approching near the light love their own darkness They hate the light of their salvation as the shadow of death and think that if you give them eyes to see their blindness you take away their life If they seem Christians they yet have nothing but the name and the appearance the book of Jesus is shut from them or if they make a shew to read they may name the letters but never can produce one right good word 4. Others destroy themselves by false lights who being wedded to their own opinions and adoring the Chimera's of their spirit think themselves full of knowledge just and happy that the sun riseth onely for them and that all the rest of the world is in darkness they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductours but at the end of their career they find too late that this pretended light was but an Ignis fatuus which led them to a precipice of eternal flames It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eye-sight and the worst of all temptations is for a man to be a devil to himself 5. Those ruin themselves with too much light who have all Gods law by heart but never have any heart to that law They know the Scriptures all learning and sciences they understand every thing but themselves they can find spots in the sun they can give new names to the stars they perswade themselves that God is all that they apprehend But after all this heap of knowledge they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaob and can produce nothing but bloud and frogs They embroil and trouble the world they stain their own lives and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins It would be more expedient for them rather than have such light to carry fire wherewith to be burning in the love of God and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge All learning which is not joyned with a good life is like a picture in the air which hath no table to make it subsist It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit like the Prophets except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues Aspirations O Fountain of all brightness before whom night can have no vail who seest the day spring out of thy bosom to spread it self over all nature will thou have no pitie upon my blindness will there be no medicine for my eyes which have so often grown dull heavy with earthly humours O Lord I want light being always so blind to my own sins So many years are past wherein I have dwelt with my self and yet know not what I am Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great and see all my crimes in little I too often believe my own judgement and adore my own opinions as gods and goddesses and if thou send me any light I make so ill use of it that I dazle my self even in the brightness of thy day making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage if I were so happy as to know it But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee I will onely contemplate thee O life of all beauties and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes that I may the better apprehend the mystery of thy bounties O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerfull that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory The Gospel upon Thursday the fourth week in Lent S. Luke the 7. Of the widows son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour ANd it came to pass afterward he went into a Citie that is called Naim and there went with him his Disciples and a very great multitude And when he came nigh to the gate of the Citie behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the Citie with her whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not And he came near and touched the Coffin And they that carried it stood still and he said Young man I say to thee Arise And he that was dead sate up and began to speak And he gave him to his mother and fear took them all and they magnified God saying That a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people And this saying went forth into all Jewry of him and into all the Countrey about Moralities JEsus met at the Gates of Naim which is interpreted the Town of Beauties a young man carried to burial to shew us that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the laws of death We fear death and there is almost nothing more immortal here below every thing dies but death it self We see him always in the Gospels we touch him every day by our experiences and yet neither the Gospels make us sufficiently faithfull nor our experiences well advised 2. If we behold death by his natural face he seems a little strange to us because we have not seen him well acted We lay upon him sithes bows and arrows we put upon him ugly antick faces we compass him round about with terrours and illusions of all which he never so much as thought It is a profound sleep in which nature lets it self fail insensibly when she is tired with the disquiets of this life It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh It is an execution of Gods will and a decree common to all the world To be disquieted and drawn by the ears to pay a debt which so many millions of men of all conditions have paid before us is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torrent We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us we die piece-meal every day we assay death so often in our sleep discreet men expect him fools despise him and the most disdainfull persons must entertain him Shall we not know and endeavour to do that one thing well which being once well performed will give us life for ever Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon than to stay late amongst the occasions of sin 3. It is not death but a wicked life we have cause to fear That onely lies heavy and both troubles us and keeps us from understanding and tasting the sweets of death He that can die to so many little dead and dying things which makes us die every day by our unwillingness to forsake them shall find that death is nothing to him But we would fain in death carry the world with us upon our shoulders to the grave and that is a thing we cannot do We would avoid the judgement of a just God and that is a thing which we should not so much as think Let us clear our accounts
comfort It is that which cooleth our ardours drieth our tears breaketh our setters and dissipateth our annoys If we be in darkness it is the light if we be anxious it giveth counsel If we be in a labyrinth of errours it is the thread which guideth us if in danger of shipwrak it is the haven and if we be at the gates of death it is life Away with all curiosities southsayers sorceresses and superstitions unworthy the name of a Christian Fie upon despaire and minds affliction Let us learn in all things which appertain to us speedily and effectually to fix our selves on the will of the will of the omnipotent let us continually say God seeth this affair since nothing escapeth the quickness of his eye He loves me as his child because he is goodness it self He is just because he is the measure of all justice He is potent because there is not any thing can resist his will Let us expect awhile the trouble I endure is but a flying cloud and God will do all for the best Let us say with S. Augustine O Sovereign Father who governest the vast frame of heaven I submit to thy direction Lead me on the August de civit Dei c. 8. l. 8. Duc me summe pater vasti moderatorolympi quacumque placuit nulla parendi est mora Aasum impiger fac nolle comitabor gemens malusque patiar facere quod licuit bono right hand lead me on the left turn to what side thou pleasest I follow thee without reply or delay For what should I get by resistance but to be dragged weeping and to bear becoming evil what I might do sincerely becoming good Heaven earth and sea said Nicephorus Gregorius (a) (a) (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niceph. Greg. l. 7. fight against a wicked man as a fugitive from Providence and a disturber of Justice Let us learn to sleep securely in this conformity to the will of God as a little infant on the teat of his nurse It is at the sight of this providence that Jonas buried in the belly of a whale and covered under the Oceans waves made a chappel of the devouring gulph which was to have been his punishment speaking affectionately to God (b) (b) (b) Jon. 2. 4. Omnes fluctus gurgites tui super me transierunt veruntamen rursus videbo templum sanctum tuum Behold all thy waves and abysses pass over my head yet I despaire not to behold thee in thy Temple It was in sight of this that the Patriarch Noe shut up in the Arke whilst wrathful heaven thundered over the earth the winds were unfettered the pillars of the world tottered with fatal convulsions whilst men and houses were torn in pieces to serve as a pastime for the Sea and that yels of beasts mingled with the cries of so many mortals ecchoed round about lastly when all the world swam he rested in an incomparable tranquillity adoring the counsels of Gods justice Sacred Providence we prostrate on the earth adore thee vindicate us from the bondage of our passions make us die to so many dead things of mortals that we hereafter may live in thy delight The fourth EXAMPLE upon the fourth MAXIM Divers observations upon Providence LEt us a little withdraw our minds from discourses to the consideration of examples like those who labouring on some curious works refresh their eyes with beholding the verdure of meadows or lustre of Emeralds Volumes might be compiled without end by him who would follow the foot-steps of divine Providence in so great a labyrinth of times and Histories so innumerable But it is not my purpose in these abbreviations where I endeavour to suppress much and well express a few things If you behold this Providence in nature there are eternal miracles which astonished the wise animated all voices gave matter to all pens and filled all the books in the world On what side soever we turn our eyes we meet this great Mistress with a hundred Providence of God in the ordinary works of nature arms and as many hands which incessantly travel to do us good It enlighteneth us in the beautie of stars and lights it warmeth us in flames it refresheth us in the air it delighteth us in the enamel of meadows it moisteneth us in the streaming of chrystal fountains it profiteth and enricheth in the fertility of fields so many trees and shrubs such diversity of fruits such wholesome hearbs such a great Vid. Senec. l. 4. de benef quantity of viands so well divided into all the seasons of the year so many living creatures some whereof come from the water others from the earth the rest from the air every part of the world bringing its tribute so many medicinable waters so many rivers which afford such delicious shores to the land for commerce and all humane accommodation I now let all this pass and coming to matters more particular demand of you who was the cause Particular providence over divers â—ountries Joannes Metellus that in the Canary Island called Ferro when it is roasted with droughts and heaven affordeth no succour by showers nor rivers by waters there is found a huge tree which seemes to change all the leaves thereof into as many petty fountains for every on distilleth water and all render it in such abundance that it sufficeth both men and their flocks Who doth all this good husbandry but the divine Providence And who is it supplies scarcity of rain in Egypt commandeth Nilus to over-flow the fields in his limited time to bear in his inundations the wealth of Pharos but it Who maketh Antidotes grow in places where poysons spring but its wisdom If Africk have many serpents there are Psylles which destroy them If other countries breed store of makes there are Ashen flowers which drive them away If Egypt hath a Crocodile â—istoria Sinarum part 4. it affords an Indian rat which bursteth it There are likewise trees to be found which having venemous roots upon one side yield a remedy on the other By what hand are framed so many wonders of nature which make books incessantly speak but by that of this great Work-man But if you on the other side will consider it in the Admirable â—rotection of â—en in rare accidents protection of men what doth it not by the ministery of its good Angels I see upon one side in histories the little King Mithridates involved in lightening-flashes whilst he innocently sleepeth in his infant cradle the flames consuming his clothes and linnens and not touching his body at all To whom think you should I attribute this On the other side I ponder the prodigie so loudly Philippus Anthologia Graec. l. 1. proclaim'd in the Greek Antholigie of a ship-wrack equally surprizing a father and a son which took away the life of the father and gave the son leave to arrive in a safe harbour having no other vessel but the corps of his deceased father
gate against all hopes and opens it to all despairs Ask of S. John (b) (b) (b) Lacus ira Dei magnus sâ—agnus ignis Apoc. 14. 20. what hell is he will tell you aloud and plainly hell is the great lake of Gods anger It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent And what do the damned there (c) (c) (c) Life of the damned Horreo verutem mordacem mortem vivacem horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis vitae morientis Gulielm Paris de univ p. 1. c. 55. Locus purâ— felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati They burn and smoak On what live they On the gall of dragons What air breath they That of burning coals What stars and lights have they The fire of their torments What nights Of palpable darkness What beds The couches of aspicks and basilisks What language speak they Blasphemies What order have they amongst them Confusion What hope Despair What patience Rage O hell O hell Avant O gnawing worm avant O living death avant death which never dies avant life which daily not dying dies I speak not here of the pain of sense excercised by this pittiless element which worketh upon souls as I have shewed you in the beginning of this discourse I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures gibbets tortures snakes burning pincers and all the instruments of terrours I onely speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God Imagine within your self a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris who in a Treatise he made of the universe pertinently sheweth that as Paradise is the house of all felicity so hell must be the receptacle of all miserie and calamity Now the blessed besides beauty of the glory of their bodies the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God which is the period of their essential felicitie So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournfull incomparably dolorous and according to its nature infinite which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities And what is this object Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire and horrid legions of divels That truly is horrible but that is not yet the top of their supream miserie What is it then I do assure my self you will at first be astonished with what I shall say and will hold it as a paradox but it is undoubted The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intollerable evil and that with just cause Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned and heigth of their notable calamities is light I say light of science and knowledge To understand this you The souls of the damned tormented by their lights Aspectus Christalli terribilis must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts who prepareth to chastise the wicked he representeth him unto us like a hydeous christal mirrour that is to say God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature as of a mirrour of Christal and a terrible light in which and through which it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God and the evil incurred by drenching it self into the sad habitation of the reprobate It seeth how in loosing God it hath lost a good delicious fruitfull infinite everlasting incomprehensible a good for which it was created and formed by the hands of God A good which is meerly and absolutely lost by its infidelity ingratitude wickedness perverse obstinacy in sin A good which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacitie And that which is also more terrible is that as God is replenished with a full and most plentifull felicitie because he hath all his contentments assembled together so the damned soul by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years and hath them all as present in thought From these two lights and two knowledges in the damned soul spring as it were two snakes fastened both to the one and other side of its heart which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juyce and marrow of its substance The holy man Boetius the eye of the Roman Senate Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer c. and ornament of the Church lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is when he saith there needeth neither wheels tortures nor gibbets to punish the wicked He who might onely shew them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash and say unto them behold wretched creatures behold what you have lost by your folly the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible that no keen raisour devouring flames gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment Now I leave you to think if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse what may a damned soul that sees in this hydeous chrystal not for a moment but through all moments of eternity the infinite good it hath lost the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees it self involved Then is it yea perpetually gnawn torn and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause it to break into furies and unprofitable frenzies O Palace of God saith it which I have lost O ugly dens of dragons whereinto I am head-long thrown O brightness of Paradise which shalt be nothing to me O hydeous darkness which shalt eternally be my inheritance O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls with whom I should eternally have lived had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes O infernal countenances of enraged divels which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions O torrent of delights which pourest thy self upon those blessed spirits how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch sulphur and scortching flames enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger O couch of King Solomon how have I given thee away for a bed of coals O God O God whom I have lost and whom I cannot loose I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains O eternity It is then true that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world thou wouldest rather feel these torments than
