all which here pleaseth and distracteth hearts is but a poor praeludium of the great act of the inexplicable contentment which passeth in eternity O man thou hast heretofore been a little infant in thy mothers womb amongst bloud and ordure involved in thin skins swadled in clouts and swath-bands which nature gave thee thou wast held in them to prepare for this world for this life where thou now breathest air with all liberty know this world is a second womb in comparison of heaven Thou art yet in prison in obscurity in fetters till the coming of the great day wherein God shall give thee a new body a glorious body a spirituall body With these hopes the mother of the young Machabees saw the members of her children hewed and cut in pieces under the bloudy sword of persecution With this hope holy Anchorites filled the desarts with their tears walked on scorching sands trampled dragons under foot stifled the concupiscences of flesh in snows and thorns with this hope Martyrs sacrificed themselves in as many torments as they had members They preached on crosses sang in flames triumphed on wheels and to merit this glory thou wilt not resolve to forsake that company which hath robbed thee of thy heart and dishonoured the character of thy profession Thou wilt not resolve to suffer a little injury a slight persecution Thou wilt not accomplish thy vows discharge thy obligations put thy self into some course of a regular piety And what may we think of thee O soul so many times ungratefull and disloyal if Heaven open in rewards cannot yet dilate thy heart to his love who readily offers them The twentieth EXAMPLE upon the twentieth MAXIM Divers observations upon the length of life and desire of the state of Resurrection IT is not my purpose to enlarge hereupon narration of many Resurrections whereof we have sundry notable examples both in the old and new Testament and in the lives of Saints in which kind there is not an Age which doth not furnish us with store I onely rest upon some observations which evidently shew the passionate desires humane nature hath to the most blessed state proposed us in the Resurrection The Platonists said The presence of felicity was August l. 22. de Civitate Dei c. 11. Omne corpus fugiendum ex Platonicis 2 Cor. 5. 4. Qui sumus in hoc tabernaculo ingemiscimus gravatii eo quod nolumus expoliari sed super vestiri ut absorbeatur quod mortale est a vita the absence of body and that we must flie from it as from a prison to enter into the liberty of beatitude But the Apostle hath much better said That we groan in this tabernacle and are in great pain not that we desire to be despoiled but to be better clothed that all which is mortal in us may be as swallowed up by life Verily we have a tender love of our bodies and even those who do most torment them do it for no other purpose but to place them one day in ease We live not without thinking on this Resurrection and immortality the fruition whereof we shall never find but in Heaven God hath given us this desire to teach us we are created for it but he doth not afford us the performance of it here to tell us we must seek for it else where We desire to live long and commodiously shortness of life taketh away the one and continual sicknesses bereaves us of the other So many men have sought for their resurrection here on earth and have found nought but their destruction Our body in the declining of age is not like Vestal fires to be everlastingly repaired All in it is lost all is dissolved but if any thing therein be re-established it is not to the proportion of its primitive vigour Spirits without which we cannot live cease not to alter our life and the very air we breath drieth and devoureth us There have been men in the world who have in this life made boast of great age as if they had already some scantling of the condition of Resurrection but they have been very rare and to speak truly they have continued long and lived but a while since there is nothing long in a happiness whereof we find an end It is a remarkable thing that the eldest of all the Patriarchs Pet. 2. 3 5. Vnus dies apud Dominum sicut mille anni mille anni sicut dies unus in Genesis who was Methusalem arrived not to the time which S. Peter calleth a day of God A thousand years saith the great Apostle are before God but one day And not any one of the first men of the world with his so many years mounted to the thousand year of his age Yea it is a thing very well to be observed that in the account the Scripture maketh of the years of Patriarchs the age of women is not considered And Baronius findeth the Bible never reckoned the days and years of women but of Sara Judith and Anne the daughter of Phanuel to teach us our lives are short since those of Eve the mother of the living and of so many other mothers from whom men issued entered not into the line of account in Gods Chronicle We know not how long the first woman of the world lived but we understand she returned into dust and that we must tread the like path Greece the mother of fables sought to use posterity as they do children it hath pleased it self to scare us with strange tales of huge bodies and long lives but we have more difficulty to believe them than it facility to invent them Phlegon a rare Authour Phlegon de rebus mirabil c. 17. says he read in Appollonius the Grammarian that the Athenians desirous to fortifie the long Island which was near to their Citie laying the foundation of their fortresses found a sepulcher one hundred cubits long with this Epitaph which said Macrosiris is here interred in the long Island after he had lived five thousand years compleat These are impostures and Rhodomontadoes which seek to brave Ages and cannot affront worms nor be defended from corruption All about us is sufficient to give us a lesson of the shortness of our life The corn on which we live dies every year to the root The Vine feels as many deaths as winters and although it renew every year it cannot attain to the reasonable age of some drunkards Fifty or three-score years make up its age as also of Apple-trees Pear-trees Plumb-trees Cherie-trees and other such like whereof eating the fruits we should think the wood which bears them liveth no longer than we Tame creatures which are perpetually among us live but a while The age of a horse ends at twenty years It is a great chance if a dog arrive to that number The ox will be well contented with sixteen sheep with ten cats are between ten and six pigeons and so many flying fowl live not long for we daily
thereunto are more manifest as I will make it appear in the sequel of this discourse First the Scripture speaking of ambition called it Reasons and remedies Psal 18. 14. Ab alienis parce servo tuo Ambition a Forreign vice A singular description of man a forreign vice Pride in man is not in its element it always seeketh height and man is even lowness it self What is man if we consider him in his own nature without the assistance of grace but an excrement of impurity in his conception a silly creature in his birth a bag and sponge of ordures in his life a bait for worms in his death The soul is in the body as in a Chariot of glass The days are the courriers which perpetually run upon a full gallop The four wheels are vanity weakness inconstancy misery The way is of ice the goal is death and the end oftentimes is a precipice The pleasures thereof as saith Plato are winged and wholly armed with pricks and stings to leave in flying a sharp point in the heart the dolour and discontents thereof drench it in a cup full of gall and its feet are of lead never to forsake it Can then such a creature be possessed with ambition such a dung-hill nourish pride All that we behold both above and beneath Al the world teacheth us the lesson of hâ—mility on the right on the left hand in this great house of nature serves as a lesson of humility for us Heaven which circumvolveth over our heads enameled with stars created in a higher place than we the earth which we tread under our feet which serveth us for a nurse afterwards for a sepulchre the little air we breath without which we cannot live the water which in its wonder hath swallowed up wisdom and afterwards the bodies of the most knowing men of the earth as we read of Aristotle beasts whose spoils we carry about us our body which according to account hath for its portion about three thousand diseases our soul which knoweth not what shall become of her and which cannot tell whether she shall serve as an immortal fewel to those devouring flames that have no limits but eternity or no All preach to us our baseness all thunder out the terrour and affrightments of Gods judgements and amongst so many subjects of humility you O Noblemen have leisure to puff up your selves and to fill your minds with the gentle breathing blasts of imaginary honour At the least if needs you must elevate your selves if you of necessity must take a great deal of state upon you choose the best way but insensible as you are what Ambition the life of a slave do you take upon you becoming ambitious the life of a slave the life of Cain This is the second consideration which I propose of power sufficient to instruct a soul that will give never so little predominance to reason We all naturally love liberty and suppose that to be of ones self is an inestimable good Inestimabile bonum est suum esse Senec. ep 67. Misery of the ambitious Now the most captive Galley-slaves are not greater bond-men than the ambitious The slave hath a chain and a captain who proudly insulteth over him an ambitious man hath as many fetters as he hath appetites as many servitudes as pretensions as many slaveries as manners of ambition His Captain is his unguided passion which tyrannizeth over him day and night with all possible cruelty The slave practizeth and tameth himself in his own condition the ambitious is always savage he always flieth before himself and never overtaketh himself to enter into himself He is in no place because he would be every where and yet notwithstanding he is tormented every where his feaver burneth him where he is not The slave freeth himself with money the ambitious man findeth gyves of gold and silver The slave findeth no chain so straight but that it sometimes giveth him leave to sing the ambitious is never free out of himself there are nothing but objects of frenzie fire-brands of concupiscence and within himself there is not any thing but worms flames and executioners The slave findeth at least liberty in death and death which carrieth the key of all close coverts cometh lastly to unlose all the bands of his servitude an ambitious soul as soon as it is parted from the body is consorted with devils in their tortures as it imitated them very nearly in their passion What a life what a death is this Find you any comparable if not that of unfortunate Cain The Scripture saith The life of Cain Genes 4. 16. Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Procep in Genes that he withdrawing himself from the sight of God did inhabit the land of instability and Procopius thereto addeth an ancient tradition that he perpetually saw certain spectres with swords of fire which brought horrible affrightments upon him Is the ambitious man better used Is not he perpetually separated from the face of God seeing as saith S. Hierom man is divided from the Divinity not by the degrees Hier. Epist ad Damas Peccantes recedunt à Deo affectuum non locorum spatiis of body but of soul which are the affections And how much more the soul is scattered in the waste emptiness of ambition which is indeed a meer vanity so much more it strayeth from this sovereign Majesty which is the onely verity Is it not in the Kingdom of inconstancy In every place where he setteth his feet there is nothing but slippery yce or downfal The saying of the Prophet is accomplished Psal 34. 6. Fiat via illorum tenebrae labricum Angelus Domini persequens eos Extream disaster in his person Let their way be made dark and slippery and the Angel of our Lord persecute them Behold all the most lamentable extremities which may be imagined in a voyage ever to go upon yce and thereon to walk in the obscure darkness of the night and to have behind you in the rere a Sergeant who hasteneth you forward and all this is found in the life of the ambitious What passage is not slippery in the favours of the world all which are feathered and full of mutable conditions What darkness is there in a wretched creature who hath no pitie at all of himself who maketh a liberty of his fetters honour of his ignominie and tropheys of his torments What Sergeant is more troublesom What spectres and what swords of fire more teribble than the pricks of this enraged passion which as much and as violently forceth man as a bull goared with a goad rusheth through some headlong precipice Where is it that the ambitious man can find place of stability and center of repose If he be in quest of honour and when is he not behold him in a whirl-pool in fire behold him in the feverish accesses of heat and cold which afford him no intermission Admit he obtain what he pretendeth unto no
