would he be unto so merciful a benefactor He hath done no less for us but much more For if he hath not drawn us out of Hell he hath not thrown us into it as we deserved which is the greater favour Tell me if a Creditor should cast that Debtor into prison who owed him a thousand Duckets and after the enduring of much affliction at last release him or should suffer another who owed him fifty thousand Duckets to goe up and down free without touching a thread of his garment Whether of the Debtors received the greater benefit I believe thou wilt say the latter More then are we endebted unto God Almighty and therefore ought to serve him better Consider how a man would live who should be restored to life after he had been in Hell Thou shouldst live better since thou art more indebted to Almighty God Lib. 4. Dialog cap. 36. St. Gregory writes of one who though he had not been released out of Hell but onely was upon the point of damnation yet led afterwards such a life that the change was admirable The Saint sayes that a Monk called Peter who before he retired to the desert was in a trance for some time as dead and being restored to his senses made this relation That he had had a sight of Hell and that he had seen in it great chastisements and innumerable places full of fire and that he knew some who had been very powerful in the World hanging in the midst of the flames and himself being now at the brink to be cast into the same he saw on the sudden a bright shining Angel who withheld him faying Return to thy body and confider well with what care and diligence it suits with thy profession to lead thy life from hence forwards So it was that being returned to his body he treated it with such austerity of penance watches and fasts that although he should not have spoken a word his manner of life did publish sufficiently what he had seen Secondly we are taught to exercise an invincible patience in suffering the afflictions and troubles of this life that by enduring these thankfully we may escape those of the other He who shall consider the eternity of those torments which he deserves will not grumble at the pains of this short life how bitter soever There is no state or condition upon earth how necesitous how poor how miserable soever which the damned would not endure and think it an infinite happiness if they might change with it Neither is there any course of life so austere which he who had once experienced those burning flames if he might live again would not make more rigorous He who hath once deserved eternal torments let him never murmure at temporal evils let his mouth be ever stopt from complaining of the crosses or petty injuries offered him in this life who hath committed offences worthy the pains of the other From this consideration there was nothing which the Saints would not willingly suffer no penance which they would not undergoe Apoc. 14. Wherefore St. John the Evangelist after he had spoken of the smoke which ascended from the torments of the damned for a world of worlds and and that they did not rest by day nor night presently adds Here is the patience of the Saints because seeing that all the troubles of this life were temporal and the torments of the other eternal nothing that they endured seemed much unto them Chrysost To. 5. Epist 5. ad Theod. So did St. John Chrsostome and advises us to do the like bearing with patience all temporal pains whatsoever with the consideration of the eternal From the consideration of little thing saith he let us frame a conjecture of the great If thou goe into a Bath and shalt find it excessive hot think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat of some violent Fever pass unto the consideration of those eternal flames which burn without end and think that if a Bath or Calenture so afflict thee how shalt thou endure that River of fire Homil. 2. in 1. Ep. ad Thess And further the same Saint When thou shalt see any thing great in this present life think presently of the Kingdom of Heaven and so thou shalt not value it much and when thou shalt see any thing terrible think on Hell and thou wilt laugh at it When the concupiscence or desire of any temporal thing shall afflict thee think that the delight of sin is of no estimation and that the pleasure of it is nothing For if the fear of Lawes which are enacted upon earth be of that force that they are able to deterre us from evil actions much more will the thought of things to come and that immortal chastisement of eternal pain If the fear of an Earthly King divert us from many evils how much more shall the fear of a King eternal If the fight of a dead man detain us much more shall the thought of hell and that eternal death If we often think of hell we shall never fall into it We ought also often to call to minde the evils of the next life that we may more despise the pleasures of this because temporal felicity uses often to end in eternal miserie All that is precious in the world honour wealth fame pleasure all the splendour of the Earth is but smoke and a shadow if we compare the small duration of them with the eternity of those torments in the other world Put all the Silver in the world together in one heap all the Gold all the Precious-stones Diamonds Emeralds with all other the richest Jewels all the Triumphs of the Romans all the Dainties of the Assytians c. all would deserve to be of no other value than dirt ignominy and gall if to be possessed with hazard of falling at last into the pit of Hell Let us call to mind that sentence of our blessed Saviour What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul If they should make us Lords and Masters I say not of great wealth but of the whole world we should not admit of it with the least hazard of being damned for ever Let one enjoy all the contents and regalo's imaginable let him be raised up to the highest pitch of honour let him triumph with all the greatness of the world All this is but a dream if after this mortal life he finds himself at length plunged into hell-fire Whosoever should consider the lamentable day in which two Sons and three Daughters and his Wife the Emperess were put to death in presence of the Emperor Mauritius and afterwards himself was bereaved of life by command of a dastardly Coward and vicious fellow no doubt but he would esteem as very vain and of no worth all the twenty years of his Raign in his powerful Empire and Majesty though his punishment was not
as far distant from the immensity of God as the smallest grain of sand so a thousand years are as far short of Eternity as the twinckling of an eye Wherefore Boëtius says that there is more similitude betwixt a moment of time and ten thousand years than betwixt ten thousand years and Eternity There is no expression which can sufficiently set forth the greatness of what is Eternal nor which can explicate the brevity of time and littleness of what is Temporal Wherefore David Psal 76. when he considered what had passed since God created the world until his time calls all those Ages which were already past by the name of dayes saying I thought upon the days of old And it is not much that he should call Ages dayes when in another place he sayes a thousand years in the presence of God are but as yesterday 1. Joan. 2. And St. John expresses it yet more fully when he calls all those years which were to pass betwixt his time and the end of the world whereof 1600 are already run but an hour But David when he set himself seriously to think upon Eternity which in it self is but one and as the Saints speak one day he calls it Eternal years augmenting as much as he could the conception of Eternity and diminishing that of time For the same reason the Prophet Daniel setting forth the Glory of Apostolical persons speaks in the plural number That they shall shine like Stars for perpetual Eternities it seeming unto him that the ordinary Number did not suffice to declare what Eternity was and therefore explicates it by the number of many Eternities adding for more amplification the Epithete of perpetual Dan. 12. But endeavour we never so much we declare nothing of it Let the Prophets turn themselves wholly into tongues let them call it perpetual Eternities let them call it Eternity of Eternities let them call it many dayes let them call it Ages of Ages all falls short to explicate the infinite duration which it hath Wherefore Eliu speaking of God Job 36. says his years were inestimable because no years imaginable could compare with his Eternity Betwixt a minute and 100000 years there is proportion but betwixt 100000 years and Eternity none at all Well may a quarter of an hour be compared unto a million of years but a million of years with Eternity holds no comparison in respect of which all time vanishes and disappears neither is a million of years more than a moment since neither have proportion with Eternity but in respect of it are both equal or to say better are both nothing Eccl. 11. Wherefore the Wise man said That if a man had lived many years and those all in pleasure yet ought he to remember the time of darkness and the many dayes for so he calls Eternity the which when they shall come all that is past will be found to be vanity If Cain had lived and enjoyed all the felicities of the Earth even until this day and at this instant died what should he now possess of all his delights What would remain unto him of all his dayes past Certainly no more than remained unto his brother Abel whom he murdred more than 5500 years ago equally had both their dayes disappeared and Cain had no more left of his sports and pleasures so fully and for so long a time enjoyed than Abel of his short life but more to suffer in that time of darkness and the many dayes of Eternity Eccl. 11. For if as Ecclesiasticus saith The evils of one hour make many pleasures to be forgotten and the moment wherein a man dyes bereaves him of all he did in life either for delight or appetite why shall not then the torments of Hell make him forget all the pleasures of the earth and the Eternity of evils strip him of a few and momentary pastimes If with the grief of one hour the pleasures of many years are forgotten why shall not the pleasure of one moment for which thou fallest into Hell be forgotten with the malice of many years And if the instant of thy bodily death deprive thee of all thy vain contents and entertainments past what shall be done by the eternal death of thy Soul In that instant wherein Heliogabolus dyed what continued with him of all his sports and delights Nothing At this present after so many years measured in the Eternity of Hell what now remains with him but torments upon torments griefs upon griefs pains upon pains evils upon evils and a perpetual Woe is me which shall last as long as God is God The moment wherein we dye as touching the things of this life makes all men equal He who lived long and he who died shortly he who enjoyed much and he who had but little he who was glutted with all sorts of delights and he who was fed with the bread of sorrow and vexed with all sorts of griefs and misfortunes all are now the same all are ended in death the one is not sensible of his pleasure nor the other grieved with his labours After the expiration of an hundred years in a most rigid life what felt St. Romualdus of all his austerities What the most penitent Simeon Stylites after fourscore years of a prodigious penance wherein he quitted not his hair-shirt by day or night What felt he at his death of his continual fasts and long prayers Certainly of pain no more than if he had spent all that long time in the wanton pleasures of Sardanapalus Of griefs he found nothing but of joy and glory he now does and ever shall in abundance What felt St. Clement of Ancira of his twenty eight years torments suffered by the furious rage and madness of Tyrants Certainly of Pain no more then if during that time he had enjoyed all the delights of the world but of Glory an Eternity For if the malice of one hour make the contents of an hundred years to be forgotten much more will the happiness of an Eternity blot out the remembrance of 28 years sufferance O prodigious moment of death which gives an end unto all that is Temporal which transmits and changes all things which concludes the gusts and pleasures of sinners and begins their torments which ends the labours and austerities of Saints and begins their Glory and joyes Eternal Let therefore a Christian seriously consider that the pleasures by which he sins and the mortifications by which he satisfies are equally to have an end and that the torments which he deserves by the one and the joyes which he merits by the other are equally never to have an end and let him then make election of that which shall be best for him Let him see if it be not better to work himself an eternal Crown of glory out of the sleight and momentary sufferings of this life And let not the length of life affright him for there is nothing long in respect of Eternity It was
make the poor Philosopher to forbear his dinner and not to relish one morsel of the Feast with pleasure Thou then who art no more secure of thy life than he how canst thou delight in the pleasures of the world he who every moment expects death ought no moment to delight in life This onely consideration of death according to Ricardus was sufficient to make us distaste all the pleasures of the earth A great danger or fear suffices to take away the sense of lesser joyes and what greater danger then that of Eternity Death is therefore uncertain that thou shouldest be ever certain to despise this life and dispose thy self for the other Thou art every hour in danger of death to the end that thou shouldest be every hour prepared to leave life What is death but the way unto eternity A great journey thou hast to make wherefore doest thou not provide in time and the rather because thou knowest not how soon thou mayest be forced to depart The People of God because they knew not when they were to march were for forty years which they remained in the Wilderness ever in a readiness Be thou then ever in a readiness since thou mayst perhaps depart to day Consider there is much to do in dying prepare thy self whilest thou hast time and do it well For this many years were necessary wherefore since thou knowest not whether thou shalt have one day allowed thee why doest thou not this day begin to dispose thy self If when thou makest a short journey and hast furnished and provided thy self of all things fitting yet thou commonly findest something to be forgotten how comes it to pass that for so long a journey as is the Region of Eternity thou thinkest thy self sufficiently provided when thou hast scarce begun to think of it Who is there who does not desire to have served God faithfully two years before death should take him if then thou art not secure of one why doest thou not begin Trust not in thy health or youth for death steals treacherously upon us when we least look for it for according to the saying of Christ our Redeemer it will come in an hour when it is not thought on And the Apostle said the day of the Lord would come like a theef in the night when none were aware of it and when the Master of the house was in a profound sleep Promise not thy self to morrow for thou knowest not whether death will come to night The day before the Children of Israel went forth of Egypt how many of that Kingdom young Lords and Princes of Families promised themselves to doe great matters the next day or perhaps within a year after yet none of them lived to see the morning Wisely did Messodamus who as Guido Bituricensis writes when one invited him forth the next day to dinner answered My friend why doest thou summon me for to morrow since it is many years that I durst not promise any thing for the day following every hour I look for death there is no trust to be given to strength of Body youthful years much riches or humane hopes Hear what God sayes to the Prophet Amos Amos 8. In that day the Sun shall set at midday and I will over-cast the earth with darkness in the day of light What is the setting of the Sun at midday but when men think they are in the middest of their life in the flower of their age when they hope to live many years to possess great wealth to marry rich wives to shine in the world then death comes and over-shadows the brightness of their day with a cloud of sorrow as it happened in the Story related by Alexander Faya Alex. Faya To. 2. Ladislaus King of Hungary and Bohemia sent a most solemn Embassage unto Charles King of France for the conducting home of that Kings Daughter who was espoused unto the Prince his Son The chief Embassador elected for this journey was Vdabricas Bishop of Passaw for whose Attendants were selected 200 principal men of Hungary 200 of Bohemia and other 200 of Austria all persons of eminent Birth and Nobility so richly clad and in so brave an Equipage that they appeared as so many Princes To these the Bishop added an hundred Gentlemen chosen out of his own Subjects so that they passed through France 700 Gentlemen in company most richly accoutred and for the greater Pomp and Magnificence of the Embassage there went along with them 400 beautiful Ladies in sumptuous habits and adorned with most costly jewels the Coaches which carried them were studded with gold and enchased with stones of value Besides all this were many Gifts and rich Garments of inestimable price which they brought along with them for Presents But the very day that this glorious Embassage entred Paris before they came at the place appointed for their entertainment a Curriere arrived with the news of the death of the espoused Prince Such was the grief that struck the heart of the French King with so unexpected a news as he could neither give an answer to the Embassage nor speak with the Embassadour or those who accompanied him and so they departed most sorrowful from Paris and every one returned unto his own home In this manner God knows by the means of death to fill the earth with darkness and sorrow in the day of greatest brightness as he spake by his Prophet Since then thou knowest not when thou art to dye think thou must dye to day and be ever prepared for that which may ever happen Trust in the mercies of God and imploy them incessantly but presume not to deferre thy conversion for a moment For who knows whether thou shalt ever from hence forward have time to invoke him and having invoked him whether thou shalt deserve to be heard Know that the mercy of God is not promised to those who therefore trust in him that they may sin with hope of pardon but unto those who fearing his Divine Justice cease to offend him wherefore St. Cregory says The mercies of Almighty God forget him Greg. in moral who forgets his Justice nor shall he find him merciful who does not fear him just For this it is so often repeated in Scripture That the mercy of God is for those who fear him And in one part it is said The mercy of the Lord from eternity unto eternity is upon those who fear him And in anothâ—r As the Father hath mercy on his Son so the Lord hath mercy on these who fear him In another According to the height from earth unto heaven he has corroborated his mercy upon those that fear him Finally the very Mother of mercy sayes in her Divine Canticle That the mercy of the Lord is from generation to generation upon those who fear him Thou seest then that the Divine mercy is not promised unto all and that thou shalt remain excluded from it whilest thou presumest and doest not fear his justice And
which he was wholly absorpt his senses suspended and tied up as it were in a sweet sleep by the content which he received from that consideration Seneca Epist 22. I delighted my self sayes he amongst other things to enquire into the Eternity of Souls and believing it as a thing assuredly true I delivered up my self wholly over unto so great a hope and I was now weary of my self and despised all that remained of age though with perfect and entire health that I might pass into that immense time and into the possession of an eternal world So much could the consideration of Eternity work in this Philosopher that it made him to despise the most precious of temporal things which is life Certainly amongst Christians it ought to produce a greater effect since they not onely know that they are to live eternally but that they are either to joy or suffer eternally according unto their works and life CAP. III. The Memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious then that of Death ANd therefore it shall much import us to frame a lively conception of Eternity and having once framed it to retain it in continual memory which of it self is more efficacious then that of Death for although both the one and the other be very profitable yet that of Eternity is far more generous strong and fruitful of good works for by it did Virgins preserve their purity Anchorits perform their austere penances and Martyrs suffered their torments the which were not comforted and encouraged in their pains by the fear of death but by the holy reverence and hope of Eternity and the love of God It is true the Philosophers who hoped not for the immortality of the other life as we do yet with the memory of death retired themselves from the vanity of the world despised its greatness composed their actions and ordered their lives according to the rules of reason and vertue Epict. c. 28. apud S. Hier. in ca. 10. Math. Whereupon Epictetus advises us alwayes to have death in our mindes so sayes he Thou shalt never have base and low thoughts and desire any thing with trouble and anxiety And Plato said that by so much man were to be esteemed wiser by how much he more seriously thought of death and for this reason he commanded his Disciples that when they went any journey they should go barefoot signifying thereby that in the way of this life we should alwayes have the end of it discovered which is death and the end of all things But Christians who believe the other life are to add unto this contemplation of death the memory of Eternity the advantages whereof are as far above it as things eternal above those which are temporal The Philosophers were so much moved with the apprehension of death because with it all things of this mortal life were to end death being the limit whereunto they might enjoy their riches honours and delights and no further others desired to die because their evils and afflictions were to die with them If then death amaze some only because it deprives them of the goods of this life which by a thousand other wayes use to fail and which of themselves even before the death of the owner are corruptible dangerous and full of cares and if others hope for death onely because it frees them from the evils of life which in themselves are short and little as all things temporal are why should not we be moved by the thought of Eternity which secures us goods great and everlasting and threatens us with evils excessive and without end Without doubt then if we rightly conceive of Eternity the memory of it is much more powerful then that of death and if of this wise men have had so great an esteem and advised others to have the same much more ought to be had of that of Eternity Zenon desirous to know an efficacious means how to compose his life bridle his carnal appetites and observe the lawes of vertue had recourse unto the Oracle which remitted him unto the memory of death saying Go to the dead consult with them and there thou shalt learn what thou demandest There seeing the dead possess nothing of what they had and that with their lives they had breathed out all their felicity he might learn not to be puffed up with pride nor to value the vanities of the world For the same cause some Philosophers did use to drink in the skulls of dead men that they might keep in continual memory that they were to die and were not to enjoy the pleasures of this life although necessary unless alloid by some such sad remembrance In like manner many great Monarchs used it as an Antidote against the blandishments of fortune that their lives might not be corrupted by their too great prosperity Philip King of Macedonia commanded a Page to tell him three times every morning Philip thou art a man putting him in mind that he was to die and leave all The Emperor Maximilian the first four years before he died commanded his Coffin to be made which he carried along with him whither soever he went which with a mute voice might tell him as much Maximilian thou art to die and leave all The Emperors also of the East amongst other Ensignes of Majesty carried in their left hand a book with leaves of gold which they called Innocency the which was full of earth and dust in signification of humane mortality and to put them in minde hereby of that ancient doom of Mankind dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return And not without much conveniency was this memorial of death in the form of a book nothing being of more instruction and learning then the memory of death being the onely School of that great truth where we may best learn to undeceive our selves With reason also was the book called Innocency For who will dare to sin that knows he is to die Neither were the Emperors of the Abissins careless herein Nicol. God lib. 1. de rebus Abiss â—a 8. for at their Coronations amongst many other Ceremonies there was brought unto them a vessel fill'd with earth and a dead mans skull advertising them in the beginning that their Raign was to have a speedy end Finally all Philosophers agreed in this that all their Philosophy was the meditation of death But without doubt the contemplation of Eternity is far beyond all Philosophy it is a greater matter and of far more astonishment for the torments of Hell to last for ever then for the greatest Empires sodainly to have an end more horrible to suffer eternal evils then to be deprived of temporal goods greater marvel that our souls are immortal then that our bodies are to die Wherefore Christians especially those who aim to be perfect are rather to endeavour in themselves a strong conception of Eternity then to stir up the fear of death whose memory ought not to be needful for the
contempt of what is temporal since the first step unto Christian perfection according to the Counsel of Christ is to renounce all that we possess of earth that being so freed from those impediments of Christian perfection we may employ our selves in the consideration and memory of that Eternity which expects us hereafter as a reward of our holy works and exercises of vertue This horrid voice Eternity Eternity is to sound often in our hearts Thou not onely art to die but being dead eternity attends thee Remember there is a Hell without end and fix it in thy memory that there is a Glory for ever This consideration That if thou shalt observe the Law of God thou shalt be eternally rewarded and if thou break it thou shalt suffer pains without end will be far more powerful with thee then to know that the goods and evils of this life are to end in death Be mindful therefore of Eternity and resound in the inmost part of thy soul Eternity Eternity For this the Church when it consecrates the Fathers of it which are Bishops puts them in minde of this most powerful and efficacious memory of Eternity bidding them think of eternal years as David did And in the assumption and consecration of Popes they burn before their eyes a small quantity of flax with these words Holy Father so passes away the glory of the world that by the sight of that short and transitory blaze he may call to minde the flames eternal And Martin the fifth for his imprese and devise took a flaming fire which in short time burnt and consumed a Popes Tiara an Imperial Diadem a Regal Crown and a Cardinals Hat to give them to understand that if they complyed not with the duties of their places they were in a short time to burn in the eternal flames of hell the memory whereof he would preserve ever present by this most profitable Symbol §. 2. The name of Isachar whose Blessing from his Father was as we have formerly said to lye down and rest betwixt the two limits of Eternity signifies him That hath a memory or The man of reward or pay The Holy Ghost by this mystery charging us with the memory of eternal rewards And the Lord to shew how precious it was in his divine esteem and how profitable for us caused this name of Isachar to be engraven in a precious Amethyst which was one of those stones worn by the High-Priest in the Rational and one of those also rcveal'd unto St. John to be of the foundation of the City of God By it saith St. Anselme is signified the memory of Eternity which is the most principal foundation in the building of all perfection Truely if we consider the properties of this stone they are so many marks and properties of the memory of Eternity and of the benefits which that soul reaps Albert. Mag. Milius Ruiz v. Cesium de Min. lib. 4. p. 2. cap. 14. sect 14. which seriously considers it The Amethyst cause Vigilancy And what requires it more then the passage betwixt the two extreams of eternal glory and eternal pains What thing in the world ought to awake us more then the danger of falling into hell fire How could that man sleep which were to pass over a narrow plank of half a foot broad which served as a bridge betwixt two most high rocks the windes impetuously blowing and he if his foot slipt certain to fall into a most vast abyss No less is the danger of this life The way by which we are to pass unto Heaven is most streight the windes of temptations violent the dangers of occasions frequent the harms by ill examples infectious and the deceits of wicked Counsellors very many How then can a Christian sleep and be careless in so evident a peril Without all doubt it is more difficult to be saved considering the depravedness of our nature and the deceitful ambushes of the Devil then for a heavy man to pass over a heady and rapid river upon a small and bruised reed They say also of the Amethyst that besides the making him watchful who carries it it frees him from evil thoughts which how can that man have who bears Eternity in his mind how can he think upon the short pleasures of his senses who considers the eternal torments due unto his soul if he shall but consent to the least mortal sin The Amethyst also resists drunkenness preserving him that wears it in his senses and judgment and there is nothing that more preserves a mans judgment in the middest of the wine of delights in this life then the memory of the other and that for the pleasure of one moment here he is not only to suffer for hours for dayes for moneths for years but for worlds and a world of worlds hereafter The Amethyst besides this preserves the wearer from the force of poison And what greater Antidote against the poison of sin then to remember Hell which he deservs and Heaven which he loses by committing it The Amethyst also quiets a man and settles his thoughts And what can be more efficacious to free us from the disturbance of this life to bridle the insolence of covetousness to repress the aspiring of ambition then to consider the blessings of Eternity which attend the humble and poor in spirit Finally the Amethyst conferrs fruitfulness and this great thought of Eternity is fruitful of holy works For who is he that considers with a lively faith that for a thing so sleight and momentary he may enjoy the reward of eternal glory and will not be animated to work all he is able and to endure and suffer what shall happen for God Almighty and his Cause O how fruitful of Heroical works is this holy thought Eternal glory expects me the Triumphs of Martyrs the Victories of Virgins the Mortifications of Confessors are the effects of this consideration O holy thought O precious Amethyst that makes vigilant and attentive the negligent and careless that gives wisdom and judgment to the most deceived that heals those who are most ulcerated and corrupted with the poison of sin that quiets and pacifies the motions and troubles of our concupiscences that makes the most tepid and barren of vertues fruitful of holy works who will not endeavour to obtain and fix thee in his Soul O that Christians would so grave thee in their heart that thou mightest never be blotted out nor removed from thence How differently would they then live to what they now do how would they shine in their works for although the memory of Hell Heaven Death and Judgment be very efficacious for the reformation of our lives yet this of Eternity is like the quintescence of them all and virtually contains the rest CAP. IV. The Estate of Men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity BEfore we come to declare the conditions of Eternity whose consideration is so necessary for the leading of a holy
