it to a Panther a savage and cruel beast which with teeth teareth those she hath amuzed with the mirrour-like spots of her skin drawn to her by the sweet exhalation of her body It is more to be feared said an Ancient then the horns of the Bull the teeth of the Lion the gall of the Aspick yea then fire or flames and the holy Abbot of mount Sinai saith that had not God given woman shamefac'tnesse which is the scabbard wherein this sword is Climach de castreate kept there would be no salvation in the world The love of women caused Sampson's David's and Salomon's shipwracks It hath besotted Sages conquered the strong deceived the prudent corrupted saints humbled the mighty It hath walked on Sceptres The love of women dangerous parched the lawrels of victours thrown trouble into states schisme into Churches corruption among judges fury into arms It hath entered into places which seemed inaccessible but to spirits and lightnings And if beauty be so much to be dreaded when it hath no other companions how dangerous think we is it when it causeth to walk along with it pomp apparell attractives dalliances cunning wires liberty of conversation merriment Good chear Courting Idlenesse Night sollitude familiarity Need we to require any other charms then those to work the ruine of a soul Yet besides these open causes there are other secret ones to be found in the love of humour and fantasie which insensibly fetter a mind and suffer it not to find its chains A modern Authour hath of late written a treatise of the love of inclination wherein he speaks very pertinently of its originall and doth according to his saying Monsiur de la Chambre seem to draw it a second time out of its Chaos To understand his opinion we must presuppose that which S. Thomas saith That totall Nature loveth to present it self in the objects proposed unto it And as they continually proceed from all things coloured images S. Thom. l. 4. contra gentes c 11. The secret attractives of love and figures as it were wholly spirituall which make themselves to be seen as in looking-glasses and are received into the eies to contribute to the effect of sight so every body hath its projections and unperceivable influences as we find in the power of Amber and the Adamant which attract Iron and straw by the expiration they
your good hap for it rather then to your merit presume not at all of your strength or integâ—ity but resolve with your self that the presumption of ones own power maketh up the moity of Impudency Learn how seasonably you may know your self by confidering your own temperature your humours Knowledge of ones self the inclinations of your mind your judgement your courage Behold the part wherein you are the most sensible and where you give most accesse to your enemy to tempt you Endeavour to fortifie your self that way and the more inability you therein find use the more precaution if you be weak fear nothing but your infirmity and if you be strong fear all yea even your own safety Disposition of ages Sometimes the seasons of age which might seem more to propend to lust are peacefull and calm enough In our bodies there is a spring-tide in winter to become afterward a winter in the spring-tide Youth transported by other purposes or withheld by a serious education is quiet enough and riper years fall into the most stormy part of the tempest It hath happened to divers to converse many years with a contrary sex and never to have felt any touch from which they have entered into a strong confidence that served for a bait in the perill which had spared them in a thousand occasions the more notable to ruine them in one sole accident Flight from occasions is the most assured bulwark Fly second occasions for chastity and who can carry himself well in this affair shall be much stronger by flying then were Conquerours in the bravest battels a retreat in this being Time videre unde possis cadere noli sitri perversâ simplicitate securus Aug. in Psa 50. The attractives of the world were never so urgent Tertul. in exhortatione ad castitatem Majus est vivere cum castitato quà m pro eaâ—mpri Complacence stronger then fire and sword as honourable as victory The world was never so beautifull so gentile nor so squarely disposed Bodies apparell garb civill behaviour complement wit merriment entertainments books songs airs voices playes bals races walkings Banquets Feasts liberty which at first seem innocent enough Conversation and great confidence lastly all we heard all we see all we smell all we taste all we touch in so great effeminacy of life seems to be made to persecute purity I am almost of Tertullians opinion who saith it is more easie to dy for chastity then to live with it Women were found in the world who suffered themselves to be martyred under Tyrants for the defence of chastity who had they long continued among pleasures Court-ships Curiosities and the importunities of men I should fear might have yielded that to a lover which they would have denyed to an Executioner There are a thousand and a thousand creatures infinitely much alienated from voluptuous pleasures They love the dispositions to love but hate the effects thereof and it seems to them they may do as it is read in Romances they will spend their time in the pleasing conversation of a friend and talk of nothing else but they perceive not that men seek them not but for what they should fly that they at length undermine them as a city besieged and desire not to afford them any peace but by the conquest of their honour which they ought more bravely to maintain then life We find an ancient Embleme of a Duke of Burgundy where was to be seen a pillar which two hands Joannes Dux Burgundiae in Simbolis Imperatorum Great cunning of men who go about to surprise chastitie sought to overthrow the one had wings and the other was figured with a Tortoise the word Vtcunque as much as to say which way soever I will have it There are Amourists who take the like course Some strike down the pillars of chastity by the sudden and impetuous violence of great promises offers unexpected presents pressing necessities Others proceed therein with a Tortoises pace with long patience daily assiduity faithfull services and profound submissions They are not all so sottish as to talke at first to an honest woman of her dishonour they onely entreat she will accept of a man who will live or die for her begging nought else but a remembrance They play not the rapt lovers by every moment declaring their fervours their torments and martyrdome They serve they soothe they continually frequent they spie out all occasions they silently practise all the wayes they can to come to the end of their designs and often it happeneth that as drops of water incessantly falling do hollow Rocks so ceaslesse complements soften the most inaccessible rigours What would not a man do who is so base as to waste ten years of service to kisse a womanr hand and suffer for a shamefull servitude that which others could not endure for an Empire It is evident that the persecutions of chastity being so manifest in all objects as I said before if you desire to be faithfull to God and charitably to preserve a precious treasure you must necessarily either live with singular modesty in the world or die out of it if you cannot be saved in it You Ladies who read this it is not required of you Advice to Ladies and Gentlewomen that for the love of chastity you should be reduced to an affected negligence to some ugly habits to fashions rough and barbarous as Roman women were when their husbands fed upon acorns as yet unaccustomed to the use of bread Some neatnesse some quaint trims must of necessity be admitted in a woman which seems to be bound with her body and is the cause why the wisest and most modest among them do not notwithstanding renounce civil decorum you must walk and converse modestly within your self remembring what the Apostle saith That your apparel alone 1 Tim. 8. Quod decet mulieres promittentes pietatem should make you be known for Ladies who make profession of piety Whom would you be thought to be in the day of judgement Would you be there accounted Christians when you have all the signs about you of women the most worldly that ever lived among Infidels To what purpose are those garments so pompous those stuffes so costly those guizes so sought after those colours so fantastick those jewels so sumptuous that painting so shamelesse those curls so extravagant those braveries those flies those patches and those robbers unlesse it be to cut the throat of chastity Is it not a reproach to Christianity to say that an infinite quantity of Hospitals might be founded out of the superfluities which so many Ladies unprofitably waste about their bodies Is is not a point of cruelty that there are so many lazars who breathe out the remnant of their dayes laid upon straw where they are onely covered with the putrefaction of their ulcers whiles there are bodies who drag at their heels the spoil of Elements and riches of the Universe to prank
