in this world consists in the necessity of death but Mans reason is impaired in the course of Times Oh welcome impairement since Time ruines it but onely in an Anger knowing that it goes about to establish its Empire beyond both time and Ages In fine the Heavens may seem to wax old in their wandring course How happy is man in decaying evermore since he thus at last renders himselfe exempt from all the miseries which pursue him they yet appear the same still every day as they were a thousand yeares agon man from moment to moment differs from himselfe and every instant disrobes him somewhat of his Being Oh delightfull Inconstancy since all his changes make but so many lines which abut at the Center of his stability How mysterious is the Fable of Narcissus the Poets would perswade us that He became self-enamoured A long life is a heavy burthen to the soul since it muct ronder an account of all its moments viewing Himself in a Fountain But I am astonish't how one should become amorous of a dunghill though covered with Snow or Flowers A face cannot be formed without Eyes Nose and Mouth and yet every of these parts make but a body of Misery and Corruption as being all full of it This Fable intimates us the representment of a fairer truth since it invites a man to gaze himself in the Fountain of his tears thus to become amorous of himself If a man could contemplate the beauties of his soul in innocence he would alwais be surprized with its love If a man would often view himself in the tears of his repentance he would soon become a true self-lover not for the lineaments of dust and ashes whereof his countenance is shap's but rather of those beauties and graces wherewith his soul is ornamented and all these together make but a rivelet which leads him to the admiration of that source from whence they took their originall Oh how David was a wise Narcissus then when he made of his Tears a Mirrour so to become enamour'd of himself for he was so self-loving in his repentance that in this He spent both daies and nights with unparalled delights All the vain objects of the world are so many fountains of Narcissus wherin prying may shipwrack themselves But if Narcissus ship-wrack't himself in the fountain of his self-fondnesse This great King was upon point to Abysse himself in the Sea of his tears for their liquid Crystalline shewd him to himself so beautifull that he burned with desire thus to drown himself Ladies view your selves in this Mirrour since you are ordinatily slaves to your own self love You will be fair at what price soever see here is the means The Crystall Mirrour of your tears flatter not contemplate therein the beauty of this grace which God hath given you to bewail your vanities This is the onely ornament which can render you admirable Tears are the faithfullest Mirrours of penitents All those deceitfull Chrystals which you wear hang'd at your Girdles shew you but fained beauties whereof Art is the workmistrisse and cause rather then your visages Would ye be Idolaters of the Earth which vou tread on your bodies are but of Dirt but if you will have them endeared where shall I find tearms to expresse their Noysomnesse If Ladies would ake as much care of their souls as of their bodys they would not hazard the losse both of one and to'ther Leave to Death his Conquest and to the Worms their heritage and search your selves in that originall of Immortality from whence your souls proceed that your actions may correspond to the Noblenesse of that cause This is the most profitable counsell which I can give You It is time to end this Chapter Great Kings I serve you this Morning instead of a page to awake You and remembrance You that you are Men I mean Subjects to Death and consequently destinated to serve as a Prey to the Worms The meditation of our nothingness is a soveraign remedy against vanity a Shittle-cock to the sinds and matter for to form an object of horror and astonishment to you altogether Muze a little that your life passeth away as a Dream think a little that your thoughts are vain consider at the same time Men are so near of blood together hat all bear the same name that all that is yours passes and flies away You are great but this necessity of Dying equals you to the least of your subjects Your powers are dreadfull but a very hand-worm mocks at them your riches are without number but the most wretched of men carry as much into the grave as you In fine may all the pleasures of Life make a party in Yours yet they are but so many Roses whose prickles onely remain to you at the instant of Death The horror which environs You chaseth away your greatnesse Man hath nothing so proper to him as the misery to which he is born the weaknesse which possesseth you renders unprofitable your absolute powers and onely then in that shirt which rests upon your back are comprised all the treasures of your Coffers Are not these verities of importance enough to break your sleep I awake you then for to remembrance you this last time If the earth be our mother heaven is our father that you are Men but destined to possesse the place of those evill Angels whose Pride concaved the Abysses of Hell that you are Men but much more considerable for the government of your reason then your Kingdom That you are Men but capable to acquire all the felicities of Heaven if those of the Earth are by you disdained That you are Men but called to the inheritance of an eternall Glory if you have no pretence to any of this world Lastly Though the body and soul together make up the man there is yet as much difference between the one and the others as between the scabberd and the sword that you are Men but the living images of an infinite and omnipotent one Clear streames of immortality remount then to your eternall source fair rayes of a Sun without Eclipse rejoyn your selves then to the body of his celestiall light Perfect patterns of the divinity unite your selves then to it as to the independant cause of your Being Well may the Earth quake under your feet your wils are Keys to the gates of its abysses should the Water or'e-whelm again all Although the puissances of the soul work not but by the senses the effects in this point are more noble then the cause your hopes cannot be shipwrack'â— That the Aire fils all things may be but your expectations admit of some vacuum Though the Fire devour all things the object of your hopes is above its flames let the heavens pour down in a throng their malignant influences here below your souls are under covert from their affaults Let the Sun exhaling vapours make thereof thunders for your
of the world 'T is the Epitaph on their tomb Read it I grant more-over Death may be contemned but not avoided you may be the greatest Princes of the earth An infinite number of your companions are buried under these corrupted ruins Suppose in fine that your Soveraignty did extend it self over all the Empire of the world A thousand and a thousand too of your semblables have now nothing more their own then that corruption which devours even to the very bones Ambitious Heart see here a Mirrour which flatters not since it represents to the life the realty of thy miseries Well maist thou perhaps pretend the conquest of the Universe even those who have born away that universall Crown are now crowned but with dust and ashes Covetous wretch behold the book of thy accounts 'T is no wonder the Miser ne're thinks of Death his thoughts are onely taken up for this Life calculate all that is due to thee after payment of thy debts learn yet after all this that thy soul is already morgaged to devils thy body to worms and thus notwithstanding all thy treasures there will not abide with thee one hair upon thy head one tooth in thy chops nor one drop of blood in thy veynes nor ne're so little marrow in thy bones nay the very memory of thy being would be extinguish't if thy crimes did not render it eternall both here and in the torments of hell Proud arrogant man measure with thy bristled brows Pride is but like the nooneflourish of a flows or which at Sunset perisheth the dilatation of the earth Brave with thy menacing regards the heavens and the stars These mole-hills of rottennesse whereof thy carkasse is shap't prepare toward the tomb of thy vanity Seneca Epist Quotidie morimur quotidie enim demitur aliqua par vitae These are the shades of Death inseparable from thy body since it dies every hour If thou elevate thy self to day even to the clouds to morrow thou shalt be debased to nothing But if thou doubt of this truth behold here a thousand witnesses which have made experience of it Luxurious Wanton give thy body a prey to voluptuousnesse deny nothing to thy pleasures but yet consider the horrour and dreadfunesse of that Metamorphosis when thy flesh shall be turned to filth and even that to worms and those still to fresh ones which shall devour even thy coffin and so efface the very last marks of thy Sepulture How remarkable is the answer of Diogenes to Alexander What art thou musing on Cynicke says this Monarch to him one day having found him in a Charnell-yard I amuze my self here answers he in search of thy father Philips bones among this great number which thou see'st but my labour is in vain for one differs not from another Great Kings the discusse of this answer may serve you now as a fresh instruction to insinuate to you the knowledge of your selves You walk in triumph to the Tomb followed with all the train of your ordinary magnificences but by being arrived at this Port blown thither with the continuall gale of your sighs your pomp vanisheth away your Royall Majesty abandons you your greatnesse gives you the last Adieu and this your mortall fall equalls you now to all that were below you The dunghill of your body hath no preeminence above others unlesse it be in a worse degree of rottennesse of being of a matter more disposed to corruption But if you doubt of this truth Corruprio optimi pessima behold and contemplate the deplorable estate to which are reduced your semblables Their bald scalps have now no other Crown then the circle of horrour which environs them their disincarnated hands hold now no other Scepter but a pile of worms and all these wretchednesses together give them to see a strange change from what they were in all the glories of their Court The seriout meditation of his miserable condition 't is capable to make any man wise These palpable and sensible objects are witnesses not to be excepted against Let then your souls submit to the experiment of your senses But what a Prodigy of wonders here do I not see the great Army of Xerxes reduced and metamorphosed into a hand full of dust All that world of men in those days which with