withhouldes this second life from vs wherein abides the accomplishment of our happines To dye is but to cast into the wynd the last sigh of our miseries To dye is but to make a partition of our selues commending the body to the Earth the Soule vnto Heauen To dye is but to bid a last adieu to the world preferring the company of Angels before that of men To dye is to be no more vnhappy To dye is to despoyle vs of our infirmities and to reuest vs with a nature exempt from sufferances O sweet death since it leades vs to the spring of life O sweet death since it giues vs the Eternity of glory in exchange of a moment of dolour O sweet death since it makes vs to reuiue for euer in a felicity immortall O yee Soules of the world thinke then alwayes of death if you will tast with pleasure the sweetnes of life For it shal be euen in this last moment where you shal receiue the Crowne of all the others you may sigh long inough in your chaynes you are neuer like to be delyuered thence if death come not to breake the gates of your prison Go before it then and carry in your countenance the desire of meeting it rather then a feare to be touched with it We should suffer with a good cheere that same which we must of necessity endure What say I endure Were it a payne to approach to the end of ones euils Were it a payne to become for euer exempt from their sufferances Let vs rather say a Contentment since thereby do we get forth of sadnes to enter into ioy Let vs call it a Happines since so we do abandone the dwelling of misfortunes to liue eternally in that of the felicities of Heauen That there is no contentment in the world but to thinke of Death CHAP. III. DEATH hath it's delights as well as Lyfe Iob was neuer more happy nor more content then at such tyme as he saw himselfe vpon the Throne of his dunghill oppressed vnder the burden of his miseries He dyed so deliciously in the depth of his dolours as he would haue suffered alwayes and haue dyed incessantly in that manner His wounds serued him as a mirrour to his loue For in looking thereinto he became amourous of himselfe but yet loued he not himselfe but to dye continually so pleasing was death vnto him therby to obey him who had imposed that law vpon him Loue changes the nature of things From the tyme that a Soule is chastly taken with this passion it neuer suffers for the subiect which it loues The paynes and torments therof are changing the name quality within the hart They are Roses rather then Thornes For if it sigh it is of ioy and not of payne if it be necessary to dy to conserue this louely cause of its life it is no death to it but a meere rap◠of contentment which seuers it from it selfe in fauour of another selfe which its loues more then it selfe In such wise as it begins to liue content from the point it begins to dye in or rather to take its flight towards the obiect it hath proposed to it selfe of the full perfection of its loue From this goodly verity do I draw this lyke consequence That the hearts wounded with diuine loue do neuer sigh in their torments but of the apprehension they haue of their short durance Death which to vs seemes so foule and deformed vpon the sudden changing it's countenance in their respect appeares a thousand tymes more beautifull then lyfe Whence it is that they are alwayes thinking thereon to to be alwayes content since it is the point where their paynes do termine where their felicityes begin The most pleasing thoughtes which our spirit can tell which way to conceyue can haue no other obiect then that of contentment of profit and of vertue in so much as they are the three sorts of goods whereto our will is tyed Now where shall we find more pleasure then in the thought of death since it is the great day of our Fortune where we take possession of the delights of Heauen Where more profit then in the selfe same thought since the soueraygne good which is promised to vs is the But the End and Obiect thereof And where more vertue then to thinke alwayes of Death whilest with the armes of these sweet thoughts we triumph ouer vice I belieue it is impossible to tast pleasures without thinking of death in regard these delights are continually a flying away and incessantly dy with vs in such wise that if we cannot ressent the contentments but within their fruit in running alwayes after them they are rather displeasures then pleasures and therefore we hold there are no greater delights thē those of thinking of Death as being the only meane to make them eternall When I resent vnto my selfe S. Laurence extended vpon the deuouring flames but yet more burned with the fire of his loue then with that of his punishment how he cryes out with a cheerefull voyce in the midst of the heates which consume him to be turned on the other side as if he thought he should not dye but by halfes being so but halfe burned I do feele my selfe rauished with the same iumps of ioy that transported him Death is so welcome to him as he deliciously roles his body on the coles as if they were very beds of Roses So as if he be touched with any payne at all it is for not suffering it for that his life being all of loue finds its element in the fire that consumes it and therefore he sighes of gladnes in the height of his torments In effect how shall he expire admidst those heats if his hart be all aflame already his Soule of Fire For if he were to be turned into ashes the stronger must needs preuayle So as he cannot be consumed but through the fire of his loue O sweet encounter O welcome combat And yet more deere the Triumph Death assayles him with flames it assaults him with heats but the fire wherewith he is holily burned triumphes reduceth him to ashes so to render them as cōsecrated This great Martyr neuer tasted in his life more sweet pleasures thē that of feeling himselfe to dy vpon this bed of flames because resenting death he felt the delights of immortall life wherof he made himselfe a crowne Kings Princes and all those who are raysed to some great fortune confesse it to be a great pleasure to dy since they dy euery hore so sweetly amidst their greatnesses I say so sweetly for their spirits and their senses are so strongly occupyed with their continuall ioyes as the Clocke which keepes accompt of the houres of our lyfe may sound long inough its 24. houres a day and they heed it no more then if they were starke deafe And the night full of horrour which represents to vs the same of the Sepulcher cānot fright them any more then
deuoure the rest of our miseryes O happy Tombe where our soules do recouer their liberty where our bodyes do fynd the end and terme of of paynes O happy Tombe where we are reduced to corruption to arise in glory O happy Tombe where death euen dyes with vs and where lyfe reuiues with our selues for an Eternity O happy Tombe where we render to the earth the earth of our body to put our soules in possession of the inheritance of heauen O happy Tombe where we passe from death to lyfe from sadnes to ioy from infamy to glory from payne to repose and from this vale of teares vnto the mansion of delights From the tyme that the children of Israel had tasted in the desart the sweetnes of the heauenly Manna the most delicious meates of the earth were growne to be contemptible to them their harts euen chaÌ„ging their nature fell incessantly gaping after this celestiall food So likewise may I say that from the instant wherein a holy Soule is once fed with the food of the grace which is found in an innocent lyfe the world is an obiect of horrour and amazement vnto it its thoughts desires creep not on the earth any more if it sigh it is but after its last sigh if it complayne it is only for the long terme of its banishmeÌ„t in this vale of miseryes The hope of dying serues it as a coÌ„fort in its trobles and solace in its paynes it lyues in the prison of its body as slaues in the prison of their crimes with a necessary constancy alwayes attending on the last houre therof and this last moment where begins the eternity of glory Me thinkes the sentence of death which the diuine iustice pronounced once to our first Parents in that earthly Paradise was much in their fauour agaynst the euills wherewith their lyfe was fraught For if God had made the same to be immortall with all mischifes which succeeded their offence of all created things had man beene found to be the miserablest of them and most worthy of compassion but the same Goodnes which moued the Creatour to effect this goodly worke did euen moue him likewise to conserue the same His sentence was of death but in the rigour of his iustice he let his merry to appeare at the same tyme since from the payne of death we passe to the delights of a permanent and immortall lyfe In so much as this sweet coÌ„solation is inseparable from our tormeÌ„ts for they shal one day finish O sweet End since thou breakst the chaynes of our captiuity O sweet End since thou makest vs to reuiue neuer for to dy O sweet End since thou putst an end to all our sufferances O sweet End since we dye to reuiue for euer How Worldlings dye deliciously without euer thinkâ—ng thereof CHAP. XIII WE must needes confesse how the soules of the world are so deepely taken with the sleepe of their pleasures as they are euen drowned in their blindnes without feare of the precipices that encompasse them round Ioy transports them gladnes rauishes them rest charmes them hope comforts them riches moderats their feare health fortyfies their courage all the vanityes nurse them and bring them vp in the forgetfulnesse of themselues so as they may neuer be able to vse any violence for to breake the chaynes of their captiuity A pittifull thing how they neuer consider the while that this ioy wherwith they are so carryed away eueÌ„ vanishes quite lyke a flash of lightening that this gladnesse wherewith they are rauished destroyes it selfe with its owne violence in running incessantly vnto its end That the repose which charmes them coÌ„cludes with an eternall vnrest that the hope which coÌ„forts them quite changes it selfe by litle litle into despayre That these riches which do moderate their feare during their lyfe augments it at their death that the health which strengthens their courage whiles the calme and tranquility of their fortune lasts doth bread them a thousand stormes throgh the absence thereof where they run danger of ship wracke And finally that all those vanityes which serue them as a Nurse and Schoole mistresse to trayne them vp in vices are as so many bad Pylots which make a traffike of their losse and ruine When I image with my selfe the blindnesse whereto the men of this world are brought I cannot chuse but be moued with compassion for them Is it not a strang thing and worthy of pitty that they runne as fast as euer they can vnto Death without cease without intermission without fetching of their breath and without euer taking any heed of the way they hold as if they liued insensible in all their senses The Sunne which riseth euery morning sets euery euening for to let them see how the light of their life should haue at last a last setting as well as it The Age which makes them hoary and which keepes reckoning of their yeares through the accoÌ„pt of the wrinckles which it causeth to grow on their face preacheth nought els but the necessity of their departure All their Actions termine not a whit but to the ruine of the body from whence they fetch their motion since euery action of it selfe still tendes to its end How can they chuse but thinke of death if all the subiects which are found in Nature do euen cary the very lineaments thereof in the face The Sunne dyes in running his race The Moone dyes in her perpetuall inconstancy The ayre dyes with its coruption The birds seeke death in flying The brute beasts in running and the fishes in swimming in the water The seasons dye in springing againe as well as the trees The flowers dye with the day that hath seene them blow forth The earth dyes in the order of tyme since her yeares are counted The Sea sinckes it selfe by litle and litle into its proper abysses The fyre consumes it selfe in its heat and Nature it selfe that serues for a second cause in the generation of all things destroyes it selfe by litle and litle with them I speake nothing of men since they haue nothing more proper then Death What meanes trow you to forget this sweet necessity of dying whose law very happily dispenseth with none yet for all that do not doubt but there are many in the world who would neuer be dying but this were a childiâ—h language of theirs so farre from reason and common sense as one had need to declare himselfe to be a starke foole for to excuse himself of the errour or rather of the cryme We do all waies contemne the good vnknowne and as we naturally lyue in the apprehension of loosing that which we possesse we cleaue to the present so true it is that all things do escape vs and fly away froÌ„ vs. What a life were it for vs to lyue eternally in the miserable condition wherein we are borne What a life would it be to be alwayes breathing in sighes in mourning in playnts What a
are alwayes in pledge with you but therein ought you to consider the while how the glory which enuirons you seemes to fetch the same course which the Sunne doth and how it flyes away without cease towards its West whence it shall neuer rise agayne Be it so that your lookes seeme to astonish the stoutest and that they fauour the more happy Those lookes in their sternesse cannot wound but the culpable no-engage in their sweetnes but spirits which feed of smoke There is no doubt but your power is admired but not enuyed of the wiser because the greatnes of your might concludes very ordinarily in vanity We must confesse that the honour life of men are in your hāds But you must needs confesse withall that your heades also are beneath the Sword which is fastened to the feeling of Heauen or rather suspended in the ayre by a little threed and how the least of your crymes may pul vpon you the chastisement therof So as if you take pleasure to bath you in the bloud of Innoēccy as an Otho or a Caligula the diuine Iustice prepares your last bath in your proper bloud where your Soule suffers Shipwracke with your body What then are your delights In what garden do you gather their flowers Verily you haue all things at your wish but what pleasure is it to wish for transitory goods whose priuatiō causeth a great deale more sorrow then the fruition afforded contentment If your Crownes and Scepters are agreable to you during life they will cause a horrour at your Death for that you ought to giue accompt of your swaying them You are but Lieutenants onely in the Land of God during the tyme of your Reigne The hower approaches wherein you are to iustify the Soueraigne actions of all the moments of your life to know in truth in what fashion you haue disposed of the Greatnesses and of the Treasures whereof you were no more then meere Depositarians Do you now then referre all your pleasures to this last instant and you shall know how the way is a great deale more thorny then that of a low condition and voyd of Enuy. Tell vs I pray thee Lucullus what are become of the delights of thy proud Feasts I admit that the prodigality of thy Magnificences hath vnpeopled the ayre of Birds and the sea of fishes and that Art hath exposed to view as in a stall her last inuentions to glut the appetite of thy foolishnes Where are now those contentments Where is this Pompe where is this lustre where are the Pallaces of these banquets where are the Cupps of Gould where the Meate where the Cookes where are the Stewards where the Guesse and the wayters of thy Feasts All is slid away without their memory And if the Historyes Lucullus do yet remember thee it is but onely to represent thy folly to Posterity What contentment may they take in feasts if the sweet wines wherwith they satiate their hunger be chaunged to corruption They take pleasure to deuour their pleasure like as in the Chase they find contentment in running after their sports The hony which they put into the mouth becomes bitter in the stomacke for what incōmodities seeme they not to suffer who haue filled their belly withall the sortes of Meats And to what shame and infamy submit they not themselues while they drown their reason in wine their honour and their conscience all at once is it not to be cruell to ones selfe to precipitate his paces to the Tomb-wards as if we dyed not soone inough Againe for whome take we the paines to treat our bodyes so if not for the wormes since the flesh is destined to them All the fat which we gather is but for them for the small tyme we lyue is not to be put into accompt Why consider they not how euery Banquet hath its last course euery wedding-day its morrow and that the ioy of these feasts seemes to passe away as swift as the day which lends them light What a goodly custome was it among the Pagans to serue in at the last course of their Bāquets an Anatomy vpon the table in signe how the wormes were shortly to reduce the bodies of the inuited to that estate How many are there now adayes who in the blindnes of Epicurisme put all their Gallantry in making of good Cheere But what excesse of Bestiality the while to take such pleasure to pamper the body on the way of death whither it runs posting without cease I graunt thou hast drowned to day thy Troubles in thy Glasses and hast glutted thine appetite with meats the most delicious of the world what shal be left thee therof to morrow but gaule in the mouth frō the surfet of thy riot I say but bitternes in thy hart repentance in thy soule Thy Crosses renew againe more strong then euer by reason of the priuation of thy delighs Thou must begin againe to morrow to sooth thy sensuality and the day following the same tormēts which thou hast suffered now already shall succeed thy ioy So as when all the lyfe should be a feast the last seruice thereof were alwaies to be feared since a life of Roses brings forth a death of Thornes Cramme then thy body withall sorts of meats as long as thou wilt he that shall haue fasted the while shal be a great deale more content then thou vpon the last day of thy Banquets So as if thou hast the aduantage to be fatter then he the wormes shall fare the better for it in thy graue You sensles Soules that loue but the pleasures of the Table I aduertise you betimes that the Feast is ended and the Company brooke vp ech one is retired with himselfe But there is now another manner of news which is that many of your Cōpanions are dead one as Ninus with too much drinke another with feeding ouer much as Messina He there hath fetched an eternall sleepe as Bogrias he heere hath cut his wiues throat in his wine as Thessalius To what end thinke you They are the last seruices which misfortune presents at the last Course of your feasts the poyson whereof is couered with sugar take you heed then play not with such formidable Enemies It is all that you can do to eschew the dangers in the world with the light you haue of Reason and you are drowning the same in your Banquets without feare of suffering Shipwracke with it Away with these Pleasures of smoke which fill not the body but with new matter of putrifaction I abhor you detest you with a hatred which shall neuer dy Since my God hath put Thornes on his head why should not I be putting them in my hart I will from henceforth quench my Thirst within his Chalice and gather the fruits of my nourishment in his desarts My Sauiour hath fasted all his life and shall I pamper my selfe euery moment Let death come vpon me rather then such a wish I loue thee