and a vertuous life let us set before our eyes the forgetfulness and miserable mistakes of the Sons of Adam in a matter of so great importance living as if Eternity were far off when as the Philopher sayes it is not two fingers distant and every minute threatens them What devides the Mariner from his death but the thickness of a plank What the cholerick and hasty man from Eternity but the edge of a sword what the Souldier from his end but the reach of a bullet what the Theef from the Gallows but the distance betwixt that and the Prison Finally how far is the most healthful and vigorous person distant from Eternity but as much as death is from life which often happens sodainly and ought every moment to be expected The life of Man is a dangerous passage wherein he walks upon the brink of Eternity with a certainty at last to fall into it How lives he then so wretchedly He who should walk close unto a great precipice in a path no broader then the breadth of his foot and that also full of rubs and stumbling blocks how circumspectly would he look about him and how carefully would he order his steps how then is it that being so near Eternity he is so careless and lives as if he were out of danger In Histo Barla ca. 12. in fine St. John Damascen excellently declares the fondness and mistakes of men in a most ingenious Parable wherein he naturally sets forth the state of this life A certain man saith he flying from a furious Unicorn which with his very roaring made the mountains tremble and the valleys to resound not regarding through fear which way he went chanced to fall into a molt deep pit but in his fall spreading abroad his armes to catch at something which might relieve him happened to light upon the boughs of a tree which grew out of the side of that pit whereon he seized with much joy hoping he had then both escaped the fury of the beast and the danger of his fall but looking towards the foot of the tree he perceived two great Rats the one white the other black perpetually gnawing the root of it in so much that it was now ready to fall looking afterward into the bottom of the pit he beheld a most deformed Dragon with flaming eyes gazing upon him and with open mouth awaiting his fall that he might devour him then casting his eyes unto that side of the pit where the tree grew there appeared four poisonful Aspicks shooting forth their heads to bite him Yet notwithstanding marking the leaves of the tree he might perceive some of them to distil certain drops of honey with which he was so greatly pleased that forgetting the dangers which from so many parts threatned him he employed himselt wholly in gathering and tasting drop by drop that small quantity of honey without reflecting or making further account either of the fierceness of the Unicorn above him of the horribleness of the Dragon beneath him of the poison of the Aspicks aside him or the weakness of the tree which was ready to fall and precipitate him into that horrid Dungeon In this Image we see represented the Estates of men who forgetful of the perils of this transitory life give themselves wholly over unto vain pleasures By the Unicorn is signified death which even from the hour of Man's birth follows and pursues him The Pit is the world full of evils and miseries The Tree is the course of this life The two Rats the one black the other white which gnaw it at the root are day and night which continually seconding one another go by hours and minutes consuming it The four Aspicks are the four Elements or four Humours of which we are composed the which by the excess of any one of them distemper the whole frame of our bodies and at last destroy it That horrid and fearfull Dragon is the eternity of Hell which enlarges his throat and jawes to swallow sinners The small drops of honey are the pleasures and delights of this life and so great is the diversion which they cause that men for a short and momentary content consider not the many dangers unto which they are exposed and seeing themselves encompassed on all parts by as many dangers of death as there are wayes and causes of dying which are infinite and are so many mouths and gates of Eternity yet notwithstanding solace themselves with the momentary delights of this small drop of honey which shall at last cause them to disgorge and cast up their entrals for a world without end Wonderful it is that so great a forgetfulness possesses us and a matter full of amazement that we are not moved with so great dangers How comes it about that every minute a new day of Eternity dawning upon us we carelesly pass over so many dayes and moneths Let the most strong and healthful person tell me what one year he is assured of wherein death may not assault him and push him headlong into an eternal abyss But what speak I of a year what moneth what day what hour what instant is he sure of how then can he eat how sleep in safety If one should enter into a field full of ambushes and secret traps whereon if he should chance to set his careless foot he were in danger to fall upon the points of Pikes or Halberts or into the mouth of some terrible Dragon and seeing with his own eyes that they who entred with him into the same field hourly fell into those traps and appeared no more should notwithstanding run leaping and dancing up and down without fear or apprehension of any thing amiss who would not say that man were a fool Certainly more fool art thou who seeing thy friends fall daily into the trap of Death thy neighbour swallowed up in Eternity thy brother sink into the pit of the Grave dost yet notwithstanding remain careless and secure as if the same fate did not attend thy self Although to die were a thing uncertain yet for the doubt and danger that it might happen thou oughtest to be vigilant and prepared for it What oughtest thou then to be it being so certain and that early or late thou art to enter in at the gate of Eternity A marvelous thing it is with what care men provide themselves against dangers although very uncertain If they hear that Theeves are in the way to rob and spoil the passengers no man passes that way but armed provided and many in company if they understand that the Plague begins to range what antidotes and conterpests are sought for if they fear a Famine every man in time provides himself of corn How happens it then that knowing that there is a Death a Judgment a Hell an Eternity we stand not upon our guards nor provide our selves for it Let us open our eyes and look into the perils which environ us let us take heed where we set our feet that we
all goods and blessings without missing of any one and all of them at once it not being necessary for the enjoying of them to have them one after another but altogether The goods and blessings of this life have not this condition for although one were Master of them all yet he could not enjoy them all at once but successively some passing away and others succeeding in their place The Emperour Heliogabalus who most desired and most endeavoured to enjoy them for all the diligence and haste he used was hardly possest of three or four at once for whilst he was in his Banquets he could not attend his Masques and Dances whilst he was in these he enjoyed not the pleasures of the Shews and Spectacles of the Amphitheater whilst he was present at them he could not apply himself to Hunting and Sports of the field and whilst so imployed he could not satiate himself in Lust and Sensuality Finally to enjoy one he must of necessity quit the other insomuch as he could neither enjoy all pleasures those wanting which were enjoyed by others and of those which he might enjoy himself but few at a time But unto the just in Heaven no blessings or contents are missing no succession needful for their enjoying the blessed possessing them all and all together The possession of this happiness is also perfect in respect of the security it hath nothing being of force to disquiet it none to go to Law about it none to steal it none to disturb it and is likewise perfect because compleat not like the goods of the earth which cannot be enjoyed entirely for either the distance of place the imperfection of the sensible Organ the mixture of some grief or care or at least the multitude of Objects and their own opposition distract the perfect fruition of them But eternal happiness is by the blessed in its full extension perfectly possest the joy of it entirely relisht and the essence and sweetness of it wholly penetrated and imbibed into the essence of the Soul the which no mixture of pain no surprize of grief no incapacity of the subject no distance of position no greatness of the object can hinder for grief and care have there no place the subject is elevated above its nature the object accommodated and the eternal pleasure and delight of it not proportioned by space and distance â—â—n 1. â—â—b 7. 〈◊〉 1. Wherefore Plotinus likewise said that Eternity was A Life full and all at once because in it all that hath life shall be full and compleat the senses with the whole capacity of the soul shall be replenished with all happiness and delight there being no part oâ— life in man which shall not be full of sweetness joy and content The life of the hearing shall be full with the consort of most harmonious musick the life of the smell shall be full with the fragrancies of most sweet odours the life of the eyes shall be full feeding themselves with all beauty the life of the understanding shall be full with the knowledge of the Creator and the life of the will shall be full in loving rejoycing and delighting it self in him Temporal life is not capable of this fulness and satisfaction even in small matters the attention of one sense hinders that of another and the attention of the body that of the spirit This life cannot be here enjoyed but by parts and that also not compleatly but in that eternal felicity the life shall be full the possession total and the joy perfect where all is to live which here can die where neither the incompossibility of the objects nor the impediment of the senses nor the incapacity of the soul shall hinder us from enjoying all blessings together with all our senses and all our powers joyntly Over and above all this possession which is so total so perfect and so full is for life without death a space without limit a day eternal which is equivalent to all dayes and includes all years imbraces all ages and excels all times because in it nothing passes nor any good of it ever shall pass To the contrary it is with those wretched sinners whose eternal miseries have the same condition of bad which the eternity of the blessed hath of good unto whom their evill shall not be extrinsecal but in full possession of them and they shall remain in their torments with all their soul body powers and senses That is called possession which is acquired by a corporal and real presence These then unfortunate sinners are to continue in their torments with all what they have of being not as in a thing lent or distant from them but as in a thing so proper as it can by no possibility be parted or separated from them nothing being more proper and due then punishment is to sinners Wherefore all evils shall take possession of all what they are their senses their members the joynts of their bodies the powers of their soul their most spiritual faculties shall be possessed by fire bitterness grief rage despite miserie and malediction This possession of those unfortunate creatures shall be total because of all evils for no evil can be wanting where there is a concourse and meeting of all torments and unhappiness In the taste there shall not want bitterness in the appetite hunger in the tongue thirst in the sight horrour in the hearing astonishment in the smell stink in the heart pain in the imagination fear in every member grief and in the very bowels fire All evils are therefore to possess the damned and all totally their torments being so many that if they were to suffer them one after another many years would not suffice to finish them And this only were sufficient to make their condition most terrible But above all their unhappiness this is the greatest that they are to suffer them all at once The pain in one part of the body is not to hope it should cease in another the grief of the spirit is not to expect that the fire which burns the flesh should have an end all evils are to set upon them at once and all at one clap are to fall upon the heads of the damned The continuance of one little drop hollows a Stone and to ruine the world it was enough for God to rain for forty dayes What shall then be when his divine justice shall rain fire sulphur and tempest upon the heads of the damned not for forty dayes but whilst God is God Besides all this they shall not only be possest by all the the evils and all joyntly at once but by all of them fully in their whole force and vigour The sense of them shall not grow less by their multitude nor dull by their greatness but shall remain as quick and lively to them all and shall be as sensible of the rigour of each one of them as if they suffered but one onely for the fire shall not onely penetrate their
felicity of this world could not bestow true rest and even upon him who was the Master of it until the end of life Man is born as Job saith to labour Until death there is no rest Let us not then seek it here but let us place the chair of our joyes where it may be firm and stable and not in the unquietness and turmoyles of things temporal where death at least will certainly overthrow it Others painted Eternity in the form of a Snake to note the condition of a perpetual continuance not subject unto change but remaining still in the same estate and vigour For as this Serpent wants wings feet and hands which are the extremities of other creatures so Eternity wants an end which is the extremity of things temporal Apud Euseb l. 1. de praepar Evang c. 7. Moreover as Serpents although without feet wings or any extrinsecal organ of motion yet by their great liveliness of spirit move more swiftly then those creatures which have them so Eternity without dayes or nights or changes which are the feet and wings of time out-strips and over-go's all things that are temporal Besides Serpents enjoy such a vivacity and length of life that Philon Biblius saith they die not unless they be kill'd and that they hardly know a natural death being not subject to those changes of other creatures from youth to age and from health to sickness but preserve themselves still fresh and young by the often renewing and casting of their old skins neither have they like other creatures any determinate size of their greatness but so long as they live encrease in bigness after the manner of Eternity which hath no limit change or declination a condition of all others most to be feared by the wicked who are for ever to continue in those eternal torments without the least refreshment and without so much as the comfort of changing one torment for another St. Paulinus said of St. Martin that his rest was to change his labours and certainly to change one pain for another although not in it self much less is yet some ease But even this shall be wanting unto the damned who shall never be permitted so much change as to turn from one side to another A fearful thing that being now five thousand years past since the first damned Soul was plunged into hell that during all this time no change should afford him the least ease How many alterations have since happened in this world yet none in his most bitter torments The world hath once been destroyed by an universal deluge eight onely persons remaining alive After which all men enjoying an equal liberty the Assyrians became Tyrants over the rest and raised the first Monarchy which endured 1240 years and then not without the general uproar and turmoyl of all Asia passed unto the Medes under whom it continued 300 years Which ended it came unto the Persians and from them unto the Grecians from whom not without greater alteration then any of the former it passed unto the Romans under whom also it hath since failed Amongst all which changes and revolutions of the world none hath yet passed over that miserable and unfortunate creature Besides these alterations in government what alterations hath nature it self suffered what Islands hath the Sea swallowed up one of which as Plato reports was bigger than all Europe and Affrica And what others hath it cast up of new What buildings or to say better what Mountains hath the Earthquakes left secure many Hills have been overwhelmed or turned topsie turvie others have appeared and sprung up never known before What Cities have been sunk what Rivers dried up and others vomited forth through new Channels what Towers have not fallen what Walls not been ruin'd what Monuments not defaced how often hath the face of things changed how many revolutions have the greatest Kingdoms suffered and this miserable sinner hath in all this time not given one turn How many times hath the year renewed it self how many Springs how many Autumns past and yet he remains in that obscure night as in his first entrance into that place of torments The Sun hath compassed this elemental World a Million and 700000 times and yet this wretched Soul could never once change his posture or remove one pace since his first falling into hell Besides this what troubles what labours have been passed by those innumerable people who have lived from the beginning of the world until this present and are now all vanisht what sicknesses have been suffered what torments what griefs endured and are now all forgotten but no grief nor torment of that unfortunate Sinner hath in these 5000 years passed away or shall ever become less Ptolomy roared out with the pain of his Gout Aristarcus was grieved with his Dropsie Cambyses was afflicted with his Falling-sickness Theopompus afflicted with his Ptisick Tobias with his blindness and holy Job with his Leprosie yet those griefs had their end But all those evils which joyntly possess this miserable creature have not or ever shall have change or period They of Rabatha were sawed in the middest others thrashed to death with Flails others burnt alive in Furnaces others torn in pieces by wild Beasts Anaxarcus was pounded in a Mortar Perillus burnt in a brazen Bull. But all those pains passed away and are now no more but that damned person hath not yet made an end or to say better hath not yet begun to pass any one of his torments which 100000 years hence shall be as new and sensible unto him as they were in the beginning What desperation must then seise upon him when he sees a change in all things and in his pains and torments none for if even the pleasures of this life if continued the same convert into griefs how shall those pains which never change be suffered what spite and madness shall possess him when he shall behold the Flames of St. Lawrence the Stripes of St. Clement of Aneira the Cross of St. Andrew the Fasts of St. Hilarion the Haircloth of Simeon Stylites the Disciplines of St. Dominick all the Torments of Martyrs and Penances of Confessors now passed and turned into eternal joyes but his own pains neither to pass nor change neither any hopes left either of ending his torments or himself These are evils to be feared and not those transitory ones of the world which either change grow less or end or at least make an end of him who suffers them Let not therefore the sick person be grieved and vexed with his infirmities nor the poor man with his wants nor the afflicted with his crosses since the evils of this life are either changed with time eased by counsel and consolations or at least ended by death But this miserable wretch in Hell cannot so much as comfort himself with the hope of dying because in that multitude of torments if there were the least hope of end it would be some ease some refreshment
therefore well laid of St. Augustine In Ps 45. That all which hath an end is short A hundred years of penance have an end and are therefore short a thousand years a hundred thousand Millions have their end and are therefore in the appearance of what is immense but little and in respect of Eternity no more then an instant In the same manner we are to look upon a thousand years as upon an hour and for it self a long life is no more to he desired then a short since both in respect of Eternity bear the same bulk And as in respect of a solid body a thousand superficies's bear no more proportion then one all of them together being as incapable of making up the least particle of solidity as one onely so in respect of Eternity one year is not less then a thousand nor a thousand more than one And upon all time although it were a Million of ages we are to look as upon an instant and upon all which is temporal as upon a superficies which hath onely an appearance but nothing of substance neither can all time and all temporal goods together make up one onely good of Eternity If the whole earth be but a point in respect of the Heavens which are notwithstanding of a finite and limited greatness what great matter is it if all time be but as an instant in respect of Eternity which is infinite and without limit Betwixt the Earth nay betwixt the least grain of sand and the highest Heaven there is a proportion both have quantity but betwixt a thousand years and Eternity none at all and are therefore less then a point O blindness of men who are so besotted with time that in life they desire pleasure and in death a memorial and both in death and life a fame and renown for what even for a moment for an instant Wherefore desirest thou pleasure in life which to morrow is to end Wherefore desirest thou a vain memory after death which can endure no longer than the world whose end will not be long deferred And although it should yet last for a million of ages it were but short since those also must conclude and all were but as a moment in resped of Eternity As the Immensity of God is in respect of place so is Eternity in respect of time and as in respect of the immensity of God the whole Sea is no greater than a drop of water nor an atome in the air less than the whole world so in respect of Eternity a hundred thousand years and half a quarter of an hour are the same If God then should bestow upon thee this life onely for a quarter of an hour and that thou knowest likewise that the world within an hour after thy death were to end also wouldest thou spend that short time in ostentation and setting forth thy self whereby to raise a fame that might endure that short time after thy life no certainly thou wouldest busie thy self with other thoughts thou wouldest think of providing to die well and not trouble thy self in leaving a vain fame and memory which were so small a time to over-last thee Know then that thou oughtest to do the same although thou wert certain to live a hundred years and the world to endure a hundred thousand after thee For all which hath an end is short and all time in respect of Eternity is but a day an hour a moment Remember therefore the saying of St. John who said his time was in the last hour of the world although there then wanted many years all which in respect of Eternity were but as one hour So then if thou wouldest not be sollicitous of leaving a Name behind thee if the world were to continue but an hour no more oughtest thou to be now although it were to endure for many ages If thou knewest for certain that thou had'st to live a hundred years and that during that time thou shouldest have nothing to eat or sustain thy self but what thou drewest from the store and treasure of some great King and that too in the small space of an hour wouldest thou spend that hour in walking abroad in vain conversation and entertainments certainly no thou wouldest not cease from labouring and making haste to load thy self with those treasures How art thou then so careless knowing that thy Soul is to live for an eternity and that thou hast nothing to sustain it with hereafter but what thou gainest by thy merits within the space of this short life look how short a time is allowed thee to provide for Eternity How art thou then so negligent as to pass it in vain pleasures how comest thou then to laugh and not to weep rather and tear thy flesh with rigid penance and mortifications More is an hour in respect of a hundred years than a hundred thousand are in respect of Eternity And therefore if in that hour because the time appeared but short thou wouldest not be sloathful in furnishing thy self for a hundred years much less oughtest thou to be slow in those hundred years of life to provide for Eternity Consider also what a hundred years are in respect of a million and a million of years in respect of Eternity If for a hundred years spent in torments thou wert to enjoy a million of years in pleasure and content certainly thou hadst a most advantagious bargain since thou receivest ten thousand times more than thou gavest What a purchase hast thou then if not for a hundred years of pain but for a short hour spent in the mortification of some one vain pleasure thou receivest an Eternity of glory in respect of which a million of years are but as air instant See then how short is the space of this life to gain the eternal see how short is all time to merit Eternity Well did St. Augustin say August in Psal 39. For an eternal rest thou wert in reason to undergoe an eternal labour and for an eternal felicity to endure eternal pains How then can the short labours of this life seem tedious unto thee questionless there is no just Soul in Heaven nor damned in Hell that so often as he casts his eyes upon Eternity is not astonisht that so short a thing as this life should be the Key of so long a happiness in the one or misery in the other See then how cheap thou hast an Eternity of glory the which is an infinite for a finite Weigh a thousand years weigh a thousand millions in counterpoise with Eternity they weigh nothing all is bat smoak and straw there is no comparison betwixt infinite and finite betwixt what is real and what is painted Well did Plotinus say that Time wat the Image of Eternity conformable unto which David said That man passes away in an Image as if he should have said he passes away in time The same which is said of Time may be said of Goods and Evils temporal which pass along
the goods of life being limited it bestows them with a limited and restrained hand Even life it self it gives us but by peeces and mingles as many parts of death as it gives of life The age of Infancy dies when we enter into that of Childhood that of Childhood when we become Youths that of youth when we come to the age of Manhood that when we are old and even old age it self expires when we become decrepit so that during the same life we find many deaths and yet can hardly perswade our selves that we shall die one Let us cast our eyes upon our life past let us consider what is become of our Infancy Childhood and Youth they are now dead in us In the same manner shall those ages of our life which are to come die also Neither do we onely die in the principal times of life but every hour every moment includes a kinde of death in the succession and change of things What content is there in life which quickly dies not by some succeeding sorrow what affliction of pain which is not followed by some equal or greater grief then it self why are we grieved for what is absent since it offends us being present what we desire with impatience being possest brings care and sollicitude loss grief and affliction The short time which any pleasure stayes with us it is not to be enjoyed wholly and all at once but tasted by parts so as when the second part comes we feel not the pleasure of the first lessening it self every moment and we our selves still dying with it there being no instant of life wherein death gains not ground of us The motion of the Heavens is but the swift turn of the spindle which rol's up the thread of our lives and a most fleet horse upon which death runs post after us There is no moment of life wherein death hath not equal jurisdiction and as a Philosopher saith there is no point of life which we divide not with death so as if well considered we live but one onely point and have not life but for this present instant Our years past are now vanisht and we enjoy no more of them than if we were already dead the years to come we yet live not and possess no more of them than if we were not yet born Yesterday is gone to morrow we know not what shall be of to day many hours are past and we live them not others are to come and whether we shall live them or no is uncertain so that all counts cast up we live but this present moment and in this also we are dying so that we cannot say that life is any thing but the half of an instant and an indivisible point divided betwixt it and death With reason as Zacharias said may this temporal life be called The shadow of death since under the. shadow of life death steals upon us and as at every step the body takes the shadow takes another so at every pace our life moves forward death equally advances with it And as Eternity hath this proportion that it is ever in beginning and is therefore a perpetual beginning so life is ever ending and concluding and may therefore be called a perpetual end and a continual death There is no pleasure in life which although it should last twenty continued years that can be present with us longer than an instant and that with such a counterpoise that in it death no less approaches than life is enjoyed Time is of so small a being and substance and consequently our life Phys 4. trac 7. c. 4. that as Albertus Magnus saith it hath no essence permanent and stable but only violent and successive with which not being able to detain it self in its Careere it precipitates into Eternity and like an ill mouthed horse runs headlong on and tramples under toot all it meets with and without stopping ruins what it finds before it And as we cannot perfectly enjoy the sight of some gallant Cavalier deckt with jewels and adorned with glitterring bravery who with bridle on the neck passed in a full Careere before us so are we not able perfectly to enjoy the things of this life which are still in motion and never rest one moment but run headlong on until they dash themselves in peeces upon the rock of death and perish in their end The name which the Emperour Marcus Aurelius gave unto Time Mar. Aurel Anton lib. 4. when he said that it was a furious and a raging wave did not a little express this condition of it for as such a wave sinks and overwhelms the Vessel not permitting the Merchant to enjoy the treasures with which she was laden so Time with his violence and fury ruins and drowns all that runs along in it This Philosopher considering the brevity and fleeting of Time judged a long and a short life to be the same whole opinion for our further understanding I shall here relate If some of the Gods saith he should tell thee that thou wert to die to morrow or the day after thou wouldest not except thou wert of a base and abject spirit make any account whether since the difference and distance betwixt the two dayes were so small In the same manner thou art to judge of the difference of dying to morrow and a thousand years hence Consider seriously how many Physicians who with knit brows have handled the pulses of their sick Patients are now themselves dead how many Mathematicians who gloried in foretelling the death of others how many Philosophers who have disputed subtilly of death and mortality how many famous Captains who have kill'd and destroyed a multitude of poor people how many Kings and Tyrants who with insolency have used their power over their oppressed Vassals how many Cities If I may so say have dyed as Helice Pompeios Herculanum and innumerable others Add unto these how many thou thy self hast known to die and assisted at their Exequies and that which yesterday was fish and fresh is to day laid in pickle or dust Momentary then is all time All this from this most-wise Prince CAP. XII How short Life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised BEhold then what is Time and what thy Life and see if there can be any thing imagined more swift and more inconstant than it Compare Eternity which continues ever in the same state with Time which runs violently on and is ever changing and cousider that as Eternity gives a value and estimation unâ—â— those things which it preserves so Time disparages and takes away the value of those that end in it The least joy of Heaven is to be esteemed as infinite because it is infinite in duration and the greatest content of the earth is to be valued as nothing because it ends and concludes in nothing The least torment in hell ought to cause an immense fear because it is to last without end and the greatest pains of this