away but with a rod of silver so much this mischievous avarice this feaver of the heart this voluntarily frenzie hath prevailed upon the spirits of these times And were the maids in this case such as they should be seeing the covetousness of men they would rather resolve to take God for a husband in the state of virginity than yield their bodies and riches up to a husband who seeks after nothing less than themselves S. Hierom relateth an excellent passage of Martia daughter of the great Cato who said that among so many Gallants as made love to her there was not any fit for a husband Say the like maidens avaunt mercenary husbands who have the fever of money marry them to the mines of Peru and not to virtuous maids The second evil I observe is riot which now adays wasteth body and goods and becomes more insatiable than hell It is asked why avarice swayeth in marriages and wherefore husbands are so greedy of portion because indeed they stand in need of it to entertain the bravery and vanity of their wives apparel It is a prodigious thing to what height this folly is mounted Lawyers are much troubled to reckon up all the attires and trinkets of women what pain shall then the husband suffer to buy them O woman what makes thee so passionately to desire these gauderies Thy first mother whose garments were cut out by the hands of God was contented to be clothed with skins and now seas must be sailed over and the bounds of elements broken to seek out dressings for thee Miserable that thou art who inordinately deckest thy self and for an ill purpose Kowest thou not thy garment is to thy body as the plaister to the wound or any ivy leaf to stop a cautery S. Isodore said before sin Adam and Eve were clothed with light O precious attire The Sun will have no other mantle than his own rays nor the rose any other robe than her scarlet because nature hath sufficiently adorned them So man had he continued within the limits of original justice would not have wished any garment but innocency Sin is come which hath by reflection impressed an ugly scarre both on soul and body and needs must gold and silk be sought out to involve it A man in former Ages was seen who having feet of wood shod them with golden pantofles O miserable and ridiculous vanity Woman doth the like to cover her wretched body which one of these days must putrifie and which hath received the wound of sin and death All the most exquisite beauties of nature must be drawn together yea marry if it could afford any comfort and ease to the body but you shall many times behold a young gentle-woman groan as at a torture under the weight of her garments yet she for all this will have and adore her own punishment The great Chancellour of England and glorious Martyr Thomas Moore was he not pleasantly disposed when he said to one who complained of heat Ah silly creature what wonder is it thou carriest upon thee meadows vine-yards mills mansions and Islands in the value of Jewels how canst thou possibly be cool This was the cause why Tertullian complained Tertul. de habitu muliebri Brevissimis loculis patrimonium grande praefertur uno lino sâ—stertium inseritur saltus insulas tenera cervix fert graciles aurium cutes ealendarium expendunt before him A little Cabinet makes shew of a large patrimony Twenty three thousand Crowns are disbursed for one rope of pearls A womans neck puts on woods and Islands and her ears which are so curious waste ample revenues But the matter most to be lamented is that it often happens the servile and unfortunate husband buys all this bravery at the charge of the poor and if any perhaps wring these gorgeous garments there will be some danger the bloud of the poor may distil from it The third disorder is the discord which proceedeth from the ill government of men from the obstinacy of women and jealousie of both And verily we may affirm the sleight vanities of wives are much more tollerable than the disorders of men It is no ordinary folly but rather a rage and madness to see a poor woman full of children groan under the heavy burden of a houshold charge upon her hand daily fading and withering away like a plant without juice or moysture to live on gall and tears and in the mean time a disloyal husband to consume in excess of diet and game the instruments of Satan that substance God gave him for the entertainment of his family O ungratefull and unnatural wretch who to give way to thy passion tramplest under-foot the commandments of God and honour of marriage This money which thy cruel hand so profusely scatters in game if thou wouldst well understand is the bloud of this poor creature which was so charily to thee recommended It is the sweat of her parents labours they are her proper entrails which thou piece-meal tearest in this fatal dicing-house I do not say thou art a homicide there is some difference between thee and a murderer The murderer in an instant taketh away life and bodily pain both together but thou who livest in perpetual riots thou drawest the vital parts from this afflicted turtle one after another which thou oughtest to love as thy self Thou cuttest the throat of thy family of thy poor and unhappy children who are thine own bloud which thou shouldest fervently affect hadst thou not renounced nature and entertained the heart of a bruit beast for that of a man what say I a beasts heart the Lamiaes Lamiae nudaverunt mammas lactaverunt catulos fuos filia populi mei crudelis sicut struthio in desertâ— Hier. Thren Si quis suorum maximè domesticorum curam non habet fidem negavit est infideli deterior 1 Tim. 5. have bared their breasts they have given suck to their young and there is not any but the daughter of my people who is cruel as the Ostrich of the desert Knowest thou to whom S. Paul compares such a man to a Cannibal to a Barbarian No he tells thee he is worse than an Infidel If any one neglect his own and namely his domesticks he hath renounced faith and is become worse than a Pagan On the other side the obstinacy of woman is a horse hard in the mouth head-strong untractable and I can no longer wonder said one that she was made of a bone since many times her head is so hard which brings infinite trouble on a family The Ancients dressing up the statues of the Moon in humane shape set on her shoulders the head of the Sun to shew a virtuous wife should have no other will nor other intentions nor glory than the will intentions and glory of her husband if they be reasonable It is the doctrine of S. Paul to the Ephesians Mulieres â—iris suis subdite sint sicut Domino quoniam vir caput
rich Tell me was it not an honour to King Agathocles who from being the son of a potter raised his fortune to a Throne was it not I say an honour to mingle on his cup-boards earthen vessels with his rich pieces of gold and silver plate that he might not bely his birth Nay so far was he from blushing or from being ashamed at it that he made boast and trophey of it What then would he have done by his poor father if he set such a value upon the mean implements of his cottage And thou wholly Christian as thou art canst not behold without confusion of thy countenance what a great Captain a great King a great States-man sought to proclaim to all the world Contempt of the person of fathers entreth sometimes so far into their souls as it hath transported them into horrible and tragick acts Never have I read any thing upon this subject with more amazement than that mentioned in Justine of a certain African named Cartallus who was by the peoples consent raised to an eminent degree of dignity and casually upon some solemn embassage sent into a place where his father with many other was banished He looking on himself at that time like a peacock gloriously furnished out with the rich ornaments of his employment thought it was not suitable to his honour to admit that his father should so much as see him The unfortunate father became so enraged with this refusal and pride of his son that instantly he raised a sedition and mustering together a tumultuary Army of exiles he fell upon his son although a Magistrate took him condemned him to death presently prepared a high gibbet and attired as he was in gold scarlet with a crown on his head caused him to be fastened to this fatal tree for a strange spectacle What fury of despised nature is this and what butchery Let us pass on to the third tribute obedience which as an Ancient said is the mother of felicities It is the first band of families and chief foundation of Monarchies S. Gregory Nyssen hath a notable observation saying that Moses of set purpose caused the Hebrews to wear ear-rings giving them thereby to understand their beauty and grace was in the ear to wit in obedience and verily in Exodus the people Exod. 32. Tollite inaures filiarum vestrarum auribus asserte ad me Filius noster iste protervus contamax est monitis mostris audire contemnit comessationibus vacat luxuriâ atque convitiis Lapidibus eum obruet populus morietur Deuter. 21. a Aelian var hist lib. 1. beginning to revolt their ear-rings were taken from them as from men unworthy of this priviledge That which is expressed in Deuteronomie is much more bloudy and terrible where the father and mother are permitted to bring forth a disobedient and refractary son in publick and upon their own deposition to cause him to be stoned to death by the people It seems this Law was well understood by a silly Pesant a Mardonian by Nation named Rachones a who being the father of seven sons perceived the youngest of them played the little libertine and unbridled colt What doth he to bring him back into the stable First he endeavoured to cure him with fair words and reasons but finding him to reject all manner of good counsel he bound his hands behind him carried him before a Magistrate accused him and requires he may be proceeded against as a delinquent against nature The Judges who would not discontent this incensed father nor hazard the life of this young man sent them both to the King who at that time was Artaxerxes The good man went thither resolved to seek his sons death where pleading before the King with much servour and forcible reasons Artaxerxes stood amazed at his courage But how can you my friend said he endure to see your son die before your face He being a gardiner as willingly said he as I would pull away leaves from a ranck lettice and not hurt the root The King perceiving this resolution and zeal of justice in the poor man of a gardiner made him a Judge and severely threatened his son with death if his carriage were not better See young man behold wicked son who disobeyest thy father and mother not in a slight matter or of little importance but in such as concerns thy life safety and reputation see what thou maist expect from the justice of God since that of men hath so much severity in this point You dare dispense with your selves in the Laws of piety and Religion not shewing even on festival days any more feeling of God than a beast doth this seem tolerable you haunt the company of buffons wicked and wretched creatures which wast the means that are not yours weaken your body violate your reputation and defile your soul and is not this a crime You make resolutions and frame chymaeraes without advise either of father or mother you bring them into debt you treat clandestine marriages you thrust those alive unto their graves who gave you life and can you think the vengeance of God will ever have leaden feet Faithless and bruitish as you are how many fathers for far less faults have inflicted severities on their children dreadful even to those who read them Marcus Scaurus in the Roman history sent this message to his son who fled with the rest of his Army defeated by the Cimbrians Son you are born of a father who knows either to vanquish or die rather send me your bones than return alive after the death of your honour A father could not endure the flight of a son which was very excusable in a general defeat because it seemed to cast some blemish upon his family and you who surcharge your house with reproach and confusion would you escape unpunished Another father Aulus Fulvius understanding his son had rancked himself in the faction of Catiline a wicked wretch who supported and debaushed all the youth of Rome caused him to be taken in the place and condemned to death and this young man begging pardon with all manner of suppliant intreaties had no other answer but Son I begat you to make war upon Catiline in your Countries quarrel not in Catilines cause to assayl your mother And who can but wonder at another Torquatus that had a son in great employments of the Empire flourishing in honour age and reputation who being accused by the Embassadours of Macedonia to have ill carried himself in their Province when he had it in charge this father with the Senats permission would himself be Judge in the sons cause heard the accusers two whole days together confronted witnesses gave his son full scope to defend himself and to produce all that he could for his justification in the end on the third day he pronounced sentence It having sufficiently been proved unto me that my son Syllanus hath ill acquitted his charge and taken money from the allies of
much as businesses of that nature would permit But her mother Alexandra touched to the quick to behold her self amongst so many spies she who was ever desirous to converse and live with all royall liberty resolved to play at double or quit to break the guyves of specious servitude or yield her neck to Herods sword if it should come to pass her calamity transported her into such extremity What doth she Cleopatra that Queen who had filled the world with her fame was then in Aegypt and naturally hated Herod as well for his barbarous disposition as for particular interests of her own person For she knew he much had entermedled in her affairs and given Mark Anthony counsel to forsake her yea to kill her This Tyrant was so accustomed to say Kill that he easily advised others to use the same medicine which was with him to his own maladies frequent It is a strange thing that Cleopatra one day passing through Judea he resolved to send her into the other world thinking therewith to gratifie Mark Anthony but was disswaded by his friends saying it was too audacious to attempt and able for ever to ruin his fortune The design was never published But Cleopatra had cause enough besides to hate Herod which much emboldened Alexandra to write to her in such like terms ALEXANDRA to the Queen CLEOPATRA Health Madame SInce God hath given you leave to be born the most Letter of Alexandra to Cleopatra accomplished Queen in all qualities it is fit your Greatness serve as a sanctuary for the innocent and an Altar for the miserable The wretched Alexandra who hath much innocency void of support and too many calamities without comfort casteth her self into the arms of your Majesty not to give her a scepter but to secure the life of her and her son the most precious pledge which remaineth of heavens benignity Your Majesty is not ignorant that fortune having made me the daughter and mother of a King Herod hath reduced me to the condition of a servant I am not ambitious to recount my sufferings which I had rather dissemble but whatsoever a slave can endure in a gally I bear in a Kingdom through the violence of a son in law who having stoln the diadem from my children would also deprive them of life We are perpetually among spies sharp knives and black apprehensions of death which would less hurt us if it were more sudden Stretch out a hand of assistance to the afflicted and afford us some petty nook in your Kingdom till the storm be over-blown and that we may see some sparkles of hope to glimmer in your affairs Glory thereby shall abide with you and with us everlasting gratitude Cleopatra having received these letters made a ready answer and invited her to hasten speedily into Aegypt with her son protesting she should esteem it an unspeakable glory to serve as a sanctuary and refuge for the affliction of such a Princess Resolution of departure is taken but the execution is a hard task The poor Io