never in lite whilest he was in this body which rather dies than lives if perhaps he be not at the same time both in life and death joyntly that is in life which he lives untill that be ended and in death which he dies who is every moment deprived of some part of life For the same reason Quintilian said That we died every moment before the time of death was come And Seneca We erre when we look upon death as upon a thing to succeed since it hath both preceded and is also to follow for all what hath been before us is death And what imports it whether thou begin not at all or end since the effect of both is not to be Every day we die and every day we lose some part of life and in our very growth our life decreases and grows less and this very day wherein we live we divide with death Our lite in the book of wisdom is compared unto the passing of a shadow which as it may be said to be a kind of night so our life may be called a kind of death For as the shadow hath some part of light some of darkness so our life hath some part of death and some of life untill it come to end in a pure and solid death And since it is to end in a not being it is very little to be regarded especially compared with eternity which hath a being constant and for ever §. 2 All as hath been said which hath an end is little since it is to end in nothing Why therefore wilt thou lose much for that which is so little that which is true for what is false and a substance for a dream Hear what St. John Chrysostome sayes Hom. 20. ad Pop. If for having a pleasant dream onely for one night a man were to be tormented a hundred years when he were awake who would desire such a dream Far greater is the difference betwixt the truth of eternity and the dream of this life betwixt the eternal years of the ether world and the transitory ones of this Less is this life in respect of the eternal than an hours dream in respect of a hundred years awake less than a drop in respect of the whole sea Forbear then some small pleasure now that thou mayst not be deprived of all pleasures hereafter suffer rather some slight trouble at present than be tormented hereafter tor all eternity For as St. Augustine sayes better is a little bitterness in the throat than an eternal torment in the bowels All which passes in time Christ our Redeemer calls a very little A very little did he call the time of his passion and all those bitter pains which he suffered in it a very little that of the Martyrdome of his Apostles endured with so many sorts of torments a little a very little is all which in this life can be suffered in respect of eternal years Tract 10. in Jo. Although as St. Augustine sayes this little because we are yet in it appears great but when it shall be ended then we shall perceive how small and contemptible it is Let us place our selves in the end of life from that prospect we shall discern how small are all things which now seem great unto us Unto a most observant and religious Father of the Company of Jesus called Christopher Caro our Lord was pleased to give this lesson that he should often consider these two things O how much and O how little That is how much is eternity without end how little is the time of this life how much is God enjoyed for ever how little the contents of this earth which we are to leave behinde us how much it is to raign with Christ how little to serve our own appetite how much is eternal glory and how little to live long in this valley of tears Wherefore Eccksiasticus said The number of the dayes of man when many are an hundred years and are reputed as a drep of water and as a grain of sand So sew are our years in the day of eternity Little will all time whatsoever appear to merit that which is eternal With reason did St. Bernard often inculcate unto his Monks that saying of St. Hierome No labour ought to appear hard no torments long by which is gained the glory of eternity Unto Jacob the seven years which he served Laban seemed short for the love he bare unto Rachel why should then the service of God for a small time seem long unto us consider whom thou servest and wherefore and mark whom Jacob served and for what Thou servest the true God and for eternal glory he served a deceitful Idolater for a frail and fading beauty Compare thy services with those of Jacob see if thou hast served God as he served Laban Gen. 31. see if thou canst say By day I was scorched with heat and by night benummed with cold sleep fled from mine eyes and in this manner I served thee twenty years It with such fidelity this Servant of God served a Pagan how oughtest thou to serve God himself If thou beest truly his servant all ought to seem little unto thee since thou servest so good a Master and for so great a reward Look how thou imployest thy years which being but few for the meriting of so great a thing as Eternity thou sufferest to pass thorow thy fingers without any profit at all Well saith St. Augustin Lib. 10. contra Faust c. 6. was the time of this life signified by the spinning of the Parcae or fatal Sisters who were feigned by the wife Ancients to spin out the thread of life Time past was that which was wound up and roled upon the spindle Time to come the Flax which remained to spin upon the Distaffe and the present that which passed betwixt the fingers for truely we know not to imploy our time in filling our hands with holy works but suffer it without reflecting to pass through our fingers in matters of no substance or profit But better did David declare this ill imployment of time when he said Psal 89. Our years did meditate or as another lection hath it Did exercis as the spiders because Spiders spin not wool or flax but the excrements of their own entrails consuming and dissembowelling themselves to weave a webb which they work with their feet of so sleight a substance that in a moment it is rent in pieces and so little profit that it serves for no other use than to catch flies The life of man is full of vain labours vexations of various thoughts plots suspitions fears and cares in which it is wholly exercised and imployed linking and weaving one care into another still troubling it self with more being scarcely freed from one employment when it entangles it self in another and all so ill ordered and composed as if they had been managed by feet instead of hands still adding labour unto labour and toyl unto toyl as
much happiness he had not made use of it although the misfortune chanced without his fault But the miserable damned in hell when they shall perceive that by their own fault they have lost the occasion of so great blessings as are those of heaven it is incredible what grief and resentment shall possess them CAP. XV. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal THat we may yet better understand the smalness and baseness of all which is temporal I will not pass in silence the description of Time made by Platinus a famous Philosopher amongst the Platonicks who sayes that Time is an Image or Shadow of Eternity The which is conformable unto holy Scripture not onely unto that of David when he sayes that Man passes in a figure that is in time but unto that of the Wise-man Sap. 2. who defines Time in these words Our Time is the passing of a Shadow The which is no other than the imperfect moveable and vain Image of a thing consistent and solid Job 8. Job also sayes As a shadow are our dayes upon the earth And the Prophet David elsewhere My dayes have slided away as a shadow And in many other places of Scripture the same comparison is used to signifie the swiftness of Time and the vanity of our life Neither is it without mystery that the same comparison is so often used in those sacred Writings For truly few comparisons can be found more apt and proportionable for the expressing of what is Time and Eternity than that of a Statue and the Swadow of it For as a Statue remains for many years and Ages firm stable and immoveable without encrease or diminution whilest the Shadow is in continual motion now greater now lesser So is it with Time and Eternity Eternity is firm fixed and immoveable without receiving less or more Time is ever moving and changing as the Shadow which is great in the morning less at mid-day and towards night returns to its former greatness every moment changing and moving from one side unto another In the same manner the life of man hath no instant fixt but still goes on in perpetual changes and in the greatest prosperity is for the most part shortest Aman the same day he thought to sit at the Table of King Assuerus Esth 3. 