world are not to affright us since they are to cease and determine By how much Eternity enobles and adds unto the greatness of those things which are eternal by so much doth Time vilifie and debase those things which are temporal and therefore as all which is eternal although it were little in it self ought to be esteemed as infinite so all which is temporal although it were infinite yet is to be esteemed as nothing because it is to end in nothing If a man were Lord of infinite worlds and possest infinite riches if they were at last to end and he to leave them they were to be valued as nothing and if all things temporal have this evil property to sail and perish they ought to have no more esteem then if they were not with good reason then is life it self to be valued as nothing since nothing is more frail nothing more perishing and in conclusion is little more than if it had no being at all Possessions Inheritances Riches Titles and other goods of fortune remain when man is gone but not his Life A little excess of cold or heat makes and end of that a sharp winde the infectious breath of a sick person a drop of poison makes it vanish in so much as no glass is so frail as it Glass without violence may last long but the life of man ends of it self glass may with care be preserved for many ages but nothing can preserve the life of man it consumes it self All this was well understood by King David who was the most powerful and happy Prince the Hebrews ever had as ruling over both the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel with all which was promised by God unto the Israelites but not until his time possessed his Dominions besides extending over many other Provinces See 1. Paralip 29. what he left him towards the building of the Temple onely so as gold rowld up and down his House and Court and he left at his death mighty treasures unto his Son Salomon Yet this so fortunate a Prince considering that his greatness was to have an end valued it as nothing and not onely esteemed his Kingdoms and treasures as a vanity but even his life it self Wherefore he sayes Thou hast put O Lord a measure unto my dayes and my substance is as nothing all my Rents all my Kingdoms all my Trophies all my Treasures all which I possess although so powerful a King all is nothing And presently adds Doubtless all is vanity all what living man is Psal 38. all his whole life is vanity and nothing that belongs to him so frail as himself Of so mean value are the things of this world although we were to enjoy them for many ages but being to end so quickly and perhaps more sodainly than we can imagine what account is to be made of them O if we could but frame a true conception of the shortness of this life how should we despise the pleasures of it This is a matter of such importance that God commanded the principal his Prophets that he should goe into the Streets and Market-places and proclaim aloud How frail and short was the life of man For the Prophet Isaiah being about to prophesie of the most high and hidden mysterie which ever God revealed unto man which is the incarnation of the eternal Word was suddenly commanded by the Lord to lift up his voice and to crie aloud unto whom the Prophet replied What is it O Lord that I must crie aloud The Lord said That all flesh is grass and all the glory of it at the flowers of the field For as the grass which is cut in the morning withers before night and as the flower is quickly faded so is the life of all flesh the beauty and splendour of it passing and withering in a day Upon which place saith St. Hierome Hieronin Comment He who shall look upon the frailty of our flesh and that every moment of an hour we increase and decrease without ever remaining in the same state and that even what we now speak dictate or write flyes away with some part of our life will not doubt to say his flesh is grass and the glory of it as the flower of the field And presently after He that was yesterday an Infant is now a Boy and will suddenly be a Youth and even until old age runs changing through uncertain conditions of lite and perceaves himself first to be an old man before he begins to admire that he is not still a Boy In another place the same Saint meditating upon the death of Nepotianus who died in the flower of his age breaks out into these complaints In Epitaph Nepot O miserable condition of humane nature Vain is all that we live without Christ all flesh is hay and all the glory of it as the flower of the field Where is now that comely visage where is now the dignity of the whole body with which as with a fair garment the beauty of the Soul was once cloathed Ay pitty the Lilly is withered by a Southern blast and the purple of the Violet turned into paleness And immediately adds Why do we not therefore consider what in time must become of us and what will we or will not cannot be far off for should our life exceed the terme of 900 years and that the dayes Mathusalam were bestowed upon us yet all this length of life once past and pass it must were nothing and betwixt him who lives but ten years and him who lives a thousand the end of life and the unavoidable necessity of death once come all is the same save onely he who lives longer departs heavier loaden with his sins This frailty therefore and brevity of humane life being so certain and evident yet our Lord would have his Prophet publish it together with the most hidden and unknown mysterie of his incarnation and the manner of the worlds redemption which even the most high Scraphins did not conceive possible and all because men will not suffer themselves to be perswaded of this truth nor practically apprehend the shortness of their life Nay seeing death seiseth upon others yet they will not believe that it shall happen unto themselves and although they hear of it hourly yet it appears unto them as a hidden mysterie which they cannot understand God therefore commanded the Prophet Isaiah that he should proclaim and publish it with a loud voice as a thing new and of great importance that it might so penetrate and link into the hearts of men Let us therefore receive this truth from God himself All flesh is grass All age is short All time flyes All life vanishes and a great multitude of years are but a great nothing Let us also hear how true this is from those who lived the longest Jux Isi l. de vita mor. Pat. c. 24. and have had the greatest experience of what it is to live Perhaps thou mayst
Thomas then a little vapour which in a moment vanishes And although it should endure a thousand years yet coming to an end it were equal unto that which lasted but a day For as well the felicity of a long as a short life is but smoke and vanity since they both pass away and conclude in death Guerricus the Dominican a great Philosopher and Physician and afterwards a most famous Divine hearing them reade the sift Chapter of Genesis wherein are recounted the Sons and Descendants of Adam in these terms The whole life of Adam was 930 years and he died The life of his Son Seth was 912 years and he died and so of the rest began to think with himself that if such and so great men after so long a life ended in death it was not sate to lose more time in this world but so to secure his life that losing it here he might find it hereafter and with this thought entred into the Order of St. Dominick and became of a most religious life O what fools are men who seeing life so short endeavour to live long and not to live well Epis 22. since it is a thing most certain as Seneca observes that every man may live well but no man what age soever he attains unto can live long This folly appears more plainly by that which is said by Lactantius Laae lib. 6. divin Instit that this life being so short the goods and evils of it must be likewise short as the goods and evils of the other must be eternal and that God being pleased to make an equal distribution of both ordained that unto the short and transitory goods which we enjoy unlawfully in this life should succeed eternal evils in the next and unto those short evils which we suffer here for Gods sake eternal goods and happiness should follow in the other Wherefore Almighty God setting before us this disserence betwixt good and evil and leaving us in liberty of choosing which we please how great a folly were it for the not suffering of a few evils and those so short to lose goods so great and eternal and for the enjoying of goods so short and transitory to endure evils without end CAP. XIII What is Time according to St. Augustine LEt us also see what the great Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine thought of the nature of Time Lib. 11. Confes ca. 25. the which in that great wit and understanding of his sound so little estimation and being that after he had with much subtilty disputed what it was at length comes to conclude that he knows not what it is nay that he knows not so much as what it is not to know it The most that he can reach unto is that no time is long and that that onely may be called time which is present the which is but a moment The same is the opinion of Antoninus in his Philosophie Aur. Anton l. 2. who speaks in this mauner If thou wert to live 3000 years and 30000 more above those yet oughtest thou to remember that no man lives any other life than what he lives at present and therefore the most long and the most short space of life is the same that which is present being the same unto all although not that which is already past So as it seems there is but one only point of time and that no man can lose either that which is past or that which is to come since no man can lose what he hath not wherefore these two things ought to be preserved in memory The one that from the beginning all things keep the same form and return as it were in a circle to the same estate so as there is no difference betwixt the beholding of them for a 100 for 200 years or much more incomparable The other is that he who lives long and he who dies shortly lose the same thing being both deprived of the present of which they onely are possest and and no man loses what he hath not So much from this wise Prince why found no other substance in time but onely this present moment Cap. 14. And St. Augustine informs us further of the being of this present moment of which it cannot be affirmed so much as that it is at all These are his words If the present that it may be called time is because it is to pass into the praeterit how can it be said to be since the onely cause why it is is because it shall not be so as we cannot affirm it to have a being but in as much as it is a way into a not being Behold then whereunto thou trusts thy felicity See upon what pillar of brass thou placest thy hopes even on so slight a thing that its whole existence is in leaving to be and receives its being if it have any from its passing into nothing For what can that have which is and is not ever leaving to be with that impetuous fury that thou art not able to detain it for one small moment since even during that moment it is in a perpetual motion Let him who is in the flower of his age tell me by what power he is able to detain the years of his life but for one day or whether he can keep the pleasure which he now enjoyes but one hour from leaving him Let him endeavour to lay hold on time But it is in vain He knows not where to fasten Time hath no substance and yet runs with that violence that it will sooner hale thee after it than thou shalt be able to keep it back Wherefore the same holy Doctor speaking of life sayes That the time of life is a Careere unto death the which is so swift and mixt with so many deaths that he began to doubt whether the life of mortals were to be called a life or death and therefore thus discourses From the instant that we begin to be in this body Lib. 13. de Civ ca. 10. which is to die there is nothing operated in it but what brings on death This is effected by the mutability of lite if that may be called a lite which onely works to bring on death For there is none who is not nearer his death this year than the last to day than yesterday now than a little while agoe and all the time we live is substracted from the time of living and every day that which remains becomes less and less in so much as the time of this lite is nothing else but a Careere unto death in which no man is permitted to make stay or to march with more leasure but all are driven on with equal speed Presently after he adds For what else is daily and hourly done until death which was still a working be consummated and that time which follows death begin to be which time was then in death whilest there was a continual decay of lite From hence it follows that man was
the Spider does one thread unto another first thinking how to obtain what we desire then how to keep it after how to advance and encrease it then how to defend it and lastly how to enjoy it and yet in conclusion all falls to pieces in the handling and becomes nothing What labour doth it cost the poor Spider to weave his webb passing incessantly from one part unto another and often returning unto the same place where he began consuming himself with threads drawn from his proper entrails for the forming of his Pavilion which with many journeys having placed on high and at last finisht this goodly artifice one touch of a broom defaces and brings to ground all his labour Just such are the employments of humane life of much toyl and of little profit robbing us of sleep and filling us with cares and anxieties spending the most part of our time in useless projects and vain imaginations which of themselves fall to nothing and in the end vanish without effect For which reason David said Our lives meditated as the Spiders who labour and toyl all day in making of Cobwebs so the life of man passes in the continual cares and thoughts of what he is to be what to endeavour what to obtain and all as the Wise-man sayes is vanity of vanities and affliction of spirit and for those things which concern the service of God we onely sometimes afford them our thoughts but seldom our works With much reason did Aristotle say that the hope of our life yet to come was like the dream of one who watches And Plato in the same manner calls the life past a dream of people awake For in this both humane hope and life resemble a dream that neither of them have either being or subsistence and there is no man who after a discourse within himself of his life past will not say that dreams and truths are the same thing since he possesses no more of what he once enjoyed than of what he dreamed all his delights and pleasures appearing so short unto him t hat their beginning and ending seem to be joyned together without a Medium CAP. XIV Time is the occasion of Eternity and how a Christian ought to benefit himself by it TIme although short frail and slippery yet hath one condition most precious which is to be the occasion of Eternity since by it we gain that in a small time which we are to enjoy for ever For this reason when st John said that Time is at hand the Gerek renders it Occasion is at hand because the time of this life is the occasion of gaining Eternity and that once past and overslipt there will be no remedy or hope left of obtaining the other Let us therefore endeavour to employ our time well and not lose the opportunity of so great a good whose loss is irrepairable and will be lamented with eternal but unprofitable complaints Let us consider how great is the good which occasion brings along with it and how the resentment which is usually caused by the loss of it that we may from thence know how to profit our selves by temporal occasions in order unto eternal happiness and that we may be freed from that inconsolable and fruitless repentance of the damned who have made no use of it It is a great business this of our salvation and depends wholly upon the swift time of this life which once past is irrevocable and the end of it most uncertain and therefore we ought with a hundred eyes to watch occasion that it overpass us not and with a hundred hands to lay hold on it The Ancients knowing the importance of it feigned it to be a Goddess thereby to declare the great good when timely apprehended which it brought unto mankind In Epig. Graec. whose Image they adored in this mysterious figure They placed it upon a Wheel which continually moved about it had wings at the feet to note the swiftness with which it passed the face was not seen but covered with long hair which on the forehead grew thick and bushie whereby was signified that it was hard to know when occasion happened but being present easie to lay hold on it the hinder-part of the head was bald because once past it had nothing whereby to retain it Auson in Epig. Ausonius to signifie the effect which it leaves with those who suffer it to slip from them adds that it drew behind it Metanaea that is Repentance which onely remains with those who know not how to use it Vide Joan David in lib. de occasione arrepta In Aph. Others represented Occasion with hands busied in distributing riches and precious gifts but accompanied with time in the habit of a Traveller which not with two but with four wings conducted it along to signifie the great haste with which it passed Wherefore Hippocrates with much reason calls Occasion precipitate because it runs with as great violence as he falls who throws himself headlong from a high rock Let us place in the middest of Eternity the longest time of humane life let it be a hundred two hundred or nine hundred years as long as the lite of man before the Deluge yet it will then appear but as an instant and he who shall cast his eyes upon the immensity of eternal duration will remain astonished that a thing so short so small so precipitate should be the occasion of that which is so long so great and so stable Since therefore the whole time of this life is so short for the gaining of Eternity let us resolve not to lose it especially since we have no assurance how long it will last and although we were certain to live yet a hundred years longer we ought not to spare one moment from the gaining of Eternity But being uncertain how long we are to live and perhaps shall die to morrow how can we be so careless as to let the occasion of securing our glory pass which hereafter will never be offered If a skilful Workman were commanded by some great Prince that upon pain of death he should have in readiness some excellent piece of his work against such a time as it should be called for and that although a years time were requisite to perfect it yet it might perhaps be called for sooner certainly that Artist would with all speed finish the piece the neglect being no less than the forfeit of his life Since then our life eternal consists in being furnished with the grace of God and in preserving his divine Image engraven in our souls how can we be so careless to let pass the occasion of our salvation Theophrastus and Democritus called Time a most precious expence Terence The first and most principal of all things Zenon said that There was nothing which men wanted more nor whereof they stood in greater necessity than time Pliny made that account of it that he would not so much as one moment of it should be lost
much happiness he had not made use of it although the misfortune chanced without his fault But the miserable damned in hell when they shall perceive that by their own fault they have lost the occasion of so great blessings as are those of heaven it is incredible what grief and resentment shall possess them CAP. XV. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal THat we may yet better understand the smalness and baseness of all which is temporal I will not pass in silence the description of Time made by Platinus a famous Philosopher amongst the Platonicks who sayes that Time is an Image or Shadow of Eternity The which is conformable unto holy Scripture not onely unto that of David when he sayes that Man passes in a figure that is in time but unto that of the Wise-man Sap. 2. who defines Time in these words Our Time is the passing of a Shadow The which is no other than the imperfect moveable and vain Image of a thing consistent and solid Job 8. Job also sayes As a shadow are our dayes upon the earth And the Prophet David elsewhere My dayes have slided away as a shadow And in many other places of Scripture the same comparison is used to signifie the swiftness of Time and the vanity of our life Neither is it without mystery that the same comparison is so often used in those sacred Writings For truly few comparisons can be found more apt and proportionable for the expressing of what is Time and Eternity than that of a Statue and the Swadow of it For as a Statue remains for many years and Ages firm stable and immoveable without encrease or diminution whilest the Shadow is in continual motion now greater now lesser So is it with Time and Eternity Eternity is firm fixed and immoveable without receiving less or more Time is ever moving and changing as the Shadow which is great in the morning less at mid-day and towards night returns to its former greatness every moment changing and moving from one side unto another In the same manner the life of man hath no instant fixt but still goes on in perpetual changes and in the greatest prosperity is for the most part shortest Aman the same day he thought to sit at the Table of King Assuerus Esth 3. 7. by whom he had been exalted above all the Princes of his Kingdom was ignominiously hang'd Jud. 13. Holofernes when he hoped to enjoy the best day of his life was miserably beheaded by a woman King Baltassar in the most solemn and celebrated day of his whole raign Dan. 5. wherein he made ostentation of his great riches and royal entertainment was slain by the Persians Act. 12. Herod when he most desired to shew his Majesty being cloathed in a rich habit of Tissue embroidered with gold and by the acclamations of the people saluted as a God was mortally struck from heaven There is nothing constant in this life The Moon hath every Moneth her changes but the life of man hath them every day every hour Now he is sick now in health now sorrowful now merry now cholerick Sinesius hym 6. now fearful in so much as Sinesius not without reason compared his life unto Euripus a Streight of the Sea which ebbs and flows seaven times in a day as the most constant which is the most just man in the world falls every day seaven times The shadow wheresoever it passes leaves no track behinde it and of the greatest personages in the world when they are once dead there remains no more than if they had never lived How many preceding Emperors in the Assyrian Monarchy were Lords of the world as well as Alexander and now we remain not onely ignorant of their Monuments but know not so much as their names And of the same great Alexander what have we at this day except the vain noise of his fame Venus Alsâ—rsus Kikâ—â—ius de noviss art 4. Let that Company of Philosophers inform us who the day following assembled at his dead Corps One of them said Yesterday the whole circumference of the world sufficed not Alexander this day two yards of ground serve his turn Another in admiration cried out Yesterday Alexander was able to redeem innumerable people from the hands of death this day he cannot free himself A third exclaims Yesterday Alexander oppressed the whole earth and this day the earth oppresses him and there is no footstep in it left by which he passed Moreover how great is the difference betwixt a Statua of Gold or Marble and the Shadow That is solid and of a precious substance and this hath no being or body In the same manner the life eternal is most precious and of great concernment the temporal vain and miserable without substance The Shadow hath no other being but to be a privation of the most excellent quality in nature and of the most beautiful thing the world produces which is the light of the Sun In the same manner this life without substance or being is a privation of our greatest happiness Wherefore Job said Job 9. His dayes fled away and his eyes saw not what was good This said he who was a Prince and possessed great riches and many Servants and a numerous Family and yet he sayes that in his life he saw not what was good which he might say with much truth because the goods of this life are not to be called such and if they were yet the pleasure of them endures so short a space as they are done before we are sensible of them and if they should continue some time yet being subject to end they are to be esteemed as if they were not The which was confessed by a certain Cavalier called Rowland Hist de S. Dom. who having been present at a Feast celebrated with great cost and bravery to the high content and satisfaction of the invited Guests at night when he returned home cried out with much bitterness of spirit Where is the Feast we had to day where is the glory of it how is this day past without leaving any tract behinde it even so shall the rest of this life pass without leaving any thing to suceed it but eternal sorrow This consideration sufficed to make him change his life and the next day to enter into Religion And as in a shadow all is obscurity so this life is full of darkness and deceit Whereupon Zacharias said That men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death Much are we deceived whilest we live in this body of death since this life although short appears long unto us and being miserable yet we are pleased and content with it and being nothing yet it seems as if it were all things and there is not any danger which men undergoe not for the love they bear it even unto the hazard of Eternity Doubtless this is the most prejudicial
peeces and he above all remained distracted in his wits raging with despite and madness Let us now consider Antiochus in all his pomp and glory glittering in Gold and dazling the eyes of the beholders with the splendor of his Diamonds and precious Jewels mounted upon a stately Courser commanding over numerous Armies and making the very earth tremble under him Let us then behold him in his Bed pale and wan his strength and spirits spent his loathsome body flowing with worms and corruption forsaken by his own people by reason of his pestilential and poisonous stink which infected his whole Camp and finally dying mad and in a rage Who seeing such a death would with the felicity of his life who with the condition of his misery would desire his fortune See then wherein the goods of this life conclude And as the clear and sweet waters of Jordan end in the filthy mud of the dead Sea and are swallowed up in that noysome Bitumen so the greatest splendor of this life concludes in death and those loathsome diseases which usually accompany it Act. 12. Vide Josephum Behold in what a sink of filth ended the two Herods most potent Princes Ascalonita and Agrippa This who cloathed himself in Tissue and boasted a Majesty above humane dyed devoured by worms which whilst he yet lived fed upon his corrupted and apostumated flesh flowing with horrible filth and matter Neither came the other Ascalonita to finish his dayes more happily being consumed by lice that nasty vermin by little and little bereaving him both of his life and Kingdom 3 Reg. 20. King Achab Conqueror of the King of Syria and 32 other Princes dyed wounded by a chance-arrow which pierced his body and stained his Royal Charriot with his black gore which was after licked up by hungry Dogs as it he had been some savage beast 3 Reg. 22. Neither dyed his Son Joram a more fortunate death run through the heart with a sword his body left upon the field to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey wanting in his death seaven foot of earth to cover him who in life commanded a Kingdom Who could have known Caesar who had first seen him triumph over the Conquered world and then beheld him gasping for a little breath and weltring in his own bloud which flowed from three and twenty wounds opened by so many stabs Who could believe it were the same Cyrus he who subdued the Medes conquered the Assyrian and Chaldaean Empire he who amazed the world with thirty years success of continued Victories now taken prisoner and put to an ignominious death by the Command of a Woman Who could think it were the same Alexander Plut. in ejus vita who in so short time subjugated the Persians Indians and the best part of the known world and should after behold him conquered by a Calenture feeble exhausted in body dejected in spirit dried up and parched with thirst without taste in his mouth or content in his life his eyes sunk his nose sharp his tongue cleaving to his pallat not being able to pronounce one word What an amazement is it that the heat of a poor Fever should consume the mightiest power and fortune of the world and that the greatest of temporal and humane prosperities should be drowned by the overflowing of one irregular and inordinate humour How great a Monster is Humane Life since it consists of so disproportionable parts the uncertain felicity of our whose life ending in a most certain misery How prodigious were that Monster which should have one arm of a Man and the other of an Elephant one foot of a Horse and the other of a Bear Truly the parts of this life are not much more sutable Who would marry a woman though of a comely and well proportioned body who had the head of an ugly Dragon certainly although she had a great Dowry none would covet such a Bed-fellow Wherefore then do we wed our selves unto this life which although it seems to carry along with it much content and happiness yet is in effect no less a Monster since although the body appear unto us beautiful and pleasant yet the end of it is horrible and full of misery And therefore a Philosopher said well that the end of things was their head and as men were to be known and distinguished by their faces so things by their ends and therefore who will know what life is let him look upon the end And what end of life is not full of misery Let no man flatter himself with the vigour of his health with the abundance of his riches with the splendor of his authority with the greatness of his fortune for by how much he is more fortunate by so much shall he be more miserable since his whole life is to end in misery Wherefore Agesilaus hearing the King of Persia cried up for a most fortunate and happy Prince reprehended those who extolled him saying Have patience Plutar. in ejus vita for even King Priamus whose end was so lamentable was not unfortunate at the age of the King of Persia Giving us to understand that the most happy were not to be envied whilest they lived by reason of the uncertainty of that end whereunto they are subject How many as yet appear most happy whose death will shortly discover the infelicity of their lives Plutar. in Apoph Graecis Epaminondas when they asked him who was the greatest Captain Cabrias Iphicrates or himself Answered that whilest they lived no man could judge but that the last day of their lives would deliver the Sentence and give each one their due Let no man be deceived in beholding the prosperity of a rich man let him not measure his felicity by what he sees at present but by the end wherein he shall conclude not by the sumptuousness of his Palaces not by the multitude of his Servants not by the bravery of his Apparel not by the lustre of his Dignity but let him expect the end of that which he so much admires and he shall then perceive him at best to die in his Bed dejected dismayed and strugling with the pangs and anxieties of death and if so he comes off Well otherwise wise the daggers of his enemy the teeth of some wild beast or a tyle thrown upon his head by some violent wind may serve to make an end of him when he least thinks of it This reason tells us although we had no experience of it But we see it daily confirmed by the testimony of those who are already in the gates of death and no man can better judge of life than he who stands with his back towards it Mago Dionysius Carth. de noviss Art 5. a famous Captain amongst the Carthaginians and Brother to the great Hannibal being mortally wounded confessed this truth unto his Brother saying O how great a madness is it to glory in an Eminent Command The estate of the most