knows not how to withdraw Enterprise of Alexandra her self from this many-eyed Argus In the end as the wit of woman is inventive especially in matters that concern their proper interests she without discovering ought to any one no not to her daughter Mariamne fearing least her nature too mild should advise her rarher to rest in the lists of patience than to attempt ways so perilous she I say onely advising with her own passion in this business caused two beers to be made a matter of ill presage to put her self and son into thinking by this means to elude the diligence of the Guard and so to be carried to the sea where a ship attended her and by this way save her life in the power of death But by ill hap a servant of hers named Aesop who was one of those that were appointed to carry the beers going to visit one called Sabbion a friend to the house of Alexandra let some words fall of the intention of his Mistress as thinking to to have spoken to a faithful and secret friend of hers The perfidious Sabbion had no sooner wrung the worm out of this servants nose but he hasteth to open all to Herod supposing it was a very fit opportunity to work his reconciliation he having a long time been suspected and accounted to be of Alexandras faction Herod after he heard this news wanted not spies and centinels The poor Lady with her son is surprised upon the beers drawn out of the sepulcher of the dead to return to the living ashamed and disgraced that her Comedy was no better acted little considering that after her personated part had failed she could nothing at all pretend to life Herod notwithstanding whether he feared the great credit Cleopatra had or whether he would not wholy affright Alexandra thereby with the more facility to oppress her contained himself in the ordinary dissimulation of his own nature without speaking one sole word unto her Although very well in the face of this painted hypocrisie was seen that the clouds were gathered together to make a loud Thunder-crack raise an unresistable tempest The caytive after he had given so many deaths Pitiful death of young Aristobulus in the horrour and affrightment of arms would inflict one even as it were in sport upon a fair sommers day Being at dinner at the house of the miserable Alexandra feigning to have buried in deep oblivion all what was past saith that in favour of youth he this day would play the young man and invite the High-Priest Aristobulus his brother in law to play at tennis with him or some other like exercise The sides were made the elumination was enkindled The young Prince hot and eager played not long but he became all on a water as at that time happened to many other Lords and Gentlemen Behold they all run to the rivers which were near this place of pleasure where they dined Herod who knew the custom of Aristobulus and well foresaw he would not fail to cast himself into these cold baths suborneth base villains who under the shew of pastime should force him to drink more than he would All succeeded as this traiterous wretch had premeditated Aristobulus seeing the other in the water uncloathed himself quickly and bare them company There was no cause why he should swim sport and dally upon this element ever dangerous although less faithless than Herod The poor sacrifice skipped up and down not knowing the unhappiness which attended him But the accursed executioners remembred it well For spying their time in this fatal sport they smothered the poor High-priest under the waters in the eighteenth year of his age and the first of his High-priesthood This bright Sun which rose with such splendour and applause did set in the waves never to appear again but with horrid wanness of death on his discoloured visage Humane hopes where are you True dreams of Vanity and
perpetrated The tears of the disconsolate mother were not omitted in her absence Cleopatra made this whole Tragedie to be presented the combate was much enkindled and the battery was forcible Herod who wanted no eloquence in his own occasions replieth with a countenance very lowly and modest Prince and you Sirs who are of the Counsel I hold the Apologie of Herod full of craft scepter of Judea neither of Hircanus nor Alexandra never having had any purpose to flatter them for this end yea much less to fear them You know Most Illustrious Anthonie the Kingdom is in my hands I hold it of you from you all my greatness ariseth and in you all my hopes are concluded If you command I am at this present ready not onely to leave the scepter but my life also which never have I been desirous to preserve but for your service But it troubleth me the way of death being open to all the world the path of reputation which is more dear to me than life should be shut against my innocencie I am persecuted by women and much I wonder how the soul of Queen Cleopatra wholly celestial can nourish so much spleen against a King who never hath failed in any respect lawfully due to her merit For Alexandra it is not strange that she raise such a storm against me her fierce and haughty spirit hath always opposed my patience endeavoring by all means to disparage my government to pull a crown from me which a more puissant hand than her Ancestours hath placed on my head What apparence is there that being by the favour of the Romans a peaceable possessour of a Kingdom the which even by the consent of my adversaries I sought not so regular was my ambition I should attempt a horrible crime which cannot fall but into the mind of a monster No man will be wicked in chearfulness of heart the memorie of the recompence which man proposeth to himself ever beareth the torch before the crime To what purpose should I attempt upon the life of Aristobulus to settle my affairs They were already established your gracious favour most Noble Anthonie hath afforded me more than all their machinations can vanquish But I perpetually have kept back the bloud Royal from dignities What keeping back is it when I have cherished them in my own bosom as much as possible Every one knows Hircanus the prime man of this Royal family being held as a prisoner among the Parthians I bent all my spirits employed all my credit to have him set at libertie and to procure his return to Court where he now liveth in full tranquilitie enjoying all the priviledges of Royaltie but the carefull sollicitude of affairs It is known I have divided my crown and bed with his grand-child Mariamne making her both Queen of people and wife of a King I have given the High-Priesthood to her brother Aristobulus of my meer and free will not enforced by any constraint as being absolute in the mannage of my own affairs and if in ought I delayed him it was because the minority of his age ran not equal with my affections but in effect he hath been beheld High-Priest at eighteen years of age which is a favour very extraordinarie Alexandra his mother who maketh way to this business hath ever had all the libertie of my Court except the licence of ruining herself which she passionately pursueth For what reason had she to hide herself in a coffin and cause herself to be carried in the night as a dead bodie to steal from my Court and after she had wronged me in mine house to traduce me among strangers If she desired to make a voyage into Aegypt she needed to have spoken but one word it had been sufficient But she pleaseth herself in counterfeiting a false peril in a real safetie to thrust into the danger of life those who make her live in all reposed assurance I having discovered this practice did not let fall one word of bitterness against her desirous she should enjoy at her ease the sight of me as a spectacle of patience thinking all folly sufficiently punished with its own proper conscience Certain time after the death of this young Prince happened which draweth tears of compassion from me for I loved him and much it troubled me his mother perverted the sweetness of his exellent nature and cut more stuff out for his youth than he was able to stitch together He is dead not in my house but in the house of his mother dead by an accident which no man could prevent dead sporting in the water a faithless element where a thousand and a thousand have without any such purpose perished dead among the youth of the Court with whom daily be disported himself His own meer motion bare him into the water the bravery of his youth caused him to dally even in danger it self without any possibility to divert him and his own mishap hath drowned him It is to tie me to bard conditions if Alexandra will make me both accountable for the youthfull levities of her son as if I were his governour and of the frail inconstancy of elements as if I were Lord of them This pernicious spirit spake this with so much grace and probability that he gained many hearts So much force had eloquence even in the hands of iniquitie Behold him now on the shore out of peril remaining in Anthonie's Court in all liberty to attend the sentence of his justification In the mean time being as he was wise and liberal in all occasions by force of presents he purchased the hearts of the chief and made all the accusation of Cleopatra appear to be the passion of a woman ill advised Mark Anthony himself said to Cleopatra she did ill to intermeddle so much with forreign Kingdoms and that if she took this course she would raise enemies prejudicial to her estate That Herod being a King it was not fit to use him like a subject and that it would be her happiness rather to have him a friend than an enemie As these things were handled in Anthonie's Court the Queen Mariamne and her mother Alexandra ceased not to be observed by the sollicitous diligence of the mother and sister of Herod Joseph his uncle An act of great stupiditie in Joseph uncle of Herod played the Goaler and often visited Queen Mariamne sometime to treat some affairs with her sometime in the way of complement This man began to burn like a butterflie in the eyes of this incomparable beauty and much affected her although he saw himself far off from all manner of hope Notwithstanding he found some contentment to have fixed his affection in so eminent a place This passion made him foolish and full of babble having already rudeness enough of his own nature which made him utter strange extravagancies For one day there being occasion to speak of Herod's affection to Mariamne his wife Alexandra the mother mocked thereat in an exorbitant
monsters and hydeous sights He tried all sorrs of festival entertainments dancings and delights to divert this ill but it still augmented in such sort that he was enforced to abandon all the affairs of his Kingdom though he had been very eager and ardent in this employment and became in the beginning thereof doltish and dull not knowing what he did For often in the time of dinner he spake to his servants and commanded them to call the Queen as if she had been yet living they slipped aside without making answer and the whole Court was drenched in terrour and silence In the end not being able any longer to endure the walls of his Palace as if they had upbraided him with his cruelty he ran into the forrests like a mad man where he got a strange maladie of the mind and so horrible a frenzie that the Physitians were to seek saying freely it was a blow from Heaven God who yet reserved him for greater calamities would not at that time take away his life The wicked mother Alexandra who so outragiously had complained of her daughter upon the scaffold instantly died tasting the bitterness of death and loosing her glory Last of all followeth a plague which took away even many of Herod's Counsellers and all that was nothing but the scourge of Heaven in avengement of this death so deplorable and never sufficiently lamented Mariamne of her chaste wedlock left two sons to The sons of Mariamne bred at Rome Herod Alexander and Aristobulus who were very young able to suffer much in time to come but as then incapable of feeling their own miseries Herod to take from them the sense of this cruel tragedy and to raise them likewise by the degrees of good education to the glory of his scepter happily puts them aside and sends them to Rome to be bred in the Court of Augustus Caesar held at that time the Academie of Kings and prime school of the world Some years being passed he had a desire to make a voyage into Italie to salute Caesar and by that opportunity see his children whom he found excellently trained and so accomplished that he purposed with the good leave of Caesar to carry them back into Judea which he did These young Princes returning into Jerusalem with Herod ravished all the people with admiration They were of a gallant presence straight active quick-spirited couragious in the exercise of arms well-spoken affable as lovely as the person of the Father was odious Men looked on them as one would upon the two stars of Castor and Pollux after a storm they replenished all with alacrity and seemed already to win all hearts to approve their titles to the Crown Those notwithstanding who retained the memory of the usage of poor Mariamne their mother could not abstain from tears Pheroras brother of Herod and Salome his sister Calumnie is plotted against them who both had dipped their fingers in the bloud of the innocent Queen entered into affrightments and apprehensions unspeakable seeing the bloud they had shed should one day sway over their heads Wherefore they began silently to calumniate them and caused by trusty instruments many bruits to pass into the ears of Herod which intimated That the Princes his sons in consideration of their mothers wrong had a great aversion from the father and that they never seriously would affect him Herod who as yet in the heat of his affection and could never be satisfied with beholding them gave no credit to this calumny But rather seeing them now upon the confines of maturity sought to match them highly plotting for Alexander the daughter of Archelaus King of Cappadocia named Glaphyra which was assented unto and for Aristobulus he caused him to marry the daughter of Salome his cozen germain so plaistering over the domestick enmities which ever after found many factions Alexander and Aristobulus conversed together with great freedom and uttered whatsoever they had upon their hearts speaking of the death of their mother in such manner that they shewed a great resentment thereof Pheroras and Salome close-biting and watchfull ceased not to provoke them to speech and whatsoever they said either through vanity or sleight disposition to anger or in the liberty of secrecy was instantly by a third person related to the ears of Herod The