to put him to silence in so much as his teares and sighes are feigne to speake for him to his dying daughter who makes him answere in the same language both of the eyes hart without being able to let fall a word Her mother hath her eyes glued vpon her pale and diffigured countenance and in this dumbe action of hers whereto an excesse of dolour hath brought her she suffers a great deale more payne to see her dye then she had pangs before to bring her forth And so in order al those that loued her and whome she dearely loued came in to yield her this last duty of visit But howbeit they premeditated somewhat to say vnto her their tongues became mute at their approch and their eyes made supply of discourse in their fashion For what meanes is there to speake in a dolefull place where Death goes imposing an eternall silence The Priest approacheth to the bed with a Crucifix in his hand which he presents to this foule sicke wretch she takes it with a trembling hād knowing it to be the Crosse whereupon the Omnipotent Iudge was nayled If she cast her eyes vpon his Crowne of Thornes she drawes them into her hart by her lookes in remembring the roses which she had deliciously troad vnder her feet during her lyfe But there is now no more tyme to be carying the same into the soule because her senses as halfe dead are vnsensible of their prickings If she reguard the visage of this her Sauiour all couered with comtempt she sinckes downe with the confusion of the outrages that she hath done to herself remembring the guilty care which she hath taken in playstering her face of earth and ruyning in that manner with a sacrilegious hand the sacred workmanship of heauen and of Nature and for hauing imployed the better part of her tyme in these errours to the disparagement of her soule as if the same were corruptible like the body The torments which her God and her Iudge hath suffered for her vpon this Crosse which she holds in her hand and which she neuer had borne in her hart do shamefully vpbrayd her now for the delights of her lyfe Then falls she a sighing at it but her sighs of wind are taken but for wind she weepes thereat but her teares of water are taken but for a litle water since she cannot wipe away the blot of her crymes because their spring deriues not from the hart and that her teares proceed from the feare of present death rather then from a sorrow of lyfe past There need no other witnesses to condemne her withall then the wounds of her Sauiour for as he had suffered all the paines of the world so she had tasted all the pleasures Alas if she could but turne backe againe and returne to the midst of the course of her life if her words might haue the same vertue which those of Iosue had for to cōmaund the Sunne to returne backe agayne to its East to affoard her leasure to do penaunce in is it not credible my Dames but that she would be dipping the bread of her nourishment within the water of her teares for to bewayle her sins But that is in vayne to desire the returne of life since she must dy and the houre is already strook Alas how many liuing deathes deuoure this poore body before her life be snatched away at last What strange torment seemes to racke her soule she dyes with sorrow for not being able to liue any longer and notwithstanding euery moment of life is to her an age of dolour She is so engulfed in tormēts as she imagines that all the afflictions in the Earth are assembled in her Chamber or rather in her Soule since now she is brought into extremes through the force of anguish Sorrow for the past apprehension of the future horrour of the Sepulcher and the vncertainty she is in of her saluatiō do hould her spirit continually on the racke That little which she sees is but to bid Adieu to the light that little which she vnderstands is for her last and being thus brought into this extremity now it is when the diuel lets her see to the life the pourtrait of all the offences which she hath euer committed to the end the enormity of them being ioyned with their number might make her to turne her face to despaire To make yet an exact Confession all her Spirits are in disorder and the powers of her Soule so feeble as they can serue but for resentment of her euills She would fayne speake but a mortall stuttering with-holdes her tongue halfe tyed and on the other side the smart of the payne which she suffers is so sharpe as she cannot open the mouth but to cry A dolour without cease torments her continually her dying life is wandring euery moment in the punishments she is in when she finds her selfe it is but to loose her selfe agayne in her syncopes which are the forerunners of her Death The eyes bolt out of her head as if they had this knowledge that they were vnprofitable vnto her her mouth awry and halfe open giues passage by the eye vnto her bowells to behold the torments she is in It is now tyme my Dames you present her with a Mirrour for to employ her last reguards on the sad contemplation of the dreadfull ruines of her beauty what faces makes she the while her hideous looke affrights not only little children but euen likewise the most couragious Behold your selues my Dames within this glasse if you will but apparantly see the faults which are hiddē vnder your own from point to point or rather vnder the Spanish white wherewith you are paynted Behold into what estate are reduced your alluremēts your charmes your sweetnesses and your bayts which you so put in the rancke of adorable things These are no Fables no Illusions nor Enchantements these you haue seen the other day this foule dying wretch with a lustre of beauty that dazeled all the world who to day seemes to mooue you to pitty and horrour at once Marke well all her actions but quickned with dolour and dread these are the true examples of those which you shall one day suffer it may be to morrow or euen to day who knowes And then dare you waxe so proud of your beauty as you do while the crust thereof is now thus broken as you see in the presence of so many persons who haue seene how the inside was all but full of corruption In this meane while the sicke person dyes by litle and litle It is now tyme to make the funerall of those fayre eyes since their light is thus extinct The Priest may cry in her eares long inough for death hath taken vp his lodging there and euery one knowes that she is deafe Her hands her feet are without motion as well as without heat the hart seemes to beate as yet but it is onely to bid Adieu to the Soule which is
grow in him He would feygne haue found some rocke within this sea of loue but the Pilot who steeres the ship of his life is a Port of assurance for all the world since he cōmands the winds and tempests What pleasure needs must this great Saint take to see himselfe thus smitten with the selfe same woūds of his Maister The Crosse fayles him howsoeuer yet he hath it in the hart The Crowne of Thornes he misseth but what say I he weares it in his Soule But then at least he seemes not to be depriued but of Nayles and Gaule I deceiue my selfe For as for the nayles he caryes the markes thereof as well in hands feet as side and for gaule the tongue takes very greedily the sweet bitternes therof O great Saint thrice happy Tel vs the pleasure which is to dye since you dy so sweetly in the extasies of your felicities How irksome needs must life be to you and the earth be in contempt with you in this trāsportation of ioy wherunto you are raysed S. Stephen hath beheld the Heauens opened and you his hart who hath created them S. Paul hath seene so admirable things as might not be tould and you felt such delicious as cannot be expressed S. Peter hath beene dazeled through a beame of glory you by one of loue whose light hauing pierced your darksome body hath made it transparent to the eyes of all the world so communicating it's diuine qualityes thereinto as the markes therof remayne eternal S. Iohn hath slept vpon the bosome of his Maister and by a sweet transport your hart got through and sought within the bosome of his hart your most assured repose This same disciple hath beene a witnesse of his torments and you participant of his paynes with this glory yet moreouer of bearing as well the wounds in the Soule as the markes on the body So as your fauours are so deare as none dare enuy them for fear of presumption though otherwise they be most worthy of enuy I wonder the thoughts of Death should be displeasing since we dye with pleasure in the life we lead There are none so blind in the knowledge of themselues that know not how they dy euery houre were it not iust then that we should thinke vpon that which we are continually a doing And wherefore shall we not take pleasure at this thought if it be the most profitable sweet that we are able to conceiue It is impossible to thinke of death but we must needs be thinking of Eternall life which succeds the same or rather say we It is impossible to thinke of the Soueraigne God and not to thinke of the imaginary euill of death And where shall we be finding of thoughts both sweeter and deerer then those of our Soueraigne Good So as if for the raysing of our spirits thither we are to passe into the imaginations and idea's of death the light of the Sunne which shal serue vs for obiect shall disperse all those vayne shaddowes which subsist not but through a false opiniō The starre of the day neuer shewes more bewtifull thē when it hath escaped through flight from a shole of clouds which do hide its light Those obscure clouds so strongly relieue the flash of its light as thence it appeares to be radiant in excesse The like may we say of our Reason being as the Sunne of our life that from the tyme it escapes from all these vayne shadowes of feare and dread which do veyle its brightnes it appeares so shining as it serues for a torch to passe very confidently withall from this life to the other The Will loues but the Good it is the Needle that is alwayes a pointing at this Pole It is the Iron which incessantly followes this Adamant as its only obiect In such sort as we are not capable of loue but to purchase the good which is presented vnto vs be it false imaginary or true And therin is iudgement giuen vs to know the difference that is from the one and the others Now that life is a false good there may no doubt be made since it hath no other foundation in it then misfortunes myseries That it is an imaginary good we are enforced to belieue whiles its pleasures are but of fancyes and dreames But that death is a true good we are to hould for certaine since it is the end of the terme of our exile of our captiuity of our sufferances For we cannot enter into glory but by the gate of the tombe where being reduced to our nothing we returne to our first beginning Sweet then are the thoughtes which make the life fastidious and death pleasing yet more sweet the desires that termine all our hopes in Heauen Such as know not the Art of dying well diliciously are vnworthy to liue Impatience in the expectation of death is more sensible to a holy Soule then the greatest pleasures to a man of the world We cannot loue life but in cherishing the fatall accidents that are inseparable from it which made Terence to say That he loued not any thing of all that which was in him but the hope of a speedy dying In effect there is no greater consolarion in life then that of death For were it immortall with all the encombrances that cleaue vnto it of all the conditours that are found in nature that same of man would prooue to be the most vnfortunate The afflicted loue not but by the sweet expectation of death and the others of the hope of a second life with reason imagining with themselues that if on earth they be touched with some pleasure they shal be one day accomplished in Heauen with al desirable delights And through the good of our death it is that we possesse the soueraigne good of eternall life It is the entry of our felicity the passage from the false and imaginary to the true and alwayes permanent He is yet vnborne whose hart being glutted with al sorts of contentments hath neuer gaped after new pleasures There is not a Soule in the world how happy soeuer it thinke it selfe that points not its pretensions beyond that same which it possesseth We hold it good to be rich our desires are alwayes in chase of Good We are raysed to the top of the greatest dignities we build new Thrones in our imagination not finding on earth scope inough to satisfy our Ambition withall In so much as mā hath alwaies vnrest in the repose which he hath once proposed to himselfe which makes vs sensibly to perceiue that the obiect of our desires is forth of nature and that if we sigh in the midst of our felicityes it can be but of the hope we haue to possesse some greater then they We haue lyued long inough then in Tantalus his Hel where we are continually a thirst without being euer able to drinke We must be vsing of some violence with our selues and go couragiously before death since it is that which
from thoughtes of its end the lesse approacheth it to God through those very thoghts Lord I will thinke of my last dayes sayd the Prophet for to remember thee This great King and great Saint withall did belieue the memory of Death was inseparable from that of his Mayster since dye he needs must one day himselfe O sweet Death and yet more sweet the remembrance if it be true that it powerfully resists agaynst all manner of vice We cannot know good spirits but throgh good actions there is none better in lyfe then then of preparing ones selfe for death Whatsoeuer we can do which is admirable indeed looseth the whole admiration if it haue not relatiō therunto nor may a man be thought to haue lyued but to dy rather who thinkes not euer of this sweet necessity whereof the law dispenseth with no man The greatest perfection consists for one to know himselfe so as the Spirit cannot make its Eminency appeare but by beholding it selfe in its nature created to render the continuall homage of respect to its Creatour And being abased in this necessary submission it should consider that its immortality boūds vpon eyther an eternall payne or els on a lyke glory and that it is not at all but to be happy for euer or eternally vnhappy Vpon these considerations it may found the verity of its glory since it could not tell how to purchase eyther a iuster or a greater then that of knowing well it selfe For as then its diuine thoughts make it to take it's flight towards the place of its origin not prizing the earth but to purchase there the merit of Crownes which it pretends to possesse in Heauen Among the infinite number of errours which make the greatest part of the world to be guilty of crime this same is one of the most common of al To esteeme forsooth those extremely who are eloquent be it of the tongue or pen and to put them in the rancke of the more excellent Spirits As those also who through a thousand sleights being al very criminal cā tell how to amasse a great deale of riches to ariue to the highest dignityes Thus do the spirits of the world and are so esteemed by such as they But I answere with the Prophet how all their wisedome is folly before God The good spirits indeed are alwaies adhering to good and there is no other in lyfe then that to be allwayes thinking of death for to learne to dy well Since in this apprentiship only are comprized all the sciences of the world Eloquennce hath saued neyther Cicero nor Demosthenes Riches haue vndone Cresus greatnesses haue thrown Belus King of Cyprus out of his Throne into a dunghill To what purpose serues it to know how to talke well if we speake not of things more necessary and more important of our saluauation To what end serues it to be rich since we must needs be a dying miserable On the other side there is no other riches then that of Vertue and I had much rather possesse one aboue then the crownes of all the Kings of the World below What pleasure may a man take to behold himselfe raysed to Thrones since he must needs in a moment be descending into the Sepulcher What is become of all those who haue beene mounting the degrees of Fortune beene seene on the top of most eminent dignities Disastres or time which changes all things haue let them fall into the Tombe so as there remaynes no more of thē but the bare remembrance that sometymes they haue beene Consider we then and boldly let vs say how it belongs to good Spirits only to be euery houre thinking of Death since we dy euery hower That these thoughtes are the most sublime where with a good soule may entertaine it selfe That of al the wayes which may lead vs to Heauen there is none more assured then that of continually thinking of the last instant which must iustify or condemne all the other of our life for that our actiōs take their Rule frō these thoughtes to receiue the price of them All the rest is but vanity and meere folly Out of these thoughtes there is no good Out of these thoughtes there is no repose Who thinks not of death thinks of nothing since al seeme to termine at this last moment The most happy are miserable if this thoght make not vp the greatest part of their happines And the richest are in great necessity if they dreame not of that of their mortall condition Whatsoeuer is said if Death be not the obiect of the whole discourse they are but words of smoke that turne into wynd Whatsoeuer is done if Death be not the obiect of the actions all the effects are vnprofitable In fine all glory all good all repose all the contentment of the world consists in thinking alwayes of Death since these thoughtes are the only meanes to atteyne the eternall felicity wherto they termine And a generous Spirit cannot giue forth more pregnant proofes of its goodnes then in thinking on the Death of the body whiles euen of this moment depends the life of the soule How those spirits that thinke continually of Death are eleuated aboue all the Greatnesse of the Earth CHAP. V. IT is impossible to know the world without contemning it since the disastres and miseryes wherewith it is stuft are the continuall obiects of this knowledge And from the point that our iudgment hath broken the visards of the false and imaginary goods which vnder the maske of their goodly apparences deceyue our will it suddenly abhors in them that very same which passionately heertofore it seemed to cherish Whence it happens that we can neuer enter into knowledg of the world but we acquit our selues of it at the same time throgh a sorrow for not hauing despised it sooner since all its goods are but in apparence onely and its euils in effect So as if it be a Tree we may boldly say that miseryes are the leaues therof misfortunes the branches and death the fruit And it is vnder the shadow of this vnhappy Tree where our forefathers haue built our first tombe Man may seeme to disguise himselfe if he will vnder the richest ornaments of Greanes with the fayrest liueries of Fortune Well may he trample Scepters and Crownes vnderfoot in the proudest condition whereto Nature and Lot might haue raysed him vp He is yet the same I meane a peece of corruption shut vp in a skin of flesh whereof the wormes haue taken possession already from the momēt of his birth Let him measure as long as he will a thousand tymes a day the ample spaces of the world with this proud ambition to make a conquest of them all yet he must be fayne to let them fall if he would find the true measures of them without compasse enclosed all within seauen foot of earth which shall marke out his Tombe If he assemble with the same ambition all the Thrones of Kings