courtships overflow of words kisses saucinesse immodesty good chear idlenesse this seems a goodly thing to sottish youth which hath nothing so certain as ruine These are the snares wherewith it surpriseth and the knots which many times indissolubly settereth its liberty After that comes the chamber perfumed with myrrh and aloes wherein the slight expected pleasures are drenched in great acerbities There folly temerity liberty meet mixed with care terrour distrust tears sighs falshood perjury dolours jealousies execrations rage which caused an Antient to say That the Plutarch in Sympos heart of a Lover was a city in which upon one and the same day were seen sports and banquets battels and funerals In the third place a slaughter-house is opened where we clearly behold that false love which insinuateth it self with so many fair resemblances is nothing but massacres both of body and soul and that it is not without cause that a foolish Lover saith in the best of Comick Poets that the first Executioner that Plautus in Cystellaria ever was on earth was Love which he saith taught men all cruelties and tortures adding that to Love fondly and to be racked on the wheel was in a manner all one In this place of slaughter there are likewise seen Pictures of Samson with his eyes pulled out pouring Jud. 16. forth tears and bloud through the same channel Of Amon who transfixed with a deadly and dreadfull 2 Sam. 13. wound yields up the ghost in a feast at the foot of his brother Absoloms table for having violated Thamar On the other side two armies of Gods people Judg. 20. who cruelly kill one another for a luxurious act committed on the person of a married wife so that of one part eighteen thousand men were massacred and of the other more then twenty and five thousand And round about there is nothing but halters poison swords bloud racks gibbets and precipices See here the goodly Sacrifices of Lust In the fourth chamber are beheld the transfigurations of sottish Love where he who is strucken with it becomes first stupid as an Ox dull and benummed in his wits as having a paralytick soul and brutish like Nebuchadonozor who forsook his Regall throne to eat hay with beasts Then he is shorn as a sheep by taking away his flieces and despoiling him of the goods of soul body wealth and reputation and of all that to which a reasonable creature may pretend unto Lastly to cut off all hope of recovery he is unfeathered like a bird caught in a gin yea his wings are taken away which are the desires of futurely doing well that he may perpetually have the evil in object and an inability towards good The first chamber is very near to hell there is to be seen darknesse smoke flames and from whence are heard gnashings of teeth despairs and enraged complaints of unfortunate Lovers who vomit out their souls in sinne having made no expiation by a long penance Oh God! what is he who beholding this picture would ever betray his soul heaven and his God to yield obedience to loathsome lust All this well considered give your self a little leasure Disasters of love in every age and condition to rally your thoughts together and to behold the disasters which wait on the experience of miserable sinne If you be a Virgin stain not the honour of your body vilifie not in your flesh on earth a virtue Advice to all sorts of persons to which Angels afford such glory in heaven Above all beware of a damnable curiosity which cannot be known but by becoming criminall If you understand the sinne profit by your experience and betray not an eternity of blessing for a pleasure so short and wretched If you be a master of a Family and a Greg. Naz. homil de Fornic man of quality note what S. Gregory Nazianzene saith That a man by his sinne wholly ruineth body soul estate and reputation He is terrible in his house shamefull abroad he serves for an executioner to a chaste wife he is a tyrant to his children a reproch to his friends a scourge to his domesticks a dishonour to his allies a blemish to his renown a shipwrack to his means and a fable to all the world If you be a maid ever fear to become a woman and cast not the garland of your virginity under the feet of hogs Give not a hair of your head to them who promise you golden mountains and when they desire you in the quest of marriage then is the time you must least be for marriage All you grant to their importunity will be the subject of your disgrace and when they shall have wedded you should you live as chaste as Susanna they will continually imagine you will be liberall to others of that whereof you were prodigall to them If you desire to marry by fancy rather pursuing your own wanton humours then the reasonable commands of those to whom you owe your being hold it as a crime the most capitall you may undertake and confidently believe if so you do you will open a floud-gate to a deluge of miseries and cares which will flow upon you through all the parts of your life Account the resolutions you make to this purpose as treasons and think whosoever shall to you suggest the execution of them will poison you by the ear to murder your chastity If you be a married woman and peradventure innocent enough and of good reputation what colour is there for you to engage your self in a crime for which husbands have furies laws thunders threats Judges for Sentence punishments of gibbets and bloudy scaffolds and for which a thousand poor creatures have ended their miserable lives surprised in the heat of sin to passe from a temporall fire to that which never is quenched If you be a man of the sword know it is given you to defend honour not to violate it and that a man who suffers himself to be lead by women what Rhodomontado's soever he make in words he is ever a coward If you be a Judge or an Officer raised up into an eminent place degrade not your self of the honours which God hath imprinted on your fore-head and never mount you up to the throne of Judicature to condemn your own act and still think the purple which will not be died but by virginall hands ought not to be worn but on a chaste body If you be an Ecclesiastick and which is more engaged to Religion or Prelacy will you be so unnaturall as ever to consent to a sinne which cannot in your person but be a sacriledge What a madnesse is it that for to satisfie an infamous act of lust you must be either an excommunicate or a persecutour of Jesus Christ Excommunicate I say if you forsake altars and a persecutour of Jesus Christ if you come to them in this horrible sinne where you strike a nail into his hand a lance into his side you devour
his flock and kill his brethren by your ill example Carnall love in what person soever is still ill situate said Epictetus In a maid it is a shame in a woman it is a fury in a man a lewdnesse in youth it is a rage in mans estate a blemish in old-age a disgrace worthy of scorn You will say all these considerations are very effectuall but that they cure not passion already enflamed and almost desperate of remedy Remedies for affections which come against our will To that I answer we must proceed with more efficacy and addresse among such as are surprised with vehement affection of which they would be free but they find all possible repugnancies I approve not the course of certain directours who think all maladies are healed by words as if they had ears To what purpose is it to hold long discourses and to appoint many meditations to a sharp feaver which is full of ravings and furious symptomes All the maladies of Love are not cured in one and Diversity of the maladies of love and their cures the same manner There are some who are engaged in the sense of the passion but not in the consent to the sinne which is expresly sent by God to persons very innocent but not entirely perfect to punish some negligencies or some slight liberties of conversation whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide by surprisall that they may feel the danger of sinne by the torment they suffer and may correct themselvs by the scent of the smoke before they be involved in the flame And this many times lasteth long being ordained as under a sentence of the divine Providence as a punishment to become afterward a bridle to negligence and a precaution against peril Some also are permitted by heaven and imposed upon certain souls who had a little too much rigour towards such as were tempted to the end they might learn by their experience more mildly to handle suffering hearts and not exasperate their wounds by the sharpnesse of the remedy Witnesse that old man of whom Cassian speaketh who having roughly entertained a young religious man that discovered his passion Cas Col. 2. de discret Intellige te vel ignotarum hactenus a dia bolo vel despectum to him was tempted so violently that he thereby became frantick and understood from the venerable Abbat Apollon this had befaln him by reason of his great harshnesse and that although he hitherto had not felt any rebellion against chastity it was because the devill either knew him not or contemned him There are some which like tertian and quartan agues have their accesses and recesses measured and what diligence soever be used therein well the pain may be mitigated but the root is not taken away till it arrive to a certain period of time wherein the sick man is insensibly cured There are some driven away by hunger and others overthrown by a reasonable usage as it happeneth to melancholy Lovers whose bodies are dry and brains hollow if you appoint them fasts and austerities ill ordered you kill them Some advise them recreation wine bathes honest and pleasing company necessary care of the body Some sweet and active entertainment which gives not leasure to the wild fancies of the mind but this must be taken with much moderation There are some who expect a good sicknesse and many bloud-lettings which may evacuate all the bloud imprinted with Images of the thing beloved to make a new body others are cured by a suit a quarrell ambition an ill businesse great successe a new state of life a voyage a marriage an office a wife There are now very few fools of Love to be found who neglect worth and honour to serve their passion There are nice and suspicious Loves which have more of vanity then concupiscence when one troubleth and hinders them from honestly seeing that which they love they are distempered and if one resist them not they vanish away as if they had not had so much intention to love as to vanish It were almost necessary for many if it may be done without sinne or scandall to converse continually for being somewhat of their own nature coy they still observe some defect in the thing beloved which weakneth their passion and find that the presence is much inferiour to their Idea which is the cause they easily desist from their enterprise having more shame to have begun it then purpose to continue it Some are enflamed by deniall others become totally cool by contempt as proud and predominate loves who have not learn'd to suffer the imperious carriage of a woman a disdain of their mistresse a cunning trick a coldnesse a frown makes them quickly break their chains One would not believe how many humane industries there are to cure the pain of Love but ever it is better to owe ones health to the fear of God to Penance