monsters and hydeous sights He tried all sorrs of festival entertainments dancings and delights to divert this ill but it still augmented in such sort that he was enforced to abandon all the affairs of his Kingdom though he had been very eager and ardent in this employment and became in the beginning thereof doltish and dull not knowing what he did For often in the time of dinner he spake to his servants and commanded them to call the Queen as if she had been yet living they slipped aside without making answer and the whole Court was drenched in terrour and silence In the end not being able any longer to endure the walls of his Palace as if they had upbraided him with his cruelty he ran into the forrests like a mad man where he got a strange maladie of the mind and so horrible a frenzie that the Physitians were to seek saying freely it was a blow from Heaven God who yet reserved him for greater calamities would not at that time take away his life The wicked mother Alexandra who so outragiously had complained of her daughter upon the scaffold instantly died tasting the bitterness of death and loosing her glory Last of all followeth a plague which took away even many of Herod's Counsellers and all that was nothing but the scourge of Heaven in avengement of this death so deplorable and never sufficiently lamented Mariamne of her chaste wedlock left two sons to The sons of Mariamne bred at Rome Herod Alexander and Aristobulus who were very young able to suffer much in time to come but as then incapable of feeling their own miseries Herod to take from them the sense of this cruel tragedy and to raise them likewise by the degrees of good education to the glory of his scepter happily puts them aside and sends them to Rome to be bred in the Court of Augustus Caesar held at that time the Academie of Kings and prime school of the world Some years being passed he had a desire to make a voyage into Italie to salute Caesar and by that opportunity see his children whom he found excellently trained and so accomplished that he purposed with the good leave of Caesar to carry them back into Judea which he did These young Princes returning into Jerusalem with Herod ravished all the people with admiration They were of a gallant presence straight active quick-spirited couragious in the exercise of arms well-spoken affable as lovely as the person of the Father was odious Men looked on them as one would upon the two stars of Castor and Pollux after a storm they replenished all with alacrity and seemed already to win all hearts to approve their titles to the Crown Those notwithstanding who retained the memory of the usage of poor Mariamne their mother could not abstain from tears Pheroras brother of Herod and Salome his sister Calumnie is plotted against them who both had dipped their fingers in the bloud of the innocent Queen entered into affrightments and apprehensions unspeakable seeing the bloud they had shed should one day sway over their heads Wherefore they began silently to calumniate them and caused by trusty instruments many bruits to pass into the ears of Herod which intimated That the Princes his sons in consideration of their mothers wrong had a great aversion from the father and that they never seriously would affect him Herod who as yet in the heat of his affection and could never be satisfied with beholding them gave no credit to this calumny But rather seeing them now upon the confines of maturity sought to match them highly plotting for Alexander the daughter of Archelaus King of Cappadocia named Glaphyra which was assented unto and for Aristobulus he caused him to marry the daughter of Salome his cozen germain so plaistering over the domestick enmities which ever after found many factions Alexander and Aristobulus conversed together with great freedom and uttered whatsoever they had upon their hearts speaking of the death of their mother in such manner that they shewed a great resentment thereof Pheroras and Salome close-biting and watchfull ceased not to provoke them to speech and whatsoever they said either through vanity or sleight disposition to anger or in the liberty of secrecy was instantly by a third person related to the ears of Herod The subtile Salome holding still a power upon her married daughter who was a simple creature put her upon the rack to tell her all that her husband and her brother in law had spoken in the privacy of their mutual conversation She then recounted the words these poor Princes had through simplicity and bravery spoken to wit that Aristobulus vaunted himself The Kingdom belonged to the children of Mariamne as to the line of the true Queen as for Herods other sons who were spread abroad in very great number for he had nine or ten wives that he might make Registers of them in some petty Towns and that they should do well to learn to write and read She added that Alexander said in boasting he was a better man than his father notwithstanding that conversing with him and seeing him of a jealous humour he restrained himself as in a scabbard and durst not discover himself for fear he should give him some suspition of his power That hunting or walking with Herod he did as it were bow and contract himself together that he might not appear taller than his father that if he were to shoot in a bow he purposely made himself unskilfull thereby to take all occasion of envie from him It was a notable act of wisdom to do it but a great folly of youth to breath out many words as innocently spoken as treacherously interpreted and above all an infinite simplicity to commit their secrets to a woman whose heart is as fit to keep what it ought to conceal as a sive to hold water When Pheroras and Salome had a long time filled the ears of Herod with these trifling reports seeing the suspition began to take footing in his mind and that the affection of a father cooled towards his children they struck the iron while it was hot and wished him seriously to take heed of his sons for they spake big and had boldly said That all those who were embrewed in their mothers bloud should not carry the punishment into the other world for verily as they were vexed upon the remembrance of the dead such like words had escaped them Herod was much amazed at this liberty and thought he must repress their boldness by some counterpoize What doth he To humble the hearts of these Princes The young Antipater son of Herod exalted he selecteth among his children one called Antipater his son by Doris nothing noble and who had shamefully been hunted out of the Court he putteth this his son in the turning of a hand upon the top of the wheel not that he had a purpose to raise him but to use him to counterballance the children of Mariamne reputing him
inexplicable excellencies Yet say we all we can of him we affirm he never is so well esteemed as when we account him wholy incomprehensible He not onely environeth the world with his presence but beareth it within his arms and bosom He formeth it in his Idae's he accommodateth it in his dispose he penetrateth it by his virtue maintaineth it by his wisdom and establisheth it by his power He is without yet not excluded from it he is within yet not contained he is under yet not drenched he is above yet not advanced He confirmeth scepters and crowns he raiseth Cities Provinces and Monarchies he erecteth States he circumscribeth laws he directeth virtues he enlighteneth stars in heaven he engraveth the beauty of flowers in the meadows and travelleth throughout all nature without taking pains ever present yet always unseen ever in action yet always in repose ever searching yet not needing any thing ever loving yet never burning ever amassing yet never penurious ever giving yet never losing any thing drawning to himself yet hath nothing without himself Good God what say we when we say GOD. Yet thou ô sinner thou yet wilt lift an armed haÌ„d against thy Lord against a God Omnipotent who notwithstanding will not appear potent towards thee but to do thee good Blind and insensible fugitive from the sovereign Essence in the region of nothing and whither wilt thou go not to find the reproches of thy crimes A caytife pleasure a wreched gain a satisfaction of vengeance dissolute company take God out of thy heart to resign thee as a prey to thy passions Thou wilt adore the favours of men that are like the rain-bow in heaven and which having made ostent of so many splendours and varied paintings leave us nothing but water and morter Thou wilt build fortunes upon a foundation of quick-silver upon a frail reed upon a man who beareth all the figures of vanity Thou wilt seek for Paradise in the Capitol as said Tertullian Thou wouldst find sovereign Coelum in Capitolio quaeriin aversi ab ipso Deo coelo Apol. c. 4. Isaiah 30. 3. Decalvare tondere super filios deliciarum tuarum Mich. 1. beatitude in the Courts of great men and perpetually estranged from heaven the living God thou graspest nothing but Chimaeraes of honour and feeble images of content The strength of Pharao saith the Prophet Isaiah shall be thy confusion and the confidence thou hast in the shadow of Aegypt shall be the reproach of thy countenance Shouldst thou not now forsake all thy superfluities Oughst not thou to wear sack-cloth and carry ashes of penance having buried the children of thy delights loves and vanities which so far transported thee into the forgetfulness of eternal blessings If God be the Essence of essences why dost thou please thy self with making so many nothings by committing sins without number infidelities without consideration and ingratitudes void of shame If God be a Spirit why holdest thou thy self perpetually fixed to carnal pleasures which flatter to strangle thee Look on worldly ambitions and thou shalt see them bordered with precipices Reflect on delights and thou shalt find them strewed all-over with thoms View the ways of sin and thou there shalt observe nothing but remorse Ought not we at this time to resolve upon consideration of the greatness and goodness of God to bear a reverence and an eternal love towards him a reverence by faithfully keeping all his laws and commandments and holding his will more dear than the apple of our eyes a love by dayly offering our selves if it were possible a hundred times for him in as many Sacrifices as our soul hath thoughts and body members My God make me from henceforth to enter into the bottom of my soul and to silence all these troublesom creatures all these inordinate passions which so often bereave me of the honour of thy sight Appease their storms and surges that I may silently speak to thee and enter with thee into the great abyss of delights which thou reservest for souls the most purified that there I may be rapt in contemplation of thy bounties may be absorpt in consideration of thy beauties and may wholly dive into thy heart by sacred ardours of thy love The third EXAMPLE upon the third Drawn from Josephus 18. book of his antiquities and S. Luke Act. 11. MAXIM Of the weakness of man and inconstancy of humane things AGRIPPA WHo saith Man says all vanity He is a wretched Arist creature affirms that Ancient whom fortune tosseth as a tennis-ball whom misery and envy poize in a ballance whom time despoyleth death takes away and of whom inconstancy makes Bernard l. 2. de consider c. 9. Fragili corpore mente sterili cui infirmites corporis fatuitus cordis cumulatur traduce sortis a continual metamorphosis He entereth into the world by the gate of sin with a body as frail as his spirit is barren weakness of mortal members and stupidity of heart are given him as a portion of his birth and a necessity of his condition If you as yet be not perswaded of this verity and more esteem to confide in the world and to frame to your self an arm of straw than to seek support from him who sustaineth with three fingers of his power the whole globe of the earth King Agrippa of whom S. Luke maketh mention in the Acts of Apostles and Josephus in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities is able to give you a fair lesson of it You have heard in the History of Herod how this Agrippa grand-child of Herod unnatural Prince put his two sons to death lawful children by the chast Mariamne This Agrippa of whom I speak son of the youngest named Aristobulus came into the world with great priviledges of nature dexterous courteous amiable pleasing born to court and entertain the favour of the world Judaea was a Theater too streight for his great Spirit he burnt with impatience to be seen in the Court of Tyberius Caesar where his mother was already become gracious with one of the greatest Princesses of the Empire Antonia mother of the great Germanicus and the Emperour Claudius It was no hard matter for him to satisfie his desire For behold him presently at the Court of Rome where he closely adhered to the person of Drusus the Emperour Tyberius his son honoured by all the world as successour of the Empire Agrippa â—o well knew how to gain this great Amities of great men barren Prince by the sweet charms of his conversation that he could not live without him but as Tyberius was a frugal man suffering his son not to fall into any excess so Drusus was full of free affection towards his favourite the effects whereof were yet very slender In such sort that Agrippa entertaining correspondence with the son of so great an Emperor more pleasing than profitable for him dayly consumed as the butter-flys in the flames of this greatness so profuse was his
the Cannons of Loches to pray and to build a Tomb for her in the midst of the Church These men prudent according to the world accommodating themselves to the time and honouring this rising Sun mounted to the throne of the Kingdome after the death of his father presented themselves before him asking they might be permitted to demolish the tomb of this woman who had so ill used him but he with incredible generosity answered he made not war against the dead and that so far was he from ruining the monuments of Agnes that he would command his Treasurer to give them six thousand florins to preserve them 15. Sage and devout women albeit the sex is too apt Humility and wisedome of Queen Anne to overcome the passion of anger for revenge fail not to re-enter into themselves and blame their proceedings when passion hath transported them out of the lists of reason Anne of Brittain seeing King Lewis the Twelfth very sick and in danger of his life upon the consideration that he left her no male-child caused a Ship to be rigged out laden with great riches which she sent into her dear countrey of purpose to retire thither so soon as the King were dead But the Marshall de Gié who commanded in a City of passage judging that his charge obliged him to let nothing passe out of the Kingdome during the Kings sicknesse did without any other order upon this resolution arrest all the goods of the poor Queen She was a Bee which lived in the sweetnesse of devotion but yet had her sting so that being much provoked by this act she pursued the Marshall and made him come to a triall at the Parliament of Tholose where he was condemned to be banished out of France But the good Queen calling back reason after the stirring of her choler with-held the blow granted liberty to the delinquent protested he was a worthy Lord and had proceeded in all he had done according to the rules of state Whence it appeareth that those cruell souls are most unreasonable which persist in hating because they have once begun and never lay down a wicked hatred for which they have no other reason but their own wickednesse 16. Lewis the Twelfth her husband might have Great and magnanimous goodnesse of Lewis the Twelfth taught her this lesson who having received ill measure under Charls the Eighth his Predecessour when he was Duke of Orleans some flatterers counselling him to ennoble his entry to the Crown by the beating down his adversaries answered in this memorable manner That it was not fit for a King of France to revenge the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans and for this purpose he marked with a crosse all the names of his enemies written down on paper Whereat many wondred thinking this note promised them nothing but a pair of gallows which made them presently fly so much they were urged by their own conscience But he assembled them all together and let them understand he had signed their names with a Crosse that they therein might behold the lesson which the authour of life dictated unto us on the Crosse which was to forgive those who persecute us Francis the First his successour following these steps pardoned the rebellious Rochellers moved by the pitifull clamours of a great number of little children who cryed for mercy at his entrance into the City Our most Christian King hath renewed the examples of the like clemency I speak nothing of the Christian generosity of Henry the Third who seeing himself taken away from Throne and Life by a most detestable Parracide left the revenge thereof to God in the sharpnesse of his wound Henry the Fourth had a soul infinitely mild and if we find in his life some humane defects yet therein there are a thousand divine virtues which shadow them by their great lights 17. But if we compare goodnesse with offence Incomparable mildnesse of Lewis the son of Charlemaigne scarcely shall we find throughout all the histories of the Christian world a Prince who in this point hath equalled the virtue of Lewis the milde son of Charlemaigne This name cost him an invincible patience which made it well appear that a nature too easie is exposed to infinite difficulties His own children Lotharius Pepin and Lewis rebelled against him and out of a horrible daring took Queen Judith from his sides whom he in a second wedlock had married caused her by force to take the veil and holding a dagger at her throat made her promise to perswade her husband to forsake the world out of their Ambition to usurp his Sceptre and to pull the Diademe from his head with hands of Harpies The poor Prince saw himself in one night abandoned by his army which slipt away before his eyes and went to yield themselves to his unnaturall sons but some honest men staying about him he besought and conjured them to save themselves and to leave him alone in perill since he was the victime of Expiation and that his sins had reduced him to this Calamity and verily he went like a victime to the Altar accompanied with the Queen his wife and his grand-child Charles to render himself up a prisoner into their hands to whom he had given both livelyhood and life This heart truely-mild said by the way to those who lead him Let my sonnes do what they will with me and all that God shall permit I onely pray you since I have never offended them not to expose me to the fury of the multitude which commonly are very unjust to those who are depressed as you now behold me and above all I will ask this favour of them that they abstain from maiming any member of the Queen my wifes body whom I know to be most innocent or pulling out the eyes of Charles my grand-child for that would to me be more bitter then death In this manner he came to his sonnes Camp who hypocritically received him with all reverence promising an usage worthy his condition and in the mean time assembled a venemous Counsell of maligne spirits to degrade him The sentence was given contrary to all form of Justice by subjects against their Sovereign Prince by Dupleix children against their father by guilty against the innocent without hearing him without seeing him and on a suddain it was publickly executed at the assembly of Compiegne This King the best in the world on his knees in the Church in the presence of his vassals among an infinite number of people held a scroule in his hand which conteined the imaginary causes of his condemnation they enforced him to read it himself to open his mouth against his own innocency to ask forgivenesse of the Assembly which did him an irreparable wrong Then to conclude this cruell scene he is constrained to take off his belt and to lay it on the Altar to despoil himself of his Royall Robes and to take from the hands of certain infamous Prelates a
charitable offices of children towards those who begat them If we believe the history of the Persians there have been some found amongst them who voluntarily made wounds Aelian l. 16. de animal c. 7. on themselves to bury therein some part of the bodies of their parents reduced to ashes A matter truly very strange and which confoundeth the ingratitude of children who deign not to preserve the memory of their fathers so much as in their hearts much less their ashes on their bodies Hath not Tertullian written that certain people called the Nasamones through much reverence held Tertull. de animâ c. 57. Herodot l. 4. their meeting over the tombs of their Ancestours as upon Oracles Doth not Herodotus make mention of the Issedons a people of Scythia who enchase the heads of their deceased Ancestours in gold and reverence them as things sacred And although there be in this action reprehensible superstition yet it is much more tollerable than the Law of the Aegyptians who burnt incense to rats and crocodiles On the other part Nicholas Damascene assureth us the Pisidians presented the first fruits of all the viands Nicho. Damasc of a feast to their fathers and mothers thinking it an unworthy thing to take refection without honour done to the Authours of life Yea Plato passeth so far as to call parents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say houshold Gods the Plato leg 11. pledges of Religion the relickes and choicest pieces of the houshold measure Solon would never establish the Law against parricides saying God forbid a monster should ever come into our Common-wealth Against impossible crimes there needs no prohibition Did not Romulus the like in the institution of his Common-wealth He never inserted one word of the sin of parricide as if it had been a meer Chymaera and verily six hundred years passed in the city of Rome amongst Pagans and not so much as the name thereof known The first stained with this barbarous cruelty was one Lucius Ostius detested afterwards through all Ages Men not knowing what punishment to invent for this monstrous sin it was said such should be thrown into the water shut up in a sack with an ape a cock a viper Finaly Aristotle who is ever in argumental discourses will not make use of any for the honour Arist 8. Top. of parents For saith he that man who doubteth of the honour of Gods and parents let him be instructed not with words but sharp punishments As for the divine Law what hath it more authentically recommended than this band of charity What doth it inculcate with more espect after the honour of God than duty towards parents For whom are recompences awarded if not for the piety of children And for whom menaces but for their rebellion Saint Thomas in his seaventh little treatise observeth how in the Decalogue after that S. 77. om op 7. which concerneth God immediately followeth the precept of the honour due to the Authours of our life for the resemblance they have to God And Philo saith this commandment is the knot and tye of Philo in vitâ Mosis A quo est omnis paternit as all the Law Saint Augustine writing upon the passage of Saint Paul God from whom all fatherhood proceedeth saith that God is the Prince of all fathers and fathers the Vicars of God because they give children although with dependence on the Sovereign Cause both being education and instruction This duty of children towards parents being proved by the triple knot of the Law natural civil and divine I will now enlarge upon the four parts thereof which are love reverence exteriour and interiour obedience and succour I say love for what child is there can hate his father if he be not unnatural How o wicked son can the hatred of a title so sacred so sweet ascend into thy heart if thou art not become a banquerout in nature If Tygers and Lions had the like obligation they would honour him and thou persecutest him Ah! but he is unreasonable troublesom and insupportable what wilt thou not say He is thy father and therefore to be supported behold the rock whereon all the waves of passion should crack asunder But I know not what antipathy I have contrary to his nature I cannot rellishe him Must we talke of nature when there is question of the God of nature Know you not what the excellent Martyr S. Justine said To live according to nature is to live like an Infidel If your nature cannot Justin ep ad Zenam Serenam agree with one whom you are bound to love you must bridle that ill nature you must put reason into command and passion into fetters Tell not me you have endeavoured to mollify it but find it untractable Rather say you are refractary against the yoke which nature hath put over your neck from your mothers womb for which cause see whether in the judgement of prudent men who may advise you you yield him that duty which God commandeth The second part of your tribute is reverence For it is natural to fathers and mothers who by the light of reason are tennants of that honour which both age nature and the commandment of God hath put into their hands and if any thing happen to the contrary it galls their heart and transfixeth them more sensibly than one can imagine For which cause the Wiseman said Honour thy father both in In opere sermone omni patientiâ honora patrem tuum Eccl. 15. word and deed with patience It is a malignity and a most intollerable baseness to see children of poor or indifferent extraction advanced either by the gale of favour or by their travel and industry to some publick charge who no sooner have set foot therein but their brains turn and they scarcely acknowledge those who gave them life and breeding which is the first moveable of all the wealth they either possess or may hope But yet far more barbarous are they that despise their parents who heretofore rich and wealthy are now despoiled even to nakedness and drawn dry to the very marrow to place them in dignities This is a tyranny which deserveth that all the ravens from the brooks and lay-stals should fly with fury upon him to pick out the eyes of this offender who hath dared to contaminat himself with such an attempt Vngrateful creature thou art ashamed of nature thou blushest at the divine providence what say I blush nay thou dismembrest it a father who is the ornament of thy head and happiness of thy house if thou knowest how to use him reduced by thy insensibility thy cruelty into the condition of a servant whilst thou perhaps feedest dogs hawks or some fatal harpies worse than dogs or hawks Where is thy brow thy blushing thy understanding Oh but he is poor True because thou hast despoiled him because thou hast wasted him because he voluntarily made himself poor to make thee