powerful is subject to most impetuous storms whose end is to be sunk and overthrown O how wavering and uncertain is the height of the greatest honours false is the hope of man and vain is all his glory affected with feigned and fawning flatteries O uncertain life due unto perpetual toyl and labour what doth it now profit me to have fired so many stately and lofty buildings to have destroyed so many Cities and their people What doth it now profit me O Brother to have raised so many costly Palaces of Marble when I now die in the open field and in the sight of heaven O how many things doest thou now think of doing not knowing the bitterness of their end Thou beholdest me now dying and know that thou also shalt quickly follow me § 2. But let us forbear to look upon those several kindes of death which are incident to humane nature Let us onely consider that which is esteemed the most happy when we die not suddenly or by violence but by some infirmity which leasurely makes an end of us or by a pure resolution which naturally brings death along with it What greater misery of mans life than this that that death should be accounted happy not that it is so but because it is less miserable than others for what grief and sorrow doth not he pass who dies in this manner how do the accidents of his infirmities afflict him The heat of his Fever which scorches his entrails The thirst of his mouth which suffers him not to speak The pain of his head which hinders his attention The sadness and melancholy of his heart proceeding from the apprehension that he is to die besides other grievous accidents which are usually more in number than a humane body hath members to suffer together with remedies which are commonly no less painful than the evils themselves To this add the grief of leaving those he loves best and above all the uncertainty whither he is to goe to heaven or hell And if onely the memory of death be said to be bitter what shall be the experience Saul who was a man of great courage oncly because it was told him that the next day he was to die fell half dead upon the ground with fear For what news can be more terrible unto a sinner than that he is to die to leave all his pleasure in death and to give an account unto God for his life past If lots were to be cast whether one should have his flesh pluckt off with burning pincers or be made a King with what fear and anxiety of mind would that man expect the issue how then shall he look who in the agony of his death wrastles with Eternity and within two hours space looks for glory or torments without end What life can be counted happy if that be happy which ends with so much misery If we will not believe this let us ask him who is now passing the traunces of death what his opinion is of life Let us now enquire of him when he lies with his breast sticking forth his eyes sunk his feet dead his knees cold his visage pale his pulses without motion his breath short a Crucifix in one hand and a Taper in the other those who assist at his death bidding him say Jesus Jesus and advising him to make an Act of Contrition what will this man say his life was but by how much more prosperous by so much more vain and that all his felicity was false and deceitful since it came to conclude in such a period what would he now take for all the honours of this world Certainly I believe he would part with them at an easie rate Nay if they have been offensive to God Almighty he would give all in his power he had never enjoyed them and would willingly change them all for one Confession well made Philip the third was of this mind and would at that time have exchanged his being Monarch of all Spain and Lord of so many Kingdomes in the four parts of the world for the Porters Keyes of some poor Monastery Death is a great discoverer of truth What thou wouldest then wish to have been be now whilest it is in thy power A fool thou art if thou neglect it now when thou mayst and then wish it when it is too late He who unto the hour of his death hath enjoyed all the delights the world can give him at that hour what remains with him Nothing or if any thing a greater grief And what of all his penances and labours suffered for Christ Certainly if he had endured more than all the Martyrs he shall then feel no pain or grief of them all but much comfort Judge then if it shall not be better for thee to do that now which thou shalt then know to have been the better Consider of how little substance all temporal things will appear when thou shalt be in the light of eternal The honours which they have given thee shall be no more thine the pleasures wherein thou hast delighted can be no more thine thy riches are to be anothers See then whether the happiness of this life which is not so long as life it self be of that value that for it we should part with eternal felicity I beseech thee ponder what is life and what is death Life is the passing of a shadow short troublesome and dangerous a place which God hath given us in time for the deserving of Eternity Consider with thy self why God leads us about in the Circuit of this life when he might at the first instant have placed us in heaven Was it perhaps that we should here mispend our time like beasts and wallow in the base pleasures of our senses and daily invent new Chimera's of vain and frivolous honours No certainly it was not but that by vertuous actions we might gain heaven shew what we owe unto our Creator and in the middest of the troubles and afflictions of this life discover how loyal and faithful we are unto our God For this he placed us in the Lists that we should take his part and defend his honour for this he entred us into this Militia and Warfare for as Job sayes the life of man is a warfare upon earth that here we might fight for him and in the middest of his and our Enemies shew how true and faithful we are unto him Were it fit that a Souldier in the time of Battail should stand disarmed passing away his time at Dice upon a Drum-head and what laughter would that Roman Gladiator cause who entring into the place of Combat should set him down upon the Arena and throw away his Arms This does he who seeks his ease in this life and sets his affections upon the things of the earth not endeavouring those of heaven nor thinking upon death where he is to end A Peregrination is this life and what passenger is so besotted with the pleasures of the way that he forgets
consider this Wherefore busie we our selves about Temporal things and the affairs of this life which we are instantly to leave and enter into a Region of Eternity Less are a thousand years in respect of Eternity than a quarter of an hour in respect of threescore years Why are we then negligent in that short time we are to live in acquiring that which is to endure for a world of worlds Death is a moment placed betwixt this life and the next in which we are to traffick for eternity Let us not therefore be careless but let us remember how much it imports us to die well and to that end let us endeavour to live well §. 3. Besides all this although one should die the most happy death that can be imagined yet it suffices to behold the dead Body when the Soul hath left it how ugly and noisome the miserable Carcass remains that even friends flye from it and scarce dare stay one night alone with it The nearest and most obliged Kindred procure it in all haste to be carried forth a doors and having wrapt it in some course Sheet throw it into the Grave and within two dayes forget it and he who in life could not be contained in great and sumptuous Palaces is now content with the narrow lodging of seaven foot of earth he who used to rest in rich and dainty Beds hath for his Couch the hard ground and as Isaias saith for his Mattress moths and for his Covering Worms his Pillows at best the bones of other dead persons then heaping upon him a little earth and perhaps a Gravestone they leave his flesh to be feasted on by the worms whilest his heirs triumph in his riches He who gloried in the exercise of Armes and was used to revel at Balls and Festivals is now stiffe and could his hands and feet without motion and all his senses without life He who with his power and pride trampled upon all is now trod under foot by all Consider him eight dayes dead drawn forth of his Grave how gastly and horrible a spectacle he will appear and wherein differ from a dead Dog thrown upon a Dunghil Behold then what thou pamperst a Body which shall perhaps within four dayes be eaten by loathsome vermin Whereupon doest thou found thy vain pretensions which are but Castles in the air founded upon a little earth which turning into dust the whole Fabrick falls to ground See wherein all humane greatness concludes and that the end of man is no less loathsome and miserable than his beginning Let this Consideration serve thee as it hath done many Servants of Christ to despise all things of this life Alex. Faya to 2. Joh. Major verbo Mors. Ex. 21. Alexander Faya writes that having opened the Vault wherein lay interred the Body of a principal Count they who were present perceived upon the face of the dead person a Toad of an extraordinary greatness which accompanied with many other filthy and loathsome wormes and vermin was feeding upon his flesh which caused so great a horror and amazement that they all fled The which so soon as it came unto the knowledge of the Son of that Count who was then in the flower of his age he would needs goe and behold the spectacle and looking seriously upon it he broke into these speeches These are the friends which we breed and provide for with our delicacies for these we rest upon soft Beds and lodge in gilt Chambers adorned with Tapestries and make them grow and encrease with the vanity of our dainties Were it not better to prevent them by Fasts and Penances and Austerities in our life that they may not thus insult upon us after death With this conderation quitting his fair Possessions and flying privately away accompanied onely with a lively desire of being poor for Christ which he accounted for the greatest riches he came to Rome where chastising the body with much rigour and living in the holy fear of the Lord he at last became a Collier and by his labour sustained his poor life Finally coming one day unto the City to sell his coles he fell into a grievous sickness which having endured with marvelous patience he at last delivered his most happy Soul into the hands of his Redeemer and that very instant of his death all the Bells of the City rung themselves with which Miracle the Pope and the Roman Court being marvelously astonished his Confessor related unto them all that happened and informed them both of the condition and sanctity of the dead person and there being at the same time in Rome some Gentlemen and Souldiers belonging to the same Prince who came in search of their Master and finding him deceased carried home his holy Body with much joy and reverence unto his Country The Sight of the dead Body of the Empress Donna Isabella Wife unto the Emperour Charles the fift wrought no less effect in the heart of Blessed Francesc◠de Borgia then Marquess of Lombay who being appointed to wait upon the Coarse unto Granada where it was to be interred and being to deliver it bare-faced according to custome to the end it might appear to be the same Body he caused the sheet of Lead wherein it was wrapped to be opened which immediately cast forth so horrible a stench that those who were present not able to endure it were forced to retire and withal the face appeared so foul and deformed that not any of the attendants durst take their oath that that was the Empress's Body Who sees not here the vanity of the world what is of more respect and esteem than the Bodies of great Kings and Princes whilest they live and now dead the Guards and Gentlemen which are to wait upon them flye from them Who are accounted more happy than they who have the fortune to be near their persons They are spoken unto upon the knee as if they were Gods but being dead all forsake them and even Toads Worms and Dogs dare approach and eat them A good testimony of this was Queen Jezabell whose pamperd Body adored whilest she lived was being dead ignominiously torn in pieces by Dogs But to return to our Story The Marquess remaining alone behind the rest began to consider what the Empress once was and what he now beheld her Where was the beauty of that face but become worms and putrifaction where that Majesty and gravity of countenance which made all reverence her and those people happy who beheld her but now grown so hideous that her most obliged Servants leave and abandon her Where is now the Royal Scepter but resolved into filth and corruption This consideration so changed his heart that despising what was temporal and now wholly seeking what was eternal he determined never after to serve that Lord who was mortal The very memory of the loathsomness of a dead Body may serve to make us despise the beauty of that which is living as St. Peter Damian advises
us Petrus Damianus in Gomor c. 23. saying If the subtle Enemy shall set before thee the frail beauty of the flesh send thy thoughts presently unto she Sepulcher of the Dead and let them there see what they can finde agreeable to the touch or pleasing to the sight Consider that poison which now stinks intollerably that corruption which engenders and feeds worms That dust and dry ashes was once soft and lively flesh and in its youth was subject to the like passions as thou art Consider those rigid nerves those naked teeth the disjoynted disposition of the bones and articles and that horrible dissipation of the whole Body and by this means the Monster of this deformed and confused figure will pluck from thy heart all deceits and illusions This from St. Peter Damian All this is certainly to happen unto thy self Wherefore doest thou not amend thy evil conditions this is to be thy end unto this therefore direct thy life and actions From hence spring all the errors of men that they forget the end of their lives which they ought to have still before their eyes and by it to order themselves for the complyance with their obligations With reason had the Brachmans their Sepulchers placed still open before their doors that by the memory of death they might learn to live In this sense is that Axiome of Plato most true when he sayes That Wisdom is the Meditation of Death because this wholesome thought of Death undeceives us in the vanities of the world and gives us force and vigour to better our lives Johannes Brom. in Sum. verb. Poenit num 12. Some Authors write of a certain Confessarius who when all his perswasions could not prevail with his penitent to do penance for his sins contented himself with this promise that he would suffer one of his Servants every night when he went to bed to sound these words in his ear Think that thou art to dye who having often heard this admonition and and profoundly considered it with himself he at last returned unto his Confessor well disposed to admit of such penance as should be enjoyned him The same thing happened to another who having confessed to to the Pope very hainous crimes said that he could not fast nor wear hair-shirts nor admit of any other kinds of austerity His Holiness having commended the matter to God gave him a Ring with this Poesie Memento mâ—ri Remember thou art to dye charging him that as often as he looked upon the Ring he should read those words and call death to mind Few hours after the memory hereof caused such a change in his heart that he offered to fulfil what ever penance his Holiness should please to impose upon him For this reason it seems God commanded the Prophet Jeremias that he should goe into the house of the Potter and that he should there hear his words Well might the Lord have sent his Prophet into some place more decent to receive his sacred words then where so many men were daily imployed in dirt and clay but here was the particular mysterie whereby we are given to understand that the presence of Sepulchers wherein is preserved as in the house of a Potter the clay of humane nature it was a place most proper for God to speak unto us that the memory of death might more deeply imprint his words in our hearts For this very reason the Devil strives with all his power and cunning to obstruct in us the memory of death For what other cause can be assigned why the meer suspicion of some loss or notable damage should bereave us of our sleep and that the certainty of death which of things terrible is most terrible should never trouble us CAP. II. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life BEsides the misery wherein all the felicity of this world is to determine the end of our life hath other most remarkable conditions very worthy to be considered and by which we may perceive the goods of it to be most contemptible We will now principally speak of three First that death is most infallible certain and no way to be avoided The second that the time is most incertain because we know neitheâ— when nor how it will happen The third that it is buâ— only one and but once to be experienced so that wâ— cannot by a second death correct the errors of the firsâ— Concerning the certainty and infallibility of death it imports us much to perswade our selves of it for as it is infallible that the other life shall be without end so it is as certain that this shall have it And as the Damned are in despair to find an end in their torments so are we practically to despair that the pleasures and contents of this world are to endure for ever God hath not made a Law more inviolable than that of death For having often dispensed in other Laws and by his omnipotent power and pleasure violated as I may say divers times the rights of Nature he neither hath nor will dispense with the Law of death but hath rather dispensed with other Laws that this should stand in force and therefore hath not onely executed the sentence of death upon those who in rigour ought to dye but upon those unto whom it was no wise due In the conception of Christ our Saviour those establisht Lawes of Nature that men were not to be born but by propagation from men and breach of the Mothers integrity were dispensed with God that his Lawes should have no force in Christ working two most stupendious Miracles and infringing the Lawes of Nature that his Son might be born of a Virgin Mother was so far from exempting him from the Law of death that death not belonging to him as being Lord of the Law and wanting all sin even original by which was contracted death nay immortality and the four gifts of glory being due unto his most Holy Body as resulting from the clear vision of the Divine essence which his Soul ever enjoyed yet all this notwithstanding God would not comply with this right of Nature but rather miraculously suspended by his omnipotent Arm those gifts of glory from his Body that he might become subject unto death in so much as God observes this Law of Death with such rigour that doing Miracles that the Law of Nature should not be kept in other things he works Miracles that the Law of Death should be observed even by his own Son who deserved it not and unto whom it was in no sort due And now that the Son of God had taken upon him the redemption of Mankind for whom out of his most infinite charity it was convenient for him to dye the death of the Cross which reason failing in his most holy Mother unto whom death was not likewise due from Original sin she being priviledged according to the opinion of most Universities as well in that as many other things by her blessed Son yet would
he not exempt her from that inviolable Law of Death What inchantment than is this that Death being so certain we will not suffer our selves to understand it nor be perswaded that it is so Thou art to dye assure thy self of that An irrevocable Law is this and without remedy Thou must dye The time will come when those eyes with which thou readest this shall be burst and lose their sight those hands which thou now imployest be without sense or motion that body which thou movest from place to place with such agility shall be stiffe and cold this mouth which now discourses shall be mute without breath or spirit and this flesh which thou now pamperest shall be consumed and eaten by loathsome worms and vermin An infallible thing it is that the time will come when thou shalt be covered with earth thy body stink and rot and appear more noysome and more horrible unto the senses than a dead Dog putrified upon a Dunghil The time will come when thou shalt be forgotten as if thou hadst never been and those that passe shall walk over thee without remembring that such a man was born Consider this and perswade thy self that thou must dye as well as others that which hath happened to so many must happen also unto thee thou which art now afraid of the dead must dye thy self thou which loathest to behold an open Sepulcher where lie the half putrified bones and flesh of others must putrifie and rot thy self Think upon this seriously and reflect with thy self soberly how thou shalt look when thou art dead and this consideration will give thee a great knowledge what thy life is and make thee despise the pleasures of it Truly such is the condition of death that although to dye were onely contingent and no wise certain yet because it might happen it ought to make us very careful and sollicitous If God had at first created the world replenished with people and some one before it was known what death was had fallen sick of a pestilential Fever and should have suffered in the sight of the rest the accidents of that infirmity those violent fits of heat that scorching thirst that restless unquietness of mind and body tossing and tumbling from side to side that raging frenzie which bereaves him of his judgment and at last they should behold him pale and wan wholly disfigured strugling with death and giving the last gasp the Body after to remain stiffe cold and immoveable how would they remain astonisht with the sight of that misery which would appear much greater when after three or four dayes the Body begun to smell and corrupt to be full of worms and filth Without doubt a mortal sadness would seise upon them all and every one would fear lest some such miserable condition might happen unto himself And although God should say I will not that all shall dye I will content my self with the death of some few but should leave those uncertain whom this would suffice to make all to tremble each one would fear lest he were one of those designed for that misfortune If then in this case death being uncertain all would quake because all might dye why remain we so supinely careless since it is sure all must dye If death being doubtful cause such a terrour why do we not fear it being certain Nay though God should further say that onely one of all those in the world should dye but did not declare who that one were yet all would fear Why then doest thou not now fear when all men must infallibly dye and perhaps thou the first But if God should yet further proceed to reveal that one appointed to dye and he should notwithstanding live in that loose and careless manner as thou now doest how would the rest of the world admire his negligence and vain temerity what would they say certainly they would cry out unto him Man thou that art to turn into dust why livest thou in that loose manâ—er Man that art to be eaten by wormes why doest thou pamper thy self Man which art to appear before the Tribunal of God why doest thou not think upon the account that shall be demanded from thee Man which art to end and all things with thee why doest thou make such esteem of vanity We who are to live ever well may we build houses and provide riches because we look for no other life than this which is never to end but thou who art but in this life as a Passenger and art to leave it to morrow what hast thou to do to build houses what hast thou to doe with the cares and business's of this world Wherefore doest thou take thought for those temporal things whereof thou hast no need Care for those of the other life wherein thou art to remain for ever Thou thou art he whom God hath designed to dye why doest thou not believe it or if thou doest why doest thou laugh why doest thou rejoyce why doest thou live so much at ease in a place where thou art a Pilgrim and not to rest leave off the thoughts of the earth and consider whither thou art to goe It is not fitting for thee to live here in mirth and jollity but to retire into some solitary wilderness and there dispose thy self for that terrible traunce which expects thee Let every man therefore say within himself It is I who am to dye and resolve unto dust I have nothing to do with this world the other was made for me and I am onely to care for that in this I am onely a Passenger and am therefore to look upon the eternal whither I am going and am there to make my abode for ever Certain it is that death will come and hurry me along with him All the business therefore I have now is to dispose my self for so hard an encounter and since it is not in the power of man to free me from it I will onely serve that Lord who is able to save me in so certain and imminent a danger Much to this purpose for our undeceiving is that Story set forth by John Major Johan Major Alex. Faya tom 2. 〈◊〉 certain Souldier had served a Marquess for many years with great fidelity for which he was favoured by his Lord with a singular respect and affection The Souldier chanced to fall into his last infirmity which no sooner came unto the knowledge of the Marquess but he instantly came to visit him accompanied with divers expert Physicians and having enquired of his health and spoken many things unto him of much comfort and dearness offered himself to assist him in all things which might conduce to his health or content and wisht him boldly to demand what might be useful or available for him assuring him it should be granted without spare of cost or trouble The sick Souldier after much importunity at last intreated the favour of three things Either that he would afford him some
will it cause when a Sinner in the instant of Gods judgment shall see himself delivered over into the power of the infernal Dragon without all hopes of ever escaping from him who will seize upon a Soul and carry her to the abyss of hell Let us call to mind with dread that which the holy Prophet feared and said of the Devil God grant he lay not hold on my soul like a Lion when there will be none that will set me at liberty or relieve me O what a lamentable thing will it be for one to see himself in the power of Lucifer not onely abandoned by Men but also by the Angels and by the Queen of Men and Angels and even of God himself Father of all mercies Let us provide our selves in time for that which is to be done in a moment on which depends our Eternity O moment in which all time is lost if a Soul doth lose it self in it and remains lost for ever how much doest thou avail us Thou givest an assurance to all the good works of this life and causest an oblivion of all the pleasures and delights thereof to the end that Man may not wholly give himself over to them since they will then be of no benefit to him and persevere in vertue since it will not secure him unless he persevere in it to the last §. 2. How can men be careless seeing so important a business as is the salvation of their Souls to depend upon an instant wherein no new diligence nor preparations will avail them Since therefore we know not when that moment will be let us not be any moment unprovided this is a business not to be one point of time neglected since that point may be our damnation What will a hundred years spent with great penance and austerity in the service of God profit us if in the end of all those years we shall commit some grievous sin and death shall seise upon us before repentance Let no man secure himself in his past vertues but continue them until the end since if he die not in grace all is lost and if he doe what matters it to have lived a thousand years in the greatest troubles and afflictions this world could lay upon him O moment in which the just shall forget all his labours and shall rest assured of all his vertues O moment in which the pains of a Sinner begin and all his pleasures end O moment which art certain to be uncertain when to be and most certain never to be again for thou art onely once and what is in thee determined can never be revoked in another moment O moment how worthy art thou to be now fixed in our memory In vit PP l. 5. p. 565. apud Rot that we may not hereafter meet thee to our eternal mine and perdition Let us imitate the Abbot Elias who was accustomed to say That three things especially made him tremble The first when his Soul was to be pluckt out of his Body the second when it was to appear before God to receive judgment and the third when sentence was to be pronounced How terrible then is this moment wherein all these three things so terrible are to pass Let a Christian often whilest he lives place himself in that instant from whence let him behold on one part the time of his life which he is to leave and on the other the eternity whereunto he enters and let him consider what remains unto him of that and what he hopes for in this How short in that point of death did those near-hand a thousand years which Mathusala lived appear unto him and how long one day in Eternity In that instant a thousand years of life shall appear unto the Sinner no more than one hour and one hour of torments shall appear a thousand years Behold thy life from this Watch-tower from this Horizon and measure it with the eternal and thou shalt find it to be of no bulk nor extension Sec how little of it remains in thy hands and that there is no escaping from the hands of Eternity O dreadful moment which cuts off the thread of Time and begins the web of Eternity let us in time provide for this moment that we may not lose Eternity This is that precious pearl for which we ought to give all that we have or are Let it ever be in our memory let us ever be sollicitous of it since it may every day come upon us Eternity depends upon death death upon life and life upon a thread which may either be broken cut or burnt and that even when we most hope and most endeavour to prolong it A good testimony of this is that which Paulus Aemilius recounts of Charles King of Navarre Paulus Aemilius l. 9. Aâ—cidita anno 1387. who having much decayed and weakned his bodily forces by excess of lust unto which he was without measure addicted the Physicians for his cure commanded Linnens steeped in Aqua vitae to be wrapped close about his naked body He who sewed them having nothing in readiness to cut the thread made use of a candle which was at hand to burn it but the thread being wet in those spirits took fire with such speed as it fired the Linnen and before it could be prevented burnt the body of the King in that manner as he immediately dyed Upon a natural thread depended the life of this Prince which concluded in so disastrous a death and no doubt but the thread of life is as easily cut as that of flax time is required for the one but the other is broken in an instant and there are more causes of ending our life than are of breaking the smallest twist Our life is never secure and therefore we ought ever to fear that instant which gives an end to Time and beginning unto Eternity Wonderful are the wayes which death finds out and most poor and contemptible those things upon which life depends It hangs not only upon a thread but sometime upon so small a thing as a hair So Fabius a Roman Senatour was choaked with a hair which he swallowed in a draught of milk No door is shut to death it enters where air cannot enter and encounters us in the very actions of life Small things are able to deprive us of so great a good Valer. Max. lib. 6. A little grain of a grape took away the life of Anacreon and a Pear which Drusus Pompeius was playing with fell into his mouth and choaked him The affections also of the Soul and the pleasures of the Body become the high way unto death Homer dyed of grief and Sophocles of an excess of joy Dionysius was kill'd with the good news of a victory which he obtained Aurelianus dyed dancing when he married the Daughter of Domiâ—ian the Emperour Thales Milesius beholding the sports in the Theater dyed of thirst Vid. Andream Eborensem de morte non vulgari and Cornelius Gallus and
