find that in desarts which we want in cities and the bounds which they have prescribed to their desires renders them content in the midst of want the same tree may cloth and feed them the leaves thereof serve them for coverings and the fruit for nourishment Fortune can lay no hold upon their persons wheresoever they goe they carry all they have with them and Famine which doth depopulate whole towns cannot make the earth barren enough to infuse fear into them they are grown acquainted with hunger and cannot fear an enemy with whom they have so often fought Penitency hath lesse need of the creature then poverty hath she takes some pleasure in contemning them she rather loves to be persecuted then to be served by them and knowing that this world is but a banishment she despiseth whatsoever can retard her return into her deer country she incourageth penitents to fight against sin and sorrow to destroy the Father by his Daughters means and to procure Heaven by the losse of Earth Thus all the vertues teach us that all the creatures are corrupted that it is better to passe by them then to make use of them that it is safer to contemn them then to imploy them and that if Philosophy teach us the use of them Religion counselleth us their privation The seventh Discourse That Deluges and Earthquakes are the punishments of the World become corrupted WE must not wonder if Philosophers have argued so weakly upon the disorders of nature their not knowing the the true cause thereof being by reason of their ignorance of Adams sin they were of opinion that the evill was occasioned by the corruption of humours and raising themselves to no higher a consideration they took the punishment of our sin for a condition of Nature they thought that death was rather a law then a punishment and that the two parts whereof man is composed were severed when their chains were worn to peices through the long use of time or broken by the violence of sorrow they thought that the bodies rebellion was a necessary consequence of it's constitution and that the slave being of another nature then his Master it was not to be wondered at if he had other inclinations they were perswaded that the revolt of wild beasts was a meer effect of their fury and that man had no reason to complain thereof since he neither wanted Force to tame them nor Addresse to reclaime them Learning upon the same principle they thought that Earth-quakes and Deluges were onely accidents which found their causes in nature and which were as ordinary to the earth as heats and colds to those that are sick they thought that the wind or fire inclosed in the bowels of the Mother Earth caused the agitations thereof and that these two Elements endevouring their liberty did their utmost to break prison that those constellations which rule in chief over waters made the rivers swell and drawing the sea out of her bed covered the earth with her waves They prepared themselves for these accidents as for disorders which were inevitable and not troubling themselves with appeasing divine Justice which chastiseth men by these dreadfull punishments they remained opinionated in their Errours Ignorance would not suffer them to profit by these disorders and not knowing that they were Punishments they thought that Patience and Fortitude were the onely Remedies The common-people whose opinions were not so corrupted because they were lesse proud reverenced the heavens anger in her severe punishments and finding no means how to obviate so strange disasters they sought for safety in superstition and endevoured to appease the evill spirits with sacrifice but this new sin augmented the rage of heaven thinking to avoid it's Justice they provoked it's indignation and through a blind ignorance they incensed their Sovereign by fawning on their executioners Christians who are instructed in a better school confesse that these great disorders are the punishments of sin and that divine Justice made no use of them till we through our offences had despised his mercy indeed there was nothing but the hand of God alone which could overthrow his workmanship and loosen the earth from it's foundations to affrighten the guilty Were not the winds in-animated by his Justice they could not shake the center of the world the weight of this great frame would stop their fury and nature which loves to preserve her parts would not permit meer exhalations to commit such havock in her state she would open new passages to them to allay their violence and preventing these extraordinary convulsions she would either rend open her own bowels or else dissolve those vapours into rivers But God takes delight to agitate the world that he may intimidate men and that he may teach them by these Earth-quakes that the earth is not so much their abiding place as the place of their punishment Of all the animadversions which his Justice giveth them there is none more horrid or lesse evitable then this for what assurance can we hope for here below if the earth quake under our feet where can we think to escape danger if the most solid thing of all the world do shake and if that which susteins all things threaten us with sinking under our feet what Sanctuary shall we find to defend us from an evill which doth incompasse us round and whither can we withdraw if the gulfs which open themselves shut up our passages on all sides with what horrour are men struck when they hear the earth groan when her trembling succeeds her complaints when houses are loosened from their foundations when the roof falls upon their heads and the pavement sinks under their feet what hope is there to be had in so generall a disorder and what comfort can be given or received in so universall a disorder when fear cannot be fenced by flight Fortune is never so cruell but that she opens unto us some out let whereby to escape the evils which she sendeth us an enemy is beaten from the bulwark which he had possessed himself of earth-works are opposed to the thundering cannon winds which raise Tempests deliver us from them and after having a long time tost us too and fro they cast us upon the shore houses serve us for sanctuaries against the injuries of the air and shepheards cottages which are onely made of leaves and mosse save them from storms Firings which are so hideous follow not them that fly from them though fire be never so light it becomes slothfull when it betakes it self to a combustible matter and if man will resign his goods unto it he may secure his person Thunder hurts not those who hide themselves in caverns it 's boult doth onely grate upon the earth but doth not penetrate it it is stopt with the least resistance and some trees have the vertue to appease it's fury when the plague infects whole citties it may be shun'd by going into the countrey
leaning towards sin yet are there certain acquired Habits or Customes which augment this naturall disorder and which adde new faults to that which we do inherit from our first Father for as excesses do compleat the irregularitie of our will and makes our conversion the harder the mischief which we bring with us from our birth may be cured in the same sort as it was acquired being got unwittingly it may be lost when we think not on it the conception thereof hath made us criminall and Baptisme acquits us of that Crime Adams sin is become our Punishment and the Grace of Jesus Christ is become our remedy but the malady which we our selves contract is much harder to be driven away for as it is our own handy-work and hath not crept into our soul without our own consent it cannot be expell'd but by an Act of the will and as Baptisme doth cancell Originall sin and leaves Concupiscence so Contrition or repentance doth wash away actuall sins and leaves an ill Habit which we have reason to term an acquired Concupiscence which is more dangerous then that which is Naturall because t is more Malignant and the cure thereof is more rare because more hard we shall see all these truths in the pursuit of this discourse T is a great misfortune to be born in sin and to have received bad Inclinations before we knew them t is a deplorable condition to be the Object of Gods Anger before we have provoked him and to be born away to mischief before we were able to make resistance but this misfortune is much the greater when man joys Custom to Nature when to those bad Inclinations which he inherits from his Parents he adds many actuall sins which forms an Imperious Habit which ingageth him in evill For as Saint Augustine observes there are two things which solicite us to sin Nature and Custome the first is an effect of Originall sin the second of actuall we contract the one in being born in sin we acquire the other by living in sin and these two joyned together strengthen Concupiscence establish the Tyranny thereof and bereaves us of hope of destroying it For if the will be not strong enough to oppose the unrulinesse of Nature how can she suppresse the disorders of a bad habit and if the assistance of Grace be absolutely necessary for her to free her self from naturall miseries what kind of assistance stands she in need of to acquit her self of her acquired miseries T is the difficulty which makes sinners despair t is upon this occasion that they find that irregular Inclinations do never more rebell against their will then when they have borrowed new force from a bad Custome and the best advice that can be given them is by their diligence to prevent so opinionated an Evill and to set upon their passions in their birth lest being assisted by Habit they grow to head-strong as to be unsuppressible When love is not as yet perfectly shaped that he is rather in the eyes then heart that he deserves rather the name of complacency then of Inclination that his Flames have more of Lustre then of Heat he is easily stifled and an ordinary vertue is sufficient to rid man of so weak an Adversary but when with time he is grown greater when he hath powred his poyson into the heart and hath made himself Master of all the Faculties of the soul many a battle must be given before so strong an Enemy be overcome and unlesse the will call in indignation anger and grief to her aid t is very hard for her to drive out a Tyrant whose power is strengthened by Custome In the second Place corrupt Nature presupposeth but one sin though it were a great one yet was it but one and though it gave against al the perfections of God yet was it committed in a moment Repentance came quickly in the Place thereof and when once Adam felt the Punishment of his sin he was sorry for it his Tears appeased Divine Justice the sentence of his death was deferred and he had time granted him to people the world to instruct his Children and to bewail his sins the disorders which we find in our soul and in our body are only the effects of this fault and when we are first born we are only capable of of this offence Incensed Heaven can impute nothing to us but our first Fathers disobedience and whatsoever Punishment it inflicteth upon us we have always this excuse that we are more unfortunate then faulty but an ill Habit is a bastard Daughter which hath diverse Fathers and which owes her birth to the malice of almost an infinite number of sins vice and vertue are learn't successively a man is not wicked all at once he must make tryalls before he can become a Master in sin he cannot arrive at that condition without having committed many faults he must be accomplisht in wickednesse to get a habit thereof and let us flatter our selves with what reasons we please a man must have basely foregone vertues part if he be totally possest by sin which when it commands so absolutely in a soul as it hath changed it's power into Tyranny is grown stronger by time hath changed inclination into custome and that it hath as many protectours as parents Heaven must do miracles to free us from so dreadfull an Enemy In the third place nature is somewhat ashamed of sin this unlucky Guest hath not so throughly corrupted all her inclinations but that some shamefastnes remains which may serve her for a bridle in her licentousnesse and which obligeth her to seek out solitary places wherein to conceal her debaucheries if she be wicked enough to scoffe at the remorse of conscience she is not sufficiently affronted to bear with her neighbours reproaches if she despise punishment she apprehends confusion and if she fear not the losse of life she fears the losse of Honour But bad habit is insolent it bereaves us aswell of shame as of innocence it glories in its crimes and by a horrible sort of corruptions makes the sin the greater by making it glorious it disarms vertue and takes from her the only means she had to defeate her Enemy Hence it is that shameles people glory in their loves that lost women number up their gallants that affronted men cal their debaucheries good fortunes Glorious names are invented to honour sin Thrones and altars are erected to it and solicited by this evil habit which rules in the soul such honours are given thereunto as belong only to vertue By all this discourse 't is easie to Judge that a vitious habit is a fearfull monster which adds new discorders to the irregularities of Nature which fortifies bad Inclinations which presupposes many sins which presages a greater Number which renders vertue infamous and vice glorious and which to crown all mischief hurries us into such a fatall necessity of sinning as can onely be
have no occasion to complain of the shortnesse of our life and though it be composed but of moments we shall finde that if well employd 't will suffice to purchase eternity The eighth Discourse That death is the punishment of sin OF all the pains which sin hath procured us death is the most cruell and the most common all others have their remedies and self-love teacheth us how to shun them we by our industry and labour overcome the earths sterility We fence our selves from the shame of our nakednesse by the means of our clothes we save our selves from the injury of the aire and unseasonablenesse of weather by the commodiousnesse of buildings physick furnisheth us with remedies against sicknesse and reformeth our temper by the government which it prescribes us Arts are invented onely to free us from the miseries of life and the greatest part of Artificers labour onely to fence men from the punishment of sin But death is a punishment as rigorous as inevitable humane wit hath not yet been able to free man from it All her care cannot make a man live a hundred years our first fathers lived longer and the heavens which would people the earth by their means prolonged their life to allow them leisure for it but they died after some hundred years and the oldest amongst them could not attain to a thousand years The rigour of this punishment doth equall it's necessity for death is deafe to pitty tears cannot appease it and whatsoever causeth either respect or pitty in us cannot stay the fury thereof It enters Princes Palaces as well as shepheards cottages it knaps in two the Scepters of Kings with as much insolency as the shepherds crook it keeps no other law than what is prescribed unto it by divine Justice it siezeth on the son before the father the daughter before the mother sets upon Infants in the cradle or Monarchs in their Thrones and on Judges on their Tribunalls There is no sanctuary against it's fury and those who can pardon the condemned cannot obtain the like favour from death There are many prodigies in the world whereat we wonder and there is nothing so strange whereof there hath not been some example which facilitates our beliefe there be some whole intire Provinces where the Inhabitants liâ—e so happily as that they are never troubled with sicknesse there are some so auspicious Climates as that in them the plague doth never mow down men where the ground is not made sterill through â—amine and whereas thunder never falls upon the guilty head France cannot nourish Monsters nor are her houses at any time shaken with earthquakes Some men are seen to grow old yet not grow gray and women who preserve their comelinesse in their age and lose it not but with losse of life Italy hath mountains whose entrailes are full of fire and their heads covered with snow as if nature took delight in according these two contraries and by ending their differences to make her power appear But how fantasticall soever this mother hath pleased to shew her selfe what ever diversity she hath put in her workmanships to delight us and what ever miracles she hath wrought to astonish us she could never free man from death The devill who promised us immortallity to engage us in disobedience could not make good his word and the law which bindes us to die is too generall to admit of any dispensation or exception When God himselfe became man he became mortall and taking our nature upon him he would not exempt himselfe from death All Gods friends have born this punishment the justest have oft-times lived the shortest life and death to astonish others hath made examples of them if some have been rapt up to Paradise that favour did not bereave death of his rights for after having lived a long time with Angels they shall descend on earth again to die there with men This rigour would be pleasing were it not accompanied with circumstances which make it unsupportable but death assumes fearfull shapes to affrighten us he is not content to part our soules from our bodies to break in two the chains which did unite them and to destroy Gods chiefest workmanship but to satisfie his cruelty tire our patience he assumes a thousand frightfull shapes and leaves marks of his fury in the persons of the dead which terrifie the living He appears hideous even in the beautifullest visage that ever was he shrinks up the nerves hollows the eyes defaceth the complexion alters the lineaments and turns a miraculous beauty into a dreadfull Monster Somtimes he burnes the bowels by the scorching heat of a fever somtimes swels up the body by a long continued dropsie somtimes he makes an anatomy or skeleton thereof by an irksome consumption somtimes forms strange characters in the lungs or brain somtimes he covers the face over with an ulcer and changes the Throne of beauty into the Seat of deformity Violent deaths are yet more uncoucht than such as are naturall they are not to be beheld without terrour and those who have courage enough to tolerate the gout or stone have not constancy enough to endure the torture of fire or rack 't is therefore that it is said that our father Adam knew not the heinousnesse of his sin till he saw the picture of death in Abels face the losse of grace Gods anger the Angels indignation his banishment from Paradise the creatures revolt the alteration of seasons warring of Elements nor yet the insurrection of the body against the soule were not sufficient to make known unto him the exorbitancy of his sin nor the injustice of his disobedience but when he saw his son want motion his eyes want light when he heard no words proceed from his mouth saw no colour in his face nor felt no motion of his heart he thought his sin was very great since it deserved so sore a punishment To say truth death is the image of sin this father makes himselfe seen in his daughter his uglinesse is seen in his production and there needs no more to acknowledge the misery of a sinner than to consider the aspect of a dead man Those pale lips those sunk eyes those hollowed cheeks and that corruption which always accompanies stench is the shadow of a soule which mortall sin hath bereaved of innocency and grace All teacheth us that we are criminall and that the evills which we endure are as well the portraitures of our punishments as of our offences The rebellion which we meet withall in the Elements and creatures is the punishment of our disobedience the irregularity of the seasons is a signe of the disorder of our passions the blinding of our eyes proves the like in our understanding and the sicknesses which our bodies suffer under are the effects of our souls infirmity but of all the punishments wherewith we are afflicted death is the onely true copy of sin and in this copy it is that we
must observe the horrour of the originall To discover all his rigours we must examine the terme of our sentence we must consider what punishments he condemned us unto and observe with how many evills he threatens us The first is to die the same day that we have sinned and to bear the punishment as soon as we have committed the offence Few are aware of this punishment and though it be severe enough we suffer it without being sensible of it or complaining we perswade our selves that life and death cannot agree in our punishment and that God himself is not powerfull enough to make two so contrary things serve his justice but notwithstanding 't is true that we die as soon as we are born that death assailes us as soon as we are surprized by sin and that we bear Adams punishment as soon as we contract his offence For death holds so good intelligence with life as these do equally part our years we perish for our preservation as soon as we enter into our boyes estate we forgoe infancy we divide every houre of the day between death and life and we neither conceive the heinousnesse of our fault nor the greatnesse of our punishment if we think that that death which puts an end unto our life is our onely one because it is our last We die every moment we lose the years which we number and part of our being glides away with them we are but halfe our selves all of us that is past is deaths purchase and the youth which hath left us is a losse which we cannot repaire That complexion the freshnesse whereof was more lively than that of the rose that whitenesse which sham'd the lilly that lustre which sparckled in the eyes that Majesty which appear'd upon the forehead those pearles which shewed themselves within the currall of the lips and all those ornaments which nature had united in a handsome face to make thereof her chiefest workmanship do they not serve for a prey to death and who hath no longer these advantages are they not obliged to confesse that they have lost the best part of themselves the destinies end their work in silence death gives blows which hurt not he mingles himselfe so pleasingly with life as that he is received insensibly and under hope of living men take a kinde of pleasure in dying The second punishment which our decree bringeth is that in not expressing what kind of death we shall die we are obliged to fear all sorts of death There is nothing more certain than this punishment neither is there any thing more secret Every one knows he must die every day affords us proofs and examples of it our friends and enemies confirme this truth no man is so ignorant or vain-glorious as to doubt it the sepulchres of Kings are faithfull witnesses thereof and those heads for which the lives of a whole Nation are exposed make us see that death spares no body but the manner thereof is as unknown as the hour is uncertain The stars do not shew the particulars thereof and unlesse the heavens reveale it the devill cannot foretell it to those that serve him our decree pitcheth not upon any one that we may stand in fear of all and after the example of Princes which have ended their lives by deaths from which their qualities ought to have warranted them we may justly apprehend all It may be 't will be naturall it may be violent it may be 't will sieze on us in war it may be in peace it may be 't will be short and cruell it may be lesse cruell but languishing the Judge which hath condemned us hath not been pleased to expresse himselfe therein to the end that the fear of death might be a severer punishment unto us then death it selfe it may suffice us to know that he is incensed and that we may justly expect from his just anger whatsoever death our sin deserves The truth is we can suffer but one the weaknesse of our constitution doth not permit both the waters to drown us the fire to burn us and the wilde beasts to devoure us but the darknesse of our decree obligeth us to fear all these punishments and there is no Monarch whose greatnesse can exempt him from so just a fear the plague hath not so spared our most pious Kings and the valiantest among them hath been murthered amidst the triumph which he prepared for his dearest wife A clap of thunder bruiseth the pride of crowned heads poison is mingled in their drink and violent death doth but too oft befall Sovereigns Who ought then to stand in fear when he shall read a decree which threatens every guilty person with a hundred thousand deaths and who ought not to dread a Judge who conceals the condition of our punishment only to make us reverence his power and have recourse unto his clemency The third punishment is not lesse severe then are the rest for though we know not what sort of death we shall die yet we know we shall be reduced to ashes and that divine Justice following us even into the grave will war upon us after death it treateth us like those notorious Malefactours who finde not the end of their punishment in the end of their lives they are degraded to make them lose their honour their children are prosecuted to make them lose their posterity their bodies are burned that their ashes may be scattered in the winde their houses are beaten down to ruinate their workmanship and nothing is left in any part that did belong unto them but characters of their faults and of their Princes anger Thus doth our supream Judge deal with guilty man he drives him out of the terrestiall paradise and banisheth him into the world he threatens the place of his exile to be totally consumed with fire for having received this guilty person he confiscates all his goods takes from him all the honourable marks of his greatnesse and reduceth him to the condition of beasts who did pretend to the glory of Angels he makes all his subjects despise his authority he makes his slaves either Rebels or Tyrants and after so many punishments he shortens his shamefull life by some tragicall end But all these punishments leaving yet some remainder of the guilty person they pursue him into his sepulchre he commands the worms to devoure him and what escapes their fury he reduceth into dust you shall see dreadfull marks of the execution of this decree in the stateliest monuments of our Kings descend into the most magnificent Maâ—soleums you will finde nothing there but ashes the earth covers the pride of Conquerours and of all these Monarches greatnesse wherewith their subjects in their life were astonished there remaines nothing after death but a little dust A man must be a Saint to be exempt from this punishment God affords not this favour save to those that serve him unworthily he preserves their bodies in the sepulchre
punishment of his sin His wife knew not as yet the art of trimming her self all her daughters eloquence could not perswade her that that which was a punishment of her disobedience should adde unto her beauty and comparing her innocency with all her other ornaments she could never think to gain by an exchange where for originall righteousnesse which she lost she got nothing but the slaver of worms or scum of fishes Let us use what art we can to lenifie our losse or to excuse our vanity we cannot deny but that our most gaudy apparell are the spoils of beasts and that we are very miserable since betraying our greatnesse we seek for ornaments in the bottome of the sea or in the bowels of the earth for what else is wooll but sheep fleeces what is silk whereof so many different silks are made but the drivell of worms and the sepulchre which those little animals make unto themselves when they die what is purple which had wont to be the badge of Sovereignty but the bloud of certain fishes what are Pearls but the warts of certain shel-fish and the thickest part of the fome of the sea which could not be turned into it's substance what are diamonds and rubies but water congealed within rocks what is gold which is made use of in so many prophane things which men disguise in so many shapes which is sought for with so much pain which is got with so much injustice and kept with so much care but the excrement of a barren soil to which the fire gives Lustre and our errour valuation what in fine is the linnen cloth with which we are covered all over and wherein the greatest part of our vanity consists but a kind of herb or grasse which we see grow up and die flourish in the fields and in a short time weather away which passeth through womens hands which is wetted with their spittle turned with the spindle strecht upon the loom wrought with the shittle whitened in the dew and at last cut into bands and handcherchiefs must not one have lost his judgment to glory in such trifles and if his ornament deserve any praise is it not rather due to those that made them then to those that wear them whosoever glories in a sute of apparell intrencheth upon his tailors right and who values himself the more for the stuffe he wears injures the worms that spun it or the workmen that wrought it Our glory ought to be in our selves and we ought never to ground our greatnesse upon a thing which we forego as oft as we put off our cloths A man must not adorn himself with that which he borrows from other creatures and to believe that all the spoils of nature can heighten his descent is to have too ill an opinion of himself But if the materials whereof our cloths be made be contemptible the cause why we wear them is criminall for those who may be said rather to set out then to cloth themselves and who joyn pleasures to necessity have for the most part but two designs which are equally unjust The first is to satisfie themselves and to entertein their self-love by the care they have of their body they will make an Idol of a slave adorn a guilty person who deserves death bring him with pomp to his punishment and disguise his misery to flatter his ambition they are like those captives who think the better of their Irons because they are guilded yet all their ornaments are but marks of their sin and mis-fortunes and as a foot-man who wears a gaudy livery makes but his misery more visible those who trim themselves the finest make but their shame more publick The art of trimming or adorning acknowledgeth no author but the Devil He who taught the curious the vertue of herbs to make their inchantments and the influences of the stars to order their Horiscopes by he who taught the avaritious the way to purifie the earth to make thereof the preciousest of metalls he who taught the ambitious the secret of intrenching upon the peoples liberty taught women to mingle colours to polish diamonds to calcive pearls to compose materials and to falsifie whole nature to inhaunce their beauty and to acquire reputation by the losse of their modesty ought not this masters condition infuse distrust into his disciples and if women had not as well lost their judgment as their modesty would they not believe that a sinfull Angell would tarnish their innocence that impure spirits would attempt their chastity and that rebellious slaves would endevour to make them lose their humility The second designe of those who delight in sumptuous apparell is to please those that look upon them to entangle souls in their nets to purchase lovers or slaves to govern by the pomp of their apparell as Monarchs do by the terrour of their Arms. This is the more usuall and the more dangerous motive the more usuall because vain glory seeks out a Theater because self-love as well as ambition will have spectatours To say truth women do not greatly care for dressing themselves when they are alone solitarinesse is an enemy to pomp a body is soon weary of linifying himselfe when he means not to appear the pain he findes in doing it makes him lose the pleasure of it and as Peacocks close up their plumes when no body beholds them women neglect their dressing when no body admires them They reserve their pearls and diamonds for great meetings Courts and Masks are the occasions whereupon they heighten their beauty and when they have neither witnesses to observe them nor servants to adore them selfe love is not of power enough to make them adorn themselves As this motive is the more usuall so is it the more sinfull for to boot that a woman that will cause love in another runs danger of being caught therewithall her selfe that it is hard to carry fire to ones neighbour without self-burning 't is assuredly to imitate the devill to serve for instruments to wicked spirits to lose the souls that Jesus Christ would save and to present poison or a poniard to mad men who would kill themselves Let women disguise their designes how artificially they please let them excuse their intentions by their pretences the endeavouring to seem pleasing to men is never blamelesse the desire of entangling them is always sinfull and the care they take in attiring themselves either to captivate them or to continue them captives is equally prejudiciall to their chastity Pomp and luxury in apparell savours of prostitution or vain glory both these faults are contrary to our religion The difference of condition is but a piece of cunning which self-love hath found out to authorize our disorders Our first condition is the condition of sinners we are sinners before we be Sovereigns our souls were sullied with Adams sin before our bodies were clad in purple and all the titles which flattery confers upon
