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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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