an instrument proper for this end For certainly this Antipater was of a dark spirit close and mischievous much of his Father Herods disposition as it was presently to be seen When he was advanced he resolved fully not to descend but with loss of life and to hold that Kingdom as well as others by some notable trick Behold why he played the Proteus and changed himself into all forms to gain credit with Herod who then began to like him very well and he the more to fortifie himself spared not under hand to aggravate the calumny against the children of Mariamne and after he had thrown the stone withdrew his arm so cunningly that it seemed he had not touched it for he always was conversant with Alexander and Aristobulus with much respect as with his Masters yea when he made false tales to tickle the ears of his father then feigned he by a counterfeit modesty to take their cause in hand and defend them so discreetly for his own advantage that thereby he cast them further into suspition King Herod judged that to countenance him it were to good purpose to send him to Rome which he did allotting him a flourishing retinue and an infinite number of recommendations There it was that he much embroyled businesses writing to his father That he had discovered at Rome strange plots that he should take heed of his brothers Alexander and Aristobulus that they had practised ill dispositions in every place that their purpose had no other aim but to shorten his days and dispossess him of his Empire This had so much the more colour for that these miserable Princes galled with their repulse could not dissemble their discontent they ever casting forth some words which gathered by the spies of Pheroras and Salome never fell to the ground Herod sighed to see that he having pacified all abroad the fire should kindle in his own house and thereupon had some desire to arrest his sons but he would attempt nothing upon their persons without Caesars command referring all to him both for his ordinary complacence and safeguard of his own affairs After he had revolved this affair with a thousand anxieties in his heart wherein he bare the chief extent of his counsels he resolved in his own person to carry his sons to Rome and accuse them before Caesar In the whole course of this long way from Palestine to Italie he held himself close and reserved not making the least disgust against his children appear that he might not occasion in them any suspition Being arrived at Rome he learned Augustus Caesar was then in the Citie of Aquileia without delay he went thither conducting with him Alexander and Aristobulus who were received by the Emperour who was as their father with all demonstration of love In the mean time this miserable father spying his opportunity demands day of Caesar for an audience which he affirmed was of great consequence it was granted him and he came at the time appointed bringing these two poor delinquents who doubted nothing nor at that time sought any thing but to laugh and pass their time with their ancient acquaintance When they were in the midst of a brave assembly of Princes there present Herod breathing out a great sigh said Behold me GREAT CAESAR a happy King by your favour and an unfortunate father through the disgrace of my house If nature had denied me children fortune should see me without miseries all my disasters proceed from my own progeny It much troubleth me to defile your ears worthy Caesar with the recital of so great wickedness but necessity which hath no law enforceth me and your justice which establisheth all laws inviteth me Behold my two unnatural sons who after they had received the honour to be bred at your feet after they had obtained from me all the favours which could be expected froÌ„ a King by your gracious clemency sufficiently powerfull and from a father of his own nature most indulgent betraying the glory of the education they had at your hands forgetting even the nature and bloud they received from me have attempted a crime which I dare not name I live too many years in their opinion and too long enjoy a Kingdom which with so much labour I purchased I have opened to them the gate of honour that they may enter after that natural death shall close up mine eyes and they will pass through by the portal of parricide preparing ambushes for my life to snatch away the spoil steeped in my bloud Behold I prostrate them at your feet not willing to retain any right in mine own displeasure neither of King nor father but that which shall be decreed for me by your justice Yet notwithstanding O Great Caesar I would beseech you to bestow upon my old age which you have pleased so much to honour some repose in my own house and free me from the hands of these parricides So likewise I think it not expedient for children so ungratefull who have trampled laws both divine and humane under foot to live any longer and still to have the Sun in their eyes to serve as a witness and an upbraiding of their crime Herod spake this with a marvellous vehemency so that he put the whole assembly into an astonishment and these poor young men who had as much innocency as simplicity seeing themselves charged on the sudden with such a tempest of words made the apple of their eyes to answer and weep in good earnest They endeavoured to speak fearing least their silence might make them culpable but the more they strove so much the more the sobs choaked up their words Augustus Caesar who was a judicious and courteous Prince saw well by this their aspect these young men had more mishap than malice and casting a gracious eye upon them Courage my children be confident saith he answer at your leisure and be not troubled All those there present bare already much compassion towards them and Herod shewed even by his countenance he was moved so eloquent are the tears of nature Alexander seeing the eyes of the whole assembly very favourable took heart represseth his sighs being as he was eloquent speaketh in these terms MY LORD AND FATHER Your Majesty Apologie of Herodâ—s son before Augustus hath not brought us so far to the Altars of mercy to offer us up as a sacrifice to revenge we are at the knees of Caesar as in the Temple of Clemency whither being conducted by your warrant command it maketh us say your words are sharp but proceedings most sweet If calumny had so altered your excellent nature as to make you take resolution upon our lives to the prejudice of our innocency you might have done it in Palestine as a father and a King the sentence and execution were in your own hands But God permitted you to bring us to the Court of Augustus not to leave the head where the crown was designed but rather to return it back
victorious and free from slander It is a very strange thing to pretend the most enormous of crimes against persons of our reputation and qualitie without saying wherefore or how Nothing is spoken of letters poysons complots conspiracies suborned servants it is onely affirmed we are parricides and proofs are pretermitted If this be sufficient you shall have in the world no more innocency but that which calumny shall disdain to fix her tooth in Our enemies who for many years have spun this web never could alledge any other thing but that we were old enough and of sufficient courage to do it and that we might perform it in revenge of the death of our mother Mariamne As for the first reason who seeth not how weak it is If nothing but age and valour be necessary to perpetrate a parricide it is to fill the whole world with bloud to put all fathers into jealousie and all sons into crime For the second which concerneth our dead mother she left us in an age wherein neither could we as yet bewail nor feel her misery After we came out of our child-hood we have not been willing to search into your counsels to sift out your resolutions the issue of them ought to make us not more audacious to undertake evil but more stayed and advised to do good We onely have afforded tears to her not to bemoan her death for such were unprofitable but to satisfie our passion seeing our enemies ceased not to disturb the ashes of her whose bloud they had shed Father if our tears which proceed from so just a resentment of nature be in your Court accounted criminal where shall we any more find safety but in your justice Never in the so sensible apprehensions hath any word of bitterness escaped us against you but rather against those who abuse your authority to the ruin of yours We have no cause at all to hate your life but to love it by so much the more as you have judged us capable above the rest of our brothers to succeed to your Crown You have set all the marks of regality upon us al the blessings we could hope for to ask more would be to require liberty to overthrow us To what end should we seek by parricide a Kingdom which is purchased for us by your favour that so heaven earth seas conspiring with Caesar might shut the gate against us for which we should have been desirous to make a key steeped in the bloud of our father Your majesty hath begot us perhaps more unfortunate than now would be expedient for your estate but never shall we be so sottish nor impious as to do a mischief irrecoverably to undo us Most honoured father suppress the suspition which you have conceived or if you be pleased stil to retain it we both will leave this life of which we are not so fondly affectionate that we would be willing to preserve it to the displeasure of him that gave it This Oration accompanied with the tears of this young Prince struck all the standers by with admiration and as they were both beheld with lowly looks expecting the Judges sentence every one was enkindled with desire to justifie them Caesar casteth his eye on Herod to see his countenance who shewed himself much moved with compassion and could have been content never to have thought of such an accusation for verily this action in the apprehension of those present much hurt him and caused his credulity to be condemned Augustus who would not confound them pronounced that undoubtedly his children had done ill to displease him but as for the pretended crime he should raze it out of his papers These young Princes were too well born and bred to proceed so far there remained for them hereafter to live in good correspondence and renew this holy knot of nature which could not be dissolved by so good a father nor children so futurely hopeful This said Herod embraced his sons one after another much weeping which drew tears even from those who were not interressed in this affair After all manner of complements were done behold them upon return with their father and brother Antipater who had caused all this goodly Tragedie to be played Notwithstanding this wicked creature overwhelmed them with courtesies and congratulations as if he would make bonfires of joy in his heart Thus dissimulation goeth along in Court till such time that God taketh away the mask Being returned to Jerusalem one year was scarcely spent but that calumnie set new snares to entrap the innocency of these poor Princes Pheroras resolved to excite Alexander with jealousie telling Horrible malice him in great secret Herod his father made too much of the beauteous Glaphyra his wife daughter of King Archelaus supposing it was a powerful means to turmoyl his spirit and enkindle it with fury against the King his father and this way to precipitate him into ruin These words upon the matter were most sensible to this generous heart and then he began with a jealous eye to prie into Herods actions who it is true familiarly conversed every day with this Princess endowed with incomparable beauty but in conclusion he observed no other thing in such conversation but loving entertainments of a father-in-law towards a sons wife worthy to bee cherished for many excellent parts Alexander notwithstanding after this advertisement of Pheroras turned this honey into poyson interpreting all in an ill sense and was so transported that one day entering into his fathers chamber he discovered the jealousie and suspition he had conceived with sighs and tears of rage Herod found himself much troubled with this accident and thinking it a thing unworthy his person to justifie himself to his son with many words to excuse that which was not he onely said My son who hath put this into thy head The other replieth he knew much of it himself and Pheroras had confirmed it Pheroras was instantly sent for and Herod who oft-times used him as a servant casting a furious glance of his eyes upon him Rake-hell saith he what hast thou said to this young Prince It is not a word thou hast put into his ear but a sword into his hand against his father for verily he would no more endure a companion of his bed than I in my Kingdom Ingratefull creature shouldst thou not rather tear out thy own heart than entertain such a thought of thy brother Such crimes as this never were in our house nor ever will be unless thou bring them hither Get hence and let me see thee no more I ordain tortures for other delinquents but for thee since thou art so wicked I leave thee to thy own conscience not being able to find a fitter executioner Pheroras who was not much astonished with this noise answereth he knew nothing but what Salome who was there present had told him as indeed this came from her But the subtile woman casting out at that instant a loud complaint and tearing
to hold the government always wherein she so happily thrived but for a meer inclination she had to the love of Chastity She easily perswaded her sisters to the same who took their flights to Christian virtues under the wings of this Eagle The holy virgins to make the offer of their virginity the more solemn gave an Altar of gold garnished Altar of gold with precious stones to the Church of S. Sophia as presenting upon this monument the incomparable treasure of their puritie and making humble prayer for the prosperity of their brother's Empire This infinitely pleased Theodosius and the more Pulcheria resigned herself to virtue the more reputation she got with the young Emperour She then began seriously to make religion justice and peace to flourish in the Empire And seeing the person of her brother was it which ought to speak by example to all the world the good Ladie embraced the care of his education as the most important piece of her government First with an admirable wisdom she sequestred Education of Theodosius all those who might cause any vices to slide into the soul of this young Prince well knowing no plague was so much to be feared in the Courts of Great men as to expose the ear of a child to the hisses Plague of Great-ones and venom of serpents which cast sin into the soul before they have eyes open to behold it She hated as the shadows of hell all those subtile Artists of fortune who to confirm themselves in authority oftentimes thrust Great-ones into vice and catch them by sensual pleasures as birds are with lyme to entangle and snare them all together Secondly she procured worthy men to attend near the person of the Emperour who royally might train him in the exercise of pietie wisdom arms and letters as much as is necessary for a King She herself who was well versed in the Latin and Greek tongues and no whit ignorant of the precepts of the wise often discoursed with her brother That God who made Kings had charged him with a crown the more to obliege him to be the best man in his Empire That if he would gloriously reign be must begin by the sway of himself That by how much the more he acknowledged the dependante he had of God to be united to him in the qualitie of an instrument so much the more he should command over men That our souls were as the mirrours of the Divinitie which by how much the more pure so much the more were they disposed to receive the rays of wisdom to their benefit That vices in mean men were simply vices but in the souls of Kings they were monsters That if he would reign happily he must establish his throne upon two columns of diamond Pietie and Justice the one would give him to God and the other would give men to him Moreover she exhorted him to make himself of an easie and open access to the necessities of all who should prostrate themselves at his feet To bear very much reverence to persons Ecclesiastical advancing the affairs of religion with all his endeavour To be very mercifull towards the poor and sick To gain the hearts of all his subjects by sweetness therein imitating the Sun who neither breaketh doors nor windows to enter into houses but penetrateth very peaceably with the benignitic of his favourable beams To conclude she often represented the examples of good Princes as of Constantine the Great and of his grandfather Theodosius who because they took a happie way had on earth enjoyed a most blessed Kingdom and immortalized themselves in the memorie of men with much advantage reaping whilest they lived the first fruits of the glorie of which they now in Heaven have an ample fruition On the contrary those who desired to have their passion reign with and above them in their thrones were involved in a bruitish life and extream calamities pursued with the execration of posteritie and torments of eternitie The blessed Pulcheria with so much grace did make these good instructions distil into the soul of her brother who was already naturally disposed to the pursuit of good that he took therein unspeakable contentment and resigned his heart to be handled as a soft piece of wax in the artfull hand of such a wisdom Notwithstanding as it is a matter very difficult so to banish vice from Princes Courts but that there always will be found some wolf covered with the skin of a sheep so amongst these who guided the youth of Theodosius there was a certain man called Chrysaphius a subtile and crafty spirit with too far insinuating himself into the favour of the Prince cast in the end some blemish upon this fair soul and made work enough for Pulcheria as we shall see hereafter But at that time all was very peaceable Pulcheria replenished the heart of her brother with wisdom the Court with good examples the Altars with vows and the world with benefits And all so prospered in her hands that it seemed the golden Age foretold to be under the government of a Virgin was returned to the world The Emperour was now arrived near the limits of his twentieth year and it was thought very expedient to tie him in the bonds of a chaste marriage to which he should bring the innocency of an Age bred either in the contempt or ignorance of vice Pulcheria cast her eyes both within and without the Kingdom to find a wife suitable to his humour at which time the providence of God that guideth our lives and affiars gave an admirable testimony of his authority leading a maiden poor unknown needy as by the hand first to Constantinople afterward to the marriage-bed of the Emperour So many Queens and Princesses affected this alliance and every one promised it to themselves flattering their hopes therein when to the wonder of the world God caused the lot to fall upon a silly creature Leontius a Paynim Philosopher bred up in a poor Admirable adventures of Athenais cottage had one onely daughter which at that time was as a diamond hidden in a dung-hill no man knowing the worth thereof God drew it from this darkness to make it glitter in the prime Court of the world This is the admirable Athenais who was singularly priviledged from Heaven with beauty of body but incomparably heightened with gifts of the mind Her father instructed her from her tender years and enabled her in Philosophie Rhetorick Poesie and other arts wherewith usually they are adorned who are ingeniously bred This maid lived by learning as the bee by the dew and all her pleasure was to study thereunto invited by two powerfull motives first the fervour of her spirit sparkling like a flaming wheel and secondly ambition of sex which made her desire to transcend men in their best faculties That which the Poets have feigned of Pallas is a fable but he that should behold Athenais might see a true Pallas It seemed she was some
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 return to these kind of spoils to content us But we have to do with few things and for a little space I swear unto you that from the time I betook me to this retirement it hath seemed that all the elements were for me and that I never was more powerfull more rich or contented I have found all that which I sought for health repose truth wisdom arts and the Gods Go not now about to colour your specious oration with pretexts of the publick good I well know where your ambition itcheth believe me he is nearest to heaven who least careth in whose hands the earth is What importeth it that young Constantine Maxentius and Licinius divide the world I shall see them strive together like arâ—s about a grain of earth If the world must be lost as it is very likely I had rather it were in their hands than mine I very well see the Empire is sick to the death I have for saken it like an old Physitian wil hear no more speech of it than of a body in the coffin Believe me neither you nor I can do any thing for its health but to witness our inability All those who have admired our resolution in forsaking the Diadem wil be the first that will cast the stone against our inconstancy if we weakly go about to require again that which we so generously have abandoned God forbid I should enter into a fantasie to despoil my self of a glory that never any one Monarch had before me which is the contempt of a world when I had it in mine hands If you be resolued to loose your self do it without company your frindship ought to pretend nothing upon me to the prejudice of mine honour and conscience And whereas you propose unto me the danger of my person I do not think that envy will extend it self over the coleworts and lettice of this little garden planted by mine own hands and should they come thither I have already lived long enough according to the course of nature enough to satisfie the desire which I had if glory and too much to see the miseries of the world I will not think much to render up this life which I have upon my lips to him who gave it me We must needs say this man had a great understanding and goodly Maxims For had not mischief given him the spirit of a hangman against Charistianitie he might be accounted in the number of the greatest Emperours Maximian was much amazed at the constancy of his resolution Notwithstanding the desire he had to return to his former honour being insatiable he spared not to take the purple again and bear himself as Emperour protesting it was the desire of publick good which put the Scepter into his hands It is an admirable thing how his ambition was Maximian the baloon of fortune discountenanced He who promised himself much respect was hissed at by the souldiers as a man vain unconstant and shallow was chased out of Italie and Sclavonia and other places which he sought to possess and reduced as it were to such terms as to see himself at the mercy of his son which he apprehended as the last of his afflictions Although some have thought there was collusion between the father and the son for the accommodation of their affairs He wished now to be in the bottom of a cave with his Diocletian but since he had begun the play he must finish his act The subtil man who well foresaw that Maxentius a brain-sick Prince was upon ruin resolved to league himself firmly to the fortune of Constantine Behold why being retired in haste towards him having engaged his house in the Empire it was not difficult for him to find access there as also for that the new Emperour in this great concourse of arms and affairs was very willing to make use of the counsel of a man refined in policie Maximian entereth so far into the heart and judgement of Constantine that to tie him the more to himself and wholly cement up his own affairs he gave his daughter Fausta in marriage to him whom the young Prince espoused in his second wedlock having first of all been married to Minervina by whom he had two children Crispus and Helena This marriage of Fausta was solemnized with much magnificence and the son rendred so much honour to his father-in-law that he seemed to retain nothing of the Empire but the name and habit dividing with him the rest of his power We may well say the spirit of Maximian was turbulent 3. Disposition and insupportable for not satisfying himself with all this excellent entertainment he thought he was nothing if he wore not upon his forehead the Diadem which he had forsaken He began to set things in order at the Court and to prepare factions in such sort that he seemed to have no other purpose but to set his son and his son-in-law together by the ears to enjoy both their spoils In the end he put his design very far upon the fortune and life of Constantine being as he was vain to talke of his enterprizes namely to his daughter Fausta whom he esteemed to be of a good disposition he opened himself so much to her that he made as saith the Wiseman of his lips the snare of his soul For the young married wife having more affection in store for her husband than her father and who having already the tast of Empire would not yield it up to him to whom she had owed her birth hastened to tell all to Constantime advising he should take heed of his father-in-law and that he was a wicked man who would if it were possible deceive all the Gods of Olympus for the desire he had to reign Maximian well perceiving that his daughter had discovered the plot and that there was no further safetie for him at the Court of his son-in-law secretly stole away and endeavoured to regain the East but was taken tardy at Marsellis and there strangled to give an end to his life all his designs Some have written that he hanged himself through despair of his affairs others that it was by the commandment of Constantine Others have said that his son-in-law Eusebius was willing to save him but the publick hatred born against Maximian prevented clemency which I think the more probable Verily I would not disguise the exorbitances practised by Constantine before his entrance into Christianity for he cannot be justified upon some disorders But since Zosimus the historian who pardoneth him in nothing chargeth him not with this death I see no cause why we should accuse him Behold the desperate end of Maximian after he Victor Nazarius Non omnia potes Dij te vindicant invicem had persecuted the Church embroiled Empires all armed the whole world by the extravagances of his ambition an infamous halter taketh a little air from him which he thought he could not freely enough breath whilst
