eat them soon enough as if all this should say unto us What do we so long in the world since all things that must serve our use last so little Gold and silver continue long but last very little in our hands and though one keep them as well as he can they keep not ever one Master If there be creatures which live much longer they flie from us as Harts Crows and Swans you might say they are ashamed to participate in our frailty Great-ones of the earth have in all times done what they could with a purpose to prolong their days so naturally are we desirous of the state of Resurrection but they have many times abridged them seeking to lengthen them Garcias telleth us that a King of Zeilam having learned the adamant had the virtue to preserve life would neither eat nor drink but in a dish which he caused to be made of adamant through a strange giddiness of spirit but he failed not to find death in these imaginary vessels of immortality We make a great matter of it to see men very old they are beheld with admiration But if some desire to come to their age there is not any would have the miseries and troubles of it This Phlegon of whom we now speak who had been one of the most curious Authours of his Age made a book of long liv'd men wherein he confesseth he hath exactly looked into the Registers of the Roman Empire there to find old men and women of an hundred years and scarcely could he meet with a sufficient number of them to fill up a whole leaf of paper But if he would take the number of such as died before fifty which the Ancients called the exterminating death he had filled many huge volumes Pompey took pleasure at the dedication of Bâ—ro in historia vitae mortis his Theater to see a Comedianess act named Galeria Capiola who reckoned ninety nine years since her first enterance into a Theater It was a goodly play of life in a woman who danced on the brink of her grave But how many such like have there been people go into the tomb as drops of water into the sea not thinking on it Nay do but observe all which is Sovereign you will find among all the Emperours which were through so many ages there is not one to be found who attained to the age of a hundred years and four alone arrived to four-score or much thereabouts Gordian the elder came to this point but scarcely had he tasted of Empire but was over whelmed with a violent death Valerian at the age of seventy six years was taken by Sapor King of Persia and lived seven years in a shamefull captivity his enemy making use of his back as a foot-stool when he would mount on horse-back He was at first much greater in the estimation of men than he deserved and every one would have thought him worthy of Empire had he not been Emperour Anastasius a man of little worth and less courage who had more superstition than religion arrived to the age of four-score and eight years when he was blasted with lightening from heaven Justinim reckoned four-score and three which made him wax white in a vehement desire of glorie although being some-what contemptible in his person he was fortunate in Captains They speak of a King called Arganthon who heretofore reigned in Spain the space of four-score years and lived an hundred and fourty But this is rather in fables than authentical histories Of so many Popes as have been since S. Peter not any one hath possessed the See twenty five years scarcely find you four or five four-score years of age John the two and twentieth an unquiet and treasure-heaping spirit was about ninety years when death took off his triple Crown So many had Gregory the twelfth who was created before the schism but his papacy was as short as his life was long Paul the third attained to one above four-scor and was otherwise a man as peaceable of spirit as prudent in counsel Paul the fourth severe imperious and eloquent came to four-score and three Gregory the thirteenth lived as many a Prelate wise courteous prudent liberal who lived too little a while for the Churches good for which he could not end but too soon If we speak of the blessed S. John S. Luke S. Polycarp S. Denys S. Paul the Hermit S. Anthony S. Romuald so many other religious men they lived long And it seems there are many things in religion which further long life as contemplation of things Divine joys not sensual noble hopes wholesome fears sweet sadness repose sobriety and regularity in the order of all actions But all this is little in comparison of the Divine state wherein bodies shall not onely never end but live eternally impassible as Angels subtile as rayes of light quick as thought and bright as stars Conclusion of the MAXIMS by an advice against Libertinism where all men are exhorted to zeal of true Religion and the love of things eternal Of the obscurity and persecution of TRUTH INcredulity is an immortal disease which hath reigned from the beginning of the world and which will never end but with the worlds dissolution Dreams and lies are many times believed because they insinuate themselves into the heart by charms but truth which will never bely her self hath much ado to make her self understood and if she be once known she is beloved when she smiles and feared when she frowneth There are four things have ever been much unknown Four things much unknown in the world time wind terrestrial Paradise and truth Time is a marvellous creature which perpetually passeth over our heads which numbereth all our steps which measureth all our actions which inseparably runs along with our life and we have much business to know it as well in its nature as progression It is a very strange thing that there are such as promise themselves to reckon up the years of the world as of an old man of three-score and yet we know by the experience of so many ages it is a great labyrinth wherein we still begin never to end It was for this cause the Ancients placed the figures Hadrianus Junius of Trytons on high Towrs with tails crookedly winding to represent unto us the intrication of the foulds and compasses of time And for this also Isa 6. Hieron in Isa in the Prophet Esai the Seraphins covered the face and feet of God with their wings to teach us faith S. Hierome that we are very ignorant in things done before the world and in those which shall happen to Non est vestrum nosse tempora momenta quae Pater posuit in sua potestate Actor 1. the end of it If we on the other side consider the wind we cannot but sufficiently understand the commodities and discommodities of it which have made the wise to doubt whether it were expedient there should be
to the same port It is that which maketh Kings to reign 1. Reg. 25. 29. and giveth them officers as members of their state and by this means frameth the Court of Great-ones But if after it hath so made and composed them as of the flower and choise of men it should abandon them in the tempest without pole-star without rudder without Pilot were not this with notable deformitie to fail in one of the prime pieces of its work-manship Judge your self For the second reason it is most evident that to further this impossibilitie of devotion in the course of Courtiers lives is to cast them through despair of all virtues which cannot subsist without piety into the libertie of all vices which they will hold not as extravagant fallies of frailtie but as the form of a necessary portion of their profession And as the rank they hold maketh them transcend other men who willingly tie themselves to the manners and affections of those on whom they see their fortunes depend that would be as it were by a necessary law to precipitate mankind into the gulf of corruption To conclude for the third reason this proposition is manifestly contradicted by an infinit number of examples of so many Kings and Princes of so many worthy Lords and Ladies who living in the Ocean of the world as the mother pearls by the dew of heaven have preserved and do yet still preserve themselves for ever in admirable puritie and in such heroick virtues that they cannot gain so much wonder on earth but they shall find in heaven much more recompence This is it which I intend to produce in this Treatise of the Holy Court after I have informed the mind with good and lively reasons which as I hope by the grace of the holy Spirit of God shall make all persons of quality to behold they do infinit wrong to take the splendour of their condition for a veil of their impieties and imperfections Virtue is a marvellous work woman who can make Mercury of any wood yea should the difficultie be great the victorie would be more glorious but all the easieness thereof is in their own hands and the obligations they have to tend to perfection are no less important than those of Hermits as I intend shall appear in the process of this discourse The first MOTIVE Of the obligation which secular men and especially persons of qualitie have to perfection grounded upon the name of Christian. A Great abuse is crept into the minds of secular persons who hold vice in predominance and virtue under controle It is in that they esteem Christian perfection as a bird out of their reach and a qualitie dis-proportionable to their estate As for my self saith one of these I have made provision of virtue according to my quality I pretend not to be a S. Francis nor to be rapt as a S. Paul to the third heaven I find there is no life but with the living and to hold time by the fore-lock while I can Let our pleasures take that scope which nature presenteth to them were we as wicked as Judas if we have the faith of S. Peter the mercy of God pardoneth all An impertinent discourse as I will hereafter declare On the other side there are women who chatter and say I will not be a S. Teresa it is not my intention to be canonized I love better to see my diamonds in my life glitter on my fingers than to carrie themafter my death on my statues I better love a little perfume whilst I yet breath air than all the Arabian odours after my death I will have no extasies nor raptures It is enough for me to wallow in the world I may as well go to Paradise by land as by water Such words are very impure in the mouth of a Christian nay so prejudicial to eternal salvation that through the liberty of speaking too much they take away all hope of doing well For pursuing the tender effeminacy of that spirit they take the measure of virtue very short and disproportionable their intentions being infirm the works are likewise the more feeble not squarely answering the model of knowledge from whence proceedeth a general corruption I affirm not all Christians ought to embrace the perfection of S. Francis and of S. Teresa No. There are some whom the Divine providence will direct by other aims But I say that every Christian is obliged to level at perfection and if he hath any other intention he is in danger to loose himself eternally A bold saying but it is the sentence of S. Austine You should always be displeased with your Aug. Serm. 11 of the Apostle Semper tibi displiceat quod es si viâ— pervenire ad id quod non es Si dixeris sufficit periisti A notable speech of S. Augustine self for that which you are if you desire to attain to that which you are not and if you chance to say it is enough you are undone And who are you that dare limit the gifts of God And who are you that say I will have but such or such degree of graces I satisfie my self with such a sanctity I have proceeded far enough in a spiritual life let us set up our staff here What wickedness is this Is not this to imitate that barbarous and senseless King who cast chains into the sea to tie the Ocean in fetters God hath given us a Xerxes heart of a larger latitude than the heavens which he will replenish with himself and you will straiten it like a snail to lodge him in narrow bounds whom the whole world cannot comprehend Judge if this proceeding be not very unreasonable and if you yet doubt weight two or three reasons which you shall find very forcible and by them you will conclude with me you have no less obligation to be perfect than the most retired Hermit that ever lived in the most horrid wilderness of Egypt The first reason I propose to underprop this assertion is drawn from the nature and essence of perfection At what mark think you should one aim to arrive to this scope If I should say will you be perfect bury your self alive in a sack put a halter about your neck go roast your self in the scorching beams of the Sun go roal your self in snow and thorns this would make you admire your hair stand an end and bloud congeal in your veins But if one tell you God Perfection engrafted upon love hath as it were engrafted perfection with his own hands upon the sweetest stock in the world what cause have you of refusal Now so it is as I say There is nothing so easie as to love the whole nature of the world is powred and dissolved into love there is nothing so worthy to be beloved as an object which incloseth in the extent thereof all beauties and bounties imaginable which are the strongest attractives of amity yea it forceth our affections with a sweet
vagabonds and loytering rogues furnitures for a gibbet then judge you if it be not a madness to say you desire in all things to separate your selves far from the multitude to enworthy and distinguish your Nobilitie and yet in this one action alone you lessen and vilifie your courage even to the condition of the most captive and abominable creatures of the earth You will say That is true but a man cannot refuse a duel when he is urged Why Because shame Great want of generositie in duels and ignominie always attend say you on these denials See you not by this answer you give arms against your self and freely confess that a duel is not an action of courage For to lay apart the ordinances of the Church take but the laws of Aristotle Ethic. c. 8. a worldly man as your self and more than you doth not he most pertinently demonstrate in his Ethicks that it is not an action of valour when a souldier is valiant while his Captain hath set the enemie on one side and a river on the other to enforce him to fight or because a Sergeant of a band is ready to transfix the veins of his back with a halbard if he retire Virtue which is not virtue but for avoidance of dishonour is true pusillanimitie under the veil of false courage I then demand of you who more tyrannically assaulteth a man either the Sergeant of a band who thrusteth a sword into his reins or the point of honour which possesseth his brains Without all doubt you will agree with me that there is no tyrannie comparable to that of this mad duel which is called Point of honour And in the mean space because forsooth this goodly Sergeant of a band enforceth you and beareth you forward upon the hips with the helve of a halbard you must hasten to a duel you must go to precipitate your self into the throat of hell whereas otherwise were it not for the shame of the world you would not stir a foot Behold a brave act of courage What then shall we answer to those who provoke you That which conscience permitteth and Doctour Bannes adviseth that you seek not dens nor caverns that you go into every place with your head erected and if they shall be so temerarious as to assault you they may find you upon that defence which the law of nature permitteth Behold a good answer for a Doctour but the world is not paid in such coyn Answer them as the wisest among worldlings Augustus Caesar to Mark Anthony who challenging him in single combat he caused in plain terms to be said unto him that when the dispair of the success of his affairs should reduce him to the furious rage of hating his life yet he would find out other ways to die much more honest than by this butcherly frenzie Yea but this is an answer of a coward This coward in the mean time established the prime Empire of the world struggling by strength of arm against a torrent both of arms and opinions which hindered his passage constraining the whole world to yield obedience to his valour and he that challenged him with all his magnanimitie and courage died in the arms of a woman rage and effeminacie sharing the rest of his life as well as the triumph of his death Behold you not a goodly courage Howsoever the matter stands in refusing of a duel the dishonour of the world cannot be eschewed What is the world A mass of mad men If you have sworn to please them by sacrificing your bloud your life with the damnation of your soul are you not then the most miserable slave that ever was fettered in the guives of a rigorous servitude Are you not a soul prodigiously servile so far off are you from having one sole point of courage We then must go out of the world Leave it if you cannot live without the damnation of your soul be gone break the chains immediately But I am too much bound it is fit the goat brouse where he is fastened What counsel shall one give you You can neither go nor stay Resolve then to live in the world trampling under your feet the opinion of the world subjecting the laws of the earth to the Empire of Heaven and then fear not but you shall have courage enough The eighth REASON Proceeding from education ONe of the greatest benefits which man can receive Force of education at Gods hands is the favourable blessing of good education It is it which pollisheth and purifieth nature as one would do a precious stone wholly defiled with earth and filthy ordure it is it which maketh men become Angels and without it the goodliest and best natures would perpetually dwell in brutishness The Historie of A wolf-child Germanie telleth us that heretofore a child was taken in the forrests which was presented to Henrie Landgrave of Hassia From four years old he had been bred among wolves the wolves taught him to go on four feet as a bruit beast he went a forraging with the wolves he divided the prey with the wolves he slept amongst the wolves to be the more warm to conclude he wholly became wolf When he came to be made tractable and tame they were enforced to tie his hands to staves to teach him to go as men do yet did he break all to return to the condition of a wolf so powerful is the force and tyrannie of education Another sucking the milk of a sow took a singular pleasure to wallow in the dirt and lambs nourished with goats milk retain the roughness of hair Hereupon judge O you Noblemen what obligation you have to the Divine Majesty and what motive to tread the paths of perfection since ordinarily as I intend here to prove you meet with all those things which may conduce to the happiness of good education How many spirits think you are there in Defect in education the world that for want of education remain as diamonds buried in a dung-hill which if once you unearth and free from rust and putrefaction will set the sun before your eyes Behold an infant blessed with a beautiful bodie a fair spirit but yet born with a yoak on his neck the yoak of povertie and servitude Misery of want The condition of his birth hath shut him in a cage what means then I pray hath he to work wonders As soon as ever he beginneth to open his eyes he beholdeth himself to be born in a house hanged round about with cobwebs he beholdeth his father and mother to groan under the burden of a needy life his brothers and sisters to roul the same stone There is no question made of civil education instruction or knowledge bread must be sought for so much sollicitude must be had onely to live as bruit beasts that no leisure will be found to think how to live like a man and admit it were thought on there are no books in this poor cottage but rotten
〈◊〉 Sixtus in Biblioth PP De Deo etiam vera loqui periculum est Hesychius in levitic it is an ulcer that ever itcheth and which without ceasing is iterated by continual scratching it is as a hors-leech which draweth out all the bad bloud and filleth till it burst It is a magpy a byting worm which taketh men by the ears as well as dogs But above all it is most pernicious in matter of Religion Sixtus an ancient Authour cited in the Bibliotheke of the Fathers hath spoken a thing very remarkable When a man speaketh of God yea with all veritie we must always therein proceed reservedly as if we trod upon thorns It were better saith S. John Chrysostom not to know him than to know him ill Hesychius teacheth us one must approach to him as to fire too great a distance maketh us quake with cold and over near approches burn us Secondly judge whether any bodie would not Perverse proceeding of the wicked say it were a great weakness of understanding to be desirous to proceed in matter of Religion by such knowledges as are common with bruit beasts and forsake those of men And yet this is it which you do when leaving the eye of understanding and the light of a rectified judgement which God hath given man by priviledge of excellency you will hear see and touch begging a truth from bruitish sense which is absolutely to raise them above their reach See you not how the Moon by her interposition eclipseth the Sun and when you in matter of faith interpose sense you obscure the light of judgement the true sun of your soul which dictateth to you that it is a thing most reasonable the creature should submit himself to the Creatour that it carefully keep it self from daring to comprehend him in the universality of his nature and shut up this vast Ocean in a little cockle-shel It is a pitiful thing to hear that these curious spirits should suffer themselves to be surprized by a quack-salving impostour who casteth mists afore their eyes by force of delusions and to contend with God who giveth them as many obligations and assurances of his promises as there are letters in the Scripture This Deus tot tantis voluminibus cavet debitor non tenetur Chrys serm 25. is not onely to crack the eye-string of a reasonable judgement but also to pull out the eye of faith all pure and celestial as it is You demand proofs of your Religion frantick man look back upon the birth the progress and state of the Church This is the great sign the Ladie clothed with the Sun Apocal. 12. which one cannot be ignorant of without a prodigious blindness Admit it were nothing to have for proof so great Invincible proofs of pietie so universal so constant consent of all the Prophets to presage many Ages before the effect the birth life death of the Messias the establishment of the Church the conversion of the Gentiles so determinately and punctually that even the most diabolical spirits who had from all times these Scriptures in their hands seeing this consequently to happen which succeeded in the oeconomie of Christianity were enforced to yield to truth That it were nothing to have seen through all Ages a thousand and a thousand miracles in Heaven in earth on the sea done in confirmation of Christianity in the sight of the most wittie and malicious who bent all their endeavour to censure reject and contradict them Notwithstanding the evidence was so palpable so strong so invincible that Tyrants yea the most enraged bloudy executioners convinced with the proofs thereof let fall the sword which they had taken in their hand for the slaughter of Martyrs and stretched out their necks to the persecutours to be beheaded That it were nothing to tell what a good Authour upon account taken hath observed that there hath been eleven millions of Martyrs of all sexes ages and conditions who have sealed the Religion which we profess by effusion of their bloud and in this list an infinite number of persons of eminent quality who considerately proceeded in the least occasions that have abandoned the easeful accommodations of their fortunes their estates dignities yea their scepters and diadems to deliver as a prey to most enormous and exquisite torments a most precious life which they might have led in honour in reputation according to the world in pleasures in delights in wonders That it were nothing to say that after persecutions there sprung up an infinitie of brave spirits intelligent clear-sighted furnished with all sorts of human knowledges as the Justins Tertullians Cyprians Augustines and so many other of the same profession who after they had seriously and judiciously examined the state of Christianity have embraced it professed it defended it some with their pen some with sweat and some with their bloud The Heavers are not enameled with so many stars as the Church hath had great men the prodigies and lights of the world who by their learned writings have illustrated the verities of our Religion I leave you to think if among so many great Suns which have garnished Heaven and earth with brightness one should behold a ridiculous reeremouse to creep out of a hole and say it is not day and that all these suns are but darkness whether he deserve not to be burnt and stampt to power That all this which I have said being very strong and specious enter not into the list of account what may one answer to two things which are Great force in two points very eminent in Christianitie the consideration whereof is of power to settle the most wavering spirit to wit the marvellous proceeding which hath been held in the establishment of our Religion and the most pure sanctitie of the doctrine thereof What is there humane in this law which is established against all humane ways by a success so strange and admirable that it engulfeth all spirits in wonder Where were in these beginnings eloquence favour of Princes their revenues their estate their arms their souldiers Where were the promises of honour reputation Establishment of the Church dignitie Where were the moving allurements of sense and all that which useth to feed and foment sects From whence cometh it that the Church Sola Ecclesia persecutionibut stetit marlyriis coronata est Crudelitas illecebra est sectae plures efficimur quoties metimur à vebis semen est sanguis Christianorum Hier. in vita Mala Tert. in Apol. c. 50. alone hath encreased under tempestuous storms in persecutions in the slaughters of three hundred years during which time there was no engine which hell used not no torment which the devil invented not no inventions which the Great-ones of the earth with powerful hand conspiring executed not All the plaistered pretended sects which have seemed desirous to take this away are quite vanished From whence it cometh to pass that the Church alone hath maintained