Titus Etherius dyed in the act of lust Giachetto Saluciano and his Mistress dyed in the same venerial action and their bodies were both found conjoyned in death as their souls went joyntly to hell Upon small matters and unexpected accidents depends the success of that moment upon which depends Eternity Let every one open his eyes and assure not himself of that life which hath so many entrances for death let no man say I shall not dye to day for many have thought so and yet sodainly dyed that very hour By so inconsiderable things as we have spoken of many have dyed and thou mayest dye without any of them For a sodain death there is no need of a hair or fish bone to strangle thee nor affliction of melancholy to oppress or excess of sodain joy to surprize thee it may happen without all these exteriour causes A corrupt humour in the entrails which flyes unto the heart without any body perceiving it is sufficient to make an end of thee and it is to be admired that no more dye sodainly considering the disorders of our lives and frailties of our bodies we are not of iron or brass but of soft and delicate flesh A Clock though of hard Mettal in time wears our and hath every hour need of mending and the breaking of one wheel stops the motion of all the rest There is more artifice in a humane body than in a Clock and it is much more subtle and delicate The nerves are not of steel nor the veins of brass nor the entrails of iron How many have had their livers or spleen corcupted or displaced and have dyed sodainly no man sees what he hath within his body and such may his infirmity be that although he thinks and feels himself well yet he may dye within an hour Let us all tremble at what may happen CAP. IV. Why the end of Temporal Life is terrible DEath because it is the end of life is by Aristotle said to be the most terrible of all things terrible What would he have said if he had known it to be the beginning of Eternity and the gate through which we enter into that vast Abyss no man knowing upon what side he shall fall into that profound and bottomless depth If death be terrible for ending the business and affairs of life what is it for ushering in that instant wherein we are to give an accompt of life before that terrible and most just Judge who therefore dyed that we might use it well It is not the most terrible part of death to leave the life of this world but to give an accompt of it unto the Creatour of the world especially in such a time wherein he is to use no mercy This is a thing so terrible that it made holy Job to tremble notwithstanding he had so good an accompt to make who was so just that God himself gloried in having such a Servant The Holy Ghost testifies that he sinned not in all what he had spoken in his troubles and calamities which were sent him not as a punishment for his sins but as a trial of his patience proposing him unto us an example of vertue and constancy and he himself protests that his Conscience did not accuse him yet for all this was so fearful of the strict judgment which God passes in the end of the world that amazed at the severity of his Divine Justice he cries out in his discourse with the Lord Who will give me that thou protect and hide me in hell Dionys Rikel artic 16. de noviss whilest thy fury passes Whereupon Dionysius Rikellius affirms that that instant wherein the Judgement of God is to be given is not onely more terrible than death but more terrible than to suffer the pains of hell for some certain time and this not onely unto those who are to be damned but even unto those who are elected for heaven Since therefore Job being so just and holy quaked at the apprehensions of that Divine Judgement when it was yet far from him and when we use not to be so sensible as of things at hand without doubt when a Sinner shall in that instant perceive himself to have displeased his Redeemer and Creatour although but in small faults yet it will afflict him more than the suffering of most great pains for which St. Basil judged that it was less to suffer eternal torments Basil hom contra divites avaros than the confusion of that day and therefore pondering that reprehension given unto the rich man in the Gospel Fool this night thy Soul shall be taken from thee Whose then shall be the riches which thou hast gotten the Saint avers that this mock this taunt did exceed an eternal punishment Death is terrible for many weighty reasons and every one sufficient to cause in us a mortal fear whereof not the least is the sight of the offended Judge who is not onely Judge but Party and a most irrefragable Witness in whose visage shall then appear such a severity against the wicked that St. Austin sayes he had rather suffer all manner of torments than to behold the face of his angry Judge And St. Chrysostome saith Chrys homi 24. in Math. It were better to be struck with a thousand Thunderbolts than to behold that countenance so meek and full of sweetness estranged from us and those eyes of peace and mildness not enduring to behold us The only sight of an Image of Christ crucified Rad. in opusc in annuis Societ which appeared with wrathful and incensed eyes although in this life when the field of mercy is open was sufficient so to astonish three hundred persons who beheld it that they fell unto the ground senseless and without motion and so continued for the space of some hours How will it then amaze us when we shall behold not a dead Image but Jesus Christ himself alive not in the humility of the Cross but upon a Throne of Majesty and Seat of Justice not in a time of mercy but in the hour of vengeance not naked with pierced hands but armed against Sinners with the Sword of Justice when he shall come to judge and revenge the injuries which they have done him God is as righteous in his justice as in his mercy and as he hath allotted a time for mercy so he will for justice and as in this life the rigour of his justice is as it were repressed and suspended so in that point of death when the Sinner shall receive judgment it shall be let loose and overwhelm him A great and rapid river which should for 30 or 40 years together have its current violently stopt what a mass of waters would it collect in so long a space and if it should then be let loose with what fury would it overrun and bear down all before it and what resistance could withstand it Since then the Divine justice Dan. 7. which the Prophet Daniel compares
his Divine justice Then all shall be laid open and confusion shall cover the sinner with the multitude of his offences How shall he blush to see himself in the presence of the King of Heaven in so foul and squalid garments A man is said to remain confounded when either the issue of things fall out contrary to what he hoped and looked for or when he comes off with indignity or disparagement where he expected honour and reward how confounded then shall a sinner be when those works of his which he thought vertues shall be found vices imagining he hath done service shall perceive he hath offended and hoping for a reward shall meet with punishment If a man when he is to speak with some great Prince desire to be decently and well clad how will he be out of countenance to appear before him dirty and half naked How shall then a sinner be ashamed to see himself before the Lord of all naked of good works be dirtied and defiled with abominable and horrid crimes for besides the Multitude of sins whereof his whole life shall be full the Hainousness of them shall be also laid open before him and he shall tremble at the sight of that which he now thinks but a trivial fault For then shall he see clearly the ugliness of sin the dissonancy of it unto reason the deformity it causes in the Soul the injury it does unto the Lord of the world his ingratitude to the blood of Christ the prejudice it brings unto himself hell into which he falls and eternal glory which he loses The least of these were sufficient to cover his heart with sadness and inconsolable grief but altogether what amazement and confusion shall they cause especially when he shall perceive that not only mortal but even venial sins produce an ugliness in the Soul beyond all the corporal deformities which can be imagined If the sight of onely one Devil be so horrible that many Servants of God have said that they would rather suffer all the torments of this life than behold him for one moment all his deformity proceeding but from one onely mortal sin which he committed for before the Devils were by nature most excellent and beautiful in what condition shall a sinner be who shall not only behold all Devils in all their ugliness but shall see himself perhaps more ugly than many of them having as many deformities as he hath committed mortal and venial sins Let him therefore avoid them now for all are to come to light and he must account for all even until the last farthing Neither is this account to be made in gross onely for the greatest and most apparent sins but even for the least and smallest What Lord is so strict with his Steward that he demands an account for trifles for the tagg of a point nor suffers him to pass a half-penny without informing him how it was spent In humane Tribunals the Judge takes no notice of small matters but in the Courts of Divine Judicature nothing passes the least things are as diligently lookt into as the greater A confirmation of this is a story written by divers Authors Joh. Major Judic exem 8. ex collec That there were two Religious persons of holy and laudable conversation who did mutually love one another with great affection one of them chanced to die and after death appeared unto the other being then in prayer in poor and torn garments and with a most sorrowful and dejected countenance he who was alive demanded of him what was the cause of his appearing in that sad manner to whom he answered repeating it three times No man will believe No man will believe No man will believe Being urged to declare further what he would say he proceeded thus No man can imagine how strict God is in taking his accompts and with what rigour he chastises sinners In saying this he vanished By that which hath happened to many Servants of God even before their departure out of this life may be seen the rigour with which this account shall be taken after death Climac gr 7. St. John Climacus writes of a certain Monk who being very desirous to live in solitude and quiet after he had exercised himself many years in the labours of a Monastical life and obtained the grace of tears and fasting with many other priviledges of vertue he built a Cell at the foot of that Mountain where Elias in time past saw that sacred and divine Vision This reverend Father being of so great austerity desired yet to live a more strict and penitent life and therefore passed from thence into a place called Sides which belonged to the Anchorite Monks who live in great perfection and retirement and having lived a long time with much rigour in that place which was far remote from all humane consolation and distant 70 miles from any dwelling or habitation of men at last he came to have a desire to return to his first Cell in that sacred Mountain where remained in his absence for the keeping of it two most religious Disciples of his of the land of Palestine Some short time after his return he fell into an infirmity and died The day before his death sodainly he became much astonished and amazed and keeping still his eyes open he lookt gastly about him sometime on the one side of the Bed and then on the other as if he saw some who demanded an accompt from him of something which was past unto whom he answered in the hearing of all who were present saying sometime So it is truly but for this I have fasted so many years Other-whiles he said Certainly it is not so thou lyest I never did it At other times It is true I did so but wept for it and so many times ministred for it unto the necessity of my neighbour Other times Thou accusest me truly I have nothing to say but God is merciful And certainly that invisible and strict inquisition was fearful and horrible unto those who were present Ay miserable me saith the Saint What will become of me sinner since so great a follower of a solitary and retired life knew not what to answer He who had lived forty years a Monk and obtained the grace of tears and as some affirmed unto me had in the Desert fed a hungry Leopard which meekly repaired unto him for food yet for all this sanctity at his departure out of this life so strict an accompt was demanded of him as he left us uncertain what was his judgement and what the sentence and determination of his cause We read in the Chronicles of the Minorites Chronic. S. Franc. 2. p. lib. 4. c. 35. that a Novice of the Order of St. Francis being now almost out of himself struggling with death cryed out with a terrible voice saying Wo is me O that I never had been born A little after he said I am heartily sorry And not long after he replyed Put
since he hath employed his omnipotency for our good and profit let us employ our forces and faculties for his glory and service CAP. VI. Of the End of all Time BEsides the end of the particular time of this life the universal end of all time is much to be considered that since humane ambition passes the limits of this life and desires honour and a famous memory after it Man may know that after this death there is another death to follow in which his memory shall also die and vanish away as smoke After that we have finisht the time of this life the end of all time is to succeed which is to give a period unto all which we leave behind us Let man therefore know that those things which he leaves behind for his memory after death are as vain as those which he enjoyed in life Let him raise proud Mausoleums Let him erect Statues of Marble Let him build populous Cities Let him leave a numerous Kindred Let him write learned Books Let him stamp his Name in brass and fix his Memory with a thousand nails All must have an end his Cities shall sink his Statues fall his Family and Linage perish his Books be burned his Memory be defaced and all shall end because all time must end It much imports us to perswade our selves of this truth that we may not be deceived in the things of this world That not only our pleasures and delights are to end in death but our memories at the farthest are to end with Time And since all are to conclude all are to be despised as vain and perishing Cicero although immoderately desirous of fame and honour Cieer in Ep. ad Luc. as appears by a large Epistle of his written unto a friend wherein he earnestly entreats him to write the conspiracy of Cataline which was discovered by himself in a Volume apart and that he would allow something in it unto their ancient friendships and Publish it in his life time that he might enjoy the glory of it whilest he lived yet when he came to consider that the world was to end in Time he perceived that no glory could be immortal and therefore sayes By reason of deluges and burnings of the earth In Somn. Scip. which muâ—â— of necessity happen within a certain time we cannot attain glory not so much as durable for any long time much less eternal In this world no memory can be immortal since Time and the World it self are mortal and the time will come when time shall be no more But this truth is like the memory of death which by how much it is more important by so much men think lest of it and practically do not believe it But God that his divine providence and care might not be wanting hath also in this taken order that a matter of so great concernment should be published with all solemnity first by his Son after by his Apostles and then by Angels Apoc. 10. And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps that he saw an Angel of great might and power who descended from heaven having a Cloud for his Garment and his head covered with a Rainbow his face shining as the Sun and his feet as pillars of fire with the right foot treading upon the Sea and with the left upon the Earth sending forth a great and terrible voice as the roaring of a Lyon which was answered by seaven thunders with other most dreadful noises and presently this prodigious Angel lifts up his hand towards Heaven But wherefore all this Ceremony wherefore this strange equipage wherefore this horrid voice and thunder all was to proclaim the death of Time and to perswade us more of the infallibility of it he continued it with a solemn Oath conceived in a Set form of most authentique words listing up his hand towards Heaven and swearing by him that lives for ever and ever who created Heaven and Earth and all which is in it There shall be mo more time With what could this truth be more confirmed than by the Oath of so great and powerful and an Angel The greatness and solemnity of the Oath gives us to understand the weight and gravity of the thing affirmed both in respect of it self and the importance of us to know it If the death of a Monarch or Prince of some corner of the world prognosticated by an Eclipse or Comet cause a fear and amazement in the beholders what shall the death of the whole World and with it all things temporal and of Time it self foretold by an Angel with so prodigious an apparition and so dreadful a noise produce in them who seriously consider it For us also this thought is most convenient whereby to cause in us a contempt of all things temporal Let us therefore be practically perswaded that not onely this life shall end but that there shall be also an end of Time Time shall bereave Man of this life and Time shall bereave the World of his whose end shall be no less horrible than that of Man but how much the whole World and the whole Race of mankind exceeds one particular person by so much shall the universal end surpass in terrour the particular end of this life For this cause the Prophecies which foretell the end of the World are so dreadful that if they were not dictated by the holy Spirit of God they would be thought incredible Christ therefore our Saviour having uttered some of them unto his Disciples because they seemed to exceed all that could be imagined in the conclusion confirmed them with that manner of Oath or Asseveration which he commonly used in matters of greatest importance Math. 13. Luc. 21. Amen which is By my verity or verily I say unto you that the world shall not end before all these things are fulfilled Heaven and earth shall fail but my words shall not fail Let us believe then that Time shall end and that the World shall die and that if we may so say a most horrible and disastrous death let us believe it since the Angels and the Lord of Angels have sworn it If it be so then that those memorials of men which seemed immortal must at last end since the whole Race of man is to end let us only strive to be preserved in the eternal memory of him who hath no end and let us no less despise to remain in the fading memory of men who are to die than to enjoy the pleasures of our senses which are to perish As the hoarding up of riches upon earth is but a deceit of Avarice so the desire of eternizing our memory is an errour of Ambition The covetous man must then leave his wealth when he leaves his life if the Theef in the mean time do not take it from him and fame and renown must end with the World if envy or oblivion deface it not before All that is to end is vain this World therefore and all which
his neighbours face the image of his own death What fear and horrour shall then possess them when they shall hourly expect the success and dire effects portended by these monstrous prodigies All Commerce shall then cease the Market-places shall be unpeopled and the Tribunals remain solitary and silent none shall be then ambitious of honours none shall seek after pastimes and new invented pleasures nor shall the covetous wretch then busie himself with the care of his treasures none shall frequent the Palaces of Kings and Princes but through fear shall forget even to eat and drink all their care shall be employed how to escape those Deluges Earthquake and lightnings seeking for places of security which they shall not meet with Who will then value his own Descent and Linage who the nobleness of his Arms and atchievements who his Wisdom and Talents who will remember the Beauty he hath once doted upon who the sumptuous Buildings he hath reared who his acute and well-composed Writings who his Discretion and Gravity in his discourse And if we shall forget what we our selves most valued and gloried in how shall we remember that of others what remembrance shall there then be of the acts of that great Alexander Of the Learning of Aristotle and the Endowments of the most renowned men of the world Their Fame shall remain from thence forward for ever buried and shall die with the World for a whole Eternity The Mariners when in some furious Tempest they are upon the point of sinking how are they amazed at the rage of the watry Element how grieved and afflicted with the ruine which threatens them what prayers and vows do they send up to Heaven how disinteressed are they of all worldly matters since they fling their wealth and riches into the Sea for which they have run such hazard In what condition shall be then the Inhabitants of the Earth when not onely the Sea with his raging but Heaven and Earth with a thousand prodigies shall affright them when the Sun shall put on a Robe of mourning and amaze them with the horrour of his darkness when the Moon shall look like blood the Stars fall and the Earth shake them with its unquiet trembling when the Whirlwinds shall throw them off their legs and frequent and thick flashes of Lightning dazle their sight and confound their understanding what shall Sinners then do for whose sake all these fearful wonders shall happen § 2. The fear and astonishment which shall fall upon mankind when the whole power and concourse of Nature shall be armed against Sinners may be perceived by the fear which hath been caused by some particular of those changes which are foretold to happen in the end of the World altogether and every one in great excess Let us therefore by the consideration of the particular judge how dreadful shall be the conjunction of so many and so great calamities And to begin with the Earth the most dull and heavy of all the Elements Cardinal Jacobus Papiensis Jacob. Papiens In Epist writing what happened in his own time reports that in the year 1456 upon the 5th of December three hours before day the whole Kingdom of Naples trembled with that violence that some entire Towns were buried in the earth and a great part of many others were overthrown in which perished 60000 persons part swallowed by the earth and part oppressed by the ruins of buildings what security can men look for in this life when they are not secure of the earth they tread upon What firmness can there be in the World when the onely firm thing in it is unstable From whence may not death assault us if it springs from under our feet Evarg l. 6. c. 8. Vide Niceph lib. 18.3 c. 13. But it is not much that the Earthquake of a whole Kingdom should cause so great a ruine since it hath done as much in one City Evagrius writes that the night in which Mauritius the Emperour was married three hours within night the City of Antioch quaked in that manner that most of the Buildings were overthrown and 60000 persons remained buried in her ruins If the Earth was so cruel in those particular Earthquakes what was it in the time of Tiberius Plin. l. 2. c. 84. when according to Pliny twelve of the most principal Cities of Asia were overthrown and sunk into the earth Sen. nat q. l. 6. And yet more cruel was that related by Nicephorus which happened in the time of the Emperour Theodosius which lasted for 6 moneths without intermission Niceph. l. 4. c. 46. and was so universal that almost the whole circuit of the Earth trembled as extending to the Chersonesus Alexandria Bithinia Antioch Hellespont the two Phrygia's the greatest part of the East and many Nations of the West And that we may also say something of the fury of the Sea even against those who were far distant from the rage of his waves and thought themselves secure in their own houses Most horrible was that Earthquake related by S. Jerome St. Hier in vita St. Hilarion and Ammianus Marcellinus who was an eye-witness of it which happened not long after the death of the Emperour Julian wherein not onely the Earth trembled but the Sea out-past his limits as in another Deluge and turned again to involve the Earth as in the first Chaos Ships floated in Alexandria above the loftiest buildings and in other places above high hills and after that the Sea was calmed and returned into his channel many Vessels in that City as Nicephorus writes remained upon the top of-houses Niceph. l. 10. c. 35. and in other parts upon high rocks as witnesseth St. Jerome But let us hear it related by Ammianus Marcellinus Am. Marcel l. 20. whose words are these which follow Procopius the Tyrant being yet alive the 2◠of July the year wherein Valentinian was first time Consul with his Brother the Elements throughout the whole compass of the Earth suddenly fell unto such distempers and disorders as neither true stories have ever mentioned nor false feigned A little before morning the Heavens being first over-cast with a dark Tempest intermixt with frequent thunders and horrid flashes of lightning the whole body of the Earth moved and the Sea being violently driven back retired in such manner as the most hidden bottom of it was discovered so as many unknown sorts of Fishes were seen stretched out upon the mud Those vast profoundities beholding then the Sun whom Nature from the beginning of the world had hid under so immense a mass of waters many Ships remained upon the Oase or floating in small gullets and Fishes were taken up with mens hands gasping upon the dry sands but in short time the waves of the Sea inraged to see themselves banisht from their natural seats lifted themselves up with great fury against the Islands and far extended Coasts of the Continent and what Cities or Buildings they encountred
flourishing and pleasant Orchards consumed without power either to preserve them or themselves All shall burn and with it the World and all the fame and memory of it shall die and that which mortals thought to be immortal shall then end and perish No more shall Aristotle be cited in the Schools nor Vlpian alleaged in the Tribunals no more shall Plato be read amongst the Learned nor Cicero imitated by the Orators no more shall Seneca be admired by the understanding nor Alexander extolled amongst Captains all fame shall then die and all memory be forgotten O vanity of men whose memorials are as vain as themselves which in few years perish and that which lasts longest can endure no longer than the World What became of that Statue of maslie gold which Gorgias the Leontin placed in Delphos to eternize his Name and that of Gabrion in Rome and that of Borosus with the golden tongue in Athens and innumerable others erected to great Captains in brass or hardest marble certainly many years since they are perished or if not yet they shall perish in this great and general Conflagration Onely vertue no fire can burn Three hundred sixty Statues were erected by the Athenians unto Demetrius Phalareus for having governed their Common-wealth ten years with great vertue and prudence but of so little continuance were these Trophies that those very Emblems which were raised by gratitude were soon after destroyed by envy and he himself who saw his Statues set up in so great a number saw them also pulled down but he still retained this comfort which Christians may learn from him that beholding how they threw his Images unto the ground he could say at least They cannot overthrow those Vertues for which they were erected If they were true Vertues he said well for those neither envy can demolish nor humane power destroy and which is more the divine power will not in this general destruction of the World consume them but will preserve in his eternal memory as many as shall persevere in goodness and die in his holy grace for onely Charity and Christan Vertues shall not end when the World ends The sight of those Triumphs exhibited by Roman Captains when they conquered some mighty and powerful Kings lasted but a while and the memories of the Triumphers not much longer and now there are few who know that Metellus triumphed over King Jugurtha Aquilius over King Aristonicus Atilius over King Antiochus Marcus Antonius over the King of Armenia Pompey over King Mithridates Aristobulus and Hiarbas Emilius over King Perseus and the Emperour Aurelius over Cenâ—bia the Queen of the Palmirens If few know this but dumb Books and dead Paper when those shall end what shall then become of their memories How many Histories hath fire consumed and are now no more known then if they had never been Written neither to doe nor write can make the memory of man immortal Aristarchus wrote more than a thousand Commentaries of several Subjects of which not one line remains at present Chrysippus wrote seaven hundred Volumes and now not one leaf is extant Theophrastus wrote thre hundred and sarce three or four remain Above all is that which is reported of Dionysius Grammaticus that he wrote three thousand five hundred works and now not one sheet appears But yet more is that which Jamlicus testifies of the great Trimegistus that he composed thirty six thousand five hundred twenty five books and all those are as if he had not written a letter for 4 or 5 little and imperfect Treatises which pass under his name are none of his Time even before the end of time leaves no Books nor Libraries By the assistance of Demetrius Phalareus King Ptolomy collected a great Library in Alexandria in which were stored all the Books he could gather from Caldee Greece and Aegypt which amounted to seventy thousand bodies but in the Civil Wars of the Romans it perished by that burning which was caused by Julius Caesar Another famous Library amongst the Greeks of Policrates and Phisistratus was spoyled by Xerxes The Library of Bizantium which contained a hundred and twenty thousand Books was burnt in the time of Basiliscus That of the Roman Capitol was in the time of Commâ—dus turned into ashes by lightning and what have we now of the great Library of Pergamus wherein were two hundred thousand Books Even before the end of the World the most constant things of the World die And what great matter is it if those memorials in paper be burnt since those in brass melt and those of marble perish That prodigious Amphitheater Vide Lips In Amph. which Stability Taurus raised of stone was burnt in the time of Nero the hard marble not being able to defend it self from the soft flames The great riches of Corinth in gold and silver were melted when the Town was fired those precious mettals could neither with their hard-resist nor with their value hire a friend to defend them from those furious flames If this particular burning in the most flourishing time of the World caused so great a ruine what shall that general one which shall make an end of the World and all things with it § 5. Let us now consider as we have already in Earthquakes and Deluges what great astonishment and destruction hath sometime happened by some particular burnings that by them we may conceive the greatness of the horror and ruine which will accompany that general one of the whole world What lamentations were in Rome when it burnt for seven dayes together What shrieks were heard in Troy when it was wholly consumed with flames What howling and astonishment in Pentapolis when those Cities were destroyed with fire from heaven Some say they were ten Cities Strabo thirteen Josephus and Lira five that which of faith is that there were four at least who with all their Inhabitants were consumed What weeping was therein Jerusalem when they beheld the House of God the Glory of their Kingdom the Wonder of the World involved in fire and smoke And that we may draw nearer unto our own times when lightning from Heaven fell upon Stockholme the capital City of Sweden and burnt to death above 1600 persons besides an innumerable multitude of Women and Children who hoping to escape the fire at land fled into the ships at Sea but overcharging them were all drowned Imagin what that people felt when they saw their houses and goods on fire and no possibility of saving them when the Husband heard the shrieks and cries of his dying Wife the Father of his little Children and unawares perceived himself so encompassed with flames that he could neither relieve them nor free himself What grief Albert. Krant Suec l. 5. c. 3. what anguish possest the hearts of those unfortunate creatures when to avoid the fury of the fire they were forced to trust themselves to the no less cruel waves when by their own over-hasty crowdings and indiscretion they saw their Ships