to Deuotion then to all other inventions For which cause you must consider the glorious battails which so many heroick souls have waged to crush Solid remedies this serpent and to walk with noble steps in the liberty of the children of God Some have fought with it on thorns as S. Bennet others on flowers as the Martyr Nicetas who being Admirable examples of the combats of Saints against Love bound on a bed of roses with silken cords to resign himself to the love of a courtesan spit out his tongue in her face Others have thrust sharp pointed reeds under their nails as S. John the Good others have quenched it in snows as S. Francis others in flames as S. Martinian who being by an unchaste woman sollicited to sinne burnt his face and hands to over-throw the strongest passion by the most violent pain There are many of them in the new Christianity of Japonia who pursue the same wayes and run to their chimney-hearths to vanquish the temptations of the flesh thinking there is not a better remedy against this fire then fire it self Others have overcome this bruitishnesse by a savage life as S. Theoclista who being taken by Arabians stole from them and was thirty years hidden in the forrests living on grasse and clothing her self with leaves To say truly there is not any virtue hath cost mankind so much as invincible Chastity But since these manners of conquests are more admirable then imitable at least mortifie your body by some ordinary devotion Make use of the memory of death make use of assiduity of prayer of labour of care over the eyes ears heart and all the senses Humble your spirit and submit to obedience that your flesh may obey you Be not transported with extravagancies Ubi furoris insederit virus libidâ—niâ— quoque incendium nâ—cesse est peneâ— Casde spiritu fornic c. 23. animosity and revenge since Anger and Love according to the Ancients work upon one subject and that the same fervours of bloud which make men revengefull will make them unchaste fail not to heal
the love with which he will be loved and who hath loved us even in disfavour to transport us to favour Whereby it appeareth that this fair love is nought else but a celestiall quality infused into the soul by which we love God above all and all for God Now I imagine with my self that he is born in our hearts in such a manner as pearls grow in their shells The mother of pearl is first pierced by a celestiall influence as with an arrow fiery and sharp which sollicits and importuneth it to dispose it self to this excellent production Which is the cause that it spreads openeth and dilates it self to receive the dew distilled into it from the air and having moistned it it digesteth concocteth and transfigureth it into this little miracle of nature which is with so much curiosity sought after Behold what passeth in a soul when it bringeth forth this precious love it is prevented by a speciall grace from the Divine Goodnesse which at first gives it a distaste of all things in the world and fixeth a generous spur in the heart to excite awaken and enflame it to the quest of so great a good Then it extendeth dilates and opens all its gates to the Holy Ghost who descendeth into it as the dew of Hermon by qualities and Donec Christus formetur in vobis Gal 4. 10. effects admirable which through free-will it embraceth and ties and habituateth it self therein conceiving and forming Jesus Christ as saith S. Paul Then is the time when this divine love is conceived which is no sooner born but it causeth a rejoycing in the heart of man like unto that which happened in the house of Abraham at Isaacs nativity It is a celestiall laughter The Empire and eminencies of Divine love an extraordinary jubilation an expansion of all the faculties and functions of the spirit and will This little Monarch is no sooner born but it begins to command and sits on the heart as in its Throne All powers do it Instructi in charitate in omnes divitias plenitudinis intellectûs Col. 2. 2. Ailredus tom 13. Bibliorum in speculo charitatis Excellent conceit of charity homage all passions render it service All the virtues applaud at its coronation and confesse they hold of it and are all in it He who is once well instructed in charity aboundeth with all riches and hath the full plenitude of the spirit according to the Apostles and is a Tree grafted with siens of all perfection and which fail not to bring forth their fruits Sciences and virtues are that to us which oars to vessels what the viaticum to travellers what light to blear-eyes what arms to souldiers but charity alone is the repose of the wearied the Countrey of Pilgrims the light of the blind the Crown of the victorious Faith and the knowledge of God carry us to our countrey Hope maintaineth us the other virtues defend us but where charity is perfect as it is in glory one no longer believes any thing because it seeth all one hopes for nought because he possesseth all Temperance combateth against Concupiscence Prudence against errour Fortitude against adversity Justice against inequality But in perfect charity there is a perfect chastity which standeth not in need of the arms of temperance having no blemish of impurity A perfect knowledge which expecteth not any help from ordinary Prudence since it hath no errours a perfect Beatitude which needeth not Fortitude to conquer adversities since to it nothing is uneasie a Sovereign peace which imploreth not the aid of Justice against inequality since all therein is equall For in a word what is charity but a temperate love without lust A prudent love without errour a strong love without impatience a just love without inequality Faith is the first day of our Creation which driveth away darknesse Hope is the second which makes a firmament for us and which divideth waters from waters things transitory from eternall Temperance is the third which arraungeth the waters and storms of passions in their proper element and causeth the land of our heart to appear which sendeth up vapours to God that are its sighs Prudence is the fourth which lighteth up in us the sun of understanding and the lights of knowledge Fortitude is the fifth which sustains us in the Ocean of adversities not suffering us to corrupt as fishes in salt-waters and as birds above the Tempest Justice the sixth for it gives us to command over our passions as Adam who on the same day he was created obtained it over all living creatures But charity is the seventh day The Symbole of Glory which contracteth all delights in the circle of its Septenary And how can it but abbridge all Theology since it abbridgeth God himself S. Zeno ser de fide spe charit Tu Deum in hominem demutatum voluisti tu Deum abbreviatum paulisper à majestatis suae immensitate peregrinari fecisti tu virginali carcere nove nâ—mensibus religasti tu mortem Deum mori docendo evacusti and that we have cause to speak to him in such terms as Saint Zeno did O love what hast thou done Thou hast changed God into Man Thou hast contracted him drawing him out of the lustre of his Majesty to make him a pilgrime on earth Thou hast shut him in the prison of a virginall womb the space of nine moneths Thou hast annihilated the empire of death when thou taughtest God to dy Love thus acknowledged by all the virtues mounteth as on a chariot of Glory maketh it self conspicuous with heroick and noble qualities It is pious since it employeth all its thoughts on God It is generous and magnanimous since it is ever disposed to great designs It is liberall as that which spareth nothing It is strong not yielding to any of all those obstacles which present themselves to divert the course of its intentions Qualities of divine love by which we may know whether it inhabit a soul It is just equally distributing rewards to merit It is temperate admitting no excesses but of love It is prudent having eyes alwayes upon its deportments It is witty to find out a thousand inventions It is violent without eagernesse active without participation sage without coldnesse good without remissnesse and calm without idlenesse But I must tell you though its perfections be without number you shall chiefly know it by three qualities Three principall marks of love which will make it appear unto you plyant obliging and patient I say plyant for there is nothing but fires desires sweetnesse affections joyes admirations extasies Plyantness pleasures transportments for its well-beloved This is the State which the great Origen figureth unto us Orig. Hom. de Magdal of S. Mary Magdalen when he saith that by the strength of love she was dead to all the objects of the world She had her thoughts so employed upon her Jesus that she was almost insensible she had