forementioned Emperour Antoninus saith the wisdom of man consisteth in three points well to behave Antonin l. 5. de vita sua himself towards God which is done by Religion with himself which is done by mortification of his passions and with men which is effected by sparing and tolerating them every where doing good and after he hath done good to have his ears prepared to hear evil IX To govern his desires within the limits of his 9. Government of pretensions capacity and modesty It is a great note of folly to attempt all things and do nothing to be turmoyled with the present and to have always the throat of an enraged concupiscence gaping after the time to come to be vexed with himself and not to be of power to repose within himself to make the steps of honour the degrees of his ruin to raise a fortune like a huge Colossus to make it fall upon his Senec. ep â—â— Contemnere omnia quivis potest omnia habere nemâ— own shoulders and to leave no other witnesses of his greatness but the prints of his fall It is a thing very difficult to have much and impossible to have all but it is so easie a matter to despise all that it consisteth in nothing but in a bare refusal X. To procure such an equality of spirit so even 10. Tranquility so regular that he scarcely feel the approach of happiness and when it is lost not to make any shew of it To behold the good of another as his own and his own as another mans To hold riches and honours as a river that glideth to day for you to morrow for another It is the nature thereof always to run gently what wrong doth it to us When prosperity laugheth on you look back upon adversity which cometh in the rere and remember you have seen tall ships lost in the harbour even as it were in jest S. Augustine pleased to repeat that verse of Virgil Mene sali placidi vultum fluctusque quietos August ep 113. alibi Ignorare jubes desirous thereby to signifie to us that we should no more confide in the prosperities of the world than to a still sea which in his over-great calm oft-times presageth the near approaching tempest Brave and valorous Captains heretofore made a Sacrifice to war in the midst of peace and in the midst of war dressed Altars to Peace to declare that in good we should live in distrust of ill and in evil in hope of good but in both the one and the other ever in equality This verily is one of the master-pieces of wisdom which God imparteth to spirits greatly resigned and who have passed through the most thin and slender searces XI To behave ones self prudently in all kind of 11. Discretion in affairs occasions to examine the tenents and utmost bounds the original progress end Never to judge till you have seen the bottom of the business and therein to carry your self so that if success cannot wait on your desires you may not justly accuse either any crooked intention or want of discretion We are masters of our wils but God hath reserved to himself the command over events XII To be always ready to depart from hence 12. Meditation of death chearfully when death shall sound the retreat Saint Chrysostom saith finely This life is a nest framed of straw Chrys hom 2. in epist Pauli ad Coloss and morter we are the little birds shall we putrifie in the stench of this filthy nest If devotion hath made us wings why are we slothful Let us bravely mount and take that flight which our Eagle tracked out unto us in the day of his Ascension Remember the quintessence of al wisdom is the meditation of death It is a business we should learn all our life time to exercise it once The faults therein committed are irreparable and the loss without recovery This consisteth in three things resignation dis-engagement and union As for resignation be not too faint-hearted nor suffer your self to be called upon to pay a debt which so many millions of men have discharged before you and which so many millions shall likewise pay after you shew to those who visit you patience in your sickness resolution at your last hour and not to desire any thing but spiritual assistances As for your departure go out of the world as the chicken out of the shell I. Dispose of your temporal goods in time by making a just clear and perspicuous will 2. Restore the goods of another 3. Pay your debts as far as you can 4. Lay open your affairs 5. Give pious legacies to charge the Altars of mercy with the last victims 6. Reconcile your self and above all things beware you carry not with you too much confidence and inordinate affection into the other world 7. Take order for the education of your children 8. Dispose of offices if you have any with an upright conscience 9. Forget not the labours of your poor servants After this disengagement draw the curtain betwixt your self and all creatures By a good confession unite your self to your Creatour by the sacred viaticum extream unction by acts of faith hope and charitie by good suffrages of the Church good admonitions good purposes good remembrances of the death of our Saviour yielding your soul up upon a Crucifix as a child who sleepeth on the breast of his nurce The eigthth SECTION The Practice of Devotion and Prayer ONe of the shortest ways to gain wisdom is to be devout Devotion is as it were the flame and lightening-flash of charitie and it is properly a prompt and affectionate vivacitie in Voluntas quâ—dam prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum S. Th. 2. 2. quaest 82. S. Dionys de divin nomin cap. 3. Prayer in mount Tabor things which concern the service of God It principally shineth in prayer and in the exercise of the works of mercy Prayer as saith the great Saint Dionysius the Areopagite is as it were a chain of silver which from heaven hangeth downward to draw man up from earth and unite him to God It is the mount Tabor where an admirable transfiguration is made of the soul into God It is the spirit which speaketh to God which poureth it self on God in conclusion it is coloured by God even as Jacobs ews did denote their burden to be of Genes 30. the same colour of which those wands were that they stedfastly beheld It is it which the Apostle pleased to say Beholding the glory of God we are transfigured Corinth 2. 3. Gloriam Domini speculantes in eandem imaginem transformamur à claritate in claritatem tanquam à Domini spiritu into the same image from brightness to brightness as by the spirit of God Prayer is the conduit of grace It is as very well S. Ephraim hath said The standard of our warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle
away but with a rod of silver so much this mischievous avarice this feaver of the heart this voluntarily frenzie hath prevailed upon the spirits of these times And were the maids in this case such as they should be seeing the covetousness of men they would rather resolve to take God for a husband in the state of virginity than yield their bodies and riches up to a husband who seeks after nothing less than themselves S. Hierom relateth an excellent passage of Martia daughter of the great Cato who said that among so many Gallants as made love to her there was not any fit for a husband Say the like maidens avaunt mercenary husbands who have the fever of money marry them to the mines of Peru and not to virtuous maids The second evil I observe is riot which now adays wasteth body and goods and becomes more insatiable than hell It is asked why avarice swayeth in marriages and wherefore husbands are so greedy of portion because indeed they stand in need of it to entertain the bravery and vanity of their wives apparel It is a prodigious thing to what height this folly is mounted Lawyers are much troubled to reckon up all the attires and trinkets of women what pain shall then the husband suffer to buy them O woman what makes thee so passionately to desire these gauderies Thy first mother whose garments were cut out by the hands of God was contented to be clothed with skins and now seas must be sailed over and the bounds of elements broken to seek out dressings for thee Miserable that thou art who inordinately deckest thy self and for an ill purpose Kowest thou not thy garment is to thy body as the plaister to the wound or any ivy leaf to stop a cautery S. Isodore said before sin Adam and Eve were clothed with light O precious attire The Sun will have no other mantle than his own rays nor the rose any other robe than her scarlet because nature hath sufficiently adorned them So man had he continued within the limits of original justice would not have wished any garment but innocency Sin is come which hath by reflection impressed an ugly scarre both on soul and body and needs must gold and silk be sought out to involve it A man in former Ages was seen who having feet of wood shod them with golden pantofles O miserable and ridiculous vanity Woman doth the like to cover her wretched body which one of these days must putrifie and which hath received the wound of sin and death All the most exquisite beauties of nature must be drawn together yea marry if it could afford any comfort and ease to the body but you shall many times behold a young gentle-woman groan as at a torture under the weight of her garments yet she for all this will have and adore her own punishment The great Chancellour of England and glorious Martyr Thomas Moore was he not pleasantly disposed when he said to one who complained of heat Ah silly creature what wonder is it thou carriest upon thee meadows vine-yards mills mansions and Islands in the value of Jewels how canst thou possibly be cool This was the cause why Tertullian complained Tertul. de habitu muliebri Brevissimis loculis patrimonium grande praefertur uno lino sâ—stertium inseritur saltus insulas tenera cervix fert graciles aurium cutes ealendarium expendunt before him A little Cabinet makes shew of a large patrimony Twenty three thousand Crowns are disbursed for one rope of pearls A womans neck puts on woods and Islands and her ears which are so curious waste ample revenues But the matter most to be lamented is that it often happens the servile and unfortunate husband buys all this bravery at the charge of the poor and if any perhaps wring these gorgeous garments there will be some danger the bloud of the poor may distil from it The third disorder is the discord which proceedeth from the ill government of men from the obstinacy of women and jealousie of both And verily we may affirm the sleight vanities of wives are much more tollerable than the disorders of men It is no ordinary folly but rather a rage and madness to see a poor woman full of children groan under the heavy burden of a houshold charge upon her hand daily fading and withering away like a plant without juice or moysture to live on gall and tears and in the mean time a disloyal husband to consume in excess of diet and game the instruments of Satan that substance God gave him for the entertainment of his family O ungratefull and unnatural wretch who to give way to thy passion tramplest under-foot the commandments of God and honour of marriage This money which thy cruel hand so profusely scatters in game if thou wouldst well understand is the bloud of this poor creature which was so charily to thee recommended It is the sweat of her parents labours they are her proper entrails which thou piece-meal tearest in this fatal dicing-house I do not say thou art a homicide there is some difference between thee and a murderer The murderer in an instant taketh away life and bodily pain both together but thou who livest in perpetual riots thou drawest the vital parts from this afflicted turtle one after another which thou oughtest to love as thy self Thou cuttest the throat of thy family of thy poor and unhappy children who are thine own bloud which thou shouldest fervently affect hadst thou not renounced nature and entertained the heart of a bruit beast for that of a man what say I a beasts heart the Lamiaes Lamiae nudaverunt mammas lactaverunt catulos fuos filia populi mei crudelis sicut struthio in desertâ— Hier. Thren Si quis suorum maximè domesticorum curam non habet fidem negavit est infideli deterior 1 Tim. 5. have bared their breasts they have given suck to their young and there is not any but the daughter of my people who is cruel as the Ostrich of the desert Knowest thou to whom S. Paul compares such a man to a Cannibal to a Barbarian No he tells thee he is worse than an Infidel If any one neglect his own and namely his domesticks he hath renounced faith and is become worse than a Pagan On the other side the obstinacy of woman is a horse hard in the mouth head-strong untractable and I can no longer wonder said one that she was made of a bone since many times her head is so hard which brings infinite trouble on a family The Ancients dressing up the statues of the Moon in humane shape set on her shoulders the head of the Sun to shew a virtuous wife should have no other will nor other intentions nor glory than the will intentions and glory of her husband if they be reasonable It is the doctrine of S. Paul to the Ephesians Mulieres â—iris suis subdite sint sicut Domino quoniam vir caput
the comfort of posterity marriage is constituted for that end It is not enough to assist a mortal body in its infirmities but so much as one may mutually to manure a soul immortal you must between you share all your prosperities and adversities I say prosperities to moderate them and adversities to honour them you must mutually strive to lend a shoulder and if your burdens be weighty by the yoke of necessity sanctifie them by your patience You must think it is a blessing even from God to be chosen out to preserve a husband or a sick wife since this infirm creature is the Image of God and your proper flesh to whom you render duties which perhaps at this time seem thorns unto you but shall one day be crowns if you know how to make virtues of your necessities Be not discouraged through pusillanimity but do like the Dolphin who raiseth himself with much alacrity against the sea-waves during the tempest Understand you not the Holocaust must burn from evening till morning Burn in this fire of love and tribulation expecting to see glory in the day-break to crown your perseverance Though God allot you no issue yet no whit the less love your comfort God oftentimes suffereth barrenness of body to afford fruitfulness of virtues The thirty seventh SECTION Instructions for Widdows PErfect widdows are in the Church as the horizon of Marriage and Religion they participate of both conditions when they be in the world for the example of the world for the government of their children and family but they also have a share in the life of the Religious when they wholly dispose their hearts to God We sometimes see a bank of earth which keepeth two seas from intermixing but being taken away those two waters will pass along together and engulf themselves one within another O how often said you during the knot of marriage that if God once took away your husband you would wholly be for him Conjugal obligation and affairs of the world was your bank and your obstacle but now God hath taken it away dissolve your heart into his This is the passage where you are expected Here it is where proof shall be made of your constancy When you have deplored the death of your husband as a wife you must learn to bear it like a Saint It is a wretched virtue not to know what else to do than bewail the dead and be desirous to derive glory from the peevishness of your sorrow If we could draw aside the curtain of Heaven to see the state of souls already passed out of mortal bodies to the promised recompence of the faithful how much we should be ashamed and confounded at the weakness of our tears we should see this great Eternity seated in a chair of diamond all sparkling with stars and brightness holding a flaming mirrour in its hand at which time it would let us behold a goodly harmony of all the beatitudes these glorious souls now enjoy separated from the contagion of our mortality then wiping away the tears from our eyes it would say to us with a voice replenished with sweetness and majesty Why bewail you these kinred and friends who live better than ever in my bosom absorpt in a torrent of eternal felicities An hundred and an hundred-fold happy are the dead who depart in the favour of God! Behold them for the time to come discharged from labours Behold them freed of a thousand and a thousand cares fears pains passions maladies wants ignominies and all those evils which divide our miserable life Behold them folded within the arms of the Sovereign where they reap the good works they sowed on earth You are much troubled O widdow that this your spouse is at this present of the houshold of God an inhabitant of his mansion and a possessour of his glory Have you so many tears to lament miseries that you waste them in felicities as if it were a great unhappiness to pass from the servitude of the slave of the world to the liberty and joy of the children of God This is admirably well expressed in the 21. Chapter of Exodus where God at the going forth of Aegypt shewed himself to Moses Aaron Nabal Abiud and all the most eminent of this Nation having saphires for his foot-stool which are stones of a celestial colour whereupon a learned Commentary drawn from the Hebrew Interpreters most divinely answereth that God would say unto them You have laboured in Aegypt with much patience about morter and tyles and behold all your tyles turned into saphires into heavenly stones to build of them the foot-stool of your glory This is it which the most Blessed Eternity saith to us concerning the dead whom we deplore It is not fit any longer to take pains with tyles and morter businesses cares troublesom affairs of the present life are past there is not any thing but repose peace glory and felicitie Behold that which comforteth all solid and generous souls with lively fruitful and eternal consolations Will you have a singular resignation in the death of your kinred which may daily happen and fall out of necessity Behold Saint Lewis when news was brought him of the death of his mother Queen Blauncb he soon perceived by the countenance of the messengers who were the Archbishop of Tyre and his Confessour they were ready to tell him somewhat able to afflict the heart of man before they could open their mouthes Let us go saith he into my Oratory for it was the magazin where this great King took up arms to combate against worldly disasters and when they came thither speak now what have you to say Sir God who had a long time lent you your mother for the good of your person and Kingdom hath taken her out of the world for her own repose At these words S. Lewis fell upon his knees before the Altar and lifting up his hands to heaven said O my God I give thee thanks thou â—â—st afforded me my dear mother whilest it was thy will and that now according to thy good pleasure thou hast taken her to thee It is true I loved her above all the creatures of the world and she well deserved it but since thou hast bereaved me of her thy Name be for ever blessed Conclude your tears as he did but never the resolution of your widdow-hood It were to be wished a good vow might fix it with a nail of adamant but that should be done with discretion for all in woman being frail her tears can have no constancy You may have read in the history of the unhappy Politician the sorrow of Glaphyra the wife of Alexander son of Herod whom his father most cruelly put to death to satisfie his chimaeraes and suspitions Never woman more passionately resented the death of her husband her lamentations were yellings her tears torrents her words furies her countenance despair and life a little hell There was no light to be seen after the eclipse of
she had seen in his picture which commonly was painted with the horns of a bull on his fore-head it was not in my opinion his fair eyes nor goodly nose which made him sought after for he was one of the most deformed creatures of the world Yet he notwithstanding was reputed a great Captain and a puissant King This blind Princess so breathed the air of ambition that though he were wholly Pagan and hydeous she no whit was affrighted for verily her passion was so much enkindled that she secretly dispatched one of her Eunuches with express letters beseeching Attila he would demand her in marriage of the Emperour her brother and she should account it a great honour to be his wife This Scythian entered into a much greater estimation of his own worth than ever beholding himself sued unto by a Romane Ladie of noble extraction and thereupon grew so eager that he immediately addresseth an Embassadour to the Emperour Valentinian to require his sister of him in marriage and the moity of his Kingdom otherwise he was not gone back so far but he would return with his Army to enforce his obedience All the world was now strucken with terrour when by good chance he saw himself for some pressing occasions engaged to return into his Countrey where all these lightenings were quickly turned into a shower of bloud After he had sweat under harness like another Hannibal who in the end of his conquests was bruitishly besotted in the bosom of a Capuan Ladie this haughty King of Hunnes as soon as he came into his Countrey wholly engulphed himself in wine and love Besides a great rabble of creatures which he had to satisfie his lust he became in his old days passionately enamoured of a gentlewoman named Hildecon whom he married with sports feasts and excessive alacrity That evening after he had freely drunk according to his custom he retired into his nuptial chamber with his new spouse and the next morning was found dead in his bed floating in a river of bloud who had drawn bloud from all the veins of the world Some said it was an eruption of bloud which Death of Attila choaked him but others thought Hildecon lead thereunto one knoweth not by what spirit nor by whom sollicited handled her pretended husband as Judith did Holofernes Behold how God punisheth the proud A despicable dwarf who commanded over 700000. men who forraged every where environed as with a brazen wall who boasted in the lightenings of his puissant arms who razed Cities all smoking in bloud and flames who wasted Provinces who destroyed Empires who would not tread but on Crowns and Scepters behold him the very night of his nuptials full of drink massacred by a woman having not so much as the honour to die by the hand of a man The same night that Attila yielded up the ghost in his own bloud our Saviour appeared in a dream to the good Emperour Martianus and shewing him a great bowe all shivered in pieces saith Martianus behold the bowe of Attila which I have broken thou hast no further cause to fear thy Empire Thus you see how God fighteth for the pious even while they sleep This scourge being so fortunately diverted Martianus and Pulcheria attended with all their power to the consolation and ornament of the universal Church under the direction of the great Pope Saint Leo whom their Majesties most punctually obeyed At that time were seen the reliques to march in triumph into Constantinople of the good Patriarch Flavianus massacred by the practices of hereticks at that time the exiled Bishops were with honour re-established in their seats At that time the Councel of Chalcedon was celebrated where the Emperour Martianus though wholly a souldier made an Oration first in Latin for the honour of the Romane Church then in Greek his natural language At that time heresie was fully condemned and impudence surcharged with confusion At that time an infinite number of goodly Canons were confirmed by the Councel and strongly maintained by the authority of the Emperour At that time justice was fixed in the height of perfection Briefly at that time the whole world was infinitely comforted by the good order and liberalities of this holy Court It was an admirable Empire and a happy marriage and nothing could be desired more in this match but immortality But the holy Virgin Pulcheria being about fifty years of age not so much loaden with years as merits wearied out with continual travel and care which she had endured almost fourty years in the mannage of affairs found her repose in exchange of the Court of Constantinople for that of Paradise She died in a most pure virginity which she carefully had preserved all her life time leaving the poor for her heirs who were her delight after she had built in her own life time five Churches and among the rest one to the honour of the most Blessed Virgin Marie which surpasseth all the other in magnificence besides many hospitals and sepulchres for pilgrimes Torches made of aromatick wood cast out their odoriferous exhalations when they are almost wasted and the virtuous Pulcheria made all the good odours of her life evaporate in the last instant of her death She who had lived as the Bee in the tastfull sweetness of purity died as the Phenix in the Palms not of Arabia but of conquests which she had obtained over the enemies of our nature We have here annexed her Picture and Elogie AVGVSTA AEL PVLCHERIA PULCHERIA FLA. THEODOSII JUNIORIS SOROR AUGUSTA VIRGO ET CONJUX AUGUSTORUM FILIA SOROR NEPTIS UXOR PROPUGNATRIX PONTIFICUM MAGISTRA IMPERATORVM CVSTOS FIDEI MVNIMEN ORTHODOXORVM ECCLESIAE ET IMPERII DECVS NOVA HELENA NOVVM ORBIS MIRACVLVM ANNO CHRISTI CLIII AETATIS LV. IMPERII XXXIX AD COELESTEM AVLAM PROFICISCITVR Upon the picture of PULCHERIA A Golden Virgin in an iron Age Who trampled under foot infernal rage A barren wife a fruitfull maid unstain'd That all the world within her heart contain'd Mother of people Mistress over Kings brings And who 'twixt Church and Law firm union She in herself bright Scepters did behold Joyn'd to the Cross Altars to Crowns of gold The married life unto virginitie And glorious greatness to humilitie If virtue were a substance to be seen Well might we here suppose this happy Queen Should lend her body that it outward may Resplendent lustre to the world display GReat-ones may here behold the shortest way to the Temple of Honour is to pass by that of Virtue Never woman was more honoured in her life never woman more glorious in her death That great Pope S. Leo S. Cyril and all the excellent men both of the East and West have employed their pens in her honour So magnificent and noble acclamations were made to her in Councels that nothing would be wished more glorious A little before her death in the Councel of Chalcedon they cried out Long live the Empress most Sacred Long live
