throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crowâ— of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woulâ—d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a
legal and politick punishment that in Phalaris it was a Tyrannical devise in Cain the Divine vengeance and in Adam and Eve the Justice of Nature God Nature Reason and fury it selfe which in this case must not be defined madnesse do all beare witnesse that selfe-condemnation or the guilt of conscience is of all others the most bitter and avenging torment Adde to this that the certainty of it is as infallible and inevitable as the extremity and fiercenesse of it are implacable there was never any Tyrant so cruel but would pardon some offender There was none so severely inquisitive but some might either escape from him or deceive him But the rigour of conscience permits neither favour flight nor fraud It is utterly inexorable and neither our feete will serve us to ran away nor our hands to free us whither shall a man ran from himselfe from the secrets of his own spirit from his life No man can be an Impostour or dissembler with his own heart no man can undo what he hath already done to have sinned is the remediless plague of the Soul It was a slow expression of Victor that Vengeance is near to sinne It is swifter then so It is not consectaneous or in chase of it but coetaneous with it and its foster-sister The punishment hath the same birth with the offence and proceedes from it It is both the Sister and the Daughter of it Wickednesse cannot be brought forth without its penalty The brest that conceives the one is big with the other and when the one is borne he is delivered of both It is a fruitfullnesse like that of Mice whose young ones are included the one in the other and generate in the very wombe Conscience while man thinkes of Evill even before he acts doth rebuke that thought so that the punishment is praeexistent to the crime though in the reigne of Virtue it is noiselesse and uselesse as penal Lawes are dead letters untill they are quickned by offenders It is then in its minority and without a sting or else it is asleep untill the Cry of Sinne awakes it In the state of Evill Conscience is the first and the last revenger when smal offences are wiped out enormous crimes like capital letters will still remain No man can find a Sanctuary to save him from himself No evill doer can so fly for refuge as to be secure though he may be safe Hee will be afraid in that place where he thought not to fear Though he fears not the friends of the murthered yet he finds that within him which makes him sore afraid He may escape the Executioner and the sword but he will be overtaken by himselfe and being safe hee will be afraid even of his safety Though he may find fidelity in his fellow-Tyrants yet shall he find none in his own bosome which is ever clamorous and spues out blood and guilt Nature deviseth such a punishment for evill doers as that which tyed living Malefactors unto the putrid Carkasses of dead men that the horrour and stench of them might afflict their spirits and the quick flesh be infected and devoured by the dead and rotten The punishment sticks fast unto us after the offence whose carkasse is terrour of Conscience Shame and a gnawing remorse that feeds still upon the faulty but is not satisfied The guilty person can have noe peace But night and day doth his owne life molest And bears his Judge and witnesse in his brest Adde to this that Reason which in all other pressures and misfortunes is the great Auxiliary and Guardian of man is in an offended Conscience his greatest Enemy and imploys all her forces to his vexation and ruine Fortune therefore is not the onely cause of our contristation we our selves do arm adversities and put a sword into the hand of griefe to wound us with we are sticklers against our selves Evill Actions afflict more then Evill Fortune We are not onely troubled that it was Chaunce but that it was our Choice It is the worst kind of misery to be made miserable by our owne approbation That evill which we procure to our selves must needs grieve us more then that which we casually suffer Noe damage is so doleful as a condemning conscience Truly I do believe that the onely misfortune of Man is Sinne. And so very bad and mischievous a Cheat it is that when it is most punished wee think it most prospers neither can Fortune be justly termed Evil but when she is the Assistant of Evill men and the surety for Evill doing This permitted successe makes the affaires of the most unrighteous to be esteemed Just This is a felicity like that of beasts which we put into pleasant and well watered pastures that they may be fed for slaughter Against this true misfortune as well as the false and seeming Patience must be our Antidote not by bearing but by abstaining from it Patience in this Case must elevate it selfe and passe into a virtuous anger and contempt of sinfull prosperity We must be piously impatient of all their proffers and poisonous allurements Impatient I say that we may patiently overcome them Therefore as I have formerly exhibited the Art of bearing well to be the onely remedy against Fortune So now I shall demonstrate to you that the Art of abstaining well is the sole medicine against these true and inward misfortunes Differing diseases must have different cures Patience is the poyson that kills Fortune and the Balm that heales her stripes but a sacred impatience or abstinence from Sinne is the Antidote of Conscience and the Basis or foundation of this holy impatience is transcendent and triumphant Patience To mitigate or overcome Fortune is a trivial trick Flattery will do it if we can but descend to approve of and commend all that she doth To preserve the peace of Conscience wee must be rigid and censorious We must speak home and truly We must examine before we Act and admit of no Action that wil be a just cause but for to blush The approaches of Fortune are abstruse She moves not within the light of Humane wisedome or if she doth the strength of her Prerogative lies betwixt Willingnesse and Constraint It is a kind of fatal fooling Man playes with his Stars untill they hurt him But the cause of an evill Conscience is within our view and may be prevented by Counsell For no man can Sinne against his Will or without his Knowledge One naile must drive out another He that would avoyd damnation must avoid also those things which are damnable He cannot grieve too much that grieves only to prevent Eternal griefe The helps we use against Fortune are after-games But the Salves of Conscience must precede the wound the cure of spirituall diseases is their prevention In the affaires of this World the best man is the experienced But in the distresses and affaires of Conscience he is the wisest that is most ignorant A noxious Knowledge is death and every