eyes and saw not ears and heard not senses and felt not she was not where she was for she was wholly where her Master was although she knew not where he was She knew no other art but that of love she had unlearnt to fear to hope to rejoyce to be sad all in her turned to love by reason of him whom she loved above all The Angels who descended from heaven to comfort her were to her troublesome nor could she endure them she stood upright near the sepulchre where in the place of death she found her heaven Now as in efficacious plyantnesses are flowers of Liberality love which never bring forth any fruit so it takes a second quality which is to be liberall and much obliging For this cause the hands of the bridegroome according to the Canticles are all of gold and round to shew there is not any thing crooked or rough to stay Cant. 5. 14 Manus ejus tornatiles aureae plenae Hyacinthis alia versio Globi aurei pleni mari his gifts besides they are all filled with pretious stones to figure his benefits unto us Jacinths and Diamonds which he scattereth and bestoweth as liberally as the sand of the sea The Hebrew saith that the same hands are vessels of gold replenished with the sea because love is an Ocean of liberalities which is never exhausted There remains nothing but to be patient which it Patience Pennas habet non pondus Ailredus doth with so much grace that one may say its yoke hath wings not weight The heart of it oft-times is invironed with thorns and it sweareth they are roses It swims in a sea of worm-wood and faith it is sweet water It is covered all over with wounds and protesteth they are Pearls and Rubies It is overwhelmed with affairs and maintains they are recreations It is surcharged with maladies and they are sports with calumnies and they are blessings with death and that is life These three qualities cause twelve very notable effects Twelve effects of love in love which are To love God above all and in comparison of him to despise all To account ones self unhappy if but a very moment diverted from his sweet Ideas To do all that may be and to endure all things impossible to come near him To embellish and adorn our soul to please him To be alwayes corporally present with him as in the Sacrament or spiritually as in prayer To love all which is for him and to hate all which is not for him To desire that he may be declared confessed praised and adored by all the world To entertein all the most sublime thoughts that is possible of his dear person To passe over with sweetnesse all the acerbities suffered in his service To accommodate ones self to all his motions and to receive both sad and joyfull things with his countenance To languish perpetually with the desires to behold him face to face and lastly To serve him without anxiety or expectation of reward These things being so sublime we must not presume to arrive thither at the first dash It is very fit to file and continually to polish our soul by long services and goodly actions to arrive in the end at the happy accomplishment of love For this cause there are reckoned certain degrees by which the soul is led to the pallace of this triumphant Monarch There is a love as yet but young which doth onely begin and hath five degrees within the compasse whereof it dilates it self to passe to a much greater perfection It beginneth first by the taste of the word of God and the sweetnesse it feels by the reading of good books which is a sign that a soul already hath an arrow of true love in the heart This taste maketh a man take good resolutions for the amendment of his manners and order of his life this resolution is followed by a happy penance which bewaileth all the imperfections of the life past with a bitter distaste and a fit satisfaction By this way we proceed to the love of a neighbour and a beginning is made by a tender compassion of his afflictions and a rejoycing at his prosperities Lastly or addicts himself much to many very laudable good works and to the holy exercises of mercy Behold here a most sincere condition and to be wished in many men of honour who may therein persist with great constancy The second order comprehendeth those which are Three orders of true lovers of the World yet more strong and it conteineth five other degrees First they are very assiduous in prayer wherein they are much enlightned with the knowledge of verities and celestiall maximes Secondly they obtain an excellent purity of conscience which they cleanse and polish by an enquiry into their interiour holily curious and perfectly disposed Thirdly they feel the exteriour man much weakned by a generous mortification wherewith concupiscence is quailed Fourthly followeth the vigour of the inward man who finds him self happily enabled to all the functions of the spirit with a certain facility which becometh as it were naturall to him Fifthly appeareth a great observance of the law of God which maketh him apprehend the least atomes of sin through a notable fidelity with which he desires to serve his master In this rank are many good religious who lead a life most accomplished in devotion and in the continuall mortification of senses Lastly in the third order of perfect lovers are the great effects of perfect charity as is not to have any humane and naturall considerations in all ones actions but to tread under foot all respect of flesh and bloud to defend truth Not to stick to earth by any root but to account all things worse then a dunghill to gain Jesus Christ to run before the Crosse and to bear the greatest adversities with a generous patience to love ones enemies to do good to persecutours and in conclusion freely to expose ones life for the salvation of a neighbour To say truly they had need to be persons most heroick to go so far and there is no doubt but this is the full accomplishment of love Notwithstanding nine degrees also are added of Seraphick love which concern Contemplatives which are Nine degrees of Seraphicall love for the contemplative The solitude of a heart throughly purified from all the forms of Creatures Silence in a sublime tranquillity of passions Suspension which is a mean degree between Angell and man Inseparability which adhereth to its welbeloved for an eternity not admitting the least disunion Insatiability which never is satiated with love Indefatigability which endureth all labours without wearinesse Languour which causeth the soul to dissolve and melt on the heart of its beloved Extasie which causeth a destitution of the vegetative and sensitive soul totally to actuate the intellectuall Deiformity which is a degree approching near to beatifick love Then is there made in the soul a deluge of mysterious and adorable
and Sanctity which is an eternal rule that looketh round about on every side condemneth and censureth the works of darknesse For as in things artificiall all the perfection of works consist in the conformity they have with the rule of the art which made them and all their imperfection proceedeth from their recesse from the same rule which without speech or motion declareth the defects of manufactures that depart from its direction so all the good and all the beauty of moral actions is in the correspondence they hold with Reason and the eternall Law As all their deformity and mishap comes from their departure from this same law which is the Justice the Holinesse and Essence of God himself who perpetually stands in opposition against iniquity It is it which he drenched in the waters of the deluge whic◠he burnt in the ashes of Sodom which he swallowed in the gulf of Core Dathan and Abiram which he tormented by the plagues of Pharaoh which he gnawed by worms in the person of Herod which he consumed by ordure and stenches in Antiochus which he punished with gibbets and tormenting wheels in so many offenders which he still tortureth to all eternity sunk down into the abysse of the damned and it is out of which he produceth his glory whence he raiseth his trophies and makes his triumphs to be by Essence and Nature a perpetuall enemy and a destroyer of sinne O magnificent hatred O glorious enemy O triumphant persecution Let us enter with God into this community of glory let us hate sinne as he doth by him and for him let us destroy it in our selves by penance let us destroy it out of our selves by our good examples let us destroy it by a good resolution since Jesus hath destroyed it with so much pain and bloud How can we love such a monster but by hating God And how can we hate God but by making our selves worse then devils For if they hate him they hate an avenging God a punishing God And we will hate a God that seeks us a loving God and hate him after so many execrable punishments of sinne which we nave before our eyes and hate him after he hath offered himself up for us in the great sacrifice of love and patience Is not this intollerable We will employ some part of our life to revenge an injury and to hate a man as if we had too much of it to hate sinne we make a shew to honour the Master and wee kill his servants we make profession to adore the Creatour and we tear his images asunder Where are we and what do we when we make a divorce between our likes to disunite our selves from the first Unity which draweth all to it self by union §. 3 That Jesus grounded all the greatest Mysteries of our Religion upon Vnion to cure Hatred LEt us also contemplate our second model let us behold our Jesus and we shall learn that all the greatest mysteries of his life and death are mysteries of Union to unite us to him to unite us to his Father to unite us to our selves with sacred and indissoluble bands First all creatures of this great Universe were made Heb. 1. ◠Locut us est nobis in Filio quem constituit haeredem universorum per quem fecit secula by the Word in the Unity of Beginning He spake to us by his Sonne whom he hath established the heir of the whole universe by whom likewise he created the worlds Secondly all the parts of this great All were so streightly tyed one to the other that they never have suffered the least disunion and although many seem to have antipathy and reciprocally to pursue each other yet they will not be separated but joyn together in a manner so adherent that he who should go about to disunite one Element from another all these great pieces of the world would infinitely strive beyond their quality to replenish its place worthily and to leave nothing void And it is a wonder that from the beginning of the Aeterno complectitur omnia nexu Tot retum mistique salus concordia mundi Lucan l. 4. Plin. l. 36. cap. 17. world all things are held together by this Divine Tie Concord which in its union causeth the happinesse of the world and those sacred influences of love hath woven eternall chains to tie indissolubly all the parts of the universe All this great body resembleth the stone Scyrus which floateth on the water while it is whole and sinks into the bottome so soon as it is broken This is the cause why all creatures have from all times conspired and do still daily conspire with inviolable inclinations in the maintenance of this concord that the celestiall and elementary world may subsist in a state unchangeable There is none but Angel and Man in the intellectuall world who have made false accords and have begun to sow division the one in Heaven the other in the terrestriall Paradise He who placed it in heaven is banished into the abysse without recovery Joh. 17. 21. Ut omnes unum sint sicut tu Pater in me ego in te the other is succoured by a Redeemer who came to restore the lost world and he in Saint John professeth he aimed at nothing but Unity to make this reparation For this cause saith S. Maximus he united himself S. Max. secunda cent 146. 