coloured pretext Notwithstanding it cast most strong apprehensions into the soul of his Lady who too well knew the deportments of this Prince But considering this precious pledge of her husband held for an undoubted earnest-penny of his command she goeth and consecrateth all the difficulties which she conceived to the obedience towards her Lord. The poor Lady was no sooner arrived but was ravished and violated to satisfie the bruitish lust of a man more drunk with love than wine The Palace of a Christian Emperour which should be a Sanctuary for the chastity of Ladies is by an act black and villanous defiled The chaste turtle who would not survive her honour as soon as she returneth to her lodging exclaimeth against her husband with outragious words thinking he had consented to this disaster Go saith she to him ingratefull and unnatural man as thou are to prostitute the honour of thy wife to the bruitishness of a Prince abandoned by God and men dost thou not yet feel the executioners of thy conscience which reproach thee with thy crime Maximus much amazed at such words What is the matter or where have you been foolish woman saith he She shewing the ring Dost not thou yet acknowledge thy disloyaltie silly and perfidious man behold that which will accuse thee before God He as she began to unfold herself too soon found his own shame enjoyneth her to silence and dissimulation and hath no vein in him which tendeth not to vengeance Valentinian had a brave and valiant Captain who supported the whole Empire this was Aetius very lately adorned with the spoils of Attila whom he in a pitcht battel had vanquished Maximus thought he must ruinate this pillar to make the whole house to fall and therein was not deceived But being a man full of craft so dissembleth what was past concerning his wife as if it had never come to his knowledge onely he endeavoureth to gain the good opinion of a powerfull Eunuch named Heraclius who was the Emperours instrument and having already gotten him at his devotion suggesteth to him in great secret he had learned from a good hand that Aetius Lieutenant General of the Emperour was much puffed up with the victory he obtained against Attila and that he on all sides practised confederacies both within and without the Kingdom to make himself absolute Master of all that under the shadow of entertaining the French and Gothes in good correspondence with the Empire he purchased them for his own service with the Emperours revenues and that nothing remained for him but to set the Diadem upon his own head which quickly he would do were he not with all speed prevented Heraclius faileth not roundly to relate all this to his Master who was already stirred with jealousie towards Aetius seeing his fortune took so high a flight that it seemed to mount above wind and tempest Valentinian a hair-braind Prince perpetually drunk with lust and choller without any further inquisition sendeth for Aetius to the Palace and with enraged passion How saith he Traytour is it thou who undertakest to bereave me of the Crown and saying that taketh out a poinyard which he had in his bosom and killed him with his own hand An act both bold and barbarous The poor Aetius who had born the brunt of an Army of seven hundred thousand men who first confronted a man that shoke the pillars of all Empires who returned from the Gaules amply loaden with victorious Palms one of the most glorious Captains that ever was at that time shewed at Rome as a prodigy of valour fell dead as a sacrifice at the feet of his Master receiving by the just judgement of God that entertainment he before had given to Bonifacius the great Governour of Affrick Valentinian as if he had acted a Master-piece went presently to one of his wisest Counsellours to boast thereof asking of him if he had not well played his prize The other replieth Sacred Majesty if you had taken a hatchet with your right hand and cut off your left arm in stead of giving this accursed blow you had not done so ill And I believe you too soon will feel the loss you have received These words were not without effect for the death of Aetius being presently after divulged it put the souldiers into fury who loved him as a brave and valiant Captain under whose standard they had given so ample testimonies of their worth Two of the most hardy of them Ostias and Transtilas after they had massacred the Eunuch Heraclius assailed the person of the Emperour who was at that time in the field of Mars and desperately murdered him it being impossible to free himself from their hands God permitting this in revenge of the murder lately committed and so many adulteries wherewith this miserable Prince degenerating from the bloud of Theodosius was polluted Maximus who cast the stone and afterward withdrew his arm causing all this tragedy to be acted to his own advantage after the death of Valentinian as being most eminent obtained the Empire with little resistance and his wife during these enterprizes being dead perhaps through discontent for her own disaster seeketh the marriage of the Empress Eudoxia wife of Valentinian and daughter of our Athenais The poor Princess drenched in a deluge of sorrow for the death of the Emperour her husband shewed in the beginning to be deaf in this motion of marriage but as the spirits of women are mutable and soothed with glory in few days forgetting death she resolveth to live among the living and for accommodation of her affairs weddeth Maximus Behold him in a short time in the Throne and bed of his Master revenging himself of one wickedness by another much more execrable But vice in greatness hath ever a staggering foot Maximus was no sooner entred into the Palace but his head aked and the remorse of conscience distracted him His most trusty friends heard him sighing say he esteemed that ancient Damocles happy who was a King but the space of a dinner-while so much already was he disquieted with the Empire as if he had soreseen his own catastrophe It chanced one day this unhappy man familiarly discoursing with his new spouse let a word escape him which cost him his life for to give her a great token of his affection he confessed himself to have intermedled in the design of Valentinian his death not so much for the desire of the Empire as of her beauty Eudoxia was strucken with strange horrour at these words not supposing her first husband had been deprived of life and scepter by his practices and therefore resolving to be revenged she covereth her plot with dissimulation and bendeth all her powers to content his humour She saw how her mother had been used at Constantinople so that from thence probably she could expect no succour The fury of revenge transported her to an Wicked revenge of a woman act very hazardous which was to call Gensericus King of the
the deluge which after it had born the whole world in the bowels thereof amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of universal nature reposed on the mountains of Armenia So S. Monica when she so long time had carried in her entrails and heart a spirit as great as this universe among so many tears and dolours so soon as she was delivered of this painful burden went to take her rest on the mountains of Sion A little before her death beholding Heaven from a high window which opened on a garden she seemed there already to mark out her lodging so much she witnessed resentment and extasie towards her son Augustine who at that time made this admirable colloquie with her couched by him afterward in his Confessions The conclusion was that she said unto him My son I have now no more obligations to the world you have discharged all the promises of Heaven to me and I have consummated all the hopes I might have on earth seeing you a Catholick and which is more resolved to perfection of the life you have embraced When it shall please God to call me I am like fruit ripe and falling that holdeth on nothing Soon after she betook her to her bed being surprized with a feaver which she presently felt to be the messenger of her last hour Behold the cause why she being fortified with arms and assistances necessary for this combat took leave of Augustine and his brother there present affectionately entreating them to remember her soul at the Altar onely meditating on Heaven and neglecting the thought of the land of Africa which she had seemed at other times to desire for the sepulcher of her body And as her other son said unto her Madame my mother we as yet are not there we hope to close your eyes in our own countrey and burie you in the tomb of your husband this holy woman seeing this man would still tie her to the present life and divert her from cogitation of death which to her was most sweet beheld him with a severe eye and then turning her self towards her son Augustine Hearken saith she what he saith as if we absent from Africa must needs be further from God She often cast her dying eyes towards this son who was her precious conquest and who in her sickness served her with most particular assistances affirming that Augustine had ever been a good son towards her and though he had cost her many sorrows he never had forgotten the respect due to a mother Verily there was a great sympathie between the soul of such a mother and such a son which was infinitely augmented after this happy conversion and therefore we must give to nature that which belongs to it The child Adeodatus seeing his Grand-mother in the last agony as possessing the affections of his father threw out pitifull out-cries in which he could not be pacified And S. Augustine who endeavoured to comfort them all upon so happy a death withheld his tears for a time by violence but needs must he in the end give passage to plaints so reasonable The Saint died as a Phenix among Palms and they having rendered the last duties to her pursued the way begun directly for Africk Behold how the conversion of S. Augustine passed and though many cooperated therein yet next unto God S. Ambrose hath ever been reputed the principal Agent and for that cause his great disciple said of him (b) (b) (b) Aug. contra Julianum Pelagianum l. 1. c. 6. Excellens Dei dispensator quâ—m veneror ut patrem in Christo enim Jesu per Evangelium ipse me genuit eo Christi ministerio lavacrum Regenerationis accepi Ambrose is the excellent steward of the great father of the family whom I reverence as my true father for he hath begotten me in Jesus Christ by the virtue of the Gospel and God hath been pleased to make use of his service to regenerate me by Baptism Whilest stars and elements shall continue it will be an immortal glory to the Bishop Ambrose to have given the Church a S. Augustine of whom Volusianus spake one word worth a thousand (c) (c) (c) Volusian Epist 2. Vir est totius gloriae capax Augustinus In aliis sacerdotibus absque detrimento cultus divini toleratur inscitia at cum ad Antistitem Augustinum venitur Legi deest quicquid ab eo contigerit ignorari Augustine is a man capable of all the glorie of the world There is much difference between him and other Bishops The ignorance of one Church-man alone prejudiceth not Religion but when we come to Bishop Augustine if he be ignorant of any thing it is not he but the law which is defective because this man is as knowing as the law it self The eleventh SECTION The affairs of S. Ambrose with the Empeperours Valentinian the father and Gratian the son LEt us leave the particulars of the life of S. Ambrose to pursue our principal design which is to represent it in the great and couragious actions he enterprized with the Monarchs of the world Let us not behold this Eagle beating his wings in the lower region of the ayr but consider him among lightenings tempests and whirl-winds how he plays with thunder-claps and ever hath his eye where the day breaketh The state of Christianitie stood then in need of a The state of Christendom brave Prelate to establish it in the Court of Great-ones The memory of Jâ—lian the Apostata who endeavoured with all his power to restore Idols was yet very fresh it being not above ten years past since he died and yet lived in the minds of many Pagans of eminent quality who had strong desires to pursue his purpose On the other side the Arians who saw themselves so mightily supported by the Emperour Constans made a great party and incessantly embroyled the affairs of Religion Jovinian a most Catholick Emperour who succeeded Julian passed away as a lightening in a reign of seven moneths After him Valentinian swayed the Empire who had in truth good relishes of Religion but withal a warlick spirit and who to entertain himself in so great a diversitie of humours and sects whereon he saw this Empire to be built much propended to petty accommodations which for some time appeased the evil but took not away the root He made associate of the Empire his brother Valens who being a very good Catholick in the beginning of his reign suffered himself to be deceived by an Arian woman and did afterward exercise black cruelties against the faithfull till such time as defeated by the Goths and wounded in an encounter he was burnt alive by his enemies in a shepherds cottage whereunto he was retired so rendering up his soul in the bloud and flames where with he had filled the Church of God The association of this wicked brother caused much disorder in the affairs of Christendom and often slackened the good resolutions of Valentinian by coldness and
young-ones upon the nest All which the Empress Justina could do was speedily to save her self with her sons and daughters to set sayl on the sea and pass to Thessalonica a Citie of Greece much renowned were it but in S. Pauls Epistles Maximus finding no resistance flowed like a torrent over the fair fields of Italie and made furious havock though to take away the blemish of the bloud of the Emperour Gratian and to gain the reputation of a good Prince he shewed in the end some moderation It is verily a miracle of God that he having been treated with by S. Ambrose with so much liberty as we have said before holding still the bloudy sword in the ruins of Italie in a time when he might have done any thing which his passion dictated he so bridled himself that he not onely abstained from wronging the holy Prelate but for his sake used the whole Territory of Milan with the more humanity It seemed the Citie of Milan under the influences of its Pastour had the virtue of those sacred forrests which tamed wolves It tied up the throat of a ravenous wolf and made him court his prey Yet though she were without peril she was not void of fear seeing so many armed troups round about her and smelling the smoak of those fires which wasted her neighbours Then was the time when the admirable Bishop acted things likewise worthy of his person For all the Citizens wavering and almost ready to leave the Citie desolate to save their lives he by his eloquence and authority held them back so well that he seemed to have enchained them This scourge saith he proceedeth Ambros serm 99. Prudence and Charity of S. Ambrose from our disorders let us cease to sin and God will give over to afflict us It is a folly to flie from your countrey If you desire to be safe flie from your sins The arms of Maximus will have no power over bulwarks of sanctity Besides as it is said he is bad who is good for none but himself the charitable Prelate not content to consolate and confirm his own but seeing that all Italie was filled with extream miseries not onely spent all the means which he had to comfort them but employed therein the very gold and silver vessels of the Church for which cause the Arians sought occasion to calumniate him disposing themselves to condemn virtues since they could find no vice to lay hold on The holy man answered that which he afterward couched in his offices It is the effect of a most ardent Offic. lib. 1. cap. 18. charity to compassionate the miseries of our neighbours and to aid them according to our power yea above our power I rather choose herein to be accused of prodigality than inhumanity there is no fault more pardonable than that of bounty It is a strange thing to find men so cruel as to be troubled when they see a man redeemed from death an honest woman delivered from the violence of Barbarians which is worse than death or poor forsaken infants drawn from the contagion of Idols which they are forced to adore with menaces of death Let our enemies murmure as long as they please but I more affect to keep souls for God than to treasure up gold Whilest all this passed in Italie Theodosius came to Enterview of Theodosius Justina visit Justina and her children at Thessalonica who failed not to present all their complaints and solicite him to undertake the war against Maximus But he therein at first shewed himself very cold insomuch that not to disguise the truth partly touched in Zosimus although Theodosius was a very great Captain as one who arrived to the Empire by his own merit notwithstanding seeing his fortune now at the height he was pleased to tast the repose and delights of the Court under the shadow of his own palms and not contest again with any man fearing the hazard of wars and the slippery foot of felicitie Moreover Maximus who defied the force of all the world played the fawning dog before him and sent express Embassadours to draw him to some agreement This so wrought that when the offended Empress sounded an alarm Theodosius endeavoured to pacifie her with fair promises and good hopes saying Nothing must be precipitated that Maximus would become dutifull that it was better to give him some bone to gnaw on peaceably than enkindle a war which would never be extinguished but with rivers of humane bloud But the Ladie infinitely vexed pursued this affair with all extremity and was much displeased to see that he who held all his advancement from her husband her self and her children shewed some remisness in so urgent a necessity She bethought her self of an excellent stratagem which was to enflame the war with the fire of love The Emperour Theodosius had lost his wife Placilla and was much enclined to a second marriage Justina who heretofore had enjoyed the short tyranny of beauty making two Emperours Maxentius and Valentinian the Elder tributary thereunto was no longer in season to afford that which might very easily win Theodosius but she had a daughter named Galla then in the flower of her age and a perfect image of the mother she determined to pierce this man by the arrow of the eye of this Princess which was most easily done for she took her along with her to dissolve this heart of ice and casting her self at his feet humbly besought him by the service he heretofore had vowed to the house of great Valentinian by the ruin of her orphans and by the bloud of poor deceased Gratian whom he had associated in Empire to take the matter in hand In the same proportion as she uttered those words with great fervour the daughter composed her self to weep with a good grace and even as tears in such persons have a strong spur in them Theodosius beholding her felt the wound of Turnus when he beheld Lavinia in the like case He quickly took the Empress and her daughter up promising all assistance and from that time plainly discovering that he was powerfully touched He also failed not in few days to require Galla in marriage which the mother promised him as soon as she had irrevocably engaged him in the war she pretended The marriage was hastily enough solemnized and from the festival hall they passed into the field of Mars Maximus who saw Theodosius entertained his Embassadours with words not giving them any absolute answer much doubted the affair and bent his whole force upon defence He did all which humane prudence may that hath not the eyes of God He set his Goodman the furtherer of all his treacheries to sea commanding him to guard the Archi-pelagus with a great fleet On the other part he gave commission to his brother Marcellinus to keep passage of the Alps with a strong Army He himself with the most resolved troups descended into Sclavonia to prevent his enemy Theodosius advertised of all
laying aside all humane respects which had hitherto tyed him to Gentilism for considerations of his State he caused a Throne to be prepared in the Palace of Trajan where having sent for the Senate he declared with the eloquence of a Monarch the reasons which had moved him to this alteration of Religion and said SIRS I doubt not but the change of Religion which Notable Oration of Constantine partly drawn out of his acts and Edicts I have made will appear strange to many who blame all that which they cannot understand and will understand nothing but what flatters their presumption All noveltie is odious to those who love the old age of errour Yet I can tell you this is no new Religion which I have imbraced but that which was begun in the purified souls of the golden Age happily finished in our days The first men of the world had verity in bloom we now see the fruit which we may and shall enjoy if we be not ungratefull to our happiness and traiterous to our own conscience Believe me Sirs the world is almost grown out of it's non-age for God hath taken pitie of the ignorance thereof and made it see it was not time any longer to place Dragons and Owls upon Altars nor other Gods accounted as monsters if they would return into the life of men If our Ancestours blinded by mishap have made to be esteemed for Divinities so many criminals for whom our laws do now ordain punishments we are not bound to participate with the crimes of the one nor the errours of the other under pretext of antiquitie I must confess that I from my infancie have had great distrust upon the follies which I saw in the superstition of Gentiles and that which further confirmed me in this opinion was that one day I heard the answer of an Oracle which had long time stood mute and being demanded the cause of this silence answered The Just hindered it from speaking and we found those Just were the Christians who then had power to stop the mouthes of devils Afterward I began to consider those men whom I saw so persecuted and that there was not a corner of the earth that was not ruddie with their bloud yet were they notwithstanding so patient in their persecutions that they had prayers on their lips for those who rent their hearts out of their bodies This then gave me matter of amazement but when I came to think on their Church which flourished among so many storms and encreased under the swords of persecution this seemed to me more than humane yet transported with the torrent of common opinions I still resisted the voice of God which spake in my heart when it opened my eyes and made me once lively apprehend the dreadfull ends of Emperours who had persecuted Christianitie comparing them to the felicitie of my father Constantius of most glorious memorie who had preserved his hands innocent even to death free from any stain of Christian bloud This was sufficiently potent to move a soul which would easily yield to reason but God redoubling his inspirations made me one day behold in the Heavens a prodigie which many saw with me to wit the figure of the Cross composed of most resplendent light which appeared just at the time I was to wage battel against Maxentius I call the living God to witness that I therein read distinctly these words written as with the rays of the Sun IN HOC VINCE And it is a wonder that I deferred still to yield my self up till such time that the Saviour of the world advertised me in a vision to take into my Standards the sign which I had seen in Heaven the day before I instantly obeyed and have seen so prodigious effects succeed in the defeat of Maxentius which you have admired attributing to man that which was a work of the Divinitie I thought then to have discovered what I was but considerations of state which had too much force upon my soul stayed me and have made me walk along hitherto in a life more licentious than I intended I now protest before the face of Heaven and earth that I am a Christian both in heart and profession nor shall any motives ever alter that which I have so constantly resolved on Yet for all this I purpose not to force any man in his Religion leaving for this time belief as free as elements Yet for the charitie I hear towards my good subjects I cannot but wish them as much good as my self Now all my greatest happiness and which I esteem more than my Purple and Diadem is to entertain the knowledge of a living God which hath been revealed to us by his onely Son Jesus Christ the Doctour and Saviour of the world His person is full of miracles his life of wisdom and goodness his doctrine of puritie and if to conquer our pride and expiate our demerits he hath humbled himself to the punishment of the Cross so much therefore the more ought it to be honourable since he hath done for us all that which an incomparable love can do and endured all that which an invinoible patience may suffer I can do no other but love and singularly honour those who are enrolled under his Standard as my brothers in Religion and let it not seem strange to any if heretofore shewing my self very liberal to beautifie and enrich the Temples of Gentilism I now apply my self to build and adorn the Churches I will render what I ow to God and my own conscience nor shall my subjects who are of a Religion different from mine be any way interessed therein desiring to preserve them as persons whom I hope one day to have companions in faith and coheirs in glorie if they adde never so little consent to the lights wherewith the wisdom of God Incarnate hath replenished the world I onely beseech thee O great God on whom all Scepters and Crowns depend since you have united the East and West under my hands you would arrange them under the yoak of your Law which is the knot of Empires and source of felicitie I offer unto you my person mine Arms my Scepter and all mine abilities humbly begging of you to accept my slender service and to give me the assisting wisdom of your Thrones to govern in all honour all justice all peace and amitie the people which you have committed to my charge This Oration was heard by all the world with Admirable change of the world by the Oration and example of the Emperour very great applause in such sort that for the space of two hours the cries of an infinite number were heard who made many acclamations in favour of Christian Religion Fourty times was repeated UNUS DEUS CHRISTIANORUM There is but one God which is the God of the Christians and thirty times was proclaimed LET THOSE WHO DENY CHRIST COME TO NOUGHT and ten times LET THE TEMPLES BE SHUT UP LET THE CHURCHES BE OPENED And fourteen