subtile Salome holding still a power upon her married daughter who was a simple creature put her upon the rack to tell her all that her husband and her brother in law had spoken in the privacy of their mutual conversation She then recounted the words these poor Princes had through simplicity and bravery spoken to wit that Aristobulus vaunted himself The Kingdom belonged to the children of Mariamne as to the line of the true Queen as for Herods other sons who were spread abroad in very great number for he had nine or ten wives that he might make Registers of them in some petty Towns and that they should do well to learn to write and read She added that Alexander said in boasting he was a better man than his father notwithstanding that conversing with him and seeing him of a jealous humour he restrained himself as in a scabbard and durst not discover himself for fear he should give him some suspition of his power That hunting or walking with Herod he did as it were bow and contract himself together that he might not appear taller than his father that if he were to shoot in a bow he purposely made himself unskilfull thereby to take all occasion of envie from him It was a notable act of wisdom to do it but a great folly of youth to breath out many words as innocently spoken as treacherously interpreted and above all an infinite simplicity to commit their secrets to a woman whose heart is as fit to keep what it ought to conceal as a sive to hold water When Pheroras and Salome had a long time filled the ears of Herod with these trifling reports seeing the suspition began to take footing in his mind and that the affection of a father cooled towards his children they struck the iron while it was hot and wished him seriously to take heed of his sons for they spake big and had boldly said That all those who were embrewed in their mothers bloud should not carry the punishment into the other world for verily as they were vexed upon the remembrance of the dead such like words had escaped them Herod was much amazed at this liberty and thought he must repress their boldness by some counterpoize What doth he To humble the hearts of these Princes The young Antipater son of Herod exalted he selecteth among his children one called Antipater his son by Doris nothing noble and who had shamefully been hunted out of the Court he putteth this his son in the turning of a hand upon the top of the wheel not that he had a purpose to raise him but to use him to counterballance the children of Mariamne reputing him
he passed in continual apprehensions thornie affairs perilous voyages sinister distrusts frosty fears of death barbarous cruelties remorses of conscience the forerunners of hell leaving besides a short and unfortunate posterity Behold his Picture and Elogie HERODES ASCALONITA HERODES ASCALONITA VULTU FERUS ANIMO BARBARUS LUTO ET SANGUINE MACERATUS A QUO NIHIL AD SUMMAM CRUDELITATEM PRAETER DEICIDIUM ABFUIT DEICIDIO VOLUNTAS NON DEFUIT VULPINA FRAUDE REGNUM JUDEAE INVASIT AN. MUNDI TER MILLESSIMO NONGENTESSIMO SEXAGESSIMO QUINTO REGNAVIT IRAE SERVUS JURIS DOMINUS FORTUNA FOELIX CYCLOPAEA VITA INFOELICISSIMUS DESIIT CAELESTI PLAGA FERALIS MORBI ANNO REGNI TRICESSIMO SEPTIMO VITAE FERME SEPTUAGESSIMO CHRISTI OCTAVO Vpon the Picture of HEROD A man no whit with civil grace indu'd Of visage hydeous of manners rude A monster made of massacres and bloud That boldly God Heav'n Natures laws withstood Ill words within no certain limits fall But who once mentions Herod speaketh all BY the carriage of this Court one may see whither vice transporteth great fortunes In the person of Aristobulus and Hircanus you behold that the canker is to a body less dangerous than the discord of brothers to a state In the person of Antipater a friend for advantage who seeketh to fish in a troubled water in the end fisheth his fill but is drowned in the act to teach you there is no policie so great as to be an honest man and that he who prepareth snares for another diggeth his own grave In the person of Pompey an Aribitratour who worketh his own ends under the colour of justice who buildeth his ambition on the ruins of state in the end the earth which faileth him for his conquests denieth him a sepulchre He found no more Countries to conquer and scarcely had he six foot of earth to make him a tomb In that of Hircanus too much credulity too much facility to please others humours too much pusillanimity in the government of Justice which head-long threw him into a life as miserable as his death was cruel and bloudy In that of Anthonie a passionate Judge who turneth with all winds and suffereth himself to be carried along by the stronger without consideration of Justice In that of Joseph and Sohemus that it is perilous to treat with women though free from ill purpose and much more dangerous to reveal a secret which who will safely keep must make his heart a sepulchre for it In that of young Aristobulus how the most beautifull hopes are storm-beaten in the bud and that you must walk upon the prosperitie of the world as on ice that it must be handled like glass fearing always they break not in the lustre of their brightness In that of Alexandra a boundless ambition designs without effect afflictions devoid of consolations torments without patience and a death without deserts and all this because she gave not a good temper of virtue to her soul In that of the sons of Mariamne innocency perfecuted and a little vanity of tongue desperately revenged In that of yong Antipater policy deceived the cloud of humane hopes cracked punishment and revenge ever attending an offender In the person of Herod an enraged ambition which giveth motion to all his crimes a double soul crafty cautelous politick mischievous bloudy barbarous savage and withal in the best of his tricks benummed doltish dall thinking to make a fortune to the prejudice of religion and conscience A goodly fortune to make himself great and live in the hatred of all the world in the remorses of a Cyclopean conscience a thousand times aday to call upon death not being able to die and in the end to die in a body leaprous stinking louzey and death to tear his soul from him with scabs stench and lice to make it survive its torments in an eternity of flames See you not here fair fruits of humane wisdom impiety and atheism In that of Mariamne a soul raised above the highest sphere of true greatness a soul truly royal holy religious courteous mercifull wise affable and endowed with an incomparable patience who as an Eagle strong of wing and courage soaring above the storms of the world maketh her self Mistress of tempests and thunders which for that they had served as an exercise of her constancy and perpetual battels for her life shall through all Ages attend the immortality of her glory THE FIFTH BOOK Fortunate Pietie WE have hitherto beheld a Court which rather resembleth Polyphemus cave than a Kings Palace to teach Great-ones there is no bruitishness so savage wherinto ingratitude towards God and vice doth not precipitate a forsaken soul Let us now see that as unbridled passions are of power to make a hell of a Princes Court so the practice of piety and other virtues make it a true Paradise Behold the Court of Theodosius the Younger a Prince who seemed to be born for nothing else but to allye the scepter to virtues and manifest what royal greatness can do guided by the rules of pietie It is no small miracle to behold a holy King If Ring of God God affected the curiositie of wearing a ring as well in effect as the Scripture attributeth it to him in allegorie the most agreeable characters he would engrave therein were the names of good Kings who are his most lively representations as those who wed together power and goodness two inseparable pieces of God but very incompatible in the life of man such are the corruptions of this Age. Some live in Four sorts of life the world transported with the torrents thereof and that is weakness Others flie the world and in flying oft-times carry it along with them and this is an illusion Others separate themselves as well in body as affection and this is prudence But few are found who bearing the world on their shoulders through necessity do tread it under-foot by contempt of vanities That is it which this great Prince hath done whose Court we here describe for being seated among people he built a desert in his heart and in a vast Ocean of affairs he lived as fishes which keep silence within the loud noise of waves and preserve their plump substance fresh in the brackish waters I go not about to place Theodosius the Younger in the rank of the bravest and most heroick spirits you hereafter shall see others more couragious and warlick but I purposely have selected this history drawn from the Chronicle of Alexandria Zonaras Zozomen Raderius and others to teach certain vain-glorious people who make no account but of those trifling spirits fierce mutinous and unquiet stampt with the coyn of impiety how much they miss of their reckoning seeing this Emperour with the sole arms of piety and modesty carried himself in a very long and most prosperous reign amidst horrible tempests which seemed ready to rend the world and other rash Princes who made shew to swallow earth and seas were drowned in a glass
this after he had most particularly invoked the assistance of the God of hosts he put himself on the way to cast the lot of the worlds Empire Never was there a more prosperous war It seemed the Angels of Heaven led the Emperour by the hand and that the bloud of Gratian so traiterously shed raised Furies in the Camp of Maximus The encounter of the two Armies was at Sissia where those of the contrary party accounted themselves strong having the river for bulwark which separated them from approches terrible to their treachery But the brave souldiers of Theodosius nothing amazed although already much wearied and all dusty with the long journey they had taken laying hold of occasion by the forelock speedily passed the river and furiously charged the enemy These wicked men were so astonished to see themselves surprized by such an action of courage that so soon as they had taken a view of them they turned their backs Maximus hardy for a black Overthrow of Maximus mischief and remiss in a field of battel shamefully abandoned his Army instantly the earth was covered with bodies the river filled with bloud and good success reserved a part to the clemency of the victour Theodosius pursued his fortune and grapling with Marcellinus who was no abler man than his brother defeated him returning now very fresh from the victory he bare away in the first battel And as at the same time he had notice that Maximus was retired into Aquileia he who desired to cut away the root of war went thither with his army to besiege it The justice of God fought powerfully against this Cain and the time was come in which with his bloud he must wash the spots of his crime God who in punishments holdeth some conformity with the sin would that as this miserable creature had stirred the military men against his Prince he should be betrayed by the same souldiers in whom he had all his hopes reposed It is a strange thing that these people abhorring the wickedness of this man took seized and shamefully despoiled him of the very habiliments and marks of Emperour which he had arrogated to himself then tying and binding him like a Galley-slave they presented him to Theodosius It was the greatest extremity of unhappiness which might befal him to say that in stead of measuring with his dead body the place he should have defended living with his sword in hand he was used as a King disarrayed to let him be seen by all the world as a spectacle of infamy Theodosius beholding him so humbled had some pitie of him and reproching him with his treachery demanded who caused him to enterprize this tragedy He being a coward and a flatterer answered in so humble terms that he discovered to have had this belief that his design no whit displeased his Majesty in other things excusing himself with great submission and making it appear he was a true lover of life He never had so good an opinion of his wickedness as to hope for an ordinary death yet seeing the Emperour changed colour and spake to him in a sweeter tone he was in some hope to obtain life when the enraged souldiers haled him and tore him in pieces His death Inter innumeras manus fertur ad mortem Pacatus or as others have written delivered him to the hangman who cut off his head At the same time Theodosius dispatched Count Arbogastus to seize on his son who was a young child as yet bred under the wing of his mother whom Maximus caused to be called the Victorius and had already declared him Caesar when suddenly he was taken and massacred to accompany his father The Good man his Admiral understanding the general discomfiture of affairs voluntarily drowned himself preventing the hand of a hangman which would not have failed him but all the water in the sea was not sufficient to wash away the stain of his Masters bloud from his soul since the eternal flames never can free it Behold the issue of Maximus after the rapine of four or five years Behold to what the designs of the wicked tend who under pretext of Religion seek the advancement of their temporal affairs Behold to what hypocrisies and goodly humane policies which make use of God as a mask for their wickedness are finally reduced Behold a stroke of thunder which hath left nothing on earth behind it but noise and stench O bestial and bewitched men who having so good lessons of the justice of God written with the bloud and sweat of so many miserable Sacrifices pursue still the ranks to be companions of the like misfortune S. Ambrose is much glorified for treating with this man who deceived so many others as with one excommunicate unwilling to be so much as saluted by him who vowed so many services at his feet and freely fore-telling the misery should befall him if he appeased not the celestial vengeance with a sincere repentance The seventeenth SECTION The affliction of S. Ambrose upon the death of Valentinian WHosoever hath said that Scepters are made of glass Crowns of perfumed thorns and the ways of great men are all of ice bordered with precipices hath said no less than truth It is verily a thing most strange that the golden seelings of Palaces tremble over crowned heads and that in the heat of feasts the hand of Heaven visibly on the walls figureth the sentence of their death In the mean time we desperately love the vanities of the world nothing is thought on but to set our foot on mens throats that we may the more eminently be seen to draw the bloud of this universe out of its veins to cement up the ruins and tie our selves to a miserable world which daily falleth apieces even in our own hands The poor Valentinian was restored to the Throne by Theodosius after the death of Maximus and had onely past three or four years in peacefull tranquilitie disposing himself to good according to the latitude of his own heart and giving way to be wholly governed by the Counsels of Saint Ambrose whom he heretofore had persecuted When behold him taken away at the age of one and twenty years by a horrible treason which did as it were mingle his bloud with that of his brother Gratian. The good Prince passed into France being then at Vienna near Lions accompanied by the Count Arbogastus Arbogastus a French-man by Nation who had lived till then in singular good reputation for he was a man of worth having a well-composed body a quick spirit a generous behaviour and much practice in the exercise of arms which had so dignified him that he held the prime place in the Empire to the which he had rendered good services He was very well beloved by the souldiers for besides his excellent parts he bare an irreconciliable hatred to avarice and appeared so little curious to enrich himself that being so great a Captain as he was he would be Master of no