eyther in payne or glory I leaue you to thinke of these important verityes For the pleasures of Touching being of the selfe same nature with the rest and hauing no more solid foundatiō then they we may draw the consequence of the same argumēt with them and conclude how this imaginary pleasure cannot seeeme to cleaue but to weaker spirits who loue only the earth because its obiect is so vile and base as we had need to abase our selues to obserue its aymes Let vs resume the ayres of our former discourses and say that the pleasures of the world do not subsist in the world but through the name onely which is giuen them For in effect they are nothing but a dreame the shadow of a shadow whose body we neuer possesse Such as loue them are not capable of loue since they fix their affections on the pourtraicts onely of imagination and of the Idea's which the wind defaceth euery moment True contentmēt consists in thinking alwayes of death And this is the onely pleasure of lyfe since it termines in the delights of Eternity How he who hath imposed the Law of Death vpon vs hath suffered al the paynes therof together CHAP. XVIII I NOTE an excesse of loue in the History of that great King who being touched with a generous desire to banish vice for euer from his Kingdome to bring in Vertue there to reigne in peace among an infinite number of Lawes which he imposed on his subiects the payne of pulling out the eyes was decreed for his punishment that should violate the most important of thē The ill lucke was that his only Sonne should fall the first into that cryme What shall he do And what shal he resolue vpon For to quit himselfe from the assaults both of loue and pitty which nature gaue him euery moment he could not do since the halfe of his bloud takes away fury from the other halfe What likelihood for one to arme himselfe against himselfe to excite his arme to vengeance to destroy his body He hath no loue but for the guilty how shall he haue passion to destroy him He sees not but by his eyes and how shall he be able to see him blind In fine he sits not on his Throne but to keepe him the place how shall he possibly mount this throne to prononce the sentence of his punishment Of necessity yet the errour must be punished if he wil not soyle the splendour of his iustice which is the richest ornament of his Crowne and the onely vertue that makes him worthy of his Empire Nature assayles him powerfully Loue giues him a thousand batteryes and euen Pitty often wrings the weapons from his hands and yet Reason for all that seemes to carry away the victory There is no remedy but needs must he yield to Nature Loue and Pitty but yet finds he a way to make Iustice triumph in satisfying the law He puls out one of his sonnes eyes for one halfe of the punishment and causes another to be pluckt forth from himselfe for to finish the chasticement What excesse of Goodnes Let vs draw now the mysticall Allegory from this history and say That our Redeemer represents this iust King at such tyme as in the terrestrial Paradise he imposed this law of obedience vnder paine of death vpon man being the Sonne of his hands as the noblest worke of his Creation This man being the first borne becomes lykewyse at that same very tyme the first guilty in contemning the commaundements of his Soueraygne He eats that fatall Apple or rather opens with his murderous teeth that vnlucky box of Pandora stuffed with all manner of euills The punishment euen followes his offence so neere as he instantly incurres the payne of death But what a prodigy of loue The Creator being touched with the miseryes of his creature takes away the rigour of the law without destroying it quite or infringing the same I meane that he seuers death from death in causing the guilty to arise agayne from his ashes for to liue eternally And the meanes wherof he serues himselfe is to dye with him and in the Chalice of his passion to drinke all the bitternes of death for to chāge the nature therof In such sort as this way of death conducts vs now to eternall lyfe O sweet Death a thousand tymes more plesing thē whatsoeuer is most pleasing in the world O sweet Death a hundred and a hundred tymes more delicious then all the pleasures vnited together O sweet Death where the body finds repose the spirit contentmēt the soule its whole felicity O sweet Death the only hope of the afflicted the sole consolation of the wisest and the last remedy for all the euils of the world O sweet Death and a thousand tymes more admirable then his goodnes that imposed the law since through the same very Goodnes he would needs be suffering the paine it selfe for to take away the payne Who durst refuse to drinke in his turne in the Chalice where God himselfe hath quenched his thirst Let vs go thē very holily to Death for to go cheerefully thither is to make loue and vertue lead vs into the sepulcher if we meane to find therein a second cradle where we may be reborne anew neuer to dye any more I cannot forget that goodly Custome of the Egyptians that when as a Sonne being armed with fury should passe to that extremity of cruelty as to take away the life from him who had giuen him the same he incurred this sweet punishment withall to be shut vp for three whole dayes in prison togeather with the body whose Parricide he was I should thinke that such as had imposed the law had this beliefe that the terrible and dreadfull obiect of the cryme was a torment of force inough for the guilty to extort the last teares from his eyes the vtmost playntes from his soule For in effect Nature neuer belyes it selfe it is alwayes it selfe it may well affoard some intermission of loue of pitty but yet at last it snatches the hart from the bowels through a violēce worthy of it selfe Let vs see now the backside of this Meddall so to draw forth the mistery out of this moral verity We represent to day this guilty sonne since we haue put our Redeemer to Death who is the common Father of our soules The punishment which the law of his Iustice hath now imposed vpon vs it to looke cōtinually on this Tree of the Crosse whereon our crymes haue made him to expire for to repayre their enormity withall O sweet punishment For spilling the bloud of him who hath filled our veynes the law exacts no more of vs then teares For hauing nayled him on the Crosse Iustice enioynes vs no other payne then that of nayling our eyes on the same pillar wherupon he is nayled For hauing crowned him with thorns he would haue vs to trample vnder foote the roses of our pleasures In fine
its necessary sighes do pray his tongue ech one in its fashion to disclose their crymes but the same cannot speake the rigour of a thousand punishmēts makes it to be dumbe On the other side his spirit in the disorder wherein it finds it selfe can haue no other thoughts then those of sorrow for eternally abandoning that which it loues so deerly He knowes not how to expresse a last farewell to his pleasures Whatsoeuer represents it selfe to his eyes are so many obiects that renew his payne If he take heed vnto the beames of the Sun with peere into his chamber window for to take their leaue of his eyes he remembers immediately all the pleasures he hath taken through help of their fayre light in a thousand and a thousand places where it hath beene a witnes of those errors of his If the weather be foule he thinkes vpon that tyme which he hath ill spent imagining withall that the Heauens being touched with compassion of his disasters do euen weepe before hand and bewayle the losse they endure of his Soule It seemes to him that the sound of the bells doth call him to the tombe and that of the Trumpets vnto iudgement He sees nothing about him that astonishes him not He heares nothing that affrights him not He feeles nothing but his miseryes his tōgue is all of gaule wheresoeuer he layes his hand vpon himselfe he touches but the dunghill of his corruption If his spirit seeme to returne to him againe by intermission of the traunce wherein he is he quite forgets the hope of good through the ill he hath committed not being able to dispose his soule to any repentāce The sight of his friends importunes him that of his children afflicts him and the presence of his wyfe serues him as a new addition to his sorrow They behold him not but weeping he is neuer strooken with other noyse then with that of the cryes and plaints of his domestickes The Phisitian goes his wayes out of the chamber to giue place to the Cōfessour And the one knowing not how to cure the body the other hath difficulty to heale the soule by reason of the despayre wherein he is entangled Iudge now to what estate must he needs be brought His speach that fayles him by litle and litle His sight is dimme with his iudgement and all his other senses receyue the first assaults of Death They present him with the Crosse but in vayne for if his thoughtes be free he thinkes but of that which he beares of force They may cry lōg inough to him to recommend himselfe vnto God the deafnes he hath had before to his holy inspirations doth astonish him now also at this houre How many deaths endures he before his death How many dolorous sighs casts he forth into the ayre before the breathing his last All the punishments of the world cannot equall that which he endures For passing out of one litle Hel of paines he enters into a new which shall not haue end but with eternity What good then would he not willingly haue wrought But his wishes are as so many new subiects of griefe in this impotency whence he is neuer to see himselfe deliuered Into what amazement is he brought The Sunne denyes him its light so as if he behold his misfortunes it is but onely by the light of the mortuary Torches which giue him light but to conduct him to the tombe O how the Houre of these last extreames drawes forth in length Ech moment of his lyfe snatches out the hart from his bosome euery moment without putting him to death On which side soeuer he turnes himselfe both horrour and despaire beset him round He caryes Death in his soule for that which he is to incurre Death on his body for that which he now endures Death in his senses since they dye by little and little in so much as all his life is but a liuing Death that consumes him slowly to reduce him into ashes Being now brought to these streights the wicked spirits imploy the last endeauors of their power for to carry away the victory after so many conflicts had What meanes of resistance where there is no pulse no motiō no voyce no tongue His spirit is now in extremes as well as his life and his hart being hardened is now ready to send forth its last sigh in its insensibility as if it dyed in dying His eyes are now no more eyes for they see no more His eares may no more be called so for they heare not awhit and all the other senses as parts precede the ruine of their whole The Soule only resists the cruell assaults of Death in beholding its enemyes in continuall expectation of their prey but the hower presseth it must surrender O cruel necessity In fine for to finish this bloudy Tragedy the Deuils carry it away to Hell for recompence of the seruices which it had yealded to them And this is the lamentable end of synfull Soule You Soules of the world who liue not but throgh the life of your pleasures behold the fearefull Death where the life termines And since the heauens the earth the elemēts whatsoeuer els in nature moues changes without cease do you thinke to find any constancy and stability in your delights Know you not that with the very same action wherewith you runne along withall your contentments you run vnto your Death and that during the tyme it selfe that Tyme affoards them vnto you he takes euen them away from you We loose euery houre what we possesse what care soeuer we take in conseruing the same My Ladyes Keep well your gallāt beauties from the burning of the Sunne If that of the Sunne or of the fire be not able to marre them yet that of Age and Tyme doth ruine them notwithstanding all the industry of Vanity which you haue to employ about them Put your fayre Bodyes into the racke of another body of iron to conserue the proportion therof yet tyme but derides your inuentions For it assayles you within and you defend your selues but without only You haue dared the Heauens inough with an arrogant eye you must needs be stooping with the head now at last for to looke on the earth whence you are formed You must needs bow the necke to the yoke of your miseryes and resume agayne the first forme of your corruption In going to dauncing to feasts and to walke abroad you go to Death In vayne do you command your Coachman then to cary you to such a place since Tyme as I haue said conducts him also that caryes you thither In so much as on which side soeuer you turne your selues you approach vnto the tombe After you haue tasted all the pleasures of the world what shal be left you of all but a griefe of the offences in the soule the sad remembrance of their priuation in the memory this sadnes in the hart for hauing made it to sigh so after your ruine
as he stood in competēcy with his brother-in-Law about the Crowne of the whole world at once yet notwithstanding his miseries made him an homicide of himselfe through a stroke of despaire Maximus came to the Empire from the lowest degree of a seruile condition but from the tyme that he was on the ridge of Greatnesse did Fortune make him to descēd so low by the same degrees he mounted vp with as his Misfortunes had no relation with his Prosperities Thus passeth the glory of the world leauing a great deale more astonishment behind then euer it afforded admiration If a great Architect should seeme to perswade vs to belieue that our dwelling house were on the point of falling and that we were in daunger to be buried in its ruines I would imagine with my selfe we should lyue alwaies in payne to auoyd the effects of his presages seeking with all sollicitude the meanes to eschew those perils So as if I turne the Meddall it wil appeare this tottering and ruinous house to be nothing els then that of the world wherof that great Architect who hath layd the first foundations hath affoarded vs the truth of this assurance that it shall fall to ruine very soone The Heauen and the Earth shall passe away What solidity then can we establish heere beneath in this soyle as well of Pouerty as of Infamy since it shakes vnder our feet through its continuall vitissitude The ruines thereof appeare without cease before our eyes in the course of its deficiency our life pursues the same way And neuertheles with what blindnes do we fall a sleep in the ship of our deliciousnes not considering how it floats vpon the stormy sea of the world as abundant in shipwrackes as the land of Mishaps We must neuer turne away our eyes from the obiect of Inconstancy since it is naturall to all that which hath subsistence heere beneath The Monarchy began with the Assyrians It passed to the Persians from the Persians to the Macedonians from the Macedonians to the Romanes and at this day the Empire is in Germany In so much as after that this so famous and illustrious a Crowne shall haue run through the foure corners of the earth it shall resolue into earth following the course of those that shal haue possessed the title eyther by right of hazard or by the right of Birth So as if Heauē Earth do passe whatsoeuer shall beare the image of the creation is cōprized within this reuolution of Ages where all concludes in a last end There is nothing so great in the world as the Hart which contemnes all Greatnesses Tyme as Mayster of all which is in Nature le ts forth Crownes and Scepters to Kings to some for a day to others for a moneth to some others for a yeare and to others for more but after the terme is expired it giues no more dayes one succeds in the place of another vnder one and the selfe same Law of condition Let the infinite number of Kings heere present themselues that haue raygned vpon Earth and if euery one hath had his Crowne it may likewise be sayd that ech hath had his Tombe Then seeke not Greatnesses my Soule but in vertue and in the glorious contempt of things of the Earth Thou seest how Magnificences haue not charmes but for a day their glittering fadeth with their light and what foundation soeuer they haue they carry in their being the Necessity of their ruine To what end shouldst thou raise thy Ambition vpon Thrones if they be States of vnhappines and inconstancy Enuy not Kings their Crownes nor Scepters since it is the title of a transitory glory Felicity cōsists not for to rule with Empire but rather to find repose of life in the condition wherin he is borne And what more sweet repose can one looke for then that of desiring nothing in the world This is a pleasing paine to be alwayes in vnrest to find that soueraigne good which we seeke for I would say that Eternity where delightes are durable in their excesse When thou shouldst be exalted aboue all the Greatnes of the Earth what happines and what contentement would be left thee since the Tyme of their possession glides without respit with the pleasures where with they are quickned In such sort as if at the rising of the sunne thou receyuest Sacrifices in homage at the setting thou shalt find thy selfe stript by Fortune or by Death Fixe not thy thoughts then but on the obiects which hould touch with Tyme nor seeke thou euer to runne after things that fly away Thy immortall nature cannot eye but Eternity sigh then incessantly after its Glory if thou wilt one day haue it in possession There be some who seeke their repose all their pleasure in Riches as if Gould had this Vertue to eternize their contentments Set not thy hart vpon things of the world saith the Apostle When the Poets would speake of Riches they put before vs the Gould of the riuers of Hebrus and Paectolus to let vs see how they fly away from our eyes as the waters Put case a man should possesse all the treasures of the earth yet should he not seeme to be richer awhit for all that since he were but the guardian and not the owner of those treasures Riches consist not in possessing much but rather in contenting ones selfe with a little Cresus could neuer satisfy his couetous desire during his life which induced his enemies to fill his Body with the gould wherewith he could not fill his Soule What Folly to seeke Eternity in Riches where is ordinarily found but Death This very man heere made accompt to stuffe his Coffers with Gould Syluer knew at last that his Treasures were so many fatall Instruments that serued for nothing but to take away his life so as being deceiued in his hopes he became sollicitous to conserue very charily the meanes of his losse of his ruine He therfore that goes to seeke for the Riches of the East puts himselfe to the mercy of the waues and in seeking the repose of his life approaches so neere to Death as he is distant from it no more than the thicknes of the shipboard What feeblenesse of humane Spirit to put in hazard whatsoeuer one holdes most deere on Earth for the purchase of a little Earth I had rather a great deale be Iob on the dunghill then Cresus on the woodpile for the one flouted at Fortune in his miseries and the other had recourse to Solon to repent himselfe for not hauing followed the way of Pouerty rather then that of Riches since the latter led him to Death Crates the Theban considering that he floted without cease within this vast sea of the world despised Riches for feare to suffer Shipwracke with so heauy a fraight The Wheele may well run about but can neuer get forth of the lymits of its Circle so lykewise man may well trauayle runne ouer the