Husband that he summoned her again to ask what ever seemed good unto her for there was no request but should be granted that proceeded from her mouth The Queen that would give her self leisure to consult with her Uncle first that she might effectually disclose that great affair put off the offer till the morrow after and said to the King That since his Majesty had expressed so great a satisfaction for her little Dinner and that the cheerfulnesse of his heart redounded to the benefit of his Health she would present to him again with all humility the very same Petition and convince him by his friendship which she prised above all things in the World to eat again the following day of the Viands that she should make ready for him and with the same Company This was fully granted her and after she had prepared the spirit of the King by these dispositions she resolved to open her whole mind with the Counsell and art of Mordecai Haman went out of the Palace gloriously triumphing and accompanied with a great Train But when he perceived Mordecai at the Gate who made as though he did not see him when all others killed themselves to make him Reverences he felt himself moved with fury and went suddenly to his house to conclude upon the Death of that innocent man Good say the Philosophers is never Good if it be not intire and Perfect which is the cause that there are few felicities in the World where all Light hath its Shadow all fruit its Worm and every Beauty fails not to have its embasement and Allay And this is it that Proud Haman experiments in the highest glory of his Fortune He makes a consultation with his Wife and Friends and tells them That he is this day according to the Worlds esteem one of the happiest men upon the Earth If he looks upon his Riches they are well-nigh infinite If he casts his eyes upon his House he sees it underproped with a good company of Children If he considers the favour of the Prince Never man was in a like degree His Counsels are the Felicities of the State his Words are Oracles and his Altitudes are Ravishments that dazle the whole Earth from Euphrates even as farre as Nilus Yet he confesses to them ingeniously that in this high heape of Honours and of Blessings that inviron him he hath no content at all as long as he sees himself outbraved by that beggarly Rascall Mordecai who vouchsafes not so much as to do him any Reverence All the Joyes that he hath in his House and all the Applauses that he receives every day in publick gives him not so much Pleasure as that sole Affront powres bitternesse into his heart which he cannot digest And therefore he prayes them to advise him on some means that he should use to rid himself of that Villain and sacrifice him to his vengeance He added that he had Dined with the King and Queen and that he was to go thither again the morrow after which was a favour that none could hope for after him yet he lost all the sense of it when it entred into his imagination that he must see a Mordecai at the Palace gate to reproch to him his impotence and that there was no more life for him as long as that cursed fellow that was to him as an ill-boding Bird remained at Court The Wife that was of the same humour with her Husband pronounced a short sentence and said that if there were not Gallowses enough at Shushan to hang a Rascall he shall cause one to be set up of fifty Cubits high and should desire the King that Mordecai should be suddenly fastened to it and that this being done he might go with a purified spirit to the Banquet of the Queen This Counsell pleased him very much and he resolved to forward it but Providence Prepared for him farre other businesse to dispatch to make him know that no body thinks upon the Ruine of another without hastening of his own The Angel of God that Governs Kings gives them thoughts not foreseene and raises to them occasions of Virtues and great Actions sometimes even when they least dream of it The King was laid upon his Bed to repose himself and could not shut his Eyes the whole night without having the least appearance of Care or Trouble in his spirit He calls for his Reader and bids him reade to him some Book or other to entertein him He reads in his presence the Annals of the Kingdome and particularly That which happened in his Time He comes without thinking on it to the Year that made mention of Thares and Bagathans Conspiracy discovered by Mordecai The Kings heart that was in the hand of God changed in an instant the remembrance of that good servant beginns to enter into his mind with some Tendernesse and Compassion That ardent and inconsiderate Love that he had had to his friend Haman grows cold again insensibly without having any Reason for it It seemed as if there had been a charm raised suddenly by an Heavenly hand He resumes thoughts of Consideration of Justice and affection towards honest men He asked what Recompense Mordecai hath had for so great and notable a Service that he did his Person and all his State It was found that he had gained nothing by it but Promises and Hopes The King demands of the Gentlemen of his Chamber who was in the Anti-chamber they answered Haman that was come according to his custome to discourse with him while he was rising and to presse hotly Mordecai's Ruine He commands them to bid him enter He enters with a Boldnesse that promised it self all things and sets himself to his Complements and his ordinary merriments Yet all that had pleased the King heretofore in the conversation of that man even to a Rapture begins to displease him now and he seeks nothing more then the means to humble him He frames to himself in Idea's a man of Fortune rising from nothing that hath prevailed over the simplicity of his Spirit that hath made great Magazines of Gold and Silver our of his Levies That disposes of all the Offices of his Kingdome That makes himself adored of great and small That is followed as Himself and morethen Himself That hath his Privy-Seal and all his Authority in his hands That hath so much money to lay out as to offer ten thousand Talents to satiate his Revenge and that Authorizes all wickednesse by the Name and avouching of his Master if at least he hath one on this top of glory whither he is mounted He hath now a mind to undo him and feels a powerfull motion pushing him forward to it and which permits him not to deliberate of it any more nor to Consider with what security he might execute so great a businesse He knew that he was hated of all the World by Reason of his Pride and that his Adorers themselves would have eaten him up with a very good
often observed that Noblemen who have established tyrannie in the world have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their posteritie and as nature is scantie in the propagation of wolves designed for spoil which otherwise would bring all the world into desolation so Almightie God by a secret oeconomie of his divine Providence permitteth not that great men who have made themselves disturbers of publick peace and infringers of laws both divine and human whereof they ought to be protectours should make the bruitishness of their savage souls to survive them in their posterity But as for those who are arranged in the list of sanctitie and modesty God hath as it were immortalized their bloud in their posteritie as we see it happen in worthie and illustrious families But to what value amounteth all this which I have said in comparison of that crown of glorie which God placeth on the heads of Noblemen in the other life when they have virtuously governed in this mortal mansion O what a brave death it is to die under the shadow of the Palms of so many heroical virtues Oh it is the death of a Phoenix to die in the odours of a holy conversation to change his sepulchre into a cradle and even draw life out of the Tomb Oh what an immortalitie it is to survive eternally in the mouths of men but much more to live in Heaven enjoying the knowledge love life and felicitie of God! O Nobles betake your selves betimes and in a good hour to the way of this temple of honour by the exercise of holy virtues which are like Elias chariot all flaming with glory to carrie your purified souls even to the height of the Emperial Heaven THE SECOND BOOK Of Hinderances which worldly men have in the way of SALVATION and PERFECTION The first OBSTACLE Faintness and weakness of Faith Against Atheists HAving sufficiently proved the obligations which Great-ones and men of qualitie have to perfection let us now see the hinderances which may stop the increase thereof as well to take from them all pretext of false libertie as to denote the confusions very frequent in the corruptions of this Age. The first is a certain languor and debilitie of faith which openeth the way to all sorts of vices so that putting all the greatness of the world into a false seeming it beholdeth Paradise and all the blessings of the other life with blear-eyes and clouded with a perpetual eclipse And that you may well Two sects of men conceive this let us observe that in this Age greatly changed by heresie libertie and vice two sorts of men are to be seen whereof the one doth symbolize with just Abel and the other are of the sect of Cain These two brothers began to contend together even in the worlds cradle as Jacob and Esau in the bellie of Rebecca Abel had a soul impressed with a good stamp religious docile pure perpetually fixed in the chaste apprehensions of the Divinitie Cain quite contrary an impious soul greatly infected with the serpents breath black variable wavering in faith and in the virtue of the Divine providence He verily is the father of Atheists and S. Bernard hath properly Bern. serm 24 in Contic Fideicida antequam fratricida Procop. in Genes said He killed faith before he murdered his brother Procopius calleth him the son of the earth because this unfortunate creature perpetually looked downward having already as it were buried in the tomb of oblivion the lights and knowledges of heaven From thence proceeded the irreverence of his unbridled spirit his wicked sacrifices his envie against his brother afterward his furie murder and bloud and lastly a deluge of calamities The onely example of his disaster should suffice to terrifie those who following him in his impietie make themselves undoubtedly the companions of his misfortune but since it also is expedient we proceed herein by discourse and reason I observe the causes and remedies of this infidelitie Faintness and debilitie in Three sorts of consciences from which impiety springs faith and consequently atheism is formed in three sorts of consciences to wit the criminal the bruitish the curious Atheism proceedeth from a criminal conscience when a soul findeth it self involved in a long web of crimes and as it were overwhelmed in the habits of sin In the mean time God doth inwardly Horrible state of a sinful conscience torture prick forward and scourge it and then all bloudy and ulcerous as it is not able longer to remain within it self but tasting so many disturbances in its proper mansion it searcheth evasions and starting-holes expatiateth in the pleasures and delights of the world to dissolve her many griefs and findeth in every thing her gnawing worm She looketh back upon the path of virtue which she hath either forsaken or never trodden as an impossible track the spirit of lies representing it unto her all paved with thorns and briars she re-entereth into herself and saith in her heart that there is none but God who afflicteth her and that necessarily she must free herself from him for our felicities are measured by the ell of our opinion and no man is miserable but he that apprehendeth his own unhappiness Then soothing herself with these humane discourses she herein much laboureth to acquit herself from God from the belief of judgement of hell and the immortality of the soul Notwithstanding she cannot albeit these wicked spirits have scoffed at the mysteries of Religion with their companions as if they would put on a bold fore-head and an impudence strong enough to endure a stroke so dreadful but contend against the essence of God Care findeth them in their bed and is pinned to their silken curtains the thoughts of a Divinitie which they supposed to have totally banished from their hearts in pleasures upon Et ubi Deus non timetur nisi ubi non est Tert. de prescrip 41. Ponam eam possessionem Ericii Isaiah 14. 2. the least afflictions return and make themselves felt with very piercing points which head-long throw them into despair The Prophet Isaiah hath divinely prophesied of such a soul I will make her the inheritance and possession of hedge-hogs Verily the miserable caytif hatcheth in her entrails a thousand little hedge-hogs which as they encrease make their pricks and darts multiply a thousand gnawings a thousand apprehensions as uncapable of repose as apt to afflict a conscience Such heretofore was the state of Nero for this Condition of Nero. barbarous monster who so often had dipped his hand in bloud sought out a bath of delights to bath himself in he ran up and down to prie into all the inventions of the pleasures of the world to rid himself from the arrow which he had in his heart and to dispoil himself for ever of an opinion of the Divinitie This was a matter for him impossible When he was at feasts sports or Theatres the apprehension of God stung his heart as a Bee and
and they shall oppose you in the land of your abode Cruel father that thou art who quite dead and turned into ashes afflictest the Common-wealth by children ill instructed thou woundest and tearest Christianity Were it not justice thinkest thou to break up thy tomb and disturb thy ashes for having voluntarily bred a little viper for thy countrey to which thou art accountable for thy life And from hence it cometh to pass that fathers who have carried themselves so negligently and perfidiously in their childrens instruction are the first who drink down the poyson they mingled for others over-whelmed with toyls and miseries for the continual disorders of these extravagants O how often they make complaint like the Eagle in the Emblem of Julian when strucken by a mortal arrow partly framed out of her own wings she said Out alas wretched bird that I am must I breed feathers to serve as a swift chariot to the steel which transfixeth my body Must I bring forth children to give me the stroke of death What remedie then for this unhappiness which creeping into the bowels of the most flourishing Monarchies depopulates and deprives them of good subjects and furnisheth them with shadows of men What remedy but to observe three things in this matter First to give a good tincture of Religion to your children pious apprehensions of God and a filial fear of his judgements Secondly to manure them with arts suitable to their understanding and condition to settle them in the world upon some good employment lest having nought to do they become fit to act any evil Thirdly to accommodate them as much as possibly and reasonably may be with exteriour moveables called the blessings of fortune that necessity open not them the gate of iniquitie and then leave the rest to the providence of God whose eye is alwayes open over his work Behold the course most fit to be observed Pietie goeth foremost for as the eloquent Prelate of Cyrenes saith It Cynes ad Arcad is not onely the foundation of houses but of whole Monarchies Parents now adays seek to do quite contrary and set the cart before the horse they voluntarily imitate the stupidity of those Aegyptians who prepared Altars to a Reer-mouse for no other reason but that she is weak-sighted and is a friend of the night Now they preferred darkness before light by right of antiquity but these do much worse for putting Heaven and earth into one ballance they set an estimate upon terrene things to the villifying and confusion of celestial Nay there are mothers to be found so malicious as was one named Clotilda not the Saint but a mad woman who being put to her choice either to consent her sons should enter into a Monastery to become religious or resolve to see them loose their lives Kill kill said she I had rather behold them dead than Monks How many are there now adays who for a need would suffer their children to become Pages to Antichrist to make a fortune at the least would well endure to see them preferred to honour in the great Turks Court with ship-wrack of their Religion There are few Queen Blanches either in courage or worth who rather desired to behold her children in their grave than in sin They must now adays be either Caesars or nothing None fear to put them into infamous houses into scandalous places to give them most wicked Teachers to thrust them into snares and scandals under hope of some preferment Nay with how many travels and services crouchings and crimes do these miserable creatures purchase their chains All Non omnes curia admittet castra quos ad liborem pericula recipiant fastidiosè legunt bona mens omnibus patet Senec. Ep. 44. cannot find a fortune in Court Warfare picks out those with a kind of disdain whom it entertains for labours and hazards of life Onely virtue shuts not the gate against any yet it is daily despised Vnfortunate fathers and wretched mothers live on gall and tears rise and go to bed with gnawing care to set an ungratefull son on the top of fortunes wheel who quickly grows weary of them and after their deaths gluts himself with the delights they with so much industrie prepared for him mindless of those who obliged him Nay far otherwise he unfolds the riots of his unbridled youth even upon their tombs God grant this evil may pass no further and that the father and son do not one day reproach one another in the flames of hell that the one ministred matter of damnation and the other gave accomplishment William the learned Bishop of Guliel de Lugdun tract de avarit rubric 11. Lions relateth that a young Hermit retiring into a horrid wilderness to attend the exercise of penance saw his father and brother whom he had left in the world embroiled in ill causes at that time deceased and buried in everlasting fire who made hydeous complaints the son questioning his father as authour of his ruin by amassing unjust riches for him and the father answering the son was the source of all his calamities since to make him rich he had spent his miserable life in perpetual anxiety and now suffered eternal punishments in the other world for loving a disloyal son more than Almightie God Cursed blindness to buy tortures and gibbets with afflictions and crosses O fathers and mothers let your first care extend to those whom you begat to teach them virtue rather by your example than others instruction These young creatures are your shadows your ecchoes they turn and wind themselves easily to imitate those who gave them life and from whom they hope both wealth and honour Wo to the father and mother who make their children witnesses of their crimes and not content to be evil make their sin immortal in the immortality of their descent An infant though but two years old should be used with much regard as if it were an intelligence enchased in this little body It is a great sacriledge to impress the first tincture of vice on those who as yet rest in the innocency of baptism The good Eleazar being advised to dissemble his Religion to save his life or at least to make semblance of eating hogs-flesh beholding round about him many youths who expected the end of this combat pronounced these worthy words couched in S. Ambrose God forbid I should serve for an incentive Ambrose l. 2. de Jacob. Nequaquam contingat mihi ut sim senex incentivum ju venilis erroris qui esse debet forma salutaris instituti Adulterio delectatus aliqui◠Jovem respicit inde cupiditatis suae fomenta conquirit Julius Firm. de error profan to the vices of these young people who should rather be a pattern of wisdom God forbid I defile my gray hairs with this execration and that posterity may take notice I opened the gate to impiety by my example That is undoubted which Julius Firmicus spake Nothing hath