Foix General of the Army come daily to visit him and that these men in a Citie of conquest spake of paying for all they had taken The good hostess waited on him as on an Angel of Heaven so much honour and virtue saw she to shine in him When he was cured and that he spake of dislodging to be present at the battel of Ravenna where his General passionately desired him the Ladie who accounted her self as his prisoner with her husband and children considering if her guest would rigorously use her he might draw ten or twelve thousand crowns from her resolved to give him a present and coming into his chamber with a servant of hers who carried a little steel box she presently threw her self at his feet but he readily raised her up again not suffering she should speak one word till she was seated by him at which time she made this speech well observed by the Secretary of Bayard SIR The favour which God hath afforded me in the taking of this Citie by sending you into this house which is wholly yours hath not been less than the preservation of the life of my husband mine own and that of my daughters with their honour which they ought to esteem more precious than life Besides your people have lived with such temper here in my house that being not able to complain of any injurie I have cause for ever to commend their modestie Sir I am not so ignorant of the condition whereunto the misery of war hath reduced us as not very well to see that my husband my self and children are your prisoners and that all the goods in the house are at your discretion to be disposed of to your liking But knowing the nobleness of your heart which is incomparable I am come most humbly to beseech you to take pitie on your poor captives and to use us according to your accustomed liberalitie Behold a poor present which we offer intreating it may be acceptable In speaking this she took the box out of the hands of her servant and opened it before the good Captain who saw it to be full of fair Duckets at which he smiled replying Madame how many Duckets are there in this box The poor woman who thought this smile proceeded from some discontentment answered There are in it but two thousand five hundred but if you be not satisfied we will find more Nay Madame replied the Captain I can well assure you that should you give me a hundred thousand crowns you could not do me so much good as you have done in the courteous entertainment I have here received In what place soever I shall remain while God gives me life you shall have a Gentleman ready at your command As for your Duckets I will none I render you thanks take them up again I have ever more esteemed people of honour than crowns and think not but I go as well satisfied from you as if this Citie were at your disposition and you thereof have made me a present She again prostrateth her self on her knees and the Captain lifting her up answered No Sir I should think my self for ever the most unhappy woman of the world if you accept not this present which is nothing in comparison of the infinite obligations I ow to your worth Well saith he since you give it with so good a will I accept it for your sake but cause your daughters to come hither for I will bid them fare well These good creatures had charitably assisted him during the time of his infirmity in the presence of their mother many times touching the lute whereon they played very well for his recreation They fell at his feet and the eldest made a short speech in her mother language to thank him for the preservation of their honour The Captain heard it as it were weeping for the sweetness and humility he therein observed and then said Ladies you do that which I ought to do which is to give you thanks for the many good helps you have afforded me for which I find my self infinitely obliged You know men of my profession are not readily furnished with handsom tokens to present fair maidens withal But behold your good Ladie mother hath given me two thousand five hundred Duckets take each of you a thousand as my gift for so I am resolved it shall be Then turning to his Hostess Madame saith he I will take these five hundred to my self to distribute them among poor religious women who have been ransacked and I recommend the charge thereof to you for you better than any other understand where there is necessity At this time the Ladie touched to the quick with so great a piety spake these words couched in the History in ancient language O flower of Chivalrie to whom no other may be compared our blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who for sinners suffered death and passion both here in this world and in the other reward you The Gentleman of the house who at that time heard the courtesie of his guest came to thank him with bended knee making offer of his person and his whole estate The young Gentlewomen who were skilfull at the needle made him a present of two bracelets woven with threed of gold and silver and a purse of crimson sattyn very richly wrought He very graciously receiving them Behold saith he I have more than ten thousand crowns and instantly he put the bracelets on his arms and the purse in his pocket assuring them whilest these gifts lasted he would wear them for their sakes Thereupon he mounted on horsback accompanied with his true friend the Lord D'Aubigny and about two or three thousand men the Lady of the house the daughters and the whole family as bitterly deploring his departure as if they should have been put to the sword I demād of you if the stars were to descend from heavē whether they might find more love and respect Where be these silly fencers who are as commets of fire and bloud to bear murder pestilence and poison into houses who make the pillars of buildings to tremble with the force of blasphemies who load whole families with injuries wounds and scars who pill and ravage like Harpies fed with humane bloud Should they do nothing else all their life but heap up mountains of gold and silver they could not arrive to the least part of the contentment which this good Captain enjoyed who sought no other recompence from his great actions but the satisfaction of his conscience and the glory to have done well Thus is it O Noblemen that hearts are gained to make a crown of immortality Thus is Heaven obliged and earth tributary to virtues The seventh SECTION Against sensual love and impuritie I May well say that among all the qualities of a Nobleman there is not any hath a sweeter odour than temperance which represseth the voluptuous pleasures of the body Let no man flatter you in the passion of love as if
and that all Ladies who sometimes love vapour where it is not be loved must of necessity have love in store for them They enter into so great vanities as they cast their affections upon none but Princesses or eminent beauties esteeming the rest of the world too base for the entertainment of their affections They resemble those birds of Aegypt who will not build their nests but upon Palms nor will they love but in a high place Of this quality were Endimion and the Emperour Caligula who in the end distasting all the women in the world transferred the ambition of their loves above the sphere of fire supposing they were hardy enough to take the Moon in marriage One would not believe the frenzie of this passion if we had not by experience seen men of most base extraction with much content to entertain their thoughts upon the loves of the Queens of Antioch and Sicilie transporting themselves with joy whensoever it was told them they were entered far into their gracious favours This is it which maketh me say that we in two things know the greatness of our soul to wit that it can frame a world to its knowledge as God hath created one in nature and can lodge the thoughts in so high a place that the poorest begger of the world can entertain affection for the most emiment person of the earth The rich who do as it were forbid the use of elements cannot deny love but it is a gross infirmity to love out of the sphere of your power that which you can no more enjoy than the Moon in the Heavens If we will love aloft let us love him who hath made us When once we have passed far into his heart we shall find all the greatness of the world much lower than our feet If you my souldier entertain these fantastick loves I from this present will send you to the Strophad Islands with those who search for the hand of glory the Philosophers stone and quadratura circuli and who oft-times distil the money out of their purses with that little brain which is left them through the same limbeck I fear you rather have the love of servitude and Love of bondage make a Goddess of a piece of flesh to which it is your glory to sacrifice your liberty being so blind as to kiss the fetters of your slavery instead of breaking them Verily it is a pittifull thing to see a man burn in ice and congeal in fire having the colour wan the visage meagre the eyes hollow the cheeks sunk the spirit giddy the reason uncollected and the heart wholly feaverish for the love of a creature who flouteth him To see a man who walketh in his solitude and creepeth like a spectre not knowing whether he be of the number of the living or dead who speaketh writeth who prieth who hopeth who feareth laugheth sigheth waxeth pale blusheth desireth detesteth dieth riseth again sinketh into an abyss and then toucheth Heaven with a finger who playeth a Comedy of a dozen Personages in one hour and passeth through more metamorphoses in a day than Ovid in three years Oh what a miserable thing is it saith the golden mouth of Constantinople to seek to be rosted in ashes and so desperately love a beauty which is onely fair in the fantasie of a feaverish brain and of which in a short time the most licorous worms would scorn to make their dung-hill O my souldier let such a frenzie never enter into your heart you were better serve a Turk or an Arabian than such a love It is the punais-punais-worm which bites while she liveth and after death maketh her infection to be felt Why go you about to idolatrize a woman Have you not slavery enough at home but you must needs seek it abroad Withdraw your self in good time from this captivity gain the haven before the storm surprize you for if you once be engaged there is neither arm nor oar can serve to bring you back again Is it not a comely thing think you to behold a souldier who hath a sword by his side able to hew monsters to seek to play the cocks-comb in quest of a wily wench that exerciseth the most infamous tyranny over him that ever was heard of It is said Omphale took the Diadem from a King named Hercules and set her slippers on his head That Dionysius the Tyrant wrote the expeditions of his Kingdom with his hand and that Mirrha cancelled or signed them at her pleasure That King Athanaricus tied the strings of Pincia's shoes That Themistocles caused himself to be purged and let bloud with his captive Mistress He that should see all the follies of the entranced lovers might observe an infinite number of matters much more strange In serving a scornfull piece who makes you die a thousand times a day you can oft-times hope for no other thing but ever to serve and if you come to the end of your pretensions brag not so much you perhaps have nothing but that which servants or persons more unworthy have obtained before you This well deserveth indeed to betray your honour and to commit such silly actions but if you open your eyes to see the end of this goodly stage-play you shall do as those who caused themselves to be shaved when they escaped a ship-wrack you would not let so much as a hair remain upon that young head which suffered it self to run at liberty after such sottish loves If you plunge your self further into this passion you Love of fury shall find fury which tieth cords which mingleth poisons which sharpeneth swords which openeth black caverns which erecteth gibbets which kindleth coals which prepareth racks which produceth all that may discover the proceedings of an engaged love and which maketh an arrow of all crimes to hit the mark it aimed at Were I in your place I would tear from my heart the sleightest cogitations which occur by this folly as cankers vermine and serpents and I would ride on post if it were possible beyond the elements with purpose to avoid such encounters All the bravest souldiers have made boast of chastity It was the trophey of Cyrus to whom God for this cause gave all the treasures of Asia It was the triumph of Alexander who in recompence had the conquest of the Persians and the Emperour Julian who made profession Julianus apud Ammianum to imitate him although he had renounced all the Sacraments would never forsake chastity which he had learned amongst Christians saying This virtue made beautifull lives as Painters fair faces But not to search any further into the ruins of antiquity look what your Bayard did upon this point behold an admirable passage which I will relate in the same words as it is expressed in his history They had caused a young maid to be conveyed into A Royal act of military chastitie his chamber which was one of the fairest creatures of the world and indeed she was endowed with