its umbragious body covered a great part of the earth shades not so much as a foot on 't with its presence Be never weary of thinking of these important truths Seneca in the Tragedy of Hercules brings in Alcmena In Hercule Oetaeo Ecce vix totam Hercules Complevit urnam quam leve est pondus mihi Câ—totus aether pondus incubuit leve with grievous lamentation bearing in an urn the ashes of that great Monster-Tamer And to this esfect makes her speak Behold how easily I carry him in my hand who bore the Heavens upon his shoulders The sense of these words ought to engage our spirits to a deep meditation upon the vanity of things which seem to us most durable All those great Monarchs who sought an immortality in their victories and triumphs have mist that and found Death at last the enjoyment of their Crownes and splendours being buried in the same Tomb with their bodies See here then a new subject of astonishment The Mathematicians give this Axiome The warld is a Game at Chesse where every of the Set haâ—s his particular Name and Place designed but the Game done all the pieces are pellmellâ—d into the Bagg and even so are all mortals into the grave All lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equall Kings and Princes abate your haughtinesse your subjects march fellow-like with you to the Center of the grave If life gave you preheminence Death gives them now equality There is now no place of affectation or range to be disputed the heap of your ashes and their dust make together but one hillock of mould whose infection is a horrour to me I am now of humour not to flatter you a whit We read of the Ethiopians that they buried their Kings in a kind of Lestall and I conceive thereof no other reason then according to the nature of the subject they joyned by this actiotion the shadow and the substance the effect with the cause the stream with its source for what other thing are we then a masse of mire dried and bak'd by the fire of life but scattered again and dissolv'd by the Winter of Death and in that last putrefaction to which Death reduceth us the filth of our bodies falls to the dirt of the earth as to its center for so being conceived incorruption let us not think strange to be buried in rottennesse Earth dust and ashes 'T is well men hide themselves after death in the Earth or the enclosure of Tombs their sulth and noysomnesse would else be too discovert remain still the same be it in a vessell of gold or in a coffin of wood
Clay If they do meerly carp and lye o' th' catch Harm be to them that onely for harm watch Solomon said it the deriding scornes Of fools are but cracklings of flaming thorns Let them that will our sober sadness shun Go to the merry Devil of Edmonton Or some such Plot whose Author 's drift hath bin To set the people on the merry pin Here is no Scope for such as love to jeer Nor have we Theam for Panto-Mimicks here They that are ravisht with each jygging Toy Let 'em laugh on and jolly mirth enjoy Fairly be this a warning here 's no sport And 't is all one if they be sorry for 't Or if they care not Sit they merry then Here 's sor the Genius of more solide men Serres salutes the serious who are such Their better-moulded intrals he doth twich With stirring truths and weigh 'em to the poize Of equal judgment without gigling noise Sad Meditations here compose the Look Socratick-like with no flash-humour shook Dust Earth and Ashes are the Epithites Here propriate to the best and all the Sights Expos'd in this True Mirrour to the Eye Are Death the Grave and the World's Vanitie The frailty of mankind and some have try'de Such pensive thoughts will lay the dust of Pride THE PARAGRAPHS So comprized in the Emblemes giving subject to the Author's Discourses following I. PHilip the King of Macedon Daily was rowz'd and call'd upon By a shrill Page whose Bon-jour ran Remember SIR you are a Man II. A Shirt is all remains in fine To victorious Saladine At Death a piece of Linnen is All that Great Monarch could call his III. Adrian slights Triumphal glory In the Grave founds his prime story Before all pomp he doth preferre His Mausolaean Sepulcher IV. Diogenes in Cynick guise Puts Alexander to surmise I' th Miscellany of the Dead Which is a King 's or Common's Head A Morallize on these Sieur Serres writes Nor Comick Gests nor amotous toy's endites Their Paphian Dames whil'st others loosely sing The Knell of Death his solemn style doth ring Those subjects which whole heards of Poets use Thred-bare his nobler Soul disdains to chuse While richly such a Reader These will fit Whose judgement prizeth wisdome above wit A PROLUSON Vpon the EMBLEME of the first Chapter RIse for a serene Morne brings on the Day The Sun is mounted onward of his way The Anthymne's high among the feather'd Quires A lively breath the agile Aire inspires Draw-ope the Curtains do not close the Eye From the fresh beauties of the Azure-Skie Mark what a smart Bon-jour his Page did bring Each Morne to PHILIP Macedonia's King REMEMBER Royall Sir YOV ARE A MAN The hours are wing'd the length of life 's a span This pow'rful hint stirr'd up the King to rise Whose name Heroick deeds immortalize Gross-vapour'd heavy-headed sleepers wake In the bright Morne no more soft slumbers take For Action Man was made Our Life 's a Race He that would win the Prize must run apace Be not enchanted with the lulling Down That charmes the senses in Lethargick swown Leave the enclosure of Bed-Canopie And give the view more spacious Libertie Forsake the grave-type Couch where Death doth keep His nightly Sessions imaged by Sleep He that 's a Dormouse for the time is dead And is entomb'd already in his Bed Who knowes how soon that sheet whereon he lyes May single serve t' enwrap him when he dye How soon these lazy feather-bedded bones May Coverletted be with Marble-stones Where no joint-suppling-warmth shall give refresh To high-fed veins nor ease improved flesh Where those puffe grossures which o're-curious cost Hath surfet-swoln are putrified and lost Who would be Epicurian since 't is thus We that eat all things else worms will eat Vs Or who would be o're-haughty since to Earth He must return as thence he had his Birth Mean while ' though life's quick-sand doth hourly pass A sluggard sleeps out more then half his Glass Be Active while you may for Time's post haste Spurs on each forward Minu'e to the last Such thoughts as these best fit the Morning 's prime To Rouze Men's Spirits to Redeem the Time Let such our Matters be ere Death's sad Knell Summon our wand'ring Souls to Heaven or Hell Sir Remember that you are a Man ⧠PHILIP King of MACEDON comanded one of his 〈◊〉 to Awake him euery Morning Call aloud to his 〈◊〉 SIR Remember that You are a MAN THE MIRROUR WHICH FLATTERS NOT. CHAP. I. MAN remember thou art Man never forget thy name Homo ab liumo if thou wilt not forget thy safety Thou art called Earth thou art made but of Earth but the Earth subsists and thou vanishest Man is a thing of nothing onely in appearance somwhat but the earth remaines firm and thy dust flyes away Study thy miseries Meditate thy disasters Thou art nothing in effect but if thou be any thing imaginable I dare not so much as compare thee unto a dream because the frailty of thy nature hath something both more feeble and lesse constant an Apparition hath above thee the simplicity of the Elements whereof it is composed a shadow implies yet the advantage of the Noblenesse of its beginning since the light produceth it Nay lastly a very straw or an atome dispute against thee also with reason One cannot give the description of Man but by mâ—sery nor of misery but by Man for the purity of substance since they are corruptible without infection but thy heaâ— of filth gives horrour to thy own thoughts insomuch that I am constrained to match thee to thy self for to suggest thee the truth of thy slightnesse What a goodly Schoole is the world and our condition a fair book and all the sad accidents to which Nature subjects it as so many gracious Lessons May not a man justly say that the earth is a Colledge wherein the diversity of Times and Ages sign ouâ— the diversity of Classes in which we may equally make the course botâ—â—f our studies and dayes under the way of those miseries which accompany us without cease the poornesse of our way of birth Mishaps and pains are the fruites of the garden of our life may stead us as a rudiment in the first Classe the cries and teares of the cradle are our Grammar the creeping weaknesse and pittiful infirmities of Bayage like so much Rhetorick and now can there be a more subtil Philosophy than that of the consideration of the calamities which are destined to youth Is it not easie to become a great Naturallist by vertue of meditating the fruitfulnesse of our nature in the production both of ils He which goes out Doctor in the knowledge of himselfe is ignorant of nothing and paines which continually afflict us and what better Metaphysicks than contemplations of our Being ever rowling to its ruine Let us draw then the conclusion of this Argument and joyn with as much reason as interest to these two Volumes so renowned