7. by whom he had been exalted above all the Princes of his Kingdom was ignominiously hang'd Jud. 13. Holofernes when he hoped to enjoy the best day of his life was miserably beheaded by a woman King Baltassar in the most solemn and celebrated day of his whole raign Dan. 5. wherein he made ostentation of his great riches and royal entertainment was slain by the Persians Act. 12. Herod when he most desired to shew his Majesty being cloathed in a rich habit of Tissue embroidered with gold and by the acclamations of the people saluted as a God was mortally struck from heaven There is nothing constant in this life The Moon hath every Moneth her changes but the life of man hath them every day every hour Now he is sick now in health now sorrowful now merry now cholerick Sinesius hym 6. now fearful in so much as Sinesius not without reason compared his life unto Euripus a Streight of the Sea which ebbs and flows seaven times in a day as the most constant which is the most just man in the world falls every day seaven times The shadow wheresoever it passes leaves no track behinde it and of the greatest personages in the world when they are once dead there remains no more than if they had never lived How many preceding Emperors in the Assyrian Monarchy were Lords of the world as well as Alexander and now we remain not onely ignorant of their Monuments but know not so much as their names And of the same great Alexander what have we at this day except the vain noise of his fame Venus Alsâ—rsus Kikâ—â—ius de noviss art 4. Let that Company of Philosophers inform us who the day following assembled at his dead Corps One of them said Yesterday the whole circumference of the world sufficed not Alexander this day two yards of ground serve his turn Another in admiration cried out Yesterday Alexander was able to redeem innumerable people from the hands of death this day he cannot free himself A third exclaims Yesterday Alexander oppressed the whole earth and this day the earth oppresses him and there is no footstep in it left by which he passed Moreover how great is the difference betwixt a Statua of Gold or Marble and the Shadow That is solid and of a precious substance and this hath no being or body In the same manner the life eternal is most precious and of great concernment the temporal vain and miserable without substance The Shadow hath no other being but to be a privation of the most excellent quality in nature and of the most beautiful thing the world produces which is the light of the Sun In the same manner this life without substance or being is a privation of our greatest happiness Wherefore Job said Job 9. His dayes fled away and his eyes saw not what was good This said he who was a Prince and possessed great riches and many Servants and a numerous Family and yet he sayes that in his life he saw not what was good which he might say with much truth because the goods of this life are not to be called such and if they were yet the pleasure of them endures so short a space as they are done before we are sensible of them and if they should continue some time yet being subject to end they are to be esteemed as if they were not The which was confessed by a certain Cavalier called Rowland Hist de S. Dom. who having been present at a Feast celebrated with great cost and bravery to the high content and satisfaction of the invited Guests at night when he returned home cried out with much bitterness of spirit Where is the Feast we had to day where is the glory of it how is this day past without leaving any tract behinde it even so shall the rest of this life pass without leaving any thing to suceed it but eternal sorrow This consideration sufficed to make him change his life and the next day to enter into Religion And as in a shadow all is obscurity so this life is full of darkness and deceit Whereupon Zacharias said That men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death Much are we deceived whilest we live in this body of death since this life although short appears long unto us and being miserable yet we are pleased and content with it and being nothing yet it seems as if it were all things and there is not any danger which men undergoe not for the love they bear it even unto the hazard of Eternity Doubtless this is the most prejudicial
instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire Neither shall they be Masters so much as of that broken pot wherein to contain a little water if it might be given them Jsai 30. For as Isaias sayes There shall not remain unto them so much as the shread of a broken pot to hold a little water from the pit nor shall there be any found to give it them That rich Glutton in the Gospel accustomed to drink in Cups of Chrystal to eat in Silver and to be cloathed in Silks and curious Linnens can tell us how far this infernal poverty extends when he demanded not wines of Candie but a little cold water and that not in Cups of Gold or Chrystal but upon the fingers end of a Leper This rich and nice Glutton came to such an extremity that he would esteem it a great felicity that they would give him but one drop of water although it were from the filthy and loathsome finger of a Leper and yet this also was wanting unto him Let the rich of the World see to what poverty they are like to come if they trust in ther riches let them know that they shall be condemned to the loss of all which is good Let them reflect upon him who was accustomed to be cloathed in precious Garments to tread upon Carpets to sleep upon Down to dwell in spacious Palaces now naked thrown upon burning coals and packt up in some narrow corner of that infernal Dungeon Let us therefore fear the riches of this World and the poverty of the other §. 4. This poverty or want of all good of the damned is accompanied with a most opprobrious infamy and dishonour when by publick sentence they shall be deprived for their enormous offences of eternal glory and reprehended in the presence of Saints and Angels by the Lord of Heaven and Earth This infamy shall be so great that St. Chrysostom speaks of it in these words A most intolerable thing is Hell Chrys in Math. 24. and most horrible are the torments yet if me should place a thousand Hells before me nothing could be so horrible unto me as to be excluded from the honour of glory to be hated of Christ and to hear from him these words I know you not This infamy we may in some sort declare under the example of a mighty King who having no Heir to succeed him in his Kingdom took up a beautiful Boy at the Church door and nourished him as his Son and in his Testament commanded that if at ripe years his conditions were vertuous and sutable to his calling he should be received as lawful King and seated in his Royal Throne but if he proved vitious and unfit for Government they should punish him with infamy and send him to the Gallies The Kingdom obeyed this Command provided him excellent Masters and Tutors but he became so untoward and ill-inclined that he would learn nothing flung away his books spent his time amongst other Boyes in making houses of dirt and other childish fooleries for which his Governors corrected and chastised him and advised him of what was fitting and most imported him but all did no good onely when they reprehended him he could weep not because he repented but because they hindred his sport and the next day did the same The more he grew in age the worse he became and although they informed him of the Kings Testament and what behooved him all was to no purpose until at last after all possible care and diligence his Tutors and the whole Kingdom weary of his ill conditions in a publick Assembly declared him unworthy to raign dispoiled him of his Royal Ornaments and condemned him with infamy unto the Gallies What greater affront and ignominy can there be than this to lose a Kingdom and to be made a Gally-slave for I do not know which of these things that young man would be more sensible of More ignominious and a more lamentable Tragedy is that of a Christian condemned to Hell who was taken by God from the gates of death adopted his Son with condition that if he kept his Commandments he should raign in Heaven and if not he should be condemned to Hell Yet he forgetting these obligations without respect of his Tutors and Masters who were the holy Angels especially his Angel Guardian who failed not to instill into him holy inspirations and other learned and spiritual men who exhorted him both by their doctrine and example what was fitting for a Child of God But he neither moved by their advices nor the chastisements of Heaven by which God overthrew his vain intentions and thwarted his unlawful pleasures onely lamented his temporal losses and not his offences and at the time of his death was sentenced to be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and precipitated into Hell What infamy can be greater than this of the damned Soul for if it be a great infamy to suffer death by Humane Justice for some crimes committed how great an infamy will it be to be condemned by Divine Justice for a Traitor and perfidious Rebel to God Besides this bitterness of pains the damned persons shall also be eternally branded with the infamy of their offences so as they shall be scorned and scoft at by the Devils themselves and not onely Devils but all