and the Antipodes would passe for a fable had not these faithfull guides brought our Pylots thither This good turn would be rare did not mans fury abuse it but we make them serve our avarice or our ambition by their means we seek out new dangers and new enemies we load our ships with souldiers to pillage strange countries we commit our life to the infidelity of the sea and the lightnesse of the wind we indevour to overcome tempests which astonish nature we run upon death without hope of a grave and we seek out a doubtfull war upon such conditions as would seem unjust to those who would undertake an assured victory what blind madnesse doth possesse us wherefore do we raise troops to carry them through rocks and tempests wherefore do we trouble the Seas quiet for our unjust designes are there not hazards enough on the earth but that we must seek for new ones in another Element whether do we complain of Fortunes favours or of natures goodnesse is the former too faithfull or the latter too indulgent are our bodies so strong or our health so certain that we must go seek for sicknesses and dangers amongst the waves do we desire to assaile the destinies in the midst of their Empire to declare war against them then where their power doth most evidently appear is not death terrible enough on Land but that we must provoke it on the Sea shall we not finde it soon enough in a house without seeking for it in a ship and is not our life short enough but that we must make it yet shorter by the accidents which are subject to those who saile upon the Ocean must not a man have lost his reason to expose himselfe voluntarily to dangers unnecessitated to fight with men without any cause and conquer Countries without justice wilde beasts war not one upon another untill enforced by hunger or provoked by injuries and we who take our name from humanity are profuse in shedding of humane bloud we come aboard frail vessels we trust our safety to the fury of Tempests and wish for fair windes to carry us into forreign Countries where we must either because of death or die our selves We think not any one part of the world a Theater large enough for our ambition Every one will have his madnesse manifest and that it have as many witnesses as it hath made men miserable Thus the King of Persia entered Greece which he could not overcome though he covered it all over with Souldiers Thus would Alexander passe over unknown seas carry his forces to the utmost parts of the earth and after he had overcome so many Kings vanquish Nature her selfe Thus did Crassus strive to enrich himselfe at the cost of the Parthians and would enter the large desarts which border upon their State he despised the Tribunes who opposed his voyage he laughed at the Tempests which shattered some of his ships the Thunders which fore-told his bad successe could not stay him and not withstanding that both God and man were offended with him he would go whether his avarice called him and seek out the death which destiny had prepared for him Had not Nature been more favourable unto us if she had caused the windes to cease and if to hinder the execution of so many unjust designs she had forced all Conquerours to keep peacefully within their own dominions should not we be much beholden to her if interdicting us to enter on the sea we should have nothing but our own misfortunes to fear and undergo and if the winds made us not dread those unknown waves which bring war servitude and death to the Countries whereon they coast we are not the more secure for the distance of places there is no enemy how far off so ever he be who may not surprize us as oft as the winds blow we have cause to fear lest they bring either enemies or Tyrants upon us The Tempests which they raise are the least evils which they threaten us withall Shipwracks which fear makes appear so terrible unto us are but the first tryals they expose us to those dangers when they carry us to war and the evill which wait for us on the shores whither they conduct us are more vexatious then those which assail us at full sea Thus are all things in the world armed against us Every Element is become an executioner since we are become male factours Nature is plentifull in punishments and all the pieces whereof she is composed are so many faithfull Ministers which serve God in taking revenge upon his rebels The ninth Discourse That Monsters and Poysons are the workmanship of Sinne. DIvine Providence knows so well how to husband the defects of creatures as most men take them for perfections and we gather such advantage from our misfortunes by it's guidance as we should be unfortunate if we had not been so Death which is sins severest punishment is so precious in it's hands as it seemeth rather a favour then displeasure and a reward then a chastizement Sicknesses are cause of so much good unto us by bereaving us of our health as it were to be wished that most men should fall sick and that pain might make them out of love with their bodies to make them be the like with the earth the injuries of the Elements are of such use to the faithfull as they ought rather to be praised then complained of by them when they with patience suffer all the pains which sin hath occasioned they may make a happy use thereof to destroy sin and a sweet smelling Sacrifice to Gods Justice Hence it is that Philosophers who know what advantage we draw from our mis-fortunes perswade themselves that Nature is not corrupted and account her disorders advantages they term death a law more necessary then rigorous they call sicknesse the souls salve the tryall of vertue and the exercise of patience they call poverty a dis-ingagement from uselesse things a nearer cut to vertue a help to argue with more freedom they term the persecution of the Elements an innocent war which causeth the worlds peace a hatred which conduceth to a perfect friendship or an excellent picture of musick whose harmony is composed of the differences of voices and contrariety of tones By the same reason they justifie the disorders of nature and call Monsters irregularities which heighten her other works they plead in the behalf of poysons and make them passe for remedies whose use we are yet ignorant of In effect Monsters seem to serve for ornament to the world that they contribute to the beauty thereof that they constitute that admirable variety wherein consists honest mens most innocent delight that they are in the world what shadows are in Pictures and that not to excuse them they are handsome faults and pleasing debaucheries This wise Mother hath her serious businesses and her serious diversions she sports her self after having laboured and to recreate
consume the World corrupted by Sinne that he may make a new World THough Sinne hath wrought such havock in man as it hath brought darknesse into his understanding and malice into his will that it hath effaced out of his soul those inclinations which she had to vertue and that corrupting his nature it seems to have destroyed Gods goodliest workmanship yet do some glimmerings of light remain in the bottome of his soul which sin could never darken Idolatry which hath so long raigned in the world hath not been able to blot out the belief of the unity of God the Pagans have preserved this opinion amidst the worship of their Idols words have escaped from them which have given their actions the lie and when they followed the meer motions of Nature they spake the same language as christians do Though Poets made Hell to passe for a fable and that their pleasing fictions made a prison be despised whence Orpheus had escaped by musick and Pyrithous by force the people ceased not to apprehend eternall pains after death they had already cognizance of Devils under the name of revengfull furies they knew that the fire wherewith the sinfull were burnt could not be quenched that it was preserved without nourishment and as serviceable to the power of God it had operation upon the soul. Though the Devil to introduce licentiousnesse amongst men made them hope for impunity for their faults and that r Minos and Rhadamantus had not credit enough to terrifie Monarchs Nature more powerfull then fiction had imprinted in all men an apprehension of an universall Judgment there was no guilty person who did not fear it nor none miserable who did not hope it every one in the belief of this truth found either punishment for his fault or consolation in his misery when the oppressed innocents could not defend themselves against their Enemies they implored aid from that rigorous Judge which punisheth all sins and rewardeth all vertues In fine though the earths solidity might have made men confident though the water which doth inviron it might have freed them from the fear of a generall consuming by fire though so great a disaster had no certain proofs nor assured predictions yet they believed that the world should be consumed by fire that the seas should not be able to extinguish the flames thereof and that nature which had been cleansed by water should be purified by fire but they knew not the cause of this prodigie and the vanity wherewith they were blinded would not permit them to believe that this disorder should be the punishment of their sin yet the holy Scripture gives no other reason for it nor did it threaten us with the worlds ruine till it had acquainted us with the story of our misfortune As Adam had never lost his life had he never lost his innocency the world had never lost its adornment had it not lost it's purity As death is the punishment of sinfull man water and fire are the punishments of the corrupted world for though insensible creatures commit no sins and that guiltinesse presupposeth rationality yet do they contract some impurity by our offences the Sun is sullied by giving light unto the sinfull the light which shines as bright upon a dirty puddle as upon the cleerest river and which is not more undefiled in Chrystall then in mire is endamaged by our sins and ceaseth to be innocent when it gives light unto the guilty the air is infected by our blasphemies the earth cannot be the Theater of our vanity without sharing in our offences whatsoever is serviceable to our misdemeanors is polluted though the creatures are scandalized to see themselves inthral'd to our insolency yet do they incurre heavens displeasure and deserve punishment for having been imployed in our offences hence doth the sterility of the earth proceed hence was occasioned that deluge which did bury it in it's waters and from hence shall arise that universall fire which shall consume it in it's flames For Divine Justice seems to deal with sinners as humane Justice deals with the greatest offenders the latter is not contented to punish the guilty party in his own person but vents it's anger upon his Children and servants it believeth that whatsoever toucheth him is defiled that those who converse with him are either his Copartners or confederates and that to be allied to him is sufficient to share in his sin it mingleth the bloud of the children with that of the father it wraps up the innocent and the guilty in the same punishment and to make the fault appear more odious it punisheth whatsoever doth appertain unto the offender it spareth not even unsensible things it sets upon the dead after having punisht the living for it puls down the houses and demolisheth the castles of the enemy it makes rocks and Marble feel it's anger burns what it cannot throw down and as if the party offending did live in every thing that was his it thinks to kill him as oft as it beats down his buildings or cuts down his forrests it endevours to rob him of his reputation after it hath bereft him of his life and not to leave any token that may renew the memory of his person or of his crime Thus doth Divine Justice deal with sinfull man and Adam must confesse that heaven hath used this rigour in punishing his sin For after having past the sentence of death upon him it will have his grave to serve him for a funerall pile that time consume what the flames could not devour and that nothing remain of that body which was the prime piece of it's workmanship then either worms or dust it condemns all that come of him to the same punishment their whole guilt consists in their birth it is enough to make them guilty that Adam was their father God waits not till they have broken his Commandements to punish them he forestals the use of their reason and makes them miserable before their time to the end that they may be known to be guilty before they be born by an ingenious yet just rigour after having punisht this father in his children he punisheth him in his estate he makes his subjects revolt and because they are somtimes serviceable to him in their rebellion he bereaves them of their excellentest qualities and makes them together with their miserable Sovereign unfortunate he takes from the Sunne part of his light he takes the Government of Nature from the Stars he makes the earth barren and moveable he hides rocks in the sea and troubles the calm thereof by storms he formes maligne rain in the middle region of the air and corrupts the purity thereof to infect the whole earth he makes use of fire in Thunder and ordains it to punish offenders he inforceth this noble Element to descend contrary to it's inclination and fastning it to the matter which serves for nourishment to his anger he makes it the
Evill p. 91 9 That the will to be able to doe good must be set free from the servitude of sin by the grace of Iesus Christ. p. 97 10 That evill habits bereave the will of her liberty by ingaging her in Evill p. 103 The third Treatise Of the corruption of the Vertues Discourse 1 APaneggrick of Morall Vertue p. 109 2 That Morall Vertue hath her faults p. 115 3 That vain glory is the soule of the Vertue of Infidels p 122 4 That the Vertue of Infidels cannot be true p 128 5 That Wisdome without Grace is blinde weak and malignant p. 134 6 That there is no true Temperance nor Iustice amongst the Pagans p. 140 7 That the Fortitude of the Pagans is but weaknes or vanity p. 149 8 That friendship without grace is alwayes interested p. 156 9 That the uncertainty and obscurity of Knowledge derives from siâ—ne p. â—65 10 That Eloquence is an enemy to Reason Truth and Religion p â—73 The fourth Treatise Of the corruption of Mans Body by sin Discourse 1 OF the Excellencies of Mans Body p. 182 2 Of the Miseries of the Body in generall p. 190 3 Of the Infidelity of the Senses p. 195 4 That the Passions are fickle or wilde p. 201 5 That the health of Man is prejudiced by sicknesse p. 207 6 〈◊〉 the Bodies beauty is become perishable and criminall p. 214 7 That the life of man is short and miserable p. 225 8 That Death is the punishment of sin p. 231 9 What advantages we may draw from Death by meanes of Grace p. 237 10 That Sleep is a punishment of sin as well as the Image of Death and that it bereaves us of Reason as Dreames doe of Rest. p. 243 The fifth Treatise Of the corruption of all exterior Goods called by the name of FORTUNE Discourse 1 THat we must feare what we desire and desire what we feare p. 249 2 That Honour is no longer the recâ—mpence of Vertue p. 255 3 That Greatnesse iâ— attended by Slaveâ—y and Vanity p. 261 4 That the Birth and Cruelty of Waâ—re derives from sin p. 270 5 That Riches render mâ—n poore and sinfull p. 278 6 That since the losse of Innocency poverty is glorious p. 284 7 That aparrell is a mark of sin p. 290 8 That the shame which 〈◊〉 Nakednesse is a punishment for our offence p. 296 9 That Buildâ—ngs are the work of necessity pleasure or vain glory 302 10 That the greatest part of our pasâ—mes are occasions of sin p. 3â— The sixth and last Treatise Of the Corruption of all Creatures Discourse 1 OF the beauty greatnesse and duration of the world p. 319 2 That all creatures have lost some of their perfections p. 328 3 That the Sunne hath lost much of his light and vertue through sin p. 335 4 That there is no creature which men have not adored p. 341 5 That all creatures do either tempt or persecute man p. 348 6 That it is more secure to sequester a mans self from the creatures than to make use of them p. 355 7 That Deluges and Earth-quakes are the punishments of the world become corrupted p. 361 8 That Thunder Plagues and Tempests are the effects of sin p. 368 9 That Monsters and poysons are the workmanship of sin p. 377 10 That God will consume the world corrupted by sin that he may make a new world p. Of the Corruption of Nature by SINNE The First Treatise Of Originall Sin and the Effects thereof The First Discourse That Faith acknowledgeth Originall Sin That Nature hath a feeling thereof and That Phylosophie suspects it THough mans misery witnesse his sin and that to believe he is guilty sufficeth to prove his misery yet is there no one Truth in Christian Religion more strongly withstood by prophanePhylosophers then is this shee cannot allow of a chastisement which punisheth the father in his children neither can shee conceive a sin which precedes our reason as well as our birth Shee appeals from so rigorous a decree and thinks to defend Gods cause in pleading ours Shee attributes all our disorders to our constitution she imputes our errours to our education and the greatest part of our irregularities to the bad employing of our time She opposeth experience by arguing and what ever misery shee makes tryall of shee will not acknowledge the cause shee thinks a man may herein defend himselfe by reason and that there being no sin which is naturall neither is there any which may not be amended by will alone shee makes use of the examples of Socrates Aristides and Cato shee opposeth these Sages to our Saints and pretends that the works of Nature yield not to those of Grace Briefly shee corrupteth the purity of our beliefe by the subtilty of her reasoning and whereas Christians ought to convert all Phylosophers some Christians are perverted by Phylosophers We confesse Originall sinne because we dare not deny it We avow that it hath bereft us of Grace but assure our selves that it hath left us an entire Liberty We confesse it hath robb'd us of our innocencie but maintain that we may recover our innocencie by the means of reason and that if we cannot merit heaven we may at least secure our selves from hell We admire the famous Actions of Infidels our eyes are dazl'd with the lustre they receive from the writings of Phylosophers we side at unawares with Nature against Grace and through an inconsiderate zeale We will have their delusive vertues rewarded with a true happinesse Yet notwithstanding to believe original sin is one of the prime Articles of our Faith if Adam were not guilty Jesus Christ was not necessary and if Humane nature be yet in her first purity it 's in vain that we seek a Saviour Hence it is that the great Apostle of the Gentiles doth so often in his Epistles oppose sin to grace servitude to freedome and Adam to Jesus Christ he is pleased to represent unto us the disorders of Nature to make us admire the effects of Grace and he glories in his Infirmities the more to heighthen the advantages of RedemptioÌ„ He teacheth us that we are conceived in sin and that at our first enterance into the world we are the objects of Gods wrath He shews us that Adams sin is shed abroad throughout mankind That his Malady is become a contagion and that all the Children that do descend from this unfortunate Father are Criminall and Miserable The Prophets agree with the Apostles and this truth is not much less Evident in the Old Testament then in the New The most patient most afflicted of al men coÌ„plaines of the misfortunes of his birth and makes such just imprecations against the moment wherin he was conceived as we may easily conceive he thought it not void of fault David confesseth he was conceived in sin and that though he were born in lawfull Matrimony his birth ceaseth not to be shamefully sinfull The Church confirmes this truth
disobedient or unfaithfull to him whence proceeds this disorder if not from his sin whence proceeds so universall a rebellion if not from his disobedience and why should he have lost his authority in the world if he had not lost his innocency which was the foundation thereof I very well know that Phylosophers who knew not the state of sin endeavour to excuse this insurrection alledging it is naturall but who sees not the excusing of man is to blame God and that to leave innocency to the Creature is to bereave God of his Providence The Elements began not to prosecute man till he became criminall and God is so good and just as he would not have made him subject to these sufferings had he not found him guilty His Sovereignty never gives against his justice he makes such moderate use of his power as he never injures his Providence what ever power he may justly challenge over the Creature he condemns it not till it hath offended who will not then term this unruliness of the seasons a punishment who will not esteem the earths sterility the like who will not believe but that the Pestilences and Earth-quakes Deluges and Punishments by fire are the just rewards of sin more ancient then all these disorders we must also avow that the wisest Phylosophers have acknowledged that there was one cause of all these disorders and though they neither knew the wickednesse nor the name thereof they have known it by its effects Aristotle who may be termed the Genius of Nature who loved her so passionately took such pains to study her and so carefully considered her hath guest at the cause of all the disorders which he observed in her workmanship He wonders that man cannot tame his passions that being victorious every where else he is conquered by himself and that the soul hath not strength nor dexterity to triumph over her body he cannot comprehend how the noblest workmanship of Nature should be a Monster that the senses should be unfaithfull and passions disobedient and that reason which is her light should be obfuscated with so many darknesses he cannot conceive that man being free should be a slave to so many masters that being furnisht w th knowledg he should be ingaged in errours and that being assisted by so many vertues he should be withstood by so many vices had he durst have condemned the Diety he would have found fault with the workmanship thereof wavering between Religion and impiety he admires what he knows not he suspects what he cannot discover he guesses at what he cannot finde and amidst these doubts he confesseth that there is some hidden cause which hath produced these disorders what could a Phylosopher say more who had only been instructed â—n the School of Nature what could a man imagine who never having been enlighted by the beams of Faith was equally ignorant of Adams innocency and guilt if he be ignorant of the name of concupiscence doth not he acknowledge the nature thereof and if he know not the cause of originall sin hath he not observed the effects thereof Cicero who is no less a Phylosopher in his Academick discourses then Orator in his Orations complains that Nature is mans Stepdame that she hath bin negligent in the Master-piece of her workmanship and that as envying his happiness shee hath given him a body exposed to the injury of the Aire to the malice of Maladies and to the Insolencies of Fortune that shee hath lodged an unhappy soule over-born with pains abashed by fear faint in labour and unruly in her delights in so frail a body which hath made Saint Augustine confess that this great Phylosopher had the Cognizance of sin though he knew not its name and that he acknowledged the effects of a Cause which he could not discover Thus reason without faith seems to have found out originall sin And Phylosophy which makes Nature a Diety hath been enforced to accuse the disorderliness thereof and to impute unto her the faults whereof the first man was Author Seneca in whose person was united the pride of a Stoick and vain-glory of a Spaniard and who confesseth no weakness save such as he can neither excuse nor conceal after having pleaded in the behalf of Nature is obliged to forsake her he acknowledgeth in a thousand parts of his Writings that sin is naturall unto us and that Phylosophy is not sufficient to save us from a Monster which constitutes a part of ourselves I know that he varies in his opinions that Pride makes him revoke such Confessions as truth hath extorted from out of his mouth and pen that he complains that we live not as we were born that we do not preserve those advantages that Nature hath given us and that seduced by errour or corrupted by example We commmit errours which she detests but he quickly alters his minde and being prest by his own conscience hee avows that vertue is a stranger vice naturall to us hee confesseth that the first men were not more innocent then we save only in that they were more ignorant that they had not as yet opened the bowels of the earth to enrich themselves with her spoyls nor kill'd beasts to satisfie their appetites but that they even then had the principles of all these crimes in their souls and that there is great difference between a man who hath not the knowledge of evill and him who hath not a desire thereunto Had this Phylosopher read our Histories and had hee learnt from Moses what past in the beginning of the World he had plainly seen that vice comes not by degrees as doth vertue and that corrupted Nature is a Mistris good enough to teach us what is ill in giving us life Murther was Cain's Aprentisage and the Impieties which wee detest have dishonoured the first ages as well as they do ours since man was irregular he became capable of all vice and since hee lost Originall Justice hee is faln into all sort of disorders We polish sins we invent them not we commit them with more pompe not with more wickedness we only add ornament thereunto And in a word wee are not more faulty then our fore-fathers but more industrious In fine if it be lawfull to make use of Fables to strengthen Truth and to beat down lies by Poets who are the Authors thereof I see not a better draught of a man born in sin then that which is represented to us by the Tragoedian in his Thebais For Oedipus recounting the Story of his Misfortunes complains that his death preceded his birth that his sin preceded his reason that nature feared him before she had brought him into the world that by a strange prodigie he had committed sins before he knew what sin was that the Heavens whose decrees are so just had declared him criminall before he was indued with reason and that his father being a servant to divine justice had punisht him as soon as
the Angels sin and that having learnt by Revelation that God was to allye himself to humane Nature he could not tolerate that the Angelicall Nature should be deprived of this honour imagining that the Angels did very well deserve whatsoever dignity God would confer upon man Others have thought that self-love was the sin both of the Angel and of man that seeing themselves so perfect they grew in love w th themselves that forgetting the greatnesse of God they considered only their own beauty that they made an Idoll of their own understandings that not envying Gods perfections they sought for all their happinesse within themselves and that rather by an Amorous then Proud blindnesse they endeavoured to find out their contentment in the Possession of their own advantages If it be not rashnesse to go about to discover what our leaders have been ignorant of and if a man may divide that which hath neither parts nor moments I would say that the sin of man and of the Angell is neither single nor yet Composed of all sins as S. Augustine affirmeth weaknesse which is so naturall to the Creature was as it were the disposition thereunto negligence the beginning self-love the ensuing or progresse and Pride the accomplishment thereof weaknesse is so naturall to the Creature as to free it thereof it must suffer change and be raised above itself Grace whose effects are so many miracles dares not undertake to free the Creature from it there is nothing but Glory which can fix the fancy of the Creature and take from it that Inconstancy which is the cause of all it's offences We acknowledge none but Jesus Christ to be void of sin The Angell and man not being raised to this height of happinesse we must not wonder if they be fallen and if those which proceeded ex nihilo did not defend themselves from sin every perishable Creature may become Criminall that which may lose its being may lose Grace and what cannot preserve it selfe in Nature will have much a doe to preserve it selfe in innocencie Weaknesse then prepared that Angel and man to sin and these two noble Creatures became faulty only because they were not unchangeable negligence begun the fault which weaknesse had prepared they made not use of all the grace which they had received they left a vacuum in their being which made place for sin they did not employ all the advantages which they had received from God and deserved to lose them for having neglected them as this fault was yet but an omission it might have been expiated by humility and by abasing themselves before God it may be they might have obteined pardon they became Idolaters at unawares and framed vain Idols to themselves out of the workmanship of God This fault was already well grown and the Angel and men were guilty of having turned their eyes from Divine perfections to settle them upon their own advantages yet did they only love those beauties which God had placed in them they might have adored his Image in these Looking-glasses and have returned to the Spring-head by these Rivolets and by these beams have raised themselves up to the Sun but Pride finished their fault they grew proud of Gods favours their vain-glory proceeded from his grace that which should have submitted them to their Creator was cause of their Rebellion and the more they were beholding unto him the lesse were they acknowledging from the times they thought themselves able to reigne without him they would reign in despight of him and as soon as they had raised up a Throne unto themselves they would have Subjects the Angel got a party in heaven he debauched some of his companions hee made slaves of his equals and these excellent Spirits were not ashamed to adore a creature which though it were more elevated was not lesse dependent upon God then were the rest Rebellion did not not withstanding disperse it self throughout all their Orders the number of the faithfull exceeded that of the revolters Michael couragiously opposed himselfe to Lucifer and be it that he made good use of his graces or that he received addition thereunto he kept the greater part of the Angels in their obedience and drove the Rebels from the Empyerean Heaven Man was more absolute in his unjust designe for his sin became the sin of all his off-spring not any one opposed himselfe to his blinde fury those who lived in him and descended from him were guilty of his Rebellion they lost themselves together with their unfortunate Father they suffered for a sin which they could not hinder they found themselves engaged in death before they knew life and wondered that not being reasonable they were already criminall This sin which shed it self like a contagion became the Spring-head of errour in the World The greatest part of Hereticks have withstood it and the pride of Phylosophy wherewith they were puft up would not permit them to confesse a disorder which would have forced them to be humble Catholicks believe it though they conceive it not Faith teacheth them what reason cannot perswade them unto and they care not though they be esteemed ignorant so long as they may be esteemed faithfull They finde by experience that man is become guilty but they know not how he hath contracted this crime they dispute not the maladie but cannot comprehend by what secret wayes the Father hath communicated it to his children and the children have received it from their father This is that which we will examine in the pursuit of this Treatise The fourth Discourse How ADAM'S sin did communicate it self to those that are discended from him IT must be acknowledged that there is nothing more hidden nor any thing more known then Originall Sinne unruly nature is an evident proofe thereof mens wicked inclinations doe sufficiently witnesse it and it 's easily to be conjectured that so unfortunate a creature cannot be innocent But certainly the way how this sin sheds it self through mankinde and passeth from the father into the children is extreamly unknown all that is said of it doth but weakly prove it and after having listned to reason we must betake our selves to the light of Faith Doubtlesse Saint Augustine is he who hath written the worthiest thereupon his proofs are efficacious his discourses solid if he had as well established the beliefe of Originall Sin as that of concupisence all men would be convinced and we might as easily make Phylosophers believe Adam's fault as the irregularity of Nature for all men see that Fathers communicate their diseases to such as do descend from them that the Aethiopians Complexion appears in their childrens visages that there are maladies which are more hereditary in Families then are possessions and that there are men which suffer for their fathers debaucheries we must not wonder if we partake of their diseases since we are composed of their substance and since our bodies are a part of theirs it is easily conceived that
their maladies may become ours but being bound by faith to believe that the soul is the workmanship of God that she is not drawn from forth the matter of the body though she be inclosed therein and that she is a pure spirit though she doth inanimate her body It is almost impossible to make us discerne how shee becomes criminall when she is thereinto infused she is altogether pure whilst in her Authors hands and she becomes not guilty till she becomes the bodies forme I very well know that she is infused as soon as created and that the same hand which hath extracted her out of nothing hath bound and fastened her to the body but I know not why the father who contributes nothing to her production should contribute to her pollution and wherefore since he gives not life unto her hee should make her inherit his sin Divines are much perplexed with this difficulty and touching the resolution thereof Saint Austin hath oft-times doubted whether the soul were not produced by generation as wel as the body all his reasons seem to be grounded upon this belief he wil have it that the body doth infect the soul and generation is as it were the channell of sin which hath corrupted us He grounds three principles which do produce three severall effects in man God which hath created him his father who hath begot him and sin which hath sullyed him The soul was from God the body proceeds from the begetting Father and the impurity derives from sin he admirably describes the Nature of concupiscence and he is never more learned nor more eloquent then when he sets forth what havock she hath made in our souls he teacheth us that every sin is a particuler concupiscence and that instructed by our own Misery we call Avarice the concupiscence of riches Pride the concupiscence of glory and unchastity the concupiscence of voluptuousnesse he concludes by convincing reasons and which receive no reply that it was necessary that man being guilty should beget sinfull Children and that it was not just that the Children should be more innocent then their Fathers he perswades us effectually that Christians not being regenerate but by the spirit cannot communicate grace to those that descend from them by the way of generation which rests yet in Impurity but truly he doth not sufficiently prove that the soul should become guilty for being engaged in the body nor that to make up one Composition with it she should contract a sin whereof she her self is not capable for though concupiscence reign in the body to speak properly it is not a sin till it pass into the soul Irregularity is the matter thereof but her aversion from God is her Forme and it is impossible to Comprehend that the soul for being infused into a wretched body should become Criminall whence then proceeds this Originall sin by what waies doth it slide into our souls by what Channels doth it shed it self into the handy work of God and how comes it that the Chief workmanship of his hands becomes guilty assoon it is engaged in the body Theologie hath been forced to Imagine a secret Treaty between God and Adam by the which God having made Adam head of all men he had given him grace for all his Posterity and that by the same law that all his Children should share in his sin that this Treaty whereby Gods Justice is not injured discovers unto us the greatnesse of his Sovereignty that it is not strange a Prince should put into the hands of his Subjects the fate of all them that should descend from them that in all the best regulated States the Children share in their Parents evils that receiving the glory of all their best Actions they should likewise pertake of the Pain and Infamy of their offences that so the privation of Grace in men is the punishment of Adams fault that by a necessary consequence the aversion of our will derives from the losse of Innocency Some building upon some Passages in S. Paul would perswade us that all men were included in Adam that there will was united to his that his fault was their sin and that therefore there was no inconvenience that those that lived in him should share in his guilt some others differing but a little from the former have represented us with two universall men whereof one is the 〈◊〉 of sin the other of Grace We are united to the former by Generation and become sinners like him by regeneration we are fastned to the other and become just as he is Thus sin disperseth it selfe as well as Grace unrighteousness is communicated as well as Innocency and we contract sin without a wil thereunto as we receive grace in Baptisme without deserving it All these opinions which I embrace and honour doth sufficiently explain how Adams sin is ours but they do not cleerly enough declare how we do contract it they teach us that we are sinners but do not discover unto us by what means we become so wherefore re-assuming Saint Augustines Principles me thinks a man may say that Adams sin is the sin of all men that that which was voluntary in him is naturall in them that it passeth from the father to those that descend from him as Maladies do which are hereditary in Families or as the Ethiopians which is seen in his Childrens faces To Comprehend this truth it is not necessary to Imagine a Treaty between God and Adam whereby the fathers fault and Punishment becomes the sons but it sufficeth to know that being faln from the State of Innocency and having lost originall righteousnesse he cannot longer transmit it into his Progeny that by necessary consequence he makes them share in a Malady which he could not cure himself of and that he communicates his sin unto them in communicating his concupiscence T is enough for them to be guilty that they are descended from him and without seeking for causes further off it sufficeth to prove their guilt that they are a part of him t would be a Prodigie if a sinfull Father should beget Children void of sin and we were to wonder if nature not being re-establisht in her former Purity her productions should not be Corrupt The difficulty is to know how the soul which issues pure and spotlesse from out the hands of God contracts sin when she is infused into the body To this I answer that her streight union with the body is one cause of her fin that she sullyes her self by Informing it that she receives death by giving it life that wanting original righteousnesse whereby to preserve her self from the contagion occasioned by the first mans sin she is no sooner made companion to the body but she becomes Criminall Thus is she unpleasing to God because she is not in Grace with him she is not in Grace with him because Adam hath lost Gods grace both for himself and his Children and she is