to conclude in a not being is already not much distant from it and so differing little from nothing ought not to be valued much more than if it were nothing But unto this necessity of ending is annexed that so notable circumstance of ending after so dreadful and terrible a manner as we have already seen I have therefore been so full in expressing of it that we may perceive by this so strange a manner of conclusion what our exorbitant malice in the abuse of the Creatures hath added unto their proper vanity for it is we who by our vices have made them of much less value than they are by their own nature so as in the condition they now stand they are much to be despised Natural delights are in themselves more pure and less hurtful than humane malice hath made them which hath rendred them more costly dangerous and difficult and therefore less pleasant for what is subject to care and danger must of necessity be mixed with trouble Honey loses its sweetness if mixed with Gall and the most generous Wine is corrupted with a little Vinegar by which may appear the errour of our appetites which striving to augment our pleasures hath lessened them and by adding inordinate relishes to what nature had simply and regularly provided hath rather invented new afflictions than contents Our gluttony is not pleased with savoury food but what we eat must be rare and costly it contents not it self with the bare taste of meat which is its proper object but seeks after smell and colour it is not Cooked if not disguised neither will that serve if not accommodated with several sorts of Spices Salt and Sugar seasons not what we eat but Musk and Amber Neither is our feeling content with the warmth of our Apparel but looks after colour fashion and expence and we are more sollicitous that it may appear neat and curious unto others than that it may decently cover and cherish our necessitated members taking occasion by the necessity of nature to nourish our vices Apparel serving rather the ambition and pride of our mindes than the nakedness of our bodies But it is not much that we content not our selves with the natural use of things since we are not pleased with nature it self but adulterate it with art not onely women but men dye their hair and counterfeit their faces and statures and the Creature to the injury of the Creatour presumes to form himself after another manner than God thought fit to make him In like manner riches are not measured out for humane necessity and conveniency but for pomp and arrogancy in the acquisition and use whereof we look not so much what suffices for life and the lawful pleasures of it as what serves for pride and ostentation wherein consuming our wealth and fortunes we lose the use of them and what was onely ordained as a remedy of our necessities by our abuse augment and make them greater Whereupon it commonly happens that rich men are most in want and great personages are more indebted and engaged than meaner people Honour and Fame are so adulterated that they are not onely desired as a reward of vertues but of vices All these abuses are the faults of the World which hath made humane life more troublesome and full of danger than it is by necessity and condition and therefore it was convenient that the World should end with trouble and confusion since the abuse of it hath been with so much shame and impudence and that it self also should be judged which hath sustained and fed the vanity and folly of man with things so base and despicable The ancient Philosophers placed vertue and the felicity of man in living according unto nature but what content and happiness can there be when all the pleasures of life are so sophisticated with art as they are wholly different from that which nature requires and what vertue can be expected from them who live according to so much malice But Christians who ought not onely to live conformable to nature but unto grace and the example of Christ make it apparent how just it is that the wicked should give an account of those things which they have used so contrary unto his divine pleasure §. 2. And so not onely those things which are spoken of in the precedent Chapter are to be of terrour and fear in the end of the World but more especially that strict account which God shall then exact from the whole Linage of man For as in the death of particular persons there is to be a particular judgement so in the death of the World a general Judgement is to pass upon all and as the most terrible thing of death is that particular reckoning so in the end of the World is that universal reckoning when God shall demand an account of his divine benefits and shall judge the abuses of them and all the sins of men making it to appear to the whole World how good and gracious he hath been towards them and how rebellious and ungrateful they have been towards him The manifestation of which truth will be of more terrour unto the wicked than all the plagues and prodigies of Earthquakes Inundations Tempests Locusts Pestilences Famines Warres Lightnings and Fire which have gone before Guigo Carth. in med Therefore Guigo Carthusianus said well that the most terrible thing of that day was the truth that should then appear against Sinners And without doubt neither those stupendious Thunders nor that furious roaring of the Sea nor any other wonder of those last times shall bring that confusion upon Sinners as to see the great reason which God had to be served and the none at all which they then had to displease him It was therefore most convenient that after the particular Judgement of each man apart there should be an universal Judgement of all together in which God should make appear the righteousness of his proceedings and give a general satisfaction of his justice even to the damned and Divils And because in the death of Man as St. Thomas notes all 3. p. 2. d. q. 59. art 5. what was his dies not for there remains his memory his Children his Works his Example his Body and many of those things in which he placed his affection it is therefore reason that all those should enter into that general Judgement with him that he may know that he is not onely to give an account of his life but of those things also which he leaves behind him The fame and memory of Man after death doth not oftentimes correspond unto the deserts of his life and it is just that this deceit should be taken off and that the vertuous whom the World made no account of should then be acknowledged for such and he who had fame and glory without merit should then change it into shame and confusion O how deceived shall the ambitious then find themselves who to the end they might leave
that lie had lost his wits but he never had them perfecter since he laught at human greatness and now perceived how ridiculous a thing is that which we call felicity and in his heart rightly esteemed it as it is a vanity of vanities I believe the same judgement which this King gave of the vanity of temporal things would if it had been askt been given by the Emperour Andronicus when naked and his head shaved like a Slave he was infamously dragged thorow the Streets of Constantinople What was then his Imperial Diadem what his Throne and Majesty what his Ornaments of gold and silver All was vanity and a vanity of vanities Neither would this have been denied by Vitellius when they threw dirt in his face and haled him into the Market-place to be executed What were then the Spectacles of the Amphitheater and Games of the Circus the Signiory of the World but vanity of vanities and universal vanity The same would Craesus have preached from the flames the Tyrant Bajazet from his Cage King Bolislaus from his Kitchen and Dionysius from his School If alive they would have said this upon the sight onely of the instability of this life what would they now say upon the experience of eternity whereinto they are entred Let us take the opinion of those Princes which are damned what they now think of the Majesty which they enjoyed in this life Vanity they will say it was a smoke a dream a shadow And without doubt those Kings which are now in heaven in possession of those eternal joyes will say the same That all felicity here below is poor scarce and short and vanity of vanities and worse if it have been an occasion of sin But it is not needful to call witnesses from the other life since the vanity of this is so evident that he who shall set himself to consider the greatness of this World shall perceive that by how much it is more glorious by so much it is more vain What greater Majesty than that of the Roman Empire Let us call to mind what happened in that Scarce was the election of a Roman Emperour known before they who chose him or some more subtle or powerful than they had murthered him An although they studied nothing more than to preserve themselves in the Imperial dignity yet few there were that could effect it Amongst nineteen or twenty Emperours which passed betwixt Antoninus the Philosopher and Claudius the second not one escaped a violent death besides many other Tyrants who took the names of Emperours as in Galienus his time thirty usurped that title and murthered one another in so much as he who called himself an Emperour was almost certain to die a violent death so as the greatest felicity of the world was tyed to the greatest mishap And it is to be wondered that any though almost forced would accept the Diadem But such is the folly of men that having before their eyes so many lamentable examples they gape after those glories which hardly last from morning until night Some of them had scarce been saluted Emperours when they were cut in pieces Aurelianus was one of those who exhibited the most glorious triumph that ever Rome beheld where were shewed An infinite number of Captives from the three parts of the World Many rare beasts as Tygers Lions Ounces Elephants Dromidaries A mighty quantity of Arms taken from the conquered Enemies Three most sumptuous Chariots one of the King of Palmerins another of the Persians and a third of the Goths Two who called themselves Emperours and the great Queen Cenobia adorned with most precious jewels and rich pearls and fettered in chains of gold He himself entred in a triumphal Chariot taken from the King of Gothes drawn by Stags immediately followed by the conquering Army richly armed crowned with Laurel and carrying Palms in their hands Never Emperour arrived at such a height of glory But how long lasted it A short time after he was stabbed with poniards having hardly time to take notice of his greatness much less to enjoy it By how many steps and strange ways did Aelias Pertinax in his old age climb unto the Imperial Throne and lost it before it was known in the Empire that he commanded it He was the Son of a Slave and first a Merchant by which he became a good accomptant then he studied Grammar and became a Schoolmaster after that a Lawyer and having learned to defend causes was made an Advocate but not prospering by these courses he listed himself a Souldier Neither seemed he in that to thrive much better for being arrived to the dignity of a Centurion he was cashiered with infamy But he quitted it not so for returning unto the same trade in process of time he became a Senatour shortly after Consul then President of Syria at last when he expected the Hangman to take away his life he was saluted Emperour by those Souldiers who then came fresh from the slaughter of Commodus They entring his house by night he told them he was the man whom the Tyrant had sent them to murther but they presented him the Scepter and Diadem which he accepted although then 70 years of age and after had scarce warmed the Imperial Seat having onely raigned three Moneths when he was cut in pieces in a time he least suspected it being so beloved esteemed and praised by the Romans that every one would have spent a thousand lives to have saved his yet notwithstanding a few Souldiers passed publickly through the middest of the City and in the sight of all stabbed an Emperour so beloved and honoured of the people and returned back without any so much as questioning them when those of one street so few were the murtherers had been sufficient to have killed them with stones Who sees not here the inconstancy and vanity of humane things as well in the life as unexpected death of this Prince by how many changes and windings did he climbe unto the top of the Imperial greatness and how sodainly without any stop or turn at all was he tumbled headlong down how long was his fortune in growing and how quickly cut seaventy years of a prosperous life ended in the counterfeit felicity of three Moneths and the unhappy death of an hour Then all is vanity of vanities since that which costs so much lasts so little and death in less than one hour overthrows the fortune of seaventy years §. 2. If the felicity of this life did onely end when life ends yet that were sufficient to undervalue it but it often ends before it and sometimes changes into disgraces and mishaps so as with our own eyes we often behold an end of our greatest fortunes Let us not therefore trust in life because it may fail whilest the goods of it remain and let us as little trust in them because they may likewise fail whilest it continues Let this instability of things undeceive us and let us seriously consider their
with which the rich man remained amazed and was taught that to give himself over to gluttony and the immoderate pleasure of his taste was no less hurtful for him than to feed on poisonful creatures or to have to do with Lions Serpents and Tygers And it is certain that Lions and the most furious beasts have not kill'd so many as have died by surfeits and pleasing too much their pallats CAP. VI. Of the littleness of things Temporal SEtting aside how vain the things of this World are let us particularly consider how little they are and we shall perceive that though their vanity which swells and blows them up seems to extend them yet they are in themselves poor short and little especially if we compare them with things eternal Beginning therefore with that temporal good which seems to have the greatest bulk and makes the greatest noise to wit Honour Fame and Renown we shall see how narrow it is Men desire that their fame should ring through the whole World and that all should know their names and if they did what are all in respect of those in the other World since the whole Earth in respect of the Heavens is but a point But who is he that can be known of all who live Millions of men there are in the World who know not whether there be an Emperour of Germany or a King of Spain Let no man then afflict himself for this vain honour for even in his own Country all shall not know him Many thousand years are past and no man knew thee and of those who shall be born hereafter few shall remember thee and although thou remainest in the memory of those yet they also in the end must die and with them thine and their own memory must perish and thou shalt as before thou wert continue a whole eternity without being known or celebrated by any And even now whilest thou livest there are not many who know thee and of those most of them so bad that thou oughtest to be ashamed that such mouthes should praise thee who speak ill even of one another Wherefore then doest thou torment thy self for a thing so short so vile and so vain All these things are so certain that even the Gentils acknowledged them Hear onely one who was placed in the highest degree of glory and dignity in the whole World Marc. Anton. l. 3. p. 200. since he was Lord of it the Emperour Marcus Antoninus who speaks in this manner Perhaps thou art sollicitous of honour Behold how quickly oblivion blots out all things Behold a Chaos of eternity both before and after How vain is the noise of fame how great inconstancie and uncertainty of humane judgements and opinions in how narrow a compass are all things inclosed The World is but a point and of it how small a corner is inhabited and who and how many are those in it who are to praise thee And a little after he adds He who desires fame and honour after death thinks not that he who is to remember him shall shortly die also and in the same manner he who is to succeed after him untill that all memory which is to be propagated by mortal men be blotted out But suppose that those who are to remember thee were immortal what could it import thee being dead nay even alive what could it profit thee to be praised all that is fair is fair of it self and is perfected within it self and to be praised is no part of the beauty He therefore who is celebrated is for that reason neither better nor worse These Antidotes are drawn by the Pagan Prince against the poison of ambition Why therefore should we Christians esteem any honour but that of God What shall I say of the vanity of those titles which many have assumed against all reason and justice onely to make themselves known in the World Let us judge how it will fare with us of Europe by those who have taken titles upon them in Asia For if the fame of those in Asia arrive not to the knowledge of us in Europe no more shall ours in Europe to theirs in Asia The name of Echebar was thought by his Subjects to be eternal and that all the World did not only know Jarricus in Thesau Indic but fear him But ask here in Europe who he was and no man hath heard of him and demand now of the most learned and few shall resolve you unless perchance he find here in my writing that he raigned in Mogor How few have heard of the name of Vencatapadino Ragiu he imagined that there was no man in the World who knew him not The same thought had his Servants and called him The Lord of Kings and supreme Emperour The titles which he arrogated to himself and put in his Edicts were these The Spouse of good fortune King of great Provinces King of the greatest Kings and God of Kings Lord of all the Horsemen Master of those who cannot speak Emperour of three Emperours Conquerour of all he sees and Preserver of all he conquers Formidable unto the eight Regions of the World Lord of the Provinces which he overcomes Destroyer of the Mahometan Armies Disposer of the riches of Zeilan He who cut off the head of the invincible Viravalano Lord of the East South North and West and of the Sea Hunter of Elephants He that lives and glories in his military valour These titles of honour are enjoyed by the most excellent in warlike forces Vencatapadino Ragiu which rules and governs this World How many can tell me before I declare it here that he was the King of Narsinga If then these warlike and potent Princes are not known in Europe No more shall Charles the Fift and the Grand Captain and many other Excellent men in arms and litterature which have flourished in these parts be known in Asia and Africa If we shall reflect upon the truth of those titles which many arrogate unto themselves we shall perceive them all to be vain How many are called Highness and Excellence who are of a base and abject spirit and continue in mortal sin which is the meanest and lowest thing in the World How many are called Screnissimi who have their understanding darkened and their will perverted Others call themselves most Magnificent with as much reason as Nero might be called most Clement This vanity hath proceeded so far that men have not feared to usurp those titles which only belong to God and have thereupon raised great warres and slain innumerable people Wherefore St. John said that the Beast which rose out of the Sea had upon his head names of Blasphemy and afterwards that the purple Beast was full of names of Blasphemy in regard of the blood that hath been spilt in the World for those vain titles and some of them contrary unto the essence of God as the calling of Rome Eternal and deifying her Emperours which was no better than blasphemy The things wherein
him abhorring mankinde even unto the last gasp he commanded that his body should not be interr'd in the earth as in the common Element wherein usually were buried the bodies of others afraid lest his bones should lye near or be touched by men though dead but that they should make his Sepulcher upon the brink of the Sea that tho fury of the waves might hinder the approach of all others and that they should grave upon it this Epitaph which is related by Plutarch After my miserable life they buried me in this deep water Reader desire not to know my name The Gods confound thee This Philosopher wanted faith and charity not distinguishing betwixt the Malice of man and his Nature having reason to abhorre that and to love this Yet by these extravagant demonstrations he gave us to understand how monstrous are our passions and how worthy of hate when they are not ordered and governed by reason And certainly all Christians ought to desire the destruction of the pomp and pride of men as Timon did of their persons their superfluous gallantry their unlawful pleasures their ostentation of riches their vain titles of honour their raging envy their disordered choler their unjust revenges their unbridled passions Those ought to die and be destroyed that the men may live § 6. So many are the miseries of life that they cannot all be numbered Death which is called by Aristotle The greatest of evils is by many esteemed a lesser evil than life the many evils in this surpassing the greatness of the evil in that and therefore many have thought it better to suffer the greatest which is death than to suffer so many though lesser which are in life For this reason one calls Death The last and greatest Physician because though in it self it be the greatest evil yet it cures all others and therefore prescribes the hopes of it as an efficacious remedy and comfort in the afflictions of life But because this comfort is not relished by all the fear of death being so natural and the dangers and many waves unto it accounted amongst the many miseries of life therefore some prime Philosophers could find out no other remedy for evils than to despair of their remedy Wherefore Seneca when a great Earthquake happened in his time in Campania wherein Pompeios a famous City and divers other Towns were sunk and many people lost and the rest of the Inhabitants distracted with fear and and grief fled from their Country as if they had been banisht he advised them to return home and assured them that there was no remedy for the evils of this life and that the dangers of death were unavoidable And truly if well considered what security can there be in life when the Earth which is the Mother of the living is unfaithful to them and sprouts out miseries and deaths even of whole Cities what can be secure in the World if the World it self be not and the most solid parts of it shake If that which is onely immoveable and fixt for to sustain the living tremble with Earthquakes if what is proper to the Earth which is to be firm be unstable and betray us where shall our fears find a refuge When the roof of the house shakes we may flie into the fields but when the world shakes whither shall we goe What comfort can we have when fear cannot find a gate to flie out at Cities resist Enemies with the strength of their walls Tempests finde a sheltet in the Haven The covering of Houses defend us from rains and snows In the time of plague we may change places but from the whole Earth who can flie and therefore from dangers For this reason Seneca said Not to have a remedy may serve us as a comfort in our evils for Fear is foolish without Hope Reason banishes fear in those who are wise and in those who are not despair of remedy gives a kind of security at least takes away fear He that will fear nothing let him think that all things are to be feared See what slight things endanger us even those which sustain life lay ambushes for us Meat and drink without which we cannot live take away our lives It is not wisdom therefore to fear swallowing by an Earthquake and not to fear the falling of a tile In death all sorts of dyings are equal What imports it whether one single stone kills thee or a whole Mountain oppress thee death consists in the souls leaving of the bodies which often happens by slight accidents But Christians in all the dangers and miseries of humane life have other comforts to lay hold on which are a good conscience hope of glory conformity unto the Divine will and the imitation and example of Jesus Christ From these four he shall in life have merit in death security in both comfort and in eternity a reward Justus Lipsius being much oppressed with his last infirmity whereof he died some who were present endeavoured to comfort him with some philosophical reasons and sentences of the Stoicks wherein that most learned man was much studied as appears in his Book of the Introduction to Stoical learning unto whom he answered in this most Christian manner Vain are all those consolations and pointing unto an Image of Christ crucified said This is the true comfort and true patience And presently with a sigh which rose from the bottom of his heart said My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ give me Christian patience This comfort we ought to have who were redeemed by so loving a Lord That considering our sins are greater than the pains of this life and that the Son of God hath suffered farre greater who wanted all sin he hath deserved to convert the miseries of this life which are occasioned by sin into instruments of satisfaction for our sins drawing health out of infirmity and an antidote out of poison We may also draw from what is said how unjust was the complaint of Theophrastus that nature had given a longer life unto many birds and beasts than unto man If our life were less troublesome he had some reason but it being so fraught with miseries he might rather think that life the happiest which was shortest Wherefore as St. Jerome said to Heliodorus it is better to die young and die well than to die old and die ill This voyage being of necessity the felicity of it consists not in being long but being prosperous and that we at last arrive in the desired Port. St. Austin sayes August in Johan that to die is to be eased of those heavy burthens which we bear in this life and that the happiness is not to leave it late in the evening of our age but that when we die they charge us not with a greater load Let a man live ten years or let him live a thousand death as St. Jerome saith gives him the title of happy or unfortunate If he live a thousand years in sorrow it is a great unhappiness
undefiled superiour to all grief and pleasure that thou do nothing without a good end nothing feignedly or falsely and that thou regard not what another man does or has to doe Besides that all things which happen thou receive as sent from thence from whence thou thy self art derived Finally that thou attend death with a quiet and temperate minde This is from that great Philosopher CAP. X. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal THe least evil which we receive from the goods of this world is to deceive and frustrate our hopes and he comes well off whom they forsake onely with a mock For there are many who not onely fail of what they desire but meet with what they abhorre and in place of ease and content meet with trouble and vexation and instead of life finde death and that which they most affect turns often to their destruction Absolon being very beautiful gloried in nothing more than his hair but even those became the instrument of his death and those which he daily combed as if they had been threads of gold served as a halter to hang him upon an Oak To how many have riches which they loved as their life been an occasion of death This is the calamity of the goods of the earth which the Wise-man noted when he said Eccle. 5. Another dangerous evil I beheld under the Sun riches preserved for the destruction of their owner This is the general and incurable infirmity of riches that when they are possessed with affection they turn into the ruine of their possessors either in soul or body and oftentimes in both in so much as we are not to look upon temporal goods as vain and deceitful but as Parricides and our betrayers With much reason the two great Prophets Isaias and Ezechiel compare Egypt by which is signified the world and humane prosperity unto a reed which if you lean upon it breaks and the splinters wound your hands No less brittle than a reed are temporal goods but more dangerous Besides the other faults wherewith they may be charged a very great one is the hurts they doe to life it self for whose good they are desired and are commonly not onely hurtful unto the life eternal but prejudicial even unto the temporal How many for their desire to obtain them have lost the happiness of heaven and the quiet felicity of the earth enduring before death a life of death and by their cares griefs fears troubles labours and afflictions which are caused even by the greatest abundance and felicity before they enter into the hell of the other world suffer a hell in this And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps Apoc. 20. that Death and Hell were cast into a lake of fire because the life of sinners of whom he speaks according to the letter is a death and hell and he sayes that this Life and this Hell shall be cast into the other hell and he who places his felicity in the goods of the earth shall pass from one death unto another and from one hell unto another Let us look upon the condition whereunto Aman was brought by his abundance of temporal fortunes into so excessive a pride that because he was denied a respect which was no wayes due unto him he lived a life of death smothering in his breast a hell of rage madness and hatred nothing in this life as he himself confest giving him ease or content What condition more like unto death and hell than this for as in hell there is a privation of all joyes and delights so oftentimes it happens in the greatest felicities upon earth The same which Aman confessed Dionysius felt when he was King of Sicily to wit that he took no content at all in the greatest delights of his Kingdom Tull. in Tuscul q. Boet. l. de consol And therefore Boetius sayes that if we could take away the veil from those who sit in Thrones are clad in Purple and compassed about with Guards of Souldiers we should see the chains in which their Souls are enthralled conformable unto which is that of Plutarch that in name onely they are Princes but in every thing else Slaves A marvelous thing it is that a man compassed about with delights pastimes and pleasures should joy in nothing and in the middest of dancing drinking feasting and dainty fair should find a hell in his heart That in hell amongst so many torments sinners should not finde comfort is no marvail at all but that in this life in the middest of felicity and affluence of all delights he should finde no satisfaction is a great mystery A great mischief than is humane prosperity that amongst all its contents it affords no room for one true one But this is Divine providence that as the Saints who despised what was temporal had in their souls in the very middest of torments a heaven of joy and pleasure as St. Lawrence who in the middest of flames found a Paradice in his heart so the Sinner who neither esteems nor loves any thing besides those of the world should also in the middest of his regalo's and delights finde a life of hell and torments anticipating that whereunto after death he is to enter and be confined So great are the cares and griefs occasioned by the goods of the earth that they oppress those who most enjoy them and shut up the door to all mirth leaving them in a sad night of sorrow This is that which was represented unto the Prophet Zacharias Zach. 5. when before that the Devils came to fetch away the Vessel wherein the woman was enclosed to be carried into a strange Region in the Land of Sanaar there to dwell for ever the mouth of it was stopt up with a talent of Lead and she imprisoned in darkness and obscurity signifying thereby that before a worldling is snatcht away by the Devils to be carried into the mournful land of hell even in this life he is hood-winked and placed in so great a darkness as he sees not one beam of the light of truth so that no content or compleat joy can ever enter into his heart § 2. The reason why the goods of this life are troublesome and incommodious even to life it self is for the many dangers they draw along with them the obligations wherein they engage us the cares which they require the fears which they cause the affronts which they occasion the straights whereunto they put us the troubles which they bring along with them the disordinate desires which accompany them and finally the evil conscience which they commonly have who most esteem them With reason did Christ our Redeemer call riches thorns because they ensnare and wound us with danger losses unquietness and fears Wherefore Job said of the rich man Job 20. Greg. l. 15. Mor. c. 12. When he shall be filled he shall be straightned he shall burn and all manner of grief shall fall upon him The which St.