rational creatures Men and Angels shall detest them as infamous and wicked Traitors to their King God and Redeemer Jsai 13. Facies combustae vultus eorum And as fugitive Slaves are marked and cauterized with burning irons so this infamy by some special mark of ugliness and deformity shall be stamped upon their faces and bodies so as Albertus Magnus sayes so ignominious shall be the body of a Sinner that when his Soul returns to enter it it shall be amazed to behold it so horrible and shall wish it were rather in the same state as when it was half eaten up by worms CAP. IX The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell ANother kind of punishment of great discomfort and affliction is that of Exile which the Damned shall suffer in the highest degree For they shall be banished into the profound bowels of the Earth a place most remote from Heaven and the most calamitous of all others where they shall neither see the Sun by day nor the Stars by night where all shall be horror and darkness and therefore it was said of that condemned person Cast him forth into utter darkness forth of the City of God forth of the Heavens forth of this World where he may never more appear into that land which is called in the Book of Job A dark land Job 10. covered with the obscurity of death a land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabits a land according to Isaias Jsai 34. of sulphur and burning pitch a land of
the goods of life being limited it bestows them with a limited and restrained hand Even life it self it gives us but by peeces and mingles as many parts of death as it gives of life The age of Infancy dies when we enter into that of Childhood that of Childhood when we become Youths that of youth when we come to the age of Manhood that when we are old and even old age it self expires when we become decrepit so that during the same life we find many deaths and yet can hardly perswade our selves that we shall die one Let us cast our eyes upon our life past let us consider what is become of our Infancy Childhood and Youth they are now dead in us In the same manner shall those ages of our life which are to come die also Neither do we onely die in the principal times of life but every hour every moment includes a kinde of death in the succession and change of things What content is there in life which quickly dies not by some succeeding sorrow what affliction of pain which is not followed by some equal or greater grief then it self why are we grieved for what is absent since it offends us being present what we desire with impatience being possest brings care and sollicitude loss grief and affliction The short time which any pleasure stayes with us it is not to be enjoyed wholly and all at once but tasted by parts so as when the second part comes we feel not the pleasure of the first lessening it self every moment and we our selves still dying with it there being no instant of life wherein death gains not ground of us The motion of the Heavens is but the swift turn of the spindle which rol's up the thread of our lives and a most fleet horse upon which death runs post after us There is no moment of life wherein death hath not equal jurisdiction and as a Philosopher saith there is no point of life which we divide not with death so as if well considered we live but one onely point and have not life but for this present instant Our years past are now vanisht and we enjoy no more of them than if we were already dead the years to come we yet live not and possess no more of them than if we were not yet born Yesterday is gone to morrow we know not what shall be of to day many hours are past and we live them not others are to come and whether we shall live them or no is uncertain so that all counts cast up we live but this present moment and in this also we are dying so that we cannot say that life is any thing but the half of an instant and an indivisible point divided betwixt it and death With reason as Zacharias said may this temporal life be called The shadow of death since under the. shadow of life death steals upon us and as at every step the body takes the shadow takes another so at every pace our life moves forward death equally advances with it And as Eternity hath this proportion that it is ever in beginning and is therefore a perpetual beginning so life is ever ending and concluding and may therefore be called a perpetual end and a continual death There is no pleasure in life which although it should last twenty continued years that can be present with us longer than an instant and that with such a counterpoise that in it death no less approaches than life is enjoyed Time is of so small a being and substance and consequently our life Phys 4. trac 7. c. 4. that as Albertus Magnus saith it hath no essence permanent and stable but only violent and successive with which not being able to detain it self in its Careere it precipitates into Eternity and like an ill mouthed horse runs headlong on and tramples under toot all it meets with and without stopping ruins what it finds before it And as we cannot perfectly enjoy the sight of some gallant Cavalier deckt with jewels and adorned with glitterring bravery who with bridle on the neck passed in a full Careere before us so are we not able perfectly to enjoy the things of this life which are still in motion and never rest one moment but run headlong on until they dash themselves in peeces upon the rock of death and perish in their end The name which the Emperour Marcus Aurelius gave unto Time Mar. Aurel Anton lib. 4. when he said that it was a furious and a raging wave did not a little express this condition of it for as such a wave sinks and overwhelms the Vessel not permitting the Merchant to enjoy the treasures with which she was laden so Time with his violence and fury ruins and drowns all that runs along in it This Philosopher considering the brevity and fleeting of Time judged a long and a short life to be the same whole opinion for our further understanding I shall here relate If some of the Gods saith he should tell thee that thou wert to die to morrow or the day after thou wouldest not except thou wert of a base and abject spirit make any account whether since the difference and distance betwixt the two dayes were so small In the same manner thou art to judge of the difference of dying to morrow and a thousand years hence Consider seriously how many Physicians who with knit brows have handled the pulses of their sick Patients are now themselves dead how many Mathematicians who gloried in foretelling the death of others how many Philosophers who have disputed subtilly of death and mortality how many famous Captains who have kill'd and destroyed a multitude of poor people how many Kings and Tyrants who with insolency have used their power over their oppressed Vassals how many Cities If I may so say have dyed as Helice Pompeios Herculanum and innumerable others Add unto these how many thou thy self hast known to die and assisted at their Exequies and that which yesterday was fish and fresh is to day laid in pickle or dust Momentary then is all time All this from this most-wise Prince CAP. XII How short Life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised BEhold then what is Time and what thy Life and see if there can be any thing imagined more swift and more inconstant than it Compare Eternity which continues ever in the same state with Time which runs violently on and is ever changing and cousider that as Eternity gives a value and estimation unâ—â— those things which it preserves so Time disparages and takes away the value of those that end in it The least joy of Heaven is to be esteemed as infinite because it is infinite in duration and the greatest content of the earth is to be valued as nothing because it ends and concludes in nothing The least torment in hell ought to cause an immense fear because it is to last without end and the greatest pains of this