Empire and affections of Leo his father-in-law much esteemed this young man who arrived to maturity of age served him most couragiously in brave expeditions of war against the Gepides and Bulgarians sworn enemies of the Empire This occasion whereof we speak being offered Theodorick flyeth like a Merlin to his prey and leaving the Court of Constantinople came into Italy attended by gallant troups to decide the matter of Empire and life with Odoacer He being full of fire handled his adversary very roughly and defeated him in three battails making him forsake the field and inforcing him to immure himself in Ravenna where he besieged him for the space of three years resolved either to loose his head in Italy or encircle it with a Crown at Rome The father Theodomire being already deceased his mother the fair Aureliana who had reigned in affections entertained an insatiable desire to command over the most important part of the world and being then in the field she spared not to excite the souldiers and advance a spur of fire very far into the heart of her son whereupon it is recounted that Odoacer after so long a siege being reduced to an extream scarcity of victuals and seeing he could not any longer subsist resolved to seek in the hazard of arms the remedy which he could not find in his languishment He espied a time when the assailants tired out with so long a resistance seemed now to relent so that by the benefit of a fair night he made a sally with his whole army composed of people hungry as wolfs and resolved to conquer or die in this last battel Their sally was so furious and unexpected that Theodorick who was otherwise a great Captain seeing the astonishment and disorder of his souldiers betook himself timely to flight when this Aureliana his mother moved with an ardent ambition which gave her courage above her sex came before him and taking him by the hand had confidence to say My Son whither go you You must of two things do one either fight or return into the womb of your mother You have as far as I can perceive the enemy at your back and fear on your forehead turn your head against the one and you shall chase away the other If you persist in this flight I will rather make a wall of my body to stay you than render my self a confederate of such an obloquie It is a strange thing that the words of a woman were stronger than the sound of trumpets arms flight and the black apprehensions of death This young Prince changing his fear into a generous shame speedily rallyeth the troups that were best resolved and hasteneth to fall upon his enemy with such violence that his souldiers seemed so many flying Dragons who handled their matter so well that the valiant Odoacer notwithstanding his best endeavour was constrained to retire into Ravenna Some time after seeing his enemy was invincible he caused him to be sought unto for peace on such condition that they should between them divide the Kingdom of Italy to which Theodorick whether that he was wearied out with so long a war or that he hoped the more easily to joyn the skin of the fox to that of the Lion willingly consented to this counterfeit peace The agreement signed he entered into Ravenna and these Princes who were both very brave souldiers embraced before the face of two armies mutually preventing each other with all manner of courtesie But oh good God! what cement was ever found able enough to entertain ambition and amity in one constant state and what world hath at any time been wide enough to lodge too ambitious men without a quarrel Their conversation too frequent first sowed contempts and insolencies among souldiers of different Nations afterward jealousie crept into the hearts of the Captains and distrust into the souls of the Sovereigns who beheld and observed one another as expecting who should first begin Theodorick whether he sought for some pretext which ever is soon enough found out to colour the greatest mischiefs or whether he understood of a design intended on the part of his enemy imagined the earth was not large enough to give elbow-room to his ambition whilest Odoacer shared the Throne with him that there was but one sun necessary in heaven and one King in a Countrey that he could not endure a Crown made crescent-wise but that it was very fit he should furnish out the roundness of its circle and for the rest that man would soonest be King who first prevented his adversary Hereupon he resolved on a horrible assassinate for feigning all friendship and affection he invited Odoacer to a magnificent feast which he had prepared for him to be the last of his life It is a great matter that there must be a bait always to surprize men and birds and that the greatest disasters ordinarily happen in the sports and banquets when sensuality predominateth and reason is eclypsed This miserable Procopius saith that Theodorick took pretext and treacherously slew him at a banquet King of the Heruli made it well appear by his over-much confidence that he had not so much mischief in him as was afterward imputed to his ashes for he very joyfully went to this banquet accompanied with his son and all the principal of his Kingdom and walked along with great alacrity having no other intention but to make war against dishes and nothing less than at that time to entertain purposes of bloud and murder The resolution notwithstanding is taken to make them all pass by the dint of swords in a place the most delightful where pleasures seem to make men as it were newly born They entered into a great Sigonius l 5. Occidentali de Imperio in fine hall most magnificently furnished and sat down at the table there was no speech in the beginning but of mirth the spirit disbanded thinketh on nothing but objects of pleasure when instantly the signal was given and the Goths threw swords purposely out to offend the most sober patience of the Heruli They answered again what choller and wine suggested Theodorick stood up and taking his sword So an ancient manuscript observeth it found in a Library at Rome slew Odoacer with his own hand the rest fell upon his son and the Princes of the Kingdom Never was there seen banquet of Centaures and Lapithes more unfortunately expressed Tables and men were overwhelmed wine ran mixt with bloud the dreadful cries of the dying made those tremble who were far enough out of danger and gave matter of pity even to hang-men yet for all this not a man was spared the bodies mangled and bloudy were cast one upon another and the poor souls issued forth in the midst of massacres and surfets to yeild an account in the Court-hall of Heaven What horrours of the abyss and furies of Divels see you here I would know whether there be any beast in the world that had heaped together in one
loosing soul Empire and salvation to pursue a phantasm He roared like thunder in the clouds on the theater of humane things and then past away leaving nothing behind but storms dirt and morter at which time thy good servant Boetius walking in the ways which thou prescribedst him is mounted to the glory of the elect leaving here behind him the precious memory of his name to all posterity THE LADIE TO LADIES LADIES I Should do an injury to sanctity even in the HOLY COURT if having undertaken to speak of piety of Great-ones in these Treatises I should pass Ladies under silence who in all times have contributed to the glory of Christianity so much force beyond their sex as virtues above nature God hath employed them in the great affairs of all Ages since the Word which from all eternity acknowledged but one Father in Heaven hath been pleased to acknowledge in later times one mother upon earth and that he who is able to cloath the meadows with the enamel of flowers and Heaven with the beauty of lights took flesh and bloud of a Virgin to make himself a garment and frame to himself a body And as the chaste womb of a woman served him for a lodging at his first enterance into the world so when he would issue out amongst so many horrours punishments and images of death when stones were rent asunder for grief under his feet and Heaven distended it self with sorrow over his head women were also found near to the Cross as witnesses of his last words and survivers of his bloud Here O Ladies are eternal alliances which you have contracted with devotion and he who would bereave you the sweetness of its repose should banish you from your own houses So many men as stir up quarrels seem now adays to have no other profession but to kill and die upon credit Those who are conversant with books waste themselves in the pleasing tortures of the mind Others who are involved in the turmoils of publick affairs oftentimes gain nought else but smoak and noise But when I behold you under the title of the Devout Sex which is given you by the Church I find your blessing is in the dew of Heaven and that you resemble Bees which are born in honey or rather those birds of the fortunate Islands nourished with perfumes Believe me those of your sex who have not true piety had they a world of greatness and beauties and were it that all the riches of this world had rendered it self tributary to their intemperance would be no more esteemed before God than the flower of grass or scum of earth But such as take the way of holy and solid virtues enter into a life wholly Angelical which forgetting sex and natural imperfections furnisheth it self with the most perfect idaeaes of the Divinity Behold hereof a model which I present unto you in this Treatise where after I have observed rather by speculation than practice some blemishes which might varnish the lustre of so many celestial beauties I reduce the piety of Ladies into such bright splendour of day-light that it were to have no eyes not to admire the merit thereof I have been willing to make this service suitable to my habit and not unworthy of your considerations thereunto invited by Ladies who have happily allied virtue to the most eminent qualities of the Kingdom and who might serve me for a model were they in a much better Age than my self If God who hath inspired me with these contemplations grant your performance I shall have the Crown of my vows and you that of your perfections THE LADIE The first SECTION That the HOLY COURT cannot subsist without the virtue of Ladies and of their Pietie in the advancement of Christianitie BEhold where I purpose to shut up this Work of the HOLY COURT which I have brought thus far with labour enough And since God after those great Works of the Creation reposed so soon as he had made woman he thereby shews me an example to give some rest to my pen when I shall have represented unto you the perfections of a Lady such as I would wish her to serve as an ornament for Christianity and a model of virtue Yet Reader I must needs tell you I feared this haven whereunto I saw my self arrive of necessity as well for that I learned of the great Martyr S. Justin Justin ad Zenam SerenuÌ„ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a singular discretion must be had to treat with women and that he doth very much who can love their virtues without danger besides being naturally disposed to brevity I somewhat doubted lest they might insensibly communicate by my discourse some touches of those great delays which they use in attiring themselves and verily I see there are many things may be said both of the one side and other But as it is an act somewhat uncivil to run inconsiderately into invectives against the sex so it is an unworthy servitude of mind to be too obsequious to them and tender vices incorrigible by a false presumption of virtues I am much bound to my profession that it sequestereth me from these two rocks where so many vessels suffer shipwrack If I must blame you I will do as he who slew the serpent not touching the body of his son twined up in his folds I will strike vice without Aâ—on of Creet slandering the sex and if they must be praised I look on them as the idaeaes of Plato which have nothing in them common with matter I begin to verifie my first proposition and say the good life of women is a piece so necessary for Christianity that it cannot be cut off without introducing a notable disorder and this I say because there are many uncollected spirits in the world who make it their glory to act all against the hair to oppose the most sound opinions to give the lie to nature and do that in the world which Momus did in fables Sometimes they set themselves to censure the State and find somewhat to say of military matters treasures laws and offices sometimes they frame Common-wealths of Plato in their emptie brains and constitute new forms of government which never will have being but in their chymaeraes When they have touched upon the Purple and Diadem they busie themselves to controle God upon the master-pieces of nature and among other things that he hath done ill to create a woman Cato the Censor said in his time That if the world Si mundus absque mulieribus esset conversatio nostra non esset absque Diis were without women the conversation of men would not be exempt from the company of Gods And a Doctor of the Jews yielding a reason why the Eternal Word had so long time deferred its Incarnation said nothing else but that the world was then replenished with bad women and that four thousand years were not able to furnish out one good one to serve as an instrument
bodies of his servants and Nilus overflowing with the bloud of his French himself surprized and taken by his enemies and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours out-cries infernal countenāces of Sarazens and all the images of death able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper notwithstanding though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion ever making use of reason he entered into the Barbarians pavillion not at all changing colour and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace he asked his pages for his book of prayers and taking it disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his oraisons in a profound tranquility of mind which I conceive to be very rare since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle to stay devotion which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Councel of Lyons and see how he laboured to depose the Emperour Frederick the second who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent but that they readily invade the goods of others when some religious pretext is offered them would have been very ambitious to be enstalled in his place whom they meant to despoil but the universal consent of great men judged this throne could not be worthily supplied but by this great King yet he notwithstanding declined it as a wise Pilot would a rock and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Sarazens than to mount to the Empire by such ways But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle may be observed in his valour never weakened by his great devotion for he was one of the most couragious Princes in a cold temperature with reason that was then under Heaven It was courage which taking him from the sweet tranquility of a life wholly religious caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment and delights to go to a land of Sarazens live in all incommodities imaginable to nature It was courage which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person not onely to the toyls of a desperate voyage but to the strokes also of most hazardous battels witness when at his arrival in Aegypt the coast being all beset with Sarazens very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water where he was plunged up to the shoulders with his target about his neck and sword in hand as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army which encouraged by the example came to the land as the King had commanded The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the world that it were to bring light into day to go about to mention them If some say He is to be a pattern for Kings and Divers Ladies excellent in piety Lords Ladies who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex shall never want great lights and worthy instructions if they will consider those who being more near to our Age should make the more impression upon their manners If we speak of the endeavour of prayer look upon See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia who continuing days and nights in prayer all covered over with fackcloth affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband and for him gained battels If account be made of the chastity of maidens and sequestration from worldly conversation reflect on Beatrix du Bois who being one of the most beautifull creatures of her time and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her put her self upon so rough a pennance for others sin that she was fourty years without being seen or to have seen any man in the face If you speak of modesty let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon wife of Claudius first Duke of Guize who after the death of her husband was clothed in serge and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women to teach them the practise of alms If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous cast your eye upon Anne of Austria Queen of Poland who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every munday the very same day she yielded her soul up to God when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner and that death might close her eyes when she opened her hands to charity If the instruction of children be much esteemed fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungarie mother of eleven daughters and admire her in the midst of her little company as the old Hen-Nightingale giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues and so breeding these young creatures that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts If you delight in the government of a family which is one of the chiefest praises of married women take direction from Margaret Dutchess of Alencon who governed the whole family with so much wisdom that order which is the beauty of the world found there all its measures and that if the domestick servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries she caused hers to be known by their modestie If you desire austerities look with reverence on the hair-cloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon the Kings great Grand-mother and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay who during a widow-hood of three-score years was twenty of them without ever coming into bed If you praise chast widows who can pass without an Elogie Elizabeth widow of Charls the ninth who in a flourishing youth being much courted by all the great Monarchs of the world answered That having been the widow of a Charls of France she had concluded all worldly magnificencies and that nothing more remained for her but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical amongst religious women whom she had founded If constancy in the death of kinred have place let the lesson be hearkened unto which Magdalen wife of Gaston de Foix gave who having seen the death of a husband whom she loved above all the world and afterward of an onely son remaining the total support of her house made her courage to be as much admired among the dead as her love was esteemed among the living And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions and who can but think the choise becometh hard by
shamefull they always carry along with them the confusion misery and ruin of those who embrace them Who diggeth a pit saith the Wise-man Qui sodit foveam incidet in eam qui voloit lapidem revolvetur â—d eum Prov. 26. 27. shall fall into it and the stone shall return back on his head who threw it The reputation of honesty is so necessary in the mannage of affairs that such as lost integrity of manners sought to retain the bark to cherish a renown amongst men swoln up with smoke and imposture A deceiver fears nothing so much as to be discovered and to lay open the face of designs which he closely worketh for the ruin of others Judge now how hard a matter it is to practise at this present in the world with such proceedings in an Age most vigilant and where little children are almost grown wise What a trouble is it to hide Troubles miseries of dissimulation your jugling in a Court where are so many Argus eyes who perpetually watch upon all actions If one be surprized before the act he must expect to be flouted even by foot-boys and used like one who cannot hit upon it to be wicked although this trade be very easie and who having sold his conscience to devils knows not how to evict payment unless he plead it in hell But if a man some one time come to the point of what he projected which he can hardly keep from breaking through the ears of others they who are deceived seldom wanting eloquence either in themselves or their own ashes were they dead to decrie treachery yet must he hereafter for one trick of craft loose reputation and credit two pillars of discretion All the world will avoid you as a rock or a monster what ever you do you have but one heart and one tongue to invent and tell lies but you shall raise a thousand against you by it For all those who know you practise this trade and that you make it your endeavour to deceive will bend all their sinews and strength to entrap you in the same snares you laid for other in such sort that you shall become a prey aimed at if it were possible by all the world Where have we ever seen a deceiver to prosper in Dreadfull events of deceivers all his enterprizes to the very end You may as well number the waves of the sea and leaves of trees as recount the lamentable and tragical events of all these common cheaters who never had the power to avoid God's vengeance The pernicious Machiavel who taught the art to deceive produceth the example of an infamous Prince whose impostures succeeded so ill that by mistaking he drank the poison prepared by himself for another in a banquet and ended his detestable life Is not this man abandoned by religion wit and reason to seek to perswade treachery with so weak examples If he will work this way let us oppose both against him and the like experience of passed Ages to set as it is said the Sun in full splendour before their eyes The eleventh EXAMPLE upon the eleventh MAXIM Of Craft VIce many times hath a shop near unto Virtue as said Origen and deceives Merchants under colour of selling good commodities Craft readily counterfeiteth wisdom and some there are also who make the wise to pass for subtile But there is so much difference between them as between glass and diamond Craft is a false prudence which maketh use of subtilities against right and justice but true wisdom though it be subtile is never crafty For it pretends nothing at all against equity and good conscience If you desire to know wary wisdom and to distinguish The wittie conceit of Theodora Zonaras in Theophilo it from craft look upon what the Emperess Theodora did one of the worthiest women of her Age. She was married to the Emperour Theophilus an Heretick and a capital enemy to the honour of Images which he forbade to be kept or esteemed upon pain of death Notwithstanding this pious Princess who maintained Religion in the Empire what she might and sweetened with much wisdom the wild humours of her husband spared not to have in private pictures and holy Images affording them singular veneration It happened one day that Dender the Emperour's fool who played this part at Court rather through natural blockishness than dissimulation came as he was roaming up and down into the Emperesse's chamber and found her reverencing those Images He failed not in dinner-while to give the Emperour notice of it at which time he used to entertain him with a thousand merriments saying aloud He found Manna so he called the Emperess with her babies and that she was suddenly surprized with it Theophilus presently doubted it was Images his wife honoured and at the rising from the Table he sought her out all foaming with anger and asked where those puppets were she adored in the presence of Dender Truly we must consess devout women have sometimes a marvellous dexterity to excuse a business for she suddenly hit upon a handsom evasion which freed her from the importunity of her husband For in stead of seeming troubled and overtaken she smiled very sweetly having therein an excellent grace Behold Sir saith she verily one of the prettiest knacks happened in your Court of a long time This fool Dender who still doth somewhat worthy his name came into my chamber as I stood before my looking-glass with my women and confusedly saw our faces represented in the glass he thought they were images so subtile wittied he is Is not this an excellent jest Then causing the fool to be taken by the arm they set him before the looking-glass saying How now Dender are not these thy habits The Emperour was so surprized with the wittie conceit of a discreet Princess that he believed she had reason and all the matter was instantly turned into laughter I term not this example a piece of craft but a prudence Stratagem of Chares Polyenus l. 2. as the stratagem of a Captain called Chares who enjoyning his souldiers some labour upon his fortifications and seeing they undertook it coldly because they feared to marre their garments which were handsome enough he presently commanded every one should uncloth and take the apparrel of his fellow That done and all the souldiers being perswaded their cassocks would not be spared by those who put them on they wrought in good earnest and very quickly performed the task imposed upon them This ought to be stiled with the name of wisdom rather than any other title But if we observe what passeth in the world we shall find there are two sorts of crafts Some are politick addresses and subtilities which proceed not fully to injustice but which notwithstanding aim at interest at reputation and glory by ways not sincere So there are men who resemble those houses which Baro. de astutiâ Craft of the world have goodly gates and most magnificent stair-cases
the resentment of injuries Necessitie of salvation since prayer and sacrifice essential parts of our salvation cannot subsist without the pardon of our neighbour And pursuing this precept we have a tradition from the Hebrews which saith He who being entreated to pardon after warning given before competent witnesses if he shewed himself inexorable was surnamed as with a title of infamy the Sinner and held as one excommunicate as a rotten member and cut off from the society of the faithfull I likewise say necessity of salvation since according to S. Augustine without this virtue all devotion is but August super Joan. homil 10. Quid prodest quia credis blasphemas Adoras illum in capite blasphemas in corpore c. hypocrisie all religion blasphemy all faith infidelity To what purpose is it saith this Prelate to believe and blaspheme to adore God in his head and blaspheme him in his members God loveth his body which is his Church if you dissever your self from his body he will not for all that forsake his own members Hear you not the head which speaketh to you from heaven saying O Man it is in vain thou honourest me hating thy neighbour If any one whilst he is giving thee low obeysance with his head tread on thy foot thou wouldst in midst of all his complement cry out Sir you hurt me What is there either more powerfull or persuasive The horrour and confusion of revenge than these reasons Yet notwithstanding among so many lightnings and thunders which encompass us on every side there are to be found infinite many black souls in the world which practise hatred some in secret some in publick make vaunts to eternize their revenge in the everlastingness of their punishments What a horrour is it to see a man who besought and entreated with all earnestness to pardon a brother who hath offended him answereth with disdain furious and intolerable he will never agree nor hold correspondence with him no more than with a Turk or Moor Ah Barbarian Shut up that mouth unhappy creature and never open it at least never open it before the wounds of Christ which bleed against thee Thou wilt embrace no other friendship with thy brother but such as may be found between Turks and Moors Lyer that thou art seek yet out words more out-ragious to express the gall of thy passion For if thou knowest it not Turks and Moors retain the amities and sense of man whereof thou art despoiled Turks even in the general desolation of Moors entertained them into their Countreys and afforded them helps which thou hast denied thy flesh and bloud If that seem worthy of thee take a turbant and become a Turk But when thou hast put it on yet shalt thou find laws which will oblige thee to love a man The Turks have their Behiram a feast wherein they pardon all injuries and wilt thou turn Turk to retain an injury Out of God's Church out of the society of men out of nature bloudy monster as thou art Where wilt thou any longer find place in the world when thou once hast pulled down the Altars of clemency That also which is spoken in choller and hasty precipitation might seem pardonable in repentance were it not there are some who in cold bloud foster suits and immortal pertinacities and which is worst many times in publick shewing a fair face in secret they transfix the heart of a poor man like unto witches they rip up the bowels of wife and children to satisfie a revenge Barbarous man eat rather eat the miserable heart than pierce it perpetually with thy infernal bodkins I would in the rest be silent if there were not women who being infirm in all things get diabolical strength for revenge What may we say of a creature of this sex who being very slightly offended by another of the same sex whilst she advised by her Confessour disposed her self to all duties of satisfaction the other looked on her with a Gorgons eye and foaming with anger spitefully reviled her with bloudy words so that nothing now remained but to take her by the hair and drag her on the floar which violence reproved by other she repeated the burden of the old ballad That she wished her not ill but would never see her again Inhumane and furious creature a Maegera not a woman what mouth will you hereafter bring to the Altars which you seem to honour Have you any other than that by you polluted with this poisonous choller What heart remains in you for God Is there any part of it not steeped in gall What expect you at the hower of death and in the instant of your souls separation but that God repeat unto you your own words I wish thee no ill I will not put thee upon the wheel nor the rack I have neither rasors nor flames to torment thee but thou never shalt see my face Wilt thou then cherish quarrels maintain sides spread rumours either true or false secretly undermine the fortune of men and make thy self as inexorable to reconciliation as thou art inflexible to reason Lord have mercy on us Semper jurgia quaerit malus Angelus autem crudelis mittetur contra eum Proverb 6. a cruel Angel will be sent against thee an ill suit commenced a ruinous business a tedious sickness a loss of goods a confusion of understanding and then shalt thou see whether fire being in the four corners of thy house thou still retainest the itch of revenge But you generous souls march on by union to the chief of unities and think the onely revenge is well to be revenged on your self If as I have shewed pardon be possible glorious and necessarie why foment we our curiosities to enflame our feavours Let us take away these silly humane respects this slender pride which often broodeth under silken devotions and which is the cause that God is daily beheld and adored upon both the knees by those who will not see nor speak to any that have committed some slight indiscretion whilst feigning to honour God the Master with lips the servant within the heart is strangled Say O Christian say to thy self Am I more powerfull Goodly considerations to pacific the mind in my small family than God in the universe He daily endureth so many injuries not threatening mortals with his thunders what am I who have ears so tender Many have forgiven their deaths and I cannot pardon a cold countenance a silly word a slender negligence Is it a child is it a young man hath offended age excuseth him is it a woman sex a stranger liberty a friend familiarity He hath offended he hath displeased Vid. de I thee once and how many other times hath he done thee good offices But this is not the first time so much the better shall we bear what we already have suffered Custome of injuries is a good Mistress of patience He is a friend he did what he would