Ex. 38.8 to the end that those that should present themselves before his Altar might view themselves in thiâ— posture of Prayer O this excellent Mysterie Mortals it behooves you to view your selves in the Mirrour of your Ashes if you would have your vowes heard God hath taught us an excellent way of Prayer There is nothing assured in Life but its continuall Death Give us this day our daily bread But why O Lord teachest thou us not to ask thee our bread for to morrow as well as for to day O how good a reason is there hereof This is because that life hath no assurance of to morrow besides that it is an excesse of grace that we may be bold to crave of him the bread of our nourishment for all a whole day since every moment may be that of our Death Reader let this verity serve thee yet as a mirrour It is not sufficient to muse of the necessity of dying but to consider also that every hure may be our ast if thou would'st have thy praiers to pierce the heavens This is not all to know thy body is a Colosse of filth which is trail'd along from one place to another as it were by the last struggle of a Life alwaies languishing It behooves thee also to call to mind that every instant may terminate the course of thy troublesome carriere and that this sudden retreat constraines thee to bid Adieu for ever to all the things of the world which thou cherishedst most Thoughts only worthy of a noble spirit I have eaten Ashes as bread Psal 102.9 Cinerem tanquam panem manducabam saies the Royall Prophet but how is it possible I conceive his thought He entertained his soul with the remembrance of the Ashes of his body and this truth alone serv'd as object to his imagination for to satisfie the appetite of his Soul Lord give me both the same relish and desire to repast my selfe still thus A man to abase himselfe below that which he is being so poor a thing of nothing of dust and ashes in remembrancing my self alwaies that I am nothing else O sweet remembrance of my rottennesse since it steads me for eternall nourishment of my Soule O precious memorie of my Nothingnesse since able to satisfie the appetite of my heart Let this be the daily bread O Lord which thou hast taught me to ask thee to the end that all my desires together might be satiated with this dear nourishment I recollect my self in this digression Having diverse times mused of the imbecillity and weaknesse of man Si vitrei essemus minus casus timeremus S. Aug. I am constrain'd to cry out with St. Augustine What is there that can be more fraile in Nature If we were of Glasse pursues he our condition might therein be better for 2 Glasse carefully preserv'd There is nothing more brittle than glasse yet man is more may last long time and yet what pain soever man takes to preserve himself and under what shelter soever he shrowds himself for covert to the storm he breakes and is shattered of himself What reply you to these verities Great Princes Well may you now be atrogant The fragillity of glasse cannot admit of comparison with this of your nature what seat will you give to your greatnesse Man is fully miserable since his life is the source of his miseries and what foundation to your vanity when the wind alone of your sighs may shipwrack you upon the Sea of your own proper teares what surnames will you take upon you for to make you be mistaken That of Immortall would become you ill since every part of your body serves but as a But to the shafts of Death Invincible would also be no way proper A man may doe every thing with vertue without it nothing since upon the least touch of mishap you are more worthy of pity than capable of defence Would you be called Gods your Idolaters would immolate you to their own laughter Tread under foot your Crownes if rightly you will be crowned with them you only thus render your selves worthy of those honours Heaven cannot be acquired but by the misprize of earth which you misprize for Glory consists not in the possessing it but in the meriting and the onely means to obtain it is to pretend nothing at all to it How remarkeable is the custome of the Locrians at the Coronation of their Kings they burnt before them a handfull of Tow to represent unto them the instability of their grandeurs and the greedinesse of Time to destroy them In effect all the greatnesses of the Earth All the grandeur of Kings is but as the blaze of flaming tow are but as a bundlet of Tow and then when Darius would make of them his treasure Mis-hap set fire on them and reduced them into Cinders and when he had yet in his heart a desire to immortalize them a new fire seaz'd his intrals by the heat of thirst which burn'd him to the end to consume at once both the cause and the effect So true it is that the Glory of the world vanisheth away like Smoake Great Kings if you build a Throne of Majestie to the proof both against Time and Fortune He which esteems himselfe the least of all is the greatest lay its foundation upon that of your miseries Humility takes her rise in lowlinesse from the lowest footing when she makes her flight into the heavens O how admirable is the Humility of Saint Iohn Baptist They would give him titles of Soveraignty in taking him for the Messias but call to your Memory how with an ejaculation of Love and reverence he precipitates himself both with heart and thought into the Abysse of his own Nothingnesse Vox clamantis in deserto John 1.23 there to admire in all humility both Greatnesse Majesty in his Throne I am but a Voyce saies he which beat at the cares to enter into your hearts A Voyce which rustles in a moment and passes away at the same instant What Humility Is there any thing which is lesse any thing than a Voyce 'T is a puffe of wind which a fresh one carries I know not where since both lose themselves in the air after its never so little agitation Christus verbum Johannes vox with their gentle violence 'T is nothing in effect yet notwithstanding the proper name of this great Prophet They would elevate him John 1.27 and he abaseth himself so low that he would render himself invisible as a Voyce so much he feares to be taken for him whose shoe-latchet A Man is to be estimated in proportion to the under value he makes of himself he judgeth himself unworthy to unloose Lord what are we also but a little Wind enclosed in a handfull of Earth to what can one compare us without attributing us too much vanity True it is that we are the works of thy hands but all
of thy opinion Plotinus and henceforth will maintain every where with thee that Man is an abridgement of the wonders of the world The eight wonders of the world Since that all the Univers together was created but for his service and pleasure Say we yet moreover that those wonders of the world so renowned are but the works of his hands so that also the actions of his spirit in divine Contemplation can take their Rise above the Sun and beyond the heavens and this too now in the chains of its servitude Great Kings be it supposed that you are living pourtraits of Inconstancy Man flies away by little and little from one part of himself that he may entirely enter at once into himself The perfection of your Nature lies in this defect of you powers for this Vicissitude which God hath rendred inseparable to your condition is a pure grace oâ— his bounty since you wax old onely that you may be exempted from the tyranny of Ages since I say you die every moment onely to make acquisition of that immortality to which his love has destin'd you This defest of inconstancy is the perfection of man since he is changable to day to be no more so to morrow O happy Inconstancy if in changing without cease we approach the point of our soveraign felicity whose foundations are immoveable O dear Vicissitude â—rowling without intervall in the duâ—â— of our originall we approach bâ— little and little to those Age of glory which beyond all time assigne at our End the beginning of a better Carreere A man is onely happy in the perpetitall inconstancy of his condition O Glorioâ—â— Death since terminated at thâ—â— cruell instant which separates 〈◊〉 from Immortality It is true I confesse it again Great Kings that you are subject to all the sad accidents of your subjects The greatest misery that can arrive to a man is to offend God But what happinesse is it if these misfortunes are as so many severall waies which conduct you into the Port. Be it granted that you are nothing but Corruption in your birth Misery in your Life and a fresh infection in your Death All these truths are as so many attributes of honour to you since you disrobe your selves in the grave of all your noisomnesse for to Deck your selves with the ornaments of Grace of felicity and glory which belongs in proper to your souls as being created for the possession of all these Good Things Who can be able to dimension the greatnesse of Man Heaven Earth Nature the very Divels are admirers of the greatness of man since he who hath neither bounds nor limits would himself be the circumference of it Would you have some knowedge of mans power hear the commandement which Josuah made to the Sun to stop in the middest of his carreere Would you have witnesses of his strength Samson presents you all the Philistins buried together under the ruines of the Temple whose foundations he made to totter Require you some assurances of his courage Job offers you as many as he has sores upon his body In fine desire you some proofes of his happinesse Heaven hath fewer of Stars than of felicities to give him Man may be what somever he will be What name then shall we attribute him now that may be capable to comprehend all his glory There is no other than this of man John 19.5 and Pilate did very worthily no doubt to turn it into mockage before the Jewes Ecce homo Behold the Man he shews them a God under the visage of a Man Let the world also expose the miseries of Man in publicke His Image of Earth is yet animated with a divine spirit The name Man is now much more noble than that of Angels With what new rinds soever a man be covered he beares still in biforehead the marks of his Creator which can never change Nature Weâ—â— may they tear his bark the Inmaâ—â— of it is of proofe against the strokeâ— of Fortune as well as the gripes oâ— Death The Man of Earth may turn into Earth but the Man of heaveâ— takes his flight alwaies into heaven That Man I say fickle and inconstant kneaded and shap't from dirt with the water of his own tears may resolve into the same matter Buâ— this stable and constant Man created by an omnipotent hand remaines uncessantly the same as incapable of alteration Rouze then your selves from sleep great Princes He that would alwaies muse of Eternitie would with out doubt acquire its glory not for to remember Death but rather to tepresent unto your selves that you are immortall since Death hath no kind of Dominion over your Soules which make the greatest as being the Noblest part of you Awake then great Monarchs not for to muse of this necessity which drawes you every hour to the tomb but rather to consider that you may exempt your selves from it if your Actions be but as sacred as your Majesties Great PRINCES Awake Man is a hidden treasure whose worth God onely knowes and permit me once more to remembrance You that you are Men I meane the Master-pieces of the workes of God since this divine work-Master hath in conclusion metamorphosed himselfe into his own work My seathered pen can fly no higher Man onely is the ornament of the world Those which have propounded that Man was a new world have found out proportionable relations and great correspondencies of the one to the other for the Earth is found in the matter where of he is formed the Water in his teares the Aire in his sighs the Fire in his Love the Sun in his reason and the Heavens in his imaginations But the Earth subsists and he vaniseth O Sweet vanishment since he is lost in himself that he may be found in his Creator but the Earth remaines firm and his dust flies away O happy flight since eternity is its aime The Water though it fleets away yet returnes the same way and retorts upon it's owne paces Man may be said to be happy in being subject to all mishaps But man contrarily being setled upon the declining stoop of his ruine rouls insensibly without intervall to the grave his prison O dear ruine O sweet captivity since the soul recovers her freedome Death is a grace rather than a paine and this Sepulture serves but as a Furnace to purifie his body The Aire although it corrupt is not for all that destroied the corruption of man destroies its materiall O glorious destruction since it steads him as a fresh disposition to render him immortall The Fire though it fairely devoure all things is yet preserved still it selfe to reduce all the world into Ashes But Man perceives himself to be devoured by Time without ability ever to resist it Oh beneficiall Imporence since he finds his Triumph in his overthrow the Sun causeth alwaies admiration in its ordinary lustre The felicitie of man