him in this mixt multitude some weeping and sighing some without eyes to weep some without hands others without legs some sick and languishing others eaten up with horrid impure ulcers some beging others quarrelling some plotting treason and washing their hands in innocent blood some old and decrepiâ— quivering trembling and leaning upon staves some distracted and bound up in chains others plundered tortured murthered and martyred their murtherers in the mean time pretending Religion Piety and the Glory of God And after all this outward Scene should so enlighten his eyes that he might discover another inward one I meane their secret thoughts and close devices their tyranny covetousnesse sacriledge varnished outwardly with godly pretences dissembled purity and the stale shift of liberty of Conscience Is there any doubt to be made think you but after such impious and astonishing spectacles he would quickly repent of his existence or being and earnestly desire to be dissolved again that he might rest in peace and not be cast into this hospital and valley of villanies which we call the World It is for this cause that wise Nature is so slow and niggardly in her dispensations of reason and maturity unto man lest a sudden perfection should make us loath her and lest the necessary evils of life understood in grosse and upon our first entrance into life should discourage us from undergoing those miseries which by degrees and successive conflicts we more willingly struggle with Abner the Eastern King so soon as his son was born gave order for his confinement to a stately and spatious Castle where he should be delicately brought up carefully kept from having any knowledg of humane calamities he gave speciall command that no distressed person should be admitted into his presence nothing sad nothing lamentable nothing unfortunate no poor man no old man none weeping nor disconsolate was to come near his Palace Youthfulnesse pleasures and joy were alwaies in his presence nothing else was to be seen nothing else was discoursed of in his company A most ridiculous attempt to keep out sorrow with bars and walls and to shut the gates against sadnesse when life is an open door by which it enters His very delights conveigh'd displeasure to him and grief by a distast of long pleasure found way to invade him So constant is pleasure in inconstancy that continual mirth turns it into sadnesse Certainly though Abner by this device might keep all sorrows from the presence of his son hee could not keep them from his sense Hee could keep out and restrain external evils but could not restraine his inherent affections His son longed this made him sad in the very midst of his joyes And what thinkst thou did he long for Truly not to be so cumberd with delights The grief of pleasures made him request his father to loose the bonds of his miserable felicity This suit of the Son crost the intentions of the Father who was forced to give over his device to keep him from sadnesse lest by continuing it he should make him sad He gave him his liberty but charged his attendants to remove out of his way all objects of sorrow The blind the maimed the deformed and the old must not come near him But what diligence is sufficient to conceal the miseries of Mortality they are so numerous that they may as soon be taken out of the world as hidden from those that are in the world Royal power â—â—â—vailed lesse here then humane infirmity for this last took place in spight of the first The Prince in his Recreations meets with an old man blind and leprous the sight astonisheth him he startles trembles and faints like those that swound at the apparition of a Spirit enquires of his followers what that thing might be And being inwardly perswaded that it was some fruit of humane life he became presently wise disliked pleasures condenmed mirth and despised life And that his life might have the least share here where Fortune hath the greatest he rejected the hopes and blandishments of life yea that which is to many the price of two lives his Kingdom and royal Dignity He laboured with all diligence to live so in the world as if he had been dead that by avoyding sin the cause of sorrow he might be though not safe at least secure If this single accident made him so much offended with life what think you would he have done had his liberty been universal and unbounded What if he had seen the inside of those stately Tombes wee build for the worms to eat us in where they feed upon such fat oppressors as have been fed here with the tears and pillage of the oppressed What if he had narrowly searched every corner of the world and seen those necessary uncleannesses in which the birth of man is celebrated in which this miserie is inaugurated by the paines of the Mother and the cries of the Infant What if he had entred into their bed-chambers and bosomes where some sit weeping others wishing some surfeited and sick with fruition where some mourn for their wives others for their children some pine and starve with want others are full and vomit some are troubled with lack of necessaries and others are as much vexed with abundance and superfluity What if after all this search and wide disquisition he could not have found one house without some misfortune and none without tears What if he had been admitted into the breasts of all those whom either domestick hidden griefs lingring diseases worldly cares or an insatiable covetousness is ever tormenting Perhaps thei sight of so many evils had driven him to a refusall of life in which we doe so dye with miseries and by which miseries doe so live in us at least he had earnestly wished and groaned for some means of redemption from so miserable a bondage If any had brought him the joyful news of liberty and affirmed that some were already made free he had certainly envyed them very much and would have been impatient to know the means But when it had been told him that the device and release was death I do not onely think but I verily beleeve that he had both approved of it and would have sought for it more then for hidden treasure He had judged it not onely desirable and convenient but necessary and the greatest felicity and favour that the living could expect If some solitary travellour shut up in a wilderness and surrounded with wild beasts should on the one side see a Tiger making towards him on the other a Lyon and from some third place a scalie winding Serpent or a Basilisk which kils with â—is very looks Whose hissings fright all Natures monstrous Ills His eye darts death more swift then poison kils All Monsters by instinct to him give place They fly for life for death lives in his face And hee alone by Natures hid commands Reigns Paramont and Prince of all the sands If these with a thousand