not if an enemy he hath done according to the world what he ought If he were wise he hath not done it without reason if simple he deserves compassion Who ever bit a dogg because he was bitten by a dogg Or who ever entered into a combat of kicking with a Mule If he did it in anger let us give him leisure to come to himself and he will correct himself without our trouble to give assistance If it be a superiour or man of eminent quality let us suffer that which God hath set over us if a person of base condition why by striving against him shall we make him our equal What pleasure hath a woman whose hands are so delicate to seek to foul them with crushing flies and catterpillars Let us reflect on the carriage of humane things we are all faulty and live among errours There is no wise man whom some indiscretions escape not We shall never live content if we learn not to excuse in another what our selves are Are we not ashamed to exercise in a life so short eternal enmities Be hold death comes to separate us although we forcibly hold one another by the throat let us give a little truce to our reason light to our understanding and rest to our ashes JESUS in his last words recommended forgiveness to us moistned with his tears and bloud Go we about to tear his Testament that we afterward may pull his Images in pieces The bloud of Just Abel still bubleth on the earth and is unrevenged shall we then seek to revenge it O my God we utterly renounce it with all our hearts and are ready to seal peace with our bloud that by thy bloud thou maist sign our mercy The twelfth EXAMPLE upon the twelfth MAXIM Of Reconciliation CONSTANTIA THere is nothing more certain than that he who seeks revenge shall find the God of revenge It followeth those who pursue it and when they think to exercise it on others they feel it falling on their own heads It is onely proper to base and infamous spirits to endeavour to glut themselves with bloud and to delight in the miseries of mortals but souls the most noble are ever beautified with the rays of clemency Theophilus one of the most bloudy Emperours that Zonar Theophilus a bloudy Emperour ever ware the diadem an enemy both of heaven and earth of Saints and men as he had lived on gall would end in bloud He felt his soul on his lips flying from him and saw death near at hand which he could not escape It was time he should now yield up life to others when it appeared he could no more take it from them But this wicked man holding at that time Thephobus one of his prime Captaines imprisoned in his own Palace upon certain jealousies conceiv'd he was too able a man and well worthy of Empire commanded a little before his death to have his head cut off and causing it to be brought to his bed side he took it by the hair held it a long time in his hands so much was he pleased with this massacre then seriously beholding it he cried out It is true I shall no langer be Theophilus nor art thou any more Theophobus And many times repeating these words he yielded up his damned ghost like a ravenous wolf which passed from bloud to infernal flames although certain revelations spake of his deliverance Behold how having taken in his youth evil habits of cruelty and revenge he persevered in them to his death being besides most unfortunate and infamous in all his enterprises But contrariwise it is observed all great-ones disposed to clemency have been very glorious and most happy before God and men I could here reherse very many yet pursuing our design I rest contented with relation of a notable pardon given by a Queen to a Prince on a Friday in memory of our Saviours Passion It cannot be said but so much the greater and more outragious injuries are so much the more difficult is their pardon especially when one hath full power of revenge in his hands Now the injury whereof we Conradinus speak was the death of poor Conradinus which well considered in all its circumstances rendereth this clemency whereof I intend to speak much more admirable Know then this Prince son of the Emperour Conradus went into Italy with a huge army to defend the inheritance of his Ancestours pretending it to be unjustly usurped by the wily practises of Charls of Anjou He stood at that time in the midst of his armies sparkling like a star full of fire courage when Pope Clement the fourth seeing him pass along with so much Nobility said Alas what goodly victims are led to the Altar His valour in the tenderness of his age was as yet more innocent than wary and he had to do with a Captain whom warlike experience had made more subtile in this profession Charls being ready to give him battel resolved it He gave battle to Charls of Anjou was best to weary out this young vigour to afford him the bait of some success in appearance the more easily to draw him into his snare He gave the leading of one part of his army to a Captain of his called Alardus commanding him to bear all the royal ensings as if he had been Charls of Anjou's person Conradinus thinking he had nothing to do but to conquer what he saw before his eyes for decision of the difference advanced his troups which falling like a tempest upon the enemies quickly dispatched Alardus who was slain in the battel as some histories record carrying from all this ostent of regallity a fatal glory into a tomb This young Mars supposing the war ended by the death of his Adversary presently proclaimed victory at which time Charls of Anjou who lay hidden in a trench with the activest troups as yet very fresh came suddenly upon him He did all that for his defence which a brave spirit might in an evil fortune But his army being cut in pieces he was enforced to save himself after the loss of twelve thousand dead in the place His calamity caused him to change the habit of a King into that of a horse-keeper for his greater security so much he feared to be known by those who would decide the dint of war by his bloud He embarked His taking with his cousin Frederick of Austria to pass unto Pisa committing himself in this disguised habit to a Pilot who much importuned him for his hire He had not then about him either bread or money so that he was constrained to pull off a ring and leave it in pledge to the Pilot to assure the debt He seeing these young men of a graceful garbe and considering this jewel was not a wealth suitable to their habit doubted some trick and gave notice to the Governour a crafty man who complying with the times laid hold of the Princes and put them into the hands of the Conquerour
with so much profusion that she could not endure to lodge but in chambers full of delicious perfumes of the East she would not wash her self but in the dew of Heaven which must be preserved for her with much skill Her garments were so pompous that nothing remainned but to seek for new stuffs in Heaven for she had exhausted the treasures of earth Her viands so dainty that all the mouthes of Kings tasted none so exquisite nor would she touch her meat but with golden forks and precious stones God to punish this cursed superfluity cast her on a bed and assailed her with a maladie so hydeous so stinking and frightfull that all her nearest kin were enforced to abandon her none staying about her but a poor old woman already throughly accustomed to stench and death yet could not this proud creature part with her infamous body but with sorrow She was of those souls that Plato calleth Phylosemates which tie themselves to flesh as much as they can and after death would gladly still walk round about their flesh to find a passage into it again Know you what is to be done to die well Cut off in good time the three chains which straightly bind foolish and sensual souls For the first passage that The way how to be well provided for death concerneth earthly goods seasonably dispose of your temporal Entangle not your hands for so short a time as you are to live in great affairs perilous and uncertain which will perplex you all your life and throw you down to death Do not like evil travellers who stay to reckon and contend with their hostess when it is already fair day-light and that the guid wrangles and sweareth at them Digest your little business that you may leave no trouble in your family after death Make a Will clear and perspicuous which draweth not suits after it Preserve your self carefully from imitating that wicked man who caused all his gold and silver to be melted into one mass to set his heirs together by the ears who killed one another sprinkling the apple of discord and the object of their avarice with their bloud Say to your self I brought nothing into the world nor will carry any thing away no not the desire of it Behold one part of my goods which must be restored to such and such these are true debts that must necessarily be discharged Behold another for pious legacies Another for alms to persons needy and indigent another for my servants male and female and my poor friends who have faithfully served me They have wasted their bodies and lives to contribute all they might to my will there is no reason I should forget them Nay I desire mine enemies have some part in my will As for my children and heirs the main shall go to them they will be rich enough if they be virtuous enough Behold how the temporal should be disposed And for so much as concerneth kinred give the benediction of God to your children and all your family leave worthy examples of contempt of the world of humility of patience of charity procure a full reconciliation with your enemies entertain your friends with sage discourses which may shew you gladly accept Gods visitations that you die full of resolutions to prepare them a place and that you expect from their charity prayers and satisfactions for your negligence and remisness If needs some small tribute must be paid to nature in two or three drops of tears it is tolerable But take away these whyning countenances these petty furies these mercenary weepers who weep not knowing why nor for what they mourn As for that which toucheth the state of your body it would be a goodly thing for you to be wail it after you have had so many troubles in it Go out of it like a Tennant from a ruinous house go from it as from a prison of earth and morter Go out of it as on the sea from a rotten leaky ship to leap on the shore and care not much what will become of it after death so it be on holy land Souls well mortified speak not of flesh considering the state of sin but with horrour Yea we find in the bequests of one of the sons of S. Lewis Count of Alencon these words I will Modesty of a son of S. Lewis the Tomb that shall cover my stinking flesh exceed not the charge of fiftie livres and that which encloseth my evil heart pass not thirty livres Behold how the son of one of the greatest Kings in the world speaketh of his body and would you idolatrize yours Lastly for the third condition of a good death it The third quality of a good death must have union with God whereof our Lady giveth us a perfect example For it being well verified by Theologie that there are three unions supernatural and as it were wholly ineffable the first whereof is the sacred knot of the most holy Trinitie which tieth three persons in one same Essence the second is the tie of the Word with humane nature which subsisteth by the hypostasis of the same Word and the third the intimate conjunction of a Son-God with a Mother-Virgin I affirm the Virgin being a pure creature cannot equal either the union of the Trinity or the hypostatical union yet notwithstanding hath the highest place of all created unions as she who was united to God when she lived in the world in the most sublime and sacred manner the spirits of the most exalted Seraphins might imagine which was most divinely expressed by S. Bernard She entered into a deep abyss of divine Profundissimam divinae sapientiae penetravit abyssum quantum sine personali unione creatur◠conditio patitur luci illi inaccesibili videatur immersa D. Bernard serm in signum magnum Mater mea quà m appellatis foelicem inde foelix quia verbum Dei custodit non quia in illa Verbum caro factum est c. Aug. tract 10 in Joan. wisdom so that she was united to light inaccessible so much as a creature might be permitted not arriving to the personal union of God But saying this I not onely speak of the union she had in quality of the Mother of God being one same flesh and one same substance with her Son but of the union of contemplation devotion and submission to the will of God which alone was the center of her felicity as witnesseth S. Augustine My Mother whom you call happie hath all her happiness not so much because the Word was made man in her as for that she kept the word of God who made her and who afterward allied himself to humane nature in her womb as he would say Our Lady was more happy to have conceived God in her heart and continually kept spiritual union with him than to have once brought him forth according to flesh We cannot arrive at this sublime union of the Mother of God but howsoever at least in the last
the General in this siege that she disposed his heart to what she pleased In such sort that going forth in the fear and confusion of all the people she returned with peace and assurance of quiet which made them all to come out to receive her at the Citie gates with loud acclamations some throwing flowers other Crowns and all rendering thanks to her as their Sovereign Preserveress She apprehended so much joy therewith that in the very instant she expired in her honours at the Citie gate and in stead of being carried to the throne was brought to her tomb with the infinite sorrow of all her countrey I leave you to think if humane comforts have such force what will the great joy of God be for these unheard-of spectacles these continual triumphs and inexhaustible sources Must we not say we should there every moment leave our souls in the height of pleasure were not the happiness of it conjoyned to immortality XX. MAXIM Of RESURRECTION THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That we must not deny our bodies the benefit of time since they must perish That we must use our bodies as the Temples of God since they must rise again WE may truly say there is not any mysterie The resurrection proved more than any other mysterie in all our faith which God hath pleased to teach and prove unto us more effectually than the resurrection For it being sufficiently averred that our salvation consisteth in the knowledge of three principal Articles which are that of the Trinity of the incarnation with its extension made to the Sacrament of the Altar and of the Resurrection although they be all of like necessity yet it seems God disposing himself more to our ends than his own hath more abundantly explaned himself in this last mysterie which most concerneth our peculiar profit It is very true that for the doctrine of the Trinity the Incarnation and the Sacrament of the Altar he was contented to give us some figures of them in the old Testament not fully shewing the effects but for the Resurrection he was pleased to establish it even before his coming into the world really and actually by raising many dead by the merits of Elias and Elizeus as we learn in the history of Kings It is well enough known that having afforded to the Ancients very obscure knowledges of the Trinity and Incarnation for the Resurrection alone he made the law of nature the Mosaical the order of the world the form of Common-wealths and the Evangelical law to speak so intelligibly that he could speak nothing more perspicuously In the law of nature I understand the chief Secretary Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit in novissimâ— die de terra resurrecturus sum c. Job 19. of the world Job who crieth out on the dunghil I know my Redeemer liveth and that at the last day of the world I must rise again from the earth and shall see God in mine own flesh that I shall see my self in person and that my eyes shall behold him and no other this hope I keep as a pledge in my bosom A man who lived about three thousand years ago before all books all Doctours and all schools to speak in so clear terms so pressing so peremptory is it not a prodigie In the Mosaical law besides formal passages in the Ecce ego aperiam tumulos vestros educam vos de sepulchris vestris Ezech. 33. Macch. 2. Math. 22. D. Tho. art 1. ad 2. supplem q. 75. prophet Ezechiel I will open your tombs and will take you from your sepulchers besides the generous confession of the Macchabees we have in the Pentateuch a passage alledged for proof of the resurrection by the Son of God himself which for this purpose ought to be held as an argument necessary and invincible It is so many times said The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Now he is not the God of the dead but of the living and therefore needs must these Patriarchs beliving not onely in the immortality of their souls for the soul makes not a man entire but in future resurrection In the order of the world we have the new birth Tertul. l. de Resur c. 12. and 13. Greg. Mag. 14. mor. c. 10. Cyril Catech. 18. Macar hom 5. de Resur Nil Ora. 2. de Pasca Theod. serm de Provid of stars dayes seasons planets of birds who make a perpetual image of the Resurrection in the world on which the holy Fathers enlarge with much eloquence In the form of Common-wealths and policie of the universe we observe the great care all Nations the most barbarous have had of the burial of bodies not to have been but through an instinct and estimation of the resurrection Which the chiefmen in Gentilism have publickly and notably professed And although they had very weak knowledge of other mysteries of our faith and spake of it with much obscurity in the point of resurrection they unfolded themselves most distinctly and expresly Mercurius Trismegistus in the first chapter of Pymander assureth us of the resurrection of bodies as a thing infallible The great Athenagoras sheweth it was the doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato the two first lights of Philosophy And verily we have also the writings of Plato which witness the wicked shall be judged and condemned to hell in bodie and soul a passage alledged by S. Justine in the tenth of his Common-wealth and which is more this singular man to win us to this belief hath couched a very notable axiom in his Phedon where he saith that all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Phaedon Plin. l. 7. c. 55. which is living in the world comes from some thing dead Democritus who was as Hippocrates affirmeth one of the wisest men in the world wished the bodies of the dead should be honourably used in respect of resurrection which Pliny could not dissemble Phocyllides said the same in verses written as with the rayes of the Sun Nay if we would consult with the tombs of the dead we shall find there hath not been any but some wicked and irregular spirits who have renounced the blessings of the other life as by publick profession causing it to be engraven on their tombs So did Sardanapalus the most infamous of men whose epitaph Aristotle having read said It was more fit for a hog than a King So did that wretched woman of Bress whose monument is yet to be seen in antiquities causing to be set over her ashes That after the death of her husband Vixi ultra â—â—tam nihil credidi Nihil unquam pâ—ccavit nisi quod mortua â—st Brisson formul she had been neither widdow nor wife and that her house served onely for a snare to loves Otherwise that during life she never believed any thing but life So did one Julia who caused also to be inscribed over her bones That she had lived seven and twenty years without committing any
of ours If we desire to sweeten the a cerbities of life and to replenish our hearts with the antipast of our immortality let us make a perpetual Pasch in our souls and reflect on our Jesus our Phenix who goeth out of his sepulcher on the day of his triumphs That the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of ours and we must behold his sweetness and glories as the sources of our eternity NAture which is an expression of Divine understanding Nature delighteth in contrarieties Discordant accords of the world is never so great and admirable as in contrarieties and it seems she takes delight to derive the goodliest harmonies of the world from certain disagreeing accords We admire contrarie motions in the heavens which compose an eternal peace In the air a bird which takes life from death and the beauty of her plumage from a tomb of ashes On earth bees bred in the throat of a dead Lion that find life in a savour able to kill them In the sea a fish named the holy fish which as histories say taking its original in the Kingdom of tempests fails not to create a calm by Ael l. 8. de animal its presence And among fountains we cannot sufficiently wonder at the water of Dodone into which a torch falling is put out and coming forth is lighted S. Isodo de fonte Epiri and Solinus Jesus Authour of nature beareth all these miracles in his own Person to make a miracle in our hearts and to draw them out of the dust and darkness from which he freed our bodies He is the great heaven which by motions of his life holily contrary unanimously divers and harmoniously disagreeing Miracles of the person of Jesus Isa 46. 11. hath made the accords of the Church militant and triumphant He is the bird of the East whereof Isaiah speaketh which glorifieth his tomb and quickneth his death to slay ours He is the Bee of the Celestial Father which from all Eternity having his hive in the heart of his Father soareth into the region of death to sit upon dying flowers which took away his life and put him into the throat of a lionness of a death which devouring all is devoured it self as saith the Apostle and from this gulf which yielded nothing issueth a life to be the seed of all lives It is the Divine fish of the Sybilles sacred by so 1. Cor. 15. many titles to consecrate all intelligent nature which after the rage of so turbulent a passion makes a great calm in the world which he establisheth by his fall quickeneth by his death washeth by his bloud and glorifieth by his torments He is the torch which entered dead into the river of Cocytus whereof holy Job Job 21. 53. speaketh and came out lighted and all environed with flames of a triumphant glorie Let us then say that God who by his providence Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit and by a singular predestination governeth the state of intellectual creatures in all perfect height and accomplishment of beatitude hath so tied glory to merit and merit to glory that he would not glorifie the Angels without giving them some moment of a wayfaring life and some exercise of meritorious actions to obtain the crown and consummation of felicity And consequently to the same purpose it is very true the most holy humanity of the worlds Saviour from the first instant of his beginning was inseparably united to the Divinity but not to be the lights Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour and actual splendours which were incessantly to spring from this ineffable union of the Word to the flesh The Father ordained and the Son for our love received and freely accepted a suspension of the light of glory for the space of three and thirty years And although he had the foundation and root in himself the exercise of it was staid and proposed to him in the end of his race as the recompence of his painful life and unspeakable dolours of his death He naturally desired the glory of his body as our soul sticking in flesh and bloud vehemently covets a full liberty of its intellectual functions and behold here in this mysterie his desire is accomplished and this humanity darkened by the space of a long night of life hidden and buried in the obscurity of an ignominious death cometh from it as the Sun out of a cloud and makes a transfusion of himself into the bosom of ineffable lights which issue from the Sanctuary of the most holy Trinity In such sort that it is as a second birth of the most sacred humanity which being born to the communication of divine subsistence is here born to glory 5. Now observe if you please that as the lightening-flash Three properties of splendour in the resurrection of our Saviour which appeared in the face of the Angel messenger of the resurrection hath three properties the first is that it is a subtile part of enflamed elements the second that it is endowed with a splendour and sparkling which dazeleth humane eyes the third that it goes from one pole to another with an extream vivacity a shril sound So three things are observable in the glory which our Saviour entertained in his Resurrection first that this body taken from the clay of Adam and matter of elements became in an instant wholly invested in sweet and honourable flames of divinity secondly that he appeared with an Fles delectationum amoenitâ—s deliciarum veri amoris initium August homil in exurg Mariae A Remarkeable Psalm Psalmus David quando ei terra restituta est Alij quando fundata est terra Dominus regnavit decorem indutus est c. The triumphant glory of the Resurrection Emiss hom 1. in diem Paschae admirable beauty which made that S. dugustine gave him this title The flower of pleasures and the most purified pleasure of all delights the root of holy loves the third consisteth in the lustre of this great name which went from the East to the West from the South to the North filling the world with his wonders It seems this was divinely prophesied in the 29. Psalm which beareth a title very remarkeabe It is a Psalm sung by David to the Messias on the day when his land was restored to him to wit his body was rejoyned to his soul in the possession of glory and therefore he saith according to the paraphrase It is verily on this day our Saviour beginneth an eternal Empire and a supream Monarchy in his militant and triumphant Church It is on this day be cloathed himself with a body endowed with a flourishing beauty with beauty be took an invincible force which hath penetrated even into hell as divinely saith (a) (a) (a) Aeterna nox inferorum Christo descendente resplenduit silüit stridor ille lugentium catenarum disrupta acciderunt vincula damnatorum c. Eusebius