quality of temporal life that having in it self no truth or reality yet it paints and sets forth that false ware which it hath with much beauty and lustre to our perdition Wherefore Aeschylus said That it was not onely a shadow of life but also a shadow of smoak which blindes and smuts and is a thing so inconstant and vain which is also suitable to that of David when he said That his dayes vanished like smoak and grew towards an end like a shadow joyning together the shadow and smoak two things the most vain of any in the world Even Pindarus exaggerates it yet more saying That it was no shadow but the dream of a shadow and what is it else but to dream to perswade ones self that this life is long and hope for prosperity in it This certainly is the greatest deceit which is put upon man and the chief cause of all his evils that he suffers not himself to be perswaded what life is and the shortness of it For as the Shadow is nothing less than the Statua whole Shadow it is yet appears like it and is the figure of it so although this life be most short and nothing less than eternity yet it looks like it and unto us it seems as if it were eternal This is a most hurtful and costly cosenage For if life should appear what it is and not lie unto us we should not put our trust in it nor make such esteem of those goods and blessings which it promises which in themselves are so deceitful and uncertain but being as it is an image and a shadow all which it proposes unto us is but feigned and dissembled promising great happiness when it is onely full of misery and calamity although disguis'd in such manner as we know them not How contented goes the Bride unto her Marriage Bed and yet within a short time laments her unfortunate choice with what gust does the ambitious man enter upon his office which is but a Seminary of future sorrow and vexation what joy doe those riches bring along with them which in the end are to be the death of the possessor All is deceit dissimulation falshood and prejudice and yet we like frantick people are not sensible of our mischiefs Unto how many infirmities is the body of a man exposed with what imaginations is he afflicted and deceived with how many labours and toyls does he daily wrestle with what thoughts and apprehensions doth he torment himself what dangers of soul and body doth he run into what fopperies is he forced to behold what injuries to suffer what necessities and afflictions Nay such is our whole life that it seemed unto St. Bernard little less evil than that of hell Sermo de ascen Domini but onely for the hope we have of heaven Our Infancy is full of ignorance and fears our Youth of sins our Age of sorrow and our whole life of dangers There is none content with his condition but he who will die whilst he lives in so much as life cannot be good unless it must resemble death Finally as the Shadow is in such manner an image as it represents all things to the contrary so as he who shall place himself betwixt the Statua and the Shadow shall perceive that that which is upon the right hand of the Statua the Shadow represents upon the left and what it has upon the left the Shadow hath upon the right so Time is in such manner the Image of Eternity as it has all its properties to the contrary Eternity hath no end but Life and Time have a speedy one Eternity hath no change but nothing is more mutable than Time Eternity suffers no comparison by reason of its infinite greatness but Life and all the goods of it are short and little and derived from the earth which is but a point THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Of the End of Temporal Life LEt us now consider how contrary unto the conditions of Eternity are those which accompany this our miserable life Let us begin with the first Which is to be limited and subject to an end In the which two things are to be considered The End and the Manner of it which perhaps is of more misery than the end it self And truly although the end of life should fall under humane election and that it were in the power of Man to make choice how many years he would continue in life and after what manner he would then leave it and that it might conclude some other way than by death or sickness yet the consideration that it and all things temporal were to perish and at last to have an end were sufficient to make us despise it and that very thought would drown all the pleasures and contents which it could afford us For as all things are of greater or lesser esteem according to the length and shortness of their duration so life being to end be it in what manner soever is much to be disvalued A fair Vessel of Chrystal if it were as consistent and durable as Gold were more precious than Gold it self but being frail and subject to break it loses its estimation and although of it self it might last long yet being capable by some careless mischance of being broken it becomes of much less value In the same manner our life which is much more frail than glass being subject to perish by a thousand accidents and though none of them should happen could not long continue since it consumes it self must needs together with those temporal goods which attend it be most contemptible But considering that the ending of it is by the way of death infirmities and misfortunes which are the Harbingers and prepare the way for death it is to be admired that Man who knows he is to die makes account of temporal felicity seeing the misery in which the prosperity of this world and the Majesty of the greatest Monarchs are at last to finish Wherein ended King Antiochus Lord of so many Provinces 1 Machab 6. 2 Machab 9. but in a disconsolate and mortal Melancholy in a perpetual waking which with want of sleep bereft him of his judgment in a grievous torture in his belly which forced him to void his very entrails in a perpetual pain in his bones that he was not able to move And he who seemed to command the waves of the Sea and that the highest mountains of the Earth hung upon his finger ends whose Majesty was once lifted up above all humane power could not then preserve himself in his own Kingdom nor move one pace from the place where they layd him he who cloathed himself in soft Silks and pure Linnens he whose Garments were more fragrant than the most precious spices cast now such a smell from his putrified members that none could endure his presence and being yet alive his whole body swarmed with loathsome vermin his flesh dropped away by
powerful is subject to most impetuous storms whose end is to be sunk and overthrown O how wavering and uncertain is the height of the greatest honours false is the hope of man and vain is all his glory affected with feigned and fawning flatteries O uncertain life due unto perpetual toyl and labour what doth it now profit me to have fired so many stately and lofty buildings to have destroyed so many Cities and their people What doth it now profit me O Brother to have raised so many costly Palaces of Marble when I now die in the open field and in the sight of heaven O how many things doest thou now think of doing not knowing the bitterness of their end Thou beholdest me now dying and know that thou also shalt quickly follow me § 2. But let us forbear to look upon those several kindes of death which are incident to humane nature Let us onely consider that which is esteemed the most happy when we die not suddenly or by violence but by some infirmity which leasurely makes an end of us or by a pure resolution which naturally brings death along with it What greater misery of mans life than this that that death should be accounted happy not that it is so but because it is less miserable than others for what grief and sorrow doth not he pass who dies in this manner how do the accidents of his infirmities afflict him The heat of his Fever which scorches his entrails The thirst of his mouth which suffers him not to speak The pain of his head which hinders his attention The sadness and melancholy of his heart proceeding from the apprehension that he is to die besides other grievous accidents which are usually more in number than a humane body hath members to suffer together with remedies which are commonly no less painful than the evils themselves To this add the grief of leaving those he loves best and above all the uncertainty whither he is to goe to heaven or hell And if onely the memory of death be said to be bitter what shall be the experience Saul who was a man of great courage oncly because it was told him that the next day he was to die fell half dead upon the ground with fear For what news can be more terrible unto a sinner than that he is to die to leave all his pleasure in death and to give an account unto God for his life past If lots were to be cast whether one should have his flesh pluckt off with burning pincers or be made a King with what fear and anxiety of mind would that man expect the issue how then shall he look who in the agony of his death wrastles with Eternity and within two hours space looks for glory or torments without end What life can be counted happy if that be happy which ends with so much misery If we will not believe this let us ask him who is now passing the traunces of death what his opinion is of life Let us now enquire of him when he lies with his breast sticking forth his eyes sunk his feet dead his knees cold his visage pale his pulses without motion his breath short a Crucifix in one hand and a Taper in the other those who assist at his death bidding him say Jesus Jesus and advising him to make an Act of Contrition what will this man say his life was but by how much more prosperous by so much more vain and that all his felicity was false and deceitful since it came to conclude in such a period what would he now take for all the honours of this world Certainly I believe he would part with them at an easie rate Nay if they have been offensive to God Almighty he would give