nor this Line a point Eternity termines to God alone God alone to Eternity O incomprehensible Mystery that a God should recompence a sigh of Loue with an infinite loue one moment of paine with an Eternity of Glory For hauing tasted neuer so little of the vinegre of his Chalice to quench our thirst for euer in the torrent of these diuine Sweetnesses For hauing shed one teare of repentance to make vs liue eternally in ioy and smiles For hauing fasted one instant to satiate vs for euer with meats the most delicious which are found in Heauen And finally to recompence one night of trauaile with a day of eternall Repose Thinke neuer my Soule but vpon this Eternity What pleasures soeuer thou tasts in the world represent to thy selfe they shall one day finish and that in their end all the Thorns of their Roses shall assemble to make thee feele the sorrow of their priuation if thou wouldest haue content be it not but for Eternity it is to dye continually for to lyue with men and it is to liue allwayes to lyue with God It were to be vnfortunate to be happy on Earth since the true way of felicity is Heauen Felicity is as immortall as immortality it selfe and whither Tyme cannot reach to because it is out of Tyme In such wise my Soule as thou shouldst learne to speake this diuine lāguage of the Angels whose Eccho the Prophet is when he saith I languish O Lord in the expectation of seeing you in the mansion of your glory Let this Languor deuoure thee to the end that dying of loue for thy God who is soueraignely louely thou maiest go to liue for him since this is the only Spring of life Of the Infernall Paynes THE Great King Ezechias was brought to such a point of feare and astonishment when the Prophet assured him he shold dye the morrow after as that if his lot had reserued him for shipwracke he had now runne that danger in the Sea of his teares That fatall Sentēce tooke away his lyfe before he dyed for from the moment that the same was once pronounced vnto him he breathed but the ayre of Approaches to an ineuitable death where all Sorrowes heaped togeather in one what they had of bitter or rigorous to torment anew his afflicted Spirit This poore Prince had but Sighes Teares to defend himselfe withall agaynst the batteries of a soueraigne Will He plaines but of himselfe he cryes but onely to moue Pitty he armes his hand with fury against his bosome and with redoubled blowes smites his breast belieuing he layd hard on his hart the while as complice of the crymes whose punishment he carryed What shall he do the night steales away insensibly and the light which shall succeed his darknesses is not to shine but to shew him the way to the Tombe Sleepe hath already taken its leaue of his eyes for feare of being drowned in his continuall teares Repose abandons his spirit in feare of Death which possesseth him In so much as being reduced into a last point of Sufferance he apprehēds that euery sigh which he casts to the wind is to be the last of his life The remembrance of his faults so forcibly aggrauates the punishment as he dares not thinke of them but with the sorrow of heauing comitted them a Sorrow indeed so powerfull as disarmed the diuine Iustice of its Thunders This great King lifts vp his hart through Feare deiected constraines it to seeke for hope in that midst of despaire He humbly cōfesseth the truth of those crymes but with the same tongue wherewith he publisheth them he protests before his God his Iudge to commit them no more and for assurance beseeches the same God and the same Iudge to cast downe his eyes into the depth of his Soule to see the feelings therof in so much as he was heard Isay the Prophet receaues commaundement to reuoke the Sentence of his Death to prolong the terme of his life and to make the Sunne turne backe for some part of its way O admirable Goodnesse The whole course of the Vniuerse is chaunged rather thē to refuse a mans request who promiseth to God to chaūge the course of his life But what difference betweene the Sentence which the Prophet pronounceth on the behalfe of God to a guilty King that which God himselfe shal pronounce on that great day of his Iustice to the criminal Soules They are both verily two Sentences of Death but the one is signified in Time by a lyuing man to a man that is liuing yet the other is proclaymed out of Time by a God to Spirits which are criminall incapable of repentance Besides we see how the first Sentence was reuoked through grace while the other remaines inuiolable by Reason Mercy moderates the rigour of that there Iustice augmēts the paine of this heere with an Eternity O most dreadfull Sentence There was with the Persians a certaine Prison whence the guilty were neuer to go forth which they called by the name of Lethe as who would seeme thereby to represent a place of Obliuion where the Thoughts of men do neuer approach This Prison may well be compared to that of Hell from whence the Thralls do neuer get forth nor where the happy Spirits do neuer descend in thought It is a place of forgetfulnes since God remembers not the wicked Soules but to cause them only to be tortured by the instruments of his Iustice They haue no other dwelling then that of their sepulchers cryeth out the Psalmist which is as much to say as they shal be buried eternally in the tombe of Hel or as S. Augustine saith they shal be full of life in the midst of their torments in being alwaies renewed againe amidst their paynes without euer dying O cruell life Seing it is more vnsupportable then Death Let the most afflicted Soules appeare forsooth vpon the Theater of their Martyrings let Iultius recount at large the history of his sufferāces Let Persindas represent to vs sensibly the cruelty of his punishment at the light of the Sunne where he is exposed al couered with honey to the mercy of the Flies Let Lepidus Crassus communicate with vs through Contagion a part of his euill at such tyme as they straitly bound his body to a carkasse to the end the stench might serue as a Torturer to tyrannize his lyfe to death Let Phocinas the Locrian shew vs clerely by the light of the Fire which consumed him the torments wherewith he was tyrannized in feeling himselfe by little and little reduced into Ashes Let Pamindus the Philosopher expresse to vs in the Amazement of his mortall silence which the punishment of his tongue cut out had brought him to some feeble dolour of his smart Let Lysander buryed in the brasen Bull by the Tyrant of Syracusa make vs to heare the sad accents of his cryes for to publish with the language of his plaints the truth of
his torments Let Lelius Cooles discouer in his countenance the terrour and the anguish of his hart vpon the Cliffes of the Sea from whence he was cast downe headlong Let Martius Neuola mixing the wind of his sighs with those that enkindled the flames which consumed him conueigh to our eares the sad harmony of his last groanes Let Virgilia the wife of Lertius the Romā relate to vs at leasure the traunces of Martyring of a hart impoysoned by the cūning Enemy who by litle and litle extinguished her in a long course of yeares to make her sensible by degrees of all the rigors of death Let Emilia represent to vs in her despayre the anguishes of a dying Soule amidst the presse of her disastres Let the wyfe of Brutus send to our eyes the smoake of the burning coales that consumed her bowels to let vs feele the heat wherewith she was burned Let Messina before she pluckt out the Hart from her bosome partake vs with her torments where through a Sentence of her fury she condemned her self in making the one part of her Body to serue as a Hangmā to destroy the other Let Eugenia making a halter of the silke of her Harpe giue vs some testimony of the dolour of her precipitous Death Let Cleopatrae infect the Ayre with the Poyson which deuoured her life for to make vs Companions of her euils All these kinds of Martyrings these Tortures these dolours these vncouth tormēts and these euils without example and these tyrannies exercised by men more cruell thē Tygres and Beares can admit no comparison with the least paine of the damned The Thornes of these sufferances are Roses and the bitternes of these anguishes is but hony One moment of the paines in hell is more intollerable then an Age of Afflictions in this world Let them lend their eares to the lamentable cryes of Ampilaus King of the Pyroti when as being fastened to his rich Couch with the rude chaines of a thousand dolours procured through a Sciatica his torments pluckt out the hart from his bosome without snatching away the life and with a cruell encounter drew his Soule to his lips without suffering it to go forth To bewaile the rage whereto his euill had brought him makes him to throw out fire by the eyes rather then to power out water to complaine with Sighes of the excesse of his sufferances learnes him a language so dreadfull as the noyse of Thunder is not more terrible thē that of his voyce made hoarse with the force of crying They do well to decke his bed with the richest ornaments that may be found to bring him rest while his body is a Bush of Thornes wherewith his Soule is straytly hedged in In such sort as the points of its thornes do afford him a thousād prickes of dolour martyrings whose very thought is full of horrour They may cast their lookes of pitty on him long inough while Cruelty which incessantly butchers him makes them so feeble in his succour as he alwaies breaths in the death of his paines without being able euer to dye But turne we the Medall and lend the eare of our imagination to the warnings of of that great King Pharao bound in hell on a bedd of deuouring flames which burne without consuming him and which consume him without reducing him to ashes What inequality of euills and what difference of cryes The one in tyme feeles very piercing dolours vpon a couch of Thornes and the other suffers a thousand paynes all eternall vpon a bed of fire He there yields vp his miserable lyfe to the last shocke of a cruell torment and he heere reuiuing allwayes of his Ashes amidst his punishment lyues not but to dye in his sufferances of a death eternally lyuing The former comforts himselfe with the hope of a Tombe the latter finds increase of his torments in the despayre of euer seeing an end Let them thinke a litle on the sensible tormēts wherwith Tegonus that great Prince of Almaine was afflicted when as his hart serued before hand as a Coffin for the worms which gnawed him without cease to deuoure his lyfe A punishment as cruell as prodigious this was a lyuing death gliding in his bosom where it forged darts of incomparable dolour for to martyr him withal He wants for nothing in the midst of his Greatnesses and yet wants he all since all fayles him of his content His subiects are about him to receyue his Commaundements but he knowes not what to commaund them for his succour The remedyes they offer him are vnprofitable in the ignorance of his malady for the skilfullest Phisitians of them vnderstand not the cause therof which makes thē ingenious without thinking of it to afflict him a new in steeping his mouth with a thousand sorts of bitternesses He cryes out in the extremity of his languours but ech one by his eyes makes answere to his tongue in weeping at the noyse of his sobs and his complaynts And after hauing suffered as many deaths as he sent forth sighes he payed at last the tribute which he owed to Nature Cast yet the view of your imagination vpon the backside of the Medall to heare the cryes a great deale more hideous of another Prince abiding in Hell being touched with the malady of a worme which gnawes him eternally without deuouring him He sees all his Subiects about him as culpable as he but in the astonishment they are in they answere him but by the eyes only as vnable to succour him or to helpe themselues The Deuils are his Phisitians who not knowing the meanes to cure him inuental sorts of punishmēts to tyrannize his Soule But what difference of paynes That Prince of the world findes this consolation in his afflictions that after the wormes shall haue deuoured his Hart his life shall haue an end with the end of their prey and consequently his punishment And on the contrary this Prince of Hell finds alwaies the begining of his euills in the end of his paines The worme that gnawes him is immortall like as the prey which it deuoures In so much as his dolours remaine extreme in their excesse The one turning his Face to the Tomb-wards beholds there his sufferance buryed with him and the other sees himselfe buryed yet lyuing within a tombe of Fire which through a cruell property entertaines that which it burnes to the end it may neuer wāt matter What may be imagined more insupportable then the torment wherewith Charles King of Nauarre dyed of The Phisitians knowing he had a very little life left him in the body employed this vayne deuice for his comfort forsooth to sow him vp in a sheet steept in Aqua-vitae of purpose to prolong his life but the ill lucke was that the seruant who had sowed him therein burnt the end of his threed insteed of cutting it asunder where to say better he burnt the whole sheet and the King that was shut within Represent we to our selues now the
Monarch who had so many markes of immortality with him be the prey of wormes sport of the winds what shal be your lot Whereto may Fortune seeme to reserue you Go to then I graunt you whatsoeuer you can possibly demaund I affoard your ambition an age of lyfe an Empire of a new world a happy successe to all your desires What shall become of you after all this since this long lyfe this glorious Empire all your felicityes togeather must haue an end with this world As often as you shall issue forth of your condition for to enter into the forgetfulnes of your selfe you do send your thoughtes into this tombe and you shall suddenly return from this wandering Do not flatter your selfe your Crowne is but of earth as the head that weares it Your Scepter is but a sticke of wood subiect to corruption as your hand is that holdes it and the rest of your ornaments are but a worke of wormes wherof you are the prey Iudge you then whether your vanity can subsist any long tyme vpon such feeble foūdations or no. You are accustomed lykely at such time as you build some proud pallace or other to go a walking in the compasse thereof taking pleasure to admire the goodly scituation where you haue destined the place of your dwelling do you the like with your tombe go visit euery day the solitary place where you are to lodge for so long a tyme and this wil be the onely meane to make death euen as sweet vnto you as life it selfe and to bury your pride your vanity and al your vices together before your body according to the saying of the Wiseman for he that thinkes continually of death shall neuer stray from the way of vertue He that thinkes alwayes of Death is the Richest of the world CHAP. VII I MERVAILE much that Cicero should put this Truth into Paradox That he forsooth is the richest who is most cōtent whiles there is nothing more certaine then it For the Soule hath no other riches more properly her owne nor more in affect then that of contentment In what condition soeuer where a man finds himselfe with repose of Spirit may he well be said to be perfectly rich True treasures are not of gould of siluer or of other things of like valew but rather of good actions since by their price one may buy Eternity Besides whose fruition what may we desire Besides whose glory what may we pretend Withall the riches of the world we can buy no more then the world it selfe Alas what good in the possession thereof if it be wholy stuffed with euils See we not euery momēt how it quite destroyes it selfe and that it runnes without cease to its end as the Sūne to its West The richest are ordinarily the most vnfortunate of all others for that hauing by lot of nature some little Empire on earth they fall absolutely to attribute the Soueraignity thereof to thēselues in the vayne thoughts of their greatnesses seeme neuer to sigh but for them nay they euen dy with them O dreadfull Death He then may be only said to be rich who makes profession to follow vertue his way being bordered with Thornes represents to vs that same of Death whose Roses are at the end of the course to crowne our labours withall In so much as we cannot loue vertue but with the continuall thoughts of Death since to see its Body we had need to seuer our selues from the shadowes of the Earth We much admire some feeble ray of its image only vnder the obscure veyle of our mortall condition but that only in idaea and as it were in a dreame We had need to awake yet once more and come to be reborne