sinfull because the father which unites her to the flesh as a secondary cause Communicates unto her his disorder not giving her a remedy for it powers his poyson into her and doth not present her with an Antidote makes her Inherit Adams sin and doth Communicate unto her the Grace of Jesus Christ. This it is which Saint Augustine insinuates unto us in other Termes when he says that the Contagion of the body passeth into the soul that the close Cōmerce that is between them makes their miseries cōmon between them and that without extraordinary helps an Innocent soul cannot be lodg'd in a guilty body the purest Liquours are tainted in musty vessels corrupted Air poysons those who breath therein and infected houses give the Plague to those that live in them Thus doth concupiscence glide from the body into the soul and this wicked Host gives death to her that gives him life If these reasons do not content the reader let him know that I glory to be ignorant of what Saint Augustine understood not that I should shew my self too rash if I should think to give an entire light to the obscurest part of Divinity and that I should be unfaithfull if I should pretend to make a truth evident by reason which is only known by Faith The fifth Discourse Of the Nature of Concupiscence CHristian Religion may truly boast that all her Maxims are Paradoxes which agreeing with truth give against humane reason for she proposeth nothing which is not as strange as true and which causeth not as much astonishment as light in the soul he who would prove this truth must make an Induction of all our Mysteries and represent all the wonders which she comprehends but without straying from my subject it will suffice to say that Originall sin is one of her strangest Paradoxes and that if much of reason be required to prove it no less of faith is requisite to believe it for what more prodigious is there then that the sin of one man should be the sin of all men that a Fathers Rebellion should ingage all his Children in disobedience that his malody should be Contagious that he should be the murtherer of all men before he be their Father and that unfortunately he be the cause of their death many ages before they be born Thus is this misfortune more generall then the deluge which drowned the world more universall then the fire which shall consume it and War and Pestilence which doth so easily enlarge themselves are not so Contagious Evills as is this sin If it be wonderfull by reason of it's Effusion it is no less miraculous through it's other qualities for we are taught by Divinity that it is voluntary in the Father and naturall in the Children that that which was only a fault in Adam is both a sin and a punishment in those that descend from him that we contract by birth what he willingly committed and that that which was free in it's beginning should become necessary in the progress thereof He might have kept from disobedience And we can neither shun the punishment nor the fault we are surprized by this misfortune in our Conception we are slaves before we have the use of Liberty and we have already offended God before we knew him we are rather the objects of his anger then of his mercy but that which is more deplorable we are so corrupted from the moment of our Birth as that we oppose our selves to his will If he favour us in our Baptisme the first use we make of Reason is for the most part engaged in Errour we follow the Inclinations of our first father and his sin makes such powerfull Impressions upon our souls as we sin in our first thoughts we for the most part make use of our liberty only to estrange our selves from God we have a secret opposition to his ordinance we are so inclosed within our selves as we can love nothing but for our own interests which is the Rule of our actions and we neither love nor desire any thing save what is either usefull or pleasing to us Such is the corruption of our nature as there is almost nothing in it which is not repugnant to the laws of God It is so misled by sin as all the Inclinations thereof are perverted In this unfortunate Condition man can neither know nor doe good he is inslaved not having so much as the desire of Liberty though he groan under the weight of his Irons he is affraid of being freed from them and though his Imprisonment be painfull yet is not he weary thereof he delights in doing evill and findes difficulty to do what is good the great inclination he hath to sin doth not excuse his offence And he ceaseth not to be guilty though he cannot shun sin in generall to fill up the measure of so many Evils he is blind and insensible he sees not the Evils that environ and threaten him he is full of wounds and hath no feeling of them believing himself to be whole he seeks not for help through proud blindness he despiseth the Physician that would restore him to health Every man that comes into this world is in this miserable q condition and we are guilty of all these Crimes And charged with all these punishments before we be regenerated in Baptisme after this Sacrament we become Innocent but cease not to be miserable sin forsakes us but punishment waits upon us and though we be no more guilty we are notwithstanding out of order our Fathers sin forgoes us but Concupiscence remains This monster is not much lesse savage then is the Cause which produced it It follows the Inclinations thereof and if it be not altogether so wicked it is at least full out as irregular it is much more opinionated then the father that begot it our life is to short to cut it off it 's an enemy not to be overcome wounds give it new life it gathers strength by skars and it must cost us our life to be the death thereof Our first Divines which were the Apostles have given it the very name of sin and as if t were more fatall then it's Father they term it the strength and law thereof it is not content to perswade us to the Crime but endeavours to enforce us thereunto it mingles force with perswasion and when it thinks the way by solicitation to be to mild it hath Recourse to violence and Tyranny it grows the more furious by opposition it 's stomack is set on edge by Inhibition it never becomes more insolent then when Laws are prescribed unto it To Expresse the Nature thereof to the life we must represent a Tyrant who being born of sin will enlarge his Fathers Empire make al mankind his slaves it establisheth it's throne in our souls darkens our understanding infuseth wickednesse into our wils and fils our memories with the remembrance of all unjust acts It abuseth all
the parts of our bodies and works with our hands Looks through our Eyes Listens by our Eares and Imployes all our sences to Execute it's designes it busieth it selfe so dexterously in all our desires as thinking to satisfie our Necessities we obey the Tyranny thereof and Believing to do a Reasonable Act we commit a sinfull one if we Eat it is in too much Excesse or with too much delight If we sleep t is rather out of too much nicety then of necessity if we speak t is rather to slander then to edifie and what we think we do for our preservation we do for the most part for our satisfaction In fine t is a bad Habit which produceth but bad acts t is both the Daughter and Mother of sin It giveth life to that from which it received life all the motions thereof are Irregular and whosoever operates by it's orders is sure enough to sin t is not like other customes which insinuate themselves by degrees and which preserves themselves with some appearance of Justice t is violent from it's very Birth undertakes all Enterprizes as soon as formed submits the understanding to Tyranny and is never more dangerous then when becomes Reasonable Time augments it's force Age increaseth Fury and whatsoever ruines all other Customes serves only to maintain this but that which passeth all beliefe is that though this Habit be so violent yet it is naturall the others are easily destroyed because they contest against Nature though they weaken her yet they never destroy her and let them do what they can t is but a little Courage that is required to Conquer them but this passeth into Nature precedes our birth and out-lives our death Grace may well lessen it but never extinguish it Saints groan under the rigour of it's Law and Cals for Ayd from death against so Puissant an Enemy and knowing that the soul cannot be set at Liberty whilst inclosed within her body they beg the parting thereof from the body as a favour In Fine all sins are in the seed of this pernicious Habit and as the branches and roots flowers and fruit bark and pith of a tree are hid in the kernell thereof so Murders and Parricides Slanders and blasphemies adulteries and Incest are Circumscrib'd in Concupiscence Who ever carries about this monster in his Bosome bears with him all sins though they be not already disclosed they are already begun and though they render us not as yet guilty they make us always miserable the Devill may undertake any thing by the Assistance of this his faithfull Assistant in all his Impieties and he very well knows that wheresoever it is it always holds Intelligence with him No man is assured of souls health whilst he gives harbour to this Domestick Enemy and our hopes ought always to be mingled with Feare till such time as Grace hath totally Extinguished Concupiscence The sixth Discourse The pursuit of the same Subject and divers descriptions of Concupiscence MEn esteem those punishments the most severe which are most sensible they believe not that God punisheth sinners unlesse the Earth quake under their feet unlesse the Thunder roares over their heads unlesse the Devill sieze on their bodies and hurries them visibly into Hell But as Physick thinks hidden Maladies the most dangerous and that there is no cure for the decays of the lungs or braines so doth Divinity think secret punishments the worst and that such Chastizements as make most noyse are least to be dreaded She fears not so much the destroyings of the Plague nor the disorders of war as she doth apprehend bad habits or Iregular inclinations she much more patiently beares with the violence of diseases and the unseasonablenesse of the seasons then with the motions of concupiscnce for it is indeed the cruellest punishments which Divine Justice hath permitted for the Chastizement of mans offence and it is the ancientest and cruellest of all the evils that doe assaile us for t is a rebellion against all those things to which we owe obedience and a base submitting of our selves to whatsoever we ought to have any authority over The soule ought naturally to submit her selfe to God and the body to the soule there is no more naturall nor rationall obedience t is grounded on our being and our perfection seemes to depend thereon God gives the law unto our soul and the soul the like unto her body these duties are as ancient as we be and though we fail in the payment thereof yet weacknowledge the Obligation yet Concupiscence disorders all this comely regularity she by an high insolency opposeth the soule to God and by an extream piece of injustice raiseth the body against the soul she sowes division between the two parts whereof we are composed and we finde by an admirable effect of Divine justice that as our fault is disobedience our punishment is also rebellion for the soule rejects the laws of God and the body despiseth the laws of the soul our punishment is the picture of our sin and the paine which we indure beares the Character of the fault which wee have committed or to expresse my self better in Saint Augustine words our very offence is become our punshment and as we were Rebels to God by our own choise we become the like now by necessity The greatest part of our thoughts are so many undertakings against his Authority our actions are attempts against his graciousnesse and not withstanding any Inclination that we have to love him t is almost impossible for us without his grace to keep from offending him the body punisheth the soul for her offence it revengeth God for the outrages the soul hath done him and taking example from the souls rebellion dispenseth with its obedience thereunto nay it doth oft-times change its rebellion into tyranny the Slave becomes his Sovereigns Master and either by fair means or by foul forceth him to serve his disorders then doth the soul descend from her greatnesse Labours only for the pleasures of the body and imployes all her anvantages to procure new delight unto her slave All these Irregularities derive from Concupiscence which is nothing else but a generall Rebellion of Nature against it's Author the different effects thereof makes it beare differing names and the evill qualities thereof makes Divines seek out new tearms to Expresse her ancient disorders Saint Augusttine cals her the foot-step of sin for as the Creature is an Image of God as it expresseth his divine perfections And makes them visible to the Eyes of who shall consider them so is Concupiscence the Image of sin and by the disorders thereof represents unto us the bad inclinations of her father but she hath this advantage that she is a better finisht picture of her father sinne then the Creature is of God For let the Latter be never so excellent t is always but a weak expression of it's creatâ— t is but a shadow of his Light a
mean expression of his truth and but a false beame of his beauty To know him perfectly we must raise our selves above his workmanship to conceive his greatnesse we must rather oppose it to the creature then cōpare it there with all but concupiscence is the Lively Image of sin we see all the Linaments of the father in the Daughters face and she doth nothing wherein a man may not discerne the motions of the father I know that all our punishments are the pictures of our sins and God would have our Chastizement to be the Image of our offences but to take it aright every punishment expresseth but one only quality of sin the Heat which accompanieth fears represents only it 's immoderate heat to us blindness discovers only it's Ignorance The palsie which takes from us the use of our members figures onely out unto us it 's incapabilty of doing good deafness declares only it's obstinacy unto us and death it self which is sins most rigorous punishment represents to us only the death of the soul and the losse of Grace But Concupiscence is a finisht picture which hath all the Colours and Linaments of sin she hath all its wicked Inclinations is Capable of all its Impressions accomplisheth all it's Designes and this unfortutunate Father can undertake nothing which his daughter is not ready to Execute But one only name not being sufficient to expresse all the wickednesse thereof the Fathers have been fain to invent divers names to decypher out unto us the different effects of a Cause which is as fruitfull as fatall Saint Augustine according to Saint Paul terms her the Law and Counsellor of sin Reason was mans Counsellor and in the state of innocency he undertooke nothing but by her advice when sin had weakned Reason and that the darknesse thereof had Clouded the the luster of it's Eternall light God gave him the written Law for a Counsellor and Ingraved those truths in Marble which he had formerly ingraven in his heart Great men formed no designe before they had Consulted with this visible Law and David with all his illuminations protests that the law of God was the best part of his Councell it was the morall Phylosophers wherin the learn'd vertue it was his Politicks and were he either to Conduct his subjects or to fight his enemies he learnt the knowledge both of peace and war in the mysteries of the Law but the sinner hath no other law then Concupiscence he is advised by one that is blind and unfaithfull he executes nothing without her orders he is brought to this extremity That his Counsellor is Pensioner to his Enemies Reasons self is a slave to this perfidious Officer she sees only through her eys and after having well debated a businesse she forsakes better advice to follow the pernicious Counsell of one that is blind who is absolutely the Devils Purchase and who holds Continuall Intelligence with sin When he is weary of perswading us he Chides us when we have received his advice he signifies his Commands unto us and having deceived us as a perfidious Counsellor he torments us as a merciless Tyrant Counsellours never work upon us but by their Reasons they never make use of violence to oblige us to receive their advice and they oftentimes foregoe their own opinions to receive ours if they think them better but Concupiscence is a furious Officer who makes use of Force when Perswasion will not prevail This Tyrant is more insuportable then those who formerly comanded in Greece whō the Orators of that Country have charg'd with so many just opprobries For these Enemies to mankind exercised their cruelty only upon the body and assubjected to their power only the leastpart of man Whosoever valued not theirown lives might make himself Master of theirs and who feared not death might deride their violence but this Tyrant whereof I speak exerciseth his fury upon the spirits he blots out the remembrance of all vertue from out his memory he darkens the understandingwith his mysts oppresseth the will by his violence and leaveth only a languishing liberty in the souls which he possesseth This Monster which had only the faces of men were not alwaies in the Company of their subjects their absence was a truce of servitude some private Closets were to be found where one might tast the sweet of liberty A man might meet with a freind before whom he might lay his heart open and though freindship had been banished from off the heart Compassion would have made it revive for his Consolation T was in these private Conferences that the death of Tyrants was Conspired the parties safety joyned to the desire of liberty caused the Conception of the designes and the desires of glory put it in execution But Concupiscence never parts from sinners this Tyrant keeps his Court in the midst of their wills he hath raised a throne in their hearts He finds so much of obedience and weaknesse in his slaves as he knows they cannot shake of the yoke of his Tyranny without forreign Ayd these publike plagues could not make themselves be beloved in their states though they left some shadows of Liberty they could not win their subjects Hearts there faults were always repaid with publike Hatred and the Necessity they had to make themselves feared was not the least punishment of their Injustice they grew weary of being the Horror of their people and if they could have made themselves be beloved they would have ceased making themselves feared but their subjects were so Incenst against them as to keep them in respect t was necessary to keep them in awe and since they could not purchase their love to resolve to merit their Hatred but though Concupiscence be the cruellest of all Tyrants yet hath she found the secret of making her self be beloved all her subjects reserues their Loyalty even in persecution they are pleased with the pains they undergoe Torments are not able to make them wish for liberty let them be neuer so ill dealt with all by their unjust Sovereign they never blame his cruelty And though they be the most unfortunate slaves of all the world they cease not to be the faithfullest lovers In fine to put an end to this discourse These Tyrants do not allways vex their subjects with angersome Commands all there decrees are not unjust their polluted mouthes have sometimes pronounced Oracles and the Graecian Phylosophers have registred their words who had bereft them of their liberty the Dionsii made laws which the Politicians reverenced their Ordinances were able to instruct legitimate Princes and they have uttered maximes which may serve us for instructions But all the commands made by Concupiscence are unjust all her orders are sin one cannot obey her without blame and to speak in Saint Augustines language a man cannot follow the motions of Concupiscence without contesting against the motions of grace nor can a man live at full liberty unlesse he
heart unto the Devill he indiscreetly suffered the immoderate desire of knowing all things to enter there Pride or the Ambition of Command is the last and most dangerous effect of Concupisceuce Flattery whose cheife imployment is to praise sin confounds this Passion with vertue and makes all glorious faults lawful to Conquerors She builds the glory of the Alexanders upon the sin of Maligne spirits and she will perswade Princes of the world that the furious desire which changed Angels into Devils can turn men into Gods but our Religion teacheth us that there is no more insolent Passion then this and that all other sins are the ushers in of Pride In effect if other sins do busie the mind this possesseth it if others fly from God to shun his justice this draws neer unto him to set upon his greatnesse if others leave us when we grow old this accompanieth us even unto death and if the rest chance sometimes to be the sin of the Elect this is almost always the Reprobates fault it will supply Gods place whatsoever name is given to the Impiety thereof it 's design in making it self be either loved or feared is to govern over men either by force or fair means and to commit a rape upon that Glory which belongs only to him who is the beginning and end of all things this Passion dies not with men they preserve the sense thereof after death and their care of having their Prayers recorded in History their Statutes erected in publique Places and stately Monuments in Churches are assured proofs that their Ambition ends not with their lives this disorder can only proceed from the first man who not being able to permit that even God should be his Sovereign unjustly pretended to Independency and endeavouring Sovereignty by Rebellion reaped thereby nothing but a shamefull servitude all these irregularities which derive from self-love as from their spring-head and all our fins which burst out from thence like rivers the Devil who very wel knows how to tēpt man makes no use of any other means then these to seduce him he beats us with our own weapons and he loseth the hope of overcomming man when man keeps himself from delight Curiosity and Ambition he raised all these batteries against the first man and judging of their Power by their good success he made use thereof against Jesus Christ in the Desert but seeing that his soul was sufficient proof against all his on-set she resolved to set upon him by sorrow and gr◠whom he could not seduce by delights The ninth Discourse Wherefore Concupiscence remains in Man after Baptisme WE are taught by Divinity that nothing but the Power of God can make all things out of nothing nothing but his Providence can draw good out of evill and make a mans fault to amend his life Naturall Phylosophy cannot comprehend the former of these wonders and morall Phylosopy cannot comprehend the second Nature worketh nothing without materials her workmanships are rather alterations then productions shee may well change one thing into another but she cannot make a new thing and there is so little proportion between nothing and subsistancy as Aristotle chose rather to believe that the World was eternall then that God created it of Nothing This great Genjus found it lesse inconvenient to acknowledge numberless causes then to confess one only the power thereof was unlimited and morall Phylosophy which is not greatly more enlightned then naturall Phylophy findes such opposition between good and evill as shee would rather think to draw light out of darkness and beauty out of deformity then Vertue out of Vice but Religion which adores in God Almighty a Power which hath no bounds and an unclouded Providence confesseth also that the one may have framed the World out of nothing and that the other may have extracted Grace out of sin in effect the work of our Redemption is the sequell of ou◠loss And if Adams sin be not the cause it is at least the occasion of our salvation the same sin which hath drawn reproches from forth our mouth hath return'd prayses for it And the Church calleth that sin fortunate which hath merited so excellent a Redeemer Concupiscence being the daughter of sin we must not wonder if divine Providence hath made it serviceable to her designes and if she employ her Enemy to execute her will for though this guilty habit be past as it were into nature and that it makes sin so hard to be overcome yet did God leave it in the souls of his faithfull Ones to exercise their vertue to allay their Pride and to make them have their Remembrance of their misfortune always before them During the happy estate of their Innocencie Vertue was so naturall to man as it met with no Resistance Man took delight in doing what was good and the greatness of Merit was not measured by the difficulty of the work his passions were obedient to reason his senses were faithfull to his soule and his body had no other motions then those of the soule the practise of Piety was not as yet become a Combate Continencie and Fortitude were not enforced to give battaile to bear away the victory and these two Noble Habits were given man rather for his ornament then for his defence so we must confess that if he had more quiet then we hee had less glory and that if he tasted more delight he could not hope for so great reward for all our life is spent in Exercise and fighting all our vertues are austeer they are always environed with Enemies they cannot go out of their ordinary tracks without falling into a Precepice and they are Reduced to the Necessity of Continuall fighting unlesse they will be defeated but of all the Enemies that sets upon them they are most vext with Concupiscence and yet win most glory thereby for she is so opinionated as 〈◊〉 cannot be overcome Grace which triumphs over all our Evill complains of being resisted by this although it lose it's vigour it loseth not it's courage and though the Saints do still weaken it yet they cannot stifle it they must dye to defeat it and it must cost them their life to get the full victory yet is this the field wherein they purchase all their Bayes t is the matter of their fights and Triumphs and their vertues would languish in Idleness did not this domestick Enemy keep them in breath To say truth they run much danger but gain much Glory the same subject which causeth their Pain heighthens their courage and increaseth their merit If Concupiscence be of use to vertue she is no lesse fatall to sin for though she be her Daughter she is likewise oft her Murtherer and of all the remedies which Grace hath ordained to cure us of Pride there is none more safe then that of this disorder We are naturally Proud and Miserable and it is hard to say whether Pride or misery makes the greater
Impression in our souls Pride is so well engraven therein as we in our sad Condition continue the coveting after all those greatnesses which we did possess whilest innocent We perswade our selves that we are Princes because our Father was so We will have Nature to obey us because she bore respect to his will and we think that all honours are due to us because he enjoyed them in the Earthly Paradice Death which is the reward of sin cannot be the cure thereof the Creatures revolt cannot perswade us that we have lost the Empire of the world and the sicknesses which do alter our Tempers cannot teach us that the Elements are our enemies but Concupiscence teacheth us humility this insolent Mistris teacheth us obedience and her frequent rebellions makes us know that we are no longer Masters of our selves by two contrary Motions she inspires us with Pride and teacheth us modesty she fils us with courage and makes us know our weaknesse she incites us against Heaven and obligeth us to implore the assistance thereof In fine she wounds and cures us at the same time and like to those prepared poysons whereof Medicines are made she is the antidote of al our evils For who is so proud a Prince as doth not humble himself when hee sees he is less absolute in his person then his state that his Passions are more rebellious then his subjects that there goes more to tame them then to reduce Rebels to obedience and that though reason super-intend in his soul she hath irrationall subjects who despise her Authority Saint Augustine confesseth that this Punishment is as shamefull as cruell and of as many Irregularities as sin hath produced in men hee findes none more infamous then Concupiscence She makes us also see the unfortunate state of our condemnaâ—n and even in the State of Grace she presents unto us the Condition of sin for we are divided between Adam and Jesus Christ we belong to two Masters we are the Members of two opposite Commanders and we the Children of two Fathers that war one against the other Wee holâ— still with Adam according to the flesh wee follow his Inclinations and in Christian Religion we forbeare not to obâ—y his will his sin hath made such an Impression in our soul as we continue to bear about with us all the marks of his Rebellion and unlesse we contend against our senses we find by experience that our desires are the Pictures of his All our sins are so many undertakings against the Authority of God we will be Independent in our Government we will tast delights unmingled with bitternesse and have knowledge â—exempt from errour we still seek after the effects of those abusive promises which the wicked Fiend made unto us and pretend in the depth of our Miseries to arrive at the height of greatnesse from whence we are faln thus doth Adams sin triumph yet in our souls and this Father which is dead so many ages ago lives yet in his Children T is true that according to the spirit we belong to the only Son of God his Grace is shed abroad throughout our hearts we work by his Motions if we be inanimated by his spirit and we desire to kill Adam that Jesus Christ may live in his place but this is but a languishing life we are but imperfect works Grace meets always with contradictions in her designs and the soul being engaged in the bodies rebellion hath very much ado to submit her self to the Spirit of God We wait for the day of resurrection to the end that Jesus Christ may be the Father both of our body and soul and that the two parts whereof we are Composed may submit themselves to his will We wish that death may bereave us of all that Adam gave us and to the end that Jesus Christ may reign absolutely in our Soul we desire that our soul may be loosened from the sinfull body which she inanimates from thence derive the opposite motions which divide the greatest Saints from thence arise those contrary desires which divide their wils from thence finally proceeds those differing inclinations which do so diversly agitate them and which teach them that though they be Subjects to the Empire of Grace they are not notwithstanding freed from the Tyranny of sin t is true that they Comfort themselves amidst their misfortune When they consider that they are not made guilty by the motions of Concupiscence save when they are voluntary and that Baptisme which hath left them languishing hath not left them Criminall for our revolts are not always sins if our will approve not of them they are rather Subjects of Glory then Confusion The disorders of our Passions become not offences save when they draw along our consent as long as the soul opposeth the disorders of the senses she is innocent and as long as she surpasseth Sorrow and Anger if she do not triumph she is at least victorious He who looks Pale and sigheth is not always overborn with Feare or Sorrow he whose colour riseth when he is offended is not always overcome by choller These Passions must be voluntary to be Criminall and to be really tearmed sins they must pass from the body to the soul he who trembleth is not affraid if he will not Commit some base act he who weeps is not sad if he will wipe away his tears he who finds Anger to arise in him is not irritated if he endeavour to quench his flames and amidst all these Passions a man may boast that he is void of fear Grief and Anger if his will goe not along with their motions by all this discourse a man may easily gather that Concupiscence may be made good use of by the Faithfull and that if of her own Inclination she be the root of all vice when conducted by Grace she may become the seed of all vertues The tenth Discourse That Gods Iustice hath permitted that Man should be divided within himself for the punishment of his sin THe Phylosopher Seneca being desirous to make it known that Destiny hath no share in the Worlds Government and that whatsoever accidents befall us in the Course of our life are guided by a Sovereign Providence vaunted that he had undertaken a work which was not difficult since hee therein pleaded Gods cause and that he had the honour to defend it Me thinks I may begin this Discourse in his words and boast together with him that the businesse I undertake is not very hard since I plead in the behalfe of the Justice of God and that I go about to free it from the out-rages which it receives from so many foul mouthes which accuse Gods Justice for leaving so many wicked men unpunished I very well know that the unfortunate Innocent have complained of these and that without dis-regard to the respect which is due to the Justice of God they have often desired that God would be more speedy in his Punishments