all in his power he had never enjoyed them and would willingly change them all for one Confession well made Philip the third was of this mind and would at that time have exchanged his being Monarch of all Spain and Lord of so many Kingdomes in the four parts of the world for the Porters Keyes of some poor Monastery Death is a great discoverer of truth What thou wouldest then wish to have been be now whilest it is in thy power A fool thou art if thou neglect it now when thou mayst and then wish it when it is too late He who unto the hour of his death hath enjoyed all the delights the world can give him at that hour what remains with him Nothing or if any thing a greater grief And what of all his penances and labours suffered for Christ Certainly if he had endured more than all the Martyrs he shall then feel no pain or grief of them all but much comfort Judge then if it shall not be better for thee to do that now which thou shalt then know to have been the better Consider of how little substance all temporal things will appear when thou shalt be in the light of eternal The honours which they have given thee shall be no more thine the pleasures wherein thou hast delighted can be no more thine thy riches are to be anothers See then whether the happiness of this life which is not so long as life it self be of that value that for it we should part with eternal felicity I beseech thee ponder what is life and what is death Life is the passing of a shadow short troublesome and dangerous a place which God hath given us in time for the deserving of Eternity Consider with thy self why God leads us about in the Circuit of this life when he might at the first instant have placed us in heaven Was it perhaps that we should here mispend our time like beasts and wallow in the base pleasures of our senses and daily invent new Chimera's of vain and frivolous honours No certainly it was not but that by vertuous actions we might gain heaven shew what we owe unto our Creator and in the middest of the troubles and afflictions of this life discover how loyal and faithful we are unto our God For this he placed us in the Lists that we should take his part and defend his honour for this he entred us into this Militia and Warfare for as Job sayes the life of man is a warfare upon earth that here we might fight for him and in the middest of his and our Enemies shew how true and faithful we are unto him Were it fit that a Souldier in the time of Battail should stand disarmed passing away his time at Dice upon a Drum-head and what laughter would that Roman Gladiator cause who entring into the place of Combat should set him down upon the Arena and throw away his Arms This does he who seeks his ease in this life and sets his affections upon the things of the earth not endeavouring those of heaven nor thinking upon death where he is to end A Peregrination is this life and what passenger is so besotted with the pleasures of the way that he forgets
make the poor Philosopher to forbear his dinner and not to relish one morsel of the Feast with pleasure Thou then who art no more secure of thy life than he how canst thou delight in the pleasures of the world he who every moment expects death ought no moment to delight in life This onely consideration of death according to Ricardus was sufficient to make us distaste all the pleasures of the earth A great danger or fear suffices to take away the sense of lesser joyes and what greater danger then that of Eternity Death is therefore uncertain that thou shouldest be ever certain to despise this life and dispose thy self for the other Thou art every hour in danger of death to the end that thou shouldest be every hour prepared to leave life What is death but the way unto eternity A great journey thou hast to make wherefore doest thou not provide in time and the rather because thou knowest not how soon thou mayest be forced to depart The People of God because they knew not when they were to march were for forty years which they remained in the Wilderness ever in a readiness Be thou then ever in a readiness since thou mayst perhaps depart to day Consider there is much to do in dying prepare thy self whilest thou hast time and do it well For this many years were necessary wherefore since thou knowest not whether thou shalt have one day allowed thee why doest thou not this day begin to dispose thy self If when thou makest a short journey and hast furnished and provided thy self of all things fitting yet thou commonly findest something to be forgotten how comes it to pass that for so long a journey as is the Region of Eternity thou thinkest thy self sufficiently provided when thou hast scarce begun to think of it Who is there who does not desire to have served God faithfully two years before death should take him if then thou art not secure of one why doest thou not begin Trust not in thy health or youth for death steals treacherously upon us when we least look for it for according to the saying of Christ our Redeemer it will come in an hour when it is not thought on And the Apostle said the day of the Lord would come like a theef in the night when none were aware of it and when the Master of the house was in a profound sleep Promise not thy self to morrow for thou knowest not whether death will come to night The day before the Children of Israel went forth of Egypt how many of that Kingdom young Lords and Princes of Families promised themselves to doe great matters the next day or perhaps within a year after yet none of them lived to see the morning Wisely did Messodamus who as Guido Bituricensis writes when one invited him forth the next day to dinner answered My friend why doest thou summon me for to morrow since it is many years that I durst not promise any thing for the day following every hour I look for death there is no trust to be given to strength of Body youthful years much riches or humane hopes Hear what God sayes to the Prophet Amos Amos 8. In that day the Sun shall set at midday and I will over-cast the earth with darkness in the day of light What is the setting of the Sun at midday but when men think they are in the middest of their life in the flower of their age when they hope to live many years to possess great wealth to marry rich wives to shine in the world then death comes and over-over-shadows the brightness of their day with a cloud of sorrow as it happened in the Story related by Alexander Faya Alex. Faya To. 2. Ladislaus King of Hungary and Bohemia sent a most solemn Embassage unto Charles King of France for the conducting home of that Kings Daughter who was espoused unto the Prince his Son The chief Embassador elected for this journey was Vdabricas Bishop of Passaw for whose Attendants were selected 200 principal men of Hungary 200 of Bohemia and other 200 of Austria all persons of eminent Birth and Nobility so richly clad and in so brave an Equipage that they appeared as so many Princes To these the Bishop added an hundred Gentlemen chosen out of his own Subjects so that they passed through France 700 Gentlemen in company most richly accoutred and for the greater Pomp and Magnificence of the Embassage there went along with them 400 beautiful Ladies in sumptuous habits and adorned with most costly jewels the Coaches which carried them were studded with gold and enchased with stones of value Besides all this were many Gifts and rich Garments of inestimable price which they brought along with them for Presents But the very day that this glorious Embassage entred Paris before they came at the place appointed for their entertainment a Curriere arrived with the news of the death of the espoused Prince Such was the grief that struck the heart of the French King with so unexpected a news as he could neither give an answer to the Embassage nor speak with the Embassadour or those who accompanied him and so they departed most sorrowful from Paris and every one returned unto his own home In this manner God knows by the means of death to fill the earth with darkness and sorrow in the day of greatest brightness as he spake by his Prophet Since then thou knowest not when thou art to dye think thou must dye to day and be ever prepared for that which may ever happen Trust in the mercies of God and imploy them incessantly but presume not to deferre thy conversion for a moment For who knows whether thou shalt ever from hence forward have time to invoke him and having invoked him whether thou shalt deserve to be heard Know that the mercy of God is not promised to those who therefore trust in him that they may sin with hope of pardon but unto those who fearing his Divine Justice cease to offend him wherefore St. Cregory says The mercies of Almighty God forget him Greg. in moral who forgets his Justice nor shall he find him merciful who does not fear him just For this it is so often repeated in Scripture That the mercy of God is for those who fear him And in one part it is said The mercy of the Lord from eternity unto eternity is upon those who fear him And in anothâ—r As the Father hath mercy on his Son so the Lord hath mercy on these who fear him In another According to the height from earth unto heaven he has corroborated his mercy upon those that fear him Finally the very Mother of mercy sayes in her Divine Canticle That the mercy of the Lord is from generation to generation upon those who fear him Thou seest then that the Divine mercy is not promised unto all and that thou shalt remain excluded from it whilest thou presumest and doest not fear his justice And