to build a Citie else-where which he would equal to the majesty of Rome and fashion to his best liking as he afterward did changing the Citie of Bizantium into the royal Constantinople an eternal monument of his greatness The tenth SECTION The endeavour of good works with the virtues and laws of Constantine THis Monarch changed into another man lived not but by the fire of charity cleaving to the earth by very slender roots of the necessities of nature he began seriously to manure the practise His devotion of prayer discoursing familiarly with God with a tast so sensible that it surpassed all delights imaginable in nature and wit a diligence so great that being in Arms and under Pavilions he ever had his little oratory of retirement where like another Moses he consulted with the Divinity He hearkened to discourses of God with incomparable pleasure and when he spake of the mysteries of our faith which he as it were perpetually did it was with so great exercise that his heart seemed to melt with his words His zeal so transported him that of the prime Captain of the world he became a Doctour and Preacher to procure the conversion of his subjects He who so many times had carried in his hand the sword of the Empire to cut off rebellious powers bare then in his mouth the sword of the word to fill the world with wonders What he spake with his lips he taught by examples carrying under the purple a body worn out with abstinence and mortification He so trampled vanity under-foot to which he Humility formerly had some inclination that among a great number of Churches and edifices of piety which he caused to be built he would not have his name thereon engraven reputing himself unworthy that God should accept such offerings at his hands And as one day a Bishop a flatterer and an Arian put himself forward to tell him that after he had governed the world upon earth he should do the like in Heaven with the Son of God he felt himself so confounded with this word that he who ever treated with Ecclesiasticks with very much reverence could not contain himself but say Bishop let it not fall out you any more use such words concerning me for they are unto me most hatefull you shall do much better and more suitable to your profession to pray the living God I may be both in earth and heaven the least of his servants than to propose to your self Scepters and Empires for me His patience was equal to his humility whereof His patience S. Chrysostom hath observed an excellent passage in the oration of Bishop Flavianus to the Emperour Theodosius where he saith that as one day in a popular commotion they stoned the statues of Constantine there wanted not many about him who endeavoured to enflame him to the revenge of those outrages to which he smiling answered they had strucken a man of stone but the model remained entire Now being not ignorant that the vigour of Christianity consisted in works of charity he applied himself thereunto with so much fervour that it seemed his hands were that which the Hebrew text speaketh of in the Canticles Hands of the spouse vessels of gold replenished with a sea of bounty Before his Baptism great calamities had reduced miserable fathers to such necessity that being not able to maintain their children they sought to be discharged of them by ways most lamentable of which the good Prince being advertised he wrote to Ablavius his Lieutenant of the whole Politick government of the Empire to publish a Law through all the Cities of Italie in which was intimated to all necessitous fathers who were unable for the education of their children that they should present them at a place appointed there to receive apparrel and convenient sustentation adding he intended that not onely publick moneys should be employed to supply such wants but that he would despoil himself willingly of that which was proper and peculiar to himself for their comfort If he found any beggars in the streets he delighted to clothe them and to behold them in this new plight making of his Palace a mount Thabor where men were transfigured changing their miseries into felicities He most particularly enquired after the shamefac'd poor who had hertofore been wealthy learned from them their fortunes birth and want and as he found their qualities and merits he gave sometimes lands and entire possessions to those who were in very pressing necessities A poor widow who sighed in a corner of her house forsaken of all the world was much amazed that this Monarch of the world came as an Angel from Heaven to wipe away her tears and provide for her poor orphans A forlorn maid and even upon the brink of the precipice by the unhappiness of poverty found the Emperour had given order for her marriage and had himself taken the pain to know her future husband and recommend good husbandrie unto him on his part This man was as the Intelligence tyed to the government of the Primum Mobile which is never weary among so many concussions and motions afforded to total nature He was a sun who drew up and digested all the vapours of the lower world not intermitting any thing of its course or lights He was an Ocean who received drops of water as well as huge rivers and as there was nothing so high in the world as to be above his greatness so was there nothing so low which could withdraw it self from his charitable knowledge He ever had his eye open upon the necessities of mankind and not contenting himself to provide for them by the ordinary wayes of charitie he thereunto added the hand of justice making most wholesome laws for the tranquilitie of the whole world This good Father of the Universe sought out poor banished men who had been unjustly despoiled by the rigours of injustice and restored them to their professions He proposed to himself in his own repose the affliction of those who had wrongfully been transported into desert Islands where they still lived made slaves under the tyranny of men and in a worse condition than beasts He thought upon the miseries they endured who were condemned by unrighteous sentences to labour in mynes He reflected on the long services of military men who were absolute in arms yet oftentimes gained nothing but poverty and ignominy But above all these considerations as occasions required His Edicts he made most worthy Edicts for the comfort of so many persons as lived in the acerbities of the world And for as much as concerned justice which consisteth in the punishment of crimes and abuses he was a Hercules who had perpetually his club lifted up to quell monsters There was a custome in those times of Duels and Duels gladiatours which were much more tollerable than now-adays for then none were employed therein but slaves criminals and men of the sack and halter who were already condemned
according to his merit He divided the Empire between his three sons at that time absent and having distributed their several shares with great providence he gave to Constantius the Empire of the East leaving a Will sealed with his own signet in the hands of a certain Priest whom he appointed to deliver it immediately to his son which he did and afterward Constantius so much honoured this man that being inflexible to all other he onely obeyed him as a God The dispose of his temporal affairs being setled he transferred all his thoughts to familiar discourses which he had with God and yielded up his most happy soul on the Feast of Pentecost the 22. of May about mid-day in the year of our Lord. 337. The souldiers and officers who waited next his person not thinking his end so near at hand upon this news were seized with a grief so outragious that tearing their cloaths and prostrating themselves upon the earth they bewailed their Emperour with complaints which rather resembled yellings than moderate sorrow called him Their Sovereign Lord their good Master common Father of the world His body was put into a coffin of gold covered with purple to carry it to Constantinople where it was many dayes exposed in his Palace attired in Imperial habit receiving the same duties and reverences as if he had yet been alive never was there observed toward any Emperour whatsoever either such great concourse of people or cordial affection not so much as little children but were touched with a sensible grief as if they had lost their father One might have seen among the people some confounded with sad and heavy sorrow others to break forth into complaints the rest to pour themselves out in devotions and prayer When ancient Rome heard the news of his death she caused the baths and publick Places to be shut up all mirth and solace to cease that they might lament the loss of a most honoured father The Princes his children speedily arrived at Constantinople caused his obsequies to be performed after the manner of Christians conducting the body to the Sepulcher with the Clergy wax lights burning and prayers of the Church ordained for the souls of the dead For Eusebius who was there present maketh express mention of the ceremonies which new Hereticks through great impertinency and malignity have endeavoured to deny for the comfort of the dead It is a mervellous thing to consider what power virtue hath over the hearts of men and to behold how many divers sects are different in that which is matter of belief in Divinity but all notwithstanding agree in the honour due to honesty The Pagans would needs canonize Constantine in their manner and made a God of him representing him in a Chariot harnessed out with four horses as flying above the clouds and a hand stretched from Heaven which made shew to hold him in this most blessed mansion of immortality The Greek Church hath honoured his memory as of a Saint although Constantine had so humble an opinion of himself that it is very likely he ordained by his Testament which was afterward seen to be executed in his funerals that his body should be interred not in the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul but before the porch esteeming himself most happy if after he had born the prime Diadem of the world he might serve as a porter to a simple fisherman I now aske of you my Reader who have considered the beginning progress and end of this Monarch where may you find one more clear in greatness of courage more generous in his enterprizes more prudent in his carriage more fortunate in successes more constant in his perseverance Poyze a little and put in a ballance the glory of his arms the happiness of his conquests the wisdom of his laws what virtue think you had he here occasion to make use of to set a new face upon a whole world to oppose Armies with iron stratagems with prudence rebellion of untamed spirits with mildness What arm to resist the torrents of iniquity What stroke to counterballance the inclinations of wils and swift motions of an universal world Greatness of Constantine Verily I must affirm Augustus Caesar was a great Prince for that he changed the face of the State of a mighty Common-wealth built up a vast Empire but not to flatter nor raise our Princes above their merit with the interest of our own cause we shall find this man had some thing in him much greater I admit the other seemeth to you more subtile if you consider him in the maturity of prudence he shewed in his elder days notwithstanding if you behold him in all the parts of his life you shall find great vices therein I say not onely of impurity or neglect but of wickedness and inhumanity which was the cause that he having one day in a banquet taken the shape of Apollo those about him named him Apollinem Tortorem Apollo the Hangman I go not about at this time to search into the vices either of the one or other I admit that Constantine though descended of the most noble bloud of Romans and as fortunate as ever Augustus was in his beginning somewhat cruel Yet no man can deny but that in military virtue he in all points surpassed Augustus Caesar who was never put into the rank of the most warlike Princes Let us not here overprize the supereminency the one had above the other in this point Let us onely compare them in quality of founders of new Estates The one made a new world civil and the other a new world Christian The one to do what he did found a Julius Caesar who before-hand cut out his work for him The other hewed forth a way through rocks flames thornes wholly involved with contrariety The one arranged men under a civil submission in recovery of a Monarchy which is an ordinary thing The other without arms disarmed them from the affection they bare to their ancient superstition which every well understanding Judge will esteem a mattter very difficult because ordinarily men are very obstinate to retain the beliefs which they have held from father to son through the revolution of many Ages Finally Augustus said he found a City of stone speaking of ancient Rome and had made of it a City of marble but Constantine might boast to have raised a Rome wholly new in the establishment of his Constatinople It is affirmed by the Pagans themselves who never attributed any thing to Constantine above his merit that he was at the least say they before bus baptism comparable to all the greatest Princes of the Empire Eutropius a souldier of Julian the Apostata who little loved Christian Princes is inforced through a truth to confess that he was (d) (d) (d) Vir ingens Innumerae in eâ— animi corporiâ— que virtutes clarâ—erunt fortunà in belâ—â— prosperâ fuit verum ita ut non superâ—ret industrian The Prince cap. 2. and upon
sober that he gave an example to the most austere Monks so negligent in the neatness of his body that he much gloried to see vermine run up and down on his beard which he wore very long to play the Philosopher in all kinds so patient that he many times endured all sorts of affronts and sharp words from mean men no more moved thereby to anger than a stone If it must needs be according to the said Maxims that a Prince to procure estimation should perform great enterprizes this man was no sooner seated in his Throne but that he practised admirable policies and hastened to make war on the Persians to imitate Alexander the Great to whose virtues he aspired If needs some remarkable act must be done in the begining he at his entrance professing Paganism repealeth the Bishops which Constantius a Christian Prince had banished If liberallitie must be used this man gave all and said his treasures were better among his friends than with himself If excellent Masters in every art and science are to be cherished this man did it with much passion From whence then proceedeth it that with all those goodly parts of Machiavels Prince he hath so little prospered reigning but one year and seven months and dying strucken with a blow from heaven which the Pagans themselves confess to be ignorant from whence it came and dying in a frenzy which caused him to fill his hand with his own blood and cry Thou O Galilean hast overcome and leaving in his death a memory of his name so odious to all posterity The poor man forsaking the way already so happily beaten by Constantine unluckily hasteneth to joyn amity with those wise Politicians who had all Plato's Common-wealth who esteemed themselves the most accurate in the government of the World who promised him by these wiles he practised the absolute extirpation of Christianity and to make him the most awfull and most glorious of all the Emperours of the world And I beseech you what became in the end of all these promises but dreams illusions and vapours Constantius under the holy Philosophy of the cross reigned more than thirty years Constantine waged great wars had great victories great triumphs was attended by great Councels great Cities Constantine left a Religion so established that the malice of an Arian son nor the policy of a new Apostata could not extinguish it Constantine never entred into any battel where he came not off victorious And Julian in the first war he undertook upon the beginning of his empire confounded all his Army led his Captains to slaughter was himself slain as a victime And the sage Politicians which he ever had in his army instead of Priests and Bishops drew him to death to serve as a spectacle of confusion for the one and matter of mirth for the other May we not wel say O Nobilitie that these spirits who divert your hearts from the chast beliefs of your Ancestors from the puritie of faith the candor of a good conscience to invenom them with a doctrine of impietie policy and treachery under colour of humane wisedom are the plagues of States the ruins of houses and the fatal hands to annihilate greatness I will not infer for a necessary conclusion that all such as live in the fear of God and in integrity must ever have pleasing successes according to the world in the manage of temporal affairs this is not a thing absolutely promised to us by God We have not sold him our fidelity and Christianity upon such condition that he should still afford us the bread of dogs and favour us with felicities which he imparteth to Sarazens and Mores I know good Christian Princes may be afflicted sometime for the punishment of certain sins which they with too much indulgence have permitted sometime for a trial and spectacle of their virtue sometime to teach us there is another life for the children of God since they in this same are ill entreated sometime for causes which the providence of God involveth as in a cloud replenished with obscurity and darkness Yet shall you find in reading histories either divine or humane that all those who have progressed on with true feeling of God and with the lightenings of integrity and touches of a good conscience which nature provideth for every man have commonly been the most expected the best beloved the most happy and most permanent And to speak with S. Augustine would not they Aug. lib. 5. de civitate Dei cap. 24. ever be most happy if they had no other felicity but to be just in their commands moderate in their fortunes humble among services modest in praises and faithful servants of God in Empires Wherein consisteth the happiness of man if it be not to fear God so to fear nothing els If it be not to love a Kingdom where we no longer may dread to have companions If it be not to pardon injuries through clemency and not revenge crimes but by justice If it be not to be chast in the liberty of pleasures If it be not rather to command over our own passions than Cities and Provinces Behold the principal felicity of great Constantine which you ought O Noble Men to take for your model Do in your own houses what he acted in an Empire establish there constantly the fear and love of God Banish vices as he from his City of Constantinople the Temples and Victims of false Gods that the honour of the Cross may set a seal on all your thoughts all your counsels all your enterprizes that your examples may serve to God as amber and adamant to attract so many hearts of straw and iron as are now in the world to the love of virtue that these duels of gladiatours condemned by Constantine may be the horrour of your thoughts and detestation of your hearts that devotion chastity humility patience charity virtues so familiar to this great Monarch may make an honourable warfare which shall possess your heart and that all of them may there reign each one in particular with as ample Empire as all of them in general THE STATES-MAN TO STATES-MEN SIRS SInce God hath put the government of people justice and most important affairs into your hands he hath likewise raised you upon a high degree of honour to be looked on in offices no otherwise than as stars in the firmament Your dignities are obligations of conscience that bend like the chains of MEDAEA and scortch weak souls in purple and gold but which on the other part afford to generous spirits a perfect lustre of Divinitie The more light a bodie enjoyeth say the learned so much the more ought it to have of participation and favourable influences for objects which are in a much lower degree than it So likewise must we necessariely say that your qualities which grant you nearer approaches to the source of greatness and embellish you with the rays of the majestie of a Prince do most particularly oblige you