think to stablish to themselves a shelter of honour to the proof of all sorts of atteints and on the contrary they warp the web of their own ruin Just so is it with the Rich ones of the world who by an ingenious industry To what effect is it to seek repose in this world it is never to be found but in God employ all their assaies to lay solide foundations here below of an immortall life and yet all their actions cannot but terminate in an end contrary to their designes since they search Eternity in the circles of Ages alwaies in revolution and repose in the perpetuall instability of all worldly things Insomuch that they trouble themselves to suffer much and all their cares and paines are but as fresh sowings of * See the ambiguity of the French word Souties in the first Chapter Marigolds which dying in their gardens respring in their hearts there to die never Behold the end of their journey-work Treasures to what effect serve you me if I must enter all naked into the grave Pleasures what becomes of your sweets if my last sighs are but bitternesse Grandeurs of this life in what stéad you meif you cannot exempt me from the miseries of death LORD I am rich enough in that I serve for an object of pity to thy adorable Providence whose o're liberall boundry furnishes me for all my daies nourishment enough to passe them what can I wish more on what side somever I take my way to go the course of Death Heaven is an object of consolation to the most miserable I can never loose from view the heavens which are the Gates of thy Palace Insomuch as if any thing fail me I have but to strike there with my regards thou art alwaies upon a ready watch to succour the miserable Supply me then O LORD if it please thee with thy ordinary charities and since that hope dies after me I will rather cease to be then to hope in thee These are the strongest resolutions of my soul We read of the children of Israel We beg of God every day new favours and every day we render our selves unthankfully for those we have received that having received of God an infinity of riches at their coming out of the red Sea by the wrack of their enemies they made of their treasures Idols and joyning in this sort Idolatrie to Ingratitude they erected altars to their brutalitie since under relief of a brute beast they represented their God But leave we there the children of Israel and speak of the Father◠of BABYLON I mean those wicked rich ones of the world to whom God hath done so great favours in heaping them with so many goods Are not they every day convicted of Idolatry in their unacknowledgement since the coffers of their treasures are the Idols of their temples Are we worthily Christians when idolatry is more familiar to us then to infidels since we make idols of al the objests of our passions More beasts then brutes in their voluntary depravednesse they offer incense to their brutish passions and no otherwise able but to erect them secret altars in their souls they there sacrifice everie hour a thousand sighs to a◠unsatiable abition Insomuch that the God of heaven is the God of their dissimulation and the Calf of Gold the God of their beleef and opinion Say we then boldly that the objects of our passions are Golden Calves to us since our hearts become their Idolaters One here will sigh for love of honours as well as for his Mistresse with designe to hazard a thousand lives and as many souls for the conquest of their vain felicities and see here his idolatry making his God of these Chimera's of honour which vanish away like a Dream at the rouzing up of our reason Another there What solly is it to seek repese in the world which subsists onely in revolution will lose quite and clean all the peace wherein he is of a quiet life for to set up a rest purely imaginary in the amassement of treasures And if heaven hearing his votes with design to punish him gives some favourable successe to his cares and watchings he becomes an Idolater now indeed an Idoloter of those goods which as yet he adored but in hope and renders himself miserable sor having desired too ardently felicities which onely bear the voice to be so The goods of the earil are right evils and at Death each one shall so experiment them but their usage and possession may prove as dangerous upon the earth as Rocks within the Sea One will have his heart wounded and his Soul attained with a new trick of ambition and as all his desires and thoughts are terminated to the objects of his designs he is never in health while the feaver of his passion is continuall I leave you to consider of what ratiocination he can be capable during the malady of his spirit All sorts of ways seem equally fair unto him for to guide him unto the port whither he aspires having no other aim but this to acquire at what rate some-ever that good whereof he is in Quest and of this Good it is whereof he makes his Idoll after a shamefull immolation of the best days of his Life to the anxieties of its possession Another-will establish his repose in the turmoyle of the word turning his spirit to all winds to be under covert from the tempests of fortune Blinde as he is he follows this Goddesse with the hoodwinckt eyes Wavering as he is he aspires but after the savours of this inconstant Deity of which he is secretly an idolater but if perchance she elevate him very high there is no more hazard of his fall the laws of this necessitie are inviolable and one cannot avoid the rigour of them if not avoiding their servitude Insomuch that after he hath sneak't himself a long time amongst the grandeurs of the earth he finds himself enlabirinthed in the miseries wherein he is born without possessing anie thing in propritie but the usance of a puffe of wind which enters once again at last into his entrals to force thence the last sigh And thus he becomes the Victime of the Idoll of his passions without purifying nevertheless from the sacrifice of his life the soyl of those offerings which he hath made upon the altars of Vanity Behold the sad issue of this Dedalean labyrinth If the fruition of all the world together were to be sold it were not wort so much b trouble a to open s the mouth onely to ◠say I will not buy it wherein so manie of the world take pleasure to intricate themselves in O how Rich is he LORD who hath thy love and fear for his treasure O how happy is he who hath for object of felicity the contempt of these things of the world O how Contented is he who thinks alwaies of eternall delights To have manie riches for a hundred
complaint If Riches consisted onely in Gold Diamonds Pearls or such like things of like raritie those which have not of them might count themselves miserable But every man carries his treasure in his conscience He which lives without just scandall lives happily and and who can complain of a happy life But if to have the hap of these felicities of this life Riches are of use to human life but not of necessity for without them a man may live content a man judge presently that he ought of nececessity to have a great number of riches This is to enslave himself to his own opinion abounding in his proper sense and condemning reason for being of the contrary part I know well that a man is naturally swayed to love himself more then all things of the world and that this love proceeds from the passion of our interest seeking with much care and pain all that may contribute to our contentments and whereas Riches seem to be Nurses of them this consequence is incident to be drawn that without them is no contented living But at first dash When Reason reigns the passions obey it is necessary to distinguish this love into Naturall and Brutall and believe that with the illumination of reason we may purifie the relishes of the first even to the point of rendring them innocent without departing from our interests and consequently the enjoyment of our pleasures giving them for object the establishment of our setled content in misprision of all those things of the world which may destroy it As for this brutish Love which estranging us from God separates us also from our selves the passion of it becomes so strong by our weaknesse that without a speciall grace we grow old in this malady of Spirit of contenting our Senses rather then obeying our Reason making a new God of the Treasures of the Earth But in conclusion these Gods abandon our bodies to the Worms and our souls to the Devils And for all their riches the greatest Great ones can onely purchase a glorious Sepulture Is not this a great advantage and a goodly consolation Maintain we boldly He whose will submits to Gods will lives ever content that a man may find quietnes of life in all sorts of conditions with the onely richnesse of a tractable Soul resign'd to take the time as it comes as God sends it without ever arguing with his providence There is no affliction whereto our Soul cannot give us asswage The Spirit of a Man will bear his infirmity There is no ill whereto it self is not capable to furnish us a remedy A man how miserable somever may find his contentment amidst his miseries if he lives for his soul more then for his bodies behalf God makes us to be born where he will and of what Parents he pleases if the poorness of our birth accompany us even to death he hath so ordained it what can else do but let him so do Can he be accounted miserable that obey's with good grace his soveraigns decrees O 'T is a greater danger to be very rich then viry poor for riches often makes men lose their way but poverty keeps 'em in the straight path how is it far more easie to undergo the burthen of much poverty then of great riches For a man extreamly poor is troubled with no thoughts more important then onely how to find means to passe his life in the austerities whereto he is already habituated without repining after other fortune as being estranged equally both from his knowledge and reach in which respects he may well be stil'd happy But a man very rich dreams of nothing but to eternize the continuance of his days although