such a one would hardly make him conceive the brightness and beauty of the Sun much less can the glory of those things of the other world be made to appear unto us though exemplified by comparisons of the greatest beauty the world affords So ineffable blessings are contemned by a Sinner and all to make himself despicable and accursed .. § 3. After the same manner the evils and pains of this World are nothing comparable unto those which are eternal and therefore as the three hundred years enjoying of one heavenly pleasure seemed unto that Servant of God no longer than three hours so to the contrary three hours of eternal pains will appear unto the damned as three hundred years and much more since even of the temporal pains in Purgatory this notable accident is written by St. Antoninus St. Anto. 4. p. §. 4. A man of an evil life was visited by our Lord with a long infirmity to the end he might repent and reflect upon his sins which took effect But his sickness by continuance grew so grievous and tedious unto him as he often with great earnestness recommended himself unto God and besought him to deliver him from the prison of his body Whereupon an Angel appeared unto him with this choice either to continue two years sick in that manner he was and then to goe straight to Heaven or to die instantly and remain three dayes in Purgatory He was not long in his election but presently chose the latter and immediately died but had not been an hour in those pains when the same Angel appeared unto him again and after some encouragement and consolation demanded if he knew him he answered No. I am said he the Angel who brought thee that choice from Heaven either to come hither or to remain in thy infirmity for two years To whom the afflicted soul replied It is impossible thou shouldest be the Angel of the Lord for good Angels cannot lie and that Angel told me I should remain in this place but three dayes and it is now so many years that I have suffered those most bitter torments and can yet see no end of my misery Know then said the Angel that it is not yet an hour since thou left thy body and the rest of the three dayes yet remain for thee to suffer To whom the Soul replied Pray unto the Lord for me that he look not upon my ignorance in making so foolish a choice but that out of his Divine mercy he will give me leave to return once more unto life and I will not onely patiently suffer those two years but as many as it shall please him to impose upon me His Petition was granted and being restored unto life his experience of Purgatory made all the pains of his infirmity seem light unto him in so much as he endured them not onely with patience but joy Much like unto this as appears in the Chronicles of the Minorits happened unto a religious person of the Order of St. Francis Chron. S. Fran. 2. p. l. 4. c. 8. who demanded the same of God Almighty in regard of the much trouble he put his religious brebren unto as also for what he suffered himself An Angel appeared unto him and gave him his choice either of suffering one day in Purgatory or remaining a whole year longer sick as he was He made choice to die presently and had scarce been one hour in Purgatory when he began to complain of the Angel for having cozened him The Angel appeared unto him again certifying him that his body was not yet buried because there was one onely hour past since his death He gave him his choice the second time His Soul was presently reunited to the body and he rose out of his Bed to the great astonishment of all If this then pass in Purgatory it will not be less in hell and if an hour seem a year which contains above eleven thousand hours an eternity in hell will appear eleven thousand eternities O how dearly bought are the short pleasures of the senses which are paid for with so long and so innumerable torments For if pain should last no longer than the pleasure that deserved it it would seem to those who are to feel it ten thousand times longer What will it do being eternal O pains of this World infirmities griefs and troubles how ridiculous are ye compared with those which are eternal since the time which you endure is but short and it is not much that you can afflict us nay if by temporal punishments we may escape the eternal you are most happy unto us and ought to be received with a thousand welcoms CAP. II. The greatness of the eternal honour of the Just LEt us now in particular consider the greatness of those goods of the other life in which are contained Honours Riches Pleasures and all the blessings both of soul and body of each whereof we shall say something apart and will begin with that of Honour Certainly the reward of honour which shall be conferred upon the Just in the other life is to be wonderful great First in respect that amongst all the appetites of a reasonable creature that of honour is the most potent and prevalent Secondly because our Saviour exhorts us unto humility as the way by which we are to enter into glory and promiseth honours and exaltations unto the humble and there is no question but in that place of satiety remuneration and accomplishment of all that can be desired the honour of the Servants of Christ and followers of his humility shall be inexpressible of which there are many promises in holy Scripture He himself sayes That his Father will honour them in Heaven and David sings Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour and Ecclesiasticus as it is applied by the Church A Crown of Gold upon his head graven with the seal of holiness and the glory of honour Besides all the tribute which those who serve God are able to pay him is onely to laud and honour him His eternal joy happiness and all his intrinsecal perfections are so excellent that they can receive no addition onely this glory and honour as they are an exteriour good are capable of augmentation And this is that which he receives from the Saints who serve him With which God is so pleased that he pays them again in the same money and honours those who honoured him and this honour arrives at that height that Christ himself expresses it in these words Apoc. 3. He who shall overcome I will give him to sit with me in my Throne even at I have overcome and have sitten with the Father in his Throne At the greatness of which promise a Doctor being amazed cries out Bell. l. 1. de aterna felici c. 4. infine How great shall be that glory when a just Soul shall in the presence of an infinite number of Angels sit in the same Throne with Christ and shall by the
Prosperous and the Lovers of the World who are those which for the most part people Hell The Prophet Baruch sayes Baruc. 3. Where are the Princes of the Nations which commanded over the beasts of the earth and sported with the birds of the air which store up silver and gold in which men put their trust and there is no end of their seeking who stamp and work silver who are sollicitous and their works are not found They are exterminated they have sunk down into hell Jac. 5. and others have risen in their places St. James sayes Weep you who are rich and lament the miseries which are to fall upon you St. Paul not onely threatens those who are rich but those who desire to be so saying Those who desire to be rich fall into the snare and temptation of the Devil 1 Tim. 6. and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires which drown them in death and perdition With this counterpoise then and hazard who would desire the wealth of the World since onely the desire of it is so poisonous Let those who dote upon the World hear St. Bernard Bernard in Medit. who sayes Tell me now Where are those lovers of the world who a little while agoe were here with us there is nothing remaining of them but dust and worms Mark diligently what they once were and what they now are They were men as thou now art they did eat drink laugh and pass away their times in mirth and jollity and in a moment of time sunk down into hell Here are their Bodies eaten by worms and their Souls condemned to eternal flames until united again they both shall sink together into everlasting fire that so those who were companions in sin may be also in torments and that one pain involve them who were consorts in the love of the same offence What did their vain glory profit them their short mirth their worldly power their fleshly pleasure their false riches their numerous families where is now their laughter their jests their boasting their arrogance how great shall be their sorrow when such misery shall succeed so many pleasures when from the height of humane glory they shall fall into those grievous torments and eternal ruine where according to what the Wise-man said the mighty shall be mightily punished If then those who most enjoy the World run the greatest hazard of being damned what can more induce us to the contempt of it than the consideration of so lamentable an end And what can more set forth the malice of temporal goods than to be the occasion of eternal evils If a curious built house be subject to some notable inconveniency no man will dwell in it if a couragious horse have some vitious quality no body will buy him and if a Chrystal cup have a crack it shall not be placed upon a Royal Cupboard yet the pleasures and goods of the World though subject to all those faults how are they coveted loved and sought after and in them our perdition Certainly if we should consider seriously the eternal evils which correspond to the short pleasures of this life we should have all humane felicity in horrour and trembling to see our selves in fortunes favour should flye from the world as from death The reverend and zealous Father Frier Jordan being desirous to convert a certain Cavalier to God and from the love of the world for his last remedy had recourse unto this consideration Seeing him a beautiful young man active and well disposed of body he said unto him At least Sir since God hath bellowed so comely a face and personage upon you think what pity it were they should be the food of eternal fire and burn without end The Gentleman reflected upon his advice and this consideration wrought so much with him that abhorring the world and quitting all his possessions and hopes he became poor in Christ and entred into Religion §. 2. Let us now come to the consideration of Eternal Evils that from thence we may despise all which is temporal be it good or bad The evils of Hell are truly evils and so purely such that they have no mixture of good In that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint and there is no room for comfort Aelian lib. 3. varia Hist c. 18. Aelian relates a History which being taken as a Parable may serve to illustrate what we are about to speak of He sayes in the utmost borders of the Meropes there is a cetrain place called Anostos which is as much to say from whence there is no return There was to be seen a great Precipice and a deep opening of the earth from whence issued two Rivers the one of Joy and the other of Sadness upon the brinks of which grew divers trees of so different fruits that those who eat of the one forgot all that might cause grief but those who eat of the other were so possessed with an unconsolable sadness that all was weeping and lamentations until they at last died with signs and shedding of tears What do those Rivers signifie but the one of them that whereof David speaks which with his current rejoyced the City of God the other that Flood of evil which enters the Prison of Hell and fills it with groans tears and despite without the least hope of comfort for there shall the door be eternally shut to all good or expectation of ease in so much as one drop of water was denied the rich Glutton from so merciful and pitiful a man as Abraham There shall not be the least good that may give ease nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction There is no good to be found there where all goods are wanting neither can there be want of any evil where all evils whatsoever are to be found and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils every evil is augmented In the creation of the World God gave a praise to every nature saying It was good without farther exaggeration but when all were created and joyned together he said They were very good because the conjunction of many goods advances the good of each particular and in the same manner the conjunction of many evils makes all of them worse What shall Heaven then be where there is a concourse of all goods and no evils And what Hell where there are all evils and no good Certainly the one must be exceeding good and the other exceeding evil In signification of which the Lord shewed unto the Prophet Jeremias two little Baskets of Figs Jer. 24. in the one of which were excessively good ones and in the other excessively bad both in extremity He does not content himself in saying they were bad or very bad but sayes they were over-bad because they represented the miserable state of the Damned where is to be the sink of all evils without mixture of any good at all And for this
instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire Neither shall they be Masters so much as of that broken pot wherein to contain a little water if it might be given them Jsai 30. For as Isaias sayes There shall not remain unto them so much as the shread of a broken pot to hold a little water from the pit nor shall there be any found to give it them That rich Glutton in the Gospel accustomed to drink in Cups of Chrystal to eat in Silver and to be cloathed in Silks and curious Linnens can tell us how far this infernal poverty extends when he demanded not wines of Candie but a little cold water and that not in Cups of Gold or Chrystal but upon the fingers end of a Leper This rich and nice Glutton came to such an extremity that he would esteem it a great felicity that they would give him but one drop of water although it were from the filthy and loathsome finger of a Leper and yet this also was wanting unto him Let the rich of the World see to what poverty they are like to come if they trust in ther riches let them know that they shall be condemned to the loss of all which is good Let them reflect upon him who was accustomed to be cloathed in precious Garments to tread upon Carpets to sleep upon Down to dwell in spacious Palaces now naked thrown upon burning coals and packt up in some narrow corner of that infernal Dungeon Let us therefore fear the riches of this World and the poverty of the other §. 4. This poverty or want of all good of the damned is accompanied with a most opprobrious infamy and dishonour when by publick sentence they shall be deprived for their enormous offences of eternal glory and reprehended in the presence of Saints and Angels by the Lord of Heaven and Earth This infamy shall be so great that St. Chrysostom speaks of it in these words A most intolerable thing is Hell Chrys in Math. 24. and most horrible are the torments yet if me should place a thousand Hells before me nothing could be so horrible unto me as to be excluded from the honour of glory to be hated of Christ and to hear from him these words I know you not This infamy we may in some sort declare under the example of a mighty King who having no Heir to succeed him in his Kingdom took up a beautiful Boy at the Church door and nourished him as his Son and in his Testament commanded that if at ripe years his conditions were vertuous and sutable to his calling he should be received as lawful King and seated in his Royal Throne but if he proved vitious and unfit for Government they should punish him with infamy and send him to the Gallies The Kingdom obeyed this Command provided him excellent Masters and Tutors but he became so untoward and ill-inclined that he would learn nothing flung away his books spent his time amongst other Boyes in making houses of dirt and other childish fooleries for which his Governors corrected and chastised him and advised him of what was fitting and most imported him but all did no good onely when they reprehended him he could weep not because he repented but because they hindred his sport and the next day did the same The more he grew in age the worse he became and although they informed him of the Kings Testament and what behooved him all was to no purpose until at last after all possible care and diligence his Tutors and the whole Kingdom weary of his ill conditions in a publick Assembly declared him unworthy to raign dispoiled him of his Royal Ornaments and condemned him with infamy unto the Gallies What greater affront and ignominy can there be than this to lose a Kingdom and to be made a Gally-slave for I do not know which of these things that young man would be more sensible of More ignominious and a more lamentable Tragedy is that of a Christian condemned to Hell who was taken by God from the gates of death adopted his Son with condition that if he kept his Commandments he should raign in Heaven and if not he should be condemned to Hell Yet he forgetting these obligations without respect of his Tutors and Masters who were the holy Angels especially his Angel Guardian who failed not to instill into him holy inspirations and other learned and spiritual men who exhorted him both by their doctrine and example what was fitting for a Child of God But he neither moved by their advices nor the chastisements of Heaven by which God overthrew his vain intentions and thwarted his unlawful pleasures onely lamented his temporal losses and not his offences and at the time of his death was sentenced to be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and precipitated into Hell What infamy can be greater than this of the damned Soul for if it be a great infamy to suffer death by Humane Justice for some crimes committed how great an infamy will it be to be condemned by Divine Justice for a Traitor and perfidious Rebel to God Besides this bitterness of pains the damned persons shall also be eternally branded with the infamy of their offences so as they shall be scorned and scoft at by the Devils themselves and not onely Devils but all rational creatures Men and Angels shall detest them as infamous and wicked Traitors to their King God and Redeemer Jsai 13. Facies combustae vultus eorum And as fugitive Slaves are marked and cauterized with burning irons so this infamy by some special mark of ugliness and deformity shall be stamped upon their faces and bodies so as Albertus Magnus sayes so ignominious shall be the body of a Sinner that when his Soul returns to enter it it shall be amazed to behold it so horrible and shall wish it were rather in the same state as when it was half eaten up by worms CAP. IX The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell ANother kind of punishment of great discomfort and affliction is that of Exile which the Damned shall suffer in the highest degree For they shall be banished into the profound bowels of the Earth a place most remote from Heaven and the most calamitous of all others where they shall neither see the Sun by day nor the Stars by night where all shall be horror and darkness and therefore it was said of that condemned person Cast him forth into utter darkness forth of the City of God forth of the Heavens forth of this World where he may never more appear into that land which is called in the Book of Job A dark land Job 10. covered with the obscurity of death a land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabits a land according to Isaias Jsai 34. of sulphur and burning pitch a land of
corruption and by birth a Slave of the Devil and yet he dares offend his Maker An offence against God were most grievous though from another God if it were possible infinite and equal to himself but that his creature should be so audacious against his omnipotent Lord is beyond amazement But What is that which a sinner does when he offends It is according to St. Anselm an endeavour to pluck the Crown from the head of God and place it upon his own It is according to St. Bernard to desire to murther his God It is according to the Apostle St. Paul to kick and spurn against the Son of God It is to crucifie again the Lord of life If any of these things were attempted against a Majesty upon earth it were enough to make the offenders flesh to be pluckt off with pincers to have him torn in pieces with four horses to pull down his house and sow the place with salt and make his whole Linage infamous If such an offence committed by one man against another betwixt whom the difference is not great being both equal in nature be so hainous what shall it deserve being committed against God the Lord and Creator of all whose immense greatness is infinitely distant from the nature of his creature O good God who is able to explicate what a sinner does against thee and himself he despises thy Majesty razes out thy Law from his heart laughs at thy Justice scorns thy threats despises thy promises makes a solemn renunciation of thy glory thou hast promised him and all to bind himself an eternal slave unto Satan desiring rather to please thine enemy than thee who art his Father his Friend and all his good desiring rather to die eternally by displeasing thee than to enjoy heaven for ever by serving thee Let us now see Where and in What place a sinner presumes to sin and be a Traitor unto his God It is even in his own world in his own house and knowing that his Creator looks upon him he offends him If a sin were committed where God could not see it it were yet an enormous fault but to injury his Creator before his face what an unspeakable impudence If he who sins could go into another world where God did not inhabit and there in secret under the earth should sin after such a manner as onely himself should know it yet it were a temerarious boldness but to sin in his own house which is this world what hell doth it not deserve For a man onely to lay his hand upon his sword in the Palace of a King is capital and deserves death For a sinner then by his sins to spurn and crucifie the Son of God in the house of his Father and before his face what understanding can conceive the greatness of such a malice And therefore David with reason dissolved himself into tears because he had sinned in the presence of God and with a grief which pierced his heart cried out I have done evil before thee Besides this we not onely sin against God in his own house but even in his armes whilest we are upheld by his omnipotency If there were a Son so wicked who whilest he was cherished in his Mothers bosom should strike and buffet her and endeavour to kill her with his poniard every one would think that Child some Devil incarnate How then dares man offend God who sustains preserves and hath redeemed him Certainly that Christian ought to be esteemed worse than a Devil The hainousness of this malice in sin is much augmented by the Helpes which a sinner uses to effect it For he turns those very divine benefits which he hath received from God against him who gave them The sense which men usually have of ingratitude is most apprehensive If to forget a benefit be ingratitude to despise it is an injurie but to use it against the Benefactor I know not how to call it This does he who sins making use of those creatures which God created for his service to offend him and convert his divine benefits into arms against God himself What could we say if a King to honour his Souldier should make him a Knight arm him with his own arms and should girt his sword about him with his own hands and that the Souldier so soon as he was possest of the sword should draw it against the King and murther him This wickedness which seems impossible amongst men is ordinary in man towards God who being honoured so many wayes by his Creator and enriched by so many benefits for as much as in him lies bereaves God of his honour and according to St. Bernard desires to bereave him of his life His understanding which he receiv'd from God he uses in finding out a way to execute his sin with his hands he performs it and with all his power offends him who gave them Besides the impudence of man arrives at that height that he makes God himself assist him to sin This is that which our Lord much complains of when he sayes by his Prophet You made me serve you in your wickedness because God concurring to every action and natural motion of man who without his concurrence could neither move hand nor foot nor tongue man disposing his tongue to murmur and his hand to steal makes use of the concourse of God against God himself Who is so pitiless and inhumane to enforce the Father to assist in the murther of his onely Son compelling the Fathers hand to execute the stroke which is to pierce the heart of his onely begotten Equivalent to this is done by a sinner making God to concurre to an action by which man sinning crucifies again the Son of God What cruelty is this in a sinner who for this onely impiety deserves a thousand deaths But if we shall consider Why man does this it is a circumstance which will amaze us at the malice of sin Why does a sinner give this disgust unto his God Wherefore does he despise his Creator Wherefore is he a Traitor unto the Lord of the World Wherefore does he kick and spurn at Jesus Christ Wherefore does he abhorre his Redeemer Wherefore crucifies he the Son of God What reason hath he for so monstrous a wickedness Is it perchance because the world should not be ruin'd Is it perchance because his salvation stands upon it Is it perhaps to make himself a God Is it perhaps in respect or for love of another God No it is none of these but only for a base and filthy pleasure for a foolish fancy of man because he will and no more O horrid insolence O mad fury of men which without a cause so grievously offend their Creator How is it that the Heavens resolve not into thunderbolts and throw a thousand deaths upon them who do and dare by their sins irritate and offend so good and gracious a God The Manner also of our sinning would astonish any who should seriously consider it It
evil in it self in its own nature For if there were no God or that God were not offended with it yet it were a most abominable and horrid evil the greatest of all evils and the cause of all In regard of this deformity and filthiness of sin the Philosophers judged it to be abhorred above all things Aristotle said Aristotle 3. Eth. it were better to die than to do any thing against the good of vertue And Seneca and Peregrinus with more resolution said Although I were certain that men should not know it and that God would pardon it yet I would not offend for the very filthiness of sin For this Tully said That nothing could happen unto man more horrible than a fault And even those Philosophers who denied the immortality of the Soul and the providence of God affirmed that nothing should make us to commit it And there hath not wanted some Gentils who have suffered great extremities to avoid a vicious act Plut. in Demetrio Democles as Plutarch writes chose rather to be boiled in scalding water than to consent to a filthy act With reason Hippo is celebrated amongst the Greek Matrons who chose rather to die than offend Neither was that horror less which Verturius conceived against uncleanness who suffered prison whips and rigorous torments rather than he would sin against chastity Equal to this was that of the most beautiful youth Espurina of whom Valerius Maximus and St. Ambrose write Ambl. l. 3. de Virg. That he slashed and wounded his fair face that it should not give occasion to others of offence even by desire All those were Gentils who knew not Christ crucified for man nor saw hell open for the punishment of sinners nor fled from sin because it was an offence unto God but only for the enormity and filthiness it had in it self This made them endure prisons and tortures rather than admit it What then should Christians do who know their Redeemer died to the end they should not sin and how much sin is offensive to God Certainly they ought rather to give a thousand lives and souls than once to injure their Creator by committing an offence which not onely Gentils but even Nature hath in horror which hath planted in brute beasts although they cannot sin yet a natural aversion from that which looks like sin John Marquess of Gratis desired much to have a Foal from a generous Mare which he had by her own Son but could never effect it neither would she ever admit him until deceived by cloathing him in such sort as she knew him not But when he was uncloathed and she discovered the deceit she fell into that sorrow and sadness that after she would never feed but pined her self to death The like is reported by Jovianus Pontanus of a delicate Bitch of his which he could never although he caused her to be held make to couple with her Son So foul and horrible is but the shadow and image of sin even unto brute beasts Why should not men then who are capable of reason and have an obligation unto Gods commandments say and think with St. Anselm Lib. de simil c. 19. If I should see on this part the filthiness of sin and on the other the terrour of hell and it were necessary for me to fall into one of them I would rather cast my self into hell than admit of sin For I had rather enter pure into Hell than to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven contaminated with sin Whosoever than he be who is infected with that horrible evil of a mortal sin he cannot choose but be most miserable and wretched For as St. Chrysostome sayes Chrysost Tom. 5. Ser. 5. de ie The greatest evil is to be evil And although the Chirurgion do not cut the cankered flesh yet the ulcerated Patient will not be freed from his infirmity So although God should not punish a Sinner yet he would not be free from the evil death misery and abomination of sin And therefore St. Austin sayes Aug. To. 8. in Ps 49. Although we could cause that the day of Judgement should not come yet we ought not to live ill This monstrous deformity of sin our Lord was pleased to express by a visible Monster and that after a most strange manner as is related by Villaveus He writes Villaveus lib. 8. c. 35. that in the year 1298. Cassanus King of the Tartars with an Army of 200000 horse entring Syria made himself Master of it and brought a great terror upon all those neighbouring Countries in so much as the King of Armenia delivered him his Daughter although she were a Christian and he an Infidel to be his Wife Not long after the Queen proved with child and when her time came was delivered not of a Child but of a most horrible and deformed Monster Whereat the barbarous King being astonisht and incensed by the advise of his Council commanded that she should be put to death as an Adulteress The poor Lady grieving to die with the imputation of a sin whereof she was innocent commended her self to our Saviour and by divine inspiration desired that before her death the Thing which she had brought forth might be baptized which was granted and no sooner performed but that Monster became a most beautiful and goodly Boy and the King amazed at the miracle with many other of his Subjects became Christian acknowledging by what had happened the beauty of Grace and the deformity of Sin although that deformity proceeded not from any actual sin either mortal or venial from which the Child was free but onely from Original guilt which without the fault of his proper will descended unto him from his Parents The deformity of sin comes from the contrariety of it to reason which renders a Sinner more foul and ugly than the most horrid Monster and more dead in soul than a putrid and dead Carcase Pliny admires the force of lightning which melts the gold and silver and leaves the Purse which contained it untoucht Such is sin which kills the Soul and leaves the Body sound and entire It is a flash of lightning sent from Hell and worse than Hell it self and such leaves the Soul which it hath blasted What shall I then say of the evils which it causes I will onely say this that though it were the best thing of the world yet for the evil effects which it produces it ought to be avoided more then death It bereaves the soul of grace banishes the holy Ghost deprives it of the right of heaven despoiles man of all his merits makes him unworthy of divine protection and condemns a sinner unto eternal torments in the other world and in this to many disasters for there is neither plague warre famine nor infirmity of body whereof sin hath not been in some sort the occasion and therefore those who weep for their afflictions let them change the object of their tears and weep for the
to obtain it If thou shalt therefore fall into such a poverty as thou hast nothing to sustain thee if it conduce to thy salvation think thy self the happiest man in the world and embrace it with a hundred hands for as all things which hinder us from our end are to be contemned so whatsoever helps us to the obtaining of it although it be grief pain or death it self is to be esteemed above all value So great a matter it is to be a means of thy salvation that Christ our Lord who is the beginning and end of all things disdained it not himself incarnating dying and remaining for that end in the most blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood And if it cost the Son of God so dear to be a means of thy salvation do not thou stick at any thing how horrible soever it appear to humane nature that may advance and secure it but esteem it as a Paradise though it be infamy shame or dishonor Thou travellest towards Heaven that 's the end of thy journey Make thy voyage secure whatsoever it cost thee He who goes for the Indies if he may embark bark in a strong and well-rigged Vessel will not make choice of that which is rotten and worm-eaten Take the certainest way for Heaven and believe me there is none more ready then that of the Cross of Christ his Humility and Mortification In all things thou desirest still the best for thy self Know there is nothing better or more imports thee than a good life Make it then a good one and content not thy self with this which thou now livest if thou canst make it better and no way more ready available to improve it than by imitating the life of thy Redeemer to despise all that is Temporal This is the most proper and certain way of obtaining the Eternal whereunto thou art to aspire and for which thou were born Have still thy end before thine eyes for thou errest so often as thou doest not behold it and canst not erre without great danger St. Greg. Isid Clar. Many compare this life unto a high and narrow Bridge so narrow that it is scarce broad enough for our feet and if we fall we precipitate into a filthy Lake where Serpents and Dragons wait to devour us And who being to pass such a Bridge in an obscure and dark night having no other guide to direct him but a little light placed in the end of the Bridge durst for one instant remove his eyes from it In the like condition are we This life is a straight Bridge over which we are to pass in the night and darkness of this world We cannot come off safely in this dangerous passage without still looking at our end and at that divine light which enlightens our Souls Let not our eyes wander from it lest we fall into that Gulph and perish for all eternity This perdition David signified in the Title which he gave unto his 13. Psalm which he calls For the End where he sayes That those who look not upon God as their utmost End making no more account of him than if he were not That such became abominable and corrupted in their intentions That there was not one amongst them who did well That all became vain and unprofitable and failed in their thoughts words and actions That their mouths were as pestilential as an open sepulcher which none could endure for the stench of worms and corruption That the poison of Asps was in their lips and deceit and bitterness in their mouths That all their wayes were wickedness and That therefore their feet ran swiftly to shed blood That their hearts were full of fearful imaginations and That they trembled where there was nothing to fear finally That all their courses were nothing but ruine and unhappiness That they did not invoke and pray unto the Lord That they knew not the wayes of peace That the fear of God was not before their eyes All this which David deciphers happened as he saith unto this wicked people because they had not God in their hearts nor did propose him as the end of their actions And truly from this defect springs all that is evil For without God there is neither quiet peace nor vertue for true peace consists in seeking nothing but God and for God In this consists the liberty of the sons of God the contempt of the World the tranquility of the Minde and the conformity with the Will of God And most certainly the foundation of all vertue is to know that we are born for nothing but the service of God and so forget it as the wicked do is as David sayes a certain kind of Atheism making us live as if there were no God in looseness of manners without prayer and without the quiet and repose of the Soul To these three heads the Prophet reduces the disorders of those who think not of their chief End nor remember that there is a God And therefore he who to the contrary shall still fix his thoughts upon that whereunto he is ordained shall be endued with vertuous Customs fervour and frequency of prayer and possess the quiet and peace of minde For as the Iron touched by the Loadstone rests not until it respect the North no more shall a heart ever enjoy repose but in beholding his chief and utmost End which is God CAP. II. By the knowledge of our selves way be known the use of things Temporal and the little esteem we are to wake of them BEfore we pass further I must here advertise you of a point of great importance which is that for the right use of things the knowledge of the things themselves and the end whereunto they serve is not sufficient but there is required also a knowledge of the person who is to use them It is not enough for the wise Physician to know the use and property of his Medicaments unless he know the nature and quality of his Patient his temper strength age and other circumstances that according to them he may administer his Remedies And therefore having shewn the End of man to be eternal and that the things of this world are onely to be used as means to obtain it we shall now for the compleating of this matter speak something of the estate and quality of Man as he now is that he may thereby know what use of things temporal is most convenient for him Humane nature is at the present in a far different condition from that wherein it was when God at first created man and placed him in Paradise so as a farr different use of things temporal from that which was then lawful and convenient is now to be required And therefore it is fit that we know what Man is that we may acertain the use of Man and the things of Man which cannot be done without the knowledge of what he is in general and also that every one know what he himself is in particular