out but what hand hath ever drawn a false opinion out of the brain of one presumptuous but that of God All seemeth green saith A istotle to those who look on the water and all is just and specious to such as behold themselves in proper love Better it were according to the counsels of the ancient fathers of the desert to have one foot in hell with docibilitie of spirit than an arm in Paradise with your own judgement Augustine not to acknowledge his fault would August I. deduabus animabus contra Manachaeos ever maintain it and thought it was to make a truth of an errour opinionatively to defend it He had that which Tertullian saith is familiar among hereticks swellings and ostentation of knowledge and his design was then to dispute not to live Himself confesseth two things long time made him to tumble in the snare the first whereof was a certain complacence of humour which easily adhered to vicious companies and the other an opinion he should ever have the upper hand in disputation He was as a little Marlin without hood or leashes catching all sorts of men with his sophisms and when he had overcome some simple Catholick who knew not the subtilities of Philosophie he thought he had raised a great trophey over our Religion In all things this Genius sought for supereminence for even in game where hazards stood not fair for him he freely made use of shifts and were he surprized he would be augry making them still believe he had gained as a certain wrestler who being overthrown undertook by force of eloquence to prove he was not fallen This appeared more in dispute than game For having now flattered himself upon the advantages of his wit he was apprehensive in this point of the least interest of his reputation and had rather violate the law of God than commit a barbarism in speaking thereby to break the law of Grammer to the prejudice of the opinion was had of him It was a crime to speak of virtue with a solecism and a virtue to reckon up vices in fair language When he was publickly to enterprize some action of importance the apprehension of success put him into a fever so that walking one day through the Citie of Milan with a long Oration in his head and meeting a rogue in the street who confidently flouted him he fetched a great sigh and said Behold this varlet hath gone beyond me in matter of happiness See he is satisfied and content whilest I drag an uneasie burden through the bryers and all to please a silly estimation The ardent desire he had to excel in all encounters alienated him very far from truth which wils that we sacrifice to its Altars all the interests of honour we may pretend unto and besides it was the cause that the wisest Catholicks feared to be engaged in battel with so polished a tongue and such unguided youth Witness this good Bishop whom holy S. Monica so earnestly solicited to enter into the list with her son to convert him for he prudently excused himself saying the better to content her That a son of such tears could never perish Besides the curiositie and presumption of Augustine 3. Impediment The passion of love the passion of love surprized him also to make up his miserie and to frame great oppositions in matter of his salvation But because this noble spirit hath been set by God as the mast of a ship broken on the edge of a rock to shew others his ship-wrack I think it a matter very behovefull to consider here the tyranny of an unfortunate passion which long time enthraled so great a soul to derive profit from his experience The fault of Augustine proceeded not simply from love but from ill managing it affoarding that to creatures which was made for the Creatour Love in it self is not a vice but the soul of all virtues when it is tied to its object which is the sovereign good and never shall a soul act any thing great if it contain not some fire in the veins The Philosopher Hegesippus said that all the great and goodliest natures are known by three things light heat and love The more light precious stones have the more lusture they reflect Heat raiseth eagles above serpents yea among Palms those are the noblest which have the most love and inclination to their fellows These three qualities were eminent in our Augustine His understanding was lightning his will fire and heart affection If all this had happily taken the right way to God it had been a miracle infinitely accomplished but the clock which is out of frame in the first wheel doth easily miscarry in all its motions and he who was already much unjoynted in the prime piece which makes up a man viz. judgement and knowledge suffered all his actions to slide into exorbitancy As there are two sorts of love whereof the one is most felt in the spirit the other predominateth in the flesh Augustine tried them both in several encounters First he was excessively passionate even in chast amities witness a school-fellow of his whom he so passionately affected He was a second Pylades that had always been bred and trained up with him in a mervellous correspondence of age humour spirit will life and condition which had so enkindled friendship in either part that it was transcendent and though it were in the lists of perfect honesty yet being as it was too sensual God who chastiseth those that are estranged from his love as fugitive slaves weaned his Augustine first touching this friend with a sharp fever in which he received baptism after which he was somewhat lightened Whereupon Augustine grew very glad as if he were now out of danger He visited him and forbare not to scoff at his baptism still pursuing the motions of his profane spirit but the other beholding him with an angry eye cut off his speech with an admirable and present liberty wishing him he would abstain from such discourse unless he meant to renounce all correspondence He seemed already in this change to feel the approaches of the other world for verily his malady augmenting quickly separated the soul from the body Augustine was much troubled at this loss insomuch that all he beheld from heaven to earth seemed to him filled with images of death The country was to him a place of darkness and gyddy fancies the house of his father a sepulcher the memory of his passed pleasures a hell All was distast being deprived of him for whom heloved all things It seemed to him all men he beheld were unworthy of life and that death would quickly carry away all the world since it took him away whom he prized above all the world These words escaped him which he afterwards retracted to wit That the soul of his companion and his were expreslie but one and the same surviving in two bodies and therefore he abhorred life because he was no more than halfe a man yet
expence above his ability The mother was extreamly troubled at it and restrained what she might her sons purse but he ever found ways to open it again till such time as she dying and the son seeing himself at liberty he flew into exorbitant expences and became indebted a third or a fourth part more than he was worth This is it which ordinarily overthroweth young A pretty touch of Lewis the twelfth to Francis the first men who expect great fortunes and mighty favours They think to be presently in the midst of the City when they afar off see the band of the dyal They suppose they possess blessings which will never be had they promise are engaged much turmoyl and passionately hoping ruin all their hopes Behold a little the goodly support may be expected from men of the world Drusus the Emperours son who bare all glory in bloom is taken into the other world without making any mention at all of his favourite Agrippa falls from the chariot of favour and found there was nothing got by the service of his Master but debts and discontents He reflects on the father to see if any ray of compassion Affiction of a Courtier frustrated of his hopes will dart from his eyes But Tyberius commanded him to be gone from the Court saying for a full reason he could not endure to look on what his son had loved without renovation of his memory and grief The young Prince returneth into Judaea where though the grand-child of a great King he found himself so needy that he wished to die not having wherewith to live There is nothing more bitter to men of quality Poverty the chief scourge amongst all the scourges of the world than poverty which ever draweth along with it four evil companions dependence upon another contempt shame and misery This generous heart thought that death would better his condition But Cypre his wife a Loyalty of a wife to her husband good Princess chased away this melancholy humour and descending so low as the shame of begging for him procured some little money that he the more sweetly might pass this miserable life for verily he sometimes lived at Herod the Tetrarchs charge sometime upon Flaccus Lieutenant of Syria But this kind of life being beggarly waited on with much reproach he grew impatient and resolved to return to Rome to bury himself in the shadow of favour since he could not touch the body of it The poor Princess his wife seeing there was not any would lend him money unless she bound her self for him did it couragiously exposing her person to all the persecutions of creditours to help her husband But a man much indebted is like one possessed Miseries of a man indebted round beset with a Legion of devils no sooner went one out but ten tormented him Agrippa saw himself assaulted by creditours Provosts and Sergeants which more terrified him than arms or warlick Engines The most powerful of them all was a Controuler of the Emperours house who required a huge summe of money from him whereof he was accountable to Tyberius his Exchequer To this he answered very coldly he was ready to satisfie if he pleased to be patient but till the next day but that night he stole away and went towards Rome to draw more near to the flame must burn him Notwithstanding before his coming he wrote to Tyberius who was in his Island of Capreae to sound the likelyhood of his welcome The Emperour who long before had his wound throughly skinned for the death of his Son wrot back again very courteously giving him assurance of welcome and the truth is he found Tyberius who entertained him with extraordinary favour and lodged him in his palace All his businesses went well had it not been this Controuller whose shadow he still saw before his eyes wrote speedily to the Emperour That Agrippa was endebted to his Exchequer in great sums which he had promised to discharge presently but fled like a faithless man and discovered by his proceedings there was nothing but imposture in his actions This unlucky letter at the first destroyed all his Generous act of Antonia credit For the old man who for all his friendship was resolved not to loose a denier caused him shamefully to pack out of his palace and forbad his Guards to admit him any enterance before he had satisfied his creditours The miserable Agrippa seeking out a God of money to make his vows unto went directly without any fear to the Princess Antonia to acquaint her with his misfortune and beg her favour The Lady was so generous and bountiful towards him that she discharged the debt lending him money in remembrance of his dead mother and for that he had been bred with her son Claudius besides she took singular pleasure in his humour This man whose fortune ebbed and flowed saw himself suddenly raised so that entering into amity with Caesar he made a streight league with Caligula by the express commandements of Tyberius who appointed he should follow him These were two notable ramblers whom chance had so very well coupled together as well for conformity of their humours as the encounter of their hopes They began a life wholly sportive not thinking on the time to come but to hope well of it nor dreaming of any thing but that which might make them merry Agrippa persisting in his ordinary delights undertook Flattery of Agrippa one day as he went in coach with Caligula to speak of Tyberius saying That he was as old as the earth and that it seemed death had forgotten him That it was high time he payd tribute to nature as for himself he wished nothing else in the world but quickly to see Caligula Prince of the world in his place well knowing he should lay hold on a good portion of the felicities which all men were to have under his Empire He found not that Caligula although ardently desirous to see himself suddenly Maister shewed to take any pleasure in this discourse so much he feared the Emperour Tyberius He kept his thoughts in his heart not trusting his tongue with them least stones and bushes might have ears It happened by chance that Eutyches Agryppa's coachman heard all his Master said was some space of time without shewing any appearance of it but afterward being brought before the Provost of the City at his Master Agryppa's request for a pilfery committed by him in his house he said he had many other things to speak which concerned the Emperours life whereupon the Provost carried him to Capreae where Tyberius plunged in his in famous pleasures was sometime without seeing him Agrippa who would needs excuse himself before he was accused wholly forgetting the discourse he had held with Caligula earnestly pressed this servant might be heard so far as therein to employ the credit of Antonia who was very powerful with Tyberius The Emperour answered Agrippa need not fret himself so much in
summons you shall have from the will of God It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience nor to have an ear not deaf to death through faintness of courage This resignation was most excellent and very admirable in our Ladie for two reasons First the great knowledge she had of beatitude Secondly the ineffable love she bare to her Son For I leave you to think if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges and if we be so much the more earnest after a good as we are the better informed of its merit what impatience Patience of our Lady to endure life must our Ladie needs have of life since she received a science of beatitude strong powerful and resplendent above all other creatures God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories in the depth of his dolours It is no wonder we so very easily affect life seeing we are as the little children of a King bred in the house of a shepheard as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth touching the education of Nebuchadnezzar We know not what a scepter Kingdom or crown is in this great meaness of a life base and terrestrial But had we talked onely one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul and discoursed of the state of the other life our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires Which makes me say It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin in those great knowledges she had of Paradise to have continued so many years in this life and if you consider the most ardent love she bare her Son who was the adamant of all loves you shall find the holy Virgin who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb more merited in this resignation she made to see her self separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange bloudy and hydeous There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of Martyrdom of love love It is an exhalation in a cloud It is a fire in a myne a torrent shut up in ditches a night of separation lasteth Ages and all waxeth old for it but its desires Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining without complaint or disturbance peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour what virtue and how far are we from it So now adays throughout the world you see nothing Worldly irresolutions of death Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negos but mourners who are loth to live or faint-hearted that would never die Some crie out Come to me O sluggish death thou hast forgotten me what do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Ah death hast thou ears of brass and diamond for me alone Canst thou not shut up mine eyes which I daily drown in my tears Much otherwise when we see one die young fresh flourishing in honour wealth health prosperity we crie out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious To take saith one this young betrothed this poor maid this husband intended this excellent man who so well played the Rhodomont to lay hold of one so necessarie for the publick in the flower of his age Why took it not away this cripple this beggar who hath not wherewith