his fancy be in vain instead of letting them quietly slide away insomuch that being possest with no passion more then love of life he thinks alwaies to live and never to die But Death comes ere he thinks on 't and taking from him all to his very shirt Death cannot be said to deceive any body for it is infallible and yet the world complaint of it constrains him to confesse that riches are onely profitable by misprision since by the contempt a man makes of them he may become the richest of the world O what a sensible pleasure 't is to be Rich say worldly men alwaies but I would fain know in what consists this contentment what satisfaction can there be had to possesse much treasure knowing what an infinite number of our companions are reduc'd to the last point of poverty Some in Hospitals where they he in straw over whelmed with a thousand fresh griefs Others at the corner of a street where a piece of a Dung-hill serves them at once both for bed and board Some again in Dungeons where horrour and afright hunger and despair tyrannize equally over their unfortunate spirits And others in some Desert to which ill fate has confined them to make their ills remedilesse as being far removed from all sorts of succours How with the knowledge of these truths There is no emptinesse in nature for miseries fill al a man shall be able to relish greedily the vain sweets of worldly riches it must needs be for want of reason or pity and consequently to be altogether brutish or insensible I shall have suppose a hundred thousand crownes in rents and all this revenue shall serve but to nourish my body and its pleasures without considering that a hundred thousand poor soules sigh under the heavy burden of their miseries every Day and yet men shall esteem me happy in being rich in this fate O how dangerous are the treasures which produce these felicities Is it possible It is a brave generositie to be sensible of othermens miseries that the Great-ones of the world doe not thinke at all in the middle of their Feasts of the extream poverty of an infinite number of persons and that in themselves they do not reason secretly in this sort What in this instant that we satiate the appetite of our senses with all that nature hath produced most delicious for their entertain a million and many more poor soules are reduced to this extremitie as not to have one onely crumb of bread And in this serious thought what relish can they find in their best-cook'd cates and in their sweetest condiment does not this important consideration mingle a little bitternesse But if their spirits estrange themselves from these meditations and fasten to objects more agreeable O how hard of digestion is the second service of their collation He which cannot love his neighbour hath no love for himselfe To speak ingenuously every time when I consider in that condition exempt from want wherein God hath given me birth and wherein his goodnesse which is no other than himselfe keeps me still alive I say when I consider the misery to which the greatest part of the world is reduced I cannot be weary of blessing this adorable Providence which grants
black the Exequies of all the other braveries of the world since nothing can be seen more admirable then this This is not the Triumph of Aurelian where all the graces are led captive with Zenobia To triumph over vice is the noblest Trophie In this are to be seen no other captives but the world and all its vanities and their defeat is the richest Crown of the Victor This is not the Triumph of that pompous Queen of Egypt entring into Cilicia where she rays'd admiration to her self in a Galley of unutrerable value but in this we contemplate the more then human industry of a Pilote who from the mid'st of the storms and tempest of the world recovers happily to the Port the ship of his life though yet but in the way to approach to it In fine this is not the Triumph of Sesostris whose stately Chariot four Kings drew Passions are the onely slaves of this and Death being here vanquisht this honour remains immortall and the name of the Triumpher Say we then once again All the glory of men vanisheth away with them O how glorious a Triumph is this over Death O how brave is the victory over our selves and the onely means thus to vanquish a mans-self is to bury his ambition before his body be ensepulchred preparing neverthelesse the tomb of both to the end that the continuall remembrances of Death may serve for temperament and moderation to the delights of life We read of Paulus Aemilius that returning to Rome laden with wreaths of Laurell after the famous victory over the Persians he made his entrance of triumph with so great pomp and magnificence that the Sun seemed to rouz it self many times as if upon design to contemplate these wonders Pompy desirous to expose to the view of day all the magnificent presents which Fortune had given him in his last conquests entred now the third time in Triumph into the City of Rome where the noise of his valour made as many Idolaters as admirers gaining hearts and now conquering soules as well as before Realms and Provinces But it seems that the glory which accompanied him in this action had this defect not to be sufficiently worthily known even of those that were witnesles of it as surpassing by much all that they could possibly expresse of it There was seen advanced before his charriot Vanitie is a dangerous enemy it flatters onely to surprize in ostentation a Checker-worke composed of two sorts of precious stones whose beauty set them beyond all price But yet me thinks their sparkling might have in good time been a light to him if by a feeling of fore-sight touching the inconstancie of his fortune he had caused to have been graven thereon the history of his mishaps There was admired in sequell a Statue of the Moon all of Gold in form of a Crescent and I am astonisht that this Image of change and Vicissitude made him not foresee the deturning of the Wheele I mean the storme that was to succeed the calme of his happinesse He caused moreover to be carried before him a great number of Vessels of Gold never thinking that Death might soon replenish some part of them with his ashes There was seen to follow a mountain all of Gold upon which were all sorts of animals and many Trees of the same matter and this mountaine was enrounded with a Vine whose golden glittering dazled the eies of all that considered its wonders This proud Triumpher was the Orpheus which to the Lyrick sound of his renown Ambition is an incurable disease of the soule if in good time it be nor lookt too attracted this mountaine these Animals these Trees this Vine But as Orpheus so him also Fortune destinated a Prey to the fury of Bacchinals I mean the Eunuchs which put him to Death Three Statues of gold first Jupiters then Mars and then of Pallas came after These were his Gods and his Goddesse what succours could he expect from these Deities which had no subsistence but in statue and the copy of whose portraict had no principall There was had in admiration moreover thirty garlands all of gold A man had need to have an excellent memorie not to forget himselfe among his honours and Pearles but these Crownes were too weighty for his head from whence it came to passe that he tell under the burden A golden Chappell followed after dedicated to the Muses upon which was a great Horologe of the same materials And as the Index still turned ought not he to have considered that the houre of his triumphing began to passe away and that of his overthrow would presently sound being sequell to the Lawes of that vicissitude to which Face hath subjected all things His statue of gold enricht with diamonds and pearls whereof nor he himselfe nor he that enwrought them knew the value followed in its course and in fine this his shadow was more happy than the true body as having never been scuffled with but by time and the other was vanquisht with miserie Then appeared the great Pompey seated upon a throne where he and Fortune seemed to give lawes to the whole world â—or his triumphall Charriot was â—o richly glorious so magnificent â—n rarities so splendide in new and ne're-before-seen wonders that a ravishment surprized mens â—pirits elevating them at once â—rom admiration to extasie not giving them leasure to make relection upon the present realties Be it our constant meditation of the inconstancie to which all worldly things are subjected But this Triumphall Charriot still â—owled about and though the Triumpher remained seated in his place yet his Fortune turned about likewise Insomuch that in going to the Capitoll he approacht by little and little to the â—ank where his life and happinesse were equally interred In fine for the fulnesse of glory These proper names of the conquests which he had made were read in golden Characters See Pliny's Nat. Historie 7 Book 26 Chapter Pride is the passion of fooles for what a sense-lessenesse is it to be proud having so many miseries about us which are incident to mortal man The Kingdome of Pontus Armenia Cappadocia Paphlagonia Medea Colchis the Hiberians the Albanians Syria Cilicia Mesopotamia Phoenicia Palestina Judea Arabia and the Rovers of all the Seas Who can be comparable to this proud Conquerour and yet I say it having conquered and subjugated the greatest part of the Earth Fate permits him not so much as to expire upon it and the Sea yet more treacherous prepares him shipwrack in mid'st of the Port. What resemblance and what correspondence can there be now between this Triumph so sumptuous so stately and magnificent and that whose presentation show you How poor is the vanity of man having no other grounds but humane frailtie where lowlinesse humlity and misery hold the first rank and possesse the highest places Assuredly the difference is greaâ— but yet this inequalitie here is glorious since it brings