rather from Infirmity then malice if her subjects forget their duty they are never the first Authors of disorder the tongues diligence in expressing her thoughts exceedeth belief the eyes makes prodigious hast to bring her news and the ears as lazie as they are are wonderfully faithfull in informing her of what they understand the hands invent a thousand means to content her the five branches whereof they are Composed are the mothers of all Arts and they are so affectionate to their Sovereign as she hath no sooner design'd any thing but these industrious officers do forth-with faithfully execute it Nature would be jealous of their labours did she not know that their Power is boūded and that for all they can do to imitate her they can neither give life nor motion to their workmanship in fine the soul which governs them so dexterously and which seems to foregoe all the other parts of the body to inanimate them loseth half her Power when she hath no hands and this high and mighty Sovereign seems to execute her greatest designs by the means of these faithfull confederates As she is absolute in her servitude she is immortall in her grave and all the atteints which sicknesse gives her cannot trouble her rest if she apprehend Pain t is because the body that she inanimates resents it if she fear death t is because it destroys her Mansion and if she seem to be moved or affraid t is because she loves the slave that would foregoe her the knowledge she hath of her own Immortality makes her rest quiet she takes delight in entertaining her self with thought of the life which must succeed this life she sees far into ages that are to come she ordains things which must not be accomplished till after her departure she is very jealous of her honour and knowing very well that death which will destroy her body shall not ruine her she endeavours to do Actions for which she shall suffer no reproach in the other world her cares which extend themselves beyond the precincts of time are proofs of her Immortality and the Paision she hath for Glory witnesseth that she is not ignorant of the happinesse which is prepared for her in Heaven when the moment wherein she is to make her entrance thereinto approacheth and that she is ready to be divorced from her body she operates with a new strength she sees things with more light all her words are Oracles it seems that freeing her self from Materia she becomes a pure spirit and that having no further Commerce with men she treats invisibly with Angels her last endevours are usually the greatest she gathers strength out of her bodies weaknesse and death destroys her Prison only to set her at liberty she beginsto tast the sweet of Heaven and she looks upon parting from the earth as upon the end of her servitude I should be too tedious if I would perticularize in all the souls advantages the rest of this discourse must be imployed in shewing what out rages she receiveth from sin for as soon as she took up her lodging she became slave to the body she lost her Power when she lost her Innocence when she ceased to obey she ceased to command and as if obedience had been the foundation of all her greatnesse rebellion was the cause of her miseries of all the cognizances whichwere together with Grace infused into her none remain'd in her but doubts and jealousies which makes her as oft embrace fals-hood as truth though she know God she adores the workmanship of his hands her enlightnings detein her not from engaging her self in errour and the great Inclination which she hath for the Summum Bonum doth not estrange her from the love of perishable things she is the Image of God and ceaseth to resemble him she expresseth his greatnesse and doth no longer imitate his vertues she conserves the Trinity of her power in the unity of her essence yet cannot conceive one God in three Persons she makes and Idol unto her self of every Creature all that pleaseth her seem Gods unto her her Interest is the soul of her Religion her love ariseth from fear she adores whatsoever she fears and unlesse the God which she serveth had thunders wherewithall to punish her she would have no victimes to load his Altars withall Her Punishment is the Picture of her offence she meets with rebellion in her slave the conspiracy of all the parts of her body is generall her senses do seduce her Her Passions do torment her her Imagination troubles her and her subjects do despise her she sees her self obliged to encourage their disorders to give life to Rebels which justle her Authority to nourish up monsters which rend her in peices and to arme souldiers which plunder her estate but nothing ads more unto her Pain then the love which she bears her enemy for though he prosecute her she cannot resolve to hate him dares not make War against him without assistance from heaven this Traitor is so full of cunning as he makes himself be beloved by her whom he abuseth she is sensible of all the evils that he endures and as if her pain arose from her love she never ceased to suffer since she began to love him she apprehends her slaves miseries more then her own she fears death more then sin she is more affraid of ruine then of falshood and as if this inclination had changed her Nature she desires no other good nor dreads no other evill then what is sensible Musick charms her discontents Pictures serve her for a diversion she is pleased with smels and the greatest part of her delights consists in what contents her senses by a sequell as shamefull as necessary she is burnt by Feavers pained by the Gout weakened by sicknesse and whatsoever hurteth her body abaseth her courage After the Injuries which she hath received from this domestick enemy It is hard to judge which of the two hath juster cause of complaint for each of them seem to be equally guilty and that the one and the other of them are the mutuall cause of their displeafures In Adam sin arose from the soul but in his Children it draws it's birth from the flesh and in the most part of their errours t is the senses which seduce them Pleasures which corrupt them sorrows which keep them love and passions which tyrannize over them Thus our misfortunes drive equally from these two and if the soul made our first father guilty It is the body which makes his Children unfortunate yet must we avow that the soul is the greater Delinquent in us as well as in him for if she have no freedom to defend her self against Originall sin and if necessity may excuse a misfortune which is not voluntary she is more guilty then the body because she commits so many faults with delight stays not for being solicitated by the senses and that by a blind Impetuosity
to believe that she was yet spirituall This violent though irregular love was occasionally the cause of good and served the soul to free her from the body for Divine Justice which oft times makes us find our Punishment in our faults condemned the soul to forego the body as soon as she began to love it in excesse the same sin which did unite them did by death divide them their Chains grew weaker as their affection strengthened and when the soul had most passions to retein her body she was forced to forsake it for when Originall righteousnesse was retreated the Elements began to mutiny Naturall heat usurped upon the radicall moisture and all these contraries which lived in Peace declared open War Nature was enforced to call in industry to her succour and tooke advice with Physick to appease all her domestick divisions but she knew by experience that losing grace she had lost all remedies and that death was an incurable evill Thus did mans life become a long sicknesse in the which he was for some years preserved by food which could not notwithstanding keepe him from dying his soul was fain to employ her care to defend her self from death and she who by an irregular love was become Corporall by a just punishment became mortall for though the soul be immortall in her substance and that she continues this advantage even in her very sin yet is she punisht in her bodies death she is so well pleased with her Prison as she loves the lothsomness thereof and she is so accustomed to serve as she abhors the very name of Liberty she trembles when one speaks to her of death she makes her fear appear upon the body which she in-animates she weeps through the eyes thereof looks pale in it's visage sighs by it's mouth and in this mutuall suspiration a man cannot tell whether it be the souâ— that is afflicted or the body that complaineth The evill hath it's beginning in the body but passeth into the soul it is the body that perisheth but t is the soul that suffereth the body which is corrupt but the soul which despairs in fine it is upon the body that death exerciseth his cruelty but it is the soul that is pierced through with sorrow This is the bodies death the souls punishment and two guilty parties are punished with one and the same scourge But this bodily death is the effect of a spirituall death which is peculiar to the soul and which though it be invisible ceaseth not to be veritable this death is nothing else but the privation of Originall righteousnesse which commits more outrages upon the soul then natural death doth upon the body for man by losing grace lost all the advantages whereof Grace was the cause he ceased to be upon good Terms with God and began to be upon bad with himself all his Inclinations were changed all his enlightenings darkened and all his faculties out of order he could not conceive how being still himself in appearance he was no longer effectually so and that the fault which had drawn down Gods just anger upon his head had bereft him of all those glorious Qualities which he possessed with Innocency he sought himself out and could not find himself he was ashamed of his bodies nakedness and affraid of his souls misery he could not indure himself when he yet loved himself better by a strange miracle self caused hatred and the same sin which made him proud loaded him with confusion He was sensible of all evils at once and passed in a moment from supreame happinesse to extreame misery we are not sensible of sin because it is born with us we are not touched with the disorders thereof because it fore-runs our reasons Nature and sin are mutually confused in us and nothing doth so much comfort us in our misfortunes as that we have been always unfortunate If we have recourse to Grace in Baptisme t is of so nice a Nature as it is undiscernable and as we continue to find illusions in our senses and revolts in our Passions we have much ado to believe that Grace should reign there where sin doth yet live when by a voluntary offence we lose it we were hardly sorry for the losse of a thing the Possession whereof we are hardly sensible of we must become convinced by reasons before we be perswaded to believe that we are unfortunate preserving in our offence whatsoever we value most in our Innocence we cannot believe that we are faulty for a Phylosopher becomes not ignorant though he lose Grace a Prince though faâ—ulty descends not from his Throne the avaricious rich man augments his Revenue by continuing his usury a proud man loseth not his greatnesse though he lose humility nor doth a fair woman lose her beauty though she stain her honour Our sins bereave us not of our advantages and finding no change neither in fortune nor body we cannot believe that any such hath befaln us in our soul if the same sin whereby we lost Grace had taken from us our health we should strive more to preserve our Innocence and did Crimes cause the same disorder in our conditions as it doth in our souls we should oft times set Phylosophers ignorant Kings without subjects rich men ruined proud men abased and fair women become ill-fauoured but all the losse being spirituall it is insensible and because it leaves us whatever is most precious to us we doubt whether it be true or no. The Pledges of Heaven which Grace giveth unto us the quality of the Children ofâ— God which she obteins for us the dignity of the Temples of the Holy Ghost which she procures us and the honours of being the Members of Jesus Christ which she acquires in our behalf are the advantages which we possesse without being sensible thereof and which we lose without sorrowing Faith is requisite to the knowledge of our souls health and of our losse and unlesse we carefully enquire into our conscience hardly can we know whether we be guilty or innocent but Adam had all miseries poured down at once upon him his losse was not by degrees as ours is it was great at the first and if any advantages remain'd to him after his losse of favour he needed new Grace to make good use thereof he was sadly sensible of the privation because it was generall he was so much the more unfortunate for that his misery succeeded a height of happiness and he had so much the less reason of Comfort for that the fault which bereft him of righteousnes took therewithall from him all that he was thereby indow'd withall his soul found no longer any submission in her body no more faithfullnesse in her senses nor obedience in her Passions she was forced to encourage all their disorders and to give life to Rebels or such as were guilty she felt her self distracted by her own Inclinations and not comprehend how being but one in her Essence she
Prophet who fore-sees things to come forsakes the laws of wisedome He is transported when he pronounceth Oracles and he ceaseth to speak like a man when he serves God for an Interpreter Revelation enlightens the understanding but in discovering the truth unto it it upbraids it with Ignorance it is more passive then active and the heavens which will humble it in the raising of it up have oft times chosen the time of sleep to acquaint it with their will for whilst the senses are lull'd a sleep that the imagination is drowsie or irregular that the understanding is at rest God is pleased to discover unto it his mysteries to the end that it may know that this enlightening is extraordinary and that it wax not proud of an advantage which it only receives then when it cannot beg it Repentance and Sacrifice which are the two chief means whereby to obtein pardon for our offences are strong proofs of our misery for they are both of them injurious to us the one upbraideth us with our Crime the other with our Inconstancy the one teacheth us that we are faulty the other assures us that we are fickle the victime suffers the death which we deserve and with it's bloud washeth the earth which our sins have sullyed we learn by it's dying voice that having not sufficient merit to satisfie Gods justice we are bound to offer up unto him borrowed sacrifices and to seeke for that from without us which we cannot find in our selves Repentance is our shame as well as our remedy for in this sort of sacrifice our souls health is only grounded upon our inconstancy unlesse we can change we cannot repent if we had the constancy of Angels we should have the opiniatrecy of Devils and were we more stable in what is good we should be more obstinate in what is evill Divine mercy husbâ—ndeth our defaults to convert us but at the same time thaâ— it doth us a favour it reproacheth us and teacheth us that the woâ—k of our Salvation is an effect of our weaknesse and its goodness let no maâ— then hereafter boast himself of his advantages after so publick a proofe of his misery let him acknowledge that he is totally corrupted by sin that God hath found nothing in him whereby fitter to save him then his Inconstancy and that he was pleased the vertue which should expiate his sins shold be grouÌ„ded upon his levity Though all these reasons do sufficiently manifest the corruption of humane understanding the greatest of our mysteries is notwithstanding the strongest prooofe thereof and the Incarnation of our Saviour CHRIST doth most evidently testifie it for that proud understanding which pretended to be as knowing as God hath not been able since his fall to form a true Idea thereof it hath made Gods of all Creatures it hath offered Incense to the workmanship of it's own hands and built Temples to it's Ancestors or to it's Kings after having taken them from their Graves It hath suffered it self to be so guided by sense as it hath bin able to conceive nothing but sensible Gods and whatsoever had not a bodily shape seemed to it unworthy of adoration This belief was so universall as the Jews could not fence themselves from it all the miracles of Egypt and of the Desert could not free them from superstition and after having seen as many prodigies as they had received favours they became Idolaters God lived with the Jews as a Sovereign doth with his subjects and gave oft times sensible proofs of his presence He divided the sea to set them at liberty he clove rocks to quench their thirst made Manna fall in the deserts to appease their hunger uttered his oracles by the Mouth of his Prophets to instruct them made the Elements fight to defend them ordered their Troops and gave the word to their Commanders to encourage them to combat yet did this people despise his greatnesse so many Miracles could not turn them from Idolatry After having obteined so many victories and triumphs from heaven they sought for Gods on earth and believing more in their senses then in their judgments they adored men whom they saw die unlesse the Devil which tempted man in Paradise had corrupted his understanding so monstrous a errour could not have had so many partakers and had not blindnesse been the punishment of our sin so fearfull a disorder could not have so long reigned in the world but if the Malady was strange was not the remedy very extraordinary for to disabuse humane understanding the Sonne of God must accomodate himselfto the weaknesse thereof to restore unto him the knowledge of God which he had lost Christ must take upon him a body and suffer his bright Sun-shine to be shadowed that he may become visible God became man to win men he abased his greatnesse to mâ—ke it be known he darkned his own light to lighten us and un-rob'd himself of his power to purchase love In fine by an excesse of mercy he changed mans fault into Piety turned superstition into Religion and cloathing himself with Mortall Nature he suffered him to adore a man and to performe his most just duty by satisfying his most unjust desire It was by this means that God did draw us out of errour he hath freed us by fitting himself to our Ignorance he hath made us spirituall by making himself sensible and to say all in a word by making himself man he hath made us Gods but if this mysterie declare unto us the goodnesse of God doth it not discover unto us the misery of man and if it make us admire the Inventions of his Providence doth it not make us blame the blindnesse of our understanding which never knew God so well as when he became Mortall and which never conceived the true Religion so well as when Religion put on the appearance of superstition The fourth Discourse That there is no Errour into which humane understanding hath not plunged it self since the State of sin PHylosophers have made an Idoll of humane understanding they have given it prayses in their Writings which appertein only to God not considering that it is a slave to the body and that it cannot work but by the Organes thereof they have endeavoured to make it have no dependancy upon fortune to raise it above Nature they fancied to themselves that humane understanding had an infused knowledge and that it did so readily conceive all things as it might easily be discern'd it did not learne them but recall them into memory They feign'd that it had the seeds of all vertues and that by being carefull in the improoving of them t was easie to make it perfectly vertuous they perswaded themselves that it had light enough to distinguish between Truth and Falshood that it was naturally pious and that Religion was engraven in the ground-work of it's essence but certainly we must have lost the remainder of our understanding if we observe
must be set free from the servitude of sin by the Grace of Iesus Christ. THe Passion which all men have for the preservation of their Liberty is no weak proof of the Excellency thereof there be but few who do not prefer it before life and do not rather love an honourable death then a shamefull servitude all revolts have had no other pretexts and Conquerors have only been odious because they have intrencht upon the Publique Liberty we suspect their Vertues because they bear with them some shadow of Tyranny and men have hardly believed that they were very just who would Command over free people yet man hath no advantage which he oftner loseth then his Liberty he becomes a slave without a Master and finds servitude as well in a Republique as in a Monarchy he hath not the use of this perfection till a long time after he be be born he lives when he is not at liberty and he who ought to command the whole world begins his life in slavery Nature gives him Kings in his Parents and if death take them away the laws appoint him Tutors which supply the place of Masters in his minority he is a slave and wanting wisedome to govern himself he is not suffered to dispose of himself the better part of his life is spent in servitude and unlesse he have permission from the Prince he must be 25 years old before he can dispose of his goods When this age puts him in possession of his principall advantage enemies arise who clap Irons upon him for the passions are Imperious Mistresses who intrench upon our Liberty and which making use either of fair or foul means makes man do a thousand things unworthy of his condition he sometimes breaks his Chains but forgeth new ones himself and he thinks he is free because he is the Author of his own servitude If he calm his passions and amidst their quiet recover his Liberty he cannot defend himself from a pleasing Enemy which deprives him of the use thereof for sleep which preserves our life bereaves us of our Liberty his poppies which sweeten our vexations and inchant our sorrows take from us the disposall of our will We are not at Liberty when we sleep and as the good actions which we do in that estate cannot expect recompence so neither ought our bad ones to fear punishment Thus Liberty is a Treasure which we are oft robbed of t is a Good which we are not always Masters of and if rest be reasons Grave t is also Liberties Sepulchre t is true that it restores us what it had taken from us and the same awaking which delivers us from death frees us from servitude but we make tryall of a Tyrant who treateth us much more rigorously then doth sleep for when sin hath possest it self of our Liberty it never makes restitution Our slavery ends not with our lives we are born dye slaves thereunto There is nothing but the Grace of Jesus Christ which can free us from the Tyranny thereof It enters into our soulby our body and gives us death wheÌ„ our Parents give us life and penetrating even into our will sets there the Characters of its usurpation and of our servitude Reason is too weak a succour to defend us against so powerfuâ—l an Enemy and Prophane Phylosophy is not a sufficient remedy to cure us of so dangerousa Malady Wee cannot drive away sin but by help from Heaven nor can we recover perfect Liberty but by the servitude of Jesus Christ we may well shun one fault by another but hardly can we do anything which is solidly vertuous without our Saviours assistance we defend our selves from intemperance only through vain glory if we be chast t is because we are proud but in the one and the other of these Actions we are slaves to sin To understand this truth which is Saint Austins very Doctrine we must know that in our belief Piety was never parted from Morality and that to be vertuous a man must always have been Faithfull The will was created together with grace they both contributed unto merit and when they were once divided sin seized upon the will and man operates by this mischeivous principle all his actions began to be criminall proposing no other end but himself unto himself he strayed from the latter from grace and looking upon the creature forbore looking upon the Creatout Let reason infuse what light it pleaseth into his understanding she cannot redresse it for she her self is blinde and as the will cannot love the Summum Bonum the understanding hath much ado to know supremam veritatem they each of them have received a mortall wound which cannot be cured unlesse by a Physician who was never sick the remedy must derive from Heaven and the same hand which had united grace and nature together in the first man must reconcile them in his off-spring and restore unto their will the Liberty which she had lost Till this deliverance come man is still a slave to sin wheresoever he goeth he carryeth his Tyrant a long with him and let him do what good action he pleaseth t is hard for him not to have therein some bad Intention To enlighten this imagination a little more we must remember that Gods design was not to make man meerly a rationall Creature he would have originall righteousnes to be his principall advantage this Divine quality joyned the soul to the body by cords as holy as pleasing she did accord so well with Nature as if she pertook not of her Essence she pertook of her perfection whatsoever proceeded from this principle was holy and whatsoever man did by the motion of grace deserved an everlasting recompence But when sin had banished Originall righteousnes and that man became a slave to his concupiscence he began to work by the motions thereof he suffered himself to be led away by her blinde impetuosity did cowardly obey her unjust Ordinances and till he be freed from this tyrant which possesseth him he undertakes almost nothing but by her Orders Thus the most part of his good works are sins and his actions proceeding from a bad principle must needs be faulty this misfortune is the spring head of all our mischief this disorder is the originall of all our servitude as long as we are slaves to sin we cannot recover our intire liberty and till the son of God doth infranchize us our inclinations are strong to evil But as the Nature of any thing is not better discovered then by the opposing unto it its contrary to know the wils servitude we must compare it with her first liberty and by the difference of originall righteousnesse and Christian grace Judge of the divers conditions of man in innocencie and in sin Man whilest innocent had the use of liberty but because the end that was proposed unto him was supernaturall he stood in need of Grace to elevate his will
strange opinions in men for if they be Just they ought not to desire that their friends contentment should be disquieted by their misfortunes they are unworthy of their Compassion if they too eagerly desire it they deserve not to be bemoned if they exact tears they are Tyrants and Hang-men if they will have their friends to be their Martyrs and that for having partaken in their Prosperity they should do the like in their Adversity notwithstanding 't is true that Friendship never appears but in Affliction 'T is misfortune that tries Friends their friendship is approved of when Fortune frowns we must be Miserable to know that we are beloved we cannot get this assurance without the Losse of our Felicity and as long as Fortune favours us we dare not build upon our friends Fidelities Heaven therefore is the true harbour of Friendship 't is there that our Love divides it self without fear of Jealousie and waxeth not weak 't is there that we shall have so many Friends as God makes blessed Saintes 't is there that without trying them by our Misfortunes we shall be assured of their good-wills 't is there that reading their Hearts and seeing their Thoughtes we shall no longer run the hazard of being abused by Words 't is there that without fear of adding to our mis-fortunes by the increase of our Friends we shall enjoy all good and fear no evil 't is there that living for ever together we shall no longer fear to be separated by Death or absence Finally 't is there that being perfectly united to God we shall see our selves in his Light and love our selves in his Goodnesse The ninth Discourse That the Uncertainty and Obscurity of Knowledge is derived from sin IT must be confest that man is very unfortunate in becoming guilty since his perfections and his defects are almost equally fatall to him His vertues are false and his vices true his most glorious actions do oft-times derive from so bad an originall as they are not to be praised without injuring in some sort both grace and reason His ignorance doth not always excuse his sin and his knowledge doth not always enhance his vertue The more he is knowing the more guilty is he as Saint Paul saith He withholds the truth in unrighteousnesse and his light is intermixt with so much darknesse that it may lead him out of the way and cannot conduct him This is notwithstanding mans most violent passion desire of knowledge is born with him and if it makes not his difference it is one of his chiefest Proprieties For Beasts are wrought on by ambition they fight for glory and as if that were the onely reward of their victory they pardon their enemies after they have beaten them they are tormented with love and jealousie Lions can endure no rivalls and if they want rewards to honour fidelity they want not chastisements to punish Adultery Desire of life is not much lesse violent in beasts than in men the same instinct which animates Tigres to seek out prey for their nourishment makes Stags hide themselves in woods for their preservation Nature teacheth them remedies for their evils and this common mother furnisheth them with herbes to cure them the apprehension of death encourageth the most timerous when they are bereft of all hope of safety they turn their fear to fury and to shun danger throw themselves head-long into it But the desire of knowledge is peculiar to man and there is no cruelty which he useth not to content his curiosity He rips open the bowels of the earth to know the secrets thereof he melts metals to discover their essences he descends to the bottome of the Sea to learn the wonders thereof he turns the world upside down to know it under pretence of succouring those that live he dissects those that are dead and seeks out the causes of their maladies that he may finde out remedies for them This passion is much augmented by the esteem which it hath won in the world for nothing is more honoured than knowledge the Devil gave it credit in the earthly Paradise by the praises which he gave it made our first Parents long after it their children imitated them in their errour consecrated their watchings to the atchieving of so rich a fleece Greatest honours have been conferr'd upon the most knowing men and if those which have freed their Countrey from the Insolence of Tyrants have past for Heroes those who have found out Arts who have defended men either from ignorance or from necessity have had Temples and Altars erected to them in so much as the Devill kept his word which his gave our first Parents when to seduce them he would perswade them their knowledge would make them Gods and his promise though false hath been in some sort accomplisht by peoples simplicity who have adored knowing men For it must be confest that the monuments of our mindes are more durable than those of our hands and that Sciences have much better fenced themselves against the injuries of time than the stateliest Edifices of Antiquity Aristotles Philosophy hath had her admirers in all Ages this gallant man had more Disciples since his death than during his life and there have been greater disputes had to maintain his Doctrine than the most famous Conquerour hath given Battels to enlarge his Territories Homers Verses are still read with respect men admire his invention reverence his defects and labour almost as much to understand his Conceipts as to understand Oracles some men passe whole nights in perusing his works who glory to be a dead mans Interpreter who enrich themselves at the cost of a poor man and boast themselves of enlightning all mens understandings by explicating the words of a blind man since his time all Empires have been dissipated Rome hath seen her self twice or thrice buried under her own ruines her Republique hath been turn'd to a Monarchy and her Monarchy hath divided it selfe into as many parts as there are Kingdomes in the world Men know not where the capitall Cities of Media and Persia were situated it is disputed in what parts of the World Thebes and Memphis were built their high walls large circuits and number of Inhabitants have not been able to preserve the memory thereof these works of great Kings have not been able to defend themselves against Time and these miracles of Art have either been ruin'd by the Sword or devoured by fire but Homers works live yet Troy was never so beautifull in Asia as in his Verses if he could not keep it from being burnt he hath kept it from being forgotten The Grecian Achilles and Hector of Troy never won so much renown by their valour as by his praises This onely example makes it evident that Knowledge hath the upper-hand of Courage and that the labours of the brain are more durable than the Conquests of Kings yet hath knowledge her defaults since the state of sin