to live Why took it not away this other who daily dies yet cannot die once O our manners O dainty conceits O fit language Were it not some little humane respect we would take Gods Providence by the throat Whom do we contend withal The indifferency we daily see in the death of men where as soon the young is taken as the old the happie as the miserable the Emperour as the porter is one of the greatest signs of Gods Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth It is not a punishment but a wholesom doctrine by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom First when we entered into life our advise was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age such a day such a year such an hour so when we must be gone from hence there is no reason to ask our counsel Let us onely yield up this last loan and not murmure against the father of the family Let us not say this man should go before and this after Who knows them better than God You complain this miserable creature lives so long how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience Why gnash you your teeth for anger that this man rich that man fortunate and that other so qualified is taken hence in his flourishing youth How know you the misadventures and shipwracks which attended him had he still continued in the world You say he was necessary why God will shew there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself Vnâ— aâ—ulso non deficit alter aureus Poor eyes of a bat which see nothing but darkness you would give eyes to Argus and light to the Sun If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just handle the matter so that for the first sign of a good death you be ever indifferent to live or die accordding to our Ladies example Daily expect death stand perpetually on your guard Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus which is so well practised Instinct of the Onocratalus Constancy of faith to expect the Hawk to grapple with her that even when sleep shuts up her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted as if she would contend with her adversary Know we are continually among rocks and dangers that there needs but one hour to get all or loose all that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief and that we must be ready to receive it and resolute to combat with death to gain immortalitie Hold this concluding sentence of Tertul. Idol c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat tuta si cauta secura si attonita Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum inexplicabile impactis naufragium irrespirabile â— devoratis hypocriphium Second quality of good death Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian as an Oracle Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea called life Christian faith passeth on breaking the waves filling the sails with Gods spirit ever assured yet ever distrustful and perpetually fearless yet still carefull of the future As for the rest it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched a gulf which suffocates all such as it once swalloweth The second
period of thy life having bid adieu to the world and drawn the curtain between thee and creatures endeavour to be united as perfectly as is possible to thy Creatour First by good and perfect confession of the principal actions of all thy life Secondly by a most religious participation of thy viaticum in presence of thy friends in a manner the most sober well ordered edificative thou maist In the third place seasonably receiving extream unction thy self answering if it be possible to the prayers of the Church and causing to be read in the approaches of this last combate some part of the passion Lastly by the acts of faith hope charity and contrition I approve not the manner of some who make studied remonstrances to dying men as if they were in a pulpit nor of those who blow incessantly in their ears unseasonable words and make as much noise with the tongue as heretofore Pagans with their kettles in the eclipse of the Moon We must let those good souls depart without any disturbance in the shades of death S. Augustine would die in great silence desiring not to be troubled with lamentations nor visits for ten days together where having hanged some versicles of Psalms about his bed he fixed his dying eyes upon them with a sweetness most peacefull and so gave up the ghost It is good to say My God I believe assist my incredulitie I know my Crâ—do Domine adjuva incredulitatem meam Marc. 9. Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit c. Job 9. Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es Psal 22. Quid mihi est in coelo c. Psal 72. Quare tristis es anima mea c. Psal 83. Redeemer is living and that I shall see him in the same flesh which I at this present disarray Though I must walk into the shades of death I will fear nothing because Oh my God thou art with me What have I to desire in heaven and what would I of thee on earth My flesh and my heart are entranced in thee O the God of my heart and my portion for all eternitie Wherefore art thou so sad O my soul and why dost thou trouble me Turn now to thy rest because God hath afforded thee mercie Behold how the Virgin our Ladie died behold how Saint Lewis died behold how Saint Paula departed of whom Saint Hierom (a) (a) (a) Hier. ep 27. ad Eustoc Digitum ad â— tenens crucis signum pingebat in labiis Anima erumpere gestiens ipsum stridorem quo mortalis vita finitur in laudes convertebat said The holy Lady rendering up her life put her finger on her mouth as desirous to imprint the sign of the Cross upon it turning the gasps of death and last breath of the soul into the praises of God whom she so faithfully had served XVI MAXIM Of the Immortalitie of the SOUL THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT Little care is to be had of the Soul after death so all be well with it in this life That we have an immortal Soul capable of happiness or unhappiness eternal 1. A Man who doubteth and questions the immortalitie of the Soul sheweth in the very beginning that he almost hath no soul that retaining nought but the substance of it to suffer he hath lost the lights and goodness which might crown it Never enter these thoughts into any man without making a tomb of flesh for his reason whilest he so flattering his body forgets all the excellencies of his soul We must here follow the counsel of ancient Sages when a Libertine will impugn a verity known by the onely light of nature it is not needfull to answer his absurdities but to lead him directly into the stall and to shut him up with beasts speaking unto him the sentence which the Prophet Daniel pronounced against Nebuchadnezzar Thou shalt hereafter be banished Sentence against the wicked Ejicient te ab hominibus cum bestiis ferisque erit habitatio tua Daniel 4. from the companie of men and thy abode shall be with beasts and savage creatures All speak and all dispute for the Maxim of the Holy Court and although we ought to have full obligation to faith which manifestly hath set this truth before us thereunto affixing all the order of our life and the principal felicity we hope for yet are we not a little enlightened with so many excellent conceits which learning furnisheth us withal upon it and which I will endeavour to abbreviate comprehending much in few words 2. I will then say for your comfort that it hath happened that an Heretick lost both of understanding and conscience having opposed the belief of Purgatory heresie being a beaten path to infidelity came to this point of folly as throughly to perswade himself that death ended all things and that these endeavours of prayers and ceremonies which we afford to the memory of the deceased were given to shadows He did all a wicked man might to tear himself from The belief of the immortalitie of the soul invincible Condemnation of impiety in the tribunal of nature himself and belie that which God made him but it was impossible for him as you shall see in considering the three chambers of justice wherein he was condemned First he entered into the Court before the tribunal of Nature and thought he saw a huge troup of all the learned men of the earth and all Nations of the universe who came to fall upon as a mighty cloud armed with fire and lightening My God said he what is this The great Tertullian Quod apud multos commune invenitur non est erratum sed traditum Tertul. said and it is true that verities which fall into the general understandings of all men as acknowledged avowed and confessed by all sorts of nations ought to be believed as by a decree of Nature The example thereof is evident For all men in the world believe that the whole is greater than a part that the superiour number exceedeth the inferiour That the father and mother should be honoured as the Authours of life That one must not do to another what he would not be done to himself And because every one understands and averreth this by the light of nature he would be thought a beast or a mad man who should contradict it Now from whence proceedeth it that the belief of the souls immortality holds the same place with these general Maxims although it be otherwise much transcendent above our sense If I regard the course of time and revolution Tertul. de testimonio animae of Ages from the beginning of the world one cannot assign any one wherein this faith hath not been published by words or actions correspondent to the life of the other world And if some depraved spirits have doubted it they were gain-said by publick voice by laws ceremonies customs protestations of Common-wealths of
before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance and a moderate care of our bodies burial Let us order our goods by a good and charitable Testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children and kinred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the Divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Jesus fountain of all lives in whose bosom all things are living Jesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdom of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud and sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us and we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous and antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud and thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be always of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. John 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sick man Lazarus of Bethania of the Town of Mâ—ry and Martha her sister And Marie vvas she that anointed our Lord vvith ointment and vviped his feet vvith her hair vvhose brother Lazarus vvas sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he vvhom thou lovest is sick And Jesus hearing said to them This sickness is not to death but for the glorie of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Jesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he vvas sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Jewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Jews sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Jesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man vvalk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this vvorld but if he vvalk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Jesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I vvas not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore vvho is called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Jesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania vvas nigh to Jerusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Jews vvere come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore vvhen she heard that Jesus vvas come vvent to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Jesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that vvhat things soever thou shalt ask of God God vvill give thee Jesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this vvorld Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sickness to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God than when she raiseth up the greatness of her courage the body being cast down with sickness A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolours 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange God as they do who seek for health by remedies which are a thousand times worse than the disease But they addressed themselves to the living God the God of life and death to drive away death And to recover life they were content onely to shew the wound to the faithfull friendship of the Physician without prescribing any remedies for that is better left to his providence than committed to our passion 3. He defers his cure to raise from death The delay of Gods favours is not always a refusal but sometimes a double liberality The vows of good men are paid with usury It was expedient that Lazarus should die that he might triumph over death in the triumph of Jesus Christ It is here that we should always raise high our thoughts by considering our glory in the state of resurrection he would have us believe it not onely as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies upon the plants or elements of the world and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature but also as a belief which is fast joyned to the faith we have in the Divine providence which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosom of the earth so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power having passed his word and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity 4. Jesus wept over Lazarus thereby to weep over us all Our evils were lamentable and could never sufficiently be deplored without opening a fountain of tears within heaven and within the eyes of the Son of God This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise How could those heavenly
and to execute all the decrees of his divine Providence as our chiefest helps to obtain perfection Aspirations OBeauteous garden of Olives which from henceforth shalt be the most delicious object of my heart I will lose my self in thy walks I will be lost with God that I may never be lost I will breathe onely thy air since it is made noble by the sighs of my dear Master I will gather thy flowers since Jesus hath marked them with his bloud I will wash my self in those fountains since they are sanctified by the sweat of my Jesus I will have no other joy but the sorrow of the Son of God nor any other will but his O my sweet Saviour Master and teacher of all humane kind wilt thou be abridged of thine own will which was so reasonable and pure to give me an example of mortifying my passions and shall I before thy face retain any wicked or disordinate appetites Is it possible I should desire to be Lord of my self who am so bad a Master when I see the Authour of all goodness separate himself from himself onely to make me and all mankind partakers of his merits Of the apprehension of JESUS IN that obscure and dolorous night wherein our Saviour was apprehended three sorts of darkness were cast upon the Jews upon Judas and upon Saint Peter A darkness of obduration upon the hearts of the Jews a darkness of ingratefull malignity upon Judas and a darkness of infirmity upon Saint Peter Was there ever any blindness like that of the Jews who sought for the shining Sun with lighted torches without knowing him by so many beams of power which shined from him They are strucken down with the voice of the Son of God as with lightening and they rise again upon the earth to arm themselves against Heaven They bind his hands to take away the use of his forces but they could not stop the course of his bounties To shew that he is totally good he is good and charitable even amongst his merciless executioners and he lost all he had saving his Godhead onely to gain patience When S. Peter stroke the high Priests servant the patience of our Lord Jesus received the blow and had no patience till he was healed If goodness did shew forth any one beam in the garden modesty sent forth another in the house of Anuas when his face was strucken by a servile hand his mouth opened it self as a Temple from whence nothing came but sweetness and light The God of Truth speaketh to Caiaphas and they spit upon his brightness and cover that face which must discover Heaven for us The mirrour of Angels is tarnisht with the spittle of infernal mouthes and wounded by most sacrilegious hands without any disturbance of his constancy That was invincible by his virtue as the willfulness of the Jews stood immoveable by their obduration There are souls which after they have filled the earth with crimes expect no cure of their diseases but by the hell of the reprobate 2. The second darkness appeareth by the black passion of Judas who falls down into hell with his eyes open and after he had sold his soul sold Jesus and both all he had and all he was to buy an infamous halter to hang himself A soul become passionate with wanton love with ambition or avarice is banished into it self as into a direct hell and delivered to her own passions as to the Furies The Poet Hydra had but seven heads but the spirit of Avarice S. Iohn Climacus saith hath ten thousand The conversation of Jesus which was so full of infinite attractions could never win the spirit of Iudas when it was once bewitched with covetousness The tinkling of silver kept him from rightly understanding Iesus He makes use of the most holy things to betray Holiness it self He employes the kiss of peace to begin war He carries poison in his heart and honey in his mouth he puts on the spirit of Iesus to betray him This shews us plainly that covetous and traiterous persons are farthest from God and nearest to the devils 3. The third power of darkness appeared in the infirmity of S. Peter who after so many protestations of fidelity for fear of death renounced the Authour of life One of the Ancients said The greatest frailty of Humanity was that the wisest men were not infallibly wise at all times And all men are astonished to see that the greatest spirits being left to themselves become barren and suffer eclipses which give examples to the wisest and terrour to all the world God hath suffered the fall of S. Peter to make us have in horrour all presumption of our own forces and to teach us that over-great assurance is oftentimes mother of an approching danger Besides it seemeth he would by this example consecrate the virtue of repentance in this fault of him whom he chose to be head of his Church to make us see that there is no dignity so high nor holiness so eminent which doth not ow Tribute to the mercy of God Aspirations Upon S. Peters tears IT is most true saith S. Peter that a proud felicity hath alwayes reeling feet Thou which didst defie the gates of hell hast yielded thy self to the voice of a simple woman All those conquests which thou didst promise to thy self are become the tropheys of so weak a hand Return to the combat and since she hath triumphed over thee do thou at least triumph over thy self Alas I am afraid even to behold the place of my fall and the weak snares of a simple woman appear to me as boisterous chains Yet what can he fear who is resolute to die If thou find death amongst these massacres thou shouldst rather embrace than decline it For what can it do but make thee companion of life it self Our soul is yet too foul to be a sacrifice for God let us first wash it with tears I fell down before the fire and I will rise by water I have walked upon the sea to come to Jesus and I will now return to him by the way of my tears I will speak now onely by my tears since I have lately talked so wickedly with my mouth Since that which should open to speak Oracles for the Church hath been employed to commit foul treason since we have nothing left free to us but sighs and groans let us make use of the last liberty which is left us and when all is spent return to the mercy of Jesus which all the sins of the world can never evacuate I will from henceforth be a perpetual example to the Church by my fall and rising again from death for the comfort of sinners and the fault of one night shall be lamented by me alll the days of my life Moralities upon the Pretorian or Judgement-Hall 1. IN the passion of our Saviour all things are divine and it seemeth they go as high as they could be raised by that Sovereign power joyned with