147. to humane Nature not by a simple union of will of love and of correspondence but by the ineffable knot of Hypostaticall union conjoyning two Natures in one sole Person and by making a communication of all he is to his humane Nature transplanted into the Divine For this he likewise doth daily unite himself to us in the Sacrament of the Altar a true Sacrament of Love where if we will speak with S. Cyril we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril in Johan say that God is dissolved into us as one piece of wax melted and poured together with another and if we will reason with S. John Chrysostome we say He Chrys hom 46. in Johan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giveth us his virginall flesh as a most sacred Leaven to season the whole masse of Humane nature It is that which in us should work that virtue which the great Areopagite calleth a Conformity of affections and manners drawing near to Divinity It is that which giveth the name of peace to the holy Eucharist with S. Cyprian and that which so united the Christians in Cyp. ep 10. 29. 30. Dare pacem lapsis the Primitive Church that they went from this mysterious Table as from a banquet of Love after which they breathed nothing but most pure flames of perfect Vide ut invicem se diligant vide ut pro alterutro moti sint parati Tertul. in Apol. amity whereat the Pagans who saw them cryed out See how they love one another Behold how ready they are to die one for another as we have
to the will of God hath found the industry of an Infinite good in the accomplishment of his desires It is to live like Cain in the region of Instability and to walk upon a quagmire daily to entertain so many fresh appetites Their multiplication witnesseth enough the barrennesse of their purchase but when one well tasteth God and finds him to comprehend all relishes he forsaketh all to follow him and the Heart hath no more to do but to please him who is the source of its Contentment The second cause of desires is a promptitude and a vivacity of the Mind which bends much to levity and is not at all balasted by solidity of judgement whereby the soul is set at liberty to flie after all manner of objects as bees do after flowers I will deliver unto you an excellent doctrine which will teach us that between a ship and the heart of a man if we consider them well there is much resemblance The ship is a house A comparison of a ship and the heart of man of the sea and the heart is the habitation of the soul whilst it is in the ocean of this mortall life The ship goes on the waters and the heart upon abysses The ship hath its sails and the heart its aims The ship is guided by the rudder and the heart by prudence The ship expecteth winds and the heart the divers motions of its thoughts The ship feeleth tempests and the heart passions the ship feareth rocks and the heart obstacles The ship suffers shipwrack under water and the heart under the gulf of iniquity The ship in the haven and the heart in tranquillity Now as in the Scripture there are three sorts of ships specified so there likewise are three manner of hearts Some compared to ships which carry fruit are such as Naves poma portantes Job 9. are replenished with affections and desires with pleasures and contentments of the world which are enemies of the present and perpetually sigh after the future Others are ships of traffick which are continually Navis institoris Prov. 31. full of affairs disturbances great and little cares that steal the repose of life from them The rest are the ships of Tharsus in the Mediterranean sea which carry Naves Tharsis Psal 47. great designs great earthly ambitions and are very often tossed by most impetuous winds The third source of our Appetites is a hot and sanguine Complexion which in our heart enkindleth many desires like unto a fire made with straw violent enough in the beginning but of no lasting as on the contrary cold people have fewer desires but are more pertinacious in the pursuit of them It is said we must beware of a man who hath but one thing to do because his thoughts being perpetually bent upon one and the same object he becomes extremely troublesome to those from whom he desireth the accomplishment of his designe so must we defend our selves from a man who hath but one desire especially when it is inordinate For we may easily escape from such as have many cares Time wasteth them as fast as he produceth them it is needlesse to oppose or much to contradict them let their minds rest and you shall find the purpose they had in the morning to be quite gone by the evening like the Ephemery which lives but one day Now as for those who have amassed together all the strength of their soul upon one desire they are immeasurably urgent and cease not to persecute you untill they have put their wish in execution The fourth is a certain crooked winding of a Heart which is as it were spungy and insatiable joyned to a debility of spirit which apprehendeth want and necessity and this makes it to fasten upon any thing to help it self Tertulliun saith that all these wandring souls have Interpellat ad desiderandum finis ipse desiderandi Tertul lib. de poenitâ—n no other profession in this life but to be in wish where they cannot be personally in presence The end of one desire provoketh them to begin another Their desires resemble fruits that passe away which in their latter season retain some beauty of their first vigour There are many who esteem it a bitter businesse to expect and who had rather see their hopes cut off then to find out the way how to prolong them but such are born to desire they are not pleased with a victory already gotten you do greatly wrong them instantly to give what they ask they love even things unlawfull because they are such and so soon as they are permitted them they lose that place which they had before in their heart § 4. That the tranquillity of Divine Essence for which we are created ought to rule the un-quietnesse of our desires AGainst this passion I have two remedies to propose Reason against vain desires drawn from the Divine tranquillity in two Reasons the first whereof is drawn from the first model which is the heavenly Father and the second from the second which is the Incarnate Word since in them are the most efficacious wayes for reformation of the table of the Soul As for the first I say that our soul being made to the Image of God and for the possession and fruition of God it will never rest but in the conformity of its understanding and will with the understanding and will of its Creatour Now what think you would God desire if he were capable of desire what would he wish to see to know and to have nothing but himself and insomuch as he is eternally and inseparably with himself he is not capable of any impression of desires whatsoever We cannot be like unto God without desires whilst we are in the world but we may and ought to have but one main desire which is God himself Imagine your heavenly Father to be a great sea of Nazian in Natalâ—tia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essences of perfections and of contentments a sea which hath neither bottome nor shore a sea wherein all the vessels of curious souls suffer shipwrack Imagine with your self an Exemplary world a vast world of wisdome of sanctity of intelligencies of lives of reasons and of forms There God inhabiteth within himself being to himself as saith Tertullian place palace Tertul. in Praxeum cap. 5. world there he is absorpt as in a huge abysse of delights not to be imagined He from all eternity hath his felicity purely perfect and concentred in his own bosome seeing he from all eternity hath his Sonne his great and onely Conception which emptieth him without his emptinesse which issueth from him without issuing forth which abideth in him without distinction of Essence or confusion of Persons He hath all his loves within himself since he hath Nec intelligentiam admittit solitudinâ—s 〈◊〉 diversitatem divinitaâ—is Magist â—ent lib. 1. d 3. his holy Spirit a substantiall flame of love enkindled in his heart by his proper will which is
places under the ground such as that which we now adayes call Sybilla's Grot and it is thought the Sun never reflected into their caves but it is not so in the visits of the holy Ghost The great S. Dionys de Hierarch coelesti sea of Divine Lights is ever at hand and abundantly overfloweth in favour of such evils as will participate therein I am not ignorant that certain Divines have said that some sinners arrive many times to such exorbitancy of crimes and ingratitudes that they in the end are totally abandoned by God and have not all the rest of their time one sole good thought But the Bellarm. l. 2 de Gratia most moderate say that this happeneth for certain time and certain moments albeit one cannot generally S. Thom. 3. 4. 