apparencies O my God my Jesus make me keep the Law of thy love and nothing else It is a yoke which brings with it more honour than burden It is a yoke which hath wings but no heaviness Make me serve thee O my Master since thou beholdest the services of all the Angels under thy feet Make me imitate thee O my Redeemer since thou art the original of all perfections make me suffer for thee O King of the afflicted and that I may not know what it is to suffer by knowing what it is to love The Gospel upon Thursday the third week in Lent S. Luke 4. Jesus cured the Feaver of Simons Mother in Law ANd Jesus rising up out of the Synagogue entered into Simons house and Simons wives mother was holden with a great Feaver and they besought him for her And standing over her he commanded the Feaver and it left her And incontinent rising she ministred to them And when the Sun was down all that had diseased of sundry maladies brought them to him But he imposing hands upon every one cured them And Devils went out from many crying and saying that thou art the Son of God And rebuking them he suffered them not to speak that they knew he was Christ And when it was day going forth he went into a desart place and the multitudes sought him and came even unto him and they held him that he should not depart from them To whom he said That to other Cities also must I Evangelize the Kingdom of God because therefore I was sent And he was preaching in the Synagogues of Galilee Moralities 1. A Soul within a sick body is a Princess that dwels in a ruinous house Health is the best of all temporal goods without which all honours are as the beams of an eclipsed sun Riches are unpleasing and all pleasures are languishing All joy of the heart subsists naturally in the health of the body But yet it is true that the most healthfull persons are not always the most holy What profit is there in that health which serves for a provocation to sin for an inticement to worldly pleasure and a gate to death The best souls are never better nor stronger than when their bodies are sick their diseases are too hard for their mortal bodies but their courage is invincible It is a great knowledge to understand our own infirmities Prosperity keeps us from the view of them but adversity shews them to us We should hardly know what death is if so many diseases did not teach us every day that we are mortal Semiramis the proudest of all Queens had made a law whereby she was to be adored in stead of all the gods but being humbled by a great sickness she acknowledged her self to be but a woman 2. All the Apostles pray for this holy woman which was sick but she herself asked nothing nor did complain of any thing She leaves all to God who is onely Master of life and death She knew that he which gives his benefits with such bounty hath the wisdom to chuse those which are most fit for us How do we know whether we desiring to be delivered from a sickness do not ask of God to take away a gift which is very necessary to our salvation That malady or affliction which makes us distaste worldly pleasures gives us a disposition to taste the joyes of heaven 3. How many sick persons in the heat of a Feaver promise much and when they are well again perform nothing That body which carried all the marks of death in the face is no sooner grown strong by health which rejoyceth the heart and fils the veins with bloud but it becomes a slave to sin The gifts of God being abused serve for nothing but to make it wicked and so the soul is killed by recovery of the flesh But this pious woman is no sooner on foot but she serves the Authour of life and employes all those limbs which Jesus cured of the Feaver to prepare some provisions to refresh him He that will not use the treasures of heaven with acknowledgement deserveth never to keep them When a man is recovered from a great sickness as his body is renewed by health so on the other side he should renew his spirit by virtue The body saith Saint Maximus is the bed of the soul where it sleeps too easily in continual health and forgets it self in many things But a good round sickness doth not onely move but turn over this bed which maketh the soul awake to think on her salvation and make a total conversion Aspirations O Word Incarnate all Feavours and Devils flie before the beams of thy redoubted face Must nothing but the heat of thy passions always resist thy powers and bounties To what maladies and indispositions am I subject I have more diseases in my soul then limbs in my body My weakness bends under thy scourges and yet my sins continue still unmoveable Stay O benign Lord stay thy self near me Cast upon my dull and heavy eyes one beam from those thine eyes which make all storms clear and all disasters happie Command that my weakness leave me and that I may arise to perform my services due to thy greatness as I will for ever ow my salvation to thine infinite power and bounty The Gospel upon Friday the third week in Lent S. John 4. Of the Samatitan woman at Jacobs Well neer Sichar HE cometh therefore into a Citie of Samaria which is called Sichar beside the Mannor that Jacob gave to Joseph his son And there was there the fountain of Jacob. Jesus therefore wearied of his journey sate so upon the fountain It was about the sixth hour There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water Jesus saith to her Give me to drink for his Disciples were gone into the Citie to buy meats therefore that Samaritan woman saith to him How dost thou being a Jew ask of me to drink which am a Samaritan woman for the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritanes Jesus answered and said to her If thou didst know the gift of God and vvho he is that saith unto thee Give me to drink thou perhâ—ps wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living vvater The woman saith to him Sir neither hast thou wherein to draw and the well is deep whence hast thou the living vvater Art thou greater than our father Jacob vvho gave us the well anâ— himself drank of it and his children and his cattel Jesus answered and said to her Every one that drinketh of this vvater shall thirst again but he that shall drink of the vvater that I will give him shall not thirst for ever but the vvater that I will give him shall become unto him a fountain of vvater springing up unto life everlasting The vvoman saith to him Lord give me this vvater that I may not thirst nor come hither to draw Jesus said to her Go call thy husband and come hither The
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
Velocitas cogitationum animi celeritas ingeniâ— varictas multiformes illis notaâ— imprimâ—t Plin. l. 7 cap. 12. thoughts divers inflexions of the heart tastes distastes which thrust on one another as the waves of the sea They likewise thereunto adde that they very easily are turmoiled with suspicions jealousies and distrusts the least matters offend them and many once displeased are irreconcileable And which is more that the most part of them have narrow hearts and hands nor open enough to help their good friends at a need they being ordinarily much tyed to the interest of their family so that there are many who love not so much for love as for gain Reasons for the modest love of women Amor magis lentitur cum prodit eum indigentia August l. 10. de Trin. c. 12 S. Thom. 1. 2 q 25. This may well happen in certain humours but there are some grievous spirits who do not so easily receive the impressions of these ill qualities and who persevere till death in an unshaken constancy of affection And verily it seemeth that contrary to what hath been spoken nature more favoureth them therein because Love as saith S. Thomas after S. Augustine appears best in indigence and those love most fervently and powerfully who besides other attractives see themselves bound unto it by some kind of necessity Now the inclination which a woman hath towards man is as it were necessary For it is more easie for a man to be without a woman having regard to spirituall and temporall assistances as Sacraments and Physick then for a woman to be without a man Adam was for a while all alone in Paradise in a vaste world but God permitted not that Eve should be there alone one moment for this solitude would have gone hard with her to see so many living creatures and in so divers kinds and not meet with one to bear her resemblance This being so one may with reason say that as we love things necessary with more endeavour and stability so women are tyed with the more indissoluble chains in virtuous inclinations But not to speak of this motive which proceeding from a meer motion of nature cannot be the most generous we find men who rest upon Indifferency and seek nothing but to content their own senses and to idolatrize themselves but women very rarely stay upon neutrality needs they must love or hate there is no third condition for them and since according to the Philosopher it is fit to judge of Contraries by proportion we will truly say that if they be susceptible of the impressions of hatred above all may be said so are they likewise capable of noble Amities They think themselves more engaged in honour to entertain them when they have begun fearing to be disparaged by the multitude of wandring and flitting affections Adde also to this that they are more tender then men and that softnesse of temperature is to love as the air to the ray of the Sun seeing the affections more easily penetrate where they find dispositions which have already prepared a way for them Lastly as they commonly are more devout and religious then men so they observe virtuous Amities with respect and entertain them out of conscience and especially such as are grounded on piety which is the thing that most powerfully predominateth over their heart I speak this in respect of those who are very virtuous but as we find few rare virtues and strong amities accompanied with all necessary circumstances are not so frequent in their sex It seemeth also that the Examples we derive as well from Nature as Civil life insensibly lead us to the proof of that which we propose Among living creatures the Females are the more Bodin Theatri natur l. 3. sect 6. sharp and ardent as well in their affection as in their anger the cuttle-fish takes revenge on that which striketh her male but the male flyeth if his female catch a blow as Aristotle hath observed in the ninth book of his living Creatures I well remember the Antients studiously reckoned up the pairs of friends which they had observed throughout all Ages and that Lucian Luc. Toxatis in his Toxaris hath strange examples of amity between men as of him who left his whole family in a fire to carry out his dearest friend on his shoulders and of another who gave his own eyes for the ransome of him whom he most tenderly affected But who likewise would in particular decipher the notable acts of love which many wives have witnessed to their husbands should find wherewith to be moved to admiration and to settle his constancy If we talk of preserving a widdow-hood inaccessible to second wedlocks Rare amitieâ— of women Valer. Max. l. 4 c. 6. how many may we find of them even in Gentilisme who after the death of their dear husbands have said what the antient Valeria did My husband is dead to others but not to me If we speak of suffering great toils of body Queen Hipsicrates followed King Mithridates her husband as one of his bravest Captains gallautly corvetting a horse and galloping through snows and wildernesses not to be separated from him If we discourse of banishment and ignominies Sulpitia brake up doors and locks to run Idem lib. 6. cap. 7. maugre her mother after her exiled husband among the proscripts of the Triumvirat If imprisonments be Lipsii exem politica put into the list of account Eponia was nine years shut up with her husband in the hollow cavern of a Tomb. If you regard maladies a daughter of Spain daily Rhod. Santius histor Hispan p. 1. cap. 4. Scard lib. 3. hist Paravinae with her tongue licked the envenomed wound of King Edward of England her dear husband If you look on the terrible of terribles death Blaunch the Italian Lady scorning the flatteries of the Tyrant Actolin who passionately woed her captive though she were escaping out of the hands of souldiers she went to breathe out her life upon the tomb of him to whom she first of all had given her heart and affections Yea I much more admire those who willingly have deprived themselves of all riches greatnesse yea even of the presence of their husbands whom they dearly loved to procure them liberty wealth and honour Cedrenus Cedren in Epirom hist p. 596. observeth in his history that Constantine the ninth exercising tyranny as well in matter of love as within his Empire caused the Roman Argyropylus to be sought out and commanded him to repudiate his wife whom he had lawfully married to take his daughter on condition that he would make him Cesar and associate him with himself in his dignity but if he condescended not to his will he threatned to pull out his eyes and to make him all the dayes of his life miserable The Excellent loyalty of a Lady Lady who was present seeing her husband involved in all the perplexities that might be and
these Motives and the felicity of others who have gloriously surmounted them And to add a pleasing variety to this last piece I will conclude with many short and remarkable Examples suited to those four mentioned Passions THE DISASTERS OF SUCH As have yielded to the Passion OF LOVE AND The Glory of Souls which have overcome it 1. LEt us begin with that Passion which is the Source of the rest and which in all times hath caused trouble among men to give a ground to our discourse The children of great Clodoveus became not so soon tractable to the severity of Christian manners but suffered themselves very often to be transported with very violent exorbitancies and particularly with unlawful loves which caused ill example in their house and great disorder throughout their Kingdome Gregory of Tours l. 4. Gregory of Tours observeth fordid and shamefull affections in the person of King Caribert grand-child of Clodoveus which cast an Eclipse upon the lights of the Diademe of this great King and could never be rooted out but by patience by prayers and by the effects of the puissant hand of God Queen Ingobergua who knew the humours of her The plot of Queen Ingobergna to cure her husbands passion succeedeth ill out of too much affectation husband to be addicted to inconsiderate love and who was jealous enough of her bed took not among her attendant Ladies those nymphs of the Court which are full of attractives and deserve admiration but purposely chose out base and despicable wayters thinking it was a singular remedy against the Kings malady She had at that time in her Court and service two daughters of a Clothworker the eldest of which was called Marcovessa and the youngest Mirefleur Caribert whose love was more lustfull then ambitious became desperately in love and courted them to the prejudice of his honour and wedlock which wounded the soul of the Queen with a very sensible arrow seeing the havock this passion made in the mind of this Monarch Jealousie suggesteth her a trick which seemed sufficient to divert him from his infamous servitude if this passion might be cured by another and that a jealous woman did not irritate the wounds of love by its proper remedies She calleth the Father of her two servants commanded him secretly to practise his trade in some corner of the Court whither she very cunningly brought his Majesty to make him see the base extraction of his Mistresses and to throw shame confusion upon him But he who at distance saw this wile coming towards him and the solemn preparation of it was displeased saying that if nothing were wanting but nobility to render these maids worthy of his love he would sufficiently ennoble them by his person and that it onely belonged to him to raise inferiour things by loving them and as great ones will rather be flattered in their passions then censured instantly he made a shamefull divorce with the Queen contrary to laws both divine and humane to take to wife the younger of these sisters which was Mirefleur But love which being of its nature a slave faiâ—eth not to be disdainfull quickly put a distaste of her unto him to make him look after the elder who seemed the more modest and wear a religious habit whether desirous to enflame love by this pretext which ordinarily is eagre to pursue all it can least obtein or whether she did it to give lesse advantage and suspicion to the jealous spirit of Queen Ingobergua The fire of Concupiscence which spareth not to enflame Linsey-wolsey as well as Satin continually blowed by the wind of ambition which promised this creature a giddy Fancy of a Crown burnt so strongly that this spirit which had more cunning then beauty caused so much madnesse to creep into the heart of this miserable king that he resolved to marry her which he did qualifying a prodigious whoredome with the title of wedlock The Queen was ready to dy and addresseth her complaints to God and men The Bishops who were assembled in the Councell of Tours in favour of her made Canons against incestuous marriages but the Canons at that time were not strong enough against the arrows of love S. German Bishop of Paris sent forth thunders of excommunication but passion armed with authority made no more account of them then of flying fires which are quenched in their birth God thereto put his hand by the prayers of the Church and took away this religious woman by a horrible and sudden death which affrighted the King and he in the end conceived shame and sorrow for his fault deriving his salvation out of necessity since he could not gain it from the glory of his refistance That which remained him of life was short and miserable and his passion having rendred him contemptible to his own subjects he quickly left Crown and Scepter to pay a tribute to his Tombe 2. Another kind of sottish love appeared in the government Gregory of Tours l. 5. of young Meraveus which I will here relate as being able to minister matter of terrour to youth which takes liberty in clandestine marriages King Chilperic his father happened to bear away the bloody spoil of his brother Sigebert who had been traiterously murthered by the subtile practises of Fredegond when he was come to the Eve of his triumph The famous Brunhault widow of the deceased King as yet very young was become a party of this miserable booty and saw her pretious liberty enthralled in the hands of her brother in law and sister who was born for vengeance and exercised in massacres Her fortune represented nothing unto her but a thousand images of terrour and the cruelty of her adversaries made her apprehend all that which notable mischievous wickednesse can do when it hath the sword of power in hand Yet her bloud was spared to consume her with languors sentence of her Captivity was pronounced by giving her the City of Roan for prison A trusty man A notable example of Merouevs to dievrt youth from licentious mariages was sought for to execute this Commission and the King cast his eye on his son Meroveus a young Prince of a nature sweet and facile endowed wiht excellent parts which made him to be beloved and beheld as a rising star by all the eyes of France This was to put fire too near to stubble not considering that the calme of such natures is ordinarily the most turmoiled with storms of love So soon as Brunhault who according to the relation of S. Gregory of Torus was a very beautyfull and well spoken Princesse began to unciel her eyes which had hitherto been drenched in a deluge of tears she appeared to Meroveus as a blushing Morn which raiseth the more fair after a shower and the arrow of love sharpned by compassion made such flames to sparkle in his heart that he was enforced to quench them with his bloud He saw himself the captive of his fair prisoner
feet praying him to forget what was past yet he caused his processe to be made in Parliament upon accusations which did more manifest the Passion of the King then any crime in the life of the Count. Notwithstanding the close practise was so great that he was condemned to death and although Lewis terrified by his own Conscience and the generall opinion would not have it to proceed any further yet he confined him to the Bastile where he had spent the rest of his dayes if he had not found means to save himself But whom would he spare who put away and deprived of Office his best servants for having hindered him during his sicknesse to come near unto a Window out of the care they had of his health This passion was a Devil in the heart of this Prince which made him odious to many and filled his whole life with disturbance and acerbity 10. A revengefull spirit spares nothing to please it Aymonius l. 5. c. 39. self and oft-times openeth precipices to fill them with death and ruine It is a strange thing that one sole Wicked revenge of an Abbot and of John Prochytas against the French Abbot of Saint German de Prez named Gaulin had almost ruined the whole Kingdome of France for having been bereaved of an Abbacy He many years revolved his revenge and after the death of Lewis le Begue under whom he had received the injury which he proposed to himself he went to Lewis the German whom he enflamed with so much cunning to the conquest of the Kingdome of France that he set a huge army on foot to surprize the heir of the Crown in the Confusion of his Affairs and the trouble was so great that needs must Lorraigne be cut off from the Kingdome of France to give it to this Conquerour So did John Prochytas the Sicilian who having been deprived of his estate by Charles of Anjou conceived a mortall enmity against the French which made him contrive that bloudy Tragedy of Sicilian Vespres This unfortunate man disguising himself in the habit of a Franciscan went to Peter of Arragon to shew him the means how to invade Sicily and seeing that he and his wife Queen Constance bent all their endeavour thereto he ceased not to stir up the Countrey where he had much credit and used so many engines that in the end he caused one of the most horrible massactes which was ever projected On an Easter-day in the time of Vespres the French had all their throats cut throughout the Island of Sicily No age sex condition nobility nor religious were spared The black spirit of the Abysle drew men from the Altar to runne to the sword which they indifferently thrust into the bosome of their guests nor were so many cryes and lamentations nor such images of death flying before their eyes able to wound their hearts with one sole touch of compassion which useth to move the most unnaturall Rage blown by the breath of the most cruell furies of Hell made them to open the bellies of women and to dig into their entrails to tear thence little Infants conceived of French bloud It caused the most secret sanctuaries of nature to be violated to put those to death who had not as yet the first taste of life Shall we not then say that the passion of revenge which hath taken root in a soul half damned is the most fatall instrument that Hell can invent to overthrow the Empire of Christianity 11. All these accidents well considered are sufficient to moderate the passions which make so much noyse among mankind But let us consider before we go off this stage that Anger and Revenge are not creatures invincible to Courtiers who yet retein som Character of Christianity Robert one of the greatest Kings that ever ware the Crown of France saw his two sonnes bandied against Glaber him when provoked by the practises of the Queen Great moderation in Saint King Robert their mother who ceased not to insult over them they ran to the field with some tumultuary troops and began to exercise acts of hostility which made them very guilty The father incensed by their rebellion and forcibly urged by the sting of the mothers revenge speedily prepares an army and entreth into Burgundy to surprise and chastise them Thereupon William Abbot of S. Benigne of Dion goeth to him and shews that these disorders were an effect of the divine Providence which we should rather appease by penance then irritate by anger that if his Majesty would call to mind he should find that his youth was not exempt from errours committed by the inconsideration of age and the practise of evil counsels that he ought not to revenge with sword and fire that which he had suffered in his own person and that as he would not any should enterprise upon his hereditary possession so it was fit not to meddle with that which was Gods who had reserved vengeance to himself This speech had such power that the good King was instantly appeased caused his children to come embraced them with paternall affection and received them into favour tying their reconciliation with an indissoluble knot What can one answer to the mildnesse of a King accompanied with so much power and wisdome but confesse that pardon is not a thing impossible since this great Prince upon the words of a religious man layes down arms and dissipateth all his anger as waves break at the foot of rocks 12. We must confesse that Regality was never Helgandus in vita Roberti Regis seen allyed to a spirit more mild and peaceable and that his actions should rather be matter of admiration then example He pardoned twelve murtherers who had a purpose to attempt upon his life after he had caused them to confesse and communicate saying it was not reasonable to condemn those whom the Church had absolved and to afflict death upon such as had received the bread of life But what would not he have done who surprising a rogue which had cut away half of his cloke furred with Ermins said mildely to him Save thy self and leave the rest for another who may have need of it 13. This mildnesse is very like to that of Henry the First afterward King of England who seeing his Fathers body to be stayed in open street upon the instant of his obsequies and this by a mean Citizen who complained the soil of the land where the dead which was William the Conquerour was to be interred was his Ancestours inheritance he was nothing at all moved but presently commanded his Treasurer to satisfie the Creditour and to prosecute the pomp of his Funerals 14. Lewis the Eleventh did a King-like act towards Generous act of Lewis the Eleventh the ashes of the fair Agnes who had possessed the heart of his father Charls the Seventh and had persecuted him the son in her life-time At her death she gave threescore thousand crowns for a foundation to