from our ashes againe as the Phenix in the presence of the great Sunne of Iustice. I would say that we must needs dy one day for to reuiue eternally in the accomplishment of all the felicities of Heauen Alexander hath no greater a treasure then that of his hopes The ayme or scope of his Fortune was alwayes vpon the future and what goods soeuer he possessed he euery day yet attended for more as if he had some intelligence with Chance to receiue from its prodigall hand all the effects of his desires The merchants that go in pursuite of riches vpon the Ocean liue not but of the hope of their mercinary cōquest How miserable soeuer they find themselues on the way of their nauigation they so mainly forget themselues in the sweet thoughts of their expectation as they thinke themselues the richest of the world and they wil sooner be loosing their lyfe in the midst of the rockes then the beliefe they haue thereof So much their imaginary hope seemes to carry them away Let vs say then more boldly and with more reason that such as termine all their hopes to the Eternity as to the onely obiect which is able to quench the thirst of our soules still increasing more and more may be sayd before hand to be the richest of the Earth For their hope is not that of Alexander whose vowes were addressed to Fortune much lesse that other of those old Martiners as changeable as the sea that guides them but another quite different that for foundation hath but Vertue and in the hope of possessing one day the treasures of Heauen they take the paynes to purchase them through the continuall meditation of Death as the onely lesson that teacheth vs to liue well They passe deliciously their tyme in the expectation of their last day on earth and like to those merchants stand counting all the houres of their voyage with impatient desire to see out of hand the very last of them so to be alwayes perfectly happy And howbeit this voyage be long and troublesome yet they esteeme thēselues so rich withall as they would not change their hopes for all the gold of the world In effect we must needs confesse that the only hope of glory ioyned with vertues is the only good of life for the atteyning one day of the possession of them where a holy soule may find the full accomplishmēt of its desires But it is yet to be considered that this hope and all these vertues can haue no surer foundation then that of the continuall thoughtes of Death since all our good doth absolutely depend of this last houre wherein the important sentence of our life or Death is to be signified vnto vs. Hence it is that mā being holily rich heapes vp good workes during the course of his life as diuine Treasures to enrich his soule with all the eternall felicities which may accomplish it with glory and contentment He liues alwayes contēnt and rich at once in this pleasing thought forsooth that he will neuer seeme to dye vntill such tyme as he be quite dead Whence it happens that he tramples vnderfoot very generously all sorts of greanesses and riches through the knowledge he hath of those which his spirit possesseth
without euer being touched with other enuy then to finish readily his voyage to make exchange for Death with a life exempt from Death So as we may wel mainteyne that he who is alwaies thinking of Death is the richest in the world seeing that euen such thoughts only may make him to purchase the treasure of Eternity wherein consists our soueraigne Good A Contemplation vpon the Tombe of Cresus CHAP. VIII YOV Rich-men of the world who know no other God then Gold and Siluer come and see the treasures which the greatest King of the Earth hath carryed with him into the Tombe And this is the mighty King Cresus to whome the mines serued him for a Coffer the Indyes for a Cabinet and the Ocean for a new riuer of Pactolus where he vainely endeauoured to quench the thirst of his guilty auarice and of his most haughty ambition Represent vnto your memory his passed greatnesses and behould now his present miseries If you thinke of the riches of his life all of roses consider the pouerty of his Death all of thornes If you remember the magnificences of his Court turne the lease at the same tyme to see the horrours of this his dismall solitude If you muse yet on the rich ornaments of his golden Pallace see contemplate through your teares the corruptiō which is inclosed with him in the Tombe If you haue seene him seated on the highest top of greatnesses behold him now with the same eye abased on the dunghill of misery He hath liued he hath reigned as an Idoll within the Temple of Fortune on the proudest Altar of Vanity but the torch of his life is put out the date of his reigne is expired the Temple of his glory is demolished the Aultar of his Empire is destroyed and this carkasse which you see is the Idol that serues as a prey vnto the wormes Gobrias do thou cause thy selfe to be drawne heere by thy Lyons on thy Chariot of massy Gold before thou dyest The deceiptfull glasses of thy goodly Mirrours hide from thine eyes the truth of thy defects let thee see but the guilded case of thy rich apparences On the other side they but represent to thee by halfes while this Sepulcher shal depaynt them forth to thee at large with the same draught and with the selfe same lineaments which Nature hath markt vpon thy body from the moment of thy birth In comming hither to visit this place thou shalt not stray awhit out of thy way since euery moment of Tyme directs thy steps vnto the Sepulcher Enter a little into the knowledge of thy selfe and reuert from thy wandering Thou reposest for the most vpon a Couch all of gold And what pleasure takest thou the while to passe some nights vpon this bed of Flowers since thou must lodge so long a tyme vpon a clod of earth wherof thou art framed moulded thou takest al thy repasts vpō a siluer Table thou seest this carkasse wherof thou art the originall how it serues for a table meate all at once for the wormes to feed on Why dost thou prize so much thy treasures Behould to what estate is he brought who hath possessed all those of the World At his birth he had for portion all the good of the earth and in dying he hath inherited all the miseries of nature Imagine that which he hath had and see what is left him He hath purchased al yet possesseth nothing nor canst thou auoyd his lot whilest thou holdest the same way of his life hence it is that I point thee out thy sepulcher all ready within his Tombe Policrates come see the coffer of the Treasures of Cresus to glut thy couetous appetite with all his rotten bones I meane whose marrow the wormes deuoure the stench of this prey couered with a linnen sheet newly weft together with the infection Behold now all which this mighty King was able to saue from the Shipwracke of his lyfe and riches al together These are the lamentable relickes as well of his Maiesty as of his greatnesses and thou runst into danger of the same rockes so sayling in a lyke sea if thou change not the Pylot Take profit then frō the domage of another mayster thy brutish passions that prepare for thine enemies the triumph of thy lyfe And thou Lucullus come and visit the Sepulcher of this great Prince before thou vnpeoplest the ayre of birds the land of sauage beasts and the sea of fishes if thou wilt see displayed the vanity of thy enterprises Thou takest a glory while thy life lasts to afford entertainement to all the world Behould awhile how thou art like to be intreated after thy death Cause thy tables to be furnished with meats the most delicious that are yet of necessity must all the company serue one day as a last course for the wormes Let thy festiuall dayes hould out for a whole yeare together the Sun which shines vpon thee will not fayle to conduct al thy bāquetting ghests into the Sepulcher In such sort as looke how the tyme deuoures it selfe so likewise doest thou seeme to deuoure thy life by little and little with the same food that doth nourish and mainteyne it What reckoning canst thou make of al the glory of thy prodigious magnificences if it haue no other foundation with it then that of corruption For al the proud preparations of thy Feasts do metamorphoze themselues into infection with thy miserable subiects which haue caused the expence You mercinary Soules who are not capable of loue but for your treasures nor of passion but to make you Idolaters of them you stand counting your Crownes euery day and you keep no account by order of a wise foresight of the small tyme which is left you to enioy the same To what end serues you your Booke of accompts where you reckon vp the summes which are due vnto you if you want vnderstāding to calculate that which you owe to your conscience whose interests termine themselues eyther to your losse or safety You vnbury the gould and siluer out of the earth not considering the while that you are going to occupy their place in the same earth You buy with their money the pleasures of your lyfe and you sell those of your death for lyuing in delightes you dye in torments Know you not that whatsoeuer is on earth is but Earth Wherefore tye you then your affections so to that which you cannot loue without hating your selfe what will you do when you dye with your treasures I doubt very much you wil leaue them to your children but yet the crymes which you haue committed in procuring thē shall stil be abiding with you so as to make your Heires passe deliciously this life you shall loose the eternal which is promised vs. You damne your selues for them as you were not borne but for others Quit the world before it quit you bid an eternall adieu to its vanityes Cresus was all gould as you
him not in the estate he is brought into touch but thy owne miseries with thy finger and thou shalt playnly discouer on their face all the draughts of his resemblāce He hath been King as wel as thou as good as wise And if thou bearst the Surname of Tyrant aboue him and that he hath not beene a Tyrant of his people yet the vanities of his life haue beene so He is dead howsoeuer and at the very same tyme wherein truly thou behold'st his putrified bones the fire of thy life hath brought thee by little and little into ashes neere vnto his ashes If thou tracest the same way with him thou shalt put the truth of thy saluation into doubt I would haue thee be a Tyrant also but that only against thy selfe to be cruell to thy passions nor euer to pardon thy faults otherwise reason shall be depriuing thee of the Surname of a Sage which thy folly hath giuen thee Pittacus be thou a partner likewise to behold the miseries of thy like and if thou wilt learne thy good spirit wisedome employ thy reason and eloquence to chase away vices from thy country rather then the Tirant though thy force and courage Thou sayest we ought to foresee the accidents afarre of which may happen to vs for to be able to suffer them with the more constancy when they light why thinkst thou not then alwayes of this accident inseparable from Death which pursues vs neerer then a shadow the body not for the suffering of the paynes with the greater constancy but rather with more profit that Death might make thee a successour of a more happy life Behould in this tombe the image of all thy errours See wherein consists the glory of the world and this vayne renowne wherof thou becōmest an idolater If this great Sage haue beene so taxed how shalt thou be able to auoyd the blame and shame at once I leaue thee to thinke and meditate vpon it Bias come and behould through curiosity the ashes of the wisest of the world to iudge whether there be any difference betweene them and those of the most fooles I know well that the horrour of the tombe will not astonish thee awhit since thou hast seene thy country sackt already with a dry eye and thy children dead before thee But in these actions it is not where thou art to make the force of thy spirit to appeare After thou hadst lost all thou oughtst to haue saued thy selfe to be rich for euer Thou belieuest thy vertue should appeare with saying that thou carryest all thou hast about thee and hadst saued all thy goods from the fire of thy towne wherein thou mistakest thy selfe For thou wert puffed greatly with thy vanity and charged with the weighty burden of thy vayne sciences Thou knowest all that which we ought to be ignorant of to become well skilled in the knowledge of true vertue indeed And to let thee say playnely thine owne folly so it is that the precepts of thy wisedome haue neuer yet saued any one of those that obserued the same Thou preachest vertue and adorest but a false image therof wisedome consists not but in alwayes thinking of death and thou hast nothing more deare then lyfe in the blindnesse wherein thou art Misfortune robs thee euery houre of a part of thy self through continuall losse of that which thou louest most and thou art insensible of all these attempts But heerin thou letst thy vanity appeare rather then any vertue at all since thou referrest not the effects of thy patience to the absolute cause which giues thee grace thereunto Thou Enemy to thy selfe thou pullest the wings of thy spirit that it may not fly aboue thy nature to know the Authour thereof Consider the glory that shall rest and be left for thee The stone of this tombe which thou seest shall wayte vpon thy flesh to couer it with all in corruption and infection and if thou will be reputed wise thinke continually vpon this verity Thales thou must be a party lykewise for to come and see the mayster of the Sages in this poore little lodging which nature hath prepared him from his birth He hath beene farre more wise then thou but yet with all his knowledge he hath hardly byn able to fynd the way of his saluation He knew so perfectly the effects of all the seconde causes as he forgot oftentymes to yield due homage vnto the first and soueraygne cause onely adorable Take thou thy profit then from the exāple of his losse Thou studyest vaynly to marke the courses of tyme consider rather how it pulls thee by litle and litle into the Sepulcher Why breakest thou thy braynes to know from whence the winds proceed since thou oughtst to feare that of vanity for it threatnes thee with shipwracke Thou further notest sundry motions of the starres it sufficeth thee that that of the Sea be fauorable to thee to shun the rockes of that other of the world wherto nature hath made thee to embarke thy selfe Thou makest lessons to thy schollers vpon thunder it is but a very curiosity of thine thou shouldest not seeke for shelters but for the thunders of diuine Iustice which shal shortly punish thee for thy foolish errours If thou wilt be wise indeed forget thou all what thou knowest nor do thou euer remember but this verity that thou art of Earth and soone shalt thou return into Earth agayne as this great King whose ashes thou beholdest enuironed with horrour and infection Go now and make a lesson to thy schollers of that which thou hast seene and then shalt thou deserue the surname of a Sage Chilon step thou a little out of thy way to come and see the ruines of this Colossus heere of Greatnesse whose vnmeasurable height astonished all the world This is the King Solomon the wonder of all the Monarkes of the earth Demaūd of him now what he hath done with his crowne with his Scepter with his Treasures with his Courtiers with his slaues and where now his pleasures are And if he answere thee not a word make the same demaunds of thine owne spirit and it shall answere for him that all is vanished like smoke that all is slid away like waues that all is rouled thence like a torrēt that al is melt a way like snow that al these shadowes haue pursued their bodyes into the ruine where thou seest it Thou oughtst to haue engraued this precept which thou gauest forth of Nosce teipsum on thy hart rather then on the Temple of Apollo For this knowledge is not compatible with thine errours Thou hast giuen forth this second Precept Of neuer coueting too much wherein truly thou art not culpable at all since thou desiredst not inough Thou assignest all thy pretensions on the earth as if thou wert borne but for it it seemes the Sunne neuer rises but to conuince thee of ingratitude since for the goodnes of its effects thou neuer didst homage to the cause from