what she hath received by the eare and as she is rich onely by means of the senses so is she by them onely liberall She observes the different qualities of objects by the eyes she judgeth of the diversity of sounds by the eares she comprehends mens intentions by their discourse she makes hers known by the tongue and this miraculous part of the body frames words which draw her thoughts unto the life If those who are absent cannot understand her she hath recourse to the hand which draws her dictates upon paper and which makes that appear to the eyes which the tongue could not make the eares comprehend Thus the soule acts onely by the body and all Sciences by which we are either instructed or perswaded are as well the work of the senses as of the soule Vertue it selfe owes her birth to the meanest part of man and were he not made of flesh and bloud he could offer no sacrifice to God neither could he satisfie divine Justice by his repentance The purity which equals him with Angls is not wholly spirituall if be borne in heaven 't is bred upon earth and if it begin in the soul it ends in the body Fasting and silence keep the flesh under to purifie the soule and if man had not a tongue and mouth he could neither praise God in silence nor honour him by self-affliction Martyrdom which is the utmost of charity and the highest degree of perfection is consummated onely in the flesh meer spirits cannot be a prey to wilde beasts and a soule which hath put off her body cannot overcome Tyrants nor triumph over Executioners Mortallity is requisite to Martyrdom and if the Angels be somwhat more than we men because they cannot die they are in some sort lesse because they cannot suffer death is the triall of our love and as oft as we lose our lives in Christs quarrell we strike terrour into devils and fill Angels with admiration In fine the honour which God receives on earth proceeds from the body 'T is the body which is his Priest and Victime 't is the body which bears his imprinted characters in it's face 't is the body which commands on earth and which playing the part of Gods Lieutenant findes obedience amongst the Elements and mildnesse amongst savage beasts 'T is the body which fights for the Glory of the Son of God and which defends his Interest to the face of Tyrants and which sings his praises amidst the Flames 'T is the body which being made by his hands and in-livened by his breath hath the honour to be his workmanship and his Temple 'T is the body which is the object of his love and of his care which seeth the Sun surround the world to lighten it fruits bud to nourish it flowers spring up to recreate it and whole nature labours for it's pleasure or service In fine 't is the body which is offered up upon Altars which fights in persecutions which praiseth God in prosperity which blesseth him in afflictions which honours him in death which in the Grave expects his promises which will rise again at the end of the World and which will reign for ever in Heaven The second Discourse Of the miseries of the Body in Generall THe evils which we receive from the body are so great as that al Philosophy is nothing but an invective against this enemy of our repose If we beleeve the Platonists t is a prison wherein the Soul is inclosed to expiate the sins which she hath committed in Heaven If we will listen to the Academicks t is a grave wherein the Soul is buried and where being more dead than alive she cannot make use of all those perfections which she hath received from Nature If we trust the Stoicks t is a disobedient slave which opposeth it self to all the souls desires and which being born to obey hath no so great passion as to command t is a subject which aspires to Tyranny and which forceth its legitimate sovereign to forgo both honour and vertue and to embrace voluptuousnesse If we will give ear to the Peripateticks who come neerest the truth t is the least part of Man which being given him to serve the soul crosseth all her designs and hinders the execution of her noblest enterprises Hence it is that all Philosophers do what in them lieth to have no commerce with the body and wish for death or old age to the end that the one may weaken this Domestick enemy and that the other may free them from it Christian Religion which marcheth in the midst of errours with assurance confesseth that the body is as well the workmanship of God as the soul is and though it be not altogether so noble it ceaseth not to be destined to the same happinesse But as slaves are punisht for their masters and as children sometimes bear the punishment of their fathers sins the body hath been punisht for the soul and from the time it became confederate in her crime it partook in her punishment Though the soul be the more guilty the body is the more unfortunate and of the two parts which go to the composure of man the most innocent seems to be the most miserable For to boote that it is subject to pain by reason of the elements bad intelligence that it undergoes sicknesses whereby the health thereof is prejudiced that it cannot be cured but by troublesome remedies that the fear of death be a punishment which lasts as long as its life it is notwithstanding occasion of the most sins whereof the soul is guilty and this Sovereign thinketh she should be innocent if she were not fastened to so guilty a Party To disintangle all these things we must know that when the soul lost her priviledges the body lost likewise its advantages for the same grace wâ— made the soul pleasing to God made the body subject to the soul the same innocencie which preserved the sovereign from sin warranted the slave from death But when once man became guilty he became unfortunate and when once he lost originall righteousnesse he therewith lost all the dependencies thereupon Errour and blindness slid into the understanding malice glided into the will and by a consequence which Divine Justice made necessary illusion crept into the senses sicknesse altered mans temper pain disquieted his rest and death sho tened his life These punishments are so irksome as each of them deserves a discourse and not to enter upon a subject which I should handle more at large it shall suffice me for the present to make it manifest that though the body be the Souls slave since sin it is become her Tyrant and that it neither tastes of contentment nor suffers sorrow wherein it shares not with her Pain is a sensible evill and were not the Soul ingaged in the body she without the least commotion would behold the most grievous punishments but nature having composed man of these two
man becomes by discourse the contagion of a whole Town Conceptions are spread abroad by words and faults are multiplied by communication if those who are dumb conceive envie they cannot shew it by detraction and if they expresse it by signes 't is either the hands or eyes which makes them guilty our soule is not infected with falshood or heresie save by our most refined sense these two poisons are taken in by the care not by the mouth And as faith and truth enter the soule by hearing their mortall enemies make their passage by the same way a man must stop his eares and shut his eyes if he will keep his heart pure It were to be wisht that men were blinde that so they might not see the beauty which inchants them that women were deafe that they might not hear the praises which seduce them In fine the world abuseth us onely by our senses it 's pernicious Maximes get into our soules by our eares the vanities thereof corrupt our wills by our eyes and all those objects whose different beauties do be witch us make no impression in our soule but by our body We should be invulnerable were we spirituall and of a thousand temptations which we have we should hardly be troubled with one were we not engaged in Materia To compleat our mis-fortune we love our enemy the bad offices he doth us cannot diminish our love All the Maximes of Religion cannot perswade us to revenge and though this motion of the minde be so pleasing to the injured it seems severe unto us when we are invited to punish our body Our passion for this unfaithfull one is not extinguished by death The damned preserves it amidst the flames though they know their pains shall be increased by the resurrection of their body they cannot chuse but desire it In hell hope triumphs over fear and pain and this cruell enemy hath so many charmes as though he be reduced to dust yet doth he cause love in the soule which did inanimate him The remembrance of the injuries which the soule hath received from the body and the fear of pain which she expects from thence is not able to stifle this desire She hopes for the day of Judgement where she must be condemned though she know her punishment will be increased by her re-union with her body she cannot but desire it with impatience and places the delay thereof in the number of her sufferings So as we are bound to conclude that if the body be the cause of sin during life it will be the punishment thereof after death and that if it hath made the soule guilty upon earth 't will make her unhappy in hell The third Discourse Of the Infidelity of the Senses NAture being so intermingled with sin as that the one is the production of God the other the work of man the praises which we give to the former are always mingled with Invectives made against the latter and we cannot value the beauty of nature unlesse we blame the out-rages which she hath received from sin the figure of mans body is an evident signe of his Makers wisdome The Lineaments of his face bindes us to admire the power of the hand which hath formed them and the disposall of the parts thereof draw no lesse praises from our mouthes than the like of the universe But the disorder which we see in mans Temperature the opposition of those Elements which go to his composure and that generall revolt which hath shed it self throughout all his members obligeth us to detest sin which is the cause thereof We must argue in the same sort concerning our senses and confesse that as their use deserves estimation their irregularity deserves blame They are admirable in their structure and were they not common to us with beasts we might be permitted to glory in them The operation of the noblest of them is so subtill as that the soule as divine as she is can hardly comprehend it she admireth these Master-pieces of nature though she have so great a share in their miracles yet knows she not how they are done and thinks strange that she should contribute to wonders which she cannot conceive For the soule inanimates the senses and this spirituall forme is a created Divinity which sees by the eyes heares by the eares and expresseth it selfe by the mouth But if the senses have their perfections they have also their defects and if the soule receive any service by them she is by them likewise much injured They are the gates of falshood and errour vanity slides into our soules by their means they are exposed to illusions the objects wherewith they are pleased corrupt them and being once corrupted by delight they make no true reports unto the soule Nature hath endowed us with them that we might know God by things visible and to raise us up to consider the beauty of the Creatour by the like of his works these deceitfull Guides do notwithstanding abuse us and sollicited either by delight or interest make Idols unto themselves of all the creatures and lead us to adore sensible and perishable Gods Saint Augustine confesseth that he never went astray in his beliefe save when he would follow them and that he never engaged himselfe in errour save when he gave beliefe to their advise he sought out God with his eyes he would have touched him with his hands and thought to have found him in the world whom he carried about with him in his heart He gave commission to all his senses to finde him out but these ignorant messengers could learn him nothing and he found not his God because he knew not how rightly to seek for him Their ignorance would be excusable were it not accompanied with injustice but these evill Counsellours grow insolent in chiding us after they have abused us and make violence succeed superchery they tyrannize over our souls after having seduced them and make the Sovereign take laws from his slaves According to the Government of the Universe Inferiour things are alwas subject to their superiour as the earth is lesse noble than the Heavens it is also lower it receives their influences thereof with respect and all the fruit it beareth raise themselves up towards the stars to witnesse that it's fruitfulnesse derives from their Influences In Civill Government women are subject unto their husbands and slaves obey their Masters in Politique the people hold of their Sovereign and the Kings will is the Subjects laws but in man this order is reverst by an irregularity which can be nothing but the punishment of sin his soule depends upon his body and in her noblest operations she is obliged to be advised by the senses Her condition is so unhappy as she seems almost enforced to believe the ignorant to follow the blinde and to obey Rebels A man would blame a State where fools should command over wise men where children should prescribe laws to the Ancient
to suppresse one Passion by another and to oppose hope to fear choller to remissnesse and sorrow to joy This remedy proved worse than the disease it increased the number of the Rebels whom it would have lessened weakened reasons authority whichit would have established All these different means unprofitably employed are sufficient proofs of our passions Malignity and after all the means used by Philosophy it must be confest that the motions of our Soul are disordered by sin that to make vertues of them their nature must be almost totally altered and that unassisted by Grace they are more dangerous mischiefs than either Pestilence or Famine One of them is sufficient to destroy a whole Province a Monarchs anger is the ruin of a State and that which causeth suites at Law between particular men kindles War between Princes Ambition hath changed the face of the world a hundred times the Deluge hath not made such waste therein as hath the pride and vain glory of Conquerors the marks of their gâ—eatnes are for the most part fatall they build Towns upon the ruines of such as they have beaten down their conquests do oft times begin with violence and injustice vertue hath seldom been the reward of their victory he who hath been most fool-hardy hath oft-times been most fortunate the whole world dreaded Alexanders ambition one only man hath or caused fear in all men The desire of glory made him swim in his Enemies blood this passion was augmented by good successe victory ingaged him in new Battails the more fortunate he was the more was he insolent had not death stopt the course of his conquests he would have made all Nature groan Asia Europe and Affrica would have had but one and the same Tyrant and his Subjects ruine would have been the onely proof of his authority Adams fault never appeared more than in Alexander we should not beleeve that our father aspired to make himself God if this his Son had not imitated him and we should hardly beleeve that man in the state of innocency had any proud desires had not this Prince had insolent thoughts in the state of sin The world seemed too little to his ambition his Vanity thought Usurpation lawfull and he was so blinded with passion as that he thought it no the every to plunder a kingdom or Murther to Defeate an Army By all this discourse t is easie to inferre that the passions are rebels which are partiall in their siding with sin and which are never so much assubjected to the Soul but that they are alwaies ready to obviate her Power and ruine her authority They are like the Praetorian Souldiers who made merry with their Princes heads who made and unmade their Sovereignes onely in reference to their own interest who gave the Empire to those who offered most for it and who made no election which began not with murther for these heady giddy Subjects have no other motion than either their own pleasure or proffit they obey not reason save onely when they like her commands and to reap any profit by them they must be won either by threates or promises they help us onely in hurting us they do rather occasion the exercising our vertue then assist the practice thereof and as if they were of the devils humour they advance our wellfare only in labouring our losse their assistance is almost alwayes pernitious they must be used as the Poets say Aeolus used the windes threates must be used with the orders which we give them They are like those horses in the chariot of the sun in Ovid they must be be roughly dealt withall before they reduced and their Nature must be changed ere their violence be overcome Anger turnes to fury when not moderated desire and hope go astray when not regulated Audacity grows rash when not held in and sorrow turns to despaire when not sweetened so as all passions instruct us that Nature is corrupted by sin and that to assubject them to reason a Man must guide himself by the motions of Grace The fifth Discourse That the health of Man is prejudiced by sicknesse AMongst a thousand differences which distinguish Christian Grace from originall righteousnesse one of the chiefest is that the former sanctifies the Souls onely and the other did sanctifie the whole man and wrought admirable effects in his body For in the profession of Christianity the senses are yet Subject to the Illusions of the Devil objects do yet move the passions and reason is oft surprised by their motions The Sacraments do not warrant us from death and the remedies which Jesus Christ hath left unto his Church do not cure our sicknesses But in the state of innocency originall righteousnes was a plentifull spring-head which dispersed abroad its rivulets into both the parts which go to the composure of man For it brought fidelity to the senses obedience to the passions and peace to the Elements hence it was that man preserving his advantages was exempt from sicknesse and death The seasons not being yet irregular nothing could alter his temper and his humours being uncorrupted nothing could have prejudiced his health But with the losse of his innocency he lost all his priviledges and he was no sooner sinfull but he began to be sick This is so constant a truth as that mans life is nothing but a long sicknesse which never ends but in death he is born in sorrow aswell as in sin his entrance into the world is no lesse painfull then shamefull if this monster like the viper rip up the bowells of his Mother he himself feels a part of the pain which he makes her suffer and he runs as much danger as she who brings him into the world Therefore t is that Saint Austin sayes handsomly that to be born is to begin to suffer and that to live in the body is to begin to be sick The disorder of seasons is sufficient to corrupt the best constitutions and the Alterations which happen in the world make such impressions in the Body as trouble the temper thereof Though Nature be a wise Mother that she prepare us for the Summers heat by the moderate warmth of the spring and that she fits us for the winters cold by the moistnesse of Autumn yet is the body of man so weak as notwithstanding all these precautions she cannot free it from incommodity Physicians themselves observe that every season brings with it its maladie and that ruling over such humours as accord with them they never suffer us to enjoy perfect health The Elements agree not better than do the seasons there is alwayes some one of them which predominates to the prejudice of the rest they commit outrages each upon other and as bloud and choller discharge themselves when over heated flegme and Melancholly do the like when they are corrupted their good intelligence is fatall to man this calm threatens him with a terrible storm and he is never nearer sicknesse
deteined in his body by art The least accidents do sever her from it a vapour doth suffocate her she is choaked with a little flegme and blood which is the seat of life is oft-time the cause of death whithersoever so miserable a creature doth convey himself she receives there new proofs of his weaknesse the change of climates troubles his health a new air incommodiates him cold water hurts his stomake the Sun which lights him scorcheth him and whatsoever is cause of good unto him is cause of Evil. In the State of innocencie grace linkt the Soul to the body death unseconded by sin could not break the chains the elements durst not assail him originall righteousnesse made them observe respect they appeased their differences lest they might trouble mans temper fire agreed with water to preserve his health there was as profound a peace in his person as in his state but since he forewent his duty grace abandoned his body to sin the elements had liberty given them to war one upon another man became the scene of their combates and after once he revolted from God he saw all creatures take up arms against him sorrow death set upon him he was sentenced to live in pain die in sorrow For the sweetest life bears it's punishment with it There is no rose which is not grafted upon a thousand thornes and how handsome soever the chains be which link the soule and body together they are both of them equally exposed to suffering The soule is more capable of sadnesse than of joy though she display her selfe to receive in pleasure yet doth she never taste it purely she weeps amidst her contentments she expresseth her joy by sighs and as if she were not accustomed to great happinesses she seems to suffer when she receives them Though she shut the doore upon sorrow yet suffers she her selfe to be easily siezed on by it though she resist it she cannot withstand it and as if nature had made her more sensible of misery than of happinesse a small displeasure is able to make her forget all her former contentments The body is not more fortunate than the soule for it hath not many parts which can tast delight but it hath not any one which is not capable of pain Pleasures do enter-shock and always leave some of our senses in languishment or need pains agree in their assailing us and though they should not come in a crowd one alone is sufficient to make it selfe be felt by all the parts of the body their straight union makes their mischiefes common and if the head suffer the tongue complains the eyes weep and the heart groanes Thus the happiest life is miserable and that moment passeth not wherein we are not inforced to bewail our innocency to condemn our sin Death comes in to the aid of pain and by an ingenious peece of cruelty agrees with life to augment our miserie For though they appear to be enemies they joyn in our punishment and joyn with Gods Justice to revenge God we live and die daily the change which makes us subsist is deaths taster this cruell one siezeth on us by degrees all the time we have lived is already gotten by him and the years which we hope to make use of are so many titles which he produceth against us As soon as we begin to live we begin to die Death shares with us in all the moments of our life it takes unto it selfe what is past because that is certain and leaves to us only what is to come because that is uncertain So as by a strange mis-fortune the increase of our life is the diminution thereof The farther we grow from our birth the nearer we grow to death our purchases are meer losses m and things are so disposed of since sin as we cannot count our years without either flattering our selves or lying T is perhaps for this reason that the Hebrew that holy language which the blessed shall make use of in heaven imployes but one and the same word to expresse both life and death with the difference of one only point to teach us that death and life are divided onely by that moment which unites them In effect life is nothing but a brittle chaine consisting of three links the past the present and the future the past is no more we retain but a weak remembrance of it all the vows we can make will not fetch it backe it is not void of doubt whether Gods absolute power which finds no resistance amongst his creatures can gather together the present with that which is past and unite these differences of times without destroying their essence The future time is not as yet hope which expects it cannot advance it and wisdom which hath an eye unto it cannot dissipate the obscurity thereof it is lesse at our disposall then the time that is past and for all the vain conjectures which we may flatter our selves withall we know not whether it shall come to us or we shall go to it the present time to say truth is in our power we are masters of it and it is the onely thing which we can say we possesse t is the onely part of our life which we are assured of and who promiseth himself more is either ignorant or impious But this present time is but a moment and this difference of time hath no parts time past time to come comprehend whole ages but the present consists but in an instant so as death and life differ only in a point these two which we judge so contrary are intertained by that moment which doth separate them Though I honour this imagination by reason of the gallantry therof and that respect which I bear to the Hebrew Tongue obliege me to reverence it yet me thinks it doth not sufficiently expresse the miseries of life whose alliance with death is neerer then is thereby represented death subsists only by life and life is only preserved by death they commence end together as soon as a man begins to live he begins to die nature which very well knows that two moments never subsist together Commands death to hurry away the one to leave to life the other that ensues As she doth with moments and houres so doth she with those years whereof the degrees of our life are composed She makes our infancie die to give life to our Boyish age she takes away a childe to substitute a man and robs us of our youth to make old age succeede Thus if we advance in life t is by the favour of death and we enjoy our last years by the losse of the former who will not praise death since it makes us live and who will not blame life since it makes us die who will not confesse that sin is very cruell since it accords these two enemies to our undoing and that for our punishment it hath turned a happy and immortall life into an
he guards their precious relicks in the bosome of the earth the waters cannot corrupt them nor the flames devour them being innocent he will not deal with them as guilty death spares their body after having separated it from their soul they seem to rest in their graves to repose themselves after their labour and to expect with joy that dreadfull day which all the guilty do apprehend Death then is the punishment of our sin it is the workmanship thereof we have procured it unto our selves by our disobedience God hath ordeined it by his justice and Jesus Christ who draws good out of our evil hath made a sacrifice of it for our salvation The ninth Discourse What advantages we may draw from death by the means of Grace THough death be the first production of sin and that the malice and deformed lothsomnesse of the Father appear in Sons visage some Philosophers have gone about to make apologies for death and after having made use of their reason in the defence thereof they have imployed their cunning in praising it Being ignorant of the first mans fault they would have death to be a law and not a punishment they have excused his rigour by his necessity and have gone about to perswade us that he was pleasing because necessary All things in nature perish this mother hath brought forth nothing which she hath not sentenced to die nothing is immortall and few things durable fountains grow dry and their spring-heads are either lost orstrayed out of the channel the mountaines give way to the violence of floods the sea advances and wins upon the earth whole isles have sunke into the earth we see lakes now where our Ancestours have seen Towns and husbandmen plough up fields where Pilots have steerd their ships The Change which preserves Nature is a kinde of death nature subsists onely by alteration were it not for change she would utterly perish kingdomes which apprehend nothing like vicissitude cannot shun it as oft as they lose their Princes they hazard the losse of their liberty they grow jealous of all their neighbours and ambition is so perfidious as their allyes may become their enemies all those great Colossuses which past for miracles in their age their subsistance depends now only upon paper Time hath made them know that all the workmanship of man is perishable and that frail hands can build nothing which is eternall In fine the world it self is not exempt from death the deluge wherewith it was drown'd and the fire wherewith it shall be consumed teach us that it may perish the Stars which never are at a stay are threatned one day to lose their influences and their light the same hand which hath seated them in the firmament will one day pull them from thence and though Aristotle imagines the heavens to be incorruptible Jesus Christ assures us that they shall perish together with the world Wherefore then do we complain of death since he spares not the Stars and wherefore do we wish that our houses may never have an end since the world cannot escape the fall which threatens it Death is not so cruell as men imagine the fear which we have thereof is rather an effect of opinion then of Nature if we were lesse wise we should be more couragious we augment our evil by thinking too oft of it the weapons wherewith we indeavour to withstand this enemy serve only to make him the more redoubted a Philosopher apprehends him more then doth an ignorant person and all the constancie of the stoicks cannot equall the stupidity of a country clown These silly people are easily comforted they look after no priviledges which their Ancestours have not enjoyed they prepare for death when they see their friends die and having no plots which may fasten them to the world they are not troubled to be interrupted therein by their death All men seem to conspire to be cause of astonishment to themselves and that it fares with them as in the route of an Army where those that ran away cause fear in those that fight Every particular man frames unto himself an Idea of death and he who can make it appear the most hideous passeth for the ablest man Sciences which ought to incourage us do intimidate us and there is not any one who doth not adde somwhat to the image of this Monster to increase his uglinesse and our apprehension Painters represent him as a ghastly skeleton bearing a coffin upon his shoulders and a sithe in his hands to mow down the whole earth Poets whose fictions are more pleasing then those of painters do give him arrowes each of which being shot doth wound a heart physicians decipher him as the enemy of nature and to no end seek for remedies against his wounds Philosophers who boast that they know him that they may withstand him do astonish their disciples by the number of their reasons and perswade them that the Monster which they assail is very terrible since so many preparations are required to overcome him Yet experience teacheth us that he takes upon himselfe pleasing formes to reclaim us that he glides so pleasingly into the heart as those whom he wounds feele him not he set upon Plato sleeping and it was hard to discern sleep from death in this Philosopher one of the Crassuses died laughing and the Romans ceased to fear death seeing it so amiable upon his face Chilon was choked with joy his sons victory was as fatall to him as to the enemies of the State and whil'st men sought for Laurell to crown the Conquerour others sought for Capres to put upon his fathers head Clydemus died not lesse pleasingly since the praises which Greece gave him were the cause of his death and that he lost his life amidst his Triumph He also since the corruption of our nature makes up a part of our selves He is as well an effect of our temper as of a fever and as the agreement of the Elements makes us live their disagreement makes us die We carry the principles of death about us and from once that originall righteousnesse ceased to appease the differences between those parts whereof we are composed we began to die It is not necessary that the world disorder it selfe to bereave us of our lives though the seasons should not be put out of their pace we should not cease to perish And if death be to be feared we must resolve to fear life There are some people who apprehend any thing that happens of disorder in the world and who grow pale as often as they see rivers over-flow their banks as often as they hear thunder or see earth-quakes They think that every clap of thunder comes in pursuit of them and that the sea exceeds not her bounds but to drown them on the earth but the causes of our death are much lesse violent and more naturall For the earth should still stand stable under our feet though the
thunder should never roar over our heads and though the sea should never exceed her bounds the elements which we bear about us would notwithstanding condemne us to death Death is so a punishment as it is also a consequence of our constitution Whatsoever is composed of contrarieties can not subsist without miracle and when the contrary parties do no longer agree their division must be the ruine of what they compose Mans immortality in the state of innocency was not an effect of nature he lost this priviledge as soon as he lost his righteousnesse and experience taught him that nature without grace could not keep him from death He should then be unjust if he should complain of a mis-fortune which is in some sort naturall unto him and he might justly be accused of too much nicety if he should not patiently endure a punishment which he could not escape without a kind of Miracle But I dare adde that death is rather a favour than a punishment and that in the estate whereinto sin hath reduced man it is not so much a mark of justice as of mercy the evils which we undergo considered to live eternally would be eternall misery earth would become hell and the continuance of our torments would make us wish death which is not dreadfull save to those abused soules which think themselves happy The miserable desire it and as death to one who lives contentedly is a punishment so is life to him who lives discontentedly Cain desired to die had not the heavens prolonged his life to punish his parricide he had prevented Lamechs cruelty and after having been his brothers murtherer he would have been his own hangman Poets who cloke truths under fables have not without reason fained nature to have invented death to oblige her children for seeing that their offence had incensed heaven that their life became a misery that fortune intrencht upon their goods calumny upon their innocency and sicknesse upon their health that the fever burnt up their entrails by unsupportable heat that the gout stung their nerves and that they lived not but in fear and sorrow she broke the cords wherewith the soul was fastned to the body and ended their lives to shorten their miseries To leave fables to Infidels is it not a constant truth amongst Christians that life would be an eternall punishment did not death come in to the succour of old age to deliver us from it and that we should pray to go out of the world if we were condemned to live there after we had lost the use of our members by the palsey and were grown blinde and deaf Hell is onely more cruell than earth for that death is banisht thence if the pains of the damned could have an end they should losâ— the greatest part of their rigour and those miserable ones would finde some ease in their sufferings if after many ages they were assured to die nothing makes them despair but that eternity of their punishment and nothing doth so much comfort men as the shortnesse of their tortures Tyrants who unjustly endeavour to imitate God in justice complain that death freed their enemies from their indignation and that by assisting the miserable it hindred their designes for they very well knew that he knows not how to revenge himselfe of his enemy who puts him suddainly to death and that those who will taste the pleasure of revenge never condemne a guilty man to die till he be re-possessed of their favour In fine there are few who owe not thanks to death Those who fear him in prosperity invoke him in adversity those who shun him in opulency seek him out in poverty and those who list not to know his name in health call upon him in sicknesse He is the onely cure of the incurable the assured succour of the afflicted the desire and hope of the miserable and of as many as implore his succour there are none more obliged unto him than those whose miseries and desires he preveneth Though these thoughts may seem uncouth to those who love life they cease not to be approved of by Christianity and to passe for truth amongst the faithfull If death be rigorous because he is the punishment of sin he is pleasing because he is the childe of the Crosse he hath changed nature since he was consecrated in the Person of Jesus Christ he hath forgone those dreadfull names which caused terrour to assume those pleasing ones which bring consolation He is onely asleep which charms our disquiets a passage which leads us unto life a happy shipwrack which throws us into the haven an enemy which takes us out of prison a Tyrant which breaks our chains and a son of sin which furnisheth us with weapons wherewithall to fight with and to overcome his Father In the state of innocency death was a punishment wherewith divine Justice did threaten man in the state of sin it was a chastisement wherewith she did punish the faulty and in the state of grace 't is a sacrifice which she requires at our hands and whereby she is appeased Formerly to astonish man he was told if thou sinnest thou shalt die and now to fortifie him in persecution it is said unto him if thou dost not die thou shalt sin death which was a punishment is become a victime and the sinners chastisement is become the merit of the just The Son of God hath thus instructed us by his example when he would fight with sin he took up no other arms than death he thought the victory would be more honourable wherein he should employ the son against the father and where he should make use of the effect to destroy the cause this is that which the great Apostle teacheth us in these words where he saith that the Son of God hath overcome sin by sin and that in the punishment of our offence he hath found a remedy to cure us Fictitious Hercules vaunts himselfe amongst the Poets to have overcome Monsters by other Monsters to have made himselfe weapons by their spoils and to have ended his last labours by the help of what he had purchased in the former This fable of Hercules is become a truth in Jesus Christ and the Gospell obligeth us to acknowledge that in the death of God which falshood had found out in the life of man For he by dying hath satisfied his Father he hath destroyed sin by it's Son he hath saved the sinner by his punishment Religion bindes us to confesse that death is the rise of our happinesse that it is the Christians vow that without being miserable they rejoyce in being mottall and that they should want somewhat of their glory if since Jesus Christ did lose his life upon the Crosse they were to ascend to Heaven without dying they live with pain they die with pleasure and to describe a true Christian according to Tertullians language we must say that they are a sort of men