all the miserable betook themselves unto him unto the number of 400. men which entrenched themselves in a fortresse going forth every day for to rob to maintain themselves thereby In the midst of all these misfortunes the good Prince kept alwayes in his heart a true love of his countrey and knowing that the Philistims had laid siege before Keilah he failed not to go to help it and to deliver it although this ungratefull city was intened to deliver him to Saul if he had enclosed himself therein the which he would not do having consulted with the Oracle of God but retired himself to the desert of Ziph whither Jonathan that The visit of Jonathan secret and and very profitable to David burned with a great desire to see him came to find him secretly and they were for some time together with unspeakable expansions of heart This good friend comforted him and assured him that he should be King after his father and for himself he would be content to be his second which sufficiently witnessed the wonderfull modesty of this Prince and the incomparable love that he bore to David But the Ziphims men for the time that would provide for their own safety sent their deputies to Saul to advertise him that David was retired into their quarters and if it pleased him to follow him they would deliver him into his hands At the which Saul was exceeding joyful and entred the chase to entrap him compassing him on every side and hunting him like a poor deer chased by men and dogs with great out cries The danger was very manifest and David in great hazard to be taken had it not been for a happy message it may be procured by Jonathan that advertised Saul that the Philistims had taken the field and made great waste upon his lands at which he returned to bring remedy thereto deferring his former design till another occasion In the mean while David ran from desert to desert The rudenesse of Nabal towards David with his troops and was hardly able to live which made him have recourse to Nabal a rich man and that had great means entreating him for some courtesie for to maintain his people which had used him with very great respect defending his house his flocks and all his family against the spoilings of robbers This Nabal that was clownish and covetous answered the deputies of David that he knew not the son of Jesse but that he was not ignorant that there were evil servants enough which were fled from their masters and that he was not in case to take the bread from his hired servants for to give it to high-way men This word being told to David incensed him so much that he was going to set upon his house for to rob and sack it But Abagail the The wisdome of Abigail his wife wife of Nabal better behaved and wiser without busying her self to discourse with her husband that was a fool and drunk caused presently mules to be loaden with provision necessary for the men of war and went to meet David to whom she spake with so great wisdome comelinesse and humility that she turned away the tempest and stayed the swords already drawn out of the scabbards for to make a great slaughter in her house David admiring the wisdom and goodnesse of this spirit of the woman married her after the death of her husband It is so true that a good deed bestowed on a high A good deed done to a great one afflicted is of much value person in time of his affliction and when he hath most leasure to consider it is a seed-sowing which in its time brings forth and bears fruits of blessednesse After that Saul had driven back the Philistims he returns to the pursuit of David accompanied with three thousand men with a purpose to take him although he should hide himself under ground or should fly through the air And indeed he crept up rocks unaccessible David furiously pursued by Saul which were not frequented by any but by wild goats and as he passed that way he entred into a cave for some naturall necessity where David was hid with a small number of his faithfullest servants which failed not to tell him that this was the hand of God which had this day delivered his deadly enemy into his hands and that he should not now lose time but to cut him off quickly whilst that he gave him so fair play and this would be the means to end all those bitternesses wherewith his life was filled by the rage of this barbarous Persecutour This was a strong temptation to a man so violently His generousnesse in pardoning his enemy very admirable persecuted and whose life was sought by so many outrages Neverthelesse David stopping all those motions of revenge resolved in his heart by a strong inspiration of God never to lay his hands upon him which was consecrated King and contenting himself with cutting off the skirts of his coat he went out of the cave after Saul and crying with a loud voice he worshipped him prostrate on the earth holding in his hand the piece of his casock and saying to him Behold my Lord my Father and my King the innocence of my hands and do not believe them any more which filled you with suspicions of poor David you cannot be ignorant at this time that God hath put you into my power and that I could have handled you ill by taking away your life have saved mine own But God hath kept me by his holy grace from this thought and hath preserved you from all evil I never yet had any intent to hurt your Majesty having alwayes reverenced and served it as your most humble servant and subject whiles that you cease not to pesecute me and to torment my poor life with a thousand afflictions Alas my Lord what is it that you desire Against whom are you come forth with so great furniture of Arms and Horses against a poor dead Dog a miserable little beast I beseech the living God to judge between us two and to make you to know the goodnesse of my cause One may avouch that great and glorious actions The greatnesse and benefit of clemency of Clemency do never hurt Princes but that often they do place or keep the Crown upon their heads God and Men concurring to favour that goodnesse that approches so near to the highest Saul was so amazed with this action that he ran to him and embraced him weeping and said to him This is a sure sign O David which I acknowledge at the present and whereby I know for certain that you must reign after me so great a goodnesse not being able to be rewarded but by an Empire I do pray and conjure you onely to have pity on my poor children after my death and not to revenge your injuries upon them hereupon he swore to him to deal with him afterwards peaceably But as this spirit was unequall
woman well bred and of good courage Ishbosheth was offended thereat for that he had done this without telling him of it But Abner for one poore word spoken to in a very mild manner entred into a rage against The insolence of Abner his King and said that it was to use him like a dog to quarrel with him for a woman after so great services as he had done for the Crown reproching his Master for that he held both his life and his Kingdome of him But seeing that he used him in this manner he would take a course with him and would translate the government from the house of Saul to that of David Masters should not give too much authority to their subjects The poor Prince held his peace and durst not answer one word onely to this bold fellow which was a pitifull thing to see him thus devoured by his own servant The houses of Great ones are very often filled with such servants who having been honoured with an especiall confidence of their Master in the administration of their affairs whether they be their Receivers or Stewards of their families take upon them authority and not contenting themselves to govern the goods enter upon the right of their Lords leaving them nothing but a name and shadow of the Power which is due unto them Abner grew so hot with anger that he dispatched He treateth with David his Messengers to David to desire his friendship and promiseth him to bring the whole Kingdome of Ishbosheth into his hands David answered that he was content to make peace with him so that he would cause his wife Michol to be restored him whom they had married to another after his departure which was readily agreed to for him for they took her away from the hands of her husband that followed her weeping this woman with her lofty spirit had some pleasing behaviour wherewith Davids affection was taken In the mean while Abner powerfully sollicits the people of Israel to betake themselves on Davids side shewing them that God had committed their safety and rest into his hands and that it was he which should unite together all the families under his obedience for to compose a Monarchy which should become happy to his people helpfull to his friends and terrible to his enemies This discourse did very much shake the principall ones of the Nation which were not ignorant of the small hopes that were in the person of Ishbosheth which was disparaged both by nature and fortune This stout Captain following the businesse came to meet with David in Hebron who made him a feast hearkened unto his propositions and conducted him back with honour Joab who was at that time absent at his return quickly understood of the coming of Abner whereat Joabs Jealousie over Abner he entred into a furious jealousie fearing lest David should be of the humour of those which delight more in making of friends then keeping of those that are made and that the friendship of a man which seemed to draw a whole Kingdome after him might much prejudice his fortunes He enters roughly into his Kings chamber telling him that this was but a deceiver which came but to spy out his secrets and to do him some ill turn that he should lay hold of him seeing he was come under his power And for that David answered him nothing seeing him in a hot anger he went out furiously and without authority sent a message to the chief Captain Abner to intreat him to return to Hebron under colour of treating more fully with David The death of Abner He lightly believed it and came back the same way when as Joab that lay in wait for him took him treasonably and killed him at the gate of the city David was indeed very much perplexed hereat and David tolerates Joab in his fault upon necessitie uttered grievous curses against Joab and his whole race neverthelesse as the wisest did judge that there was a great interest in this death and that his chief Captain had become the executour thereof this made some to think that there was some design and though that suspicion was false David did all that he could to deface the blemish thereof assisting at the funeralls of Abner very near to the corps protesting against the cruelty of those that had taken his life from him and highly setting forth the praises of the dead yet he caused not processe to be made against Joab conceiving that he was not able to destroy him in such a time when it was dangerous to provoke him Neverthelesse he kept the resolution to punish him even to his death but Joab contemned all upon the confidence that he had that none could go beyond him and measured his own greatnesse by the impunity of his great offences It is hard to excuse David upon this treaty that he David cannot be excused upon the treaty made with Abner if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God projected with Abner traytour to his Master if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God or to the right that he pretended to have to the Crown in consideration of his first anointment made by Samuel He knew that the Edicts of his royall dignity were written in heaven and for this cause without endeavouring by any criminall way he expected the work of Providence and applyed himself to the events for without any thought of his Ishbosheth King of Israel was slain by two murtherers Rechab and Baana which killd him as he slept upon his bed at noon-day and brought his head to him at which this great King was so highly incensed abhorring this barbarous act that he condemned them presently to death and after he had caused their heads and feet to be cut off he made them to be hanged at the fish-pond of Hebron David absolute by the death of Ishbosheth son of Saul The death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul ended the difference which was between the two Royall houses and the other families yielded themselves to David by an universall consentment It was then that he began to reign absolutely and to make to appear as in a glorious light the admirable qualities and Royall virtues wherewith he was adorned And it is certain that of all the Kings of Juda there was none hath equalled him in all kind of perfections He was one that feared God without superstition religious without hypocrisie valiant without any sternnesse liberall without reproching it to any one a good husband without covetousnesse The Royal qualities of David stout without insolency vigilant without unquietnesse wise without subtilty courteous without loosnesse humble without cowardlinesse chearfull without too much familiarity grave without fiercenesse and kind without any complements He united all those things together which ordinarily His zeal to religion make Princes great and proved in each of them so advantageous as if he had been
servant for she had some good work in her heart for the safety of her Countrey and intreated that it might be recommended to the prayers of the whole Assembly without curiously inquiring what it was that God would do by her means Ozias answered her that she might go in peace and that he prayed that her action might succeed to the good of the universall people Here perhaps may some men be astonished that a woman should take the boldnesse to go and advise the Magistrates and the Priests and the severer sort of censurers will say that by right Judith should have been sent home to her distaffe They will alledge that the Jews give every day thanks to God in their Prayers for that he had not made them be born Women Antiently they were placed in the Churches on the North side from whence the Scripture makes all the evil of the world to come Chrysologus hath also said that woman was the Way of Death the Title of the Sepulchre and the Gate of Hell But this ought to be understood of those that follow the steps of the first of Women and not the wayes of the chief of Virgins Those who abandon themselves to luxury to vanity and to dissolute pleasures are no way fit for great affairs being too delicate for labour and too ambitious of honour But many others that have taken pains in the regulating of their passions have rendred great services to Kingdomes and Common-wealths Rome had never been Rome without the Sabine women The people of the North by the report of Tacitus have been governed in their Warres and in their Polities by women professing that they perceived in them a certain prophetick and divine spirit Plato in his Common-wealth hath judged them capable of Offices their souls being of the same species or kind as men's Wherefore then should we think it strange that God made use of a virtuous woman to counsel men and to deliver her countrey Before she undertook that great work she was a long time prostrated before God in her Oratory with sackcloth upon her back and ashes upon her head saying with an amorous heart My God the God of my Fathers to whom nothing is impossible look down now upon the camp of the Assyrians with that eye of lightnings and of thunders that thou heretofore didst cast upon the army of Egyptians when they were buried in the bottom of the Sea Let the same happen to those here that trust in their chariots of warre in their spears and in their swords and know not that thou art the God of heaven that breakest in pieces the mighty Powers of the earth with one sole look of thine eyes lift up that same arm that hath made it self renown'd from all antiquity by so many wonders and tread under-foot all their strength by thine for ever dreadfull forces Suffer them not to violate thy Temple and to sack the House where thy Name is from all time invoked Cause this barbarous Collonel who promises himself our spoils to be taken by me through the snares of his eyes that his own Coutel-ax may divide his soul and body Strike him with the grace that thy blessing shall make to flow upon my lips and with the cloquence that it shall give to my speeches animate my heart and stiffen my arm to make that great blow that shall be thine and carry away an eternall honour for having pulled down that Colossus by a woman's hand Thy strength is not in the multitude of souldiers nor in the valour of Cavaliers It is not those proud warriours that ought to expect the succour of thy arm but it is the Prayer of the humble that gains thy heart and draws thy forces to their protection God of the heavens creatour of the waters and the God of all nature hear thy poor servant that presumes nothing but from thy mercy Remember thy Covenant give counsel to my heart words to my mouth and strength to my hands for the defence of thy House and that all the Nations of the habitable world may know that there is not any other God but thee Such were the Arms and Engines of this excellent woman such was the confidence she had in the God of hosts After this Prayer she rises from her Oratory comes down from her chamber and calls her maid to dresse her She puts off the sackcloth she washes her self she perfumes her self and quitting the mourning habit which she wore in her widow-hood she puts on her gayest cloathing The tresses of her long hairs are combed out with a delicate hand and her head covered with a stately tyre her handsome body appeared a little taller by the favour of her patins she hangs on her pendants at her ears she puts on her bracelets her chain of pearls her rings certain jewels made in form of flower-de-Lis's and all her richest ornaments It seemed that God took a pleasure that day to render her fairer then ever she had been and that all the graces smiled in her countenance because she had adorned her self through virtue and not through wantonnesse She caused her meat and drink to be carried by her maid fearing to pollute her body with the viands of the Infidels and instantly she went out of her house and betook her self to the city gate where she found Ozias the Prince together with the Priests that were ravished with the lustre of her heavenly beauty Yet no body curiously enquired whither she was going but were contented to wish that God would make her designs succesfull that she might be one day the honour of Jerusalem and that her name might be put in the rank of those great and holy souls that had rendred to God most renowned services She departs out of the city calling again upon the name of God and reciting some prayers with her servant As she went down the mountain upon the break of day the souldiers having perceived her failed not to run to her and seeing her so excellently beautifull were at first dazled in their eyes more by the splendour of her visage then by the first rayes of the day that then was upon its birth They inform themselves of her countrey of her journey and of her intentions whereto she answered that she was of Bethulia and that she had that day forsaken that miserable city that was obstinate in its misery and that for having resisted the triumphant legions of the Assyrians deserved to be destroyed by the thunder-bolts of heaven and earth That she would have no share in their crime no more then in their disastres and that her desire was to present her self to Holophernes to reveal to him the secrets of the city and to teach him the means how to take it without losing any of his men These men were ravished at the hearing of these discourses and assured her that she had taken an excellent course to live in quiet and in honour and that she would be very welcome to their master of whom
Darius the Mede who knowing the Prophecy of Daniel and the freedome with which he had spoken to the King esteemed him for it and retain'd him at the Court in the quality which his Predecessour had given him a night before his death When he saw himself established in favour again he forgat not God his heart being alwayes animated with a zeal to his Religion and when he saw his King inclining to the Superstition of the Countrey his heart was much grieved at it and he endeavours to cleanse him from his errours seeing him to be of a disposition too simple and credulous to the prejudice of the truth Amongst these false Deities Bel was adored with an exquisite and sumptuous worship in as much as there were offered to him every day out of the Kings house twelve baskets of meal forty sheep and six great measures of wine and it was believed that that Idol did eat up all the offerings The King that loved Daniel so much as to make him dine sometimes at his own table desired that he would accommodate himself to the Laws of the Countrey and that he would expresse some affection to the service of that great Bell that was adored universally by all the Nation But this wise Courtier answered him freely that he would never worship any but the true living God Darius replyed That there was nothing required to be adored but to live Bel was truly the living God because he did cat and drink well and cost much to feed him Daniel smiling answered that it was a great simplicity to think that that Idol did eat up all that was offered him every day Whereupon the King was moved with a curiosity to know how all this went and having caused the ordinary viands to be offered at Bels altar carefully saw all the doors of the Temple shut and put Guards before them that no body might enter in Daniel before he went out thence with the King caused abundance of Ashes to be sown there hoping by this means to discover the Imposture The morrow after the King caused the doors to be opened that had remained fast shut with his own seal and when as he entred in he saw that all the victuals had been taken away he cryed out that Bel was a great God and that it must needs be acknowledged that he did eat excellently well seeing nothing of all those offerings was remaining But Daniel instantly made him see upon the ashes the steps of those that had entered whereat he was astonished and called for all the Priests of that Idol to whom he shewed their cheat and pressed them so eagerly that they discovered certain little doors under the Altar through which they entred to the number of threescore and ten besides women and little children to devour the sacrifice The King was ashamed at the simplicity of his belief this shame passed into wrath and wrath proceeded as far as bloud causing him to put to death all the Impostours Furthermore in the same place there was a Dragon which was yet worshiped by that superstitious people which Daniel after he had obteined the permission of the King killed by making a masse composed of pitch of grease and of hair which he made him swallow and with it choake himself This made a great commotion amongst the people that said that the King was become a Jew causing his Priests to be murthered and killing the Dragon that there was now nothing remaining but to strangle all the sense of the Antient Religion In such a manner that behold a great tempest is raised against Daniel which in the opinion of all the world threatned him with an inevitable death The Grandees of the realm endeavour to ruine him by all ways and considering that he was exact and irreprochable in his office they resolve to ensnare him in matter of Religion Under colour of gratifying the King they beseech him to make an edict That whosoever should desire any thing of the Gods or of men for the space of thirty dayes except of the King should be cast into the Lions-den which the King granted them not knowing what their malice plotted against the innocence of his Prophet and Officer of State He was watched on all sides and retired himself from the King to diminish the jealousie that men had of him for the favours he received from him All his consolation was in Prayer and in those amiable discourses which he had with God and therefore he was afflicted as much as can be expressed seeing that the King his Master let himself be perswaded to make an edict so outrageous against the honour of God as to forbid to pray unto him Yet this hindered not him from continuing his oraisons lifting up thrice a day his weeping eyes on that side whereon the Temple of Jerusalem was built and sighing in the presence of his great Master with the ardours of an heart that evaporated it self â—ll in Love The Nobles that were every day at his door falled not to surprise him and to accuse him that he had transgressed the Edict which he acknowledged freely Complaints of it were suddenly made to his Majesty whose heart was wounded for the affection that he bare to Daniel and he laboured even till the Sun set to save him neverthelesse seeing himself pressed violently by his Edict and the vehemence which the Nobles used that it should be observed he abandoned the innocent to their fury against his will This defiles the conscience of many great men who are evil-doers of their disposition and yet for all that commit great evils through the complacency that they give to the violent humours of those that are about them He had some hope that Daniel would escape and that the God which he adored would save him and therefore he made no resistance by arms but delivered him into their hands to be cast into that horrible den of the Lions that had been kept hungry on purpose that he might be the sooner devoured But O God of wonders what Prodigie is here The Lions worship their prey Daniel is visited in that Cave by a Prophet come in an instant from Judea by the Ministry of an Angel that brought him his dinner The beasts change their Nature and Nature forces her Laws for the respect of a servant of God The King that had lain down without his supper and had not slept all night for the fear that he had for his poor Daniel runs early in the morning to the Lions-den which he had caused to be shut up with a great stone put upon the mouth of it and stampt with his own Seal and there cryes out with a lamentable voyce asking of Daniel whether he were yet alive who made him see how the God that he adored had delivered him and preserved him from all evill Whereat he was so ravished that he began to look upon him as an heavenly man caused his accusers to be apprehended to be exposed to the same Lions