life were it to dy neuer and to suffer without cease since miseryes and paynes are the miserable accidents of our bodies it would euen be a liuing death or rather a dying life a thousand times more cruell and intollerable then death it selfe Happy then yea thrice happy is that last instant which makes vs get forth of the Empire of tyme most pleasing is the moment which leades vs into the Eternity O sweet agony ful of extasy and rauishment O glorious Ioseph guide now my pen in this faire labyrinth of death wherein it is wandering to touch at some thing of your last rauishments when as you gaue vp your soule on the lips of himselfe that created them Lyfe hath nothing so delicious as your death you dy in the armes of the mother of lyfe and of lyfe it selfe And shall I say that is a death You amorously expire on the mouth of your Redeemer that is to say on the gate of Paradise what ioy The pen fals out of my hand as if it were sensible of these incomparable pleasures wherwith the end of your holy lyfe was crowned but I hope to recouer it agayne very shortly for to speake more worthily thereof if these secret Vowes which I haue already offered you may be gratefull to you Let vs say then confidently that of all the actions of lyfe the last of death is the welcomest of al to such as haue lyued well and it is permitted to all the world to liue well Goodly Considerations vpon this important verity That whatsoeuer we do we dye euery houre without cease CHAP. XIIII THE inhabitants of Nylus are so accustomed to heare the dreadâ—ull noyse of its waters alwayes roaring as they haue no eares to feele the incoÌ„modity therof Let vs say the same in a diuers sense of men in the world that they are so habituated to this sweet feeling of dying without cease as they perceiue not theÌ„selues to dy awhit They breath in dying the aire of the Death which they sigh forth without thinking euer of Death A strange thing to liue continually in Death and to dy euery day in life without once dreaming of the necessity of their end whither they run alwaies They do nothing els but dy and they haue no care but to liue For if they speake the ayre wherof they forme their words causeth the lights to dye which is the Clocke of life the respirations the minutes these minutes are couÌ„ted and one succeding to the other the lasts strikes the houre of Death If they eate the very food that nourishes them doth putrify in their bodyes as in a dunghill in signe that they are full of corruption and this infectioÌ„ by little and little ruines the infected vessel wherein it is enclosed If they sleepe they exteriourly carry the countenance of death which they hide within In fine there is no action wherein they may be any wayes employed which is not a Symbole of Death If the foolish errours of these men of the world concluded not in an irreparable domage they would afford as much pleasure as they moue pitty For one gets into his Caroch with purpose to goe to some faire house of his in the Country without considering the while how that very way of his walke is euen the same of Death whither Tyme which is the Coachman leades him insensibly with all his company So as if they go not to lye for this dayes iourney at the lodging of the Tombe it is put of for the morrow after Another embarkes himselfe in a Pinnace for to sayle into the Indyes himselfe is a Pinnace the while embarked in the sea of the world from the moment of his birth sayling without cease at the pleasure of the wind wherewith age doth replenish the sayles and that without once being able to land but in the hauen of the Tombe This Gallant heere shal be going in post to see his Mistresse and he hath no other obiect in all his course then to arriue as soone as he can to the place where she lodgeth Foole as he is he considers not the while how that euery step he puts forward on his way he approacheth the nerer to the Tombe whither he runs with full speed vpon the same Post-horses he takes to compasse his amourous desires Another there wil be going more easily in a Litter and with lesse incommodity for feare the heate or cold may seeme to preiudice his health but let him go as easily as he will yet Death will not fayle to lead his mules in such sort as he shall but passe onely by his howses of pleasure so to go forwards in his way directly to the Tombe what digression soeuer he seemes to make to put it off Thinke on this truth my Dames during the calme and tranquility of your fortune the spring tyme of your lyfe will not alwayes last euen as the seasons of the yeare succeed ech other so those of age pursue one another But as we see often how the intemperance of the ayre causeth the winter to arriue in the midst of sommer take heed the intemperance of your humours produce not the winter of death in the midst of the spring tyme of your lyfe In vayne do you set forth all your deceiptfull markes of immotality the time scornes them and I laugh at them For if to day you be something tomorrow are you lyke to be nothing So passeth away the glory of the world all flyes into the Tombe The Tombe of the pleasures of the Sight CHAP. XV. LET all the fayrest Obiects which are in Nature appeare in my presence to behold ech one in its turne the foundation of their Sepulcher Let the Heauen shew forth open to view its serene countenance the Sun his liuely brightnes the Moone her siluer day the starres their twinckling sparkes the Ayre its fayre nakednes The birds their warblings their richest robes of plumages enamelled with euery sort of colours The Trees the ornament of their blossomes and the decking of their fruits the Meadowes the tapestry of their greenes and Mountaynes the mossy stuffe wherewith they couer their crumpt backes the forrests their thicke branches the sauadge beasts the extrauagant beauty which Nature hath impressed in their brutish kind through the diuersity of the formes which they represent the Earth the inside of its coffers replenished with all sorts of riches the Riuers the Christall of their streames the Fountaynes the liquid glasses of their waters the Sea its huge waterish maÌ„tle the fishes the infinite number of their figures wholy different Let the world yet giue forth new wonders and beauty exhibit to our view its fayrest lyuing pictures yet all those obiects taken altogether are no more then a little dust enclosed in the crust of artificiousnes which Tyme quite ruines by little and little Thou man of the world who seest but only by thine eyes in cherishing thy life so with the pleasures of the sight admire yet once in thine Idea
the obiects whose beauty heeretofore thou hast adored then represeÌ„t to thy selfe according to the argument thou canst draw from the nature of their being what is become of them or what are they like to be If it be some proud pallace wherin the order the riches the magnificence the industry of the workeman be in dispute about glory to know who shall carry away the prize consider that Tyme destroyes it at all howers and that it shall neuer giue ouer till it see the ruines of it If the charmes of Art do charme the sight in admiration of the fayrest colours laid on a rich subiect think but a little of the fraylty of those accidents For all the beautifullest colours that are do fetch their birrh from that of flowers And can we see any thing more changeable or of so small a date as they So as if the allurements of the beauties of Nature do rauish thy soule by thy eyes defeÌ„d thy self forth with through the knowledge thou hast of their misery since in effect the fayrest Lady in the world is but a masse of flesh which corrupts euery moment vntill such tyme as it be wholy formed to corruption and this corruption into wormes As for all other things whatsoeuer which thou mayest haue seene being no whit more noble then it thou Mayst well be iudging of their defects by the consequence In so much as whatsoeuer the HeaueÌ„s haue glittering the Earth rare Nature gay Art more admirable if thou seruest thy selfe of the touchstone of thy iudgement to know the matter which supports the image thou shalt soone find all to be no more then dust and so mayest feare least it happen to fly in thine eyes to make thee blind if thou lookest but too neere vpon it The Tombe of the Pleasures of the Sense of Hearing CHAP. XVI YOV Soules of the world who suffer your liberty to be taken away through your eares with the deceiptful charmes of Syrens You I say who sigh for ioy for delectation and extasy amidst the pleasures of a sweet harmony eyther of voyces or instruments leÌ„d your guilty eares to heare the reasons which seeme to condemne your errours I doubt not a whit but the purling of a siluer brook the sweet running murmur of a fountayne the pretty warbling of birds and the amourous accents of a delicate voyce ioyned with the sweet allurements of the melody of a Lute are of force inough to captiue your spirits vnder the empire of a thousaÌ„d sorts of delights But yet returne a little from this wandering of yours Content your selfe with the losse of liberty and saue your reason to repayre your domage At such tyme as you stand listening to the humming noyse of this riuer to the murmur of this fountayne imagine this truth the while That all passeth away that all slides along like to the waues Their language preacheth nought els Those birds euen call for death at the sound of their chaunting like the Swan And if the harmony of a voice or Lute so charme you coÌ„sider awhile how the pleasure of this melody is formed of the ayre and that in the same instant it resolues into ayre agayne so as the delights euen dy in their birth You let your eares be tickled with the charmes of EloqueÌ„ce imagine you that since it is true that as neither Cicero nor Demosthenes were exempt from the Tombe or corruption with al their fayre elocution so shall you neuer be able to perswade death with al your gallant discourses to prolong the terme of your life but a moment True Eloquence consists in preaching Vertue and true Harmony to hould reason alwayes at accord with the Will for to desire nothing but what is iust The Tombe of the other Pleasures that are affected to the Senses CHAP. XVII OPEN your eyes you worldlings to discouer playnly the truth of your crymes You take your pleasures to cherish daintily your bodyes as if you knew not their miseryes But why say I your pleasures Can you take any contentment to stuffe your putrified body with a new matter of corruption Whatsoeuer you eat is a symbole of Death so shall you dy in eating You do nothing but heape dung vpon dung add but infectioÌ„ to infection I graunt that your life passeth euer its dayes in continuall banquetting But I would fayne haue you let me see the pleasure which is left you of all this good cheere at the latter course Is this a contentment trow you to haue the Belly stuffed with a thousand ordures to put your spirit on the racke with the stinking fume of meates not well concocted which arise vp in the brayne Is it well with you to haue the head drousy the pulse distempered the spirit benummed reason astray Behold heere a part of the delights which succeed your delights and you haue no care but to pamper your bodyes as if you lyued but onely for them not considering the meane while how the same very food which affoards them lyfe euen brings them to death Inebriate your selfe with these brutish pleasures and by the example of the new Epicures haue no passion but to conserue them yet of necessity must the imaginary paradise of your lyfe conclude in a true Hell on the day of your death For all these roses shal be changed into thornes in that last moment Glut you and crumme your bodies for to satiate the wormes withall But this is nothing as yet Your soules being the companions of your euills must needs be euerlastingly punished in an eternity of paynes O dreadfull Eternity It seemes in a fashion that those men of the world may well be excusing their vanity that causes them to carry both amber and muske about them since they are all full of of infection and corruption which makes me belieue that they feare least men come to sent the stench of their miseries so engage them or rather inforce them to serue themselues of this cunning In effect all these odours and these perfumes smell so strong of earth as we cannot loue the smoke without runing into danger of the fire So as those who tye their spirit to these vayne idea's of pleasures are in loue with shadows and despise the bodyes They smell very well that smell not ill and such as habituate their bodyes to Perfumes can neuer endure the stinke of the mortuary Torches which shall encompasse their bâ—d at the houre of death I speake to you my Ladyes who doe so passionately affect these foolish vanityes I remit you euer to the instant of Death for to receyue the iudgement of your actions full of shame and reproach Deale you so as your soule may sauour well rather then the body since the one may euery moment be cited to the presence of God and the other serues as a prey for the worms It were better your teeth should sauour il then your actions for those are subiect to corruption and these heere shall liue eternally
you then purchase them altogeather so to make you beloued of al the world and not onely for a day but euen for euer The beauty wherof you make such accompt is a fadyng quality that subsists not but in its continuall change it flyes along with you into the Tombe but it passeth more swiftly then you for it euen gets before you by the halfe way When you are arriued but to the midday of your lyfe is it come to its full West When you enter into your Autumne it arriues to its Winter where it finds its ruine Alas that for a small number of daies you will stād so much to please men and be displeasing of God for a whole Eternity O dreadfull Eternity how profound are thy Abysses My Dames as often as this guilty desire shall possesse you to offend God in your foolish vanityes thinke a little of the Eternity of the payne which is to attend your crymes For one moment of false and imaginary pleasure you put your selues in daūger of suffering eternally an infinite number of true euils indeed What expect you of the world It aboūds but with miseryes What looke you for of Fortune She is prodigall but only in misfortunes All Riches are but of earth all Greatnesses of smoke and all Honours of wind as for the louely qualityes which are affected to the body they euen dy with it In so much as Vertue only I tell you agayne is exempt from Death You neuer thinke but of taking your pleasures without considering the while that in passing away the tyme so you suffer to slide away in hast the small remaynder of life that is left you In louing life as you do you should be striuing to prolōg your dayes and on the contrary you seeke digressions to passe them ouer without taking any heed therto as if you went to slowly vnto death and that the way to the Tombe appeared too tardy and tedious to you wherein truly you take pleasure to deceiue your selues Do not so flatter your selues my Dames you must needs dy there is nothing in you that dyes not euery howre Your fayre golden hayre which you dayly so put vnto the torture of the iron doth euen dy by little little with you For in changing its apparence it becomes of the colour of Death The wrinckles of age do soyle the polished glasse of your brow for to marre its beauty and grace Your fayre Eyes which I will heere terme two Sunnes for to please you do run like to the Sunne without cease vnto their last West whither Death conducts thē through the help of their proper light The Lyllies of your Cheekes do wither euery houre and the Gilliflowers of your lips do fade euery moment The Iuory of your teeth corrupts with the breath of tyme and of age The snow of your Necke melts and all the louely qualityes of your spirit wax old in their continuall decay I admit you to be more beautifull then Helena Helena is no more she is euen passed away like a flower and you are iust in the same way of her ruine Her charmes did rauish the whole world your bayts subdue the best part of mortalls but as all is dead with her so all dyes with you The tyme of her Empyre is expired that of your Raigne runnes alwayes away She hath beene she hath liued they haue admired her with astonishment they haue honoured her with sacrifices but all the Temples of her glory are demolished all the Aultars are ruined all the Idolatours are reduced to ashes scarcely remaynes there any memory of these things since euen the very age which hath seene them is buryed with them in the abysses of the passed You must dye my Dames and all those graces wherewith you captiue Spirits shall neuer obtayne any fauour of Death You must dye and all those enticements wherewith you rauish spirits haue not allurements inough for to violate the lawes of nature You must dye and all those charmes where with you captiue soules haue not the power to charme death in its fury You must dye and all those pretty graces that make you so admirable cannot exempt you from the Tombe nor corruption You must dye and all your perfections together cannot hinder the houre of your death for a moment only You must dye and to speake more playnely to you your golden hayre must needs perish your eyes so cleere fayre must needs make a part of the dunghill of your body The delicate skin of your face must needs discouer it s putrifyed bones and all your beautyes togeather by changing the countenance shal be taking the forme of dust since you are nothing but dust Nor do I feare yet to lye since in effect you are nothing You must dye all your rare Coulises serue but onely to consume you all your Phisitians haue no medicine for to cure the malady of your mortall condition You must dye and therefore are you carefull of your health in vayne since age pardons not any yea you dye liuing and do you what possibly you can do the terme of your lyfe is alwayes slyding You must dye nor do all the moments of the day tell you of any other thing The houres continually strike this verity in your eares the Sun neuer sets without telling you in its fashion how it only foreruns the time of the setting of your lyfe We must dye I say at last for we dye with out cease and after so many sighes of miseryes we must cast forth to the wind the last of our mishaps We must dye the sentence is giuen the execution is made and the same continues euery day before our eyes whēce they are so accustomed to weep We must dye but since there is nothing more certayne we must alwayes be in disposition to dy at all houres since we dye euery moment We must dye but we are to reuiue eternally in glory since we are created but for it only We must dye but we must be reborne agayne from our corruption for not to dye for euer Let vs dy boldly then since needs we must but let vs dye in innocency for to shun the death of death We must dye but we must rise agayne before that soueraygne Iudge who is to giue vs the recompence of our trauayles or els to impose the payne of our crimes vpon vs. We must dye but it is but for once and of that onely moment depends our whole vnhappines or felicity We must dye but we must yield accompt of the lyfe past to receyue the guerdon or paine which is due thereto for euer We must dy and to delyuer vs happily from the daunger of this sweet necessity must we liue well You must dye you Soules of the world ech one seemes to cary his tombe with him Laugh you alwayes sing continually be you euery day at your banquets and take your sports in a continuall chase of diuers pleasures after all which notwithstāding must