He shall hear rumble in his eares the thunder of Divine Justice by the continuall murmur of his sighs which advertize him of the approaches of Death What courage can he have to avenge himselfe being upon point himselfe to suffer the torment of eternall vengeance Thou that art Vindicative wilt thou then quench the ardour of thy Choller feele thine own pulse and consider that this pety slow feaver wherewith thou art stormed leads thee by little and little into the grave Who can be Ambitious It is more honour for a man to avenge himselfeâ— of his choler than of his enemie if musing of Death since he must quit all with his life Let us ponder a while the fate of those arrogant spirits which have mused themselves to conquer the vain greatnesses of the Earth What hath been in fine their share at the end of the carriere They have had nothing but unprofitable regreets to have so ill emploied their time finding themselves so poor with all their treasure as if they had been born the wretched'st of the world Thou Ambitious-one wilt thou be cured of the disease of thy Passion think each houre of the day that that which thou now hearest strike may be thy Last Who would sigh for prophane love Mortall frailtie brings blemish to the fairest visages and mightily takes from their opinion being well considered after these objects of dust and ashes if he often considered that he himselfe is made of nothing else and that this noysome and corruptive matter seeks nothing more than abysses of the grave there to hide within its loath somnesse in effect who would give his flesh a prey to pleasures if he would consider that the wormes do in expectation make their fees thereof already The meditation of Death serves for temperament to all sorts of delights And if a Man be capable of love in this muze it cannot be other than of his Salvation since this object is eternall but all others of the world perishable Infortunate Lovers search the solace of your immodest passions in the Anatomy of the subject whereof you are Idolarers Be assistant at that dead view Thinke of your own Death Behold you are cured What wretched rich man would be so much in love with his treasures He which considers of that wretchednesse which is adjunct to Death easily mispriseth the riches of this life if he would consider that Death robs him from them every day making him die continually and that at the end of the term of his life he carries along with him but the good or the evill which he hath done to be either recompenc'd or punish'd but with a glory or a punishment whereof Eternitie alone must terminate the continuance Covetous Misers the onely meanes for you to be so no more is to celebrate your own funerals by your Meditations and often to consider the Account not of your riches but that which you must render one day of their fruition since your Salvation depends thereon Who in fine would make a God of his Belly seeking with passion all the delights which may tickle the sense of Taste it he represented to himself the miseries of the body which he takes so much pains to nourish and the rigour of those inviolable decrees which destinate him a prey to the worms and the remains of their leavings to rottennesse This consideration would be capable to make him loose both appetite and desire at the same time to nourish so delicately his carkasse O souls all of flesh repasting your selves with nothing else there is no invention to make you change nature but this to Hear your selves dye by the noise of your sighs to See your selves dye by the wrinkles which furrow every day upon your visages and to Feele your selves dye by the beatings of your pulse which indexeth this your hectic feaver wherewith you are mortally attainted This is a Probatum-remedy the experience thereof is not dangerous May not a man then maintain with much reason If a man should forget all things else but the miseries of his condition this last were enough to exercise the vastest memory that the thought of Death alone is capable to cure our souls of the disease of their passions in doseing them both the means and the Vertue to triumph over them But if of this you desire an example call to minde that which I have proposed you in the beginning of the Chapter How marvellous is it that a great Mornarch who is able to maintain all manner of pleasure in his heart with all the delights which acompany it celebrates himselfe his Funeralls in midst of his carriere of life beginning to raign at the end of his raign since that last object is always present before his eyes His Passions do assail him but he vanquisheth them they give him combate but he leads them in triumph and buryes them altogether in the Tomb which he prepares himself Consider a little the glory which is relucent in this action We read of the Kings of Arabia that they triumphed upon Dromidaries the Kings of Persia upon Elephants of Croatia upon Bulls the Romans upon horses and yet 't is remarkt of Nero that be made himself be drawn in Triumph by four Hermaphrodite Mares Camillus by four white Horses Mark Antony by four Lions Aurelian by four Harts Caesar by forty Elephants Heliogabulus by four Doggs Moreover the Poets do assure us that the triumphant Charriot of Baccus was drawn by Tygers Neptunes by Fishes of Thetis by Dolphins Diana's This Vanity is a most contagious malady and the onely preservative is the remembrance of Death by Harts of Venus by Doves Iuno's by Peacocks All these objects of pomp and magnificence whereof histories and Fables would enternize the vanity have for all that done nothing but passe away and though a little remembrance of them stay with us 't is but the memoriall of a Chimera and of a fantasme since it preaches nothing else to us but the ruin and non-entity of that which hath been otherwhile O how glorious a Triumph is it These things ruminated on will make us wise when we our selves are encharioted over our passions now enslaved and subjected under the Empire of Reason There is nothing so glorious there ' is nothing so magnificent For these Dromidaries these Elephants these Bulis these Horses these Hermaphrodite Mares these Lyons Stags and Tygres afore-mentioned are but brute beasts which draw along in traine after them others as as bruitish as themselves as suffering themselves to be transported with vanity which onely reduceth them to this beastly-semblant vanity Let us turn our face unto another side SAâ—â—LLICâ—S in his ENNEADS actively peswades us to believe that the Christians of Aethiopia do carry in their processions great vessels full of ashes Let the fire of Divine Love glow upon our ashes to emblematize apparently the frailty of our nature But may not we say upon too much reason that we are earthen vessels
full of ashes and what object more sensibly can be presented before our eyes to shew us the truth of our miseries then this of our selves From Earth is our production and the same serves us with nourishment and for sepulture also as if ashamed the Sun should afford his light to out wretchednesse Make we then every day Funerall processions or at least visit in meditation every hour our Tomb as the place where our bodies must take so long abode Celebrate we our selves our own Funerals The thought of our end is a soveraign remedy against our passions and invite to our exequies Ambition Avarice Pride Choller Luxury Gluttony and all the other Passions where with we may be attainted to the end to be Conquerours even by our own proper defeat For when a Man yeelds to the Meditation of Death then reason commands sense All obey to this apprehension of frailty and feeblenesse Pleasures by little and little abandon us the sweets of life seem sowr and we can find no other quiet but in the hope of that which Truth it self hath promised us after so much trouble Proud Spirits be ye Spectators of this Funeral Pomp which this great Monarch celebrates to day He invites the Heaven and the Earth to his Exequies since in their view he accompanies his pourtrayed Skeleton unto the Tomb his Body conducts thither its shadow the originall the painted figure in attendance till a Metamorphosis be made both of one and t'other O glorious action where the Living takes a pride to appear Dead as dying already by his own choice as well as necessity O glorious action where the Triumpher takes a glory in the appearance of his overthrow O glorious action where all the honour depends upon the contempt of the worlds honour O glorious action where Garlands of Cypresse dispute the preheminence with Laurell and Palme O glorious action where the Conquerour under-going the Laws of Nature elevates himself above it making his puissance to be admired in his voluntary weaknesse But I engage my self too far in 't Herodotus remarks that the Queen Semiramis made her Sepulcher be erected upon the entrances of the principall Gate of the * Babylon City to the end that this sad object of wretchednesse might serve for a Schoole-master to passengers to teach them the Art to know themselves O blessed Lesson is that which the Tombs can affoord us O gracions Science is that which they instruct us Strabo testifies No better Schoole then the Church-yard that the Persians made Pipes of dead-mens bones which they used at Festivals to the end that the sad harmony which issued thence might temper the excesse of joy But may not we say our Lungs to be to us such kind of Whistles and that our dolorus sighs which produce thence the harmony are capable to moderate the violence of our contentments A strange thing it is that all the animated objects which are affected by our senses bear the image of Death and yet we never think but of Life Let our eyes but fairly turn their regards on all sides All that lives they may see dies and what ha's no life passes away before ' em Our eares are tickled with the sweet harmony of Voices or Instruments or Tabors or Trumpets But these sonnds are but Organs spirited with blasts whose borrowed wind is lost when the motion ceaseth and there behold the Faile of their life And for Instruments The objest of our nothingnesse ha's a grace and allurement capable to ravish the best spirits 't is true they warble delightfully yet their melody is often dolefull to the mind when it considers that it proceeds from certain guts of dead beasts which Art hath so contrived Tabors being of the same nature must also necessary produce the same effects and Trumpets also do but sob in our ears since their clangor is forced onely by the violence of a blast of sighs Our Taste cannot satiate the hunger of its appetite but with dead and breathlesse things and all our other senses are subject to the same necessity Insomuch Death is ever present and at hand to our heart but still absent from our memory that Death environs us on all sides though we be always her own and yet we never think on 't but in extremities as if we were onely to learn at the last instant that we are Mortall and the hard experience which we make on 't were the onely Lesson which by Nature is given us LORD render me capable if it please thee of this Science which may effectually teach me the Art to know my self to the end that this knowledge may represent to me alwayes the reality of my wretchednesse Make me that I may see my self may understand and feel my self to die every moment but so that I may see it with the eyes of my heart perceive it with the eyes of my soul and feel it by the sense of my conscience therein to find my repose and safety I know well that Nature mourns uncessantly the death of its works which are devoured every hourby