his captivity that his spirit was in declination his body being worn with the torments he endured by the rigour of a King of the Goths Death in the end came to unloose his fetters by an act very barbarous exercised by Theodorick on this admirable man He seeing Pope John had done nothing in his favour at Constantinople but in stead of causing the Temples of the Arians to be restored had purified and changed them into Catholick Churches he entered into a fury more exorbitant than ever and kept this good Pope in prison at Ravenna until he was wasted with diseases yielding up his most blessed soul in fetters to hasten to enjoy the liberty of the elect Cyprian and Basilius accusers of Boetius failed not to kindle the fire with all their power to ruin him whom they already had wounded There was sent unto him a Commissary who was Governour of Pavia to interrogate him upon matters wherewith he had been charged The King promising him by this instrument a reasonable usage if he would confess all the process of this imaginary conspiracy Boetius having heard what his commission imported replieth Tell the King your Master that my conscience and age have reduced me to those terms wherein neither menaces nor allurements can work any thing upon me to the prejudice of reason To require the proceeding of my conspiracie is to demand a chymera which hath never been nor ever shall Is the distrust of his witnesses so great that needs he must exact from my mouth the articles of my condemnation Verily he hath as much cause to doubt my accusers as I matter of glorie to be accused by mouthes so impure that they would as it were justifie the greatest delinquents by their depositions One Basilius chased from the Court and charged with debt hath been bought to sell my bloud and having lost credit in all things finds more than enough for my ruin Opilion and Gaudentius condemned to banishment for an infinite number of wicked promises they being fled to Altars the King redoubleth an Edict by which be ordained if they instantly went not out of Ravenna they should be branded in the forehead with an hot iron What may be added to such an infamie Yet notwithstanding the same day they were received and heard against me Arrows are made of all wood to transfix me and the most criminal are freed in my accusation Some being not ashamed to employ against the life of a Senatour those who would scarcely have been set to confront very slaves This makes me say my condemnation is premeditated and my death already vowed and that this search is made for petty formalities to disguise an injustice King Theodorick playeth too much the Politician for a man who hath full liberty to do ill What need is there to use so many tricks Tell him boldly from me that I submit to his condemnation I was willing to save the Senate though little gratefull for the sinceritie of my affections I wished the repose of the Catholick Church I have sought the liberty of the Roman people Here is all that I can say As I am not in condition to tell a lie so am I not on terms to conceal a truth Had I known the means to reduce the Empire into better order he should never have understood it Finally if he be resolved to put me to death thereupon let him hasten his blow It is long since I have had death in desire and life in patience The Commissary much amazed at this constancy made his relation to the King in very sharp words which put oyl afresh into the flame to thrust affairs into extremities The poor Rusticiana wife of Boetius knowing the point whereunto the safety of her husband was reduced made use of all the attractives she could to mitigate the fury of the Prince and observing Amalazunta the daughter of Theodorick to be an honourable Ladie and endowed with a singular bounty she recommended her petitions and tears to her This Ladie gave her access to the King to whom she with her children presented her self in a most deplorable State able to soften obdurate rocks Alas Sir said she if you once more deign to behold from the throne of your glorie the dust of the earth cast your eyes upon a poor afflicted creature which is but the shadow of what she hath been I no longer am Rusticiana who saw palms and honours grow in her house as flowers in medows Disaster having taken him from me by whom I subsisted hath left me nothing but the image of my former fortune the sorrows of the passed the grief of the present and horrour of the time to come I would swear upon Altars that my husband hath never failed in the dutie which he oweth to your Majestie but calumnie hath depainted his innocency unto you with a coal to inflame you with choler against a man who ever held your interests as dear unto him as his own I know what he hath so many times said to me thereof and how he hath bred his children whom your Majestie now beholdeth at your feet If we no longer shall take benefit of justice Sir I implore your mercie Look on a woman worthie of compassion tossed in the storm and who beholdeth in the haven the Olives of peace which you always have desired to equal with your laurels Suffer me I may embrace them The world already hath cause enough to dread your power give us cause to love it proportionably to your bountie Alas Sir on whom will you bestow it Fire which consumeth all burneth not ashes and behold us here covered with ashes before your eyes what more desire you of us A miserable creature is a sacred thing the God of the afflicted taketh it into his protection and will no more have it touched than his Altars If my unhappiness have set me in that rank and my sex made me a just object of your pitie Sir render that to me which I in this world do hold most precious and think not we ever will retain any resentment of what is past when we shall see our selves re-established in our former fortune It is in you to command and for us to obey your ordinances and even to kiss the thunder-bolt that striketh us It is to much purpose to present musick to the ears of Tygers it hath no other effect but to enrage them the more The cruel Tyrant presently commanded the Ladie to withdraw adding he would do her justice And they ceasing not still to multiply suspitions with him upon this pretended conspiracy as if Boetius had now been presently with sword in hand with the Emperour Justine at the gates of Rome or Ravenna he fell into such fear gall and choller that without any other formal proceeding of justice he dispatched the afore-mentioned Commissary with a Tribune to put him to death whose life was so precious to the Roman Empire Boetius who had a long time been prepared both by prayers and
birth under your favour It is the third Part of a Court absolutely holy which not unlike the Citie S. John saw in his profound comtemplations cannot ascend from our manners to Heaven unless it descend from Heaven into our manners I likewise endeavour to fashion it in Books by the model of things celestial to imprint it on lives and I now undertake the defence of truth which constituting your salvation and composing your happiness well deserve to be the most serious employments of your mind It is true Sir all Maxims of State that depend not on the Maxims of God are effects of carnal prudence which end in flesh and all fortunes that rest not on him who with three fingers supporteth the globe of the earth rather pursue the way of precipices than the path of exaltation The wisdom of the world loves nothing so much as that whereof it is most ignorant it runs after honour not knowing what honour is ever hungry and still needy nor having any other aim but to make it self a Mistress over giddie spirits to become the slave of all passions Which maketh me say there are none but the blind who seek after it the miserable who find it the sottish who serve it and the forlorn who tie themselves to its principles But the wisdom of Heaven which I in these Maxims present you is so transcendently sublime above all humane inventions as the light of stars surpasseth the petty sparklings and slitting fires of the earth It is that which leisurely marcheth by holy paths to the sources of day-light and as being present before the throne of God beholdeth glory and felicitie unfolded in his hands It is the element of great souls such as yours and when they once are throughly settled therein they find tastfulness which turneth into nutriment and nutriment which passeth to immortalitie Your prudence may read in your own experience what I express in my Treatises nor need you go any further than your own life to meet with the proofs of these excellent verities You know Sir how the Divine Providence in the first flower of your age drew you from ill ways and snatched you out of the hands of infidelity as a Constantine from the palace of Diocletian to serve as a Buckler for the Church whereof impietie would have made you a persecutour This Providence knew so well how to separate bloud from manners that it caused you to demolish what your Ancestours had raised and preserving their dignity without touching their errours to make of the unhappiness of their judgement the beginning of your felicity From thence you see with what success the hand of God hath conducted you to the height of this most eminent glory wherein France at this present beholds you as a Prince accomplished in the experience of affairs and times the Father of good counsels the undertaker of great actions endowed with a spirit which seems an eternal fire and to be parallel'd by nothing but the goodness of your own heart You live peaceable as in the right sphere of true greatness where you perpetually reflect on two Poles God and the King You seek for the one in the other and you walk to the God of life by the most lively of his Images His Arms are beheld to prosper in your hands as well as his Edicts in your mouth You have born thunder and Olives throughout France under your protection awfull at one time and amiable at another but ever prosperous in both Yea fully to crown your happiness the Divine goodness hath afforded you a house flourishing in riches and honours which comprehendeth in its latitude two Princes of the bloud to serve as pillars for the State It gave you a wife who hath made of her fruitfulness the trophey of her virtues and entered by love into an eclipse to become the Mother of lights and bring forth children to bear the hope of Flower-de-luces The eldest Son whom your Excellency hath committed as a sacred pledge to our Colledge at Bourges would trouble us to tell you from whence he hath taken such and so many splendours and sparkling flames of wit which dazle the eyes of those who have the honour to be near him were not you his Father He is a Pearl who maketh it appear by the equality of his Orient that if Nature have equalled his birth to the greatest on earth he will equal his virtues to his extraction SIR I speak this ingeniously that you may both behold in your own Person what I treat in my books as also understand that true piety soweth the seeds of the most solid greatness But besides the relation this Design seems to have to the pleasure of God over you I find much obligation to offer it you as a slender testimony of a singular gratitude in our Superiours and our whole Societie which would willingly suffer their affections to pass through my pen if it had as much eloquence as the main body tenders respect and zeal to your service You have been pleased to make it known by your good purposes to love it by election defend it by justice honour it with your opinion encrease it with your liberalities and if your benefits be ornaments unto it your judgement serve for Apologies I received a notable portion in your favours whilest you resided in Bourges where your Excellency called me to deliver the Word of God and to confess your virtues in my discourses as I must acknowledge my discourses to proceed from your virtues It was by your conversation I perceived that as there is nothing too high for your understanding so there is not any thing too low for your bounty God hath bestowed on you the gift which the Scripture attributeth to the Patriarch Joseph to oblige hearts with sweetness not unlike the Engines of Archimedes which made water mount in descending so yours causeth not your humility to descend but to make it re-ascend to the source of the prime sublimity Which done not presuming any thing in regard of your Excellency but daring all through your courtesie I present these MAXIMS of the Holy Court of which many will make their reading others their precepts but you will I hope frame your virtues of them on earth to make them your Crowns in Heaven So wisheth SIR Your most humble and most obsequious servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Design and Order of the BOOK I Find Courteous Reader my Works do insensibly encrease under the savour of thy good opinion as plants sprout under the aspect of the most benign stars I had confined my self to that which concerneth the Historie of Courts and still rest in the same resolution But saw a piece verie necessarie in these times wanting in my Work which was the Treatise of MAXIMS and majestie of our Religion I almost durst not undertake it so much the subject seemed to require judgement preparation and abilitie But God having inspired me with a strong conceit I might be
it is a distinct question which would well deserve a much longer discourse than this present design permitteth (b) (b) (b) Vanity of Astrology We have shewed in some other former tracts and will also manifest once again how vain and frivolous the science of Horoscopes is being taken in that height whereunto the vanitie of some impostours hath raised it not here intending to condemn those who handle Astrologie within limits permitted by the Church Let us now be contented to say it is a savage ignorance to seek to infer from the course of planets an absolute necessity upon mens actions since even judicial Astrologers the most fervent and obstinate durst never proceed so far All say the stars make impressions of certain qualities upon bodies and minds but that they may be diverted by precaution which gave authority to the famous axiom of Ptolomy cited by S. Thomas in the book of destiny affirming (a) (a) (a) S. Thom. opusc defat Sapiens dominabitur astris the wise man shall rule the stars (b) (b) (b) Tertull. de Ido c. 9. Expelluntur mathematici sicut angeli eorum urbe Italia interdicitur mathematicis sicut coelum Angelis Non potest regnum coelorum sperare cujus digitus aut radius abâ—titur coelo Tertullian in the treatise of Idolatry said pertinently that evil Angels are made prime masters of the curiosity of Horoscopes and that as they were banished from heaven so are their disciples from the earth as by an extension of the divine sentence He addeth that man should not at all pretend to the Kingdom of heaven who makes a practise to abuse both heaven and stars It seemes God pursueth those who addict themselves to such vanities as fugitives from Divine Providence And it is very often observed that great-ones who are ensnared in the servitude of this curiosity have felt violent shocks and many times most dreadful events (c) (c) (c) Alexander de Angelis l. 4. c. 40. Henery the second to whom Carden and Gauricus two lights of Astrology had foretold verdant and happy old Age was miserably slain in the flower of his youth in games and pleasures of a Turneament The Princes his children whose Horoscopes were so curiously looked into and of whom wonders had been spoken were not much more prosperous Zica King of the Arabians to whom Astrology had promised long life to persecute Christians died in the year of the same prediction Albumazar the Oracle of Astrology left in writing that he found Christian religion according to the influence of stars should last but a thousand four hundred years he already hath belyed more than two hundred and it will be a lie to the worlds end The year 1524. wherein happened the great conjunction of Saturn Jupiter and Mars in the sign Pisces Astrolgers had foretold the world should perish by water which was the cause many men of quality made arks in imitation of Noâ—hs to save themselves from the deluge all which turned into laughter The year 1630. was likewise threatened by some predictions with an inundation should drown half mankind which proved false by a season quite contrary It was foretold a Constable of France well known that he would dye beyond the Alps before a city besieged in the 83. year of his Age and that if he escaped this time he was to live above a hundred years which was notoriously untrue this man deceasing in the 84. year of a natural death A Mathematician of John Galeazzo Duke of Milan who promised himself long life according to his planets was slain at the same time when he prognosticated this by the commandment of the same Duke Another Astrologer of Henry the seaventh King of England advised this great Prince to take heed of Christmas night was asked whither his own star would send him that night to which he answered to his own house in security of peace Yet was he instantly sent to the tower to celebrate the vigil of this great festival One might reckon up by thousands the falshoods miseries and disasters which wait on these superstitions Who can then sufficiently deplore the folly of Existimant tot circa unum caput tumultuantes Deos. Aurelius one who forsaking the great government of God the fountain of wits and treasure of fortunes makes himself a slave of Mercury or Saturn contrary to the voice of Scripture decision of Councels Oracles of holy Fathers Laws of Emperours consultations of the wise experience of people and consent of all the most solid judgments We will not labour to ruin a doctrine forsaken Against the necessity inferred of prescience both by honour and reason We onely speak against those who will infer a necessity derived from divine prescience by force of which sins themselves according to their understandings are directly caused by the decrees of heaven It is the opinion of Velleius Paterculus who said destiny did all the good and Ita efficitur quod est miserrimum ut quod accidit etiam merito accidisse videatur casus in cuâ—pam transeat evil in the world and that it was a miserable thing to attribute that which proceedeth from above to the demerit of men and to make the ordinances of heaven to pass as crimes of mortals This Maxim was defended by Hereticks even to fury and it is a wonder men have been so wicked as to burden the prime sanctity with all the ordures of the world We well know if destiny be taken for the ordinance by which God establisheth the lives of particulars and states of Empires it is nothing else but the Divine Providence whereof we speak but good heed must be taken from concluding sins within the list of Gods will who onely being pleased to permit them can not in any sort establish or will them And it is here an impertinent thing to say All God hath foreseen shall necessarily happen otherwise he would be deceived in his foresight which cannot be affirmed without blasphemy but he foresaw all future things they then of necessity will happen Who sees not it is a childish toy and that this captious argument must be overthrown by saying All which God hath foreseen necessarily happeneth by necessity and all he foresaw indifferently happeneth by indifferency Now so it is that of all which dependeth on our liberty he hath not foreseen any thing necessarily but indifferently We must then conclude that all is done by indifferency not fatal necessity Hearken to the excellent decision of S. Iohn Damascene Damas l. 2. Orth. fidei c. 32. God foresaw all things but he determineth not all Omnia quidem Deus praenoscit non omnia tamen praefinit praenoscit enim ea quae in nostrâ sunt potestate non autem ea praefinit quia non vult peccatum nec cogiâ— ad virtutem things He well foresaw all which is and shall be in your power but he determines not because he willeth not sin nor will
they could the government of Justinian under the shadow of exactions of excessive sums of money levied on all sides So that in short time the whole Citie was seen in arms and filled with malecontents who under colour of defence of publick good committed shamefull outrages and pillages unpunished The people never fail to favour rebellions and to second the evil purposes of the factious for that is the way to put ones self between two dangers and to be exposed as a prey to all violence The Emperour seeing the malignity of this storm and well understanding he could not divert it but by strong resistance dispatched the Regiments of the Heruli to over-run the Rebels They being rough gamesters made a great massacre of the people whilst the blind iron made no distinction between forreigner and native This served more to exasperate minds transported with extremities saying They no longer must hope for safetie since the Prince had sold their lives to Barbarians The sedition was so much enkindled that women and children became parties ceasing not to throw stones and fire from on high out of windows upon the Emperours souldiers They seeing themselves charged of all hands entered into an inexorable fury which was waited on by so strange a butchery that it in an instant covered the streets with bloud and dead bodies The Patriarch beholding all this misery had recourse to the arms of heaven since earthly Powers could do nothing so that he presently advanced a procession of Ecclesiasticks who bare the books of the Gospels and Images of our Saviour But the Herull became then enraged Elephants with the sight of their bloud nor could they look on any Image but of revenge or entertain any Gospel but the sword They onely called force to counsel when reason was banished and acted all which violent rage might in an unlimited power You would have said signal had been given for fire and sword to commix and confound all that might be disordered Crimes were freed from chains of laws and Religion which useth to become a veil for protection of suppliants had no obstacle in it to stay the heat of this fight The Emperour who onely required to pacifie the sedition needs would call the people into the Theater to sweeten and inform them of his intentions but the rebellious cried out instantly it was to deceive and the more easily to ensnare them and the excess of their wickedness having taken away the hope of pardon they took Hypatius and lifted him on high upon a target to pronounce him Emperour in sight of all the world The whole Citie stood five days in so horrible confusions that it seemed a very image of hell In the end God favouring the right of lawfull Princes Justinian found effectuall means to disarm rebellion attracting some by great liberalities and dis-countenancing the rest he so changed the face of affairs mingling likewise force with industry and favour that he caused Hypatius the imaginary Emperour to be taken with Pompey his Associate and condemning them to death dissolved the whole conspiracy which had before been so fatal to the people that thirty thousand remained dead on the place Eulogius was far engaged in the faction of Hypatius so that saving his life by flight all his goods were confiscated The miserable man not knowing of what wood to make his arrow returned to his former trade and hid himself in great obscurity to make it a veil for his crimes Notwithstanding moved with remorse of conscience he began in this alteration of state to make a virtue of his necessity and to sacrifice his body to penance which had been vowed to sensuality The Hermit Daniel afterward met him by chance and perceiving him much milder and more tractable than he was at Constantinople How goes the world with you Eulogius said he having been the King in a Tragedie what part play you now To which all over-covered with shame he replied His ingratitude had abused the blessings of God and men yet for all this not lessened their goodness and that if Father Daniel would once again pray for him not to restore him to the Court where he too long lived in the death of his innocency but a little to sweeten the sharpness of his poverty he would be gratefull for it all days of his life The Hermit answered Confide not in me my friend the experience of your follies hath made me wiser than I was Though poverty be irksom it is an evil necessary for you Remain in the condition whereunto your birth disposed you and ask not riches again which would onely serve to make you nought VI. MAXIM Of PRAEDESTINATION THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That our Salvation is a thing done nor need we take care of it That our eternal happiness is yet in our hands and expecteth our endeavour 1. GReat things are not unlike the sources Maluit ortus scrutari quà m nosse tuos Lucanus of Nilus whereof the Ancients said nature made them rather to be looked after than found so many great wits have been employed to enquire the causes of Praedestination yet all have confessed It was an abyss of the riches of Gods wisdom and Rom. 11. knowledge whose judgements are incomprehensible and ways not to be tracked Fear not the judgements of God which of themselves Maxims against fatalitie are nought but justice and goodness but fear your works which have so little assurance and so much iniquitie Say not your salvation is a thing done and that God having determined it from all eternity without calling you to counsel good works can do nothing to advance your happiness nor bad to encrease your unhappiness Know God who of his meer bounty calleth you will neither save nor damn you but by justice Think not it is destiny or necessity begins this business God by his grace hath put the mould and cizars into your hands to fashion your self such as you desire to be reputed First secure your self of your self by contributing to the graces which prevent you He who is good to himself shall never find God evil The great judgement of Tertullian fore-stalled the disputation of men when he said (a) (a) (a) Notable saying of Tertullian Non est bonae solid◠fidei sic omnia ad voluntatem Dei referre ita adulari unumquemque dicendo nihil fieri sine jussione ejus ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in nobis ipsis Tertul. l. de exhort castitatis It was neither a good faith nor very solid to referre all to the will of God and so flatter the world by saying nothing is done in the world without the Ordinance of God but we must understand there is some power in us which God himself expecteth to accomplish the work of our salvation To say then The great God hath determined of us in his eternity without making any reflection upon our works Is to make a pillow for the sloth of some and to