first repast with poison well prepared so to send him into the other world This man amazed at such a dreadfull command asked of the Emperour If he had so well resolved on this affair as to use a son of so great merit in this manner Yea saith he I have thought upon it and it is necessary he die for I must tell you it not being needfull to inform you further that besides the practise conceived by him his life is incompatible with mine The other supposed he had plotted some conspiracy upon the life and scepter of his father behold the cause why he hastened the blow and being already very familiar with poor Crispus he accosted him with great complements of honour and courtesie feigning to make him merry because indeed he then saw him in a very sad humour upon that which had passed between him and Fausta covering his thoughts as much as he might to preserve the honour of his wicked step-mother Hereupon an unhappy banquet was prepared for the innocent Death of Crispus which was the last of his life poison being traiterously given him there where he least expected it Verily this death which way soever we look is most lamentable The Tragedies which bemoan it with so much ornament as that of our Stephanius have much spirit in them but taking onely the thing in the simple nakedness of the fact it ministereth matter of compassion to hearts most obdurate A young Prince at that time the most absolute in the world beautifull as an Absalom valiant as an Alexander innocent as a Joseph at that time taken away when he was at the gates of the Empire which expected him and taken away by a death so hydeous and treacherous and by the commandment of his father who caused him to die as one incestuous not admitting him to speak nor permitting him to justifie himself nor affording leisure to know himself nor one small moment of time to prepare himself for death which is allowed to the most criminal He was silently involved in the extremity of unhappiness to shut up the mouth of innocency and open that of calumny to rail against his very ashes The generous soul ever prepared for this passage by the laws of Christianity which it had so devoutly embraced issued out of his chaste body to hasten to the crown of the Elect leaving incomparable sorrows behind it Alas what doth not a wicked affection a calumny a suspition an unbridled anger an inconsiderate word O you Great-ones will you never learn wisdom by the evils of others As soon as this news came to the Court the wicked The rage of Fausta turned into pitie Fausta well saw it was an effect of her treachery and lively representing before her own eyes this poor Prince whom she before had so much affected at that time so unworthily massacred in a beauty in an age wherein such as die are most pittied and in a goodness which would have given matter of compassion to Tigers and Lions all her passion and hatred was turned into an enraged sorrow which made her crie out and lament at the feet of her husband confessing she had slain the chaste Crispus by her detestable calumny that it was she who had sollicited Calumny discovered him to evil but had found him a Joseph endowed with an invincible chastity and had detested her sin as it well deserved whereupon excited with choler and fearing to be prevented she had proceeded to this dreadfull accusation and therefore was unworthy to live since she had slain the most innocent Prince of the world and stained his own father with his proper bloud Constantine amazed beyond description at so prodigious an accident had neither reply nor sense of a man so much wonder had rapt him from himself but when he saw his holy mother Helena who had so tenderly bred up the poor Crispus bewailing him with unconsolable tears and begging of the father at the least the body of her grand-child to wash it with the waters of her eyes and bury it with her hands saying the wicked beast had slain her Joseph he was pierced to the quick with compassion mingled with fury Then the poor sister of the deceased who seemed nought else but the shaddow of her brother coming also to dissolve her self wholly into tears near to her Grand-mother this spectacle the more enkindled the passion of the Emperour And thinking that Fausta well deserved death being convinced of such a mischief by her own confession he caused her to enter into the bath and so in an instant to be smothered with the vapour which was a punishment wherewith many times they put persons of quality to death Behold the issue of the hydeous loves of Fausta to Death of Fausta teach all Ladies that those passions which begin by complacencies soothings and curiosities very often end in horrible tragedies In the mean time the house of Constantine remained long drenched in a dead silence and all was very secretly carried so that none knowing what publickly to think of the death of Crispus and Fausta it gave occasion to many to affirm they died for some conspiracy We cannot here excuse Constantine of a violent anger a precipitation a proceeding too bloudy Howsoever he caused Crispus to die under a false belief of impurity which he thought was to be revenged and Fausta punished by way of justice Behold why this sin though it hath much mischief in it yet it hath not the determinate wickedness of the sin of David in the death of Urias because the one wrought with a manifest knowledge of his crime and the other proceeded therein with much ignorance and sense of justice Yet Constantine after these exorbitances was touched with great remorse which in the end put him actually on the profession of Christianity The eighth SECTION The calling of Constantine to Christianitie The progress of his Conversion and Baptism I Have always esteemed the saying of S. Paulinus Constant 19. which we before alledged very probable that the faith of S. Helena did not onely make Constantine a Christian but the first of Christian Princes This good mother without doubt gave him the first tincture of Christianity but being of an ambitious and warlike spirit who went along with the main stream of the world he was not so soon confirmed in the faith and integrity of religion Notwithstanding he began to have most lively apprehēsions for his conversion about the seventh year of his Empire which was the year of the defeat of Maxentius whilest he had this great war upon his hands his temporal necessities opening his eyes that he might have recourse to spiritual forces He then endeavoured as he afterward relateth Beginning of the conversion of the Emperour to meditate seriously within himself that there was some Divine Providence from Heaven which gave concussions to victories and Empires without which the counsels of men were cloudy their Armies weak and labours vain Afterward
Empire and affections of Leo his father-in-law much esteemed this young man who arrived to maturity of age served him most couragiously in brave expeditions of war against the Gepides and Bulgarians sworn enemies of the Empire This occasion whereof we speak being offered Theodorick flyeth like a Merlin to his prey and leaving the Court of Constantinople came into Italy attended by gallant troups to decide the matter of Empire and life with Odoacer He being full of fire handled his adversary very roughly and defeated him in three battails making him forsake the field and inforcing him to immure himself in Ravenna where he besieged him for the space of three years resolved either to loose his head in Italy or encircle it with a Crown at Rome The father Theodomire being already deceased his mother the fair Aureliana who had reigned in affections entertained an insatiable desire to command over the most important part of the world and being then in the field she spared not to excite the souldiers and advance a spur of fire very far into the heart of her son whereupon it is recounted that Odoacer after so long a siege being reduced to an extream scarcity of victuals and seeing he could not any longer subsist resolved to seek in the hazard of arms the remedy which he could not find in his languishment He espied a time when the assailants tired out with so long a resistance seemed now to relent so that by the benefit of a fair night he made a sally with his whole army composed of people hungry as wolfs and resolved to conquer or die in this last battel Their sally was so furious and unexpected that Theodorick who was otherwise a great Captain seeing the astonishment and disorder of his souldiers betook himself timely to flight when this Aureliana his mother moved with an ardent ambition which gave her courage above her sex came before him and taking him by the hand had confidence to say My Son whither go you You must of two things do one either fight or return into the womb of your mother You have as far as I can perceive the enemy at your back and fear on your forehead turn your head against the one and you shall chase away the other If you persist in this flight I will rather make a wall of my body to stay you than render my self a confederate of such an obloquie It is a strange thing that the words of a woman were stronger than the sound of trumpets arms flight and the black apprehensions of death This young Prince changing his fear into a generous shame speedily rallyeth the troups that were best resolved and hasteneth to fall upon his enemy with such violence that his souldiers seemed so many flying Dragons who handled their matter so well that the valiant Odoacer notwithstanding his best endeavour was constrained to retire into Ravenna Some time after seeing his enemy was invincible he caused him to be sought unto for peace on such condition that they should between them divide the Kingdom of Italy to which Theodorick whether that he was wearied out with so long a war or that he hoped the more easily to joyn the skin of the fox to that of the Lion willingly consented to this counterfeit peace The agreement signed he entered into Ravenna and these Princes who were both very brave souldiers embraced before the face of two armies mutually preventing each other with all manner of courtesie But oh good God! what cement was ever found able enough to entertain ambition and amity in one constant state and what world hath at any time been wide enough to lodge too ambitious men without a quarrel Their conversation too frequent first sowed contempts and insolencies among souldiers of different Nations afterward jealousie crept into the hearts of the Captains and distrust into the souls of the Sovereigns who beheld and observed one another as expecting who should first begin Theodorick whether he sought for some pretext which ever is soon enough found out to colour the greatest mischiefs or whether he understood of a design intended on the part of his enemy imagined the earth was not large enough to give elbow-room to his ambition whilest Odoacer shared the Throne with him that there was but one sun necessary in heaven and one King in a Countrey that he could not endure a Crown made crescent-wise but that it was very fit he should furnish out the roundness of its circle and for the rest that man would soonest be King who first prevented his adversary Hereupon he resolved on a horrible assassinate for feigning all friendship and affection he invited Odoacer to a magnificent feast which he had prepared for him to be the last of his life It is a great matter that there must be a bait always to surprize men and birds and that the greatest disasters ordinarily happen in the sports and banquets when sensuality predominateth and reason is eclypsed This miserable Procopius saith that Theodorick took pretext and treacherously slew him at a banquet King of the Heruli made it well appear by his over-much confidence that he had not so much mischief in him as was afterward imputed to his ashes for he very joyfully went to this banquet accompanied with his son and all the principal of his Kingdom and walked along with great alacrity having no other intention but to make war against dishes and nothing less than at that time to entertain purposes of bloud and murder The resolution notwithstanding is taken to make them all pass by the dint of swords in a place the most delightful where pleasures seem to make men as it were newly born They entered into a great Sigonius l 5. Occidentali de Imperio in fine hall most magnificently furnished and sat down at the table there was no speech in the beginning but of mirth the spirit disbanded thinketh on nothing but objects of pleasure when instantly the signal was given and the Goths threw swords purposely out to offend the most sober patience of the Heruli They answered again what choller and wine suggested Theodorick stood up and taking his sword So an ancient manuscript observeth it found in a Library at Rome slew Odoacer with his own hand the rest fell upon his son and the Princes of the Kingdom Never was there seen banquet of Centaures and Lapithes more unfortunately expressed Tables and men were overwhelmed wine ran mixt with bloud the dreadful cries of the dying made those tremble who were far enough out of danger and gave matter of pity even to hang-men yet for all this not a man was spared the bodies mangled and bloudy were cast one upon another and the poor souls issued forth in the midst of massacres and surfets to yeild an account in the Court-hall of Heaven What horrours of the abyss and furies of Divels see you here I would know whether there be any beast in the world that had heaped together in one