you needs dy and in this cruell separation of you frō your selues your laughings chāge to teares your songs of gladnes into lamentable cryes of sorrowes and all your banquets pleasures into bitter plaints which torment your hart and put your soule vpon the racke There might be some manner of satisfaction perhaps to heare the discourses which men of the world do hould if their blindnes the while do not afford mattter of compassion One takes paynes to recount al the pleasures he hath taken during his life another keepes account of the good fortunes he hath had a third assures vs that he hath possessed heertofore a great number of treasures a fourth endeauours to perswade as many as will belieue him that he hath beene on the top of the greatest dignityes What discourses of smoke are these For he that hath tasted so many contentments hath nothing left him but the sad remembrance of the hauing once had the possession of them Another who yet now thinkes on the good fortunes which once he hath had makes himselfe a new vnhappy through the memory of his passed felicities He that casts his eyes on the ashes of his riches insensibly consumes himselfe in the selfe same fire that consumed them And another that reares vp his head aloft for to behold through his teares the place from whence he fell euen looseth the force for euer to rise againe notwithstāding that it be good for him to sleepe often so to be a framing of these dreames For euē as all those pleasures and goods are slid vanished away with the things that seemed the most durable so all the contentment all the goods which may any wayes appertaine vnto vs shall fly away and the worst is that we run after them for to signe out our Tombe in their Sepulcher Salomon hath had so many pleasures Cresus passessed so much riches Alexander receiued so great honours Helena so many prayses for her incomparable beauty But Salomon is no more but dust with all his riches Alexander but earth with all his honours nor Helena any more then corruption with all her graces Trust you not then to your pleasures you great Kings for their Roses shall wither and their Thornes endure for euer Put not your hopes in Riches since they are of earth as well as you Despise you Honours since all glory is due to Vertue only And you my Dames employ from hence-forth all your cares and labours to decke your Soules rather then your bodyes if you wil haue Angels enamoured and men to be emulous of you For so euery one shal striue for glory to imitate you in this glorious enterprize This is the counsayle I giue you and with it will I finish my Booke The end of the svveet Thoughtes of Death THOVGHTS OF ETERNITY Distributed into foure Parts To wit The Triumph of Death To wit The Ioyes of Paradise To wit The Infernall Paynes To wit The Houre of Death VVritten in French by Sieur de la Serre translated into English Permissu Superiorū M. DC XXXII THOVGHTES OF Eternity The Triumph of Death O HOW sweet is it to thinke continually on eternall things All flies away before our eyes in the course of their fight by little and little lyfe escapes away from vs. The Sunne doth well to rise euery day anew the moments of its Reigne are measured within the order of Nature It must of necessity follow the decay of time wherof it is the dyall and after it hath presided to all the vnhappy accidents heere beneath it lends the light of its torch at last to its proper ruine Though the stars of the night appeare thicke in the Heauens with the same aspect alwayes glittering in wonders yet can they not choose but wax old euery instant robbes them of somewhat of their durance since they shine within Tyme for not to shine within Eternity Though the heauens being quickned by the soueraigne Intelligēce of the Primum mobile renew their paces euery yeare within the round spaces of their Circles their turnings yet are counted and though they returne agayne by the same way they incessantly approach to the point that is to termine their Course The Fire which entertaynes it selfe in its Globe insensibly deuoures it selfe for that Region of its dwelling is a part of the body which consumes it selfe The Ayre that takes vp all yet can not fill vp the voydnesse of the Tombe which the last instant of tyme prepareth for it Though the Phoenix-King of its subiects find a second Cradle within its first Sepulcher yet at last another selfe shall aryse againe from its Ashes though yet vnlike since it shal not haue the same power to communicate the same vertue to the Species of its of spring So as it shall dye at last through sorrow of its sterility Though the Serpent shift the skinne neuer so much yet doth its Prudence extend no further whiles Age fals a laughing at its cunning in deuouring vp its being The Trees that do euery yeare waxe young agayne continually grow old The Spring the Summer and the Autumne are of force indeed to make them change the countenance but not their Nature and the Brookes affrighted with this continual vicissitude go flying into the bosome of their Mother belieuing they are shrowded but in vayne for the Ocean carryes their Wracke within the valley of its waues The Seasons growing from the end of one another as the day from the end of night shal be disioyned and seuered by a new Season which with it shall bury all the others The fayrest mayster-peeces of Art forasmuch as they are layed vpon the ground pay cotinuall homage to the ruine of Tyme as he that presides within his Empire witnesse those wonders of the world which subsist no more then in the memory of men for a signe onely of what the famous Athens the triumphant Carthage the proud Troy haue beene heeretofore they are now buryed so deep in their ruine as one can hardly belieue they haue euer beene They go seeking thē in historyes but the memory of their raigne is so ould as they are no otherwise found then in Fables only Let vs speake of diuers People rather thē of Townes That great world of men which the Earth hath borne a thousand tymes on its bosome and the Sea vpon its waues was drowned at last in the riuer of Xerxes teares for which he prepared a tombe an hundred yeares before The Kings haue followed their subiects in this common shipwrack all the Pourtraits of Apelles and the Statues of Lysippus of Phidias haue runne like hazard with them by this inuiolable necessity that the shadow euer followes the body Well might Alexander cause himself to be surnamed Immortall but yet purchast not Immortality He tooke the paynes to seeke out another world and in the midst of his Triumphes had need of no more then seauen foote of earth to be buried in Cyrus would fayne haue it
belieued that he was Inuincible yet could Death know wel how to find the defect of his Armes like as that of Achilles Nero would needs be adored but he was sacrificed in punishmēt of his crime Cresus the richest of all men carried nothing into his Tōbe but this only griefe of hauing had so much Treasure so little Vertue his riches exempted him not ◠whit from the euils wherof our life is full and at the end of his terme he dyed as others with the Pouerty incident thereunto Cesar Pyrhus and Pompey who had so many markes of Immortality had the worse sort of Death since they al three were vnhappily cōstrayned to render their lyues to the assaultes of a most precipitous Death The which doth let vs see very sensibly how things that seeme to vs most durable do vanish as lightning after they haue giuen vs some admiration of their being The wise men as well as the valiant all slaues of one and the selfe same fortune haue payed the same Tribute to nature Plato Socrates Aristotle may well cause a talke of them but that is all for with their learning they haue yet beene ignorant of the Truth They haue loued their memory a great deale more then themselus following a false opinion for to please that of others wherewith they were puffed vp in all their Actions They are passed away notwithstanding and their diuine Spirits haue neuer beene able to obtaine this dispensation of the Destinies to cōmunicate their diuinity to bodies which they haue viuified so as there is nothing left of them but a little dust which the aire and wind haue shared betweene them The seauen Sages of Greece are dead with the reputation of their worldly wisedome which is a Folly before God They were meere Idolatours of their wordly Prudēce which is a Vertue of the phantasy more worthy of blame then prayse when it hath but Vanity for the obiect As many Philosophers as haue studied to seeke the knowledge of naturall things without lifting the eye a little higher haue let their life runne into a blindnes of malice and haue left nothing behind them but a sad remembrance of their pernicious errours Let vs speake of those meruailous works wherin Nature takes pleasure to giue forth the more excellent essayes of her power I would say of those beauties of the world which rauish hearts before they haue meanes to present them to them As of a Helena of a Cleopatra of a Lucretia of a Penelope and of a Portia All these beauties truely were adorable in the East euen as the Persians Sunne but in the South the feruour of their Sacrificers began to extinguish and in the West they destroyed the very Aultars that were erected to their glory Their Baytes their Charmes their Attractions following in their Nature the course of Roses haue lasted but a day of the Spring they haue vanished with the Subiect wherunto they were tyed nor doth there remaine any more of them then a meere astonishment of their shorte durance Thus it is that the best things run readily to their end Time deuoures all and his greedines is so great as it cannot be satisfied but with deuouring it selfe Who were able to number the men to whome the Sunne hath lent its light since the birth of the world and by that meanes keepe accompt of the proud Citties of the magnificent Pallaces whereof Art hath giuen the Inuention to men to the shame of Nature the imagination is too seely to reach vnto this But. And yet how great soeuer the Name therof be the shadowes of their bodies appeare no more to the light of our daies the steps of their foundations and the memory of their being are buried within the Abysses of Tyme and nothing but Vertue can be said to be exempt from Death All things of the world hauing learned of Nature the language of change neuer speake in their fashion but of their continuall vicissitude The Sunne running from his South to its West seemes to preach in its lāguage nothing els vnto vs but this cruell necessity which constraynes it to fly repose and to cōmence without cease to warpe the lightsome webbe of dayes and length of Ages I admire the Ideas of that Philosopher whiles he would mantayne that all created thinges do find their beginning within the concauity of the Moone without doubt the inconstancy of this Starre afforded him those thoughtes since euery thing subsisting heer beneath is subiect to a continuall flow and ebbe The Heauens tell vs in running round their circles how they pull all with them The Starres illumine not the night but to the comming of the last which is to extinguish their light The Elements as opposits reygne not but within the tyme of the truce which nature afforded them since the ruine of the Chaos and their emnity therefore is yet so great as they are not pleased but with destructiō of all the workes they do If they demaund the Rockes Forests what they are doing they will answere they are a counting their yeares since they can do nothing but grow old The fayrest Springes and the youngest Brookes publish aloud with the language of their warbles and of their sweet murmur that euery thing in the world inseparably pursues the paces of its Course yea the Earth it selfe which is immoueable as the Center where all concludes being not able to stirre to fly far from it selfe lets it selfe to be deuoured by the Ocean the Ocean by Tyme and Tyme by the soueraygne decrees which from all Eternity haue limited its durance S. Augustine endeauouring to seeke out the soueraigne God within Nature demaūded of the Sunne if it were God and this Starre let him see that it borrowed its light from another Sun without Eclypse which shined within the Bower of Eternity He made the like demaūd of the Moone whose visage alwayes inconstant made answere for it and assured this holy Personage that it had nothing diuine but light within it which yet it held in homage of the Torch of day He enquired of the Heauens the selfe same thing but their motion incompatible with an essence purely diuine put him out of doubt How many are there seene of these feeble spirits who seeke the soueraygne God within Greatnesses but what likelyhood is there to find it there Thrones and Empires subsist not but in the spaces which Fortune affords them her bowle serues them as a foūdation Alas what stability can we establish in their being Crownes haue nothing goodly in them but the name only nor rich but apparence for if they knew how much they weighed and if the number of cares thornes which are mingled with the Rubies Pearles wherwith they are enriched could be seene the most vnhappy would be trampling them vnderfoot to auoyd the encounter of new misfortunes Kings and Princes are well the greatest of the Earth but yet not the happiest for that their Greatnes markes their ruyne in
in his glorious actiōs build thee a Temple within thy selfe where ech moment of thy lyfe thou mayst addresse to him vowes thou art to make for Eternity since the goodly Pallaces of his dwelling are of proof against the inconstancy of the world If the imagination could attract to it selfe all the obiects in distance from it to represent them in an instant before thy eyes how many mischiefes should we behould How many Deathes and how many dying liues They hould there is no vacuity in nature I will easily belieue it since miseries seeme to take vp all This is the accident so inseparable to man and which accompanies him to his Graue Euery one hath his dolours affected in like sort as his pleasures are but some ripen as they put forth and others gather strength in their feeblenes to eternize their durance How dreadfull would this Theater of the world seeme to be if one should behold all the Tragedies which are acted therin Phirra quenches her fury with her fathers bloud Eumenides is reuenged of her mother through poyson Curtius buryes his brother within his cradle Pernesius plucks out the eyes of his sister Etna And Symocles being an enemy to his race sets the Pallace on fire where his parents were assembled and I should thinke the fire of his choller was the first sparke of that consuming fire Nero seekes nourishment for to satisfy his cruelty in the bowels of his mother but God permitted the Executioners should hold the place of delinquēts on the day of their death when they gaue vp their lyfe to the assaults of a thousand dolours a great deale more cruell then Death it selfe Consider all these dismall accidents my Soule which happen euery moment One is consumed with fire as Pliny another is hanged as Polycrates heere one is cast downe headlong as Lycurgus there was another burned with a thunder-bolt like Esculapius There haue some been drowned in the sea as Marcus Marcellus Curtius was swallowed vp in a bottomeles pit Eschyllus the Philosopher had his head crushed with a Tortesse shell Cesar was slaine by such as he tooke to be his friends Cicero's head was cut off vpon the boot of his caroch Euripides was deuored by dogs Cleopatra died with the sting of a serpent or rather with that of her despaire Socrates is poysoned Aristo dieth of famine Seneca through the point of a launcet Cold tooke away the lyfe from Neocles Tarquinius Priscus was strangled with a fish-bone Lucia the daughter of Aurelius dyes with the point of a needle Elacea drownes her lyfe in the ice of a glasse of water Anacreon is choked with swallowing but the kernell of a raysin And Fabius the Pretour suffered shipwracke in a messe of Milke and the encounter with a little hayre was the Rocke he fell vpon Sophocles and Diagoras dyed of ioy and Philemon with too much laughing as well as Zeuxis Fabius Maximus dyed in the field as Lepidus I will nor make vse of the examples of our ages since they are so fresh and it sufficeth that their memory is as sad as odious Thou seest then my Soule how death disportes himselfe with Crownes Thou seest how he tramples Scepters vnder foot how in the presse of the world his Sith spareth not any one Such a one to day lynes Contented who to morrow shall dye Miserable One moment onely seuers vs from death and mishap there is no other respit betweene lyuing and dying then that of an instant which makes me verily to belieue that Being and not Being in man differ not awhit since he lyues not but dying and moues not but to bound his actions in the Tombe whither he postes without stop Earth Who art but Earth Earth within the cradle Earth in the course of lyfe and Earth in the end Stay a while and if Time which leades thee will not suffer it consider in so hasting to the funerall how the Earth goes to ioyne with Earth and that whatsoeuer is in the world doth follow step by step to resume its first forme in the dust They would faine haue made Iob belieue on his dunghill that he had lost all and that in his losse he was brought to the last point of misery but I imagine the contrary for he sitting on his dunghill was found to be in his proper heritage and by how much deeper he was buryed in corruption so much was he the forwarder in the possession of himselfe if it be true that man is nought but mire and durt Let Kings make a shew of their Greatnesses eyther in feasts as Lucullus or in apparrell as Tiberius or be it in other sorts of Magnificences all their instruments of glory are of Earth and vanish into smoke as well as they If the ashes of Kings and Subiects were mingled together it were impossible to distinguish the one from the other since they are all of the same Nature and al carrying the face of a like forme The greatest Monarches are men for Death This flash of life which so dazels the eyes of subiects fades away like the beauty of the rose at the setting of the Sunne How many Kings haue there beene in the world since the birth thereof and yet were it impossible to find out the least marke of their Tombes whiles some are buryed in the Ocean as Lertius others in the flames as Hermasonus some heere in gulfes as Lentellinus others there in the ample spaces of the aire where their dust is scattered as that of Pauzenas King of the Locrians And of all together can there hardly be griped an handfull of dust so true it is they are turned to their nothing Ah! how now my Soule wilt thou see buried with a dry eye whatsoeuer Nature hath more faire the Earth more rich Art more precious Wilt thou see dye euery moment the subiects of thy Loue or rather a part of thy selfe through the alliance thou hast made with the body without abating thy vanity and humbling thy arrogancy What expects thou in the world if all its goods be false and euills true There is no assurance to be found but in Death nor consolation to be had but constantly to suffer its Misery Honours they are all of smoke Glory of wind Greatnesses of Snow and riches of Water sliding from one to another without being possessed of any Repose is not to be had but in imagination pleasure but in a dreame The Thornes spring continually and the Roses blow without cease Sweetnes makes but its passage only heere and bitternes his whole abode If this soyle do bring forth flowers they are but of Cares if it beare fruit they are but Peares of Anguish Teares are heere continuall because the anoyes are alwayes present Ioy is not seene but running and sadnes makes heere a full stop It is a place where Piety is banished as well as Iustice and where Vices reigne and Vertue is made a thrall Where the fires of Concupiscence do burne and