86. Dicere quod peccatum sit in hac vita de quo quis poenltere non possit erroneum est Misericordiae Dei nec mensuram possumus ponere nec tempora definire S. Leo. ep 89 Admirabile conversions of such as seemed desperate say that a man may come to an estate so desperate as to be wholly impenetrable to the graces of God It is an errour to say that a crime so detestable may happen in the world of which one cannot have remission We cannot set limits nor bound time in the infinite mercies of God Moses the Ethiopian who was so black of body so stained in conscience so wicked of life that he was accounted a devil incarnate was so changed by the Grace of God that he became an Angel of heaven An infamous thief having obtained his pardon of the Emperour Mauricius was put into the Hospitall of S. Samson where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of death that the Physician who took care of him coming to see him found him unexpectedly dead and over his face a handkerchief bathed with his tears and soon after he had a certain revelation of his Beatitude To this purpose Pope Celestine said That a true Conversion made at the Coelest 1. ep 2. c. 2. Vera ad Deum conversio in ultimis positorum mente potius est existimanda quam tempere last end of life is to be measured by the mind not by the time God caused a thief to mount from the gallows to Glory to teach us that as there is nothing impossible to his Power so there is not any thing limitted in his Mercy It is onely fit for him to Despair who can be as wicked as God is good § 5 The Examples which Jesus Christ gave us in the abysse of his suffering are most efficacious against pusillanimity BEhold the consolations we may derive fâ—om our first model but if we will consider the second The sight of our Saviour teacheth us to persevere in our good hopes and not to despair we shall find that our Lord who did all for our instruction witnessed strong hopes in the great abysse of dolours wherewith he was all covered over on the Crosse to encourage us to hope well in the most sensible afflictions That you may well understand this point so important you must consider what then was the state of the body and soul of Jesus Christ the body was so full of wounds that they who could not be satisfied with his pains did more in him torment his wounds then his members He had almost no part about him entire whereof he on the Crosse could make use but his eyes and his tongue His eyes not being pulled out as Samson's and Zedekiah's there was nothing left for him but to set before his view the Martyrdome of his good Mother who was fastned on the Crosse by love and who imprinted in her soul by a most amorous reflexion all the torments which the King of the afflicted bare on his body His Tongue which he had reserved free to be the organ of heavenly harmonies in those fervent prayers he sent to his celestiall Father was wholly drenched in gall But all this was nothing in comparison of the dolours of his Soul For he was destitute for a time of all divine Consolations abandoned to himself delivered over as a prey to all the outrageous sadnesse which may grow in our minds It was a horrible blasphemy in Calvin to say that our Lord descended into Hell Calvin l. 2. Instit c. 16. there to endure the pains of the damned without the suffering of which he was not in a state to be able to redeem the world This spoken in the manner as this abominable Novelist hath dared to write woundeth and offendeth the most obdurate ears But if we Suaâ—ez in 3. q. 46. Fieri potuit ut intensivè esset major an ità de facto fuerit non potest constare will speak with the most eminent Divines we may say that it is very likely that the Agonies of our Saviours Soul might in some sort enter into Comparison with the sadnesse of the damned not by reason of their condition but of their excesse And certainly some have thought that our Saviour stirring up in his blessed Soul a Contrition for all the sin of the world in The excesse of the contrition and dolour of our Lord. generall and of every one in particular was wounded with so piercing a sorrow that it in some sort exceeded that of devils and the damned For all the sadnesse which may be imagined in hell consisteth in acts which are produced from Principles that surpasse not the force of Humane or Angelicall Nature but the pain which our Saviour endured for the expiation of our Ingratitude was derived from the heart of God according to the whole latitude of the Grace and Charity of the word Incarnrte For which cause it is conformable to reason to say The three sadnesses of our Saviour by Allegory that this blessed Soul entred into three kinds of sacred and honourable flames and of pains wholly Divine The first was in the garden of Olivet when he said His soul was sad to death The Maâ— 16. second when he pronounced on the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Complaining Mat. 17. not of the separation of the Word as some antient Writers have understood it little conform to true Vox recedentis verbi Dei contestata dissidium Hil. can 33. Athan. lib. de Incarn Aug. ract 47. in Joan. Theology but of recesse from protection as S. Athanasius doth explicate it in his Book of the Incarnation and S. Augustine in his 47. Tract upon S. John The third was at the going forth of the incomparable soul of Jesus when there was not so small a filament of a vein in his body which resented not the absence of this divine Sunne Notwithstanding among all these great convulsions which put heaven into mourning and earth into quakings under his feet he stood firm and with an eye bathed in bloud beheld the raies of Glory which were to crown him
would be pleased to divert such a thought from thee lest thou become culpable of the anger of God which will fall on the whole Army if thou goest to this stranger It importeth not I will go Son if thou resolvest to sin then stay till night make a veil of darknesse further to cover thy wickednesse from the eyes of the world for fear lest thy example may serve for a rock of scandall to those who are yet novices in virtue Yet thou perversly sayest I will go in full day light I will enjoy my pleasures and who art thou that givest me a law Go Zimri Go impudent man thou in thy calamitie shalt know the salarie of thy sin You know the rest of the History he goes thither he accosteth the Madianite in sight of all the world At which time God raiseth a young Prince as courageous as a Lion grand-child of Aaron who followeth him armed with zeal and sword crying out aloud Ah Traytor Ah infamous man He finds him out in the throne of Lust in the bed of iniquitie in the heat of Crime and with his sword transfixeth him and the Madianite making the abominable Bed and their unchaste loves to float all in bloud O bloud horribly but justly shed which still cryeth out with a voyce of bloud and saith to all posteritie Men women children great little poor rich flie from Impudency flie from Impudency as the last of vices otherwise know there is a revenging sword and a Judgement of God inevitable to all the Shamelessnesse of Sinners The twelfth Treatise Of ANGER § 1. The origine of Anger its Nature Causes and Diversities FIre which is a Mean between Spirits and Bodies doth work very diversly according The marveilous effects of fire to the matter and disposition it meets withall In the heavens it enkindleth the stars with flames the most pure in totall Nature it diversifieth clouds with Gold and Rubies it maketh Bowes and Coronets in the air it enterteineth a heat of life in the bodie of living Creatures which being maintained in a good temperature cause all the harmonies of health but when it mounteth up into a tempestuous cloud when it boyleth in Fornaces and creeps into Canons which are as mouths of fire to pronounce war it maketh so strange devastations that it vanquisheth the most valiant beats down the most boysterous mollifieth the hardest and terrifieth the most daring In the same manner we may say heat which in our bodies is an admirable work-Mistresse multiplyeth its effects according to the diversitie of the stuffs and occasions it lights on it conspireth with our spirits to serve as an instrument for the soul in its great operations it exciteth the honourable flames of chaste loves it disposeth courage to generous resolutions it polisheth the mind to embrace worthy purposes It secondeth the Imagination in its apprehensions It makes it self the steward of the vegetatiue faculties for the generation and production of men But if it once meet with burnt blood and fuming Choler which is as it were in the hands of the imagination when it is touched with some displeasure it insinuateth it self thereinto as into a cloud swoln with storms and tempests which throws forth fires roareth with thunders shooteth with inflamed darts and practiseth nought but ruine This is it we call Anger which is properly an ardent What Anger is appetite of reuenge caused by an apprehension of contempt and injuries Now this opinion of Contempt springeth in some from disesteem or for that they are forgotten and neglected by those of whom they think they ought to be respected In others from being crossed in what they desire most as in their profession their ambition and especially their affections In others from being depressed in that wherin they imagine they excell and principally before such by whom they perswade themselves they are beloved and honoured In others from being derided for defects of nature aswel of body as of mind and extraction also In others from being injuriously disgraced and insolently outraged by base and abject people and such as they have obliged As the opinion of injury increaseth and as it meeteth with a nature disposed and matter prepared this ardour is inflamed and if it be accompanied with a great power it teareth down smoaking cities it desolateth Provinces it swims in massacres it raiseth scaffolds all sprinkled over with bloud and hung with black whereon it acteth horrible Tragedies The other passions are augmented by degrees but Dum incipit tota est Sen. de Ira. How Anger is formed this ariseth fully formed and appears perfect so soon as it beginneth The opinion of contempt no sooner entreth in by the eyes and eares but it striketh the imagination which promptly communicateth its influence to the irascible appetite and then as if fire were given to a Canon it becomes Thunder and Tempest which disfigureth the bravest bodies turmoileth the bloud and spirits and bendeth all the veins to vengeance You would say the heart is not at that time any other then Vulcans Forge where the thoughts like so many Cyclopes labour to make Hail-showrs Lightenings and Tempests It is not known in this countrey what kind of language Reason speaketh It is no better heard then words among the Catadupes of Nilus strength hath a hand lifted up to employ the sword and a thousand instruments of iniquity to commit outrages This passion resembleth the furious Martichora renowned among Indian wild beasts who teareth his members asunder to make of them the arrows of his vengeance It hath nothing so resolved on as to destroy all and to raise unto it self a Tombe in its own ruines Yet we cannot but say that there are Divers qualities of anger three very different sorts of Anger according to the offences and persons who either raise it or suffer it In some it is cold in apparence and more inward but these oftentimes have the aspect of Virgins who in conclusion throw forth the fire of dragons In others it is fervent and headlong In others haughty and scornfull In others dumb and malicious In others obstreperous and stormy In some it is frequent and sudden in others sticking and obstinate There are some who being offended for frivolous things cease not to persevere therein for fear some may think they began without reason in which the lesse the cause is the more passionate they become Others blame their greatest friends for having done them lesse good then they expected In some Anger is but yet in bloom in others it taketh great and deep root Some satisfie themselves with clamour and injuries others therein employ the hand others wood and Iron others would have lightening in their power for some time of purpose to prosecute their revenge with all advantage Lastly this passion thrusts forth Vir iracundus effodit peccata Caffiao de spirits irae c. 1. all that is hidden in the heart Which made Cassian according to the Septuagint to write that