who are always ready to die and who placing their happinesse in the resemblance or imitation of Jesus Christ desire to lose their lives a thousand times amidst tortures to repair his charity by their love and to suffer for his glory what he hath undergone for their salvation The tenth Discourse That sleep is a punishment of sin as the image of death and that it bereaves us of reason as dreames do of rest THose who think sleep the most harmlesse part of life wil never be perswaded that it hath drawn some evill qualities from Adams sin for it seems to reduce men to the conditions of Children and that bereaving them of the use of reason it takes from them that unfortunate power which they by their offences abuse The guiltiest actions become innocent during sleep those vapours which do stupifie the senses excuse the sins of those that sleep and as their Vertues are not rewarded neither are their offences punished Murthers are committed without effusion of blood revenge is taken upon enemies without injustice and another mans goods are without violence tane away whilst sleep doth lull the senses The soul is not guilty of the faults which her body commits and though she gives it life and motion she hath not liberty enough to give it the guidance thereof Imagination is the sole faculty which doth in-animate it and this confused faculty not being guided by reason commits evil unpunished and pleads blindnesse for the excuse of it's errour Yet is it certain that in the condition wherein we are sleep is a punishment of sin and had man never sinned he had never proved those disquiets wherewith he is agitated during his rest Nature would have born a respect to her Sovereigns sleep the elements which formed his body would not have troubled his rest and vapours would have been so mild as stupefying all the senses they would have left the soul at liberty In this happy condition man might well have refreshed himself by sleep his eyes would have been closed against the light and his other senses would have dispensed with their ordinary functions But the soul would have retired to within her self and acting according to the manner of Angels she would have known Truth without the interposition of the Organs her rest would rather have bn an extasie then sleep and man might have said that his heart waked whilst his body took it's resti I have much ado to believe that man was reduced to the condition of beasts before he had sinned and that he should have undergone the punishment of an offence which he had not as yet committed If there have been some Saints whom sleep did not deprive of the use of reason and who loved God even whilst they slept I think it not strange that the heavens should have granted this favour to our first father in his innocency that he entertein'd himself with Angels whilest he could not entertain himself with men St. Iohn the Baptist adored the Son of God in the chast womb of the Virgin the obscurity of his Prison could not hinder the light of heaven from enlightning his understanding that stupefaction which continues nine moneths with other children hindred not him from instructing Elizabeth by his motions and from letting her know that the mother which she saw was a Virgin and that the child which she saw not was God The better part of Divines do not question but that the Virgin did enjoy this priviledge all her life and that her soul whilest her body rested was wholly busied in considering the wonders of her son she loved him as well sleeping as waking Sleep did not interrupt her love Sleep which makes us beasts made her an Angel and her soul had this advantage in the night season that it did act without any dependency upon her bodie rest did not bereave her of half her life as it doth us were she asleep or were she awake she did equally apply her self to God her sleep was more operative then all our watchings when her mouth was shut her spirit supplied her silence and she praised God with her heart not being able to do it with her tongue Imagine that Adams sleep did somewhat resemble that of the Virgins that he ceased not to reason when he could not speak that his noblest part slept not whilest his other did that his souls eyes were open when his bodily eyes were shut and that his soul exercising those species which she by the senses had received considered the works of God for why should we beleive that Adam should suffer that out-rage in the state of innocency which the Saints had much ado to tolerate in the state of sin Sleep which is the rest of their body is the punishment of their soul they are afflicted that their will should be rendered so long useless they conjure their tutelâ—ry â—els to wake whilest they sleep and to love in their behalf 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goodnesse which cannot be loved according to its worth they look upon their bed as upon their grave they think to die as oft as they fall a sleep and they murmure that their soule which is immortall should be constrained to suffer such a kinde of death I pardon them these their complaints for 't is true that sleep is the shame of our nature and that the qualities wherewithall it is accompanied teach us that it is become criminall it reduceth men to the condition of beasts it takes from them their noblest priviledges and inhibits them the use of all the senses which may be serviceable to the soul. This punishment seems to be more injurious than death whose image it is for death loosens the soule from the body raiseth her to the condition of Angels and withdraws her from a prison which though she delighted in ceased not to be fatall to her but sleep stupifies the senses sets upon such parts of the body as the soule makes most claim to disperseth it's vapours into the eyes and ears and reduceth man into a condition wherein he can neither speak nor think The heart during sleep is in a perpetuall motion naturall heat disgests meat the liver converts it into bloud and distributes it abroad amongst the veines every part turnes it into it's own substance and by a continuall miracle one and the same nourishment doth extend it selfe into nerves thickens into flesh and hardens into bone Nature repaires these ruines which watchings had made in the body she leaves nothing uselesse in this condition and her diligence extends even to our haire which grows whil'st we Sleep But the noblest of our senses are a sleep our eyes serve no more for guides nor the ears for intelligencers the tongue to which motion is so naturall is no more the soules interpreter imaginations selfe doth only furnish her with confused species and the soul in this disorder is inforced to remain idle and unusefull Passions be they never so
vanity and but few heads which do not bow under the weight of a Crown 'T is hard for a Prince to preserve his modesty amidst his honours and for him to remember that he is a man whil'st all his Subjects endeavour to perswade him that he is a God Great humility is requisite to him to defend himselfe from such pleasing slatteries and the inclination which by reason of originall sin he hath to vain glory being considered he hath much adoe to reject such hopes as Adam was abused withall even in the midst of his innocency T is much more hard to make use of pleasure than to make use of pain and more Philosophers are found to have been patient in afflictions then moderate in pleasures riches cause more disorder than poverty and were not men over-rul'd by opinion want would be more sufferable than aboundance Though we be not stoicks and though the fond imaginations of the haughty Philosophers did aswel give against reason as truth we forbear not to confesse with them that sorrow is to be preferred before joy and that it is better for a man to suffer pain then to tast pleasure All his advantages are pernitious to him the remainders of innocency ingage him in sin and he cannot follow Adams tract without falling into his precipice thus ought he to suspect all his desires and all his hopes the good whlch flatters him deceives him what pleaseth him is fatall to him and to expresse in a word the irregularity which sin hath placed in his nature we must affirm that he is bound to fear what he hopes and to hope what he fears For fear abuseth us aswell as hope and she is unjust and unfaithfull when she paints forth evill to us like a Monster it may suffice us to suffer it when it hath happened without anticipating it by our apprehension That wisedome which foresees an evil and cannot divert it serves but to hasten it and a man had better be surprized by a disaster then fear it long this is not withstanding the usuall effect of fear she fore-runs our misfortunes under pretence of freeing us from them she indiscreetly engageth us in them and through a vain desire of making us more happy she oft-times makes us more miserable 't is thought that she makes up a part of our wisedome that she fore-sees not an evil save onely to prevent it that unlesse it were for fear of poverty we should not heap up riches that 't is fear of war which makes us raise strong holds and that if it were not for fear of famine we should not cultirate the ground But certainly she is vain in her fore-light and whosoever gives himself over to be guided by sotimerous a passion cannot live happily we forestall sorrow before it's birth we go to find it out before it seeks us we are ingenious in multiplying our misfortunes we fear disasters which will never happen we become the Ministers of our own punishments and we invent torments with the cruelty of executioners never dream'd off we are more befriended by fortune than by wisedome nay even when she hath vowed our undoing she deals more gently with us then fear doth An evil finds us already sunk when it sets upon us our fear takes from it the half of it's victory it wonders that she who fights against it should fight under it's colours and that whil'st she would destroy it's power she establisheth its Empire for 't is true she paints forth evill more terrible than it is she adds somewhat to it's il-favourednesse she never represents it to the life she is of the humour of those who give out no news without either disguising or augmenting them she being by nature melancholly fancies ever dreadfull visions to her self the evill which is neerest seems alwaies most dangerous to her she attributes much to our body and not consulting with reason she apprehends all things that can give against the senses she is not astonished at that sin which onely hurts the soul but the Punishment thereof which takes down the body doth frighten her Yet this kind of punishment is usefull to Christians They are sooner saved by sufferings than by pleasures they must change their feeling as well as their condition and remembring that they are fallen from the happy state of innocency they must no longer pretend to their past felicity neither yet complain of their present misery Evils are no longer to be complained of since they are become necessary though the name of punishment which they bear with them make them anxious to our senses yet the name of cure should make them pleasing to the understanding there is not any one of them whereof a man may not make a glorious vertue if death do not make all men Martyrs he may make holy victimes of them T is a favour to die since God hath been pleased to become mortall the punishments of our sins are turned into remedies that which was infamous to us by Nature is in Grace honourable and we would not change condition with Angels since not being able to die like us they cannot sacrifice their lives to Jesus Christ the maladies which prepare us for death do exercise our patience The great Apo stle grounded his glory in his weaknesses and not considering the advantages which he had being Master of the Gentiles he onely valued his infirmities which made the power of his deliverer appear Poverty is no moâ—e the opprobrie of men but the glory of Christians the Sonne of God did consecrate it both in his birth and death it is turned into an eccellent vertue since he hath been pleased to practice it though Aâ—dams poverty proceeded from his guilt most Christians become poor thereby to become innocent profiting by their losse they satisfie their Judge his Justice and revenge themselves of their Enemies hatred Fasting is a vertue which we have learn't at our own cost the barrennesse of the earth hath taught us abstinency we make a sacrifice of the Monster hunger and in the punishment of our disobedience we find a fence for our chastity As evils are profitable to those that suffer them 't is in vain that we fear them As Goods are fatall to those that possesse them 't is without reason that we wish for them The world hath changed it's face since man hath changed his condition if he will not undo himself he must fear what he hoped for and hope for what he feared Hee ought to be dismayed at riches since they may corrupt him and comforted with poverty since it may convert him death ought to be more precious to him than life since it is a sacrifice and he is bound to prefer pain before pleasure since the crosse of Jesus Christ was the rise of his salvation The second Discourse That Honour is no longer the recompence of Vertue THose who will praise honour and perswade us that she is the reward of vertue say with
Aristotle that generous minded men prefer her before life and those that bereave us of her are more injurious to us and more unjust than those who bereave us of our riches Princes hazard their persons and their Estates and leaving the spoile of their enemy to their souldiers they reserve unto themselves onely the glory of having overcome T is the onely thing which men carry with them to their graves 't is that which makes men live after death that which preserves their memory in the world and which triumphing over years makes their worth be known to all posterity Vertue would not have charms sufficient to make her self be beloved were she not accompanied by glory and this austeer Mistris would have no servants did she not promise them eternall reputation all the famous actions of antiquity had no other originall and it may be said that as honour was the end of their Labours so vain glory was the soul of their vertue Ambition which since sin is become naturall unto men did undoubtedly perswade him that glory was the shadow of Divinity and that it was she who altering his condition would make Temples and Altars be raised unto him after his death He thought he might by the means of honour obtein what he could not do by the serpents counsell and that this fathfull companion of vertue would restore unto him what his sin hath bereft him off But this argumentation is as seeble as false for honour hath lost her purity since man hath lost his innocency she is dealt about more unjustly then riches ti 's a good which depends onely upon opinion which is as soon gotten by vice as by vertue and which subsists more by good fortune than by justice We have seen great Princes whose lives have been buried in oblivion for having been The Aristides and the Phocions who are the famousest ornaments of of Greece could not vanquish oblivion Socrates owes his reputation onely to his disciples eloquence and had not Plato recorded his last words we should not know how couragiously he dyed The world values much more glorious actions than vertuous ones Poets and Historians who are the Trumpets of Monarchs tie themselves more to Combats than to counsels and do much more exalt the defeat of enemies then the Government over subjects Alexander wonne much more reputation amongst the Grecians then did Pericles and Caesar is much more honoured amongst the Romanes then Cato The Luster of great actions dazles the eyes those which make the greatest noise receive the greatest praises men never consider good advice so much as good successe nor the resolution as the event The very Theater whereupon things are acted serves to put a valuation upon them that which was done in Rome made a greater noise then what at Lacedemon and the world which suffers it self to be surprized by greatnesse never values vertue or worth unlesse it be crowned private souldiers do more gallant actions than their Captains but the lownesse of their condition stifles them Italy hath produced slaves more nobly minded than Cato and they have uttered Maximes which Polititians would have reverenced like Oracles had they been spoken by a Prince 'T is thought that one of the Scipio's ows all his advantages over the Carthaginians to the wise advice of Laelius and the Criticks know very well that Cicero studied the purity of language in Terence and the grace of expressing it upon Roscius his Theater but because the one was but a franchised slave and the other a common Player he onely reaped the glory of their labours This unjust vanity is crept even into religion we oft-times judge of Saints greatnesse by the eminency of their births we read the life of a Prince with more admiration then that of a Peasant and be it either that vertue be rarer in Courts than in cottages or that we be rather born away with appearances than truths a common action in the person of a Prince seems noble to us All things appear great underneath a Crown and we are so accustomed to flatter Princes as they passe for good if they be not bad Eloquence labours to disguise their faults she gives honourable names to shamefull actions and she thinks that Traffick is not base there where she barters smoak and wind for Gold But that which makes natures disorder evidently appear is that fortunate faults passe for rare vertues and that men appear onely to be famous for that they have indeed been wicked If Caesar be more esteemed than Catiline 't is because his design had better successe they were both guilty of the same fault both had vowed the ruine of their Country the one offered at it but in vain the other succesfully accomplisht it the lesse guilty went for a Traitor and the more faulty for a legitimate King the ones name is odious in all history the others honourable and most Monarchs by assuming his name shew that they approve of his Tyranny He is the first Emperour of Rome the gloriousest Scepter of the world was the reward of his trechery his life serves for example to all Conquerors and his usurpation for excuse to all their unjust undertakings Yet he is guilty of Catilines fault he is not more honoured save for that he is more unjust or more fortunate and he is numbred amongst the Emperours onely because he did execute what the other did project If Cicero's eloquence could have stayed the progresse of his ambition or had he died before he had made himself Master of Rome his memory would be more odious than that of Dionysius of Syracusa and as all Kings would have been styled Pompeys all Tyrants would have been termed Caesars but because his faults was fortunate he was honoured and the man of the world that stood most in need of Apologies may glory in having all history made his Panygericks 'T is true that Caesar would have had reason to complain had he been otherwise dealt withall since all Nations treat their usurpers so and reserve all their praises for those that rob them of their liberty Great faults are the noblest vertues Princes who shed most bloud receive most honour robbery and murther are the steps whereby Tyrants get into Kings Thrones people put not so great a valuation upon those who have defended them as on those who have conquered them and all things in the world are so out of order as usurpation in Monarches is more glorious than succession The one is the work of Nature the other of Fortune they owe their election to their subjects love and are bound for their conquests to their souldiers valour Triumph which was vertues highest recompence amongst the Romans was granted onely to such as had committed most murthers and sackt most Towns renown was not to be purchased in that Commonwealth but by violence and injustice That which their Historians calls victories their enemies terme butchery what served for a sport to the Romane Dames
had forsaken their heart their souls descended into hell to end their combate there and fury passing from their bodies to their funerall Pile divided the flames which consumed them This fiction of the Poets is a truth amongst Christians amongst whom there are brothers found whose hatred is immortall who preserve their animosity after the losse of their lives who leave it for an inheritance to their successours who charge their children to revenge their injuries and who shewing a face of war in time of peace do meditate murther when they cannot commit it I wonder not that the same thoughts which did possesse them in their life possesse them likewise in their death and that those who delighted in nothing but bloud did dream on nought but cruelties since an ill habit is an invisible chain which keeps the will captive and will not suffer it to abhor a crime which hath alway been pleasing to it But I cannot well comprehend how sin should so far corrupt man as to perswade him that murther was honourable that there was glory in committing it pleasure in beholding it and that the cruellest action that may be could purchase glory or cause content All Paganisme took pleasure to see the Gladiators fight the effusion of mans bloud was one of their most pleasing spectacles and Rome had much a do to forgo this cruell pastime after she had embraced the Christian Religion people ran to publick places to see men fight they were taught to kill one another handsomly and with a good grace publick schools were erected to teach this bloudy exercise there were Masters who taught how to observe method in murthering who led their disciples into their Arenae or Theators for fencing and who trying their dexterity themselves incouraged them to fight by example he was most praised who shed most bloud and a man sorely wounded who had killed many men was led about in triumph Sin must needs reign in their hearts since it had driven thence all sense of humanity and that making man-slaughter a vertue it had perswaded them that glory consisted in injustice and pleasure in cruelty this madnesse grew in time to so great a height as to make killing more easie and the sport more pleasing men were to fight stark naked with offensive weapons but none defensive Obscenity was joyned to cruelty to the end that one might content two passions with one and the same spectacle and that the sight of a dying wretch might make them love his murtherer yet these combates are but the shadows of war the Gladiators fury is but the souldiers entrance Companies were fill'd up which these people nurst up in bloud and when recruits were to be had those were sought for in the Arenae who had made themselves famous by the death of their Companions And certainly duels which serve for pastime to our nobility are neither more just nor yet lesse cruell so brutish a passion cannot be but in mindes where sin doth Tyrannize a man must renounce both reason and Grace to obey so blind a fury and one must cease to be either rationall or faithfull if he believe that a Gentlemans Glory consists in Murther yet this errour is become a custome Gentlemen love rather to lose their heads upon a scaffold and dye by the hands of a hangman then to be failing in an occasion where they know their conscience is in an ill condition and that they are in danger of losing both soul and body fear of shame hath more power over them then fear of Hell they chuse rather to incurre Gods anger and their Princes then the peoples reproach and by a foolish extravagancy they hazard their soul to preserve their honour As this blind Passion differs not much from that which animates Conquerors to war so doth she likewise proceed from the same principle the one and the other proceed from sin which having put us at ods with our selves puts us likewise at ods with our neighbours and perswades us that all means are lawfull whereby we may acquire honour Upon this false belief we engage our selves in combats we violate the holy laws of nature we fly upon our neighbours and allyes and not considering that the world is a Common-wealth that all kingdomes are the provinces all people the subjects thereof that charity is the law thereof the Holy Ghost the heart and Jesus Christ the head we use such cruelties one towards another as do well witnesse that sin hath corrupted our nature and that the Devil doth possesse our will He who doth not acknowledge the truth and doth not confesse that this irregularity is the punishment of our sin is yet more miserable then they who indure it and complain thereof for the other grounds his glory upon his injustice onely because he hath lost the use of reason and thinks himself onely happy because he is become stupid War is then one of the most fatall effects of sin and one of the severest chastizements of divine Justice it is onely excusable when necessary and yet it were better sometimes to follow the counsell of the Gospell and to lose somewhat of that which by right apperteins unto us then to defend it by so cruell a way for if he whose every word is an oracle recommends peace to us dying how can we resolve to wage war if he command us to forget injuries how can we commit outrages and homicide Let us then conclude that man is sufficiently sinfull since war is his exercise since his glory consists in cruelty since combats are his noblest imployments since he delights in Murther since he esteems a pitcht battle more innocent then a single Duell onely because it is more bloudy since he thinks man-slaughter a sin when it is particular and a vertue when generall and when by an injustice which cannot be sufficiently blamed the sinner finds his impunity onely in the excesse of his sin The fifth Discourse That Riches render men poor and sinfull THough it be hard to say which is the severest punishment man hath suffered since his losse of innocency and that servitude and death are pains equally insupportable to those who love their liberty as their life yet me thinks there is a third more rigorous which all men do resent yet not any one complains off And this is nothing else but the calling to mind the possession of all those good things which we have lost together with our innocency a desire of them remains in us which vertues self cannot efface we sigh when we want them and we never are so sensible of our misery as when we are assailed by pain infamy or poverty Yet are their remedies new diseases and we never do so well know our own weaknesse as when we abound in pleasures honours and riches This is so true a Maxime as that all Christian Religion makes profession of either really foregoing all those advantages which men enjoyed during the state of innocency or else
troubled with the insatiable desire of riches yet would it be always prejudiciall to a sinner and he must wish to be poor if he would recover his innocency For all his desires are out of order all his wishes unjust and sin which doth possesse him engageth him continually in pernitious designes he owes all his innocency to his weaknesse and if he do not perpetrate all the evill which he projects 't is because Nature hath disabled him But riches deprive him of this advantage by affording him means to do what he desires and make a guilty man absolute by bereaving him of the happy disability whereinto poverty had brought him For if he be ambitious he opens the gate which leads to honour with a golden key if unchast he corrupts womens chastity by presents if angry he finds enough basely conditioned men who have courage enough to work his revenge and if he love good cheer he ransacks both sea and land to please his palat and satisfie his belly Thus is gold the instrument of all evill it attempts chastity corrupts justice sets upon innocency and oppresseth poverty When heaven is offended with a sinner it needs but onely make him rich to undo him and make him wealthie to make him wretched 't is equivalent to putting a good sword into a mad mans hands to the preserving of poyson in a christall glasse to one that is frantick and to the setting of a blind man upon the top of a precipice tapistred with Jessemine and Lillies On the contrary poverty is the sanctuary of innocency there are fewer faults where lesse of abundance Those who live by hunting and by fishing know not how to mingle poyson with their drink if they kill their enemies 't is with arrows and all their combats have lesse of art and more of generosity in them then ours have luxury governs not amongst men who go naked those families are not ruined with making stately structures who can shelter themselves under trees excesse in eating causeth no disasters in those who eat nothing but the fruits of the earth and the steem of wine bereaves not them of reason who drink nothing but spring water These innocent people value iron more then gold and prizing things according to their utility they prefer what is most commodious before what is most pleasing they make use of iron to arive their arrows with and to build their cabins the same metall serves them both for peace and war that which serves them for defence serves them for ornament and they place their riches where they find most commodiousnesse they barter gold with us for Iron they think they gain by an exchange wherein to obtein what they desire they hazard not their liberty nor do forego their countries they wonder that we crosse so many seas and run so many hazards for a metall which is but earth before it be refined which loseth his name in the fire which finds it beauty in it's torments which draws it's Lustre from the crusible and which becomes not gold before it hath wearied the patience of the workmen Pearls seem not more pretious to them if they fish for them in the sea 't is that they may sell them to us before our avarice had won them credit children who made them their play-games gave them to our merchants for cockle-shels they look upon these stones which we esteem pretious as the meer excrements of the fishes that produce them they blame the esteem we put upon them and being more rationall then we they conclude that we do worship the things onely by reason of their rarity Aboundance is always accompanied with contempt if gold were more common 't would be despised that which grows in our climate must passe into another to purchase reputation and as there are some fruits which are not good till transplanted so are there a thousand things in the world which are not prized till after they have changed their countrey Barbarians did prophane gold before they knew the price thereof because it was common amongst them they made use thereof in infamous things the chains of prisoners were made of this metall those who were most guilty were the most richly adorned that which is here the ornament of Princes was there the offenders punishment thus this people had found out a harmles way how to make this metall odious By all this discourse 't is easily gathered that riches are evils which though they be pleasing cease not to be dangerous that man is too much out of order to make good use thereof that they are serviceable but to one vertue yet of use to all sins Christians dispose of them by the way of alms and Philosophers by way of liberality But in the one and the other of them avarice doth unjustly accumulate them prodigality doth profusely dissipate them pride makes use of them to heighten her self vain glory to adorn her self and choller for revenge they are onely usefull when they are given away with delight and lost without sorrow Their losse is a kind of traffick he is wise who can acquit himself of them and he is happy who can live without them Jesus Christ despised them in his birth rejected them whilest he lived and condemned them in his death he who will be his Disciple must follow his example and who believes that they facilitate our salvation knows not that our Nature is corrupted by sin The sixth Discourse That since the losse of innocency Poverty is glorious The two loves that establish those two cities the one of which had Jesus Christ for it's King the other the Devil for it's Tyrant could never be reconciled together their designs are as opposite as their inclinations and though they oft-times march by the same track they always tend to rather contrary then differing ends This truth appears by the use which they make of the miseries of corrupted nature for self-love extracts sins from thence divine love vertues the one augments our evils whilest she would diminish them the other diminisheth them whilst she would augment them From the scorn whereinto we are fallen since our rebelllion self-love hath formed a design of raising her self up and giving against Gods Justice of finding her greatnesse in her abasement Divine love hath extracted humility from thence and with an innocent piece of cunning she leads us to glory by contempt Self-loue raiseth despair from death which is sins chiefest punishment and divine love raiseth from thence a sacrifice which expiats our offences and gives honour to Gods justice from the creatures revolt which doth revenge our outrages done to heaven self-love argues riot in apparel magnificence in buildings and all those other means which we have invented to defend our selves from the injuries of seasons and divine love which always prefers the glory of heaven before her own interest argues repentance from thence which teacheth us to undergo this persecution with humility In fine from the