dinner of Locusts and wild Honey retired in his Cabben then at the fight of the pomps and pleasures of the King of Galilee But God that is the Master of Kings and the Directour of Hermites hath thus disposed of him and willed that he should dye at Court after he had so long a time lived in the wildernesse It is not certainly known what occasion drove him to it whether he went thither by zeal or whether he was sent for by design or whether he was forced by violence Some think that the miseries of his countrey afflicted under the government of a dissolute Prince affecting him with a great Compassion He went out of the desert of his own accord to admonish the king of his duty Since that all those that came neer him and that were obliged to speak to him were mute partly by a servitude fatall to all those that are tyed to the hopes of the world and partly also being seized with fear by reason of the power and cruelty of a womans spirit that possessed Herod Others as Josephus have written that the Prince hearing every day of the great concourse of all sorts of people that went to the wildernesse to see Saint John was afraid lest under colour of piety this might make some change of State Tyrants love not men endowed with an extraordinary virtue and that have not learnt the trade of flattering their voyce is the Cock that frights those cruell Lyons their life is a flash of Lightning that dazles their Eyes their actions are as many Convictions of their Iniquity And therefore this Authour saith that without other form of processe Herod caused him to be apprehended to prevent him and break off those assemblies that were made about him Yet it is probable and more consonant to the Scripture which assures us that this Prince bare some respect to John and heard him and did many things according to his advice that he proceeded not against him at first with so much violence But the cunning Fox as he was according to the judgement that the Eternall Truth made of him seeing that Saint John was in an high esteem for holinesse and in great credit amongst the people strived to winne him and to draw him to him to make himself be reputed for a good Prince that cherished honest men and to maintain by this means his authority that was already rottering and little rooted in the true Maximes of a good Government It was thus that Dionysius the Tyrant made use of the Philosophers not for any affection that he bare them but to appropriate them to the bad intentions that he had in State and to give them some colour by the expresse or interpreted approbation of those personages that were in reputation for their wisdome But Herod did ill choose his man this was not a Court-flatterer a Tool for all Trades a Shoe for all Feet but a stiffe and austere man to whom a whole World would not have given the least temptation to do any thing against his conscience It would be a superfluous thing to enlarge ones self at length upon the rare qualities of Saint John who having been many times highly commended by the Creatour of Virtues and the Distributour of true praises who hath preferred him above the greatest of the world seems to have dryed up by his abundance the Elogies of the most eloquent Let us content our selves to say that there are abundance of excellencies in him enough to make all chaires speak and all pens write even to the end of the world He was born of the blood of Aaron the brother of Moses the first ornament of the Priesthood and the great Conductour of the People He came out of a barren Womb which he rendered fruitfull above all fecundities of the earth His birth was declared miraculously by the voyce of an Archangell He was sanctified almost as soon as conceived and virtue appropriated him to her self before that nature had brought him to the Light He was a worshipper of the word when he was yet in the bowels of his mother and received the first rayes of the everlasting day before that his eye was open to the brightnesse of the Sun Reason was advanced to him by a wonder altogether extraordinary He hath had this honour to know first after the Virgin Mary the news of that high mystery of the Incarnation and of the Redemption of the world Of all the Nativities of so many children of Adam the Church celebrates none but that of John who hath this common with our Saviour and his most holy Mother who by a speciall priviledge honoured his birth by her actuall presence So that he saw his first day under the aspect of the Mother of the Universe His name was given him by an Archangell a name of grace and favour that shewed he was placed in the ranke of the dearest delights of Heaven and the tongue of his dumb Father tyed by an heavenly virtue was loosed by its power that it might pronounce that fair name He was exempted from grievous sins and as many Divines hold even from veniall He consecrated his retirement in the Desert almost as soon as he entered into the world Farthermore he was a Prophet and more then a Prophet a Virgin a Doctour a forerunner of the Son of God the Trumpet of Repentance the Authour of a Baptisme that ushered in that which regenerates us all whereof Jesus was pleased to receive the sprinckling In fine he was the Horizon of the Gospel and the Law and the first that shewed with the finger the Lamb of God and the Kingdome of Heaven But let us make no reckoning of what I have alleaged but let us say onely that which the word hath said of him That he was not a Reed to bow at every wind nor a man that could be allured by the delicacies of the Court He spake there as a Prophet he conversed there as an Angell and at last dyed there as a Martyr The time furnished him with an occasion about which he could not speak without making much noyse and he could not hold his peace without betraying his Conscience That Herod Antipas which we are to speak of here was the sonne of the great Herod the Murtherer of the Innocents and of a Samaritan woman who after the death of his Father forasmuch as the Legitimate issue of Mariamne had been unworthily murthered to make way for unjust heirs had for his part of the Kingdome of Judea Galilee which he held in quality of a Tetrarch He was a Prince of a small courage addicted to his pleasures lascivious and loose that endeavoured to preserve himself by poor shifts having nothing stout nor warlike in his person He had a brother named Philip which held another parcell of that Kingdome of Judea dismembred and little enough considerable the Romans having possessed themselves of the best part of it after they had deposed Archelaus that had reigned as Successour of his
Princes ears with such like words and to breed a distrust in him of Saint John in such a manner as that he consented that he should be apprehended and put in prison under colour as Josephus saith that he went about to change the peoples minds and to embroil the State This detaining of a man so holy and so renowned made a great noyse through all Judea but the wicked woman had this maxime That one ought to take ones pleasure to content nature and little to trouble ones self at the opinions of the world below nor at the complaints of honest men judging that all mouthes ought to be stopped by the rigour of punishments and that she should be innocent when no body durst any more find fault with her actions She slept not one good sleep with her Herod as long as Saint John was yet alive but fearing alwayes either that her pretended husband whom she thought light enough might be softned with compassion to release him or that the people that held him for a Saint might break open the prisons to take him thence she resolved to see the end of him to give all liberty to her unbridled passions She watches the opportunity of Herods birth-day on which he was accustomed to make feasts and to intertein the principall Officers of his Kingdome This crafty woman tampered with all the wills of those that had any power over his spirit for this design and seeing that her daughter was a powerfull instrument to move that effeminate Prince and that he was extraordinarily pleased to see her dance conjured her to employ all her genius and all her industry all the baits allurements and gentilesses that she had in dancing to gain the Kings heart and that if she saw him very freely merry and on terms to gratifie her with some great advantage she should take heed of asking any thing but the head of John and that he was necessarily to fall if she would not see her mother perish and all her fortunes overthrown The daughter obeyed and fits her self even to perfection to please the Princes eyes she enters into the banqueting house richly deck'd and makes use of a dance not vulgar whereat he was ravished and all the Guests that were perhaps hired by Herodias to commend her made a wonderfull recitall of her perfections There was nothing now remaining but to give her the recompence of her pains This daughter of iniquity and not of nature sayes Chrysologus seeing that every one applauded her and that the King that was no longer his own man would honour her with some great present which he would remit to her own choyse even as far as to give her the moity of his Kingdome if she would have desired it made a bloudy request following the instructions of her wicked mother and required that instantly S. Johns head should be given her in a plate Herod felt his heart pricked with a repentance piercing enough but because he had sworn in presence of the Nobles of his Kingdomes to deny nothing that she should ask would not discontent her but gives command to the Master of his House to go to the prison and to cut off S. Johns head to put it in the hands of this wanton wench As soon as the word was pronounced her mother was not quiet till she saw the execution of it to Prison they run every one thought that it had been for some grace since that it was upon the nick of the feast of the Nativity of the King but they quickly saw an effect quite contrary to that thought when S. John was called for and told that he must resolve to dye What think we did this divine forerunner do at this last moment that remained to him of so innocent a life but render thanks to God that made him dye a Martyr for the truth after he had inlightned his eyes with the visible presence of the Incarnate Word which permitted him not to have any thing left in this world to be desired He exhorted his disciples to range themselves about our Saviour who was the Way the Life and the Truth He prayed for his persecutours and for the easing of the miseries of his poor people afterward having a relish of the first contentments of his felicity by the tranquility of his spirit he yielded his neck to the hangman His body was honourably buried by his disciples and his head brought in a plate to that cruell feast put into the hands of that danceresse who presented it to her mother and the mother according to S. Jerome made a play-game of it pricking the tongue with the needle of her hair All that one can speak is below the horrour of its spectacle sayes S. Ambrose The head of S. John of the Prime man of the world that had shut up the Law that had opened the Gospel the head of a Prophet of an Angell is outrageously taken off and delivered for the salary of a danceresse The soberest of men is massacreed in a feast of drunkards and the chastest by the artifice of a prostitute He is condemned on an occasion and on a time in which he would not even have been absolved as abhorring all that proceeded from intemperance O how dangerous is it then to offend a woman that hath renounced her honour Herod gave her an homicide for a kisse The hangmen wash their hands when they are ready to sit down at table but these unhappy women pollute theirs in the banquet with a Prophets bloud The righteous slain by adulterers the innocent by the guilty the true judge by criminall souls This banquet that should have been the source of life brings an edict of death Cruelty is mingled with delights and pleasure with funerals This horrible plate is carried through all the table for the satiating of those unhumane eyes and the bloud that drops yet from his veins falls upon the pavement to be licked up with the ordures of that infamous supper Look upon it Herod look upon a deed that was worthy of none but thy Cruelty stretch out thine hand put thy fingers in the wound that thou hast made that they may be again bedewed with a bloud so sacred Drink cruell man drink that river which thou seest glide to quench thy thirst Look upon those dead eyes that accuse thy wickednesse and which thou dost wound again with the aspect of thy filthy pleasures Alas they are shut not so much by the necessity of death as by the horrour of thy luxury The vengeance of God delayed not long to fall upon those perverse souls that had committed so enourmous a crime Arethas King of the Arabians resenting the affront that had been given to his daughter by those Adulterers enters in arms upon the lands of Herod who bestirrs himself but weakly to resist him Pleasures held him so fast chained that he had not the boldnesse to go to his frontiers in person to oppose his adversary but contented himself with sending a
commandment Wealth and Honour were always on her side Delight and Joy seemed onely to be ordained for her Whatsoever she undertook did thrive all her thoughts were prosperous the earth and the sea did obey her the winds and the tempests did follow her Standards Some would affirm that this is no marvel at all but onely the effect of a cunning and politick Councel composed of the sons of darkness who are more proper to inherit the felicities of this world than the children of the light But we must consider that this is the common condition both of the good and the evil to find out the cause in which the Understanding of man doth lose it self David curiously endeavouring to discover the reason in the beginning did conceive himself to be a Philosopher but in the end acknowledged that the consideration thereof did make him to become a Beast The Astrologers do affirm that Elizabeth came into the world under the Sign of Virgo which doth promise Empires and Honours and that the Queen of Scotland was born under Sagitarius which doth threaten women with affliction and a bloudy Death The Machivilians do maintain that she should accommodate her self to the Religion of her Countrey and that in the opposing of that torrent she ruined her affairs The Politicians do impute it to the easiness of her gentle Nature Others do blame the counsel which she entertained to marry her own Subjects And some have looked upon her as Jobs false friends did look on him and reported him to lye on the dung-hill for his sions But having thoroughly considered on it I do observe that in these two Queens God would represent the two Cities of Sion and Babylon the two wayes of the just and the unjust and the estate of this present world and of the world to come He hath given to Elizabeth the bread of dogs to reserve for Mary the Manna of Angels In one he hath recompensed some moral virtues with temporal blessings to make the other to enter into the possession of eternal happiness Elizabeth did reign why so did Athalia Elizabeth did presecute the Prophets why so did Jezabel Elizabeth hath obtained Victories why so did Thomyris the Queen of the Scythians She hath lived in honour and delight and so did Semiramis She died a natural death being full of years so died the Herods and Tyberius but following the track that she did walk in what shall we collect of her end but as of that which Job speaketh concerning the Tomb of the wicked They pass away their life in delights and descend in a moment unto hell Now God being pleased to raise Marie above all the greatness of this earth and to renew in her the fruits of his Cross did permit that in the Age wherein she lived there should be the most outragious and bloudy persecution that was ever raised against the Church He was pleased by the secret counsel of his The great secret of the Divine Providence Providence that there should be persons of all sorts which should extol the Effects of his Passion And there being already entered so many Prelates Doctours Confessours Judges Merchants Labourers and Artisans he would now have Kings and Queens to enter also Her Husband Francis the Second although a most just and innocent Prince had already took part in this conflict of suffering Souls His life being shortened as it is thought by the fury of the Hugonots who did not cease to persecute him It was now requisite that his dear Spouse should undertake the mystery of the Cross also And as she had a most couragious soul so God did put her in the front of the most violent persecutions to suffer the greatest torments and to obtain the richest Crowns The Prophet saith That man is made as a piece of Elizabeth's hatred to the Queen of Scotland Imbroidery which doth not manifest it self in the lives of the just for God doth use them as the Imbroiderer doth his stuffs of Velvet and of Satin he takes them in pieces to make habilements for the beautifiing of his Temple 12. Elizabeth being now transported into Vengeance and carried away by violent Counsels is resolved to put Mary to death It is most certain that she passionately desired the death of this Queen well understanding that her life was most apposite to her most delicate interests She could not be ignorant that Mary Stuart had right to the Crown of England and that she usurped it she could not be ignorant that in a General Assembly of the States of England she was declared to be a Bastard as being derived from a marriage made consummated against all laws both Divine and humane She observed that her Throne did not subsit but by the Faction of Heresie and as her Crown was first established by disorder so according to her policie it must be cemented by bloud She could not deny but that the Queen of Scotland had a Title to the Crown which insensibly might fall on the head of the Prisoner and then that in a moment she might change the whole face of the State She observed her to be a Queen of a vast spirit of an unshaken faith and of an excellent virtue who had received the Unction of the Realm of Scotland and who was Queen Dowager of the Kingdom of France supported by the Pope reverenced throughout all Christendom and regarded by the Catholicks as a sacred stock from which new branches of Religion should spring which no Ax of persecution could cut down The Hereticks in England who feared her as one that would punish their offences and destroy their Fortunes which they had builded on the ruins of Religion had not a more earnest desire than to see her out of the world All things conspired to overthrow this poor Princess and nothing remained but to give a colour to so bold a murder It so fell out that in the last years of her afflicting imprisonment a conspiracy was plotted against the Estate and the life of Elizabeth as Cambden doth recite it Ballard an English Priest who had more zeal to his Religion than discretion to mannage his enterprize considered with himself how this woman had usurped a Scepter which did not appertain unto her How she had overthrown all the principles of the ancient Religion How she had kept in prison an innocent Queen for the space of twenty years using her with all manner of indignity how she continually practised new butcheries by the effusion of the bloud of the Catholicks he conceived it would be a work of Justice to procure her death who held our purses in her hand and our liberty in a chain But I will not approve of those bloudy Counsels which do provide a Remedy far worse than the disease and infinitely do trouble the Estate of Christendom Nevertheless he drew unto him many that were of his opinion who did offer and devote themselves to give this fatal blow The chiefest amongst them was
against me In the third place I require that my servants who have attended on me with great fidelitie during so many afflictions may have free leave to retire where they please and enjoy those small Legacies which in my last Will my povertie hath bequeathed to them I conjure You Madam by the Bloud of Jesus Christ by the nearness of our consanguinitie by the Memorie of Henrie the Seventh our common Father and by the title of a Queen which I carrie to my Grave not to denie me these reasonable Demands but by one word under Your hand to grant me an assurance of them and I shall die as I have lived Your most affectionate Sister and Prisoner QUEEN MARY It is uncertain whether this Letter came to the hands of Elizabeth because no Answer can be found unto it whether it were that those next unto her did conceal it from her or whether through the hardness of her heart she did dissemble it In the mean time King James employed himself for The vain endeavour to delay her death the Deliverance of his Mother the Ambassadours from France Monsieur de la Mote Aigron and Monsieur del Aubispene were commanded thither upon that and other occasions and Monsieur de Belieurs did there also carry himself with great wisdom courage and fidelity as may appear by his grave Remonstrance which is to be read in the History of France Howsoever the Arrest of Death was suspended for there moneths until such time that the clamours of the Lutherans and Puritans did cause the Thunder to fall down upon that hand which desired nothing more than to strike home the blow The more advised did remonstrate unto her That it was without example to commit a Ladie the Queen of France and Scotland and the nearest Kinswoman she had in the world into the hands of a Hang-man A Queen which was not her prisoner of War but her Guest whom she had called and invited into her Kingdom and sent unto her assurances of her fidelitie That she ought to consider that what was done proceeded from her Secretaries and not from her And if that after twenty years imprisonment she should have consented to be taken from it by force it did not deserve to be punished with Death That if she should cause her to die it would open a wound from whence there would issue such abundance of bloud that many Ages could not stanch it That Italie France and Spain and all the Christian Kingdoms of the world would be offended at it and that she should bring upon her Kingdom the Arms of Christendom who would be glad of that pretence to invade her Kingdom That it would be a most remarkable affront to her Son James and all his Race who could not but be mindfull of it That it would incense the Spirits of her Kingdom and render them unreconcileable to her And in the end that it was to be feared that Heaven would arm it self against so bloudy a Design That she should use the miserable and especially a Queen who came into her Countrey for protection with more Reverence That she should hazard much in her death but could lose nothing by her life seeing she had so many Guards Prisons Bars and Walls to secure her if she had an intent to enterprize against the State But the insolent Ministers did incessantly crie out That she must put an end to her Imprisonment by putting an end unto her Life That the Queen ought to remember that she had usurped her Titles and her Name and sometimes caused her self to be proclaimed Queen of England and of Scotland and that Sovereigns never pardoned those who did so far intrench upon their Authority That the life of Elizabeth and Mary were incompatible That the onely means to take away all pretences from the Catholicks was to cut off this Root which would make all their hopes to perish That King James was instructed in their Religion and would rather look after the advancement of his own State than take vengeance for the Death of his Mother That forreign Princes were too much perplexed with the difficulties of their own Affairs and took care rather to defend their own than to invade her Kingdom That her Cousin the Duke of Guise was in a bad condition in France and that Henrie the Third would be very carefull how he did espouse her quarrels And if other Princes were so hardy to undertake it they were to understand that England had a deep ditch about it That Queen Elizabeth was mortal and if she should die there was not that calamitie to be conceived which both Religion and the State would not suffer under the reign of Marie in the revenge of her Imprisonment and other injuries she had received That she could not but remember that great personages did write things well done on the sand but did engrave their Discontents in brass The Preachers made it to be a work of Religion with their absurd Allegations out of the Bible which they did corrupt to their bloudy meaning And the Lawyers as ignorant as the Ministers were absurd did produce some Histories for the punishment of Kings which were altogether impertinent But there needed not so much labour to perswade a Woman who had in her so much vanity as once in her life to make a Princess head to fly upon a Scaffold and who did not remember that in the Reign of Queen Mary being her self accused of offending the Estate and expecting her sentence of death she did so much fear the Axes of the Hang-men in England that she was resolved to petition to her Sister to send for an Executioner to France to cut off her head Now was the Commandment given for her death and it was signified to the poor Victim who for a long time was prepared for this Sacrifice Some passionate writers do indeavour to divert this Crime from the reputation of Elizabeth taking their ground on a Letter which she wrote to the Queen of Scotland in which by a shamefull perfidiousness she doth write That her spirit was tormented with an incomparable Sorrow by reason of the lamentable Event which was arrived against her will and that she had not a soul so base as either by terrour to fear to do what was just or by cowardice to denie it after it was done But who doth not see that this is to mock and to Elizabeth entirely culpable of the death of Queen Mary traduce the Story and the belief of mankind Davison her Secretary who mannaged this sad affair as the true instrument of her malice doth express in his Attestation reported in the most faithfull Memorials of England by Cambden that after the departure of the French Ambassadour sent to prevent the Execution she commanded him to shew the Instrument for putting the Queen of Scotland to death which being done she most readily signed it with her own hand and commanded him to see it sealed with the Great Seal and