shall with great grief remember how often he might have gained Heaven and did it not but is now tumbled into Hell and shall say unto himself How many times might I have prayed and spent that time in play but now I pay for it How many times ought I to have fasted and left it to satisfie my greedy appetite How many times might I have given alms and spent it in sin How many times might I have pardoned my enemies and chose rather to be revenged How many times might I have frequented the Sacraments and forbore them because I would not quit the occasion of sinning There never wantted means of serving God but I never made use of it and am therefore now justly paid for all Behold accursed Caitiff that entertaining thy self in pleasures thou hast for toyes and fooleries lost Heaven If thou wouldest thou mightest have been a companion for Angels if thou wouldest thou mightest have been in eternal joy and thou hast lost all for the pleasure of a moment O accursed and wretched fool thy Redeemer courted thee with Heaven and thou despisedst him for a base trifle This was thy fault and now thou sufferest for it and since thou wouldest not be happy with God thou shalt now be eternally cursed by him and his Angels The Understanding shall torment it self with discourses of great bitterness discoursing of nothing but what may grieve it Aristotle shall not there take delight in his wisdom nor Seneca comfort himself with his Philosophy Galen shall find no remedy in his Physick nor the profoundest Scholar in his Divinity A certain Doctor of Paris appeared after death unto the Bishop of that City and gave him an account that he was damned The Bishop demanded of him if he had there any knowledge He answered That he knew nothing but onely three things The first that he was eternally damned The second that the Sentence past against him was irrevocable The third that for the vain pleasure of the world he was deprived of the vision of God And then he desired to know of the Bishop if there were any people in the world remaining The Bishop asking him the reason of that question he answered that within these few last dayes there have so many souls descended into Hell that me-thinks there should not any be left upon earth In this power of the Soul is engendered tho worm of conscience which is so often proposed unto us in holy Scripture as a most terrible torment and greater than that of fire Onely in one Sermon or rather in the Epilogue of that Sermon Christ our Redeemer three times menaces us with that Worm Marc. 9. which gnaws the consciences and tears in pieces the hearts of the Damned admonishing us as often That their worm shall never die nor their sire be quenched For as the worm which breeds in dead flesh or that which breeds in wood eats and gnaws that substance of which they are engendered so the Worm which is bred from sin is in perpetual enmity with it gnawing and devouring the heart of the sinner with raging desperate and now unprofitable grief still putting him in mind that by his own fault he lost that eternal glory which he might so easily have obtained and is now fallen into eternal torments from whence there is no redemption And certainly this resentment of the loss of Heaven shall more torment him than the fire of Hell Of an evil conscience even in this life St. Austin said Aug. in Psal 45. Quint. Declam 12. Senec. ep 97. that amongst all the tribulations of the Soul none was greater than that of a guilty conscience Even the Gentils knew this and therefore Quintilian exclaims O sad remembrance and knowledge more grievous than all torments And Seneca sayes that evil actions are whipt by the conscience of themselves that perpetual vexation and resentment brings great afflictions and torments upon the Actors that wickedness drinks up the greatest part of its own poison and is a punishment unto it self Certainly it were a great rigour if a Father should be forced to be present at the execution of his Son but more if he should be compelled to be the Hangman and yet greater if the Gallows should be placed before his own door so that he could neither go in or out without beholding that affront and contumely but far greater crueltie if they should make the guilty person to execute himself and that by cutting his body in pieces member after member or tearing off his flesh with his own teeth This is the cruelty and torment of an evil Conscience with which a sinner is racked and tortured amongst those eternal flames not being able to banish his faults from his memory nor their punishment from his thoughts The envy also which they shall bear towards those who have gained Heaven by as small matters as they have lost it shall much add to their grief Those who are hungry if they see others meaner than they feed at some splendid and plentiful Table and cannot be admitted themselves become more hungry so shall it fare with the damned who shall be more afflicted by beholding others sometimes less than themselves enjoy that eternal happiness which they through want of care are deprived of Esau though a Clown having understood that his Brother Jacob had obtained his Fathers Benediction cried out and roared like a Lion and consumed himself with resentment and horror What lamentations shall those of the damned be when they shall see that the Just have gained the Benediction of God not by any deceit or cozenage used by them but that they lost it through their own neglect Those who with opinion of merit earnestly aim at some vacant Dignity if at length they see themselves neglected and with shame put off their grief and indignation swells above measure In like manner I say shall it be with those damned wretches who will be far more afflicted by the consideration of those great goods and eternal felicities which they see themselves have lost and those to enjoy them whom they deemed far inferiour to them in merit Let us now therefore have remorse of conscience whilest we may kill the Worm lest it then bite us when it cannot die CAP. XI Of Eternal Death and the Punishment of Talion in the Damned AFter all this there shall not want in Hell the pains of Death which amongst humane punishments is the greatest That of Hell is a living Death and doth as far exceed this of earth as the substance doth a shadow The Death which men give together with death takes away the pain and sense of dying but the Eternal Death of sinners is with sense and by so much greater as it hath more of life recollecting within it self the worst of dying which is to perish and the most intolerable of life which is to suffer pain And therefore St. Bernard calls the pain of the damned a living Death and a dead Life and Pope Innocent the
Third an immortal Death O Death how much less cruel art thou in taking away life than in forcing to live in so painful a manner Greg. Moral l. 9. c. 49. St. Gregory also sayes In hell there shall be unto the miserable a death without death and an end without end for their death shall ever live and their end shall ever begin Mortal sin is the greatest of all evils and consequently deserves the greatest of all punishments Because in ordinary death which takes away the use of the senses the rigour of it is not felt God ordained another kind of death in which the senses perpetually dying should perpetually feel the force of pain and should ever live in the agony of dying This David signitied when he said That death should feed on the damned for as the Flock pastures upon the grass but ends it not because it still grows green and fresh again so that death feeds upon sinners but consumes them not This death of the damned the holy Scripture calls the second death Because it succeeds the first and comprehends both that of soul and bodie And with much reason may it also be called a double death because death is then doubled when we die and feel the torment of dying which in the first death of the body we do not Even here amongst us if there should be a condition in which we might be sensible but of some part of that which death brings along with it it would be esteemed a greater evil than death it self Who doubts but if one after burial should find himself alive and sensible under the earth where he could speak with no body see nothing but darkness hear nothing but those who walked above him smell nothing but the rotten stink of their bodies cat nothing but