Those dispensations which raise men to an absolute power which give them authority over the beasts or Elements are the reward of voluntary poverty If the chief of the Apostles did miracles 't is because he fore-went his goods if by his words he cured maladies 't is because he had forsaken all his riches if his shadow cure the sick 't is because his heart was never wounded with avarice and if nature bear a respect to his commandments 't is because he had vowed poverty When he healed the legs of the man that was born lame he began by a confession of his poverty he thought the first dressing which he was to apply to this evill was the contempt of riches Gold nor silver have I none saith he to this infir ne man but that which I have give I thee in the Name of Iesus Christ arise and walk Weaknesse bare respect to poverty nature violated her laws to obey the words of the poor and the heavens will was that he who could give no alms should do miracles In fine Paradise is the poors inheritance and after having commanded upon earth they shall reign with Jesus Christ in glory That which is promised to other vertues is performed to poverty in the acknowledgement of merit and the distribution of Crowns the poor are dealt withall as advantagiously as are Martyrs and these two conditions are equally rewarded in the Gospell to teach us that poverty is a kind of Martyrdom To say truth if men do miracles when they overcome pain when they tire their Torturers when they triumph over Tyrants and vanquish the Elements and wild beasts do not they do wonders when they preserve poverty amidst riches sobriety amongst Festivals when they go naked amidst the pomp of apparell when they are humble amidst honours and when they persevere to refuse the Goods which the devill promiseth them which the world offers them and which the flesh propounds unto them ought not they to be crowned who overcome the world with all it's promises who contemne the devill with all his illusions and who tame the flesh with the concupiscence thereof But in the advantages of poverty we ought to observe the unrulinesse of our nature which is reduced into such a condition as she cannot without danger make use of what she hath of good she cannot without injustice pretend to her ancient riches neither can she acquire new wealth without avarice we must look upon the things of this world without desiring them we must live upon the earth as in a place of exile and to be happy and innocent we must be poor or imitate those that are so The possession of riches is always accompanied with somwhat of Agglutination which is never without impurity we are slaves unto our wealth they possesse us when we think to possesse them we take pains in heaping them up are carefull in keeping them and sorrowfull in their losse 't is as troublesome to keep them as to lose them and the pain of purchasing them doth always exceed the pleasure of squandring them away To free a mans selfe from these misfortunes he must grow familiar with poverty he must sweeten his pain by suffering it patiently and look upon all the things of the world as upon goods which we had lost before were born We are ruined in the person of our first father our defeat as well as our default preceded our use of reason and the same fault which took from us our innocency bereft us of our riches If we make use of the blessings of the earth 't is out of mercy if the Sun light us the earth support us and the fruits thereof do nourish us 't is an obligation which we owe unto our God when once he pronounced the decree of our death our goods were confiscated to him the power of making use of them is a priviledge which we hold of his goodnesse and he deals with us as we do with those malefactors which we suffer to live in prison after their sentence of death is past if they dispose of their goods 't is by their Prince his favour and if they leave them to their children 't is by his permission Thus we ought to think that nothing belongs to us in this world that God gives us all which he takes not from us and that he makes use of his own rights when he re-demands that which he had but lent us When Famine doth dispeople the earth when all our labour cannot overcome her sterility and when the seed we sow answers not our expectation we ought to adore Gods justice which having sentenced us to death hath reserved unto himself the kind of our punishment If souldiers plunder our houses if they do what they please abroad if they burn what they cannot carry away and if they in a moment destroy what we have been gathering many years we must think that poverty is the punishment of our disobedience that we have no more right to our goods than to our lives and that he may well ruine us who can when it pleaseth him make us die If our families be undone by law if Judges be corrupted by the credit of a powerfull man if those who ought to defend us do oppresse us and if an unjust decree bring us to beggery let us remember that the decree pronounced against us in Paradise was more rigorous and more just that succession or industry is no prescription against Gods Justice that how soever our goods be gotten they are always forfeited to him and that processe at law is as lawfull a way to bereave us of them as fire or shipwrack In fine whatsoever losse befals us let us find our consolation in our offence let us make our punishment our remedie and whilst we consider that we are guilty let us not complain of being poor The seventh Discourse That Apparell is a mark of sin IF whole man be but meer vanity if Nature be out of order by his disobedience if his soul which hath the honour to be the image of God and which boasts of her innocency ceaseth not to find death in his sin if the will which joyned with Grace is the beginning of merit be more inclined to vice then vertue if his understanding which enlightens all the faculties of the soul be more capable of errour then of truth if all his knowledge be but meer ignorance if his most perspicuous vertues want not their faults and if his body be his souls prison we must not wonder that the necessity of apparel be a punishment of his fault as well as riot therein is a mark of his vain glory But as it often fals out that we are most taken with things of least consideration we find by experience that there are women in the world who would rather have their souls sullied then their cloths who would rather have the state be out of order then their head attire and who would be
their handcherchiefs in great assemblies 't is uncivill to be vailed at a mask or a play and they are ashamed to appear modest where men use all their art to make them unchast Thus great meetings are nothing but publick prostitutions innocency is there destroyed by bringing nakednesse in fashion and men lend weapons to the Devil to undo the subjects of Jesus Christ. The ninth Discourse That Buildings are the work of Necessity Pleasure or Vainglory THough we do not know all mans advantages in the state of innocency and that that happy condition be not much lamented because 't is not much known yet we very well know it was exempt from pain as well as from sin and that man saw nothing neither in his person nor in his state which caused either pain or shame in him The body was subject to the soul and the senses which so often break loose that they may fix themselves to objects without reasons permission did nothing but by her order and this Sovereign was so absolute as her subjects had no other inclinations but what were hers The world was as much at quiet as man was and the elements w th by their contesting molest him held so good intelligence as the one never intrencht upon the rights of the other men neither feared the overflowings of rivers earthquakes nor fires the earth was a temple and a palace Religion did so well agree with nature as the same place served man to do his homage to God in and to disport himself in he saw his Creator in every Creature they were images which painted forth unto him the perfection of him that made them when he beheld them for his pastime his pleasure was not to be parted from his piety and contenting his curiosity he satisfied his duty This Temple was also his palace he could wish for nothing neither for pastime nor yet for profit which was not in this stately habitation The heavens served him for a canopie and the irregularity of the seasons had not yet obliged him to deprive himself by buildings of the sight of the most beautifull part of the world the Sun was his torch and when this glorious constellation withdrew himself to give light to the other half of the earth the stars stepping into his place afforded light enough not to leave men in darknesse grasse mingled with flowers served him for his bed Trees lent him their shade and holes which nature had hollowed in rocks served him for Chambers and Closets Gates were needlesse when there was no fear of theeves and windows would have been uselesse when people apprehended neither winde nor rain Nature had so well provided for all things as arts were superfluous and her workmanship was so exact as mans industry could adde nothing thereunto all the fields were gardens all Forrests Parks all dens Palaces and though the floud hath changed the face of the world it's out-rages could not efface the beauty thereof There be Forrests yet thick enough to shelter us Champions of extent enough to weary our eyes Vallies delightfull enough for diversion to them and Cavernes rich enough to satisfie them the pillars which sustain these forrests are the models of our Columnes the brooks which water these Champions have furnisht us with the invention of water-pipes the concavity of Trees hung in the aire hath taught our Architechts to vault buildings their proportions have caused Symmetry and the Caverns in mountains are the originall of our houses 'T is true that where sin had corrupted man and disordered nature we were forced to raise buildings to save our selves from the injury of weather and not being secure in a condition where we saw so many subjects revolted we were necessitated to build Citadels to keep us from being surprized by them But necessiy not being so ingenious as self-love she was contented with providing remedies for the most pressing evils and did not seek so much for accommodation as for preservation The first houses were but one story high the earth afforded the materials and Thatch was the covering man finding nothing delightfull in so sad an abode wisht for an earthly Paradise and never thought of his former condition without being sorry for his disobedience which had banished him from thence he never betook himselfe to this prison but either when the nights obscurity or the weather made him seek for Covert he looked upon it as upon his grave and living in so unpleasing an abode he did by degrees prepare himselfe for death but when self-love grew weary of suffering the punishment of it's sin and when justling divine Justice it would finde out a Paradise in this world it inuented Architecture and taught man how to change his prison into a Palace under the conduct of so good a Master he raised stately Palaces he sought for stone in the bowels of the earth he polisht them with tools he ranked them with Symmetry and placing one of them on the top of another he made his exile glorious and his prison pleasing Those who will excuse this disorder say that 't is a work worthy the wisdom of man that he is not forbidden to defend himselfe from natures out-rages that it is to imitate God and that every building is an image of the world and an Epitome of the Universe that time is requisite to bring things to perfection that the first men were not lesse vain but lesse industrious that if Adam had been a good Architectour he would not have left his children so long in Dens and Cabins that houses were the beginning of Towns that men were never civilized till they lived within the circuit of wals and that whil'st they lay in Forrests their lives were rather bestiall then rationall But let vanity make what excuses she pleaseth it is not to be denied but that buildings as well as apparell do prove our guilt and that the excesse and pomp which are used therein are marks of our ambition for houses are built either out of Necessity Pleasure or Vain-glory and men seek for nothing therein but the preservation of their life the satisfaction of their senses or the honour of their name Our first fathers built only to shun the persecution of the Elements they were contented with a house which saved them from storms and provided that it would afford them shade against the Sun and covering against the cold they were well apayed Architecture was not yet become an art every man was his own Architect after having cut out his clothes he made himselfe a house and seeking only how to fence himselfe against the incommodities of life he sought for neither delight nor vain-glory in buildings two Trees joyned together did oft-times make a house the entrance into a rock would with small cost lodge a whole family and the thickets which now serve for a retreat for wilde beasts served to lodge men in Nature was indulgent to these innocent malefactours seeing they bare
banks did not the hand of God prescibe limits to it's fury All the art of man hath not as yet been able to calme the fiercenesse thereof the most expert Pilots tremble as oft as it is incensed and knowing that no force can withstand it's rage they betake themselves to vowes to appease it The aire seems to hold intelligence with it to make war upon us it gives free scope to the North windes which march furiously through her Champians and bring tempests and shipwracks with them After having revenged themselves on men at sea they set upon them on land and sowing cotagions in Countries they change the best peopled Cities into dreadfull Desarts thus the purest of all Elements assumes impurity mens bodies are infected by the corruption thereof it poysoneth whatsoever it doth penetrate and the lungs which draw it in corrupt the heart and brain The fire being much more active then the air commits more havock if it's consuming flames be not universall as are contagions their fury is more suddain and the evils caused thereby find lesse remedie It mixeth with Thunder to punish us it descends contrary to it's nature to pursue us it flashes out in lightening to affrighten us and changeth it self into a thousand severall shapes to undo us It shuts it self up in the bowels of the earth that it may break forth with the greater violence it strives not so much within this prison to recover it's liberty as to punish our offences it makes it's way through the tops of mountains and shoures down Sulphur and Flames upon the plains from off those high places It seems it knows very well that divine Justice hath chose it to be the Minister of her vengeance and that the spoyles it commits on earth serve onely to shew us what Rigour it will inflict upon the Guilty in Hell Thus all things are changed in the world the Elements have neither the same use nor the same inclinations that which was serviceable to man in innocency persecutes him being become guilty Whole Nature is a scaffold where the Creatures act the part of executioners and revenge themselves on man for the injuries he hath done them For to boot that they are forced to share in his faults they know very well that they are fallen from their first nobility that they have not all those advantages which they had in the state of innocency and that they have lost some of their naturall qualities The Sun gives not so much light as he did before the sin of Adam his influences are neither so pure nor yet so puissant he who did dispense nothing but heat and light wonders to see himself send forth sicknesses and death The Stars have no longer those favourable aspects which made fruits and flowers to grow in all seasons of the year their efficacy is weakened and the vigour which appeared in all their effects now languisheth But the earth being a neerer neighbour to man then the Heavens it is more changed all the parts thereof are barren if they be not manured the curse which it received by reason of our sin hath made it lose it's fruitfulnesse it is all brisled with thorns or covered with Thistles it refuseth to feed it's children since they are become sinfull and by an innocent parricide it attempts their lives who have lost originall righteousnesse The fruits which it bears proceed rather from our industry then it 's fertility if it assist us at our need 't is with an ill will and it 's being bound to serve the sinful is a part of it's misery if this be not true I know what that great Apostle mean't when by an admirable Prosopopeia he makes whole Nature to speak and groan when affording words unto her sorrow he makes her wish our change and her deliverance for when he says the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God doth he not witnesse that they hope for some advantage by our felicity and when he says that the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly doth he not insinuate that they are corrupted by sin when he adds that the creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption doth he not make it evident that Jesus Christ will satisfie their desires and that he will restore unto them what we have unjustly bereft them off I am not ignorant that some Interpreters not sufficiently weighing the intention nor words of Saint Paul do wrest this text and understand it to be meant of man but the Apostles ensuing discourse makes it appear that he speaks of all creatures and that the corruption which they complain of is not that which they have received from nature but that which they have attracted from our sin The corn cannot complain of it's putrifaction because it is the cause of it's increase but it hath some reason to complain that it's vigour is diminished and that abusing the Labourers hope it doth not repay his pains with usury The earth doth not complain of it's being placed in the nethermost story of the earth that it serves for basis to all the other elements but it complains with reason that it hath lost it's fertility and that it is adjudg'd to bring up thorns in stead of roses The Air complains not of being subject to these changes which make up a part of it's nature but it complains and that justly that for the punishment of our offence it hath lost it's purity that it is the seat of storms the abode of thunder and that fatall place wherein Famine and Contagions are formed and to passe from the elements into the heavens The Sun doth not complain of his being in a perpetuall motion that he carries light to all the parts of the world and that he doth differently disperse his heat throughout all the climates of the earth but he hath cause to complain that he hath lost his former Lustre that his influences are mortall that his aspects are maligne and that his presence wherein mans happinesse did consist doth now cause fears and sicknesses in him To this misfortune from whence the creatures just complaints proceed we may adde the Devils Tyranny which doth torment them for after once this proud Fiend had overcome our first father he enter'd upon his rights he got a power over the elements and he had permission to make use of them to solicit men to sin from hence proceeds that Praise worthy custome of the faithfull of blessing the fruits of the earth to free them from the fury of wicked spirits and hence doth the use of exorcisme proceed which makes it appear that all creatures are slaves to those who have been our undoing But it is harder to explain this corruption then to prove it and the manner how it is made is as hard to conceive as anger some to tolerate Yet me thinks a man may say that divine Justice hath changed the
innocency beheld him with all his weaknesse and man in the Earthly Paradise judged aright by his perpetuall motion that he was rather a slave to Nature then her Master But since man sinned he hath received other blemishes and hath lost much of his power and beauty For be it that man being become a sinner may the easier be brought to idolatry be it that God would punish him in all his subjects and lessen his credit in weakening his condition be it that to put the seasons out of order that constellation must be altered which caused all their revolutions be it that to trouble the order of the Universe his course was to be troubled who was it's Conductour it is certain that the Sun was subject to laws which he had not made triall of in the state of innocency and that he partook of the fatall effects of that generall curse which was thundered out against Nature If we will believe Saint Basil he lost part of his light when man lost his innocency he does harden enlighten the whole world there are certain places where night is always mingled with day and where darknesse makes a perpetuall residence he doth no longer distribute his heat equally he is greedy thereof underneath the polâ—s and and prodigall underneath the line He burns up Affrica and doth not so much as heat one part of Europe There are Countries where ice is never melted where the Sea is as solid as the earth where fountains frozen in their head suspend their running halfe the year wofull Countries are discovered where Trees are always void of leaves where fruit doth never ripen where no Flowers are seen but in pictures and where the Sun shews himself only to dissipate darknesse He wonders that his beams cannot melt snow there he admires to finde ice there as firm as chrystall he cannot comprehend how he should give light to people whom he cannot warm and that his heat being weaker then his light he makes days there and no Summers People who live under these unfortunate climates consider cold as their greatest Enemy they withstand it's rigour by their hardnesse they seek for that reliefe from fire which they cannot finde in the Sun and burn their Forrests to warm their fields In fine to describe this wofull Countrey in Tertullians terms their skie wants pity the days are never clear the Sun is there always weak and languishing winter reigns there all the year long no windes blow there but the North rivers held back by cold have not the freedom of running the mountains are there always covered with snow Nature is slothfull there and frost which extinguisheth her naturall heat makes her eternally barren If the bad condition of these Nations be a proofe of the Suns impotency if the barrennesse of their ground are a mark of his weaknesse Affrica is no lesse an argument of his corruption and who sees those dreadfull Desarts which bring forth nothing but sand and Monsters is bound to confesse that the curse of God reacheth as well to the constellations as to men For the Sun makes all the Inhabitants there black and prints that colour upon them in which we here paint Devils he there scorcheth all their Trees and strips them of their leaves before they be loaded with fruit He there dries up brooks as soon as they are crope out from their Spring-head he leaves them nothing in the fields which may lessen his heat Forrests give there no shade nor do the fountains afford refreshment Rocks bear nothing but flames in their veines the earth burns under their feet that walke upon it her scorching bowels conceive nothing but sulphur and pitch The Summer hath banisht all other seasons out of this Countrey and reigns there as a Tyrant even from the beginning of the world suffers no windes to blow but such as feed his heat layes waste the fields and leaving nothing there but marks of his fury makes it look like the picture of hell For my part I cannot believe that the Sun hâ—d so unequally dispensed his heat in the state of innocency that having one part of the world frozen he would have consumed the other with heat nor thot dividing his heat so unequally to so many people he would have made dayes and nights six monthes long Either those Countries would have had no Inhabitants or the Sun would have been more favourable to them or else that Providence by which the world is governed would have made him take another Tract or equally dividing his heat and his light it would have moderated the Summers of Affrica and sweetned the Winters of Swethland Since 't is the will of God that makes the nature of all things since the Elements have no inclinations but what are his and that both heaven and earth receive law from his word it is not hard to conceive that the Sun may more justly distribute his heat and yet not go out of the Zodiack and that equally warming all the parts of the earth he may either leave uselesse sands in the edge of Ethiopia nor yet mountains charged with snow in the further-most parts of Swethland That Sovereign Providence to which nothing is impossible might well enough have remedied these inconveniences which Astrologie findes in the equality of seasons This absolute Mistresse of Nature might well enough have distributed heat and light without changing the course of the Sun And she who hath put the world out of order to punish us for our sins might also have governed it after another fashion to favour us in our innocency But not to engage my selfe in making Apologies for her who can defend her selfe against the wicked with thunder it shall suffice me to make it appear that that Sun which lights us doth dazle us and that he who doth heat us burns us and that his beams which gives us life causeth also our death Before the sin of Adam he had no vâ—rtue which was fatall to man all his aspects were benigne Astrology had not as yet found out any maligne influences and whil'st this glorious constellation made good his career he neither burnt men nor dried up Trees but since we are become sinfull through our Fathers pride the Sun hath changed his qualities and that Planet whose only care it was to dispense abroad his heat and light hath received directions to burn those to whom he gives light and to make all things die to which he hath given life He exhales up the vapours whereof storms are composed he makes them distill down in rain glisâ—en forth in lightening and break out in Thunder He hardens hail to ruine the fields and reaps the corn with this congealed water gathers the grapes and overthrows the hopes of the Labourer His heat mingled with the vapours of the earth causeth contagions his light which hath lost it's former purity disperseth the plague throughout the world He who gave life wonders to see he now causeth death he
wonders that his beams should be fatall to those to whom he gives light he is sorry to undo his own workmanship to tarnish the rose and lilly to be the parricide of those flowers whose Father he had been He cannot comprehend how divine Justice should imploy his heat to produce contrary effects nor how after having ripened the corn fitted things for harvest and guilded grapes he should destroy that to which he gave a being and make a wofull havock there where the labourer had hoped to make a happy harvest Such as are become ingenious since made miserable by sin have observed seasons wherein all the influences of this constellation are mortall wherein he hurts as many as he toucheth wherein he infecteth all that he gives light unto and wherein he commits as many murders as he darts forth beams The holy Scripture which is so eloquent mingleth reproaches with the praisss that it giveth him and makes invectives against the Sun whilst it composeth his Panegyricks It blameth and praiseth his light it admires his efficacy and complains of his heat it adores his power and stands in awe of his justice who can imploy the Sun to give light unto the Saints and to punish sinners The Spouse in the Canticles complains that this fair constellation should have spoiled her complexion that he should have changed her roses into marigolds and that effacing her beauty he should have taken from her that Lustre which is a womans principall ornament Iudith in her history complaineth that the Sun had made her a Widdow and that his extream heat giving upon the head of her dear husband had caused the catar fall which carried him to his grave For as he was overlooking his harvest men at full mid-day judging their labour by their sheaves and according to the custome of the time mingling trouble with policy through the pleasing diversions of husbandry the Sun which spares not Sovereigns more then shepheards and who knows that all men being faulty he may of right punish them let fly a beam upon poor Manasses wherein death was mingled with light 〈◊〉 and broke the happiest marriage that was then in Palestine We are taught by these examples that the Sun hath influences now which he had not before the state of sin that he serves Gods justice to rid himself of men that he rules over the life of Monarchs and that whilst he ends his course he measures out the moments and hours of their Empire If we have any reason to complain of the Sun he hath a juster cause to wage war upon us for we force him to give light unto our faults we make him a flave to our vanities and though he be always on his journey we force him to be a confederate in our offences but he is not so much afflicted with these injuries as with our homages he is lesse troubled at our outrages then at our adorations and is more sensible of his being our Idoll then of being our slave This disorder is large enough to furnish matter for a whole discourse and to serve for a new proof to Christians that sin hath corrupted all Creatures The fourth Discourse That there is no Creature which men have not adored T' Is a strange prodigie that there is not a better establisht belief then that of a God and yet not any one hath ever been more disputed It is written in our hearts by the hand of nature time hath not been ableto efface it Ignorance and oblivion which are it 's two greatest enemies cannot weaken it and falshood it self which reigns so absolutely in the world hath not had power enough to banish it Reason doth herein agree with faith every man upon this occasion is naturally a Christian. Let him but consult with nature and he cannot be deceived and even when he offers incense to Idols and when he builds Temples to the workmanship of his own hands he may make amends for his fault if he will but be advised by his conscience For she teacheth him this truth as oft as she speaks with freedome and with what ever falshood she be forestalled she always continues this belief She apprehends God◠Justice in the faults which she committeth and hopeth in his mercies through the vertues she inures her self unto When she will affirm a Truth she takes him for her witnes who seeth all things When she is threatened with any mischief she invokes him onely who is omnipotent and when she fals into any misfortune she seeks for deliverance from none else but from him who glories in assisting the innocent and miserable If she at any time speak wickedly she takes her self up as soon as she is awakened by affliction she amends her errour when she followes her own light and as oft as she is rationall she is Christian. Yet is there nothing more common in the world then Idolatry This sin was born in the Terrestiall paradise and if we will believe Tertullian the Devill would 〈◊〉 insinuate the beliefe of Plurality of Gods into our first father when he perswaded him that he might become one All men being abused by this foolish promise have ingaged themselves in Idolatry not being able to warrant themselves from death they have pretended to immortality not being able to dispose of Scepters and Crowns they have endevoured to dispose of Temples and Altars And failing in Credit to make Kings they have insolently attributed unto themselves the power of making Gods But seeing that errour hath no boundaries but doth increase with time all things have contributed fuell to this errour and every sect of Philosophers have insensibly forged out Idols unto themselves to adore them Those of them that were the cleerest sighted were most faulty and found the subject of their superstition in God himself For not being able to comprehend that adorable unity which bindes all these persections together and who doth wonderfully accord his Justice with his mercy his love with his Majesty his immensity which fils all things with his holinesse which parts him from them his providence which guides us with his power which preserves us they imagined that every one of his perfections was a different divinity and dividing the divine essence they did wickedly take in Parts who doth re-unite all things in himself Seneca found out this injustice but did not correct it and being more carefull to build up his reputation then to establish religion he was contented to let posterity see that he had light enough to discover this Imposturisme Some others being passionate for the vertues erected Altars to them being ravisht with their lovelinesse they strove to make them be adored they made thereof spirituall Idols and false divinities of all the habits which could adorn the mind of man They erected Altars to mercy and believed that a vertue which did assist the miserable ought to be worshipped by all those who could become miserable They offered incense to clemency
and as if they would side with guilty they obliged the innocent to reverence her They immolated Victimes to wisedome and to acknowledge the favours which they had received from her guidance they injured her through their superstition and adored her under the name of destiny and image of Fortune Philosophers excused their Idolatry by these bad reasons and would perswade Christians that that religion could not be vitious which did onely adore vertue blindnesse increasing with deceit they confounded vices with vertues and added to the number of their Gods to honour their Ancestors debaucheries They consecrated incontinency under the name of Venus they defied drunkennesse under the name of Bacchus they did authorize injustice and the licentiousnesse of war under the name of Mars and not dreaming that Gods could not be one anothers enemies they erected Altars to peace after having built others to Bellona when Impudency was arrived at it's height they adored vices without disguising them and calling them by their proper names they built Templâ—s to fear to fury and to envy The body being scandalized that the passions of the soule should be reverenced would have it's motions and disorders to receive the same honours Pallor or Palenes was deified to give it contentment Ignorance admiration made an Idol of the Ague til Physitians had learnt the course fits thereof ignorant and superstitious peopleimagined it deserved an Altar they adored this Divinity because they dreaded it They thought themselves miserable when they had got it and contrary to the humour of Adorers they sought for nothing more then that a God should keep far from them who had won himself credit only by the evils that he did WheÌ„ impiety had made these tryals she undertook to consecrate men and to build them Temples after having tane them out of their sepulchres Death which denounced their weaknesse and their sin could not alter the course of these unjust proceedings and all the miseries which they had in their life time endured could not extinguish them Interest and sorrow were the beginning of this superstition for subjects to consolate themselves for the losse of a Sovereign who by his labours had defended them and who had taught them the art of building houses or of husbanding land would eternize his memory by solemne sacrifices and lodged the same men in heaven whom they had buried in the earth They invented Apotheosis to ease their sorrow they thought that fire which reduced men into ashes could change them into spirits that that element which doth purifie all things had the vertue to in-noble Princes and take from them all the impurity which they had contracted in the world They thought that Religion knew how to convert men into Gods that the Senates decree was as powerfull as that of destiny and that Iupiter was bound to confirme in heaven what ever a Pope had concluded on earth By this means Apotheosis was oft-times the reward of hainous crimes Princes who were most faulty were most honoured men granted that to the power of Successours which ought to have been refused to the power of their Ancestours people were constrained to adore Tyrants whom they had detested to re-commend the welfare of the State to those who had been the undoing of it and to change their just imprecations into vowes as faint as unreasonable If great mens violence caused impiety in the meaner sort love ingaged Fathers in the Idolatry of their Children For to allay their sorrow for their death they made their pictures be drawn by skilful painters then adding their power to the workmans cunning they bound their eyes to behold these images with respect to offer up incense to young Princes whom death had swept away in the flower of their Age. Following the example of this unjust sorrow every Sonne would make a God of his father All those who bare any credit with the people made their Ancestours be adored and taking advantage of this false piety they perswaded weak mindes that they were descended from the Race of the Gods In fine the naturall inclination which men have to Religion caused Idolatry in the world for not being able to be without Gods they forged sensible deities unto themselves and wanting souls sufficiently elevated to conceive a true Idea of the divine essence they cut out Idols with their hands they through a fearfull blindnesse put their trust in Gods made of clay and wood and consulted with statutes which being deaf and dumb could neither hear nor answer them oft-times one and the same tree served to make Gods and ships both their destinies depended on the artificer their fortune consisted on his fancy and his hand destin'd the one to suffer shipwrack at sea the other to be worshipped on earth But that they might avoid the pain of making Gods they bethought themselves of chusing them and foregoing the care of forging or moulding them they reserved a power unto themselves to declare them they deified whole Nature of every of it's parts they made Gods Flowers were placed in the same rank with Stars these earthy Stars received divine honours they charmed men and purchased themselves adorers by their odour and beauty a man might croud a thousand divinities into one nosegay they joyned Superstition to Vanity women satisfied their devotions in dressing themselves the most vain amongst them was the godliest and those who wore garlands of Lillies and Roses might boast themselves to be in-animated Temples Fruits whereof flowers are but ornaments disputed this honor with them there were some men who preferring profit before beauty judged that Pomona did better deserve temples then Flora and that if every creature was a portion of divinity trees were more to be considered then plants since not being lesse lovely they were more usefull Men being phantasticall in their humours and nothing being so deformed in Nature which meets not with some admirours Onnions contended with flowers and whole Nations drew them out of their Gardens to place them upon Altars the Egyptians instituted ceremonies and Priests unto them these wise men who having confer'd with the Iâ—s mought have some cognizance of the truth ingaged themselves in this errour and becomming the talk of all people placed that in heaven which grew on earth profaned incense to perfume onnions By the same licence they worshipped what they feared Fear infused piety into these servile souls they offered sacâ—ifices to Serpents to be delivered from them and toallay their fury did immolate victimes to them the Devil delighted to see himself adored in a Monster which had served him for interpreter in the earthly paradise he would recompence it's fidelity with this honour and repair the losse which it had suffered upon his occasion by divine homage After this high extravagancy all Idolatry is excusable and we must not wonder if metals and stars have had their adorers since Serpents have had Priests and Altars for if