extream love Jesus the most supream and redoubted Judge who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world fire and lightening streaming from his face and all things trembling under his feet was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminal person Every thing is most admirable in this judgement The Accusers speak nothing of those things which they had resolved in their counsels but all spake against their consciences As soon as they are heard they are condemned justice forsaketh them and they are wholly possest with rage Pilate before he gave judgement upon Jesus pronounced it against himself for after he had so many times declared him innocēt he could not give judgement without protesting himself to be unjust The silence of Jesus is more admired by this infidel than the eloquence of all the world and Truth without speaking one word triumpheth over falshood A Pagan Lady the wife of Pilate is more knowing than all the Laws more religious than the Priests more zealous than the Apostles more couragious than the men of Arms when she sleepeth Jesus is in her sleep when she talketh Jesus is upon her tongue if she write Jesus is under her pen her letter defended him at the Judgement-Hall when all the world condemned him she calleth him holy when they used him like a thief She maketh her husband wash his hands before he touched that bloud the high price of which she proclaimed She was a Roman Lady by Nation called Claudia Procula and it was very fit she should defend this Jesus who was to plant the Seat of his Church in Rome All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his bloud he reconciles Herod and Pilate by the loss of his life He sets Barrabas at liberty by the loss of his honour he speaks not one word to him that had killed S. John the Baptist who was the voice And the other to revenge himself without thinking what he did shewed him as a King He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours that he might become for us the King of glories But what a horrour is it to consider that in this judgement he was used like a slave like a sorcerer like an accursed sacrifice Slavery made him subject to be whipped the crown of thorns was given onely to Enchanters and that made him appear as a Sorcerer And so many curses pronounced against him made him as the dismissive Goat mentioned in Leviticus which was a miserable beast upon which they cast all their execrations before they sent it to die in the desart He that bindeth the showers in clouds to make them water the earth is bound and drawn like a criminal person He that holds the vast seas in his fist and ballanceth Heaven with his fingers is strucken by servile hands He that enamels the bosom of the earth with a rare and pleasing diversity of flowers is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns O hydeous prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowfull darkness Behold what a garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head to expiate the sins of both Sexes It was made of briars and thorns which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us and which the virtue of his Cross took away All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins while we live in delicacies and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts to which though he that spake it gave the swiftness of wings yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts that it getteth leaden heels which make it continue there fixed Aspirations ALas what do I see here A crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns A man of dolours who burns between two fires the one of love the other of tribulation both which do inflame and devour him equally and yet never can consume him O thou the most pure of all beauties where have my sins placed thee Thou art no more a man but a bloudy skin taken from the teeth of Tigers and Leopards Alas what a spectacle is this to despoil this silk * * * Ego sum vermis non home Psalm 21. worm which at this day attires our Churches and Altars How could they make those men who looked upon thy chaste body strike and disfigure it O white Alabaster how hast thou been so changed into scarlet Every stroke hath made a wound and every wound a fountain of bloud And yet so many fountains of thy so precious bloud cannot draw from me one tear But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross who hath put thee within these thorns to make so great harmonies onely by thy silence O holy thorns I do not ask you where are your Roses I know well they are the bloud of Jesus and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns if they had any feeling of that which you have Jesus carried them upon his head but I will bear them at my heart and thou O Jesus shalt be the object of my present dolours that thou mayest after be the Fountain of my everlasting joys Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of JESUS CHRIST MOunt Calvarie is a marvellous scaffold where the chiefest Monarch of all the world loseth his life to restore our salvation which was lost and where he makes the Sun to be eclipsed over his head and stones to be cloven under his feet to teach us by insensible creatures the feeling which we should have of his sufferings This is the school where Jesus teacheth that great Lesson which is the way to do well And we cannot better learn it than by his examples since he was pleased to make himself passible and mortal to overcome our passions and to be the Authour of our immortality The qualities of a good death may be reduced to three points of which the first is to have a right conformity to the will of God for the manner the hour and circumstances of our death The second is to forsake as well the affections as the presence of all creatures of this base world The third is to unite our selves to God by the practise of great virtues which will serve as steps to glory Now these three conditions are to be seen in the death of the Prince of Glory upon Mount Calvarie which we will take as the purest Idea's whereby to regulate our passage out of this world 1. COnsider in the first place that every man living hath a natural inclination to life because it hath some kind of divinity in it We love it when it smileth upon us as if it were our Paradise and if it be troublesom yet we strive to retain it though it be accompanied with very great miseries
to save himself in a Region of nothing O poor soul thou fearest the poverty which thy Jesus Resolution against fear hath consecrated in the Crib and in Clouts Thou fearest the reproaches which he hath sanctified in the losse of his reputation thou fearest the dolours which he hath lodged in his virginall flesh thou fearest death which he overcame for thee thou fearest the false opinions of the world And what fearest thou not since thou dreadest fantasies which are lesse then the shadow of an hair There is but one thing which thou fearest not to Nulla metuendi causa nisi ne quod amamus aut adeptum amittamus aut non adipiscamur speratum Aug. q. 33. 83. lose innocency and sanctity which thou exposest to so many liberties and alluring occasions so prodigall thou art of a good which thou hast not O thou welbeloved of God although the most ungratefull to the love of God! wilt not thou dresse thy wounds wilt not thou apply some remedies to those vicious fears which gnaw thee and daily devour thee If thou wilt follow my counsell thy first resolution shall be to regulate the love of thy self not to have so indulgent and passionate a care of all things which concern thee as if thou wert an onely one in the species and that thy death were waited on by the Sepulchre of the world Thy aim should be to unloose thy self as much as thou mayest from so many ties and dependencies which multiply thy slaveries Thou must as it were live here a life of Nabatheans which were people of Arabia who neither planted nor sowed nor Diodor. l. 6. built but by expresse laws flew from delicious and fruitfull Countreys for fear that Riches might subjugate them to Passions the Commands of great ones But if we cannot come to this heighth at least let us have our heart well devested from these ardent affections which we have towards worldly enablements and behold them as one would an inconstant moving of shadows and spirits which glide before our eyes with a swift course and which ever move with the step of time and of the Sun to account as already lost whatsoever may be lost to cast your immortall cares upon an immortall soul and to place it in the first rank of your affections But if naturall love do yet tie us to health to life to honour and to slight pleasures to the preservation of our own person to whom should we entrust all this but to the Divine Providence with whom so many just have deposited their goods their reputation their life their bloud and hove loft nothing by this confidence but have transmitted Qui te tibi committis melius te potest servare qui te potuit antequam esses creare Aug. serm 8. de verbis Apostol their purchases and conquests to the bosome of Eternity In all which happeneth to us let us look towards this eye of God which perpetually beholdeth us this puissant hand of God this amorous direction Let us behold it as our Pole-starre as our flaming pillar as our great intelligence which manageth all the treasures of our life Let us learn to repose us in his bosome to slumber upon his heart to sleep between his arms Upon the first accident which befalleth us let us readily bend our knees in prayer let us adore the ordinances of our sovereign Master Let us behold with a confident countenance all which is happened or may happen Let us say God knoweth all this God permitteth all this God governeth all this He loves me as his creature he wisheth me well as one who hath given himself to him he can free me from this affliction if it be his holy will He is all good to will it he is all potent to do it Nay he is all wise to will and to do all that which is best Let us not meddle with the great current of his Counsels He maketh light in the most dusky nights and havens in the most forlorn shipwracks Were we with him in the shades of death what should we fear being between the arms of life Secondly let us not be corrupted by opinions which invade Nullus est miseriarum modu◠si timetur quantum potest Sence ep 13. us with a great shew of spectres and terrours and make us so often to fear things which are not and which shall never be It is to be too soon miserable to be so before the instant and if we for some time must be so let us consider that all the blessing and evils of the world are not great since they cannot long time be great Let us take away the mask from these fears of Poverty of Sicknesse and above all from humane respects as one would from him who goes about to affright children Why fear we so much such and such accidents which they who are made of no other flesh and bones then we do daily despise The acquaintance with perils hardneth to perils and there is nothing so terrible as the ignorance of reall truths Lastly let us hold for certain that a great part of our tranquillity dependeth upon our conscience Let us settle in Anchora mentis pondu◠timoris S. Gregor it repose by a good Confession let us constantly undertake the fear of God who will cure us of all our fears since the Anchor of the floating understanding is the Honour of the Divinity The tenth Treatise Of BOLDNESSE § 1. The Picture and Essence of it BOldnesse is very well depainted in the bosome of power shewing a heart in its The picture 〈◊〉 Boldness hand all encompassed with spirits and flames its visage is replenished with confidence its habit altogether warlike and countenance undaunted It looketh upon good all invironed with dangers as a Rose among thorns or as the golden fleece among dragons and is no whit amazed but it is on fire to flie through perils and to beat down all obstacles which oppose its conquest Good hap walketh before it by its sides innocency benignity piety strength experience and other good qualities which excite courage The presence thereof dissipateth a thousand petty Fancies which are lost in the obscurity of night not able to endure the sparkling of its eyes All this natively representeth unto us the nature and It s essence condition of Boldnesse which is properly an effect of good hope and a resolution of courage against dangers It is no wonder if Power hold it in its bosome since all the Boldnesse a man hath comes to him from the opinion he conceives to be able enough not to yield to the accidents which may assault him This heart of fire in which so many vigorous spirits sparkle is a token of the bold who commonly have more heat and vivacity from whence it comerh that young-men have herein more advantage then old were it not that they derive more assurance from some other part then from the weaknesse of their age The
it disentombed sinnes which were before as it were interred §. 2. Three principall Kinds of Anger VVE notwithstanding can say with S. John Damascen that Anger stirreth up and down in three principall regions where it produceth very different Three regions of Anger Damascen l. 2. orth c. 16. Weak spirits ordinarily cholerick effects The first is called the region of sharp choler the second of bitter choler and the third of fury In the first region are all those who have slight heats of the liver who are angry upon every light occasion and almost ever moment In this are to be found many women many children and lovers and besides Hungry Thirsty needy sickly and nice ones fantasticks and extravagants as that Smyndrides who seeing a peasant taking pains before him said his body was quite broken therewith There needs almost nothing to make choler fly up into their faces so much they are thereunto disposed The slightest things put them out of the limits of reason and if no man contradict them they frame quarrels to themselves with wood and stones and with other things inanimate which serve their use and in the end fall out with themselves and skirmish against their own shadow The great Cesarius a Greek Authour Caesarius in dialog saith that Mil-stones having not corn to grind strike fire so we oft-times see in housholds and Communities when there is no employment no gain nor profit the fire of Anger interposeth between man and wife between brothers and friends yea among religious who are not throughy well applyed to the functions of their profession The second Region is that of inveterate choler Second region of anger wherein rest malicious and covert souls wherein malicious souls are engaged who do nothing else but gnaw their own heart and envy the felicity of another closely undermining it as much as they can both by word and deed There you behold them all ranked in order which is nothing but disorder with a visage ghastly and disfigured an eye of an owl a countenance moody a gate slow speech wrangling and most often an enraged silence O discontented and dismall Region I had rather see the Comet which appeared not long since then to behold a man so composed who perpetually hath vultures in his entrails executioners by his sides and who moreover hath a petty hell within himself It is of this anger the wise-man saith Proverb 26. Grave est saxum onerosa a rena sed ira utroque gravior The property of the yew Tree like unto Anger that A stone was very heavy and sand weighty but choler incomparably more I had rather roll Sisyphus his stone eat sand and cloes then hatch in my heart such anger Have you ever observed the unlucky Tree whereof Theophylact speaketh upon the Prophet Nahum which we in our Language call the yew Tree It is a Tree of death which with its shadow alone killeth the herbs and plants about it This worthy Interpreter addeth that it out of a singular malignity devoureth them And Dioscorides noteth that being once set on fire it will many moneths keep a melancholy fire hidden under the ashes not almost to be quenched Behold the picture of one who is tainted with the cursed choler of the second region you see him anxious and burthensome to himself dull like an old yew an old Tree in a Church-yard He is impotent in effect for revenge but hath a furious appetite towards it which he dissembleth under the meagernesse of the Countenance of a dead man and under the coldnesse of a maligne passion The fire is as under ashes the space of so many moneths so many good friends so many good advises so many convincing reasons quench some little spark of it yet there still remaineth some of it