who neither can enjoy ought that is pleasant at the present nor lay up for themselves any hope of true joyes hereafter They misse the fruition of this short life and can have no hope of the everlasting They abuse these temporal blessings and shall never be admitted to use the eternall Their substance here is very little but their hope there is none at all A most wretched and deplorable condition unless they make a virtue of this desperate necessity and lay hold on the onely soveraign remedy of bettering their estate by submitting in time to the wholsome rules of heavenly and saving reason Especially because the goodliest things of this present time are such rags and fragments that he that loseth the whole fraught and true treasure of that one precious life which is to come may be justly said to lose both It remaines then that we direct and fixe all the powers of our minds upon the hope of the life to come Which hope that you may morefully and clearly apprehend it I shall manifest unto you under a type or example taken from temporal things If some man should offer unto another five peeces of silver this day but promise him five hundred peeces of gold if he would stay till the next morning and put him to his choice whither he would have the silver at present or the gold upon the day following is there any doubt to be made but he would chuse the greater sum though with a little delay Goe you and doe the like Compare the Crummes and perishing pittance in this short life with the glorious and enduring rewards of the eternall And when you have done chuse not the least and the worst when you may have the greatest and the best The short fruition of a little is not so beneficial as the expectation of plenty But seeing that all the fraile goods of this world are not onely seen of us but also possessed by us It is most manifest that hope cannot belong unto this world in which we both see and enjoy those things we delight in For Hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Rom. 8. ver 24. Therefore however hope may be abused and misapplyed to temporal things it is most certaine that it was given to man and ordained for the things that are eternal otherwise it cannot be called hope unlesse something bee hoped for which as yet or for the present life is not had Therefore the substance of our hope in the world to come is more evident and manifest then our hope of substance in the present Consider those objects which are the clearest and most visible when we would best discern them we put them not into our eyes because they are better seen and judged of at a distance It is just so in the case of present things and the future For the present as if put into our eyes are not rightly and undeceivably seen of us but the future because conveniently distant are most clearly discerned Nor is this trust and Confidence wee have of our future happinesse built upon weak or uncertain Authors but upon our Lord and Master JESUS CHRIST that allmighty and faithfull witnesse who hath promised unto the just a Kingdome without end and the ample rewards of a most blessed eternity Who also by the ineffable Sacrament of his humanity being both God and Man reconciled Man unto God and by the mighty and hidden mystery of his passion absolved the World from sinne For which cause he was manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed upon in the World and received into glory Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth And that every tongue should confesse that the Lord JESUS is in glory both God and King before all ages Casting off then the vaine and absurd precepts of Philosophy wherein you busie your selfe to no purpose embrace at last the true and saving Knowledge of Christ You shall find even in that imployment enough for your eloquence and wit and will quickly discern how far these precepts of piety and truth surpasse the conceits and delirations of Philosophers For in those rules which they give what is there but adulterate virtue and false wisedom and what in ours but perfect righteousnesse and sincere truth Whereupon I shall Justly conclude that they indeed usurpe the name of Philosophy but the substance and life of it is with us For what manneâ— of rules to live by could they give who were ignorant of the first Cause and the Fountain of life For not knowing God and deviating in their first principles from the Author and the Wel-spring of Justice they necessarily erred in the rest Hence it happened that the end of all their studies was vanity and dissention And if any amongst them chanced to hit upon some more sober and honest Tenets these presently ministred matter of pride and Superstitiousnesse so that their very Virtue was not free from vice It is evident then that these are they whose Knowledge is Earthy the disputers of this world the blind guides who never saw true justice nor true wisedome Can any one of that School of Aristippus be a teacher of the truth who in their Doctrine and Conversation differ not from swine and unclean beasts seeing they place true happinesse in fleshly lusts whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame Can he be a Master of Sobriety and Virtue in whose School the riotous the obscene and the adulterer are Philosophers But leaving these blind leaders I shall come againe to speak of those things which were the first motives of my writing to you I advise you then and I beseech you to cast off all their Axioms orgeneral Maxims collected out of their wild and irregular disputations wherein I have knowne you much delighted to imploy those excellent abilities bestowed upon you in the study of holy Scripture the wholsom instructions of Christian Philosophers There shall you be fed with various and delightfull learning with true and infallible wisedome There to incite you to the Faith you shall hear the Church speaking to you though not in these very words yet to this purpose He that believes not the word of God understands it not There you shall hear this frequent admonition Feare God because he is your Master honour him because he is your Father There it shall be told you that the most acceptable Sacrifice to God are justice and mercy There you shall be taught that If you love your self you must necessarily love your neighbour for you can never do your selfe a greater Courtesie then by doing good to another There you shall be taught that there can be no worldly cause so great as to make