miserie that he may be heard of his God And certainly for him who is in the condition of a penitent and to demand mercy it is not seemly to use superfluities to imploy himself in vanities to take delight in the world enjoy the Creatures and seek after greatness And although it were lawful in the integrity of nature when man was free from the corruption of sin to use the Creatures with more libertie yet being now fallen it is no wayes tolerable but let him look upon himself as one guilty who hath offended his God and is in fine a miserable man The Philosophers who considered nature not as it was by sin but as it ought to be in it self measured there vertues by that rule and therefore knew not the vertue of humility nor used that of penance And the vertues of Magnanimity Constancy and Magnificence they extended so far that many actions which the Stoicks and Peripateticks called vertuous may be esteemed vicious But the horribleness of sin and the weakness of humane nature being now discovered the estate of things is changed and humilitie ought still to reign both in our souls and bodies and many acts of other vertues esteemed by them are to be corrected We are to choose different Mediums for the advancing our End from those of the Philosophers both because the ends we aym at are not the same and because we know our selves to be in a far other condition then they imagined The End proposed by the Philosophers was meerly natural to wit the Happiness and felicity of this life The estate of humane nature they conceived to be free and uncontaminated by sin and that it had suffcient force of it self to do good In all this they were deceived and it is not therefore strange if for the obtaining of their ends they taught wayes distinct from those of Christians who know their end to be supernatural to wit the happiness not of this but of the other life who know also their estate of nature not to be free and entire as it was at first but corrupted and defaced by sin and that of it self it hath neither force nor efficacy to execute any thing that is good unless assisted by the grace and mercy of God It is therefore no marvail if Chrisitians who know themselves their end and condition make use of such Vetues and Mediums as the Philosophers knew not Neither is it much that the Philosophers took some vertuous acts for vices since they mistook many vices for vertues Aristotle the Prince of natural and moral Philosophers knew not Humility voluntary Povertie and Penance to be vertues but rather condemned the last to be a kind of insensibility and one of those vices contrary to the vertue of temperance The Stoicks also held Pity and Commiseration for a vice But since the Gospel of Christ these are become the most necessary and recommended vertues and the most apt and ready means for the obtaining of our salvation These three vertues in which consists the contempt of all things temporal Aristotle knew not because he knew not himself By Humilitie Honours are despised by Poverty Riches and by Penance the Pleasures and Regaloes of the world And therefore he who will make the right and profitable use of things temporal for the gaining of eternity must as a sinner humble himself and do penance must not employ himself and the time of his life in gathering and heaping up riches which are so farre from being goods that to innumerable persons they have shut up the gates of the true and real goods which are onely the eternal unto which we are wholly to aspire not trusting in our own forces but in the mercy and passion of Jesus Christ CAP. III. The value of goods eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God BUt above all which hath been said the incomparable difference betwixt things Temporal and Eternal is made most apparent unto us by the Incarnation and passion of Jesus Christ The gaining of eternity is a matter of so high concernement that the Son of God to the end we might obtain it was incarnate and made man and that we might despise things temporal is also of so great importance that for it it was convenient that Christ our Redeemer should suffer and die I know not what can raise in us a higher conception of the greatness of the one and baseness of the other then these high and stupendious acts of God Almighty And therefore though briefly we will say something of them both beginning with that admirable and great mystery of the Incarnation Great is all that which is eternal and so much imports us that rather than we should lose it God wrought a work of that height and love as amazed the Angels In which we will consider four things The greatness of the work The manner of putting it in execution The evils from which it frees us and The good we gain by it For the first which is the Greatness of the work we are to suppose the estate of man as he then stood which was the most miserable infamous and wretched condition that could be imagined He was become a slave so the Devil polluted with sin condemned unto eternal punnishment enemy to God and without hope of remedy For even the highest Seraphins could not imagin that without prejudice to the Justice of God it was possible for man to be redeemed from that miserable and ignominious estate For although all the men in the world should suffer a thousand deaths and all the orders of holy Angels in heaven should offer themselves in sacrifice and should suffer eternal torments in hell all would not satisfy for one mortal sin All created remedies were then impossible and although God should have created some more excellent and holy creature than the most high Seraphins yet that and they were insufficient to appease the divine justice incensed against man what remedy then where none was to be had what hope when all was despaire Certainly from what was or could be created it was impossible and from the Creator it was not known to be possible and if it was known to be possible who could hope that the offended party ty should satisfie for the offence committed against himself that the Creditor should pay what the debtor ought What hope then of remedy when all hope failed both from Heaven and Earth The onely remedy and that onely known to God was that God without prejudice to his justice might cover man with his mercy but that much to the cost of God himself and the greatest work whereunto his power and wisdome could extend But who could think he would imploy so great a work for his Enemy that he would let up the rest of his omnipotency for him who was a Traytor to his Lord Onely this way remained for God to make himself man the most great and stupendious work possible or imaginable But who could believe
at the pleasure of his enemies which was the more tenderly resented as I may say by our blessed Lord because his enemies cast it in his teeth saying He trusted in God let him deliver him if he will have him But for all this his Father would not then free him or afford him any comfort which our Saviour most lovingly complained of when he said My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even a cup of water failed him to quench his scorching thirst so as the whole manner of his passion was the most grievous and opprobrious that could be imagned Lastly the Time of his Passion made it much more grievous It was the Eve of the Passover when the whole Nation was assembled when there was the greatest concourse of people to behold him It was at a time when he was known to all by the fame of his great works and miracles It was in the flower of his age and O what pity was it to behold so flourishing so beautiful so excellently composed a body reduced by the grievousness of his torments to such an exigent that as the Scripture sayes his tongue stuck to the pallat of his mouth so fallen in flesh that all his bones might be numbred the whole structure of his body so discomposed that he became as Melted wax or Spilt water resolved into the dust of death drie as a piece of an earthen pot insomuch as he seemed a Worm and not a Man the Scorn of the people and Shame of humane nature It is also worthy our admiration that in that short process of the Passion of Christ he suffered so many griefs and pains in so many kinds and with such circumstances to aggravate them as no man in the whole success of time since hath suffered any sort of calamity or adversity which our Redeemer did not then suffer in a more bitter manner In all circumstances were the pains of Christ most grievous because in all circumstances the offences of men were most hainous It was convenient that he who came to do us all good should suffer so much evil that he who had no sin of his own should undergoe the punishment due unto the sins of others and that he who was infinitely good should suffer the evil of so much grief and torment to the end we might be instructed that those are not evils which the world fears but those which sin brings along with it and that the goods of the world are so far from being real goods that they are rather to be esteemed as evils since the Redeemer of the world deprived himself of the goods and burthened himself with the evils to the end that we imitating in our lives his most precious death might despise all temporal goods which are so short and false that even the evils of the world are more true and real goods than they Let us then be ashamed seeing Christ in so much sorrow to seek after pleasures Let us have at least as great respect unto our Redeemer as Ethay the Gethite had to David who when the holy King fled from his Son Absolon and perswaded him not to follow him in that dangerous condition made him this answer The Lord live and my Lord the King live in what place soever thou shalt be either dead or alive there also shall thy servant be If this was spoken by a Stranger what ought to be the loyalty of a natural Subject Let us bear that faith unto our Saviour which Vrias did to Joab his General when he said The Ark of Gad and Judah and Israel lodge in Tents and my Lord Joab and the Servants of my Lord remain upon the earth and shall I enter into my house and eat and drink and sleep with my Wife by thy health and the health of thy Soul O King I will do no such thing If Christ remain upon the Cross and in sorrow how comest thou to seek for ease If Christ be poor why doest thou abound If Christ suffer why doest thou pamper thy flesh If Christ humble himself why doest thou swell in pride If Christ be in afflictions why art thou in delights Remember what he taught thee from the Cross and esteem onely that which he so much valued as to deprive himself of the transitory goods of this life Consider the afflictions and penance which the most innocent Jesus took upon him for thy sins that thou mayest undergoe some for thy self When the Jews were freed from the captivity of Babylon Esdras knowing the great sins they had fallen unto by their conversation with the Gentils out of a sense and feeling of their transgressions rent his garments and tore the hair off his head and beard afflicted himself and abstained from food praying unto the Lord and weeping for the sins of the people which resentment and penance of his for the sins of others so mored the Jews that they began to weep and do penance themselves for their own sins and that with so great compunction that they trembled for sorrow and publickly confest their offences Why are not Christians then moved with sorrow and repentance when they behold not an Esdras but the Son of God so overcharged with grief and sorrow for the sins of the world that he distilled drops of blood from the pores of his blessed body and rent his garments not of wooll but of his sacred humanity which he willingly offered to be torn with scourges thorns and nails suffered himself to be pluckt by the hair of the head and beard and his sacred face to be buffetted and spit upon would not taste eat or drink any thing but gall and vinegar weeping from the Cross for the sins committed by us wretches Let us then weep afflict our selves and do penance for our own sins since we see our innocent Saviour did it for the sins of others that imitating him in submitting our selves to those temporal afflictions we may be partakers of his eternal glory § 3. Those seaven Circumstances which so much aggravate the pains and torments of our Saviour Jesus Christ in his passion ought to pierce our very hearts and souls with grief and sorrow But if they should not prevail with us to despise the world and love him onely who so infinitely loved us yet there are other Circumstances which with new obligations will not onely move but force us if we be not more hard than stones to love and die for him Whom would not the sweet manner of his passion move seeing the Son of God suffer with so much love and patience without complaint of any thing loving us with that fervour that what he did seemed little unto him ready if it had been necessary to suffer as much more for us yea such was his burning charity towards Mandkind that if there had been no other way left for our Redemption he would not have refused to continue in those bitter torments till the day of Judgement The affection of Jesus Christ what gratitude doth
it is a kind of impudence to use God as a Medium for the obtaining of that which does or may separate us from him who is our chief and utmost end Guigo Cathusianus sayes Guigo Carthus in Medit. that he who prayes for temporal things uses God Almighty as the Spouse does her Husband when she desires him to bring her with his own hands some vile slave with whom she may adulterate So we desiring temporal goods encrease our affection to the things of the earth which make us forget the love of our Creator and praying for them pray for the instruments and occasions of offending him Let us not commit this treason against our Lord God but let us ask what may redound to his glory and our own profit which is only that which is spiritual and eternal to wit his grace his knowledge the imitation of his Son the contempt of the world and what is conformable to his holy will This we may safely ask and this he will certainly give us because it is for our true good And therefore in the prayer which our Lord himself hath taught us when we have said Thy will be done we proceed in a bolder manner and say in an imparative way Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses having then a kinde of certainty of obtaining when we have first conformed our prayers to the divine will and it is then as Origen notes a singular confidence we have in God to command what we pray for The third error in our petitions for temporal goods is that we pray for things vain without substance or profit for such is all temporal greatness and felicity short vain inconstant transitory and unworthy the heart of man which ought wholly to fix upon the eternal and trample the rest under foot like that mysterious woman in the Apocalyps who was surrounded and penetrated by the Sun which filled the heart and bowels but trod the Moon under her feet the Sun which is perfectly circular being a Symbol of eternity and the Moon which is defective and mutable a figure of the temporal The Sun hath its own proper light the Moon none but what she borrows from the Sun In the same manner the eternal is a good in it self and desirable for it self the temporal hath no good at all but what it acquires by being a means of obtaining the eternal All humane felicity is but vanity smoke thorns deceit and misery With what face can a Christian demand such stuff from God Almighty and such is all humane prosperity in Gods acceptance Chrysos hom 79. in Mat. Out of which consideration St. Chrysostome speaks in this manner A Roman Judge will not understand thy allegations unless thou speak unto him in the Roman tongue In the like manner Christ will not hear thee unless thou speak unto him in his own language and thy mouth be conformable unto his In the language of our Redeemer riches are thorns honours smoke and pleasures vipers and therefore he who prays for things of this nature prayes but for so many evils And as there is no Father that if his Son instead of bread demand a Scorpion will give it him so God to those whom he loves and holds as Children when they ask him temporal goods denies them because he sees they are not good for them For this reason the honour demanded by the Wife of Zebedaeus for her two sons was denyed by our Saviour with this answer That they knew not what they asked demanding that for a good which was not and in room of the honour which they desired in a temporal Kingdom he gave them Martyrdom which they thought not of which conduced to real and eternal happiness Let us learn therefore How and for What to pray that we erre not in a matter of such importance For if the error be so much greater by now much the matter in which it falls is of greater moment an error in matter of prayer must be most great especially having a divine precept and an infallible promiss that if we demand what is necessary for our Salvation in his name we shall not fail of obtaining it Let us not therefore ask that in the name of our Saviour for which he would not die but that which he bought for us with his precious blood and life which is the blessings of heaven and our eternal felicity For this let us sigh for this let us pray and let us reflect how great and faulty a carelesness it is not to pray ever for that which imports us so much as heaven and for which only we have a certain promise to be heard and not for other things which the world esteems and time consumes CAP. VII How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal IF all which hath been said suffice not to make us despise the goods of the earth for the gaining of those blessings we hope for in heaven and if neither the example nor remonstrances of our Saviour will serve to make us esteem the Eternal and contemn the Temporal but that we will for all this preferre the one though little and base because present before the other though great and immense because to come Yet let our present interest and the word and promise of the Son of God move us which certainly if seriously weighed will not onely perswade us to despise but totally to renounce the goods of the world as many of the Philosophers have done that they might more freely enjoy the pleasures and commodities of this life and many Saints for the hopes they have had of the other Let us here call to mind what was said by the Saviour of the world Mat. 19. Whosoever shall leave father or mother or brothers or sisters or house or land for my sake shall in this life receive a hundred-fold and after death life eternal In which words we are to consider the greatness of the promise and the importance of that for which so great things are promised Without doubt it must be of high concernment to renounce our temporal goods since the Son of God invites us to it with so great promises and if it be convenient to renounce them as things poysonous and hurtful to us we can have no excuse for not despising them or at least if we do not despise them yet we can have no reason to love and prefer them before the eternal Much and extremely much it will concern us to despise that which is convenient for us to leave and as much to pluck from our hearts the affection of those things which are not fit for us to possess Neither is it much to say that it is advantagious for us to renounce these temporal things since St. Bonaventure judged it necessary and therefore according to the Apostle sayes That the root of all evil is avarice from which and from pride which accompanies it all sins have their birth food
and peopled with such a multitude of beautiful Citizens as are as farre above any imaginable number as the capacity of the City is above any imaginable measure Some famous Mathematicians say of die Empyrial Heaven that it is so great that if God should allow unto every one of the blessed a greater space than the whole Earth yet there would remain as much more to give unto others and that the capaciousness of this Heaven is so great that it contains more than ten thousand and fourteen millions of miles What wonder will it be to see a City so great of so precious matter The Divines confess the capaciousness of this Heaven to be immense but are more willing to admire it than bold to measure it Joan. Gailer in suo Peregrino Howsoever there wants not one who sayes that if God should make each grain of sand upon the Sea-shore as big as the whole Earth they would not fill the Concave of the Empyrial Heaven and yet this Holy City possesseth all that space and is all composed of matter far more beautiful and precious than Gold Pearl and Diamonds For certain our thoughts cannot conceive so great riches and wonders for which we ought to undergoe all the pains and necessities of this World St. Francis of Assisium being afflicted with a grievous pain of his eyes in so much as he could neither sleep Chron. Frat. Min. p. 1. c. 60. nor take any rest and at the same time molested by the Devil who filled his Cell with Rats which with their Careers and noise added much unto his pain with great patience gave thanks unto the Lord that he had so gently chastized him saying My Lord Jesus Christ I deserve greater punishment but thou like a good Shepherd suffer me not to stray from thee Being in this meditation he heard a voice which said unto him Francis if all the Earth were of Gold and all the Rivers of Balsame and all the Rocks of precious Stones wouldest thou not say that this were a great treasure Know that a treasure which exceeds Gold as farre as Gold does Dirt Balsam Water or Precious-stones Pibbles remains as a reward for thy infirmity if thou be content and bear it with patience Rejoyce Francis for this treasure is Celestial glory which is gained by tribulations Certainly we have reason to suffer here all pains and poverty whatsoever since we are to receive in glory so much the greater riches Wherefore we ought to lift up our souls and weaning our hearts from the frail felicity of these temporal goods of the Earth to say with David Glorious things are said of thee City of God So did Fulgentius who entring Rome when it was yet in its lustre and beholding the greatness beauty and marvelous Architecture of it said with admiration O Celestial Jerusalem how beautiful must thou be if Terrestrial Rome be such A shadow of this was shewed unto St. Josaphat whose History is written by St. John Damascen In vita Josaph Barl. St Josaphat being in profound prayer prostrate upon the earth was overtaken with a sweet sleep in which he saw two men of grave demeanour who carried him through many unknown Countries unto a Field full of flowers and plants of rare beauty laden with fruit never before seen The leaves of the trees moved with a soft and gentle wind yielded a pleasant sound and breathed forth a most sweet odour there were placed many Seats of Gold and precious Stones which shined with a new kind of brightness and a little Brook of Chrystal water refreshed the air and pleased the sight with a most agreable variety From thence he was brought into a most beautiful City whose Walls were of transparent Gold the Towers and Battlements were of Stones of inestimable value the Streets and places shone with Celestial beams of light And there passed up and down bright Armies of Angels and Seraphins chanting such songs as were never heard by mortal ears Amongst other he heard a voice which said This is the repose of the Just this the joy of those who have given a good account of their lives unto God But all this is no more than a dream and a shadow in comparison of the truth greatness and riches of that Celestial Court. In regard that all the Blessed together with Christ are to raign in this most rich City and Kingdom how great shall the riches be who was ever so rich as to have at the entrance of his House a massie large piece of Gold two or three yards long What riches will those be of Heaven because all the Kingdom of Heaven is to be of pure Gold all the Streets and all the Houses of that Holy City and not only Gold but more than Gold The holy Scripture to make us on one part understand the riches of this Kingdom of God and on the other part to know that they are of a higher and more excellent nature than those of the Earth expresses them with the similitude of the riches of this World as Gold Pearl and precious Stones because by these names we understand things of great wealth and value but withall sets them forth for such as are not to be found upon earth so as when it speaks of Pearls it sayes they were so great as they served for the Gates of a City when it speaks of Emeralds and Topaz's it makes them to suffice for the foundatian of high Walls and Turrets when of Gold it makes it transparent as Glass or Chrystal All this is to signifie that in Heaven there are not onely greater riches but of a more sublime and high quality than ours upon Earth And with reason is that Holy City called the Kingdom of Heaven to let us know that the same advantage that Heaven hath above Earth the same have Celestial honours riches and joyes above those which are here below If the whole Earth is no more than a point in respect of the Heavens what can those short and corruptible riches be in respect of the eternal § 3. Of those incomparable riches the Blessed are not onely to be Lords but Kings as appears in many places of holy Scripture Neither is the Celestial Treasure â—or this Kingdom of Heaven less or poorer by having so many Lords and Kings It is not like the Kingdoms on Earthy which permit but one King at once and if divided become of less power and Majesty but is of such condition that it is wholly possessed by all in general and by each one in particular like the Sun which warms all and every one and not one less because it warms many The effects of riches are much greater and more noble in Heaven than they can be upon Earth Wealth may serve us here to maintain our power honours and delights but all the Gold in the world cannot free us from weakness infamy and pain The power of a rich King can reach no further than to Command his Vassals and those
who disobey him he may either chastise with imprisonment or death and is therefore fear'd and respected by them But all this power is invalid without the assistance of his Subjects For what will it avail a Prince to command such a City to be defended if the Souldiers within have a minde to deliver it And therefore a certain Jester of Philip the Second King of Spain demanded of him If all should say No unto what your Majesty commands what was to be done giving him to understand that his power depends upon others The power of a Monarch depends not onely upon the will of his Subjects but the Walls of his Fortresses Arms Instruments of Warre and many other things so as the people depend onely upon one man which is the Prince but the Prince upon many men and matters in so much as many rich Kings have been seen without power as Craesus Andronicus and others who were not able to defend themselves with all their riches from their own Vassals Witness Domitian Commodus Heliogabolus and Julius Caesar But the power of the Blessed depends of no other power nor man Ansel de Simil. c. 52. which as St. Anselm sayes shall be so great as no force or resistance shall withstand it It a Saint have a mind to remove a Mountain from one place to another he shall do it with as much ease as we remove our eyes from one part unto another Neither is this a wonder For even the faithful in this life according to the promise of Christ have done it as is written of St. Gregorius Thaumaturgus and some others And if Angels nay Devils have this power the Blessed shall not be denyed it Concerning honour the richest Princes can onely make their Vassals to adore them upon the knee and do them other outward reverence but cannot hinder them from murmuring in their absence or from observing their actions and interpreting them as they please They have many flatterers which praise them with their tongues and scorn them in their hearts and for the most part they are farre fewer who praise than despise them for there are but few who discourse with them but many who discourse of them and therefore few who praise them in presence and many who censure them in absence Concerning pleasures it is true that Princes are not content with ordinary delights and therefore provide themselves of magnificent Shews costly Recreations exquisite Comedies pleasant Gardens Woods for hunting and are all cloathed splendidly But none of those can make a Calenture not to afflict them or that the pains of the head stomack or gout do not molest them or that cares and fears do not break their sleep No gold or money can secure the goods of this World or free them from imperfections This onely is to be had in Heaven where their power is so free from weakness that one onely Angel without Army Guns Swords 4 Reg. 19. or Lance could destroy at once 180000 men with what speed and facility do Saints succour their devotes who invoke them without impediment either from the distance of place or hinderance from the violence of Tyrants How compleat then shall be the honor of the Blessed since even the Devils shall reverence them Nay even now many who despised them living seeing the many miracles which God hath wrought by their intercession have honoured them after death The pleasures also are pure and true without mixture of pain or grief as we shall see in the proper places Besides it is to be considered that the great riches of the Saints are not like those of the Kings of the Earth drawn from the tributes imposed upon their Vassals which though just yet are not free from this ill condition that what enricheth the Prince impoverisheth the Subject The riches in Heaven have no such blemishes they are burthensome to none and what is given to the Servants of Christ who raigns in Heaven is not taken from any CAP. IV. Of the greatness of Eternal Pleasures HOnour Profit and Pleasures are distinct goods upon Earth and are rarely found together Honour is seldom a companion of profit and profit of pleasure And so the sick man drinks his Purge because it is profitable how bitter soever Besides the pleasures or the world are for the most part mixt with some shame and oftentimes with infamy They are costly and expensive we cannot entertain our pleasures without diminishing our wealth It is not so in eternal goods in which to be honest is to be profitable and to be profitable delectable Eternal honours are accompanied with immense riches and they are both attended by pleasures without end All this is signified by the Lord when he received the faithful Servant into glory when he sayes Well done good servant and true because thou hast been faithful in a few things I will place thee over many Enter into the joy of thy Lord. In these words he first honours him commending him for a good and faithful Servant then enriches him delivering many things into his hands and so admits him into the joy and pleasure of his Lord signifying by this manner of expression the greatness of this joy not saying that this joy should enter in to him but that he should enter into joy and into no other but that of his Lord. So great is the joy of that Celestial Paradise that it wholly fills and embraces the blessed Souls which enter into Heaven as into an immense Sea of pleasure and delight The joyes of the Earth enter into the hearts of those who possess them but fill them not because the capacity of mans heart is greater than they can satisfie But the joyes of Heaven receive the Blessed into themselves and fill and overflow them in all parts Their glory is like an Ocean of delights into which the Saints enter as a Sponge into the Sea which filling its whole capacity the water surrounds and compasses it all about Whereupon St. Anselme sayes Ansel ca. 71. de Simil. Joy shall be within and without Joy above and below Joy round about on every side and all parts full of joy The same immensity of joy the Lord signified when he said by Isaias Behold I create Jerusalem an exultation Isai 65. and her people a joy It is much to be noted that he sayes not I create a rejoycing for Jerusalem or in Jerusalem nor a joy in or for its people but by a particular mystery I make Jerusalem that it shall be all an exultation and its people all a joy He speaks in this manner to set forth the greatness of his copious joy with which that holy City and her Inhabitants shall be as it were encompassed and overwhelmed For as a plate of iron in the middle of a Furnace is so wholly inkindled and penetrated by fire that it seems fire it self and contains the full heat of the Furnace So a blessed Soul in Heaven is so replenished with that Celestial joy