by loving all he loves and hating all he hates Imitation by ever bearing some mark of him upon our flesh according to the Apostles precept who said Glorifie and bear God upon your bodie And to conclude let us often say Feed O Lord thy poor begger with continual influences Blosiâ— of this Divinitie I ask and desire with all my heart thy love may penetrate replenish and transform me wholly into thee The seventh EXAMPLE upon the seventh MAXIM The triumph of JESUS over the Enemies of Faith JULIAN the Apostate ALl those who forsake the Word of God are Recedentes a te in terra scribentur Hier. 17. wretched men blotted out of Heaven to be written on earth and whose names the earth it self being unable to preserve abandoneth to forgetfulness or contempt and very often to execration This is manifested by many sensible proofs in the examples of the Emperour Julian who betraying his Religion and dishonouring the character of Christianity made himself one of the most miserable Princes that ever was under Heaven leaving his soul as a prey for devils his enterprizes to ill success his life to a most bloudy death his person to the scorn and hatred of men and his memory to the detestation of all Ages Notwithstanding he wanted no eminent qualities Qualities of Julian which shew that without true Religion all is unprofitable which might have raised him had he not forsaken the source of height and glory Birth gave him Constantius brother of great Constantine for father Besilina a most noble Princess for mother an Emperour for uncle three for cousin-germains Constantinople for his native soil and to serve for a Theater of great actions He had a good wit strong body tongue eloquent conversation pleasing and courage masculine There was not any science in the world whereof he had not some tincture he most prosperously mingled arms with letters and appeared as couragious in the front of Armies as in learned Schools He very little esteemed his body so much was his soul divorced from his flesh worldly riches were nothing at all in his hands nor did he value them but to give them He said It was for those who had no spirit to beg praise from the body that he was ever handsom enough who was chaste and that if Painters made fair faces chastity beautifull lives His counsel was to avoid love as an enraged Master according to the saying of Sophocles to live in the command over proper passions and free enjoying of himself The Gentlemen of his chamber and all domesticks who most nearly looked into his life gave assurance never was any thing more chast He slept little fed very soberly continually afflicted his body accustomed it to travel in such manner that he was seen in the snows of Germanie and broyling ardours of Persia perpetually in the same state After indefatigable toyls of the day he betook himself by candle-light to studies of the night He almost never lay but on the bare boards and waked at an hour prefixed not needing any one to give him notice He expected so little service about his person that being at Paris which he called His well-beloved Citie in the time of a sharp winter when the Seine was frozen scarcely would he suffer a fire to be made in his chamber so discourteously he used himself He hated riot superfluities Bals and Comedies and if needs he must sometime permit them it was more to reprove than behold them He afforded good and speedy justice his heart was patient and temperate towards the people whom he freed what he could from tributes making his impositions accord with the ability of particulars and saying He would leave his treasures to be kept by his good friends which were his subjects Is it not a lamentable case that so great a man was so miserably lost with so many excellent parts For want of preserving the best which is piety It is true that almost all our Historians have written of him with much rigour dissembling what was good in him to render him the more odious but for my part I am of opinion the greatness of Christianity more appeared therein if having shewed the ornaments of nature which this Prince had we make you plainly see all that very ill succeeded with him and that we cannot find any other source of his misery but his infidelity The judicious Readers shall here observe the cause The causes of his corruption of his ruin and consider the first education of children is an impression very tender which being not well mannaged in the beginning filleth the whole life with disorders Tutours are the fathers of spirits said Tutours are fathers of spirits S. Irenaeus as having more influence over the resemblance of souls than carnal fathers over bodies Ill luck would have it that little Julian being left young in the guardianship of his uncle Constantine was recommended to Eusebius of Nicomedia to be instructed in faith Now this Eusebius was a wolf in a lambskin who counterfeiting to be very Catholick ceated not by his credit to advance Arianism so that this young Prince fashioned at first by so ill a hand could not entertain belief and reverence towards the Person of our Saviour Heresie is the key of Atheism and when a soul is disposed to contempt of its gracious Mother on earth it easily learns no longer to acknowledge a Father in heaven He being so ill grounded in the elements of faith Ecebolus an hypocrite was put under the discipline of a Rhetorician named Ecebolus who turned with all winds and admitted Religion according to the times For when he saw Christian Emperours reign he for ceremony seemed a Christian If Pagans swayed there was none more insolent than he If Empire returned again to Christians he placed himself in Church-porches beseeching every one to tread on him as a thing contemptible He above all hearkened to and honoured Libanius one of the greatest Sophisters of his time but a Pagan till death He had a spirit mild and very indifferent upon articles of Religion he equally received Christians and Pagans into his school and permitted S. Basil himself to preach to his schollars but omitted not silently to contrive the means how to re-establish the Altars and Temples of the Gods He reflected on Julian as the Palladion of Gentilism and bound him fast to his own person by the charms of his eloquence to apply him to his counsels All the little piety which Julian might have learned School of Julian from a man who had none began to wither away in a school where all was known but God Apollo there possessed the name of Jesus Diana of Mary Aristotle Plato were the Prophets Isocrates the Preacher and the names of Tritons were there better understood than of S. Peter and S. Andrew the fisher-men This new disciple took such a tast of eloquence that it made him forget devotion he would have given a whole Province
bestowed most costly gifts on the Temple of Jerusalem From thence distending his benefits to men Ioseph l. 12. c. 1. Liberary of Ptolomey of learning he furnished that incomparable Liberary wherein in the end were numbered seven hundred thousand books and having given the charge of it to Demetrius Phalereus he caused to be brought thither as we find in so many histories the books of the law with the seventy two Interpreters who translated them into Greek to be a singular ornament of his Liberarie All this passed over with ceremonies magnificencies and the wonders which so many Authours recount the King wept for joy such affection he bare to things divine in comparison of which he no more esteemed gold than dirt By which means he gained the affection of all men causing himself to be beloved and adored by the whole world But Antiochus the God being as the Antipodes opposite Manners of Antiochus in manners to him esteeming himself as a Divinity thought upon nothing but to satisfie his ambition augment his revenues and seek his own ends to the prejudice of equity and all the most holy amities Which was the cause that undertaking a wicked design of invading the Kingdom of Aegypt he set a huge Army on foot against Ptolomeus Philadelphus of War against Ptolâ—mey whom we speak without any pretext but the satisfaction of an enraged ambition which possessed him Ptolomey who for the love of books abandoned not the sollicitude of war had put his Kingdom into such order that he was able to bring into the field two hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse besides he had two thousand carriages for the war four hundred Elephants an hundred and fifty tall ships So that Antiochus coming with all the strength of Asia to surprize him found one ready to talk with him for the Aegyptian without any incommodity to himself tyred and supplanted all his endeavours which were grounded more upon passion than good discretion This man loth to return with so much shame being unable to get a Kingdom sought to win a wife He passionately courted Berenice daughter of Ptolomey whether he were in love with her or whether he would make use of this marriage to give some colour to peace which could not be concluded without leaving on his face the marks of his temerity Ptolomy a Prince very peaceful readily inclined to the resolution of matching his daughter with him that he might quit his Territories of him but it was understood he had been already married to Laodice by whom he had children which seemed to make this matter meerly impossible Notwithstanding this unhappy Prince who betrayed God and men without reflecting on any thing in his designs but proper interest sware deeply to give assurance that he kept not Laodice in the quality of a wife and Queen but of a concubine whom he would dismiss so soon as the love of a lawful wife should possess his heart They who desire are ordinarily credulous It was wished peace might be purchased for the wearisomness of war and this Princess must be sacrificed as a victim without consideration that as faith and treachery upon one side were incompatible in the person of Antiochus so on the other Laodice a Princess much like her husband would not suffer another to lodge in her bed Notwithstanding the marriage is concluded Berenice It was ended by a marriage is conducted to Damietta by her own father who gave huge treasures with her in marriage she is put into the hands of this false husband who carried her to Babylon the capital City of his Kingdom Berenice daughter of Ptolomey entereth into Babylon This beautiful Queen who had all attractive graces on her cheek and the caduceum of Mercury in her hands by reason of the peace she made between two puissant Nations was received with much applause Besides there went along with her a great number of mules laden with gold silver and all the most splendid riches of Aegypt For the father who was so liberal towards strangers had made spare of nothing to his daughter The solemnity of marriage was performed with extraordinary pomp there was nothing but games theaters publick joys Heaven smiled and the earth assisted in these Hymeneal rites There was none but Laodice who being repudiated looked on Laodice repudiated these triumphs with an owl-like eye and a countenance surcharged with the vapours of her envy which hastened to raise a tempest She failed not to flie out in the beginning and to speak whatsoever a desperate jelousie could suggest to her to embroil affairs and stir up the Kingdom but finding her self not throughly seconded she covered her discontent under silence and the fury of her revenge under an apparance of sweetness supposing craft might afford that which force had bereaved her of Beholding her self far distant from Court and put into a condition wherein she could not disturb any thing she with a malicious prudence dissembled all that which lay on her heart feigning to have no other pretence upon the Kings marriage but that she onely desired to gain from him some solace to sweeten the change of her fortune Forth with she wrote a letter to King Antiochus very cunningly excusing her self of all had passed and shewing That if she at the beginning spake a little too boldly Her cunning touching the alteration he had made in his Kingdom it was a folly pardonable since it onely proceeded from the love she bare him That the disfavour she suffered by being deprived of a God seemed at first so haâ—sh unto her that she could find no means to digest it But that time had shewed her some part of her duty and her evil fortune daily taught her the humility she could never learn in Empire That she acknowledged it was not for her to controul his affections but observe them and rather to entertain admiration for her who hath the honour to enjoy his love than envy it That she now hath no care to think on thrones and scepters but that the sovereign happiness wherein she desires to breath out the remainder of her miserable life is to approach near his person more dear than all the world and to behold with an eye more innocent than she had done the prosperity of his affairs Antiochus was very well satisfied with Queen Berenice and already had by her a fair son who was as the seal of marriage yet touched at the beginning with some compassion to see Laodice so humbled he gave her leave to come nearer him which Berenice all made of goodness and over-credulous never sought to hinder She returned with shews of humility pretext of amity and admirable conformity Antiochus saw her and readily entertained her with discourse and witty merriments thinking her unable to re-enkindle his affection but she still had a commanding beauty accompanied with a wily wit and a voluble tongue of power to win love which the other very easily laid
hold of though he ever mannaged it to his own ends The Chronicle of Alexandria hath a remarkeable passage telling that Perseus looking on the head of Medusa which he had cut off took in poyson from it whereof he became blind We must not too much trust these beauties and loves which after a long course of sway seem dead when they but disappear Flames sometimes break out of wrinkles and ashes to inflame hearts they had heretofore possessed Antiochus quickly felt the sting of this Gorgon whose insolence he thought he had vanquished For having formerly surprized him by slight daliances she renewed her battery and by force of her continual conversation began to possess him as much as heretofore Berenice retained nothing in all this great pomp of her fortune but countenances and shews whilst the other became Mistress of his heart and had so bewitched the soul of this God as to make him become a beast The wicked woman staied not there but infinitely desirous to place her son Seleucus in the throne of the Antiochuses and fearing the mutable condition of this unfortunate lover prevented his inconstancy and gave him as saith S. Hierom not the Nectar of Gods but the poison appointed for offendours to send him speedily unto the other world Presently after she caused her son to be proclaimed King by the subtile practise of two powerfull Favourites who assisted her in this affair and at the same time laid hold of the little son of Berenice and gave him unto two murderers to butcher him Behold whither the mischief of a woman abandoned by God reason and all humanity goeth when incensed love and blind ambition have let loose the rains to disorder The poor Queen extreamly overtaken by this disloyalty came forth in publick with her great sorrow conjuring all the world with tears and sighs able to rent rocks asunder To take pitie of a poor stranger their lawfull Queen and who had never sought any thing but their good whilest some not content to poison the King her husband had murdered the little innocent who was lawfull heir to the Crown and would for full accomplishment of cruelty serve the mother so Then shewing her bosom added She was readie to receive therein the bloudie sword which had cut off the life of her most precious child in an age so tender and lamentable if the people thought it might be for the Kingdoms good but what could it benefit them to see a deplorable Queen torn in pieces before their eyes who had no other crime but her integritie towards them The people were so moved with this discourse that they caused Berenice to save her self in the best fortress of the Citie and instantly demanded their young Prince might be brought forth The murderers as Polyenus affirmeth already misdoubting the peoples fury had prepared a suppositious child who marvellously well resembled the young Prince and presently producing him clothed in his garments they for some time appeased the sedition The wicked Laodice seeing her business succeeded not to her mind feigned much to desire a reconciliation with Berenice and by practise of the ministers of her fury found means to get some companies to steal into the Cittadel whither she was retired who cut the centinels in pieces and killing all the Queens officers came to her chamber to murder her It was a pittifull spectacle to behold the poor maids who were about her person for standing in defence above the strength of their fex they pulled the weapons out of the souldiers hands running up and down amidst swords and partisans like Lionesses until many all bloudy fell at the feet of their good Mistress leaving an eternal monument of their valour and fidelity The poor Berenice was amongst the dead unworthily massacred on the bodies of her servants Three maids survived this assassinate who bathing the Queens body with their tears and humbly kissing all her wounds clothed her again with Royal garments and laid her on the bed invoking Heaven and its powers to their aid The people flocking with the bruit of this great murder environed the Castle and put the murderers to flights who durst not then boast to have committed this execrable assassinate The Queens maids on the other side carried themselves very discreetly among such extream dolours for as yet forbearing to publish Berenice's death for fear of giving advantage to Laodice's plots they shewed themselves at a window and told the people their Mistress had been wounded by the cunning practises of Laodice but that thanks be to God the wound was not mortal she onely stood in need of some little rest and good attendance to take breath and be cured to the end she might acknowledge their good services Polyenus saith that the business being drawn at length and the people desirous to see the Queen the maids put a counterfeit into the bed dressed up for the purpose and framed some words feigning a low and mournfull accent of their Mistress This cunning held the subjects in obedience and the enemies in fear whilest a Courtier dispatched to Ptolomey the son of Philadelphus advertised him of all had passed He failed not to hasten speedily to Babylon with a potent army where he surprized the Conspiratours affrighted with the image of their crime Callinicus fled and was afterward slain by a fall from his horse The wicked Laodice was taken and led to punishment where the people understanding the death of Berenice and the dreadful exorbitancies of this wretched woman meant to have torn her in pieces loading her memory and ashes with maledictions The Kingdom was for a time reduced under the obedience of the King of Aegypt who carrying away infinite riches and establishing Governors in Provinces returned to his own country One may see by this history that men of interest desirous to swallow all by ways unlawfull loose their fortunes honours and lives leaving their souls to the pains of hell and their memory to the execration of posterity XI MAXIM Of CRAFT THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That the life of curious wits is not governed but by fiction and that the deceiver still finds such as will be deceived That Sinceritie is the Queen of virtues and that the deceiver is taken in the snare the prepareth CRAFT one of the prime Maxims of an ill Dissimulation Court is now adays become the lesson of all Ages each sex and condition and it seems to many that to prosper well in subtilities is the flower of wisdom and utmost period of felicity All are not fit for arms learning picks out wits with too much advise arts are painfull and require in those who profess them some ability which is not produced but by time and much industrie But in the mystery of counterfeiting dissembling and guil every one perswadeth himself he therein can quickly acquire some skill and be able to triumph over simple silence and if he must labour in it to strike the best strokes by the help of
and already well felt he was not born to be predominant over a beauty so triumphant The easinesse of his nature suffered him not to be long in resolving to give way to his passion He instantly declares himself and coloureth his request with the title of marriage Brunhault gives ear whether for the love of Meroveus or whether out of the hatred of Fredegond his mother supposing it was an opportunity to carry fire very far into the Royall race They secretly marry the Nephue espouseth the Aunt by a crime unheard Love is their Pope and King from whom they take dispensation and leave Fury conceiveth this marriage Timerity signeth it but misery sealeth the contract Meroveus returneth from Roan stil hiding his fire under the ashes He gives account of his commission The King his father resolveth to send him to take possession of Guyenne which he judged to be fallen unto him by the death of Sigebert He fergneth to depart from the Court with intention to go to Bourdeaux but the countrepoise of love insensibly carryed him to Roan and he hastneth to court his pretended spouse and forgets all cares and affairs to please his passion which being not kept with in the limits of moderation made a great noyse and was carried to the ears of the Court. King Chilperic went to Roan with an army to quench the fire in its beginning thinking there was some notable plot contrived against his state but he finds these lovers had no other arms but those of Cupid and that the excesse of their passion had given them so little leisure to think on their own safety that seeing themselves beset by souldiers they had recourse to altars which were then secure refuges for the miserable Chilperic durst not violate Sanctuaries in the presence of Pretextatus Bishop of Roan a man courageous and zealous for things divine He promised himself to take this new married Couple by the want of victuall and other naturall neecessities But he seeing the businesse to be drawn at length patience slips from him and he made them to come out of the Church with promise of impunity His soul was softned seeing a young Queen a widdow and miserable by the cruelty of his wife Nature pleadeth in his heart for his own bloud he embraceth them both with tears in his eyes and not to affright them enterteins them with fair hopes whilest they little think of it he sends Brunhault into Austrasia her own Countrey and keeps Meroveus under good and sure guard judging one could not well trust him if he were at his own dispose In the mean time Fredegonda immeasurably displeased with the proceedings of this affair and supposing the King her husband went on too remissly made it a great crime of state and of manifest conspiracy wherein she involved the Archbishop Pretextatus He was Meroveus his God-father could not but have some tendernesse towards this Prince his god-God-child which being sinisterly interpreted drew much misery upon him He with his moveables and papers were seized on where they found certain packets of Queen Brunhaults which strengthened the suspition they conceived to his prejudice He is sent for to an assembly of Bishops where the King coming in chargeth him with the crime of rebellion accusing him to have withdrawn the people from their obedience to crown his son and thereupon roundly required the Prelates that justice might be done according to holy Canons The witnesses are heard and confronted who do not throughly enough prove the crime whereof he was accused Pretextatus justifieth himself by a solemne protestation of his innocency which caused compassion in many But these Prelates assembled were partly weak and partly sold to serve the Kings passions there was almost none but Gregory of Torus who having an invincible spirit in a little body encouraged the whole Assembly to the defence of the truth the menacies of the King and murthering flatteries of Queen Fredegonde being unable to shake his constancy Other batteries were likewise made to ruine a man half dead by stirring up against him divers calumnies from which he very happily vindicated himself untill at length some treacherous Bishops counselled him to accuse himself by way of humiliation of the offence of state which was objected against him They told him he must not appear too just before his Master that it was not reasonable the King should receive an affront in this affair that he was a mild Prince who would Pretextatus should owe his safety to his clemency and that he no sooner could speak one word of confession but he should be freed from this vexation and restored to his Dignity The unfortuante Prelate giving ear to the hissing of serpents made his tongue the snare of his soul and owned an imaginary crime to undergo a reall unhappinesse He had no sooner pronounced the word but the King transported with excessive joy prostrated himself on his knees before the assembly of Bishops demanding that his robe for ignominy should be cut off and the execrations thundring against Judas to be pronounced over him The compassion of some procured moderation therein Neverthelesse he was instantly degraded condemned to banishment and delivered to the Kings Guard who lead him to a little desert Island near the city of Constance in Normandy whence he esaped to be in the end massacred by the practises of Q. Fredegonde This step-mother was not content to see Meroveus confined to a prison but she violently urged he might be shaven and shut in a Monastery which was executed But it is a great errour to think to make a religious man by holding a poignard to his throan and by taking hair from his head when the consent of his heart cannot be had The thoughts which according to the Interpreters of Scripture are as the hairs of the soul were not taken away by the roots from this miserble Samson They much persecuted him about his passed Loves that hâ— quickly forsook Cowl and Monastery to begin new stirs He went directly to Torus which gave much trouble to good Saint Grogory and spent nights upon the tomb of Saint Martin fasting and praying to have a revelation which might promise him a crown But seeing Chilperic pursued him with armed hand he fled from town to town and from Sanctuary to Sanctuary finding not any one who would support his rebellion In the end he gets into Austrasia and returneth to the embracements of his Spouse as it were to end himself in those eyes which had enkindled his first flames But the cunning Queen considering that her subjects were raised in alarms upon his comming and fearing she might draw upon them the totall storm of Chilperics arms preferred reasons of state before those of love besought him to retire They of Tours who were suspected by the King for having first of all favoured his flight thinking not to find their own safety but in his ruine called him back again under colour to support his arms and to become