behind So many powerfull Sermons so many confessions so many communions cry out Fire Fire pour on water Miserable creature thy house smoketh It will burn thee when thou art asleep But he hath no ears And when this serpentine soul shall be snatched away by a sudden death if you search into the ashes of his body there you shall yet find fire The Earth which shall cover him shall be Et erit terra ejus in picem ardentem nocte die non extinguetur in sempiternum ascendet fumus ejus Isai 34. Festuca in oculo ira est trabs verò odium Festuca initium trabis est nam trabs quando nascitur prius festuca est riganâ—o festucam deducis ad trabem alendo iram malis suspicionibus perducis ad odium August l. de verbis Domini ser 16. The region wherin are the furiouâ— like burning pitch It shall burn night and day and make black and thick smokes arise which shall eternally issue out of it Preserve your self from this second region and observe the words of S. Augustine Choler which proceedeth from some innocent promptitude is as a stick but this is a beam A stick is the beginning of a beam For the beam at first is but a stick if you water it it becometh a beam and if you cherish choler by evill suspicions you turn it into Hatred The third region of choler is fury in which all such are as play the part of mad Orlando and become as red as the Comb of a Cock and presently as pale as the dead who have eyes bloudy like frogges sparkling like Gorgons rolling as those of Cain who roar like lions who foam like Boars who hisse like serpents who poyson all they see like Basilisks who cast forth fire like Medeas buls who tear one another like Canniballs who sup with lights and lamps of bloud like Cyclops who walk in the night to strike and commit outrages like Furies who are perpetually in disturbance like Devils who do nothing but vomit forth blasphemies who swear by heaps who breath nothing but wounds but plague-sores and revenges who have no more of man in them but so much as may serve for food to eternall fire unlesse they betake them to repentance There are of them so ardent that they resemble those dogs of hot Countreys whereof Xenophon speaketh which strike their teeth so eagerly into the skin of a boar that together with the gash they make fire to fly out Behold a horrible sphere of monsters and tempests bloudy Comets horses and arms of fire It is they of Genes 49 Simeon Levi vasa iniquitatis bellantia c. Malediâ—â—us furor eorum quiae pertinax indignatio quia dura whom the Scripture speaketh Simeon and Levi you vessels of warre instruments of Iniquity Trumpets of fury and bloud never shall my spirit have to do with you never will I defile the glory of a peacefull soul by the contagion of your company Cursed be your fury for it is head-strong cursed your anger and revenge for it is wicked and insatiable Two things principally are deplorable in this third region The first is that anger is
temptations and those that have yielded once thereto have done a thousand other worthy actions to blot out the memory of one ill If Clemency hath no place in such occasions it will have nothing to do about a Prince and if it find no employment with him it is to be feared that the vengeance of God will find work there to busie it self The wisest of Kings is of opinion that this virtue is the foundation of thrones whence it follows that that Prince which is unprovided thereof puts his own person in danger and his estate into shaking It is to deceive ones self to think that a Prince may be secure there where there is nothing secure against the violence of the Prince Despair of Mercy hath often caused horrible cruelties to ensue and it is needfull alwayes to take heed of the force of a last necessity There are some things which ought to be pardoned by the contempt of punishing them others by the profit and others by the glory and it is alwayes to be remembred that we have a Judge over our heads which suffers us to live by his onely goodnesse being able every moment to punish us by his Justice At last to conclude this little Treatise Valour procures an high reputation to a Monarch making him terrible to his Enemies and amiable to his Subjects Greatnesse maintains it self by the same means which gave it its beginning and it renews new vigour by those qualities which have been the Authours of its originall Our fist Kings attained to this dignity by their valour and by that stoutnesse which they had to expose their courageous persons to very many hazards for the safety of the publick this made them admired and lifted them up at last upon the Target to be shewed throughout the whole Army and chosen by generall consent to command over others by the title of their deserts The same of Valour doth so easily run through and with such approbation the minds of people and valiant men that it sufficing not it to make Kings upon earth it hath made amongst the Heathens Gods in Heaven They have deified an Hercules and a Theseus for having cut off the head of Hydra's and overcome Minotaures and not contenting themselves to have consecrated their persons they have put wild beasts and monsters amongst the Constellations for having served as objects of their victories chusing rather to eternize beasts amongst the Stars then to diminish any thing of the eternall glory of those valiant men Alexander being crowned King by his father Philip before he took possession of the Kingdome that fell to him by the decease of his Predecessour assembled together all the great ones of his Kingdome and said to them that he would counsel them to chuse such a one as should be most obedient to God which should have the best thoughts for the Publick Good which should be most compassionate towards the Poor which should best defend the right of the weak ones against the strong but above all that should be the most Valiant and should adventure himself most boldly for the safety of his Countrey And when they had all confirmed to him that which his birth had given him he took an Oath that he would keep all he had propounded as he did testifying in all his actions his Goodnesse and Valour above all the Kings that had gone before him A Monarch shall give some proof of himself by diligently studying the art of Warre in often frequenting the exercises thereof in being able to judge of places and Armies of Captains of Souldiers of Defences of On-sets of Policies and Stratagems of Fortifications of Arms of Provision of Munition and giving exact order for every thing that belongs to Military affairs He must often shew himself in the Army by exhorting encouraging consulting resolving giving orders and causing them to be executed by shewing readinesse of courage in dangers and an invincible heart in the midst of bad successe But he ought not at any time to mix himself therein without great necessity seeing that the hand of one man can do very little and the losse of a King brings a dammage unrecoverable The young King Ladislaus thrust himself into danger at the Battel of Varna against Bajazet the Turk when he had there lost himself and that they had taken away his head and put it upon the end of a spear as a sad spectacle to the Christians This caused their whole Army to be routed which before was half victorious and gave the victory to the Infidell Warre is a long and difficult profession and one of the most dangerous which never ought to be undertaken but upon necessity I cannot neither ought I here to teach it by words reserving that to the skill of the more understanding and to the experience of perfect ones I am onely obliged to advertise that great heed is to be taken lest any one take rashnesse or salvage rage instead of true valiantnesse Those are no Bravado's nor terrible looks that give the most valiant blows in Armies It pleaseth not God that a Virtue that doth such wonders upon earth and places the Hero's in the heaven should be accomplished by such feeble means This is no effect of boasting nor of ignorance nor of fury this is a branch of generousnesse which teacheth the contempt of dangers and of death it self for the glory of God for the defence of ones Countrey for the subduing of the impious Infidels and wicked ones for the exaltation of the true Faith of Religion and the glory of ones Nation Oh the excellency of this divine Virtue which protects so many people with the shadow of its branches and laurels which causes a calm to be found in a tempest safety in the midst of dangers comfort in disastres an upholding in the midst of weaknesse Happy are the wounds of the valiant whence flows more honour then bloud Happy their immortall Souls which flie hence into heaven carried upon the purple of so generous bloud and which flying hence leave to posterity an eternall memory of their prowesse Time hath no sythe for them Death is unprovided with darts Calumny loseth its teeth there and Glory spreads throughout the Ensigns of their Immortality THE MONARCHS DAVID SOLOMON DAVID REX SALOMON REX DAvid is a great mixture of divers adventures of Good of Evils of Joyes of Griefs of Contempts of Glories of Vices of Virtues of Actions of Passions of un-thought-of Successes of strange Accidents and Marvels It is not my purpose to set forth his Life here which is exactly contained in the holy Scripture but to make some reflexions on the principall things therein that concern the Court We will consider him in a two-fold estate of a Servant and of a Master and will observe with what wisdome he preserved himself in the one and with what Majesty he behaved himself in the other The whole beginning of his History is a continuall combate against an horrid monster which is the
as to name her The Revengeresse of the Cause of God The Conqueresse of Impiety and the Protectresse of the Catholick Faith All businesses took a very happy couâ—se and the State prospered visibly in the hands of that great Princesse But it seems that disorder is fatall to the Courts of great Ones and that virtue can never reign there without contradiction The ambition that every one hath to promote his fortune the impatience of good the desire of novelty the envy that alwayes follows the happy cease not secretly to contrive wicked plots which are hatched at last into pernicious effects The passages to the spirit of the Emperour could not be so well stopped up but that he had about his person some young men the most venomous pestilences of the court who by giving him suspicions of the Empress his mother involved his Dignity and his Life in a misery that causes horrour to my thoughts They cease not to insinuate into his heart by cursed flatteries that gave him the taste of sinne and the love of a faulty liberty that would no longer measure his Powers but by the impunity of all vices They call'd him the perpetuall Pupil the shadow of Stauratius and told him that the age of twenty years might have made him proceed Master of his affairs and of himself that it was an insufferable shame to him to endure servitude in a birth that gave him the Empire of the World that his mother loved his Sceptre and not his Person and that she was so much used to Reign that she would never quit the Sovereign Authority if he did not expresse Vigour and Resolution to be that which God was pleased he should be born without dependence on any one that the Pedagogie of Stauratius was infamous to a Monarch that had thrice seven years over his head and that he ought no more to play the child in a time wherein so many other Princes had played the Conquerours They talk to him of it so much that he resolved to take away all Authory from the State-Officer and to put his Mother out of the Government and direction of his affairs which he began to manage after a strange fashion favouring the heresie of the Iconoclasts and all disorders following the advice of that pernicious counsell of the youth that had began his ruine Irene had an intention at first to marry him to the Princesse Rotrude daughter of our Charlemagne but some Greeks diverted that resolution telling her that that alliance would give too great a prop to his naturall disposition that seemed already bad enough and that if the French began to set a foot in the Empire they would one day carry the Crown upon their head This caused his mother to marry him to Mary the Armenian who wanted not good qualities but whether it was that the Emperour found her not to his liking or whether it was to spite the Empresse his mother that had given her to him he made a very scandalous divorce from that Princesse after he had lawfully wedded her and married with a Chamber-maid of his Mothers through the irregularnesse of his sensuality The Patriarch Tarasus had a good mind to oppose himself against it but seeing that this Prince enraged with love and choler threatned to open the Temples of the Idols if one crossed the phrensie of his passion he held his peace and let a businesse shamefull to Christianity passe by dissimulation But Plato and Theodore who were then the two greatest lights of Greece in holinesse and learning much blamed his proceedings and separated themselves from his communion which made a great rent in the Eastern Church Constantine sullying also his Loves with humane blood caused the eyes to be put out of his Unkle Nicephorus and of the Generall Alexius greatly renowned by his prowesse which drew much hatred upon the person and government of this Prince yet he left not off for all that to continue even so far as to take pleasure in cutting off the tongues of many that disapproved of the insolency of his manners Eight years were already passed in these disorders and his mother retired into her private condition was secretly sollicited by many to take again the Managing of the affairs to stop the Riots of her son She hearkened to it and with the assistance of Stauratius plotted an horrible conspiracy against the Emperour whom she caused to be apprehended imprisoned and made blind whereat he conceived so much despight and sadnesse that in few dayes he quitted the Sceptre with his life The wicked deportments of Constantine and the good reputation in which Irene had lived till then caused many even amongst the Church-men to find out reasons not onely to excuse but also to approve this bold attempt yet I find it so enormous so contrary to the law of nature so injurious to the inviolable Majesty of Kings that my pen passes over it with horrour and cannot choose but condemn it not onely with the Law of God that detests it but with the heavens themselves which hid the Sun seventeen dayes together veiled themselves with darknesse and wept for the inhumanity of that crime Yet I rather believe that which Cardinall Baronius hath written that his mother never consented to the making of him blind although she had given command to seize upon him but that those who feared the danger of that Commission wished rather the death of him then the imprisonment But howsoever it came to passe the Empresse took again the Government in hand and seeing that in that great confusion of affairs she had need of a strong prop she sought for by an expresse embassage allyance and a marriage with Charlemagne which was not any way disrellished seeing all that had passed failed not to be coloured with fair pretences and for that purpose sent back Embassadours to her to end the businesse but when they arrived at Constantinople they found that Nicephorus one of the Grandees of the East an hypocrite and a traytor to the miserable Irene had already seized upon the Empire and banished her into the Isle of Lesbos where she dyed soon after with the testimonies of a strong repentance and a perfect disengagement from all worldly things Yet this new Usurper knowing that our Charles had already been Proclaimed Emperour in the West treated him with great submissions not for the love of his person but for the fear of his credit and of his Arms. Behold how Providence disposed businesses in the East to make him mount upon the Throne of the Cesars she permitted also in the West strange revolutions and abominable accidents out of which by her extream wisdome and goodnesse she extracted good for the advancement of this Monarch After the death of Adrian the Pope Leo the Third was set in Saint Peters chair but his Predecessours Nephews that saw that the Pontificate had taken another visage since the city of Rome had been delivered from the chains of the Lombard and that