not of this present which is nothing in comparison of the infinite obligations I owe to your worth Well saith he sith you give it with so good a will I accept it for your sake but cause your daughters to come hither that I may bid them farewell These virtuous souls following their mothers presidency had also with her charitably assisted him during the time of his infirmities cure many times touching their Lute whereon they played very sweetly for his minds recreation Upon this summon of his into his presence they fell at his feet the elder of the daughters in the name of both made a short speech unto him in her mother language importing a thankfull form unto him for his just performed preservation of their honour The Captain heard it yet not without a weeping-joy and admiration at the sweetnesse and humility he therein observed and then said Ladies ye do that which I ought to do which is to give you thanks for the many good helps ye have afforded me for which I find my self infinitely obliged unto you Ye know men of my profession are not readily furnished with handsome tokens to present fair maidens withall But behold your good Lady-mother hath given me two thousand five hundred ducats take each of you a thousand of them as my gift for so I am resolved it shall be Then turning to his Hostesse Madam saith he I will take the five hundred to my self to distribute them among poor Religious women who have not had like happinesse with you to be preserved from the souldiers plundering pillage And as you better then any other may judge of the necessities which each one may by such accidents have befaln them so I am confident I can depute none a more faithfull steward for the disposing thereof then is your wise ingenious and charitable self unto whose sole disposall I freely recommend it The Lady touched to the quick with so rare and pious a disposition spake these words unto him O flower of Chevalry to whom none other can be compared Our blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who for us sinners suffered death and passion both here in this world and in the other reward you The Gentleman of the house who at that time heard the courtesie of his ghest came to thank him with a bended knee making him withall a surrender of his person and a sequestration of his whole estate but he most nobly left him master of himself and of his estate The young gentlewomen who amongst other their many accomplishing endowments were skilfull at the needle made him a present of a crimson-sattin purse very richly wrought and of two bracelets woven with thread of gold and silver He very graciously receiving them Behold saith he I esteem these more then ten thousand crowns and instantly he put the bracelets on his wrists and the purse into his pocket assuring them that while these their respective remembrances would last he would wear them for their sakes Which civil ceremonies ended he mounted on his horse accompanied thence with his true friend the Lord D' Aubigny and with about two or three thousand other gentlemen and souldiers the Lady of the house the daughters and the whole family as passionately lamenting his departure as if they should have been put to the sword although they had assurance from him by his undeniable Protection under which he left them and their possessions to be unmolested after his departure If the starres were to descend from heaven I would demand now whether they might find more love and respect then this heaven-born piece of generosity did both receive and return But be ye your own judges if your observations tell you not it farre otherwise befalls those silly fencers who in like times of advantages rush themselves into such well feathered nests no otherwise then as fatall Comets portending fire and the destroying sword who make the props of buildings tremble with their loud blasphemies who load whole families with injuries without the least regard of age sex or honour but make a sport at the bloud and wounds over whom they tyrannize pillaging them like ravenous harpies fatted with humane ruines However should they do nothing else all their life time but heap up mountains of gold and silver they could not arrive to the least part of the contentment which this good Captain enjoyed who sought no other recompence from his fair way'd actions but the satisfaction of his serene conscience and the glory to have done so well And thus it is O ye who would your selves to be indeed enobled that hearts are gained thus ye oblige if I may so say both earth and heaven to become due tributaries to your virtues with blessings round about you here and with a crown of immortality hereafter THE STATES-MEN JOSEPH MOSES IOSEPH MOSES I Begin the Elogies of holy States-men with the Patriarch Joseph who was the first of Gods chosen people that entred into the Court of an Infidel Prince to make of his life an example of virtue and of his demeanour a miracle Here is an high design of God who transports a young child out of the cabans and condition of shepherds to make him the second person of a great Kingdome to give him the heart and the treasures of his Master the friendship of the Nobles the veneration of the People and the admiration of all the world Those that look upon this history after a common manner observe ordinarily therein the changes of humane things the beginnings the progresses and the issues of worldly affairs But if we would penetrate farther we should find two great reasons and two admirable designs of Providence about the entrance and negotiation of Joseph in Egypt The first is that according to the saying of the great S. Leo it was reasonable that the eternall Word that was to come for the salvation of the whole world should be divided through all Ages and through all Nations shewing himself to some in figure to others in reality giving himself to some by Hope to others by Presence and to many by remembrance He insinuated himself into the antient Jews by Prophecies into the Gentiles by Oracles into the Learned by Riddles into the People by visible Figures into the Saints and the Religious by Mysteries into the Profane and Gentiles by Government and Politick Prudence This is the fashion that he held towards the Egyptians making them see the first rayes of the Birth-day of his coming in the person of Joseph that wore very advantageously the Lineaments of his Divine Perfections and merited to be called by advance The Saviour of the world The second reason is that God meaning to begin that Divine work of the persecutions and the wonders of his chosen People transports Joseph thither and makes of him a man of sufferings and of prodigies to be as a grain of seed out of which one should see spring that numerous posterity that should equall the starres of heaven
I eat drink sleep when I do business when I am both in conversation and solitude Whither shall this poor soul go which thou hast thrown into a body so frail in a world so corrupt and amongst the assaults of so many pernicious enemies Open O Lord thine eyes for my guidance and compassionate my infirmities without thee I can do nothing and in thee I can do all that I ought Give me O Lord a piercing eye to see my danger and the wings of an Eagle to flie from it or the heart of a Lion to fight valiantly that I may never be wanting in my duty and fidelity to thee I ow all that I am or have to thy gracious favour and I will hope for my salvation not by any proportion of my own virtues which are weak and slender but by thy boundless liberalities which onely do crown all our good works The Gospel upon Munday the first week of Lent out of Saint Matthew 25. Of the Judgement-Day ANd when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty and all the Angels with him then shall be sit upon the seat of his Majesty And all Nations shall be gathered together before him and he shall separate them one from another as the Pastour separateth the sheep from the goats And shall set the sheep at his right hand but the goats at his left Then shall the King say to them that shall be at his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father possess you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world For I was hungred and you gave me to eat I was athirst and you gave me to drink I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you covered me sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me Then shall the just answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred and fed thee athirst and gave thee drink and when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and covered thee or when did we see thee sick or in prison and came to thee And the King answering shall say to them Amen I say to you as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me Then shall he say to them also that shall be at his left hand Get you away from me you cursed into fire everlasting which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungred and you gave me not to eat I was athirst and you gave me not to drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and you