makes them and that they have no need of our Sacrifices but that they would have our Heart The King ought to acknowledge God with a very deep sense of Piety as the chiefest essence the chiefest light a Trinity within an Unity infinite an Eternall Spirit whose Power is Almightinesse whose Will is the highest Reason and whose Nature is nothing but Holinesse That he is a Mysterious Silence a Lovely Terriblenesse an Immensnesse of Glory which Sees all and Knows all from whom all Beings have their rising which gives and takes away Empires before whom the World and all its Kingdomes and all its Monarchs are but as it were small atoms moving within that immovable Beam This sense will cause the Prince to tender his Crown and Person at the feet of God with a perfect humility and whole dependance on him in all things he will learn the mysteries of our faith and all the great maximes of Religion not for disputation but to believe and adore them In prosecution of this deep sense it behooves him The service of God to professe the outward worship and service for the performance of his duty and the example of his people as by his assisting at divine Service with great reverence honouring the holy Sacrament shewing himself exceeding devout towards the most holy mother of God towards the Angels and Saints frequenting confession and the Eucharist hearkening willingly to the word of God and regulating his prayers and daily devotions by the advice of those that direct his conscience and above all accounting it the chiefest devotion to be carefull of his people just in his Government and full of compassion towards the afflicted It is also expedient to take heed that the Prince in this do neither too much nor too little it is not fitting that he take upon him the devotion of a Priest or Religious man which might a little diminish the credit of his profession nor that he should likewise become too carelesse and negligent in Divine matters for fear lest he fall into Libertinism which is the gulf of all misfortunes True Piety in a Monarch shineth forth most of Zeal all in zeal which is a mostardent love of the honour of God and to attein to this he ought above all to keep the Law of God avoiding all grievous and scandalous sins and he ought continually to take care that God be served in his own house and throughout his whole Realm That Blasphemies Sacriledges Heresies Simonie and all impicties be scattered and vanish by the beams of his power That the Pope which is the Father and chief Shepheard of all Christendome be respected with a holy Reverence That the Bishops be honoured and mainteined That the Church be provided of good Pastours That the Clergy live under Rule and comelinesse and that it be mainteined in its rights That Hospitals Monasteries and Religious-houses be protected and preserved in their estates He ought not to suffer in any manner whatsoever according to the order of Lewis that sacred placed be violated in the Warrs which may happen between Christian Princes He ought to have an earnest zeal and indefatigable for the advancement of the Faith and Religion and according as the times and occasions shall permit to employ his arms and person to subdue the pride of Infidels and set up the Standard of the Crosse This is the portion which God reserves for Christian Princes which should never partake of true honour but that which is enclosed within the glory of Jesus Christ saith Julius Firmicus to the children of Constantine Neverthelesse in designs of war against the Insidels nothing should be too fervently hasted under pretence of zeal to the prejudice of the Realm but to attend the coming in of God which knowes the times and opportunities and that sometimes gives in without much labour which men at other times undertake without good advice and with little successe Wisedome doth very excellently agree with Piety as being a science of Divine and Humane things not idle but with an active relish and skill for the directing of our life If a Prince do not study to get this wisedome he is ignorant of his profession and makes himself contemptible to his subjects He is given by God to his Kingdome as the Soul to the Body and how can he then subsist without understanding He is given as the Eye what can he do without Light He ought himself to be the Light and would it not be a shame for him to be covered with perpetuall darknesse The Jer. 23. 5. King shall reign and shall be wise saith the holy Scripture this is the onely thing that Solomon desired of God at the beginning of his reign and he gave him this request in such a manner that he replenisht him with a wonderfull ability Wisedome maketh a man more worth then a thousand The greatnesse of Wisdome it multiplies it self into many heads and gathers together the riches of the Universe into one onely heart The Wiseman draws an harmlesse Tribute from the Learning of all ages he learns the lives of all for to husband well his own he enters into those great labyrinths of time past as into his own house he makes use of so many rare inventions of the best wits of the World as of his own Patrimony You may say that the Soul of a learned Prince hath run through many Ages in divers Bodies Wisedome maketh him to passe through long wayes with small charges and to discover the whole World without going out of his Closet He learns he discourseth he judgeth he approveth he condemneth that which is past makes him profit by that which is to come Good Counsels do enlighten him and even the follyes of others erect him a Theatre for Wisdome Yet he must take heed lest of a Prince becoming What the wisdome of a Prince should be a Philosopher he cease not to be a King he ought not to study onely to know and dispute but to have the knowledge and practise of Excellent things To think to become wise by the reading of Books onely is like thinking to be hot by the remembrance of fire He must of necessity traffick with his own understanding with his own experience and that he may profit by Teachers he must be a teacher to himself I would not that all Princes should be such Philosophers as Marcus Aurelius the Emperour nor so Eloquent as Julian the Apostate nor so curious in every Art as Hadrian It is a Science which comes very near to ignorance to studie for that which will profit nothing and to take the pains to learn that which would be better unlearned Seeing that the Scripture is the Book of books and that the Antients called the Bible the Crown a Hielel Autor Hebraeus excercet se in Corona 1. Lege King ought not to be ignorant thereof yet not to make himself a Divine but thereby to learn his duty Naturall Phylosophy which sets before us the
the night putting in his place an image in his bed The house failed not to be set upon the next morning and the Guard of Saul entring by force passed on unto the bed and found there the counterfeit Michol vvas accused hereof and chidden by Saul but she excused her self saying That her husband had compelled her to do this threatning to kill her if she would not obey and that the presence of so manifest a danger had forced her to procure this invention He ceased not to encrease his anger and to invent every day new means to destroy him whom he ought to have preserved above all men In the mean time David knew not whither to retire The life of David in banishment himself and saw himself every day amongst the nets hunted like a poor beast which caused him to passe a life so worthy to be esteemed by the whole world in very many bitternesses He would have taken the boldnesse to have gone to Samuel who was yet alive but this his interview would have been prejudicial both to the one and the other in the the mind of Saul which turned all its suspicions into fury He removed himself from thence unto the town of His arrivall at Nob causeth great disastre to the high Priest Nob to the high Priest Ahimelech who seeing him in very small equipage was somewhat amazed at his arrivall but David for to confirm him told him that he went about a certain urgent businesse which the King had given him in chaâ—ge and that it was necessary that it should be done without noise the which had compelled him to take but few people with him which were come forth very suddenly without having leasure to take order for necessary things for their journey whereby he should do him a great pleasure to give him some bread and to help him to some weapons which the haste of the businesse would not suffer him to take The Priest answered that he had no other loaves then those of the shew-bread which were consecrated but that they might make use of them if they were purified and especially if they abstained from all converse with women of which David having assured him he gave them those and having no other sword then that of Goliah which was kept in the Tabernacle for a Monument he presented it to him wherewith he was very well contented judgeing it the best of all and so went forward in his way Saul having heard a report that David had appeared entred into great forrests and going through a wood with a lance in his hand being compassed by his Captains and Officers sharply complained of the unfaithfulnesse of his servants asking them with reproach What it was that David had promised them and whether he would give them every one Lordships or make them Captains or Camp-masters that they had thus forsaken their Prince That it was a pitifull thing to behold him betrayed of his own children for to uphold a rebel which sought nothing but an occasion to get his Crown from him Hereupon Doeg master of the shepherds of Saul and Doeg accuseth the high Priest being innocent Idumean by nation and of barbarous behaviour having been at Nob when David passed by there and desirous to get favour with his Master accused Ahimelech the Priest with all his company for having helped David with weapons and Provision and having testified a good affection to his party which caused Saul to send for him presently and handle him with great anger reproaching him with villany and suspecting him of treason The other answered very wisely That he being retired from the knowledge of business at the Court and of the Bed-chamber he could not know the intents of David but knowing very assuredly the good-will that the King had testified towards him the great charges and commissions wherewith he had honoured him the favour that he had shewed to him by so neerly allying him to his house he could not nor he ought not to drive him away from his lodging having received no command from the King and not being able to understand by any the offence that David had incurred This excuse was very just and lawful But the violent Bloudy effects of the jealousie of Saul are never contented with reasons intending to be masters of the Laws although they are slaves to their brutish passions Saul commanded without any other form of proceedings to kill him with those of his company which the souldiers did very much abhorre and there was not found one that durst lift up his hand against those sacred persons But Doeg that villanous butcher which had a long time been bred up in slaying beasts having gathered together the small rable of his servants set upon the high Priest and the Priests which accompanied him to the number of 85. which were all murdered in one day and this cursed servant stretching further yet the command of his master drave on his murderers to the sacking of the town of Nob which they filled with fire and bloud What will not the jealousie of State do what will not tyranny rage and fury when they are seconded by evil servants which blow the coal able to devour both men and towns Saul the plain countrey-fellow the cordiall man the child of one year after he had suckt the breath of this serpent kills the high Priest and the Priests buries the smoking towns in the bloud of the miserable citizens A thousand poor bloudy sacrifices stretched out upon the cart pleaded sufficiently before God with the voyce of their bloud for to pull down this in humane Tyrant for whom all the furies prepared their pincers and torches Poor David having understood by Abiathar the son of the high Priest all that was past was pierced with a most bitter grief accusing himself as the cause of the death of those unhappy ones and took along with him him that brought him this sad news using him as his own brother He perceived well that the spirit of Saul David saves himself in the caves of the desert whither father and mother go to seek him was wholly envenomed and in despair of remedy he saved himself in the cave of Adulla where he thought he had been hid from the eyes of the whole world But his father and his brethren flying the persecution ceased not till they had found him therein and did wonderfully pierce his tender heart lamenting for the change of his fortune because they perceive not any more in him a David triumphant the object of all the thoughts and discourses of all tongues But he comforted them promising not to forsake them and recommended all that was dearest unto him which was the person of his father His piety towards them with that of his mother to the King of Moab until that he knew what it would please God to do with him At the same time all the banished all that fled for Banished men repaired to him safety
labours very advisedly to reconcile the son to His reconciliation by the means of Joab the father by the mediation of a very discreet woman of Tecoah which came with a counterfeit pretence and complained to the King that she being mother of two sons the one in a hot quarrel had slain his brother and that they would constrain her to deliver up the other to justice that processe might be maid against him to the end to extinguish all her race And therefore she entreated his Majesty to be gracious to save her son that remained and not wholly to deprive her of all comfort in the world The which David having agreed to she declared to him that he ought to practice the same towards his own son which he would have done for one of his subjects that we were all mortall and that we passe away here below as the current of a stream that we should imitate the goodnesse of God which loves our souls and would not that they should perish As this woman spoke with so much discretion David was in doubt that Joab had instructed her and made her under-hand to act this fine play the which she affirmed and so much gained the heart of David that he gave full permission to Joab to fetch back the banished to his house although it was for the space of two years without seeing him Absolon grew so melancholick by his being so far from the court without seeing the king his father that having oftentimes sent to Joab to put an end to his businesse seeing that he would not come to him for friendship he caused his corn to be set on fire to make him come for anger for the which he excused himself and entreated him to ask of David in his behalf either that he might dye or that he might have leave to see him This good father could no longer dissemble the movings Absolons revolt of nature but having sent for him he embraced him and gave the kisse of peace and re-establishes him in the court The spirit of this Prince was lofty tempestuous movable which could not contain it self any longer within the bounds of obedience For the space of the five years of his removall from the court he had leisure enough to bite the bridle and as it is credible he had projected already the design of reigning his ambition seemed to him sufficiently well founded Amnon his eldest brother was dead Celeab the son of Abigail the second of his brethren made no great noise he saw himself underpropt on his mothers side by the King of Gesher his grand-father This was a Prince well made upright pleasing courteous liberall secret courageous and capable of great undertakeings He saw his father upon the declining of his age who had lost very much of that vigour testified so many times in his battels Adonija was too much a fondling and Solomon yet a childe and not able to His designs oppose him He conceived that the Empire could not slipp out of his hands And indeed there was great hopes for him if he had had so much patience to stay for it as desire to command He made too soon to appear what was in his mind causing himself to be encompassed when he marched forth with souldiers and a guard which was a sign of Royalty Further also he ceased not to gain the hearts and secretly to get the good will of all his fathers subjects He was up betimes in the morning and set himself at the entrance of the Palace to take His ambition notice of all those that had any businesse to propound to the King One never saw Prince more prodigall in courtesies he call'd them to him he embraced them he kissed them he enquired of their countrey of their condition of their suit and of that their negotiation He did justice to all the world and said that there was no other mishap but that the King was old and tyred with businesses and had not a man to hear the complaints of his subjects and to render them justice and that if one day he had the charge which his birth deserved he would give full satisfaction to every one By this meanes he made himself conquerour of hearts and traced out great intelligence throughout the Provinces guiding himself by the counsels of Achitophel who was the most refined spirit the best dissembler and most pernicious that was in the whole Kingdome David did not sufficiently watch over the actions of his sonne and the secret workings of this evil Counsellour the evil increased and their party was already framed Absolon asketh leave of the King his father to go to Hebron under pretence of performing a vow but with an intent to proclaim himself King That which he desired was granted to him he marches under this coverture with a train and splendour carrying many people with him and Sacrifices to offer He gives order in the mean while to all his confederates that at the first sound of the Trumpet they should march forth into the field to go to meet him and to bring him all the Troops that they could gather together All this was readily performed and without further Absolon caused himself to be proclaimed King dissimulation he declared himself and caused himself to be crowned in Hebron the news came quickly to David which brought him word that his son Absolon was revolted against him and had got possession of Hebron and that all the forces of the Kingdome run to him Here one may see a great example of the judgement A great example of the weaknesse of mans spirit when it is left by God of God of the weaknesse of a man left to himself as also the beams of an high and profound humility To speak according to man all that David did in this encounter of affairs was low and feeble He might have taken the field with the Regiments which he had which amounted at least to six or seven thousand men and have unwoven this web of conspiracy at its springing forth And if he had not perceived himself strong enough he had sufficient means to maintein himself in Jerusalem to entrench and fortifie himself there and to tyre out those spirits of his Rebels He might have enterteined him with good hopes promises and treaties and have cooled this first heat by rallying by little and little the affections of his subjects to his own party And if he had conceived his affairs to be in ill plight he should have been the last that had taken notice of it after the manner of those great Captains which carry hope in their faces even then when they have despair in their heart to keep together their Troopes in their duty But this poor Prince at the newes of this rebellion talked of nothing but flying and leaving his chief City and saving himself in the by-paths of the wildernesses he is the first that goes forth without a horse to ride on on his bare
he touched the earth without leaving heaven The second marvell of S. Lewis is to have lodged humility upon the glittering splendour of his Diadem and to have preserved this place for it amongst all the The second marvel the union of humility and royall greatnesse occasions which might invite him to make use of his greatnesse One may avouch that this virtue in what place soever it is found is alwayes great and S. Paul justly calls it the virtue of Jesus Christ by excellency but when it mingles it self with the estate of great ones it carries away the admiration of mankind We are all born with the desire of honour and this appetite deviated from its proper excellence is found even in the lowest persons In the age past there was found in India a people called the Verrais of so grosse an understanding and uncomely in body which lived so basely that they ate nothing but roasted Ants and Crocodiles tails and neverthelesse they were so proud that when they spake to them of baptizing them they asked if they should be baptized in the same water with other people and if they would have no respect to their quality If presumption doth take such hold on such base souls I leave it to you to consider what effect it might have on those that are lifted up in all qualities above the common sort There is no doubt that ambition ruleth over all our actions and that to see a Prince humble amidst the flatteries of the Court modest with an absolute power victorious over vanity in the midst of the great mortifying of truth which comes into the cabinet of Kings like money into their coffers with very much disguising and diminution is a wonder almost as rare as if one should see the stars to walk on the earth And neverthelesse S. Lewis as he had very great wisdome and a perfect knowledge of the life of man was a soul the most humble the most meek and most amiable that ever conversed amongst men in the like estate Princes have had at all times a high ambition to carry in their titles great names There are some which have caused themselves to be called the brethren of the Sun and cosens to the Starrs others would be the Arms the Eyes the Rubies of the World and some the Saviours and the Gods but our Monarch named himself Lewis of Poysey the humble servant of Jesus accounting it that the highest greatnesse of a Sceptre was to serve God Hence he desired nothing so ardently in all his behaviour as to humble himself before God by a perfect examination without retaining any thing more of himself then this high point of humility When he entred into Damiata the first town that he conquered in his voyage to Egypt he caused not himself to be carried in a charriot drawn with Lyons or Elephants as the Roman Captains use to do but he caused the crosse to march before him and followed it with a bare head and naked feet And when at the Councell of Lyons they spoke of giving him the name and quality of an Emperour he avoided that honour like a tempest and chose rather the extremity of sufferings amongst the Sarazens then to ascend into the throne of the Cesars He carried his Royalty as it were a mountain on his back and there was no greater servitude in the world to him then his greatnesse When he could free himself of the necessary ceremonies in publick for a person of his quality and that he had full liberty to converse with inferiour ones he was as a fish in his water This wise humility caused that he enterteined the whole world every one according to his degree with great consideration He honoured the Queen his mother all his life time with a respect which approched near to reverence He was wonderfully-kind to all his kindred and courteous to all those that came to him which he did without ceremonies without constraint but with an unparralleld cordialnesse for that his humility was rooted in a deep charity which gave all the motions to his soul He walked oftentimes in publick in a plain garment of chamlet and if he had seen the riot that now reigns in our behaviour he would have taken our conversation for some Mascorade He conversed not onely with the plainest but abased himself continually even to the feet of the poor and that the most ill favoured He was seen to bow himself and to make clean the ulcers of the leprous so horrible that people cast bread to them afar off not any one daring to come near them He was seen in the champians of Asia and Africa to seek out the bodies of his poore Subjects all stinking with corruption to bury them with his royall hands O what a triumph of humility is here O what ardency of charity and where is it that God can place the condemnation of our pride and hardnesse of our hearts more high then upon the person of this great King Lastly the third miracle that we observe in the life of The third marvel his devotion and courage S. Lewis is that he hath joyned the devotion of the most perfect religious ones with the courage of the most invincible conquerours Here it is that I do chalenge all those brave ones in appearance all those Phantasmes of valour for to testifie unto them that S. Lewis was one of the most valiant and most courageous Princes that ever bore Sceptre in Christendome For where is valiantnesse placed according to Aristotle if it be not conceived in the understanding and if it tend not to virtuous actions would you that I should account it an action of courage and ability to hew men in pieces and to fill the world with massacres for to content the rage for to nourish an ambition or satisfie a revenge God forbid that we should judge so basely of a virtue that makes them demigods If the intentions thereof be not right if the actions thereof be not justifiable if its effects be not commendable it is a spirit that seduces us and not a perfection that rectifies us The valour of S. Lewis was the effect of a lively faith of an incomparable wisedome of a strong and puissant charity faith filled him with confidence wisdome with moderation and charity with boldnesse This valour was enlivened by three loves which the Divines do observe which are the love incomparable the love ardent and the love indefatigable The love incomparable caused him to forsake a great and flourishing kingdome filled with peace contentments and delights where he might have lived under the shadow of his Palm-trees in all happinesse to transport himself into the land of the Sarazens and there to suffer all the inconveniencies of nature The same love caused him to carry the Queen his wife young and tender amongst so many foming rocks so many seas so many monsters and so many tempests The same love perswaded him to embark the Princes his children in their