his own flesh nor feel any thing but the earth which opprest him or the cold pavement of the Vault where he lay Who doubts not I say but that this estate were worse than to be wholly dead since life onely served to feel the pain of death For this reason the ingenious Romans when they would punish Sacriledge which is the greatest crime made use of interring the offenders alive as of the greatest punishment and therefore executed it upon their Vestal Virgins when they offended a gainst their chastity as upon Oppia and Minutia that being alive they might feel the pain and bitterness of dying And certainly Zeno the Emperour found this punishment so bitter that he devoured his own flesh by morsels What Sepulcher is more horrible than that of Hell what is eternally shut upon those who are in it whore the miserable damned remain not onely under earth but under fire having sense for nothing but to feel death darkness loathsomness pain and stink This is therefore a double death because to feel the pain of death is an evil double to that of dying Lib. 6. de Civit. ca. 12. Wherefore St. Austin said No death is greater or worse than where death dies not Besides this death of Hell may be called a double death in respect it contains both the death of sin ang the death of pain those unfortunate wretches standind condemned never to be freed from the death of sin and for ever to be tormented with the death of pain There is no greater death than that of the Soul which is sin in which the miserable are to continue whilest God is God with that infinite evil and that ugly deformity which sin draws along with it which is worse than to suffer that eternal fire which is but the punishment of it After sin what pain should there be greater than that of sin it self and for this reason in Hell in regard 't is the torment for sin it is a greater pain than death it self or the most horrible death of all Who trembles not with the onely memory that he is to die remembring that he is to cease to be that the feet whereon he walks are no more to bear him that his hands are no more to serve him nor his eyes to see Why then do we not rather tremble at the thought of Hell in respect of which the first death is no punishment but a reward a happiness and a joy there being no damned in Hell but would take that death which we here inflict for offences as an ease of his pains O how much does the Divine Justice exceed the humane since that which men give unto those whom they condemn for the greatest offences would be received by those whom God condemns as a great ease comfort and accomplishment of their desires who shall desire death and death shall flye from them for unto all their evils and miseries this as the greatest is adjoyned that neither They nor It shall shall ever die This circumstance of being eternal doth much augment the torments of Hell such being the condition of eternity as hath been already declared that it doth infinitely augment that whereunto it is annexed Let us suppose that one had but a Gnat that should sting his right hand and a Wasp at the left and that one foot should be pricked with a Thorn and the other with a Pin. If this onely were to last for ever it would be an intolerable torment What will it then be when hands feet arms head bread and entrails are to burn for all eternity The onely holding one finger in a Candle for the space of a quarter of an hour no body would be able to suffer it To be then plunged into the infernal flames for years eternal what understanding is there that is able I do not say to express in words but to frame a due conception of this torment That a torment is never to cease and that the tormented is to live for ever the onely thinking of it causes great horror What would it be to suffer it Sur. To. 7. die 14. April A certain man who had not much repentance or feeling it seems of his sins having expressed divers most heinous offences to the holy Virgin St. Lidwine the Saint replyed That she would do penance for them contenting her self that he should onely lye in his Bed one night in the same posture looking up towards Heaven without moving or turning himself all night The man very contented and joyful If my penance says he be no greater than this I shall soon have performed it But he was scarce laid down in his Bed when he had a mind to turn on one side it being a great trouble to him not to do it perswading himself that he never lay so uneasie his whole life before and said unto himself My Bed is a very good one and soft I am well in health what is wanting to me nothing else is wanting but onely to turn me from one side to the other But this what is it be quiet and sleep as thou art till morning Canst thou not then tell me what doth aile thee By this means he call'd
to last for ever in regard he had the good fortune to save his Soul Wherefore if one onely disastrous day after the enjoying of so much felicity and greatness of the world for twenty years space is sufficient to cause a contempt of all that pomp and make the same appear as smoke not onely one year of affliction not a thousand ages but eternity in torments how will it make all humane prosperity to seem nothing else but a shadow and a dream If the sad death of one though he saves his soul shews the vanity of all humane felicities The lamentable death of one who is damned to Hell and an eternity of unspeakable misery how will it make evident that all felicity and humane greatness is nothing but smoke a shadow and nothing Let us reflect a thought upon the Emperour Heliogabolus who gave so great a scope to all his sensual appetites and was most exactly industrious in making use of time to the advantage of his pleasures What account are we to make of his two years and eight moneths raign if we give credit to Aurelius and Eutropius turning our consideration to the other Scene of his miserable death For the Pretorian Souldiers having drawn him out of a Sink or Privy where he had hid himself then haling him upon the ground they threw him into an other Sink most filthy and abominable but in regard there was not room enough for his whole body they pull'd him out again and dragging him through the great place called Circus and other publick Streets of Rome at last they cast him into the Tyber having first tied great stones about him to the end he might never appear more nor obtain interrement All this was done to the great content of the people and approbation of the Senate Who should see this nice and effeminate Prince wallowing in the Sink abused by his Souldiers and drowned in the Tyber what estimate would he frame of all his greatnese But see him now in the horrid Sink of Hell abused by the Devils and plunged into that pit of fire and brimstone where he is to suffer excessive torments for all eternity what will that short time of his Empire seem being compared I do not say with three hundred thousand millions of years but with an eternity of pains which he is to suffer causing all the past glory of his Empire and splendour of his fortunes to vanish into smoke You may look upon a Wheel of Squibs or Fireworks which whilst it moves casts forth a thousand lights and splâ—â—dours with which the beholders are much taken but all at last ends in a little smoke and burnt paper So it is Whilst the Wheel of felicities was in motion according to the stile of St. James that is to say whilst our life lasts its fortune and prosperity appeared most glorious but ceasing all comes to end in smoke and he that fares best in it becomes a firebrand of Hell Rabanus said well that when a strong fever Raban in Eccl. or some great unexpected change in his estate happens to one it makes him forget all his former contents in health and wealth his sickness and adversity taking up so the whole man as that he has no leasure to employ his thoughts upon any thing else and if perhaps any passage of his former condition chance to come to his minde it gives him no satisfaction but rather augments his pain Wherefore if even temporal evils though very short are sufficient to make former felicities of many years vanish what impression will temporal goods make in us if we employ our thoughts upon eternal evils Besides this the eternity of torments in hell which is to be suffered hereafter without profit may move us to husband the short time of this life most to our advantage and with the greatest fruit How many miserable Souls now suffer those eternal pains for not employing one day in pennance nor endeavouring to make one good confession What would a damned Soul give for one quarter of an hour out of so many dayes and years which are lost and shall not have one instant allowed him Thou who now livest and hast time lose not that which imports so much and once lost can never be redeemed Peter Reginaldus writes that an holy Religious man being in prayer heard a most lamentable voice whereupon demanding Who he was and Why he lamented it was answered I am one of the