covered me not sick and in prison and you did not visit me Then they also shall answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee Then shall he answer them saying Amen I say to you as long as you did it not to one of these lesser neither did you it to me And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Moralities 1. BEhold here a Gospel of great terrour where our spirit like the Dove of Noah is placed upon the great deluge of Gods wrath and knows not where to find footing Every thing is most dreadfull But what can be more terrible than the certainty of Gods judgement joyned with the great uncertainty of the hour of our death It is an unchangeable decree that we must all be presented before the high Tribunal of the living God to render a just account of all which our soul hath done while it was joyned with our body as we are taught by S. Paul We must make an account of our time spent of our thoughts words actions of that we have done and that we have omitted of life death and of the bloud of Jesus Christ and thereupon receive a judgement of everlasting life or death All men know that this must certainly be done but no man knows the hour or moment when it shall be So many clocks strike about us every day and yet none can let us know the hour of our death 2. O how great is the solitude of a Soul in her separation from so many great enticements of the world wherein many men live and in an instant to see nothing but the good or ill we have done on either side us what an astonishment will it be for a man suddenly to see all the actions of his life as upon a piece of Tapistree spred befor his eyes where his sins will appear like so many thorns so many serpents so many venemous beasts Where will then be that cozening vail of reputation and reason of state which as yet cover so many wicked actions The soul shall in that day of God be shewed naked to all the world and her own eyes will most vex her by witnessing so plainly what she hath done 3. O what a parting water is Gods judgement which in a moment shall separate the mettals so different O what a division will then be made of some men which now live upon earth Some shall be made clear and bright like the stars of heaven others like coals burning in hell O what a dreadfull change will it be to a damned soul at her separation from this life to live onely in the company of devils in that piercing sense of torments and eternal punishment It is a very troublesom thing to be tied with silken strings in a bed of Roses for the space of eight days together What may we think of a damned soul which must dwell in a bed of flames so long as there shall be a God 4. Make use of the time given you to work your salvation and live such a life as may end with a happy death and so obtain that favourable judgement which shall say Come O thou soul blessed of God my Father possess the kingdom which is prepared for thee from the beginning of the world There is no better means to avoid the rigour of Gods judgements than to fear them continually Imitate the tree mentioned in an Emblem which being designed to make a ship and finding it self wind-shaken as it grew upon the land said What will become of me in the sea If we be already moved in this world by the bare consideration of the punishment due to sin think what it will be in that vast sea and dreadfull Abyss of Gods judgements Aspirations O King of dreadfull Majesty who doest justly damn and undeservedly save souls save me O Fountain of Mercy Remember thy self sweet Jesus that I was the cause of that great journey which thou tookest from God to man and do not destroy me in that dreadfull day which must decide the Question of my life or death for all eternity Take care of my last end since thou art the cause of my beginning and the onely cause of all that I am O Father of bounties wouldest thou stop a mouth
which desires so earnestly to praise and confess thee everlastingly Alas O eternal Sweetness wouldest thou damn a soul which hath cost thee so much sweat and bloud giving it for ever to those cruel and accursed powers of darkness Rather O Lord pierce my heart with such a fear of thy judgement that I may always dread and never feel them If I forget awake my memory if I flie from thee recal me again If I deferre my amendment stay for me If I return do not despise my soul but open those arms of mercy which thou didst spread upon the Cross with such rigorous justice against thy self for satisfaction of my sins The Gospel upon Tuesday the first week in Lent out of Saint Matthew 21. JESUS drove the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple ANd when he was entered Jerusalem the whole City was moved saying Who is this And the people said This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee And Jesus entered into the Temple of God and cast out all that sold and bought in the Temple and the tables of the bankers and the chairs of them that sold pigeons he overthrew and be saith to them It is written My house shall be called the house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves And there came to him the blind and the lame in the Temple and he healed them And the chief Priests and Scribes seeing the marvellous things that he did and the children crying in the Temple and saying Hosanna to the Son of David they had indignation and said to him Hearest thou what these say And Jesus said to them Very well have you never read that out of the mouthes of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise and leaving them he went forth out of the Citie into Bethania and remained there Moralities 1. JEsus entering into Jerusalem went streight to the Temple as a good Son goes to his Fathers house as a High-Priest to the Sanctuary and as a sacrifice to the Altar He doth very lively interest himself in the goods of his Heavenly Father and chaseth out every prophane thing out of that sacred place to give thereby glory to the living God and to put all things in order It is a wicked stain to Religion when Ecclesiastical persons are vicious and when Churches are profaned Saint John Chrysostom saith That Priests are the heart of the Church but when they are wicked they turn all into sin A decaying tree hath always some ill quality about the root so when any people are without discipline the Pastours are without virtue The want of reverence in Churches begets the contempt of God they cannot have Jesus in their hearts when they give him affronts even in his own Temple 2. His house saith he is a house of Prayer but your heart should be the Sanctuary and your lips the door So long as you are without the exercise of prayer you shall be like a Bee without a sting which can make neither honey nor wax Prayer is the chiefest and most effectual means of that Angelical conversation to which God calls us by the merits of his passion and by the effects of his triumphant resurrection It is the sacred business which man hath with God and to speak with Saint Gregory Nazianzen it is the art to make our souls divine Before all things you must put into an order the number the time the place the manner of your prayers and be sure that you pay unto God this tribute with respect fervour and perseverance But if you desire to make a very good prayer learn betimes to make a prayer of all your life Incense hath no smell without fire and prayer is of no force without charity A man must converse innocently and purely with men that desire to treat worthily with God 3. Keep your person and your house clean from ill managing all holy things and from those irreverences which are sometimes committed in Churches It is a happy thing for a man to be ignorant of the trade of buying and selling benefices and to have no intercourse with the tribunals of iniquity Many other sins are written in sand and blown away with a small breath of Gods mercy But the faults of so great impiety are carved upon a corner of the Altar with a graver of steel or with a diamond point as the Prophet saith He deserves to be made eternally culpable who dries up the fountain which should waste himself or poisons the stream which he himself must drink or contanimates the Sacraments which are given him to purifie his soul Aspirations SPirit of God which by reason of thy eminent height canst pray to no body and yet by thy divine wisdom makest all the world pray to thee Give me the gift of prayer since it is the mother of wisdom the seal of virginity the sanctuary for our evils and fountain of all our goods Grant that I may adore thee in Spirit with reverence stedfastness and perseverance and if it be thy divine pleasure that I pray unto thee as I ought inspire into me by thy virtue such prayers as thou wilt hear by thy bountie The Gospel for Wednesday the first week of Lent S. Matth. 12. The Pharisees demand a Sign of JESUS THen answered him certain of the Scribes and Pharisees saying Master we would see a sign from thee who answered and said to them The wicked and adulterous generation seeketh a sign and a sign shall not be given it but the sign of Jonas the Prophet For as Jonas was in the Whales belly three days and three nights so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas And behold more than Jonas here The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because she come from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold more than Solomon here And when an unclean spirit shall go out of a man he walketh through drie places seeking rest and findeth not Then he saith I will return into my house whence I came out And coming he findeth it vacant swept with besoms and trimmed then goeth he and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last of that man be made worse than the first So shall it be also to this wicked generation As he was yet speaking to the multitudes behold his mother and his brethren stood without seeking to speak to him and one said unto him Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking thee But he answering him that told him said Who is my mother and who are my brethren And stretching forth his hand upon his Disciples he said Behold my mother and my brethren for whosoever shall do the will