time and though no where thus can I see but Sadnesse it self yet ne'rethelesse remain I insensible of the horrour of these objects and though they be terrible my spirit not is afrighted Render me therefore if it please thee render me fearfull and make me even to tremble in thinking of it since the thought of it is so important suffer me not to live a kind of Death without meditating of that life which is exempt from Death and whereof Eternity is the Limit All my votes do terminate at this and all my wishes which I addresse to thy bounty that I may one day see the effects of my hopes Let us advance on our first proposition O how celebrious and glorious is the Triumph over our selves Let us leave the Laurels A Mnn hath no greater enemy than himselfe and Palmes to those famous Conquerours of Sea and Land Their Crownes are now metamorphosed into dust their renowne into wind themselves into corruption and for a surplusage of mishap after the conquest of the whole World they die in the miseries whereunto they were born Cyrus could not bound his ambition lesse than to the vast extention of the Universe and yet a * Tomyris simple woman onely prescrib'd him an allay and placed his head in the range of his owne Trophies Arthomides plaies Iupiter upon Earth his pourtraict is the onely Idoll of his subjects There is nothing more vain than Vaine-glory t is a body without soule or life having no subsistance but in imagination and yet one turne of the wheele casts him a sacrifice upon the same altar which he had erected to his glory his life glistering with triumphs but his death in such a ruine clouded even the memory of his name All those stately Triumphers of whom Antiquity trumpets-out wonders have had no other recompence of their labours but this vain conceipt that
often at least in Meditation into Tombes visit to such effect the Church-yards and you shall find therein more riches then you wish for considering the horrour of that rorten earth wherein your semblables are enterred you will reason without doubt thus To what purpose at last will stead me all the treasures which I amass up in my coffers if the very richest of the world be but earth and ashes before my eyes What shall I do at the hour of my death with all the goods which I now possesse if even my body be a prey destinated to worms and rottennesse LORD I aime at nothing of this world but that glory alone which a man may acquire by the contempt of it but as it is a glory whereof the acquisition depends of thy grace All our hopes depend from grace nothing from our selves more then my force give me the Courage if it pease thee to surmount all the temptations which shall oppose themselves against my design of Victory to the end that my vows may be heard and my pains recompensed I return to my self When I consider that all the world together is but as it were a Caemitary or Church-yard wherein every hour of the day some wretchednesse or other brings to the grave those whom such their miserable condition hath destroyed I have no more passionate desire of life since evils and troubles are proprietaries of it rather then we He which meditates of anothers mans death puts himself in mind of his own since we are all slaves to to the same fate Who can keep account of the number of persons that expire at this very moment that I am now speaking to you or the different deaths which terminate the course of their carreere All is universally dreadfull and yet we quake not either in horrour or astonishment A Walke into Church-yards Charnels though it be sad and melancholly by reason of the dolefull objects there obvious hath yet neverthelesse something in it agreeable to content good souls In many of the Church-yards of France are thousands of dead mens skuls and bones piled up as at S. Innocents at Paris S. Croix at Orleans c. Meditation upon the vanities of life is a piece of serious felicitie before death in the contemplation of those very objects which they there finde How often have I taken pleasure to consider a great number of Deadmens sculls arranged one in pile upon another with this conceit of the vanity and arrogance wherewith otherwhile they have been filled Some have had no other care but of their Hair employing the greatest part of their time either to frizle or to empouder them and represent unto your selves by the way what recompence now betides them for all their pains Others all full of ambition had no other aims but at Coronall wreaths consider a little in this their misery the injustice of their pretentions I ha' remark't in sequell how a little worm did gnaw the arm of some late Samson reducing thus all his force to an object of compassion and wretchednesse since that arm heretofore so strong and dreadfull had not now force enough to resist a little worm Reader muze often of these truths and thou shalt finde therein more joy then sadnesse Typotius reports of Iohn Duke of Cleveland that to testifie the frailty of our nature and the miseries of our condition he had taken the Emblem of a Lilly with this device Hodie hoc cras nihil Hodie Lilium Cras Nihilum It flourishes to day to morrow 't is nothing Great Kings Even those things which seem most durable have in effest but a morning prime like flowers your life is like this Lily it appears like this flower at Sunrise with glittering and pomp but at noon its vivacity and lustre begin to fade and at the end of the day it vanisheth away with it and scarce its being is remembred We read in Apianus of Pompy that after he had triumphed over three parts of the world he carried nothing away with him to the grave but these words Hic situs est magnus Pompeius Pompey is here buried with all his pomp O World how poor art thou since thou hast but such a thing of nought to give O Fortune how miserable art thou when thy favorites are exposed to publick view as objects of compassion Let him trust in them who will a man shall never be able to escape their tromperies but by despiting their favours Here lyes Hannibal Behold all the honour which posterity rendred to the memory of so great a Captain Time is as inexionable as Death and neither of them spare any And Time even jealous of the glory of his name though not able to bury it in the Abysses of Oblivion hath yet devoured the very marble of his Sepulcher Are not these things truths worthy to raise astonishment 'T is remark't in Suetonius of one of the Roman Emperours that being now at last gaspe and as it were at a bay with Death he cryed out in excesse of astonishment Fui omnia sed nihil expedit I have been all in all but now it nothing helpeth me I have tasted all the pleasures of all the greatnesse of the world but the sweetes are changed into sowres and onely their bitter disgust stayes with me Experiment all the delights of the Earth Great Kings the distast will ever at last onely remain to your mouths and sorrowes to your hearts and if these do no good on you a thousand eternall punishments will possesse your souls Represent to your selves that all the felicities of Life are of the same nature as that is That decaies every moment and they flit away without cease Contentments cause in their privation as extreme discontents The contentments which men receive here below are like the pleasures of the Chace which are onely rellish't running I draw to an end Belon in his Monuments of the Kings of Egypt sayes that they were enterred with such a splendour of pomp and magnificence that even those who had diverse times before been admirers of it were for all that often in doubt whether the people went to place the corps in the Throne again rather then in their Sepulcher O how ill to the eyes is the lustre of this sad kind of honour For if vanity be insupportable barely of it self these excesses of it put the spirits upon the rack Diodorus Siculus speaking of the Tomb which Alexander caused to be erected for his favorite Ephestion assures that the magnificences which were there to be admired were beyond as well all value as example Marble Brasse Gold and Pearl were profusely offered to most cunning Artisans to frame thereof such works wherein sadnesse and compassion might be so naturally represented that they might affect the whole world with the like Diamonds Rubies and all other precious stones were there employed under the Image of a Sun A Man should never be angry with his hard
' fates the decrees onâ—t are inviolable Moon and Stars It seems this Monarch blinded with Love thought to hold the Planets captive in the glorious enchainments of those fair Master-pieces as if he would revenge himself of them for their maligne influences which they had powred upon the head of his dear Ephestion But this conceit was vain for the same stars whose captivity he ostented upon this Tomb conducted him also by little and little to his grave The Romans transported with passion to honour the memory of the Dictator Sylla caused his statue to be framed of a prodigious height all composed of perfumes and cast it into the funerall pile where his body whereof this was also but a shadow was to be burnt to ashes Being desirous by this action to give to understand that as the odour of his statue disperst it self through all the City of Rome the much more odoriferous savour of his peculiar vertues would spred it self through all the world But to go to the rigour of the litterall sense it is credible they had not cast in this aromaticall statue into the stack but onely to temper the excesse of the stench of the body which was to be consumed with it And I proceed to imagine beside that the odour of this statue the cinders of his body and all the glory of the actions of Sylla had all the same fate since the winde triumph't over them altogether Behold the reverse of the Medall of Vanity 'T is remark't in the life of the Emperour Severus by the report of DION that he made to be set at the gate of his Palace an Vrne of marble and as ost as he went in or out he was accustomed to say laying his hand on it Behold the Case that shall enclose him whom all the world could not contain Great Kings have often the same thoughts in your souls if you have not the like discourses in your mouths the smallest vessel of earth is too great for the ashes of your bodies which shall remain of them after the worms have well fed on them for the wretchednesse of your human condition reduceth you at last to so small a thing that you are nothing at all But if I must give a name to those grains of corrupted dust which are made of your deplorable remains Man onely is considerable in respest of his noble actions I shall call them the Idea's of a dream since the memory of your being can passe for no other together with the time Behold a fresh subject