that if Baal were God they ought to follow him but if there were no other God but that of Israel called upon from all times by their Fathers it was he to whom they ought to adhere with an inviolable fidelity To this the assembly made no answer there being none that was willing to set himself forward upon an uncertainty Then Elijah taking the word again said Behold four hundred and fifty Prophets of Baal on one side and I a Prophet of the true God all alone on the other part in this place here To make a tryall of our Religion let there be two Oxen given us for each of the two parties let them be cut in pieces and the pieces put upon a pile of wood without puting any fire to them either on one side or on the other we will expect it from heaven and the Sacrifice upon which God shall make a flame appear from on high to kindle it shall carry away the testimony of the true Religion To this all the people answered with a confused voyce that it was a good Proposition The Victims were brought sacrificed and put upon the wood to be consumed The Priests of Baal began first to invoke the heavenly fire and to torment themselves with great cryes and a long time without any effect It was already mid-day and nothing had appeared to their advantage whereat being very much astonished they drew out their Razors and make voluntary incisions upon themselves according to their custome thinking that a prayer was never well heard if it were not accompanied with their blood which the evil Spirit made them shed in abundance to satiate his Rage This nothing advanced the effect of their Supplications which gave occasion to Elijah to mock at the vanity of their Gods saying that Baal that gave no answer was asleep or busie or on a journey or perhaps drinking at the Tavern He remained either with security amidst so many enraged Wolves covered with the protection of the God of Hosts and began to prepare his Sacrifice taking twelve stones in memory of the twelve Tribes of Israel to erect an Altar to the name of God after which he divided the Offering into divers parts put them all upon the pile and that none might have any suspition that there was fire hidden in some part of them he caused abundance of buckets of water to be thrown upon the Sacrifice and all about it and then began to say Great God God of Abraham of Isaac and of Israel shew now that thou art the God of this people and that I am thy servant I have obeyed thee in all this resting my self upon thy word Hear me my God my God hear me and let this assembly learn this day of thee that thou art the true God and the absolute Master of all the universe and that it is thou that art able to reduce their hearts to the true belief Scarce had he ended his prayer when the Sacred fire fell down from heaven upon his Sacrifice and devoured the Offering and the Altar to the admiration of all the People who prostrating themselves on the ground began to cry That the God of Israel was the true God Take then sayes he the false Prophets of Baal let not one sole man of them escape us The People convinced by the Miracle and the voyce of Elijah without expecting any other thing fall upon those false Prophets takes them and cuts them all in pieces Ahab amidst all this stood so astonished that he durst not speak one onely word nor any way resist the Divine Command The Prophet bad him take his refection and go into his Coach for the so much desired rain was near and having said so retired himself to the top of the Mount Carmel and sent his servant seven times to the sea to see whether he could discover any clouds but he saw nothing till the seaventh time and then he perceived a little cloud that exceeded not the measure of a hand and yet he sends him to tell Ahab that it was time to Harnesse if he would not be overtaken with the rain He mounted instantly into his Coach to get to the City of Jezrael and Elijah ran before as if he had wings In the mean time the Heavens grew black with darknesse the clouds collect themselves the wind blowes and the Rain falls in abundance Ahab failed not to relate to Jezabel all that had been done desiring to make the death of those Prophets passe for a decree of heaven for fear lest that imperious woman should upbraid him with the softnesse of his courage But she not moved with those great miracles of fire and water that were reported to her began to foam with wrath and to swear by all her Gods that she would cause Elijahs head to be laid at her feet by the morrow that time The Prophet is constrained to fly suddenly to save himself not knowing to whom to trust so that having brought with him but one young man to accompany him in the way he quitted him and went alone into the wildernesse wherein having travelled a day he entred into a great sadnesse and laid him down under a Juniper-tree to repose himself and there felt himself very weary of living any longer and said to God with an amorous heart My God it is enough take mee out of this life I am not better then my fathers It is a passion ordinary enough to good men to wish for death that they may be no more obliged to see so many sinnes and miseries as are in the World and to go to the place of rest to contemplate there the face of the living God But this desire ought to be moderated according to the will of God As he was in that thought sleep that easily surprises a melancholy spirit and wearied with raving on its pains slipt into his benummed members and gave some truce to his torments But that great God that had his eyes open to the protection of so dear a person dispatched to him his guardian Angell who awaked him and shewed him near his head a cruse of water and a loaf of bread baked under the ashes for such are the banquets that the nursing Father of all Nature makes his Prophets not loving them for the delights of the body but contenting himself to give them that which is necessary to life he saw well that it was a Providence that would yet prolong his life He drank and ate and at length being very heavy fell asleep again But the Angel that had undertaken the direction of his way waked him and told him that it behooved him to rise quickly by reason that he had yet a long way to go Elijah obeyed and being risen found that he had gained a merveilous strength so that he journied fourty dayes and fourty nights being fortified with that Angelicall bread till such time as he came to the Mountain Horeb. There he retired himself into the hollow of a Rock unknown
the Kings house a famous officer an Ethiopian by Nation and a man of heart who hearing of the cruelty that was used against the Prophet took pity on him and said boldly to the King What Sir can your Majesty well approve of the rigours that poor Jeremy is made to suffer for doing the function of a Prophet It well appears that his enemies would have his skin for they have let him down with ropes into a deep dungeon where it is almost impossible to breathe There is danger if this good man dyes by this ill usage that you are guilty of his death and that this may draw some wrath of God upon your Majesty He spake this with so good an accent that the King was moved and gave him charge to take thirty souldiers and to draw him thence which he did quickly casting down to him old linnen raggs to put under him that he might not be galled by the cords when they should make him ascend out of the bottome of that hideous prison When he was plucked up again the King had another time the curiosity to see him not in his Palace but in some secret place of the Temple where Jeremy spake to him with much fervency and tendernesse telling him that the onely means to save his person his house and all the City was to render up himself to Nabuchodonosor and that if he refused to do it he and all his would be destroyed The King answered that he was afraid to commit himself to the King of Babylon lest he should deliver him to his rebellious subjects that had fallen from him to the enemy Jeremy replyed That he need not fear any such thing and affectionately beseech'd him to have pity on his own soul on his wife and on his children for otherwise there would happen a great misery This poor Prince feared to attempt this against the opinion of those that governed him and to scatter them by this means from his party Nay he was afraid even to be seen with Jeremy and recommended to him very much to keep secret that discourse and to tell no body that he had spoken to him about State affairs He was sent back to Prison that he might not make the seditious mutiny and all that he could obtein was not to be plunged again in that pit from whence he had been delivered In the mean while Nabuchodonosor after a long siege carryed the city of Jerusalem which was taken about mid-night the enemies being entred by a breach that no body perceived Zedekiah much amazed betakes himself to flight with his wife and children and a few men of war about him taking his way through night darknesse affrights fear and a thousand images of death The Chaldeans had notice of his retreat and caught him on the plains of Jericho where he was immediately forsaken of his men and left with his wives and little children that sent out pitifull cryes through the apprehension of servitude and death He was carried away from thence to Riblah where Nabuchodonosor was expecting the issue of that siege This unfortunate Prince was constrained to present himself before the frightfull countenance of a barbarous King puffed up with his victories and prosperities who loaded him with reproaches and confusions upbraiding him with his rebellion his ingratitude and unfaithfulnesse he would willingly have been ten foot under ground before he suffered such indignities thinking himself sufficiently punished by having lost his crown and liberty But this cruell Conquerour would give other satisfactions to his revenge for after he had a long time digested his gall and thought on the means that he would use to punish him he causes his children to come before him and commands the Hangmen to murther them in the fathers sight These poor little ones seeing the glittering sword now ready to be plunged in their bloud cryed out for mercy and called pitifully upon the sad name of their father that had no other power but to suffer his calamity The sword passes throught the bodies of his children to find his heart who dyed as many deaths as nature had given him gages of his marriage He expected that the sword stained with the bloud of his dear progeny should have ended his life and griefs but this inhumane Tyrant having left him as much light as was needfull to illuminate his misery after that he had filled himself with this lamentable spectacle caused his eyes to be plucked out by an execrable cruelty and having commanded him to be put in great and heavie chains caused him to be carried into Babylon where he ended his miserable life and in his Person ended the Kingdome of Judea that had subsisted since Saul four hundred and fourscore years Nabuchodonosor having heard the narration that was made of Jeremy and the good counsell that he had given to his King esteemed him highly and gave charge to Nebuzaradan the Generall of his Army to give him content whether he had a mind to go to Babylon or whether he would stay in his own countrey But to shew he sought not the splendour of greatnesses he chose to make his abode amidst poor Labourers and Vine-dresses that were left after the sacking of the City the better sort being transported into Babylon He was recommended to Gedaliah who was settled Governour of those miserable Reliques of the people by Nebuzaradan but when this Gedaliah was murthered seven moneths after his creation Johanan that was one of the principall men counselled the Jews to quit that miserable land and to follow him into Egypt Jeremy opposed it and foretold misery to all those that should go thither but instead of believing him they dragged him along by force either to afflict him or to prevail over his Prophecyes He failed not to prophesy the desolation of Egypt that was to bend under the arms of Nabuchodonosor whereat his countreymen found themselves incensed and fearing lest he should draw some envy on them stoned him in a sedition The Egyptians hearing talk of the life and predictions of this great personage made account of him and set him up a Tomb where God to honour his servant did great miracles chasing away by his ashes the Crocodiles and serpents Alexander that flourished two hundred years after him admiring those wonders caused his reliques to be transported into Alexandria where he caused a magnificent Sepulchre to be erected for him as the Alexandrian Chronicle reports Behold how virtue persecuted in its own house finds a prop with strangers and even veneration amongst the Infidels God using all sorts of instruments to honour the merits of those that have rendered him proofs of a perfect faithfulnesse S. JOHN Baptist S. PAUL St. IOHN BAPTIST St. PAVL APOSTLE WHat makes an Hermit at the Court a Solitary man in a Tumult a Sacred amongst Prophane a Saint in the house of Herod He was far more secure amongst Wolves amongst Foxes and Tygers then amongst those wicked Courtiers He was more contented with his little
saith S. Dennis What a roaring of the Lion saith S. Hierome What a Flow of Learning what a Torrent of Eloquence who makes us to understand the Mysteries unknown in all Ages and that as much by his Admiration as his Words He wrote his Epistles with his Ear in Heaven and with a Style in the School of Paradise The feeblenesse of humane Words could not sustain the force of his Spirit In the Affective part he was filled with a Seraphick His Love Love with a fire drawn from the most pure flames of Heaven which was shut up within his heart and within his bones and did uncessantly burn him without consuming him On his mortified flesh he did bear the Characters of a suffering God which were his dearest Delights He was no more himself he was all and altogether transfigured into that amiable Word by a Deifick transanimation He lived on his Bloud he breathed not but by his Spirit he spake not but by his Words he thought not but by his Meditations yet neverthelesse in some manner he did leave God and the delicious School of Paradise to run unto his Neighbour to save his Soul and in this exercise of Charity he defied Tribulation Anguish Hunger Nakednesse Dangers Persecutions and bloudy Swords and burning Fagots and boiling Caldrons If Hell it self were portable he would adventure to have carried it on his back for the love of his Neighbour He looked upon the world as if every mothers son were of his begetting he carried in his heart Europe and Asia and Afâ—ick and all the Provinces of the Earth to communicate the Light of the Gospel either by himself or by his children whom already he had begotten in Jesus Christ Nothing rebated him nothing hindred nothing stopped him He gave no bounds to his Love since God had given no limits to his Spirit With these fair and extraordinary qualities God gave him Successe in the preaching of the Gospel which did draw upon him the admiration of all the Apostles He marched in triumph through all Provinces and God was on his heart He was like unto that Ark of the Testament which is spoken of in the Revelations Apoc. 21. which at the same time that it was perceived did cause a Lightning to be seen a Voice to be heard the Hail to rattle and the Earthquakes to roar so wheresoever S. Paul did passe there were the Light of Learning the Oracles of Wisdome the impetuous Tempest of words of fire which made the Philosopers and Kings to tremble and even removed Nature it self Behold here the difference which was between S. Paul and Seneca which being well considered we shall forbear to admire wherefore one was so fruitlesse in the Court of Nero and the other had so great successe in Rome and amongst so many Nations After that Paul was for a season retired from Rome Saint Paul leaves Rome Nero grows worse and worse leaving unto Seneca a strong tincture of the Christian Faith Nero did every day grow worse and worse insomuch that having killed his brother his wife his mother this scourge of mankind in the wicked jollity of his heart had a plot in his head to set the City of Anno Neron 10. Chron. 66. Rome on fire which was almost wholly consumed with it whiles he from a high tower did behold it and laughing at the calamity did sing the burning of Troy the great which did so exasperate the spirits of his Subjects that on the year following the chief of the Empire did enter into a conspiracy against him in which were comprised Senatours Captains Colonels The Conspiracy against him detected Citizens Ladies and all the choicest personages in Rome but misfortune so would have it that the secret being dispersed amongst so many people it did not answer the event to which it was designed but being discovered it occasioned a bloudy butchery in Rome Nero like an enraged Tygre desiring nothing more then to bathe himself in bloud Seneca's name was entred at the last in the list of the The constant and the famous death of Seneca Conspiratours whether his Scholar had conceived a jealousie against him mistrusting his high Virtue and fearing lest he should tear the Diadem from his head or whether the insolence of his deportments had put him into that condition as not to indure the very shadow of a Tutor It was now a long time since this great personage overcome with grief at so many tragicall accidents did leade a retired life in his Countrey-house not farr from Rome There was not against him any manifest conviction to rank him amongst the Conspiratours as Tacitus hath observed It is onely said that one of that number named Natalis did depose before Nero that he was sent to Seneca by Piso who was the chief of the Conspiratours to complain that he would not suffer him to give him a visit and to meditate an enterview to which Seneca made answer that such a meeting in so dangerous and so fatal a time could be profitable neither to the one nor to the other and as for the rest that his life subsisted not but in the safety of the life of Piso On this the Tribune of the Emperours Guard was dispatched to Seneca to understand what answer he could make to the Deposition of Natalis On the evening he arrived at Seneca's house which he suddenly invironed with a troop of Souldiers He was no sooner entred but he found him at supper with his wife and two friends he presently acquainted him what he had in Commission from the Emperour on which Seneca confessed that Natalis indeed was sent unto him by Piso to intreat him to receive a visit from him but he excused himself by reason of indisposition and retirednesse without speaking one word more unto him adding that he had never so high an esteem of Piso as to judge that the safety of his life did depend upon him thar such flattery was not suitable to his disposition and that Nero knew it very well who by experience had alwayes found in Seneca more of Liberty then of Servitude The Tribune made a faithfull report of Seneca's answer in the presence of Poppea that impudent woman and Tigillinus that execrable villain who in those cruel designs were the onely two that were now of his Majesties sacred Counsel This barbarous Prince who had promised his Tutor that he would rather die then permit that any offence should be done unto him did bear that respect unto him as not to question him on that Conspiracy amongst so many other Senators peradventure he had not a brow of brasse enough to outface the reproaches of so eloquent a mouth He demanded of the Tribune if he did not prepare himself to a voluntary death who made answer That he observed not the least sign of it either in his countenance or discourse whereupon he was commanded to return to Seneca and to signifie unto him that he must die The Tribune