and shakes even the strongest The Altars overturn'd upon the bleeding Priests the children strangled in the bosome of their sighing Mothers the flames that without distinction devoured the sacred and profane the Houses that seemed now but dens of Beasts presented to the world an hideous spectacle that gave more desire to dye then courage to live Amidst these desolations was found a gallant old man named Matathias the father of many sonnes all men of valour who went our of Jerusalem to retire himself in the City of Modin There he assembled all those of his family who were followed of whatsoever remained yet of most courageous to oppose themselves against the fury of the Tyrant and to retein the remnants of the true Piety As soon as the infidels had heard that a little handfull of men assaid to subtract themselves from their puissance and refused to make open profession of the Religion of the Pagans they failed not hastily to send unto them a Lieutenant of the Kings that summoned Matathias to render up himself with all his men and to offer Incense to the Idols But this virtuous man assembling his sons and his allies said thus unto them It would be to be too much in love with Life to be willing to spare and keep it in the losse of the true Religion I am sorry that I ever entred into the world when I consider the time to which God hath reserv'd my age to see the disasters of my people and the desolation of holy Jerusalem abandoned to the pillage of rapinous hands and to the prophanation of the impious Her Temple hath been handled as the object of all reproches and those Vessels of Glory that served for the Ministery of the Living God hath been taken away by violence We have seen her streets covered with dead bodies and the little children having their throats cut upon the Carcases of their Fathers And what Nation hath not possessed our heritages and is not inriched with our spoils The holinesse of the Temple hath not stayed sacrilegious hands and so many slaves of that proud City have not been able to preserve themselves from flames After this what interest can we have in life unlesse it be to revenge the quarrell of God I am promised all the honours and all the goods that I can reasonably hope for If I will obey the King Antiochus and range my self on the party of those that have so basely betraied their faith But God forbid that I should ever fall into such a prostitution of Judgment or of courage When all those of my nation shall have conspired to forsake their Law to obey the time and to accommodate themselves to the Prince's will I can answer for my self and for my children and for my brothers assuring my self of their Generosity that they will never do any thing that is base Let all those that shall have a zeal to the true Religion joyn themselves to us and know that amongst so many miseries there is nothing better then to mark with their blood the way of Safety and of Glory to give example to Posterity In the mean time the Kings Commissioners pressed every one to declare himself and to sacrifice whereupon a man of the people of the Jewes whether he was frighted by the terrour of the punishments or allured by the promise of rewards stepped forth to sacrifice upon an Altar set up in publick and dedicated to the false Deities But Matathias having looked steddily upon him felt his heart enflamed with a violent heat of the zeal that possessed him and running to that Apostate killed him with his own hand and laid him dead upon the Altar making him serve for an offering in the place to which he came to be a Priest He added to him also that Lieutenant of the King that commanded them to offer those sacrifices of abominations and declared open warre to all the Infidels that would constrain them to forsake their Law It is a wonderfull thing to consider the power of a man in zeal that contemns his life and is ambitious of death This holy old man began an army with five sons that he had and a few kinsmen He quitted the City of Modin where he could not be the stronger to entrench himself upon a mountain whither those that were zealous for the defence of the antient piety arrived from all sides with their wives their children and their flocks all resolved to live or to dye with the Illustrious Maccabeans Matathias seeing his army every day increase did brave exploits of warre so that he was not contented to beat back the Infidels but assaulted them even in their trenches and chased them away which gave him all liberty to demolish the prophane Altars that they had erected in many places to cause Circumcision to be administred to little Infants and to recover the sacred books out of the hand of the enemyes In fine this valorous Captain after many Combats seeing his last day approch made a long oration to his children enflaming them to the zeal of their Religion against the Tyranny of King Antiochus and after he had given them Judas Maccabeus for their Chief and Simeon for their Counsell blessed them and shut up his life by a most glorious end Judas that had been a good Souldier under his Father became a great Commander amongst his brethren and continued the design that had been traced out unto him by the virtue of their Ancestours employing all his power to raise again the Trophies of the God of Hosts that had been thrown down by the fury of the Infidels I find that this great Cavalier founded his whole life upon Conscience and Honour which he alwayes esteemed above all that is precious in Nature and recommendable to Grace He believed even in perfection a God Sovereignly Almighty that hath an eye always open upon the actions of men that is the distributour of Glory and the Revenger of Iniquities and held firmly that he was to be acknowledged and adored by the worship and the Ceremonies ordained in the law of his Fathers and therefore embraced with an Incomparable ardour the true Religion using his uttermost endeavour to practice defend and maintain it to the prejudice of goods life honour and of all that is esteemed dearest in the world He yielded himself to be totally conducted by Providence which he held to preside in all Battels so that he measured not victories by the multitude of souldiers by arms by fortresses by ammunitions of warre but assured himself that there was a secret Providence from above that made all the happinesse and misery of men From thence it came that he had a wonderfull confidence in the Divine Protection believing himself to be beloved of God whom he loved reciprocally more by sincerity of affection then by exteriour Pomp He never went to fight but he fore-armed himself with strong and ardent prayers he never undertook to give battell but he exhorted his men to implore
and pierced it with his sword but finding himself cooped in by the multitude of men that were about and over him he could not make a retreat soon enough but was as S. Ambrose said buried in his triumph Yet Judas having perceived the puissant forces of the King saw well that the party was not tenable and made an honourable retreat into Jerusalem Lysias failed not to follow and to besiege him in his trenches with abundance of engines of stone and fire The other defended himself very courageously resolving rather to bury himself in that place then to yield it up by any sort of basenesse The besieged after some time were reduced to some extremity being combated by arms and hunger in a year of rest wherein the Jews according to their custome had sowed nothing and were no more in hopes to gather any fruits There was every where a very great desolation but as the favours of heaven happen often to good men in the bottome of their miseries behold an unexpected accident that provided farre other businesse for Lysias and his pupill Philip took his time and seeing his Rivall busied in that Jewish warre was resolved to ruine him and to make Eupator a companion of his misery seeing he had rendred himself the instrument of his will The deceased King had a brother named Demetrius who was at that time at Rome given in hostage having not the liberty to return unto his Kingdome Philip pricked with jealousie against Lysias failed not to solicite that young Prince to seize upon the Empire businesses being not yet well settled in the Nonage of King Eupator It was an injustice and perfidiousnesse against the sovereign but forasmuch as Antiochus the last dead father of Eupator had hereunto supplanted his Nephew by the same artifices Demetrius left not to hearken to it In those fair hopes of the Crown and in his captivity he was as a bird that torments himself in his cage upon the arrivall of a spring and burned with a strong passion to have his dismission from the Roman Senate to put in order as he said the affairs of the Kingdome and to assist the King his nephew after his fathers death But the Romans that took pity on the pupil by reason of Justice and that feared lest this man would embroil the State denyed him the liberty that he desired Philip failed not to possesse himself of the city of Antioch the Metropolis of the Kingdome and to tread out the way for Demetrius to his Nephew's throne There were men suborned that ceased not to sow amongst the souldiers and people That it was not a fundamentall Law in the Kingdome of the Seleucides that the Nephew should precede the uncle and although men had a mind to introduce it that the father of the pretended King had abrogated it usurping the Sceptre upon his Nephew that one should do his race no injury to render it the same usage that there was no reason to refuse a Prince of four and twenty years of age well made full of spirit of courage and authority to take a child that had neither strength nor counsel nor industry and which was born for nothing but to ruine all To this was added that it was not the bloud of the Seleucides that was upon the Throne but that Lysias Reigned and went about to render himself usurper of the Crown of Asia which was the uttermost of reproaches that so generous a Nation could endure to see a man of nothing insolent savage to make himself master of the most considerable part of the world and to exercise a tyranny upon men of honour and merit that oppose his pernicious designs These complaints often redoubled ceased not to stirre up spirits and to procure the change of State that followed Lysias saw well that it was not now a time to be obstinate on the ruine of the Jews nor to busie himself about the siege of one place when the whole Realm was a tottering He thought on nothing but on getting speedily out of that warre with some little honour thinking it not convenient to provoke a people mutinous enough in that commotion He caused the young King to look upon them with a quite other countenance and told him that it was best to let them live in peace without disturbing them in the matter of Religion assuring him that in all other cases they would contain themselves within their duty and that good services enough might be drawn from them Yet that he might not discover any lightnesse in this change he laid all the fault upon Menelaus that was an Apostate Jew and an enemy of his Nation who he said had been the cause of all the confusion by his railing speeches and therefore he made him serve for a sacrifice to that treaty of Peace in which he singularly obliged the Jews and washed away the blot that the favour expressed by him to this wicked villain had printed upon his face He shewed by this action the counsel that Politicians give their Sovereigns to abandon those to the publick hatred that have carried them to reproachable excesses to disburden themselves of the envy and if he had practised this example towards him that then made himself the teacher of it his Sceptre had been more secured and his life most lasting Lysias before he raised the siege of Jerusalem made an Oration publickly before the Principals of the Army and all the souldiery alledging fair pretenses for that resolution but taking great heed not to discover the chief cause for fear lest that news should wave the minds of those that inclined enough already to the side of novelty and sedition He used a wonderfull diligence to render himself before the city of Antioch into which he entred and Philip who found not himself yet strong enough to hold out a long siege quitted to him the place and fled away to Egypt This first successe puffed up the heart of Lysias who became exceeding haughty and considered so little the Romans in that high puissance that made the earth to tremble that he permitted an Embassadour sent to him by the Senate to be assassinated without shewing any reason In the mean time one Diodorus that had bred up Demetrius in his infancy transported himself from Syria to Rome and animated him by a great vigour of words and reasons to render himself an usurper of the Crown He certified him that his Nephew Eupator which was a child but nine years old was not any whit considered that Lysias was the object of the publick execration that he had confidence in no body nor any one in him that all the souldiery and people sought a new Master and that he was assured that if he did onely shew himself though he should be followed but with one servant onely all the world would run to him to carry him to the throne He kindled so strongly the ambition of that young Prince that he secretly stole away from Rome and made account
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
fall from Heaven that since Egypt was in being there was never seen the like for it sustain'd it self upon the wings of the Lightning and the Fire and Ice agreed extraordinarily together for the punishment of those perfidious men He saw legions of Grashoppers that made an inundation upon the champains and made havock of the plants finishing to destroy that which the Hail had begun In fine all Egypt was covered with those palpable Darknesses that lasted for the space of three dayes during which the Egyptians remained as bound with the invisible chains of a night without repose which had nothing better in it then to take from them the sight of their disastre But that which terrified them above all the plagues was when the destroying Angel entring at midnight into all their houses killed the first-born from the child of the Millers wife to the Kings son and there was not an house wherein the first blossome of the Family was not lopped off by the pittilesse hook of Death The fathers were touched with a stupid grief the dissheveld mothers threw themselves down upon the bodies of their infants to gather from their mouths the remainders of their life the whole family sent out howlings rather then complaints and the evil was so universall and so pressing that there was neither consolation nor remedy Pharaoh sighed at every Plague and seemed to be willing to turn to God but as soon as he had the least release he returned to his obstinacy which was a mark of a Reprobate soul Yet his subjects sensibly touched with the last accident urged the Hebrews to be gone and would no longer oppose the counsels of God The day of departure is taken and the six hundred thousand combatants with an innumerable number of women and little children after the ceremony of the Paschall Lamb travell to the red-Sea loaden with gold with silver with suits of apparell and with all the richest spoiles of Egypt The pillar of cloud and of fire marched before them in the head of the Army to give signall to the twelve Tribes that beheld it visibly on all parts Notice is given in the mean time to King Pharaoh that those fugitives were already stoln away and gone enriched with the treasures of his People And although he had given some kind of consent to their going yet he enters again into his furies assembles his light-Charriots and all the flourishing Legions of Egypt to pursue the Israelities They failed not to overtake them quickly upon the Sea-shore so that the two Armies were in view of one another The one of which was filled with a great number of people badly prepared at that time for a combat valour forsaking their heart and their hands ready to throw away their arms The other was composed of sprightfull and well trained Regiments to whom choler and the hope of booty gave a new vigour The glittering of the Arms the Clouds of dust that were raised the shouts of the Souldiers mingled with the neighing of Horses gave mortall strokes to the hearts of that poor multitude which had now no other thought but to dye murmuring and to revenge their death on Moses by their murmures Alas said they What! were there no Graves in Egypt to bury our lives and miseries without leading us into the Wildernesse to deliver us for a prey to the sword of the Egyptians and to the Birds of rapine Did we not say well that we should have stayed peaceably in the bondage wherein God had ranged us without making these great provisions and shutting our selves all up as in a net to deliver our selves to the discretion of our enemies We have the sea on one side and on the other our incensed Masters that breathe nothing but fire and bloud on which hand soever we go we see nothing but images of death and infallible marks of the misery that threatens us All the Army was filled with fear and the sighs of the Wives and of the Children abated the courage of the Fathers and of the Husbands who expected nothing any more but to be the subject of an horrible butchery But the generous Moses although he had an heart pierced with grief to hear their blasphemies ran through the ranks of the Army encouraged the Captains animated the People and as long as he had any voyce or breath cried without ceasing Courage my friends ye are here assembled to see the wonders of the God of Hosts Behold them onely without troubling your selves and God shall fight for you See and consider those brave Egyptians your persecutours and believe that it is the last time that you shall see them for they shall be no more And after he had said this he spake to God with a silence that surpassed all clamours and therefore God answered him What hast thou to do any more to cry thus after me Lift up thy Rod stretch forth thine hand divide the floats of the Sea and make thine Army march through the fair middle on dry foot This was executed and all that great people of the Israelites animated by the spirit of God and the voyce of Moses that marched in the head of them descended with a firm footing and a secure countenance into those Abysles where the water of the sea retiring it self apart made them ramparts of Chrystall on each side and discovered to them in the middle a path that the hand of God seemed to have laid with tapistry for to make them passage The pillar of fire that was planted in the midst of the two armies furnished them with unparrallel'd lights to manifest the works of God and on that side which looked towards the Egyptians it was horrible and dark bearing already the presages of the funerals that attended them The Angel of God shut up in this engine of fire darted out Thunder-striking looks upon the Diadem of Pharaoh and upon all those that encompassed him Their courage failed them and nothing now was left them but a rage yet fuming after bloud They throw themselves desperately into the sea which they promised themselves to passe over on dry foot as advantageously as their adversaries But the waters returning into their bed with an impetuous course invelop'd those miserable men there was nothing now but a confusion of men and horses of Arms and Charriots of bodies pestering one another that disputed their life with the waves and dyed expiring out the remainders of their fury Pharaoh the King was drowned the assistance of his Captains had not the strength to save him whom the hand of God would destroy Nothing was to be seen but Bucklers and Turbans floating upon the water and death painted in a thousand faces that made a mervellous booty The Israelites being in an extasie at these wonders thundred out a song in the praise of God that hath since ravished the heart and ear of all Ages After that Moses had drawn his people out of the captivity of Egypt he imitated God that did not