of the Soule and al the dolours wherwith our life is touched Now then if it be true that we dye euery moment is not euery moment I pray a Death to vs Let vs go then my soule to God since he cals vs the Sunne lends vs not its light but to shew vs the way to him The Starres shine not in heauen but to let vs see the pathes trackes therof So as if the Moone do hide her self frō our eyes by Interstitions it cannot be but of choler as sensible of the contempt we shew of her light Let vs go to this holy Land of Promise and passe the Red Sea of sufferance and punishments in exāple of our Sauiour who with no other reason then that of his Loue would purchase through his bloud the Glory he atteyned to The world can afford vs but Death Death but a Tombe and the Tombe but an infinite number of wormes which shal be fed with our carcasse They runne after the world the world is nought but misery they do loue then to be miserable What blindnes my Soule to sigh after our mishaps passionately to cherish the subiect of our losse Let vs go to this Eternity where the delights euer present raigne with in the Order of a continuall moment Let vs get forth of this mouing circle and breake the chaynes of this shameful seruitude wherein to Syn hath brought vs. Away with the world since whatsoeuer is in it is but myre and dust it is but smoke to the eyes putrifaction to the nostrills the noyse of thunder and tempests to the eares thornes to the hands smart to our feeling All those who put any trust therein are vtterly deceyued All those who follow it are absolutely lost All those that honour it are wholy despised and all those who sacrifice to its Idols shal be one day sacrificed themselues in expiation of their crimes Besides we see how all that know it do abandon it for if it promise a Scepter it reaches vs a Shephooke Thrones are seated on the brimme of a precipice nor doth it euer affoard vs any good turne but as the vigill of some misfortune Away then with the world and all that is within it since all its wōders now are but dust Whatsoeuer it hath more rare is but Earth whatsoeuer it hath more fayre is but wind Euery King is no more but a heape of Worms where Horrour Terrour and Infection astonish and offend the senses that approch vnto it Corruption sayth the Wiseman speaking of man vaunt thou as much as thou wilt behould thy selfe brought vnto the first nothing of thy first Being Let vs not liue my Soule but for Eternity since it is the true spring of lyfe Out of Eternity is there no repose out of Eternity no pleasure out of Eternity all hope is vayne Who thinkes not of Eternity thinkes of nothing since out of Eternity all things are false Let vs behould but Eternity my Soule as the onely obiect of glory All flyes away except Eternity it is it alone which is able to satiate our defires and termine our hopes I will no other comfort in all my annoyes then that of Eternity I will no other solace in all my miseryes then that of Eternity After it do I desire nothing after it do I looke for nothing I lyue not but for it and my hart sighes not but after it All discourses are displeasing to me except those of Eternity It is the But and end of all my actions it is the obiect of my thoughtes I labour but to gather its fruits al my vigils point at the pretensions of its Crownes My eyes contemne all the obiects except those that conuey my spirits to its sweet Idea's as to the only Paradise I find in this world Whatsoeuer I do I iudge my selfe vnprofitable if I refer not my actions to this diuine cause whatsoeuer I thinke whatsoeuer I say and whatsoeuer I imagine all is but vanity if those thoughtes if those words those imaginatiōs rely not in some fashion on Eternity In fine my Soule if thou wilt tast on Earth the delightes of Heauen thinke continually of Eternity for in it only it is where the accomplishment of all true contentments doth consist The Glory of Paradise AATER that rich Salomon had a thousand tymes contented his Eyes in admiration of the fairest obiects which are found in Nature That his Eares euer charmed with a sweet Harmony had deliciously tasted in their fashion the most sensible repasts they are affected to That his Mouth had relished the most delicate meates where the Tongue finds the perfection of its delight after I say he had quenched the thirst of his desires in the sea of all contentments of the world and satisfied the appetite of his senses in the accomplishment of the purest delicacies he cries out aloud That all was full of vanity The Pompe of these magnificences may well represent themselues to his remēbrance but he cryes out before it That it is but vanity His riches his Greatnesses his Triumphes all his pleasures serued him as a subiect within knowledge of their Nature for to exclayme very confidently that all was full of vanity What pleasures now after these delights may mortalls tast What Riches may they now possesse after these Treasures To what Greatnes may they aspire which is not comprized within that of his Empire To what sort of prosperities may they pretend which is not lesse then his happines And yet neuertheles after a long possession of honours delights which were inseparable to his soueraigne absolute power he publisheth this truth that all is full of smoke and wind and that nothing is sure heere beneath but death nor present but miseries Soules of the world what thinke you of that you reason not somtimes in your selues to discouer the weaknes of the foundation whereon your hopes are piched You loue your pleasures but if it be true that knowledge should alwayes precede Loue why know you not the nature of the Obiect before it predominate the power of your affections Agayne you loue not thinges at any tyme but to possesse them Ah what know you not the delights of the world do passe before our eyes as a lightning that in their excesse they incessantly find their ruyne you thinke your selfe content to day because nothing afflicts you do you cal that pleasure to runne after pleasure for it is impossible for you to possesse that imaginary contentment but in running after it since it flyes so away without resting Let them represent to themselues the greatest contētments that may be receyued in the world at the same tyme let all the diuers Spirits who haue tasted the vayne Sweetnesses appeare to tell vs in secret what remaines to them thereof Thou Miser tell vs I pray thee what pleasure hast thou to shut vp thy goulden Earth within thy coffers to lend it to the interest of thy conscience and to make it
fearefull cryes of this vnhappy Prince who being enchayned in a straite Prison all of Fyre casts forth the last sighes of his life in the Flames quickened with so excessiue an heate as they may not be compared but to chose of the Fornace They come to his Succour but Death at that instant touched with pitty preuents the helpe they could afford in finishing his euils with the end of his life But looke we yet still in the backeside of this Madall vpon the torments and cruelty which a new King suffers in the midst of Hel being fast enchayned within a burning prison where he alwayes burnes without euer dying What difference of Torments The one is left to the mercy of deuouring flames being watered with a water which increaseth the heat imploying in vayne for his Succour the endeauour of his voyce the other enuironed with despaire endures the paine of eternall Fire which burnes him without taking away his life You see very sensibly O you soules of the world how the payne which one suffers in this vale of teares cannot be compared how cruell soeuer with the least dolours of the dāned I I graunt the Stone or Grauell the wind-cholicke the Sciatica and a thousand other Maladies besides deliuer you into a restles combat of punishments and torments yet their sharpest fits their piercing points their gaul and their rigours are true pleasures ioyes and rauishments of Spirit in comparison of the sufferings of Soules eternally criminall Let Lucius Fabius maintayne as long as he will in the discourse of his miseryes how the last day of his lyfe had lasted three Monthes he lyuing the while without being able once to close the ey-lids at the approch of sleep Let Theocrates publishing his vnhappines vaunt contentiously in the presence of the most afflicted Soule how he had lodged thirty six yeares in a bed in cōpany with a thousand sorts of payne which visited him one after another Let the vnfortunate Caricles trayling without cease the durt of his body through that of the streets of Athens for the space of sixty yeares moue cōpassion in the harts of those which neuer had it in consideration of his Misery yet is the lamentable history of al these euils a very Canticle of ioy and gladnes in comparison of the sufferances of the damned For if Fabius haue watched three monthes in the world Cain neuer sleeps in hell if Theocrates haue passed his Thorny life in a like couch that he neuer came forth to re-enter into the Tombet it is fifteene hundred yeares or more since the Richman hath lodged in a bed of flames in the midst of Hell without hope that the ice of death shall euer slake the heate of its fires Let Caricles trayle his liuing carkasse in the diuers wayes which lead him to the Tombe he finds yet a Port after so many stormes but Pharao may be dragged long inough by the deuils in Hel ere there be any death or sepulcher for him which may afford him an end to his paines So as the difference is so great betweene the euills of the one and the punishment of the other as one cannot thinke of it but with a profound astonishment How profound O Lord are the Abysses of thy Iustice You Soules of the world pul off the veyle that blinds you so Breake you the rackes of your Passions that with-hould you in your vices To what purpose thinke you is a moment of pleasure while it robs you of eternal glory and brings you forth a Hel of dolours A little shiuering of a Feauer makes you to quake for feare A fit of Heate makes you to breath the aire of a burning life to sigh at once with the ardour which consumes you quite Alas What would you do in Hell where the Cold of Ice where the Heat of the flames shal by turnes tormēt you eternally One glasse of a potion one little twitch with a launcent two nightes without sleepe within a bed very softly made brings you to the last gaspe Ah! What shall it be in those darkesome places where a gaul more bitter then gaul shal be alwaies in your mouth Where a thousand strokes of the launcets of fire shall pierce you not in the veyne but to the hart with a wound alwayes bloudy and euer new for to eternize the payne thereof where a perpetuall vnrest shall banish rest for euer from your spirit and sleepe from your eyes There was a great Personage of our tyme who had so great a horrour of Medicines that al the euils whose dolours he had proued were a great deale lesse sensible to him then their bitternes In so much as after he had tasted the gaule thereof diuers tymes this cōceipt came into his mynd that when there should be no other punishment in Hell then that of taking continually medicines it would be insufferable But I should thinke that if all the gaule and all the bitternes of the Earth were put together in a vessell one would take that liquour for imaginary Nectar in comparison of the puddle salt waters whereof the damned are made to drinke Bethinke your selues profane Spirits who establish in the world the foundation of your repose Open your eyes to behould the disastres which enuiron you You seeke a Paradise on Earth but you find not in it any other Center then Hell What pretend you Pleasures can accompany you no further thē the Tombe you must quit their company wirh life Now what a griefe hath one in dying to abandon the seat of delights for to enter into that of torments Admit one had passed very pleasantly a hundred yeares of life at the last moment of that tyme what satisfaction remaines him thereof since by the law of diuine Iustice it must necessarily ensue that euery one in his turne shal be gathering the thornes of all his Roses Euery ioy hath its sadnes euery fortune its crosses so likewise may we boldly say that euery pleasure hath its payne If we let our first life runne out in contentments the latter shal become immortall in punishments This is an inuiolable decree pronounced by God himselfe vpon the Mount of Caluary that he who will not follow the way which he hath taken vpō him for to go to Heauen shall neuer enter therin Flatter not your selues you Princes of the Earth who being raysed vpon Thrones of snow and smoke forget your selues so much in your Greatnesses as you become Idolatours of your good Fortune If you be borne puissant consider how your power is of glasse and that with all your Treasures you shall not be able to purchase a moment of assured life All the aduantage you haue aboue others is to be able to hide your faults with the more artificiousnes vnder your sumptuous habit but vpon the vncertaine day of your Death shall you make demonstration of your misery and the Corruption which you carry within must necessarily appeare without Thinke you that the Empire which you
where those of Luxury reduce the chastest harts into Ashes whence it comes that that great Saint demaunded wings to carry him into the desert Hope is heere vncertayn despayre assured Happines appeareth but as a lightning and Misfortunes establish their dwelling with Empire They can desire nothing heere but in doubt of successe they can expect nothing but with feare to loose their tyme. Felicityes euen while they are possessed do free themselues by litle and litle from this seruitude of being tyed to vs So as if they destroy not themselues in their sublimity time snatches them from vs at all houres and leades vs away with them What is the world but a denne of Theeues but an Army of Mutiners but a myre of Swyne a Galley of Slaues A lake of Basiliskes and therfore the Prophet sayth shall I neuer leaue a place so foule so filthy and so full of treasons and deceipts Needs then my Soule must thou lift vp thine eyes to Heauen since the Earth is meerly barren of thy contentments Thou seekest the Soueraigne good and it hath but springs of Euill Thou seekest Eternity and whatsoeuer is therein is but vnconstancy Change thy thoughtes the treasures which thou seekest for are not heere beneath since this is the ordinary mansion of Pouerty and Misery The obiects heere most frequent are but Tombes nor do we euer open our eyes but to see them layd open Our eares are touched with no other sound then with that of Sights and Playnts The sents of our putrifaction occupy the smelling and the gaule of a nourishment dipt in our sweat vnfortunately feeds the tast of our tongue So as turne we which way soeuer we will the gulfes the rockes the fires the punishmens and mischiefes follow vs as neere as the shaddow doth the body Consider attentiuely my Soule the importance of these verities and make thy profit of anothers harme Represent to thee the horrour and amazement whereto the world was reduced with all those meruailes at such tyme as the Sunne withdrew from it his light All those proud buildings so enriched with Brasse Marble those famous Temples where Art is alwayes in dispute with Nature striuing to set forth their works appeare to be no more but Collossus's of shaddowes that strike thine eyes aswel with astonishment as with terrour during the reigne of darkenes and imagine how the pourtraite of this horrour drawes before hād its being from the Originall since in the latter day the world shall take vpon it the visage of horrour of terrour and of ruine Represent vnto thy self besids in order of these verityes how the shadowes which couer but halfe of the earth by respits shall very shortly be filling vp the space of the whole Circle according to the decree which hath beene made thereof before all ages In so much my Soule as since the day must end at last quenching its torch within the most ancient waters of the Ocean seeke betymes another Sun aboue all the Heauens that may not be subiect to Eclypses and whose light being alwayes in the East may make thy happines to shine within his splendour not for a day for a yeare or for an age but for an Eternity O sweet Eternity with how many delights enchauntest thou our spirits while we addresse our thoughtes to thee They may not tast thy baytes and not be rauished from themselues with incomparable contentmēts We wander I confesse whiles we seeke thee but thy Labyrinthes are so delicious as we are alwayes in feare to get forth therof The harts which are taken with thy loue without knowing thee sigh after thy pleasurs howbeit they haue neuer tasted its sweetnesses but by way of Idaea yet find they no repose but in hope to possesse them one day O sweet Eternity what feelings of ioy and happines dost thou breed in Soules created for thy glory How tedious is the way of this mortall and transitory life to them that liue in expectation of thy pleasures They resemble the Marriner being tossed with stormes tempests who through teares measures with his eyes a thousand tymes in a moment the humide spaces of the waues for to discouer the Port he aspires vnto for they sayling in like māner in this Sea of the world and continually dashed with tēpests of misfortunes do coūt the houres the dayes and the moneths of their annoyes in the long pretension of landing at the port of the Tombe to be reborne from very Ashes in the mansion of thy glory O sweet Eternity what sensible repasts haue thy contentmentes with them The more I thinke vpon thee and the more I would be thinking of thee my Spirit rapt in this diuine Eleuation is so violently pulled from it selfe as it liues of no other food then that of thy diuine thoughtes O how happy is he who establisheth in thee for an Essay the foundation of his felicity My Soule if thou wilt be content in the midst of thy pleasures thinke of Eternity The onely imagination of its delights shal be stronger then thine annoyes What griefe soeuer thou endurest imagine with thy selfe how it is but for a tyme and that the ioy of Eternity can neuer end The Fastings the Hayrecloth and al the sufferances of an austere life can neuer shake thy constancy if thy desires haue Eternity for obiect What accident soeuer stayes thee in the way of thy pilgrimage lift vp thine eyes to Heauē for to contemplate the Beauty of the mansiō whither thou aspirest Thou seest how for the purchase of a little glory of the world men expose their liues to a thousand dāgers and to possesse one day that same of Eternity wilt thou not hazard thy body which is nought els but corruption to the mercy of torments and paynes Consider my Soule the instability of all created things and put not thy trust in the earth since the waters snow sandes are the foundations therof As often as the meruailes of the world attract thee insensibly to their admiration breake but the crust of those goodly apparences and thou shalt see within how it is but a Schoole of Vanity a Faire of Toyes a Theater of Tragedies a labyrinth of Errours a Prison of darknes a Way beset with Thornes and a sea full of stormes and tempests That it is but a barren Land a stony Feild a greenish Meadow whose flowers do shroud Serpēts a Riuer of teares a mountaine of annoyances a vale of Miseries a sweet Poyson a Fable a dreame an Hospitall of febricitāts where euery one suffers in his fashiō Their repose is full of anguishes and their vnrest is replenished with despaire Their trauels are without fruit and their Ioyes are but counterfet where no content is found aboue a day all the rest of the life is nothing els but wretchednes So as if the euils wherewith it is propled could be counted they would surpasse in number the atomes of Democritus who could reckon the maladies of the body the passions