as good as fair Shee to whom nature had not been so liberall of her favours learnt by this true friend that she was to amend the faults of her face by the perfections of her soul and that she ought to strive for the advantages of men since she wanted those of women A young Prince who observed in this true glasse that he was in the Flower of his age found himself obliged to undertake such glorious actions as render men famous an old man who saw his wrinkles and gray haires in this chrystall resolved to do nothing unworthy of his condition and seeing by his colour that he had not long to live prepared to die with courage Thus was the use of looking glasses a serious study men learnt vertue by beholding themselves and every one seeing his conscience in his face put on a generous resolution to acquit himselfe of his duty but incontinency hath prophaned this innocent art in this corrupted age if men see their faces in a glasse 't is that they may endeavour to surprize chastity and women look therein only to entertain their vanities Ambition gives not place to impurity and if the latter be ingenious in corrupting the purest things the other knows how to assubject the most noble In effect she teacheth Lions obedience she fastens them to the Chariots of Triumphers and having tamed men she tames wilde beasts She engages Elephants in a fight she encourageth these huge Lumps against her Enemies she loads them with Towers upon their backs she makes use of their Trunck and teacheth them to war that she may win battels at their cost she makes the ground to groan under the weight of her Engines the mountains to quake at the noise of her Cannons she sends death by their bullets into Towns and imprisoning the noblest of Elements in Mines she forceth it to blow up bastions to recover it's liberty she tames the Seas haughtinesse she forceth this Monster to bear her ships to assist her in her Conquests to open the way unto her to lead her into the farthest distant Countries and to serve her for a Theater to fight upon and bear away victory Thus man instructed by this bad Mistresse assubjects all the Elements to his Tyranny he forceth the inclinations of the noblest subjects he makes them guilty of his offences and strangely abusing his liberty he makes them mutiny against their Common Sovereign Taking the same freedom he prophanes sacred things makes the worlds most holiest parts serve his impiety For though heaven be the Temple wherein God resides though the Sun be the Throne wherein he makes himselfe visible though the Stars be open eyes through which he observes our faults yet the Libertine abuses all these excellent creatures in his unjust designes he disposeth of heaven as of the earth he promiseth it unto himselfe after his death and imagines he ought to reign amongst Angels after having commanded amongst men he perswades himselfe that the Sun riseth onely to afford him light that the Stars finish their courses onely to serve him that the Planets meet not but to observe his adventures and to presage his victories and being strangely hoodwinkt hee believes that Nature is onely busied to finde him pastimâ— or for his honour He raiseth up devills by the help of Magick he extends his Empire even unto hell not knowing that he purchaseth his power by the losse of his liberty that he becomes their slave who obey him and that he procures unto himselfe as many Tyrants after death as he imployes officers in his life time The creatures to revenge themselves for so many out-rages conspire his undoing and declare war against him he sees no one part in all his Dominions wherein he findes not either Rebels or Enemies whatsoever he undertakes he meets with resistance and his subjects through despair resolve to free themselves from their unjust Sovereign though by their own undoing Of the so many ways which they finde to revenge themselves or punish him the two most remarkable are violence or cunning The first is more sensible the second more dangerous For no man is so resolute but that he trembles when he sees all creatures armed against him and that wheresoever he turns his eye he either findes factions or revolts in his state Every Element threatens him with a thousand torments he findes no sanctuary amidst so many dangers and let him be how carefull he can to defend himself he knows he cannot shun a violent death for to understand it aright no death is naturall and if we give it somtimes that Title 't is either to sweeten the rigour thereof or to confound nature with sin This war which appears so cruell is not the most dangerous for to boot that we know how to defend our selves from it and that self-love hath found out remedies for all our evils it loosens us from off the earth it makes us abhor our exile and love our dear Countrey it raiseth us up gently into heaven and we may say that if this persecution makes not Martyrs it doth at least make Penitents But the other is so much more dangerous as it is more pleasing it deceives us so much the more easily by how much it flatters us more cunningly for the creatures are in the devils hands to seduce us they are full of snaâ—es and nets to surprize us we can hardly make use of them without hazarding our welfare This Tyrant who got the Sovereignty of them when he lost it in Paradise makes such cunning use of them as it is almost impossible to avoid his snares To preserve our innocence we ought to interdict our selves the use of the world and not to fall under the slavery of devils it seems we ought to have no commerce with his creatâ—res They were formerly faithfull Guides which led us to God and now they draw us far from him formerly they taught us our mysteries and to know the beauty of God a man was only to consider his works now they engage us in errour the Prince of darknesse imployes them either to abuse Philosophers or to deceive the mis-believers formerly they served us for pastime wherein pleasure was mingled with innocency they charmed our eyes without distracting our mindes religion and study were not as yet separated the one and the other of them had their sweets without bitternesse and made men learned and godly without labour but now the creatures serve us for pastime only to undo us the sports which they furnish us withall are almost always accompanied with sin if we exceed necessity we fall into intemperance and if we use them profusely we cannot shun injustice Every creature bears about it's dangers with it a man must stand upon his guard when he intends to make use of them and who sailes upon this sea without very much caution is in danger of shipwrack We ought most to suspect such things as are most necessary for us
in it's greatest storms not to out-passe it's bounds it takes nothing in one place which it repayes not in another it restores to Swethland what it hath taken from Holland and foregoes our coasts when it intrencheth upon our neighbours if the ebbing flowing thereof be sometimes irregular they never move to such a height as to threaten the whole world it's inroads are rather for pastime then mischief and should it have tane that liberty in the state of innocency man who very well knew the nature thereof would neither have been surprised nor astonished thereat But if it now spread it self over the fields if it cover the highest steeples with it's waves if it turn populous towns into lakes or ponds if it bear it's Empire beyond it's bounds and if breaking the banks which are made to oppose it's fury it threaten us again with an universall Deluge it follows rather the motions of Divine Justice then it 's own and this prodigie is rather an effect of Gods anger then of Nature Thus ought we to argue of that generall inundation which destroyed the whole world two thousand years after it was first made the cause came from heaven the decree was pronounced by Gods own mouth the execution thereof was given to the evil spirits the Elements received a new commission to obey their new order The earth furnisht part of the vapours which were to drown her the vapours distil'd down in rain rivers being swoln with such fall of rain broke their banks the sea not able to contain so many flouds forewent its bounds Towns were changed into ponds their streets were turned into rivolets their inhabitants quitted their houses the wals whereof were undermined by waters and equally fearing two contrary evils they know not whether they were to perish by the fall or by the drowning of their houses Torrents were seen every where which charged with booty did at the same time carry down the seilings of palaces and trees out of gardens all rivers lost their names and channels the Rhine was confounded with Rome Euphrates and Ganges were mingled together all those great rivers which had won fame by reason of the towns which they watered found their losse in their greatnesse and ruined themselves that they might ruine the whole world the tops of mountains made Islands in this wast Ocean which being by little and little quite effaced left the world at last drowned in waters there was then but one onely Element seen Whole Nature became a Sea in the which the winds guided a vessell which carried in it the worlds onely hope and which preserved eight people amidst this deluge which were to re-people the world It is very likely that so great a spoil was not made without Thunder and that to make this punishment the more dreadfull the Sun hid his face that the day gave place to night that the world was covered with darknesse and the Lightening was the torches which did attend the funerall pomp whilst any mountains were yet uncovered with water the remainders of man-kind were fixed there in this extremity no comfort but astonishment remained fear was changed into stupidity and the wonder which they conceived at this so hideous an accident did so possesse their spirits as they saw the sea without fear had not feeling of the mischief and perished without complaining Who will not confesse that so strange an accident could be no naturall effect who will not judge by the greatnesse thereof that it was a miracle of divine Justice who will not confesse that these disorders which tend to the ruine of man-kind are the punishments of sin and that nature would never have conceived so much indignation against her own children had she not believed to revenge their father by their death and to repair his honour by their punishment The eighth Discourse That Thunder Plagues and Tempest are the effects of Sinne. WHen I consider the worlds condition since sin me thinks I see a combat between self-love and divine Justice and that these two parties do with equall courage endevour to win the victory Divine Justice disorders the seasons to punish sinfull man altereth the nature of the elements robs the earth of flowers and covers it over with thorns makes the winters longer and Summers shorter and mingling the saddest of our seasons with all the other makes snow be seen in the spring and thick fogs in Autumn arms savage beasts with new fury draws them out of their forrests to set on sinners in towns destroyes her own workmanship ruines the beauties of the world to take revenge of the Lord thereof and raiseth up as many enemies against him since his sin as he had Subjects during his innocency Self-love imploys all it's industry to to repair these disorders and by tricks which seem to augment it's sin withstands all the designs of Divine Justice it cultivates the earth and by it's labour makes her fruitfull it ingrafts roses upon thorns and indevours to make the place of it's exile a stately palace it hath had such good successe in it's enterprizes as the sinfull world comes not far short of the world when innocent did our first father live again and partake of our contentments he would not so much lament the losse of the earthly paradise but blaming the tears which his banishment drew from him he would passe his time merrily away with his children in so pleasing an abodâ— In effect all things are refined by time solitary places are inhabited forrests which infused horrour into those who saw them furnish hunters with pastime the barren sands are sowed upon vines are planted upon rocks Marish grounds are dried that they may be plough'd up and provinces are now fuller of palaces then formerly they were of cottages Islands are no longer un-inhabited and those famous rocks which made the Pylots tremble now bear high Towers for Land-marks unto them and Towns to receive them all the parts of the world are peopled nor are there any desarts which have not some Inhabitants and houses But let self-love use all the cunning that it can there are some mischiefs which wee cannot shâ— and there are some disorders in the world which will oblige us to confesse that the wisedome of man cannot defend it self against Gods anger Thunder is of this sort and one must have lost his reason not to fear a cause which produceth such strange effects All Poets have armed the hands of God therewithall and nature which is the Mistresse of Infidels hath taught them that he makes use thereof to punish offenders the lightenings which fore-run it the noyse which doth accompany it and the prodigies which follow after are undeniable proofs of this truth Let Philosophy defend her self against it by her vain reasons let her oppose her pride to our feaâ— let her destroy religion by her libertinisme she cannot keep reasonable men from redoubting thun-Thunder and from confessing by the fear
heaven was offended at him that the anger thereof was not to be appeased but by a general satisfaction chose the plague before either war or famin out of a beliefe that this scourge might aswell light on him as on the meanest of his subjects In effect it spares no man neither youth nor age can allay the rigour nor stop the progresse thereof it mows down more souldiers then war doth it cuts off more Commanders then the sword it boasts of ending the differences between Kings and of making them make peace by taking from them the means of making war There have been some so contagious plagues as have dispeopled the greatest part of the world the seas did not stop their Conquests and this vast element which serves for a stop to the ambition of Conquerours could not dissipate the fury thereof the winds served them for post-horses and they crost the seas to carry infection into the utmost parts of the world without either oares or fails the number of the dead was so great as the earth was not able to cover them nor yet the forrests to bury them Physicians died together with the sick Children dropt down after their fathers and lost their lives in doing them their last duties A man need onely to consider the horrour of this malady to acknowledge that it is one of the punishments of sin during the time of innocence the air was not corrupted the earth brought forth no fruits which could breed bad humours death did not reign where there was no guilty persons Heaven which breeds contagion by it's mortall influences did not punish those which it had not as yet condemned our sins must have provoked it to have made it our enemy we must have lost our innocency to incurre the dis-favour thereof and sin must have wounded our soul before the plague had seized on our bodies One may say that the same thing which causeth contagion on the land causeth tempests at sea that it conspires together with sin to undo man that it unpeoples the earth to people hell and that it holds Intelligence with the winds to sink ships Some Philosophers have been of opinion that the sea did not belong to the Empire of man that this element was reserved for fishes as the air for birds that it was an usurpation to sail thereon to cut through the waves thereof to discover it's champians and to penetrate the depths thereof that Nature which punisheth all injustice had raised up storms and formed rocks to revenge his Tyranny but certainly reason binds us to believe that there was nothing in the world which was not put under â—he power of man that his authority had no other bounds then those of Nature and that God who had placed him in the world to admire his works had left to him aswell the disposall of the sea as of the land but when through rebellion he became gnilty of high treason his Empire was divided his subjects contemned his power and every part of his estate brought forth Monsters to destroy him The sea is so fruitfull herein as the most of her productions are monstruous every fish is an enemy to man they are not to be tamed by art and violence bereaves them rather of their life then of their fury It seems that being by divine Justice imployed against men in the deluge they retain yet some remembrance of that first imployment and that they think to revenge God as oft as they punish us they by their strength overturn great ships they leap into lesser vessels to assail us they make storms in the midst of calms being living rocks do oft-times cause the skilfullest Marriners run shipwrack This great danger is accompanied by the like of Tempests which seem to enrage the Sea onely that she may drown the Land or bury mankind in her waves This disorder is good for nothing but to undo us prophane Philosophy findes no other cause for it the more it considers the strange effects thereof the more is it obliged to adore Gods Justice and to condemne mans sin The winde purifies the aire and disperseth the clouds the rain waters the earth and vapours which are the originall of Aire make the fields fruitfull fire doth not much consume the wealth of nature it betakes it selfe to buildings and punisheth our vanity in destroying our workmanship The plague it selfe which violating all the Laws of Nature sweeps away the Son together with the Father and buries in the same grave the Physician and the Patient doth oft-times by the havock which it makes prevent the cruelty of war and kils men to hinder them from committing parricide for when it sees the earth groan underneath the burthen of her children that she can no longer nourish those which she hath brought forth that the scarcity of victuals makes people take up armes and prepare for war to free themselves from famine it dispeoples Towns dis-burthens the fields and bereaves men of their lives only to preserve their innocence but Tempests are only fit to punish either our avarice or our ambition the Seas rage is only usefull to make us know our offences the deeps which open themselves beneath ships the mountains of water which raise themselves above the Sailes the lightnings which mingle themselves amongst the waves and threaten us at the same time both which being drown'd and burnt are formed by the hand of Nature only to make us die with more of pomp and more of horrour And certainly it was very just that the Theater of our Ambition should be the like of our punishment that the windes which we make slaves to our avarice should become the Ministers of Gods anger that those Spirits which put life into our ships should inanimate storms and that they which fill our Sailes should make our designes give against the rocks for it must be confest we are more insolent in our abusing this Element then the rest that we do more unjustly imploy the windes then all other things in the world Nature hath produced them for our service they are of use to us even in rebellion whereinto sin hath thrown us and we cannot sufficiently praise providence which hath drawn them out of her Treasures to fit them to our needs they purge the aire by fanning iâ— and trouble the repose thereof onely to preserve it's purity they gather vapours together and then scatter them abroad they separate rain by dividing the clouds and if they hide the heavens from the earth 't is to adorn her with flowers and enrich her with fruit they entertain commerce amongst nations they make that common to the whole world which nature had appropriated to some one province they help us to go round the world and husbanded by our dexterity they discover unto us all the beauties thereof without their assistance we could not know the customes of Forraigners we should be ignorant of what is done underneath our feet
us cannot efface that of guilty It precedeth our birth accompanieth our life and doth almost always follow our death so as from the cradle to the grave our chiefest ornament ought to be modesty and our apparel ought to partake more of penitency then of vanity If we will not have the Angels to be therewithall scandalized they must not savour of novelty they must not be riotous and nothing must be therein observable which denotes insolency or uncleannes cloths were invented by shame and pain whatsoever ambition or self-love hath added thereunto is superfluous and who governs himself by custome or excuseth himself by his condition forgets that he is a Christian or remembers not that he is a sinner The eighth Discourse That the shame which accompanieth Nakedness is a punishment for our offence PHilosophers who knew not the secret of originall sin thought nature rather to be the step-dame then the mother of man and that she had not given such testimony of her care of his preservation as of that of other creatures beasts are born with their weapons and their apparell they are provided either of hair or wool to fence them from the cold and armed either with horns or claws to defend themselves against violence those of the weaker sort have their wiles to free themselves from their pursuers and if they want both strength and cunning nature hath furnished them with agility to shun their enemies who hunt after them thus we see that Lyons are armed with teeth and claws and that these generous animals confiding in force never refuse to fight when combate is offered bulls have their horns stags their coverts wild bores their tusks and all these differing defences are so well munited as a man cannot set upon them without danger of being hurt Hunting is an exercise wherein danger is mixt with delight if the hunters give blows they oft-times receive some and if deer or wild goats suffer themselves to be tame 't is not without revenge Foxes have so many wiles as it is experienced as well in hunting as in war that it is easier to overcome a couragious enemy then a crafty one Does Hindes and Hares are so swift of foot as dogs nor horses cannot overtake them these timerous beasts find their safety in their feet and as the Parthians fight retreating these overcome their enemies by running away Man on the contrary who glories himself to be the Lord of the Universe enters into his dominions without either weapons or apparell He finds his subjects revolted and hath neither strength nor agility to reduce them to their duty he is sensible of the unseasonablenesse of seasons yet cannot fence himself from their irregularities nor defend himself from their disorders He makes triall of the rigour of the elements yet cannot keep himself uninjured by them he is exposed to the fury of his enemies and wants weapons to fight them and nature dealing with him as with a monster or an illegitimate child affords him onely tears to bewail himself he must be brought by time to the use of reason before he can either make himself cloths or weapons for fourteen years space he is a prey for wild beasts and did not necessity make him ingenious he would be the most miserable of all creatures The rest are clothed as soon as born natures self takes care of clothing them their apparell constitutes a part of their body and the hair or wool which covers them is the meer work of nature but man is stark naked when he parts from his mothers womb his skin is so tender as the very air offends it he must be put in prison to be freed from the fury of his enemies he is treated like a slave to save his life and he is not suffered to make use of any of his members lest he use them to his own prejudice When he is grown great he is bound to make war upon nature to preserve himself to unrobe beasts to cloth himself he must use a kind of Tyranny upon creatures if he will free himself from the fury of the elements and he hath so little credit in his dominions that as he must tear up the earth for food so must he strip beasts to cloth himself Though these Philosophers complaints may appear just yet are they irrationall had they known mans fault they would never have blamed nature for she was not his step-dame till he became a sinner neither was she cruell to him till he was disobedient to God during his innocency she had largely provided for all his affairs originall righteousnesse served him for clothes and though this apparell was so very purely fine yet was it proofe against all seasons as Summer was not excessively hot so neither was Winter extreamly cold Spring and Autumne were so pleasantly inter-mingled as man though naked suffered no incommodity Trees which lent him their shade to refresh him did not as yet furnish him with leaves to cover him the earth brought forth no thorns to offend him it was so smooth and so all of a piece as he might touch it and not hurt himselfe the grasse and flowers wherewith it was beautified served in stead of a pleasing Carpet which satisfied his eyes and was easie to his feet In fine sin not having as yet wounded his soule he was not inforced through shame to cover his body he beheld himselfe with delight not with shame Gods workmanship not being yet through disobedience gone astray he observed nothing therein which was not pleasing to him and to say all in a word as he had no faulty parts so had he no shamefull ones he saw not in his body the pictures of his soules rebellion and whil'st the soul obeyed God all parts of the body obeyed the soul but as soon as he grew guilty he was forced to betake himselfe to apparell to free him from pain and shame for in a moment the seasons grew out of order the Elements waged war as well in his Dominions as in his body the earth mingled thorns with roses the face thereof which formerly was smooth became furrowed and stones succeeding in the place of flowers turned a delightfull garden into a horrid desart Man hearing storms thunder over his head and feeling thistles spring under his feet was inforced to cover both head and feet to preserve life He was no lesse opprest with shame then pain and the amazement he was in to see the shadow of sin upon his body made him resolve to cloth himselfe as well as did the irregularity of the seasons the Lord of the whole world who bare the Image of God imprinted in his face was a ghast to see himself he could not endure his nakednesse after once he had lost his innocency he sought for leaves to hide his rebellion and not having yet felt any pain for his sin he was ashamed of his punishment he observed an impudent novelty which made him judge his nakednesse unseemly
sinfull If Monsters be the productions of sin poisons are likewise the workmanship thereof though they seem naturall to some creatures I conceive they did not make any part of their Essence till after they had served the Devill for an Organ to deceive our first mother all insects which bear in them any poison are kinds of Serpents God curseth them to revenge us they creep upon their bellies in memory of the fault which our Enemies committed by their interposition they feed upon the earth for the punishment of a sin whereof they were but innocent Complices as their sight causeth horrour in us so doth ours cause fear in them the heavens have put a secret enmity between them and us if their venom be fatall to us our spittle is mortall to them and if they with their teeth give us incurable wounds we with our feet give them mortall Catches The same justice which would condemne them to all these punishments confin'd their venom to some parts of their bodies to make them more odious she would have their very looks to be contagious to make us shun them and instructing us by sensible things she secretly imprinted in our hearts a hatred against the Devill whose image they are she teacheth us by this example that we cannot hold innocent commerce with one that is sinfull that that proud fiend which could inspire us with nothing but pride that there was more danger in communing with him than in treating with aspes and vipers And certainly venom must needs be a punishment of sin since all sorcerers make use thereof in their charmes and in all the mischiefe that they do imploy those poisons which hature hath produced to undo us these things seem to be abandoned to their fury that they have some jurisdiction over them and that they are permitted to assaile their Enemies with these weapons In effect all the harme they do to men is by this mingling of poisons the words which they use are of no efficacy they cannot hurt us by their curses 't is a trick of the Devill whom his weaknesse will imitate the power of God and perswade us that words uttered by those whom he imploys change nature and work miracles We are taught by reason and by faith that only God can act by speaking and produce things by his will The Angels which are the noblest Subjects of his Empire can alter nothing in the world but by the mediation of the Elements they are forced to employ their qualities to bring to passe their own designes and to make use of their heat or of their cold to hasten Winter or retard Summer they assume bodies in the clouds to make themselves visible they speak by the means of the aire to make themselves be understood and make use of vapours to form storms and Thunder but the devils who are rebels to Gods Kingdom having no designes but what are pernitious they employ venom to execute them they gather up the foam of Dragons and Serpents slaver and compose drinks of all these differing poisons they mingle a thousand deaths together to revenge themselves of their Enemies but say they did not make use of these things to satisfie their fury is it not sufficient to know that these things are averse unto us as to judge that they have been altered by divine Justice for our punishment or does not the knowledge of their being altered by divine Justice for our punishment suffice to ascertain us of their aversion to us In Gods first designe all creatures were tied to serve man they were to contribute either to his pastime or to his profit they had no other end but his pleasure or his advantage and had they been able to expresse their meanings they would have witnessed that their being in the world was only to follow his inclinations What place should poisons have held then in this world how could they have been serviceable to man in the state of innocency could he have taken any satisfaction in the sight of creatures whose qualities were fatall to him could he have treated with the Basilisk whose looks cause death could he have approached Serpents which poison the aire with their breath could he have communed with him who was the cause of his undoing had he suspected either his breath or his looks and ought we to imagine that there was any creatures which could offend man in a time when not having committed any fault he was not to fear any punishment what delight could he have taken in the company of those beasts which are fatall to all other beasts what sport could he have taken in Monsters which carry death in their eyes or mouth and from whence a man must fence himself as well as against the plague or war But it may be objected Originall righteousnesse served him for a safe-gard he saw the danger with delight because the sight thereof caused no apprehension in him he was well pleased to to handle poyson the efficacy whereof was tane away by his innocency and to touch venome which had not power to hurt him Divine Providence which prescribed bounds to the raging of the sea gave laws to the malice of Serpents and the same power which hindered the Sun from burning men when he gave them light would not suffer the Basilisk to poyson them by his lookes but who perceives not how weak this answer is and how it compares Creatures which do no ways resemble one another the Elements hurt not us but onely through their disorders the seasons annoy us not but by their irregularities All things in their purity are usefull to us we dread not nature for them but her corruption and even in the very state of sin we make use of them without either fear or danger Owles onely complain of light Harmony is onely hated by Savage beasts a man must either be sick or mad to detest food which preserves life but every body apprehends poyson it must be corrected by art before the malignity thereof be tane away to make any use of it it must be destroy'd it is so dangerous as it oft-times kils those Physicians who prepare it The smell of poyson is as pernitious as the substance it poures forth it's malignity throughout all the Senses penetrates all the pores of the body and there are some so subtil poisons as even Iron is not solid enough to fence us from them Let us then conclude that the earth bore not those unlucky plants which seem to conspire mans ruine till that made barren by Gods Curse it was bound to turn it's roses into Thorns and it's fruits into poysons Sin was the occasion of this disorder Divine Justice the cause and the same power which caused the earth to open underneath the feet of Dathan and Abiram caused wolfes-bane and Hemlock to come out of her bowels to hasten his death who had lost his innocency The tenth and last Discourse That God will