of pretious things received from the love of subjects The river which glideth along said he though it do no other spoil still worketh out its channel so companies of souldiers which pass through towns and villages though military discipline be there observed fail not to bring thither with them much damage and therefore it was his pleasure the places should be recompenced which had been overcharged For the same reason he appointed fifteen hundred crowns of alms to be delivered to the venerable Bishop S Severinus to distribute them among the peasants which he knew had been vexed with the harbouring of certain warlick companies Verily as it is no smal temerity in particular men who have neither any charge nor knowledge of affairs to argue great men upon tributes and the husbanding of their treasures so would it be a neglect to conceal from them upon occasions the moderation they ought to use herein since it is so exactly recommended by the law of God and published in all histories If a stranger raised from the bottom of barbarism shewed himself so Religious in matters of subsidies towards men whom his arms had newly made tributary Princes and Lords of Christendom have good cause to consider what they ow to a people which is given them as to Fathers and Protectours of the publick There is no doubt but the exorbitancies committed in such like affairs are most important charges of conscience which much clog a soul in the agonies of death and in the dreadful judgement of Almighty God There is also to be seen an Edict of the same Prince where having understood that in the payment of taxes the rich made the heaviest part of the burden to fall upon the shoulders of the meaner and that the undertakers of this business ill behaved themselves therein he detesteth all these abuses as injuries done to his own person and gave full liberty to those who had been wronged to complain to him that such order might be taken as he should judge reasonable This manner of proceeding made him so beloved that other Princes having passed away like dreams of one night he reigned thirty years in a most supereminent degree of respect which those even of the religion contrary to his own bare him The third Maxim given him by Boetius was to make himself most exact in the exercise of justice because it is the basis of thrones and the spirit which animateth all government and he so deeply impressed this in his heart that the desire he had to render every one what was his was changed in him to a most ardent thirst and a continual hunger He selected out the most untainted and uncorrupted Governours he could find and spake these words unto them related by Cassiodorus Use the matters so that Judges of Provinces may be very careful in the observation of laws that Tribunals spare not to thunder out sentences against ill manners that theeves may fear the gates of your Palaces that the a dulterer may tremble before a chast Officer that the forger may feel horrour at the voice of a Herauld and that all crimes may be banished from our territory That no man oppress the poor that persecutours be apprehended and pursued as disturbers of publick repose You shall make a general peace when you have beaten down the authours of mischiefs which are committed Let Cassioder ra◠l. 22 Mihipropria cura dilapsi est postquam generalem coepicogitare custodiam Opto mei◠benè sed quod possit esse commune Captains contain their souldiers in all manner of discipline in such sort that the labourer the merchant the sailer and the artificer may understand arms are not made but for their defence I will not likewise that my nearest allies be pardoned in any case of justice since I have taken the Common-wealth into my charge I have despoiled my self of my proper interests I wish well to mine but in the generality Pursuing the maxims I will recount an admirable passage which he used among others to make his justice remarkable A Roman Lady left widow by Manuscriptum P. Sirmundi Joannes Magnus Laurentius Venetus the death of her husband had lost a son born of this marriage who was secretly stoln from her and in servitude bred up in another Province This child grown up a young man received notice from a good hand that he was of free extraction and son of a Ladie whose name was given him her aboad and all circumstances which caused him to undertake a voyage to Rome with intention to make himself known unto her He came directly to his mother who was much perplexed with certain love-affairs having betrothed her self to a man who often promised her marriage yet never accomplished it This lover then absent and detained by urgent affairs very far from Rome the Ladie had the space of about thirtie days free wherein she kept this young man in her house acknowledging him and particularly avowing him for her son throughly convinced by evident tokens so that then her charitie was so great towards him that she ceased not to weep for joy in the recovery of her loss The thirtie days expired the Lover returned and seeing this guest newly come to her house demandeth of the Lady what man he was and from whence he came She freely answered he was her son He whether moved by jealousie thinking this might be but a colour or that pretēding the marriage of the widow he would not have a charge of children plainly told her if she sent not away this found child from her lodging never should she have any share in his affection The unhappy creature surprized with love to serve his passion renounceth her own entrals and readily banisheth from her house this son over whom she had so many tears The young man seeing himself as between the hammer and the anvil in so great a necessitie of his affairs hasteneth to require justice of the King who most willingly heard him and commanded the Lady should be brought before him to be confronted by him She stoutly denied all the pretensions of this young man saying He was an impostor and ungrateful who not contenting himself to have received the charities of a poor creature in her house needs would challenge the inheritance of children The son on the other side wept bitterly and gave assurance she had acknowledged him for her own very lively represēting all the proofs which passion and interest put into his mouth The King sounded all passages to enter into the heart of the Lady and asked her whether she were not resolved to marry again She answered if she met with a man suitable to her she would do what God should inspire her The King replied Behold him here since you have lodged this guest thirtie days in your house and have acknowledged him so freely what is the cause why you may not marry him The Lady answered He had not any means which ever is necessary for houshold expence
of the bosom thereof as a man treacherous and put into the hands of the Guard to lead him to Pavia the place of his imprisonment He was not suffered to speak with his father-in-law Symmachus for all those who were honoured with his friendship are sequestred scarcely had he the means to give the last adieu to his wife Rusticiana who seeing her husband suddenly fallen from so eminent a dignitie into such disaster could not contain from saying unto him with scalding tears Syr is this then it which your innocencie hath deserved If the King be resolved to put you to death why suffereth he still a piece of your self to live which hath ever been so dear unto you I have courage enough to follow you either in exile imprisonment or death But Boetius replied again in few words that he might not any further increase her grief Madam the hour is not yet come trouble not your self to see me suffer for justice It is a title of honour which God hath reserved for his children The education which you have derived from your good father and the instructions you have received from me give me occasion to hope you will bear this accident with a Christian resolution My daughter it is not fit that our tears which fall from so much a higher place as we have been bred in greatness may shew any dejection in the estimation of men Support your self a little under your burthen and open your heart to the consolations of heaven since those of earth are mingled with so much acerbities Then turning to his children all dissolved into tears My children saith he God hereafter will become your father Make provision of great virtues which have ever been the inheritance of our house for all other blessings are but dust and wind This is the lesson which God giveth you in the change of my fortune Comfort your good mother by the dutie of faithfull obedience and live in hope Perhaps you shall see me again if it please God sooner than you imagine These words were arrows that pierced these faithfull hearts with most just resentments of nature which could not quickly end notwithstanding all the lenitives that might be applied The sixth SECTION The imprisonment of Boetius THe great changes of fortune which suddenly happen have this property in them that they strike our souls as waves not foreseen and give us the blow before we have leisure to understand our selves The poor Boetius seeing himself between four walls sequestered from the Citie which had served as a theater of glory for all his house taken away from the love of his own bereft of his library and all the most precious accommodations of life shut up as a victim destined for a bloudy sacrifice found himself in the beginning surprized with an over-whelming sadness as he hath left expressed in writing He bewailed with broken sighs his innocency unworthily handled he traced in his thoughts the marks of his former fortune he cast his eyes upon his forsaken family which seemed to him in the Lions throat he called into memory the unworthiness of his accusers who had been heard against him the ingratitude of the Senate that had condemned him for being faithfull unto them the cruelty with which this sentence was executed the wrack of his means the loss of his reputation and all the black horrours which a man declared criminal of treason figureth to himself In this abyss of disturbances he was displeased as Eâ—eu cur durs miseros a verteriâ— Ã â—e Et stentes oculis claudere saeâ—â— negas Lib. 1. Metr 1. it were with death which layeth hold on so many young men that desire nothing but to live and deigned not so much as to shut up his eyes which he perpetually moistened with his tears Hereupon we may see that the most couragious spirits in these accidents so strange and unexpected ever pay some tribute to the natural passions of men But likewise on the other side we shall observe the power which a well rectified judgement hath over it self when we behold it to dissipate all the troubles and agitations of the heart by the vivacity of reason and use of precepts of wisdom which he most exactly practised in this his captivity We have also the book of his Consolation composed in this prison which is verily in the judgement of learned men one of the most excellent pieces of work that may be framed on this subject where he introduceth Philosophie who visiting and awakening him from this dead sleep of sadness What Boetius saith she are you be then whom I have fed with my milk whom I have cherished with so good nutriments and bred up until you arrived to the strength of mans estate Verily I have given you arms which would strengthen you against all the strokes of fortune were it not that you have forsaken them Know you me no longer From whence proceedeth this silence Tell me is it out of shame or stupidity I had rather it were derived from a just bashfulness but as far as I can perceive you are become wholly senseless Will you say nothing to me Ah poor man he is not absolutely lost but so near as I can guess he hath a Lethargie a common disease with those who suffer themselves to be transported with illusions of the mind He hath forgot himself but he will recover when he shall know me Let us onely wipe his eyes surcharged with terrestrial humours and covered with a thick cloud of the world This done Boetius came to himself and framed an admirable Dialogue with this Queen of spirits to which I remit the Reader contenting my self to observe here the principal arguments which served him for his Consolation to the end we may learn with him in our afflictions to fix our resolution on the will of God and suck honey from the rock as the Scripture speaketh The first reason proposed to him by this Wisdom Lib. 1. pros 6. Maximus somes salutis vera de mundi gubernatione sententia descended from Heaven was to ask of him what opinion he had of the Providence of God and whether he thought the world moved by chance or were governed by reason God forbid saith Boetius that Iever come to this degree of folly as to think that all here below is casually done I know God ruleth in the world as in an house built by his own hands and that nothing happeneth in the affairs of men but either by his command or permission Thereupon Philosophie crieth out Just God! it is verily marvellous that a man who hath such an understanding of the Divine Providence can be sick of the disease wherewith I see you surprized My friend you entered into the world as into a list or circle whereof this Providence hath made the circuit with his own hands It is fit you Lib. 1. pros 1. alibi patiently suffer all that which happeneth to you within these limits as an ordinance
strong sally and willed him freely to answer one word upon which he would ground the whole proceeding to wit Whether he were not a Roman Catholick That is it Sir saith the Prince which I avow which I publish which I protest For verily it is a crime which maketh the Judges become pale and the offenders laugh The accusation whereof is a vow all great souls should profess and the pain is a felicitie which Martyrs have bought with their bloud I wish to die a hundred times if it might be done for the glorie of that goodly title so far is it too little with one mouth to confess the praises of God Command if you please that my bodie be hewed and cut in pieces for the profession of the Catholick faith and then I shall have as many mouthes as wounds to praise my Saviour and all those wounds shall be as gates of bloud to give passage to my soul to the place where it is expected by so good companie The father said thereupon he was become a fool and that no man hated life but he who had ill employed it The son replied The misuse had been in heresie of which he repented him And at that instant the Guard received commandment to re-convey him to prison where he was so comforted with the visitations of God that finding with much difficulty means to send a Letter to his dear Indegondis he wrote to her in this manner The sixteenth SECTION The Letter of Hermingildus to his dear wife Indegondis and his generous resolution MY holy Mistress from whom I have received the faith and true knowledge of God I write these lines unto you clothed with sackcloth and loaden with fetters in the bottom of a dark dungeon for the defence of that Religion which you have taught me If I did not know by experience the invincible force of your heart and the resolution you practise in affairs which concern the service of God I had concealed my estate from you that I might not contristrate objects sensible to nature But most dear wife you have a forehead too noble to blush at the disgrace of the Crucifix and a courage too well fortified to refuse taking part in the liveris of the Saviour of the world I protest upon mine honour ' I could never perswade my self there might be contentment to suffer that which I tolerate when your innocent mouth preached unto me the reward of suffering wherewith your bodie bad heretofore been gloriously covered But since my imprisonment I have felt consolations of God so tastfull that I cannot think it possible to relish in the world any other antipasts of Paradise You are not ignorant that my life and conversation