of entertain Some of our Ethnick Historians report to us that the Troglodites buried their kindred and friends with the tone of joyfull cries and acclamations of mirth The Lothophagi cast them into the Sea choosing rather to have them eaten of fishes in the water then of worms in the earth The Scythians did cat the bodies of their friends in sign of amity insomuch that the living were the Sepulcher of the dead The Hircanians cast the bodies of of their kindred to the Dogges The Massagetes exposed them as a prey to all manner of ravenous beasts The Lydians dryed them in the Sun and after reduced them to powders to the end the wind might carry them away Amongst all the customes which were practised amongst these strange Nations I finde none more commendable then the first of the Troglodites looking for no hell they had good reason to celebrate the funerall of their friends and kindred with laughter and acclamations of cheerfulnesse rather then with tears and lamentations For though that Life be granted us by divine favour There is more contentment to die then to live if we consider the end for which man was created yet we enjoy it but as a punishment since it is no other then a continuall correction of our continuall offences Besides the sad accidents which accompany it inseparably even to the grave are so numerous that a man may justly be very glad at the end of his journey The body of Man being made of earth is subject to earth but the soul holds onely of its soveraign Creator to see himself discharged of so ponderons a burthen Not that I here condemn the tears which we are accustomed to shed at the death of our nearest friends for these are ressentments of grief whereof Nature authorizeth the first violences But neither do I blame the vertue of those spirits who never discover alteration upon any rencounter of the mishaps and miseries of the world how extreme soever they be The living are more to be bemoned then the dead they being still i th' midd'st of this lifes tempest but these are already arrived to their Port. And what disaster is it to see dye either our kindred or friends since all the world together and Nature it self can do nothing else What reason then can a man have to call himself miserable for being destinated to celebrate the funerals of those whom he loves best since the divine Providence hath soveraignly established this order since moreover in this carreere of Death to which all the world speeds the Present on 't being not distinguish't but by Time it will appear when all is come to the upshot that one hath lived as long as another since all ages though different during their continuance are equall then when they are past Change we the discourse I advow once again There is no remedy more soveraign to cure the passion of arrogance then this of the consideration of Caemitaries and Tombs The most vain-glorious and ambitious are forced to yield themselves at the assaults of these sad objects For a spirit never so brave and valourous To what purpose is Courage against those perils which connot be avoided cannot but be astonish't when he sees at his feet the bones and dust of an infinite number of persons who were as valiant as he what thoughts can he have but of submission and humility considering that one part of himself is already reduced into dust and filth I say a part of himself since he himself is but a piece of the same matter which now serves him for object and to the same last point will be extended one day the line of his life When Virgil tells us of the fate of Priam Aencid lib. 2. Jacet ingens litore truncus Avulsum que humeris caput sine nomine corpus he brings in Aeneas astonish'c at it that so great a Monarch should leave to posterity no other Monument of his greatnesse but a Tronck of flesh a head separated from the shoulders and a carkasse without name or shape Great Kings He which makes himself rightly sensible of his miseries is partly in way to be exempted from their tyranny This truth is a Mirrour which flatters not Gaze here often in these meditations and you will surely at length consider that All is full of vanity and that this glory of the world whereof you are so strongly I dolaters is
prevention quarrell like a curst Scold who being guilty yet will call Whore first When any dyes whose Muse was rich in Verse They claim Succession and prophane his Herse They onely are Heirs of his Brain-estate Others are base and illegitimate All but their own Abettors they defie And Lord it in their Wit Supremacy Others they say but Sculke as lye i th‘ lurch As we hold Schismaticks from the true Church So hold they all that do decline their way Nor swear by Heaven Al‘s excellent they say T were well they‘d see the fing‘ring on these frets Can neither save their Souls nor pay their Debts Or would they think of Death as they should do They would live better and more honourd too T is base to do base deeds yet for false fame To Keep a stir and bustle into Name Whilst each applauds his own contemns anothâ—rs Becons his own deserts but his he smothers They fear Fame's out of breath and therefore they Trumpet their own praises in their own way Or joyn in Trick of State Confederacy Call Quid pro Quo Claw me and I le Claw thee Marry at others Tooth and Naile they flye That do not tread their Path but would go by Farewell to these my ayme not here insists Leave we these wranglers unto equall lists To Nobler Natures I my brest expose The Good I bow to in an humble Cloze To such as knowing how vain this Life is Exalt their thoughts to one better then This. 'T is the best Method to be out of Love With things below and thence to soare above To which effect my souls integrity In L'envoy thus salutes each courteous eye Lenvoy INgenuous Reader thou do'st crown The Morall active course layd down By De. la â—erre what is pen'd If thy Actions tecommend Relating to the first EMBLEME WHen haughty thoughts impuff thee than Dictate thy self Thou art but Man A fabrick of commixed Dust That 's all the prop of humane trust How dares a Clod of mouldring Clay Be Proud decaying every day And yet there is a way beside Wherein may be a lawfull Pride When sly Tempatations stirre thee Than Again the World Thou art a Man Rouze up thy Spirits do not yeeld A brave resistance wins the Field Shall a soul of Heavenly breath Grovell so tarre its worth beneath Fouly to be pollute with slime Of any base an â— shamefull crime Thou art a Maâ— for Heaven born Reflect on Earth disdainfull scorn Be not abus'd since Life is short Squander it not away in sport Nor hazzard heavens eternall Joyes For a small spurt of worldly Toyes Do Something ere do thou bequeath To Worms thy flesh to Air thy breath Something that may when thou art dead With honour of thy name be read Something that may when thou art cold Thaw frozen Spirits when ‘ t is told Something that may the grave controule And shew thou hadst a noble Soul Do something to advance thy blisse Both in the other World and This. Relating to the second EMBLEME WEre both the Indies treasures Thine And thou Lord of every Mine Or hadst thou all the golden Ore On Tagus or Pactolus Shore And were thy Cabinet the Shrine Where thousand Pearls and Diamonds shine All must be left and thou allowd A little linnen for thy Shrowd Or if 't were so thy Testament Perhaps a goodly Monument What better is a golden Chase Or Marble then a Charnel place Charon hence no advantage makes A half penny a soul he takes Thy heirs will leave thee but a Shirt Enough to hide thy rotten Dirt. Then be not Greedy of much pelfe He that gets all may lose himself And Riches are of this Dilemne Or they leave us or we must them Death brings to Misers double Wo They lose their Cash and their souls too Change then thy scope to heavenly gains That wealth eternally remains Relatory to the third EMBLEME BE not curious to amaze With glitt'ring pomp the Vulgar gaze Strive not to chear with vain delight Those that are catcht with each brave sight How soon will any gawdy show Make their low Spirits overflow Whose Souls are ready to run-ore At any Toy nere seen before Rather thy better thought apply For to addresse thy self to dye Be ne're so glorious after all Thy latest pompe's thy Funerall Shall a dresse of Tyrian Dye Or Venice-gold Embroydery Or new-fash'on-varied Vest Tympanize thy out-strutting brest There 's none of these will hold thee tack But thy last colour shall be Black Be not deceiv'd There comes a Day Will sweep thy Glories all away Mean while the thought on 't may abate Th' Excesses of thy present ' state Death never can that Man surprize That watches for 't with wary Eyes Do So And thou shalt make thereby A Vertue of necessity And when thy Dying-day is come Go like a Man that 's walking home Heav'n Guard thee with Angelick pow‘r To be prepared for that hour When ev'ry Soul shal feel what 'T is To have liv'd Well or done Amisse Relating to the fourth EMBLEME LEt not the Splendour of high Birth Be all thy Glosse without true worth Let neither honour nor vast wealth Beauty nor Valour nor firm health Make thee bear up too high thy head All men alike are buried Stare not with Supercilious brow Poor folks are Dust and so art Thou Triumph not in thy worldy Odds They dye like men whom we count Gods And in the Grave it is all one Who enjoy‘d all or who had none Death cuts off all superfluous And makes the proudest One of us Nor shall there differ‘ence then between The dust of Lords or slaves be seen Together under ground they lye Without distinctive Heraldry Unlesse it be that some brave Tombe Do grace the Great-ones in Earths womb But better ‘ t is that Heaven's dore ls oft‘nest open to the poor When those whose backs and sides with sin Are bunch't and swoln cannot get in Beware the Bulk of thy Estate Shock thee from entrance at that Gate Give Earth to Earth but give thy Minde To Heaven where it 's seat's as sign'd If as it came from that bright Sphere Thither thou tend not fix it here Live that thy Soul may White return Leaving it‘s Partuer in the Urne Till a Blest Day shall reunite And beam them with Eternal Light Ainsi Souhaite Vostre treshumble Serviteur Thomas Cary. Tower-Hill Antepenultim â Augusti 1638. To my endeared Friend the Translatour Mr. Thomas Cary. 1. 'T Is Morall Magick and Wis Chymistry Out of Deaths Uglinesse T‘extract so trim a Dresse And to a Constellated Crystalt tie Such an imperious spell As who looks on it well By sprighty Apparitions to the the Eye Shall See he must and yet not fear to dye 2. No brittle toy but a tough monument Above steele marble Brasse Of Malleable Glasse Which also will while Wisdom is not spent Out-price th‘ adored wedge And blunt Times Sickle‘s edge Usher‘d with gracious safety in its vent For