from the Pope to which he said he never condiscended and withall that he had maintained servants affectioned to the Religion of the Church of Rome in which if he had offended God the true Church and the Protestants he demanded pardon A new Dean A Heretick who had taken a wild possession of his afflicted Soul being present at his death according to the Order he had received did perswade him to speak any thing in the favour of his own party after which he prostrated himself on the earth and having pronounced a prayer or two he laid his head upon the block which the Executioner with one blow divided from his body The Earl of Murray who was the creature of Gods judgement on wicked Murray Queen Elizabeth for the ruining at once of this Commanders life and his sisters hopes being returned into Scotland where after so much perfidiousnes he resolved to triumph in the bloudy spoils of his nearest kinswoman was killed by a Pistol bullet shot by the hand of one Hamilton who was one of the chiefest of the Nobility of that Kingdom and now at last that uncontrouled Ambition which did blow up so many storms is extinguished in its own bloud he not witnessing at his death any Act of Christianity His good sister did much lament his despoiled body but above all his soul which being snatched away by sudden death had not the leisure to repent the actual Crimes of his life nor the blasphemies of his mouth 10. Nevertheless she found her self fast bound The Queens languishments in prison with the chains which this malicious contriver had linked for her destruction and under the shadow of this pretended marriage with the Duke of Norfolk although she deported her self in it with all discretion yet she was persecuted again â—o absolutely resolved were mischief and misfortune to pursue her to her grave and at the same time when she thought to have seen the beams of her dear liberty she had double guards set upon her to afflict her with all the rigour that was possible Of the four and fourty years of her life which God had dispenced to her she suffered almost the half of them under the cruelty of a tedious imprisonment where she had a thousand times been overcome with melancholy were it not for the consolations which she did draw from the fountain of true piety Pope Pius the fifth understanding that she was denied the assistance of Priests did permit her to communicate her self unto him which oftentimes she did and oftentimes the consecrated Host was privately sent unto her by those whom he intrusted Besides this she being a most knowing Princess who had her education in France from five years of age and always loved good letters and understood and spoke six languages did improve her understanding and her time by the assiduity of reading which did much sweeten the afflictions of her captivity During the time of those persecutions she received the comfort of benediction from divers Popes who secreetly did send some Fathers to her who being as industrious as couragious did find out a way to see her and to fortifie her in the true Religion and to discourse with her on heavenly things which was the sweetest Manna which she tasted in that wilderness She always protested in the singular confidence which she had in God that no violence should separate her from the ancient religion and that it should be unto her a peculiar gift from heaven to seal her confession with her bloud Henry the third of France honouring her dignity and alliance forgot not to send divers Ambassadours to comfort her although for certain reasons of State he did never act effectually for her deliverance We have yet living in Paris a venerable man of four-score years of age full of Virtue Honour and Merit who did visite her in her captivity by the commandment of the said Henry and who oftentimes hath assured me that no man could see that excellent Queen without raptures of celestial joy She loved the French naturally and was magnificent in her gifts and finding her self at that time unprovided of those things which she desired not to enjoy but onely to distribute amongst her friends she did take a Ring of Diamonds which was left her and her own Table-book which she gave to this good Gentleman who shewed them to me for the rareness of the work It is true indeed the book was very rich being covered with crimson Velvet and garnished with clapses and on the corners with plates of Gold but she did guild it far more with her royal words telling him that it was one of the misfortunes of her imprisonment that she was not able to present a gift unto him that was worthy of his merit Howsoever she would tender to him that small gift which would be the more observable for the profit it should bring him having written in it some few but remarkable observations which should conduce much to his advantage and but little to her own In the mean time this great soul passed many years weeping on the banks of this cruel Babylon where she heard nothing spoken but what carried the sounds with it of chains and prisons and the massacres of Catholicks She was perpetually sick in body and overwhelmed with the bitterness of mind but amongst all the cares of her cruel and tedious imprisonment nothing came more near her heart than the danger of her son a young Prince in the hands of Hereticks and abandoned to their Doctrine receiving his first principles from their errours and exposed as a prey to their conspiracies This was the occasion that some years before her death she wrote a long letter to the Queen of England in which behold some notable expressions MADAM COncerning what is brought to my knowledge A pithy and couragious letter to the Queen of England touching the late conspiracies executed in Scotland against my poor Son finding by my own example that I have a just occasion to fear the sad consequence it is most necessary that before I depart this world I should imploy all the strength and life that is left me to discharge my heart plainly to you by my complaints which are as just as they are lamentable I desire that after my death this letter may serve you as a perpetual rememberance which in the deepest characters I would imprint in your conscience as well for my discharge unto posterity as to the shame and confusion of all those who under your Warrant have so unworthily and so cruelly used me And because their designs their practises and proceedings though never so detestable have always prevailed on your side against my most just Remonstrances and all the sincerity of my deportment and the force which you have in your hands warp and byass the common capacities of men I will therefore have my recourse to the living God our onely Judge who under him hath equally and immediately established us for the Government of
by our glorious Father S. Gregory the Great it is that which our Fathers have embraced it is that which they have defended by their Words their Arms and their Bloud which they have shed for the Honour of it Nothing is left for those to hope for who are separated from it but the tempests of darkness and the everlasting chains of hell It is well known that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince hath caused these reprocheable furies and the inundations of bloud which hath covered the face of England He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen wherefore those who have followed him in his Errour may also follow him in his Repentance The Peace the Safety the Abundance the Felicity of the Kingdom are ready to re-enter with the true Faith which if you refuse I see the choller of God and a thousand calamities that do threaten you Return therefore O Shunamite Return O fair Island to thy first beginning feign not to thy self imaginary penalties terrours and punishments which are not prepared but for the obstinate The Sovereign Father of Christendom doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience and hath delegated me as the Dove out of the Ark to bring unto thee the Olive Bough to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee This is the acceptable Hour this is the Day of thy salvation The Night which hitherto hath covered thee is at the end of her Course and the Sun of Justice is risen to bring light unto thee It is time to lay down the works of darkness and to take up the Armour of Light to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice that thou abborrest what is past embracest what is present and dost totally put thy self into the hands of God for the time to come This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly and the Cardinal being departed from the Councel the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition which was presently taken into consideration and it was resolved That the ancient religion should be established The Chancellour made this resolution known unto the people and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholick faith In the end he demanded that they would testifie their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal Legate of the holy See which incontenently was done the paper was presented and openly read their Majesties did confirm it both by their authorities and their prayers and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees and all the people demanding mercy whereupon an authentick absolution was given by the Legate the bels did ring in all the Churches Te Deum was sung All places were filled with the cries of joyes as people infranchised and coming out of the gates of hell After this King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders by reason of the retreat of the Emperour his father Pool was left chief of the Councellours with Queen Mary who did wonders for the good of Religion of the State It is true that Cranmer and other turbulent and seditious spirits were punished but so great a moderation was used that the Benefices and the Reveneues of the Church did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King without disturbing them on that innovation all things were continued that might any way be suffered not so much as changing any thing in marriages because they would not ensnare their spirits The heart of the Queen and of her ministers did think on nothing more than to establish Religion to entertain the holy See to render justice to comfort the people to procure peace and rest to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom They did begin again the golden age when after the reign of five years and odde moneths they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness which did oppress with grief all honest men and did bury with them in one Tomb the happiness and safety of that Kingdom O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason what vail hast thou cast on our Councels and our works What might we have not hoped from such beginnings What wisdom would not have concluded That felicity had crowned for ever the enterprizes of this Cardinal An affair so well conducted a negotiation so happy a business of State and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity Where are the fine plots of policy Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect The Chariots of the Romans which covered with Lawrels did march on the heads of Kings did not make their wayes remarkable but by stormings of Towns by Flames and Massacres But behold here many millions of men struck down and raised again with one onely speech so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment and made the happiest that any Ages have seen And after all this to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate and ruinate the house of God which should have reached to the imperial heaven O how true is it that there are the strokes of Fate that is to say an order of the secret purpose of God which is as concealed as inevitable nothing can divert nothing can delay it The counsels of the wise are here blinded their addresses are lost their activity troubled their patience tried and all their reasons confounded Poor Brittain God gave thee these two Great Lights not to enjoy them but as they passed by to behold them Thou art soiled with sacriledges and impieties thou art red with the bloud of the Martyrs The sins of Henrie are not yet expiated and the ignominious passions of his life are punished by the permission of the Errour The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God they will abate nothing of their periods if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority It pertaineth to God onely to know and appoint the times of punishment and Mercy and there is nothing more expedient for man than to submit to his Laws to obey his Decrees to reverence his Chastisements and to adore the Hand that strikes him FINIS THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES Written in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. And now translated into English Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCL The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes IF it be
ground Saint John Climacus saith fire is no more contrary to water than rash judgement is to the state of repentance It is a certain sign that we do not see our own sins when we seek curiously after the least defects of our neighbour If we would but once enter into our selves we should be so busie to lament our own lives that we should not have time to censure those of others Aspirations O Judge most redoubtable who dost plant thy Throne within the heart of man who judgest the greatest Monarchs without leaving them power to appeal Thy judgements are secret and impenetrable That which shines to our eyes like a Diamond is like a contemptible worm in thy ballance That which we value as a Star thou judgest to be a coal We have just so much greatness virtue and happiness as we have by enterance into thy heart And he whom thou esteemest needs not the judgement of mortal man No innocent is justified nor guilty person condemned without thee and therefore I will from henceforth judge onely according to thee I will lay down all my affections and take thine so far as I shall be able and I will account nothing great but what shall be so in thy esteem The Gospel upon Wednesday the fourth week in Lent S. John 9. Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle ANd Jesus passing by saw a blind man from his nativitie and his Disciples asked him Rabbi Who hath sinned this man or his parents that he should be born blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the vvorks of God may be manifested in him I must vvork the vvorks of him that sent me whiles it is day the night cometh vvhen no man can vvork As long as I am in the vvorld I am the light of the vvorld When he had said these things he spit on the ground and made clay of the spittle and spred the clay upon his eyes and said to him Go wash in the Pool of Silo which is interpreted sent He vvent therefore and vvashed and he came seeing Therefore the neighbours and they vvhich had seen him before that he vvas a beggar said Is not this he that sate and begged Others said that this is he But others no not so but he is like him But he said that I am he They said therefore to him How vvere thine eyes opened He answered that man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said to me Go to the Pool of Silo and vvash and I vvent and vvashed and saw And they said to him Where is he He saith I know not They bring him that had been blind to the Pharisees And it vvas the Sabbath vvhen Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes Again therefore the Pharisees asked him how he saw But he said to them he put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and I see Certain therefore of the Pharisees said This man is not of God that keepeth not the Sabbath But others said How can a man that is a sinner do these signs And there vvas a schism among them They say therefore to the blind again Thou vvhat sayest thou of him that opened thine eyes And he said that he is a Prophet The Jews therefore did not believe of him that he had been blind and saw until they called the Parents of him that saw and asked them saying Is this your son vvhom you say that he vvas born blind how then doth he now see His parents answered them and said We know that this is our son and that he was born blind but how be now seeth vve know not or vvho hath opened his eyes vveknow not ask himself he is of age let himself speak of himself These things his parents said because they feared the Jews For the Jews had now conspired that if any man should confess him to be Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Therefore did his parents say that he is of age ask himself They therefore again called the man that had been blind and said to him Give glorie to God vve know that this man is a sinner He therefore said to them Whether he be a sinner I know not one thing I know that vvhereas I was blind now I see They said therefore to him What did he to thee How did he open thine eyes He answered them I have now told you and you have heard vvhy vvill you hear it again vvill you also become his Disciples They reviled him therefore and said be thou his Disciple but vve are the Disciples of Moses vve know that to Moses God did speak but this man vve know not vvhence he is The man answered and said to them For in this it is marvellous that you know not vvhence he is and he hath opened mine eyes And vve know that sinners God doth not hear But if a man be a server of God and do the vvill of him him he heareth From the beginning of the vvorld it hath not been heard that any man hath opened the eyes of one born blind unless this man vvere of God he could not do any thing They answered and said to him Thou vvast vvholly born in sins and dost thou teach us And they did cast him forth Jesus heard that they cast him forth and vvhen he had found him he said to him Dost thou believe in the Son of God He answered and said Who is he Lord that I may believe in him And Jesus said to him Both thou hast seen him and he that talketh vvith thee he it is But he said I believe Lord and falling down he adored him Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all brightness who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles as the Sun doth with the hours of the day gives eyes to a blind man and doth it by clay and spittle to teach us that none hath power to do works above nature but he that was the Authour of it On the other side a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest sight and being restored to light he renders again the same to the first fountain from whence it came He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth and of a poor beggar becomes a confessour and after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities We should in imitation of him love the light by adoring the fountain of it and behave our selves as witnesses and defenders of the truth 2. God is a light and by his light draws all unto him he makes a break of day by his grace in this life which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity But many lose themselves in this world some for want of light some by a false light and some by having too much light 3. Those lose themselves for want of light who are not at all instructed in the faith and maxims of Christian Religion and those instead of