with a prodigious army against which there was no humane resistance He sent a certain man named Rabshakeh in an Embassage to King Hezekiah who vomited out blasphemies and proposed to him conditions shamefull to his reputation and impossible to all his powers All the people were in an affright expecting nothing but fire and sword The King covered with sackcloth implores the heavenly assistance and sends the chief Counsellours of his State to the Prophet Isaiah to turn away this scourge by his prayers The holy man in that confusion of affairs wherein one could not see one onely spark of light encourages him animates him and promises him unexpected effects of the mercy of God The Prophecy was not vain for in one onely night the Angel of God killed an hundred fourscore and five thousand men in the Army of the Assyrians by a stroke from heaven and a devouring fire which reduced them to dust in their guilded arms This proud King was constrained to make an ignominious retreat and being returned to Niniveh the capitall city of his Empire he was slain by his own children This is a manifest example of the amiable protection of God over the Holy Court who defended his dear Hezekiah by the intercession of the Prophet as the apple of his eyes He expressed yet another singular favour to him in a great sicknesse caused by a malignant ulcer of which according to the course of nature he should have died and therefore Isaiah went to see him and without flattering him brought him word of his last day exhorting him to put the affairs of his State in order This good King had a tender affection to life and being astonished at that news prayed God fervently with a great profusion of tears that he would have regard to the sincerity of his heart and to the good services that he had done him in his Temple and not to tear away his life by a violent death in the middle of its course The heart of the everlasting Father melted at the tears of that Prince and he advertised Isaiah who was not yet gone out of the Palace to retread his steps and carry him the news of his recovery He told him from God that he should rise again from that sicknesse and within three dayes should go up to the Temple ro render his Thanks-giving Further he promised him that his dayes should be augmented fifteen years and that he should see himself totally delivered from the fury of the Assyrians to serve the living God in a perfect tranquility The King was ravished at this happy news and desired some sign of the Divine will to make him believe an happinesse so unhoped for Isaiah for this purpose did a miracle which since Joshua had not been seen nor heard which was to make the Sun turn back so that the shadow of the Diall which was in the palace appeared ten degrees retired to the admiration and ravishment of all the world And to shew that the Prophet was not ignorant of Physick he caused a Cataplasme composed of a lump of figs to be applyed to the wound of the sick man whereby he was healed and in three dayes rendred to the Temple This miracle was not unknown to the Babylonians who perceived the immense length of the day in which it was done and their Prince having heard the news of it sent Embassadours to King Hezekiah to congratulate his health and to offer him great presents whereat this Monarch that was of an easie nature suffered himself to be a little too much transported with joy and out of a little kind of vanity made a shew of his treasures and of his great riches to those strangers which served much to kindle their covetousnesse And therefore the Prophet who was never sparing of his remonstrances to the King rebuked him for that action and fore-told him that he made Infidels see the great wealth that God had given him through a vain glory which would cost him dear and that having been spectatours of his treasures they had a mind to be the masters of them and that at length they should compasse their design but that it should not be in his time This Prince received the correction with patience and took courage hearing that the hail should not fall upon his head passing over his to his childrens Manasses his son succeeded him a Prince truly abominable who wiped out all the marks of the piety of his father and placed Idols even in the very Temple of the living God All that Idolatry had shown in sacriledges cruelty in murders impudence in all sort of wickednesses was renewed by the perfidiousnesse of this man abandoned of God Poor Isaiah that had governed the father with so much authority had no credit with the son this tygre was incensed at the harmonious consorts of the divine Wisdomes that spake by his mouth and could no more endure the truth then serpents the odour of the vine Yet he desisted not to reprehend him and to advertise him of the punishments that God prepared for his crimes whereat this barbarous man was so much moved and kindled with fury that he commanded that this holy old man that had passed the hundreth year should be sawn alive by an horrible and extraordinary punishment O Manasses cruell Manasses the most infamous of tyrants and the most bloudy of hang-men this was the onely crime that the furies themselves even the most enraged should never have permitted to thy salvagenesse This venerable Master of so many Kings this King of Prophets this prime Intelligence of the State this Seraphim this instrument of the God of Hosts to be used so barbarously at the Court by his own bloud after so many good counsels so many glorious labours so many Oracles pronounced so many Divine actions so worthily accomplished All the Militia of heaven wept over this companion of the Angels and the earth caused fountains to leap up to bedew her lips in the midst of her ardent pains His Wisdome hath rendred him admirable to the Learned his Life inimitable to the most Perfect his Zeal adorable to the most Courageous his Age venerable to Nature and his Death deplorable to all Ages JEREMIAH BEhold the most afflicted of Holy Courtiers a Prophet weeping a Man of sorrows an heart alwayes bleeding and eyes that are never dry He haunted not great men but to see great evils and was not found at Court but to sing its Funerals and to set it up a tomb Yet was he a very great and most holy person that had been sanctified in his mothers womb that began to prophecy at the age of fifteen years a spirit separated from the vanities and the pretensions of the world that was intire to God that lived by the purest flames of his holy love and quenched his thirst with his tears He drank the mud of bad times and found himself in a piteous Government in which there was little to gain and much to suffer After that the
Nero who by Anicetus the same man who before killed his mother did raise a horrible calumny against the honour of his wife and caused this instrument of the devil to affirm that he had played with the Empresse on which he caused her to be banished and poor Octavia as a guilty person did suffer under that wicked sentence and was banished into the Isle of Pandaluria and because Poppea could not sleep in quiet with Nero as long as Octavia was alive he filled up his cruelty and by a most unworthy death he sacrificed her to the appetite of that most bold woman whom afterwards he killed with a spum of his foot on the end of his life and of his Empire My pen is weary to describe so many horrours and doth go over them as on so many burning coals but my Reader it is to represent unto you that this pernicious caitiste causing the poyson of his evill actions to diffuse it self into the veins of all the city of Rome The world was in its heighth of iniquity when S. Paul and Seneca meeting together at one time did endeavour to cure the maladies of this wicked Court the one by Philosophy the other by the Gospel Behold here the manners learning abilities and the successe both of the one and of the other Who hath not Seneca in veneration a good Authour Johannes Sarisburiensis saith hath not the understanding of a reasonable man He is known by all knowing men in his Writings and mis-known by some in his Manners and his Life Suillius a Roman Advocate accused for corruption and banished by the counsell of Seneca at what time he was imployed in the government of Affairs did write a defaming Book against that great From whence proceeded the calumnies against Seneca personage which two Greek Historians but men of small judgement Dion and Xiphiline have followed and in many things have blamed him with as much passion as impertinence This Opinion hath infected divers spirits who either for want of capacity or application do discourse unto us of Seneca as of a man quite contrary to his Books which hath made me diligently to examine his Life to take away the abuse and to give you an Idaea of that puissant Genius with as much clearnesse as sincerity Know then that he was a Roman by his Extract His birth and Bloud He was born at Corduba a city in Spain which was then under the Empire of Rome and full of Italians who being born almost in all the parts of the world were yet born within the Circle of their Empire His father was of an ordinary family a Gentleman of no great account removed from the observation of the world and as farre from command as from ambition addicted above all things to the study of Eloquence reasonably learned but of an admirable memory for having but once heard them he would readily rehearse two thousand names and two hundred verses His mother was named Helvia one of the most beautifull women in the Empire full of understanding and judgement of a high virtue and a rare modesty she had some knowledge in letters and an extraordinary capacity to increase that knowledge if time and custome had given her leave to take an advantage of it His elder brother was called Novatus or Gallion and had a great command in the Empire His younger brother was named Mela a man farre from ambition who lived in the house and studied Eloquence with his Father who in that regard did preferre him in his own judgement above his brothers But Seneca was nourished and advanced in Rome His Education and Spirit in the time of Augustus Cesar he received his first elements of learning under the Discipline of his father and afterwards studied Philosophy under Attalus and Socion In his first years he made the vigour of his Spirit the force of Eloquence and the abundance of Learning to appear so fully in him that he was admired by the most knowing men But that great spirit did by degrees consume his body which was lean and thin and troubled with defluxions and the ptisick which would have brought him to his grave if the cruelty of Nero had not prevented it He was obliged to make an Oration in publick before The fury of Caligula against him Caligula the Emperour concerning which that monster in nature who could not endure any thing that was great and praisefull and by a malignity of manners envied all professours of Learning did pronounce aloud that he had too much spirit and that they must kill him which had presently been put in execution if one of the Mistresses of the Emperour who knew Seneca and favoured him for his Eloquence had not perswaded him that he was not worth killing a lean poor fellow and one whom death would suddenly of it self take away from the world Howbeit he lived many years afterwards and increased in knowledge as in age and as much in Eloquence as in them both attending a more favourable time to make a manifestation of it Claudius succeeded the Emperour Caligula who was not a man for Seneca and though he was indued with extraordinary qualities for a Courtier yet the favour of the times did not much smile upon them His clear spirit and his brave works made him to be known in the house of Germanicus a Prince of the Bloud who was poysoned in the flower of his age and left behind him children of great consideration namely two Princesses who made themselves diversly talked of in Rome the one was Julia the other Agrippina the mother of Nero. This Julia took an affection to Seneca being much pleased with the beauty Dion doth distinguish them in his 9. Book and Suetonius chap. 29. of his spirit and the grace of his discourse He daily frequented the house of Germanicus being no lesse in discretion then in favour and wisely judged that these two high-born Princesses might one day contribute to the making of his fortunes But the Court is an uncertain sea where sometime a tempest doth arise when a calm is expected The favour of Julia in the stead of advancing Seneca did suppresse him and did almost overwhelm him without any hope of rising again although in the end it was in effect the cause of all his reputation It came to passe that Messalina the wife to the Emperour Claudius the most insatiable woman in her lusts that Nature ever produced did conceive an enraged hatred against the house of Germanicus and especially against the Princesse Julia because she was highly esteemed for her rare beauty and the high spirit of Messalina could not endure that any Lady should be praised at Court for her beauty but her self Besides she perceived that her husband whom she absolutely governed did make very much of that young Princesse she therefore caused her to be falsly accused for prostituting her honour and procured her to be banished the Court. An inquiry was made after those who
when the Sun obtained the middle part of Virgo or Astraea for he was to govern the world with the moderation of Laws He ascended with Lyra being to make a harmony and consort of publick tranquillity And if Scorpio did at the same time shew forth his sting he threatned the Sarazens and promised the Idumean Palms to him that should be born so often dignified by the Valour of his Ancestours The heavenly habitations rejoyced at his birth and the whole world welcomed the new-born Babe with joy Now no man thought himself miserable at this happy birth now no man thought himself happy whom that birth did not make so Upon that day France wiped away all the foot of Warre and shined clearly with refulgent ensignes of Peace We had that day as many prosperities as bone-fires and as many bone-fires as there are starres O Lewis beloved of God whom he seemeth to have regenerated in his sonne that very moneth wherein he was born O Anne late indeed the mother of a sonne yet alwayes a fortunate mother in bringing forth a sonne not onely to her self nor so much to her self as to all France He hath much of his Father and much of his Mother and by this very confusion he maketh the image of them both more gratefull and more amiable This new Isaac will make thee laugh O France and whom thou canst scarce hear speaking hereafter thou shalt see comforting How many chains will those tender hands burst asunder How many prisons will they open How many obscurities will those little eyes enlighten How many monsters will the feet of this Infant subdue and trample on Be silent ye waves be silent ye tempests and rages of the sea at the beck of such a gentle Prince and restore unto the world that serenrty whereof you have deprived it Ye heavenly Powers lend him long unto the earth and whom you have made so healthfull to the Nation make him also lasting Ye Fates keep off your hands and touch not this child but to assist him Let him transcend the years and actions of his Ancestours and being born mortall may he apprehend nothing but what is immortall May he love and desire to be beloved ever fearing to be feared Let the oppressed find him a deliverer may the unjust feel him an avenger may his enemies know him to be of a warlike spirit and may his Subjects attest him to be of a peaceable mind This Nativity ravisheth all my senses which I foretell shall be the beginning of an eternall Peace unto us Look down from above O Lewis upon such a sonne Look upon him all ye Christian Kings as your little Nephew give rest to wearied things let arms be silent at the command of so great a Prince so potent an Oratour nor let the tumults of Warre rock this royall cradle To you again Great Princes I wholly turn my self by whatsoever is dear I ask by whatsoever is holy I beseech you give peace to them that beg it or must beg without it give tranquillity to the world sighing under so many feverish miseries Make it appear unto us that you chose rather to be the Pacificatours of the world then the Subverters of your own Kingdomes There is a story how in that fatall War between the English and the French continued with lasting contentions and horrible slaughters a pious Anachoret instigated thereunto by God came unto the Courts of the two Princes that he might compose these ferall discords between them But being slighted in the English Court and negligently repulsed this despised but not despicable Augur pronounced many direfull accidents that should befall that Nation But travelling to Charles of France and finding him to be a prince of a gentle wit and inclined to conditions of Peace he foretold that the Kingdome being recovered he should have the Dolphin to be his successour who as he was the child of many hearty desires so he should prove the instrument of many joyfull enterprises The prophecy is inpartpart fulfilled with a prosperous event so tenderly God loves the sons of Peace accumulated with affluence of all good things Whoe're he be let him beware that shall resist and strive against the peaceable wishes of all men some grievous hand will fall upon him and his from heaven he shall meet with unhappy events in all his undertakings his life shall be cer-tainly troublesome his death doubtfull Best and greatest Princes consider and think with your selves that what losse soever can be pretended to happen by this league of Peace whatsoever can detract from your Honour or your Empire is recompenced unto you in the most fortunate advantages of the whole Chri-stian world This is rich indeed this is magnificent this truly Royal and to be propagated to the memory of all Ages Remember that you are Christians and govern Christians be you propitious like Gods unto men if you desire that God should be propitious unto you Whatsoever you enjoy of life is slippery and uncertain and your Dignities are full of frailty it is your Justice that hath reference to your Felicity and it is your Virtue that links you to Eternity There is a great and conspicuous Tribunall that expects you there sits a Judge cloathed with purestlight to summon you unto whom the most secret things are revealed whom the most involved and disguised actions cannot deceive no can he be overcome by perversities Before him must appear the souls of Kings devested of body fortunes Empires and be they just or unjust they must be examined by a most clear light There you shall hear the Edicts of the supreme Deity and the King of kings thundering in your ears the groans of the oppressed shall cry against you the tears of the poor shall speak against you the tutelary Gods will plead for their Altars which you have broken down and all the heavenly Militia will rise together against the contumacious Endeavour ye pious and alwayes invincible Princes that those things which have been committed in prejudice of your wills by the uncontroulable licence of War may be corrected by your Equity that they may leave no aspersion upon your Reignes no stain upon Reputations no blot upon your Persons Bring to passe that Justice and Peace may meet in mutuall embracements let them be carried with triumphall pomp thorow your Kingdomes and thorow your Cities let them be born upon the shoulders of the whole world unto fixed and eternall seat that it perpetually may be lawfull for us to worship and reverence them at the monuments of your goodnesse and the pledges of our felicity Pax super Israel Dei. FINIS AN ALPHABETICALL TABLE Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the two last TOMES of the HOLY COURT ABiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignities by a violent action 152 The wisdome of Abigail 142 The insolence of Abner 144 He treateth with David 145 His death ibid. Absolon out of favour 147 His reconciliation by means of Joab ibid. Absolons
Divine Love ib Qualities of Divine Love by which we may know whether it inhabiteth a soul 26 Pliantnesse Liberality and Patience three principall marks of Love ibid. Twelve effects of Love ibid. Three orders of true Lovers in the world ib. Nine degrees of Seraphical Love for the conterplative ib. That it is good to be honestly Loved 38 We most ardently Love the things we most lose 58 The scandalous of the Emperour Lotharius and Valdrada 109 The Love of David and Jonathan 140 Excellent loyaltie of a Ladie 8 Lysias his speech before the raising of the siege of Hierusalem 203 Lysias is taken and slain by the souldiers ibid. M THe gallant resolution of Maccabeus who with a handfull of men gave battell to a great army wherein being over powered he lost not his honour but his life 204 Some Men are in the world as dislocated bones in the body 52 Man terrible above all terribles 72 Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures so he is the most Mercifull 98 Man hath no greater evil then himself ibid. An observation of Bernardine concerning Marriage 35 Mattathias the father of Judas Machabeus opposeth the tyranny of Antiochus 197 He refuseth to offer incense to Idols ibid. His courage for Religion 198 His glorious death ibid. Utility of Melancholy 55 A notable example of Meroven to divert youth from Marriage 106 The first Mervell in the life of S. Lewis is the joyning of the wisdome of State with the Gospell 177 The second is of the union of Humility and Greatnesse 179 The third is his devotion and courage ibid. Incomparable Mildnesse of Lewis the sonne of Charlemaign 120 Mildnesse of the first men 99 The beauty and utility of Mildnesse 100 Sin and Folly the chief evils of the Mind 58 Remedies for Minds full of scruple 56 Moderation of the Kings of France 117 Great Moderation in S. King Robert 119 Mordecai his excellent personage 187 His entertainment in the Court of Ahashuerus ib. He discovereth the treason which was plotted against Ahashuerus ib. Moses flooted in the river of Nile in a cradle of bull-rushes 227 His education 228 He killeth an Egyptian 229 He withdraweth into the countrey of Midian ib He talketh with God ibid. He dyeth having first seen the land of promise from mount Nebo 234 Gods judgement on wicked Murray 300 N NAaman the Assyrian commanded by Elisha to wash seven times in the river Jordan 257 His leprosie stayes upon Gehezi 258 Naboth unjustly condemned and slain 251 Nathan and Bathsheba's advice 151 Nature necessarily brings with it its sympathies and antipathies 46 Nebuchadonozar his dream 242 He worshippeth Daniel 241 He erecteth a statue of gold of sixty cubits high 243 He commandeth all his nobles to do homage to it ib. He commandeth the three children that disobeyed his command therein to be cast into the fornace 244 His second dream and the interpretation by Daniel ibid. His misfortune is bewailed by the whole Court 245 He is again found out and reinvested in his throne ib. The birth and education of Nero. 271 The perfidiousnesse of his mother ibid. His cruelty towards Britanicus 272 The love of his mother did degenerate to misprision ibid. His present to his mother ibid. His horrible attempt upon his mother ibid. The amazement of Nero. 273 Nero continueth his cruelties ibid. He falls in love with Poppea and doth estrange himself from his wife Octavia 274 Nero grows worse and worse 284 The conspiracy against him is detected ibid. The image of Nice-ones 49 Treason against the Duke of Norfolk and his ruine 299 The horrible Catastrophe of the Duke of Norfolk 300 O FLight from Occasions is the most assured bulwark for chastity 18 Octavia calumniated by Poppea 274 Ozias Prince of the people in the presence of Joachim appeaseth the people of Bethulia 182 P THe over-fond love of Parents to their children is chastised in them 272 The exercise of Patience what it is 37 Necessitie forceth Patience 58 S. Paul tender in holy affections 8 He came to Rome 279 He is falsly accused ibid. His conversation with Peter ib. He preacheth the Gospel ib. He is threatned and persecuted 280 He is condemned to the whip but diverted that punishment ib. He is committed to the hands of Felix ibid. He appears before the Tribunal of Felix ibid. Drusilla comes to hear him ib. S. Paul appeals to Rome 281 The young Agrippa king of Judea with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of S. Paul ib. Festus is touched with his words ibid. He is imbarqued for Rome ibid. He arrives there and treateth with the Jews ibid. S. Paul is undoubtedly known by Seneca ibid. His Oration to the Senate of Rome 282 The effect of his Oration ibid. The paralel betwixt S. Paul and Seneca 283 The grace of Jesus and the Crosse are the two principles of S. Paul ibid. His perfection and high knowledge 284 He leaveth Rome ibid. The politick counsell of Pharaoh 227 He dreameth 222 He fails in his purposes 228 Marks of reprobation in Pharaoh 230 The plagues of Egypt ibid. An excellent conceit of Plato concerning terrestriall love 222 An excellent conceit of Platonists  The secrets of the Divine Policy of God 238 The birth and education of Cardinall Pool 313 His love of solitude ibid. His travels and return to England ibid. The combat in his spirit 314 He took part with God ibid. He is made Cardinall ib. He is considered on to be made Pope 315 He retireth again into solitude ibid. He travels to the reducement of England to the antient faith 317 His speech to the States 318 Princes the workmanship of God 132 What the wisdome of a Prince should be 133 Princes should not give too much authority to their subjects 144 Whether learning be fitting for Princes 153 That learning is fitting for Princes defended ibid. The favour of Princes is very uncertain 219 Procopius his extravagant fables of Justinian and Theodora disproved 168 The secrets of Providence 164 The great Providence of God in Josephs entring and negotiating in Egypt 218 R REason remedieth all humane actions 57 The love of Reputation is a strong spur 81 The wicked Revenge of an Abbot and of John Proclytas against the French 119 Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiasticall 99 The causes of differences of Rigour ibid. Elogy of the city of Rome 79 The estate of Rome and court of Nero when Paul came to it 271 The Practise of Romulus 131 The end o◠Royaltie 131 Royalty a glorious servitude 132 Royalty a mervellous profession ibid. S THe Essence and Image of Sadnesse 54 Four kinds of Sadnesse 55 The remedies against Sadnesse 57 The three Sadnesses of our Blessed Saviour 60 Samuel from his infancy was conversant in the Tabernacle 235 His zeal and other rare qualities 236 His speech to the people ibid. His wisdome in concluding a peace with the Philistims ibid. He dieth 240 The widow of Sarepta's oyl and meal fails not during the