damned And thou must know That I and the rest of the damned Souls lament and bewail nothing more bitterly than to have lost time in the sins we have committed O miserable creatures who for having lost a short space of time lose an eternity of felicity They come to know too late the importance of that which they have lost and shall never come to regain it Let us now make use of time whilest we may gain eternity and let us not lose that with pleasure which cannot be recovered with grief Let us now weep for our sins with profit that we way not weep for our pains without fruit Let us hear what St. Bernard sayes Bernard Serm. 16. in Cant. Who shall give water unto my head and who shall give a fountain of tears unto mine eyes that I may prevent weeping by weeping Let us now weep in time and do penance with sorrow that our tears may be dried up and our sorrow forgotten since eternal happiness is no less efficacious to make us forget the tears and grief of this life than hell the pleasures of it Wherefore Isaias saith My former cares are forgotten Isai 65. and are hid from mine eyes Upon which words St. Jerome glosses It is the effect of mirth and confession of the true God that an eternal oblivion shall succeed precedent goiefs For if former evils shall be forgotten it is not with the oblivion of memory but with the succession of so much good according to that In the good day an oblivion of evil Lastly let us draw from the consideration of hell a perfect hatred to all mortal sin since from the evil of sin proceeds that evil of pain Terrible is the evil of sin since it cannot be satisfied even with eternal flames But this requires a larger consideration which we are now come unto CAP. XIII The infinite guilt of mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of heaven and fall into eternal evils THe horrible and stupendious malice of mortal sin is so foul and accursed that though committed in an instant it deserves the torments of hell for all eternity and an unlawful pleasure enjoyed by a sinner but for one moment deprives and disinherits him of eternal felicity Because therefore the scope of this work is to beget such disesteem of temporal goods as for them we may not lose the eternal I thought it not besides my purpose to procure as much as I could a horror and detestation of sin which is the occasion of the loss of heaven and
evil in it self in its own nature For if there were no God or that God were not offended with it yet it were a most abominable and horrid evil the greatest of all evils and the cause of all In regard of this deformity and filthiness of sin the Philosophers judged it to be abhorred above all things Aristotle said Aristotle 3. Eth. it were better to die than to do any thing against the good of vertue And Seneca and Peregrinus with more resolution said Although I were certain that men should not know it and that God would pardon it yet I would not offend for the very filthiness of sin For this Tully said That nothing could happen unto man more horrible than a fault And even those Philosophers who denied the immortality of the Soul and the providence of God affirmed that nothing should make us to commit it And there hath not wanted some Gentils who have suffered great extremities to avoid a vicious act Plut. in Demetrio Democles as Plutarch writes chose rather to be boiled in scalding water than to consent to a filthy act With reason Hippo is celebrated amongst the Greek Matrons who chose rather to die than offend Neither was that horror less which Verturius conceived against uncleanness who suffered prison whips and rigorous torments rather than he would sin against chastity Equal to this was that of the most beautiful youth Espurina of whom Valerius Maximus and St. Ambrose write Ambl. l. 3. de Virg. That he slashed and wounded his fair face that it should not give occasion to others of offence even by desire All those were Gentils who knew not Christ crucified for man nor saw hell open for the punishment of sinners nor fled from sin because it was an offence unto God but only for the enormity and filthiness it had in it self This made them endure prisons and tortures rather than admit it What then should Christians do who know their Redeemer died to the end they should not sin and how much sin is offensive to God Certainly they ought rather to give a thousand lives and souls than once to injure their Creator by committing an offence which not onely Gentils but even Nature hath in horror which hath planted in brute beasts although they cannot sin yet a natural aversion from that which looks like sin John Marquess of Gratis desired much to have a Foal from a generous Mare which he had by her own Son but could never effect it neither would she ever admit him until deceived by cloathing him in such sort as she knew him not But when he was uncloathed and she discovered the deceit she fell into that sorrow and sadness that after she would never feed but pined her self to death The like is reported by Jovianus Pontanus of a delicate Bitch of his which he could never although he caused her to be held make to couple with her Son So foul and horrible is but the shadow and image of sin even unto brute beasts Why should not men then who are capable of reason and have an obligation unto Gods commandments say and think with St. Anselm Lib. de simil c. 19. If I should see on this part the filthiness of sin and on the other the terrour of hell and it were necessary for me to fall into one of them I would rather cast my self into hell than admit of sin For I had rather enter pure into Hell than to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven contaminated with sin Whosoever than he be who is infected with that horrible evil of a mortal sin he cannot choose but be most miserable and wretched For as St. Chrysostome sayes Chrysost Tom. 5. Ser. 5. de ie The greatest evil is to be evil And although the Chirurgion do not cut the cankered flesh yet the ulcerated Patient will not be freed from his infirmity So although God should not punish a Sinner yet he would not be free from the evil death misery and abomination of sin And therefore St. Austin sayes Aug. To. 8. in Ps 49. Although we could cause that the day of Judgement should not come yet we ought not to live ill This monstrous deformity of sin our Lord was pleased to express by a visible Monster and that after a most strange manner as is related by Villaveus He writes Villaveus lib. 8. c. 35. that in the year 1298. Cassanus King of the Tartars with an Army of 200000 horse entring Syria made himself Master of it and brought a great terror upon all those neighbouring Countries in so much as the King of Armenia delivered him his Daughter although she were a Christian and he an Infidel to be his Wife Not long after the Queen proved with child and when her time came was delivered not of a Child but of a most horrible and deformed Monster Whereat the barbarous King being astonisht and incensed by the advise of his Council commanded that she should be put to death as an Adulteress The poor Lady grieving to die with the imputation of a sin whereof she was innocent commended her self to our Saviour and by divine inspiration desired that before her death the Thing which she had brought forth might be baptized which was granted and no sooner performed but that Monster became a most beautiful and goodly Boy and the King amazed at the miracle with many other of his Subjects became Christian acknowledging by what had happened the beauty of Grace and the deformity of Sin although that deformity proceeded not from any actual sin either mortal or venial from which the Child was free but onely from Original guilt which without the fault of his proper will descended unto him from his Parents The deformity of sin comes from the contrariety of it to reason which renders a Sinner more foul and ugly than the most horrid Monster and more dead in soul than a putrid and dead Carcase Pliny admires the force of lightning which melts the gold and silver and leaves the Purse which contained it untoucht Such is sin which kills the Soul and leaves the Body sound and entire It is a flash of lightning sent from Hell and worse than Hell it self and such leaves the Soul which it hath blasted What shall I then say of the evils which it causes I will onely say this that though it were the best thing of the world yet for the evil effects which it produces it ought to be avoided more then death It bereaves the soul of grace banishes the holy Ghost deprives it of the right of heaven despoiles man of all his merits makes him unworthy of divine protection and condemns a sinner unto eternal torments in the other world and in this to many disasters for there is neither plague warre famine nor infirmity of body whereof sin hath not been in some sort the occasion and therefore those who weep for their afflictions let them change the object of their tears and weep for the