which hath been so long time plunged in errour and vanitie deserved not these benefits but your most pure hands which you so often have lifted up before Altars for my salvation have obtained that for me which much transcended my merit and all my hopes The King my father hath been pleased to hear me and I have pleaded my cause in fetters with so great assistance from the Heavenly goodness that I justified my self in all charges objected against me and have put the matter into such a condition that I am no further accused as a thief and homicide but as a Catholick I speedily expect my sentence and do not think I am put into the state wherein I am to save my life but I undoubtedly believe this will be the last Letter you shall receive from my hand I earnestly beseech your loyal heart that as in this action which shall close up my days I intend to do nothing unworthie of you so on your part act nothing unworthie of me betraying the happiness of my death with tears which would be little honourable to the condition whereunto God hath called me I put into the hands of the Divine Providence both you and your little Hermingildus the onely pledge of our holy loves Be couragious my dearest love and after my death take the way of Constantinople to render your self at the Palace of the Emperour Tiberius who is a good Prince and most Catholick I recommend unto you my poor soul as for the bodie let that become of it which shall please my father If the alteration of times and affairs bring you back into Spain there to bold the rank you deserve my ashes will likewise rejoyce at the odour of your virtues I hope my death shall not be unprofitable and that God will make use of it for the good of the Kingdom You know how many times I have heard you say that you would have bought the salvation thereof with your bloud you have already in it employed one part it is my turn to perform the rest upon a scaffold For in what place soever you are I promise my self to be most particularly assisted by your holy prayers The good Princess received this Letter with the news of his death as we will presently tell you but in this space of time Râ—caredus the younger brother of Hermingildus extreamly afflicted that having been a mediatour of this counterfeit peace he saw it end in so deplorable a Tragedie hasteneth to cast himself at the feet of his father beseeching him with infinite abundance of tears and lamentations either to give him the stroke of death with his own hand or save the life of his brother The father replied He was a furious fellow and a traitour to his fortune and that be ought to suffer justice to be done which would give him a Crown That his brother well discovered himself an enemie to his father and the State since he would not for his sake renounce onely so much as a fantasie Religion that he was onely questioned upon this point and that if be could perswade him to reason he was readie to save his life Recaredus prepared himself strongly to gain him and asketh leave to go to the Prison which was allowed him The young Prince seeing his brother covered with sackcloth and bowed under fetters was so amazed at this spectacle that he stood a long time mute as a statue but in the end breaking silence with a deep sigh Ab brother saith he it is I who have betrayed you it is I who have covered you with this fatal sackcloth I who have bound and fettered you with these cruel chains made for ignominious slaves not for your innocencie Brother behold my poynard which I present you revenge your self upon my guiltie head I have been culpable enough in that I have produced from a good intention so bad effects Hermingildus beholding him with a peacefull eye answered Brother why do you afflict your self Fall well do I know your innocencie What innocencie replied the other if unadvisedly I be the cause of your death by my disasterous Embassage But good brother since you are reduced to this extremitie I beseech you forgo the name of Catholick or if that seem unworthie of your constancie dissemble for some time and
can any longer be a husband That she married him to live and to give life to others by love not to cut her own throat and her childrens through wickedness That a man who renounceth honour can no more pretend to nature To conclude that it is wealth which maketh men and that it was no dishonour to marrie a servant who is the favourite of a mightie King We came not into the world to be masters of fortune but to yield to its Empire What content can there be to walk up and down Towns and Cities like a beggers following a husband the object of the worlds laughter and reserve all is left of his miserable bodie to swords and flames So much were her ears beaten with such like discourses She yieldoth that through a most unspeakable cowardice she forsook her religion and husband to marry this servant who seemed noble enough since he had the golden fleece The King seeing she had yielded added for full accomplishment of inhumanity that Suenes should remain in his own house as a slave to his wise and servant Behold here the extremity of all worldly miseries Yield thy self up said one poor Suenes Admirable constancie sâ—est thou not that of so many palaces and such treasures there is not left for thee so much as a house covered with stubble of so many children none to call thee father Is it not time to forsake thy faith since she who slept by thy sides hath left thee Wert thou amongst the chains of Lestrigons and Tartars thou mightst breath a more wholesom air But to behold thy self a slave to thy servant in thine own house and to have perpetually before thee the infidelity of a disloyal wife for object how is it possible but to overthrow the most stable constancie in the world But Suenes assembling together all the forces of his heart said O faithless and perfidious discourses All is taken from me but they cannot take away Jesus Christ I follow him in libertie and bondage in prosperitie and adversitie in life and death whilest one small threed of life remains in my heart one silly spark of breath upon my lips I will combat against the gates of hell and all the laws of impietie O the power of the spirit of God! O divorce from flesh and bloud O spectacle worthy to be beheld by angels over the gates of heaven with admiration A man to die in so many indignities such punishments such deaths without dying without complaint growing wan or speaking any one word unworthy the lips of a Christian What is it to be a puissant but to brave all the powers of earth and hell What is it to be rich but to place all your treasures in the heart of God II. MAXIM Of the Essence of GOD. THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That it is fit to obey Nature all other Divinitie being most unknown That nothing is so known as God although not acknowledged through our ingratitude ACynick Philospher heretofore sought for a man with a candle at noon-day and now adays the wicked seek God in a clear and full light and when they have found him become blind by their own lights in that they see not him who is not to be known but in the quality of a Judge punishing their offences Out alas what is man without God Tertullian speaking of the countrey about the Euxine Tertul. advers Marcion l. 1. cap. 1. Excellent description of Tertullian sea saith It is a Region separated from the commerce of men as well by the providence of Nature as the reproach of its bruitishness It is peopled by most savage Nations which inhabit if we may say so a wandering cart that serves them for house a habitation which though perpetually in motion is less inconstant than their manners Their abode is uncertain their life wholly savage their luxury promiscuous and indifferent for all sorts of objects They make no scruple to serve in the flesh of their parents in a feast with beeff and mutton and think the death of such cursed who die when they no longer are fit to be eaten Sex softeneth not women in this countrey for they sear off their dugs being young and make a distaff serve for a launce being otherwise so fervent in battel that they had much rather fight than marry The Climate and elements are as rigid as their manners The day is never bright the sun never smileth nor is the skie any thing but a continued cloud The whole year is a winter and the wind ever North. Ice robs them of rivers and if they have liquor the fire affords it The mountains are still covered with ice and snow All is cold in this countrey but vice which ever burneth Yet I must tell you saith he there is not any thing amongst these wonders more prodigious than wicked Marcion For where shall we find a monster more odious or a man in nature more senseless than him who did not acknowledge the Divinitie and will have the causes and sublime reasons given him of the Essence of God which never were nor shall be for then there would be somewhat above God The Emperour Tiberius having conceived some Humano arbitratu divinitâ—s pensitatur nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Tertul. Apol. c. 5. Nec quicquam refert Deum neges an asseras Arno. l. 1. good opinion of Divinitie in the Person of our Saviour was willing to rank him in the number of other gods but it was not executed because it must pass by decree of the Senate and God who is all that which he is by nature regarded not the judgement of men to authorize his Divinitie You were as good deny God saith Arnobius as to make the truth of his Essence depend upon the weakness of humane reason 1. I ask of you whether there be any thing in the world more present with us and more familiarly known than our self our substance our life our being It seemeth say you it is the most certain of our knowledges Now if I shew the science we have of God is better known to us than our selves God is far stronger more undoubted and invincible than the knowledge we have of our self I necessarily convince the ignorance of the Divinitie is stupid ungratefull and punishable with all the rigours of eternal justice I pray tell me what so certain knowledge can you have of your self Have you it by the knowledge of History which is a reasonable knowledge by revelation which is extraordinary by prophesie which is mysterious by faith which is infallible I do not see you alledge any of these for confirmation of your own being You have no proofs say you more certain than your senses which you know notwithstanding to be bruitish deceivers and deceived in so many objects You hear your self speak you smell your self you touch your self and for that you affirm you are although you have not any knowledge of the better part of
inexplicable excellencies Yet say we all we can of him we affirm he never is so well esteemed as when we account him wholy incomprehensible He not onely environeth the world with his presence but beareth it within his arms and bosom He formeth it in his Idae's he accommodateth it in his dispose he penetrateth it by his virtue maintaineth it by his wisdom and establisheth it by his power He is without yet not excluded from it he is within yet not contained he is under yet not drenched he is above yet not advanced He confirmeth scepters and crowns he raiseth Cities Provinces and Monarchies he erecteth States he circumscribeth laws he directeth virtues he enlighteneth stars in heaven he engraveth the beauty of flowers in the meadows and travelleth throughout all nature without taking pains ever present yet always unseen ever in action yet always in repose ever searching yet not needing any thing ever loving yet never burning ever amassing yet never penurious ever giving yet never losing any thing drawning to himself yet hath nothing without himself Good God what say we when we say GOD. Yet thou ô sinner thou yet wilt lift an armed haÌ„d against thy Lord against a God Omnipotent who notwithstanding will not appear potent towards thee but to do thee good Blind and insensible fugitive from the sovereign Essence in the region of nothing and whither wilt thou go not to find the reproches of thy crimes A caytife pleasure a wreched gain a satisfaction of vengeance dissolute company take God out of thy heart to resign thee as a prey to thy passions Thou wilt adore the favours of men that are like the rain-bow in heaven and which having made ostent of so many splendours and varied paintings leave us nothing but water and morter Thou wilt build fortunes upon a foundation of quick-silver upon a frail reed upon a man who beareth all the figures of vanity Thou wilt seek for Paradise in the Capitol as said Tertullian Thou wouldst find sovereign Coelum in Capitolio quaeriin aversi ab ipso Deo coelo Apol. c. 4. Isaiah 30. 3. Decalvare tondere super filios deliciarum tuarum Mich. 1. beatitude in the Courts of great men and perpetually estranged from heaven the living God thou graspest nothing but Chimaeraes of honour and feeble images of content The strength of Pharao saith the Prophet Isaiah shall be thy confusion and the confidence thou hast in the shadow of Aegypt shall be the reproach of thy countenance Shouldst thou not now forsake all thy superfluities Oughst not thou to wear sack-cloth and carry ashes of penance having buried the children of thy delights loves and vanities which so far transported thee into the forgetfulness of eternal blessings If God be the Essence of essences why dost thou please thy self with making so many nothings by committing sins without number infidelities without consideration and ingratitudes void of shame If God be a Spirit why holdest thou thy self perpetually fixed to carnal pleasures which flatter to strangle thee Look on worldly ambitions and thou shalt see them bordered with precipices Reflect on delights and thou shalt find them strewed all-over with thoms View the ways of sin and thou there shalt observe nothing but remorse Ought not we at this time to resolve upon consideration of the greatness and goodness of God to bear a reverence and an eternal love towards him a reverence by faithfully keeping all his laws and commandments and holding his will more dear than the apple of our eyes a love by dayly offering our selves if it were possible a hundred times for him in as many Sacrifices as our soul hath thoughts and body members My God make me from henceforth to enter into the bottom of my soul and to silence all these troublesom creatures all these inordinate passions which so often bereave me of the honour of thy sight Appease their storms and surges that I may silently speak to thee and enter with thee into the great abyss of delights which thou reservest for souls the most purified that there I may be rapt in contemplation of thy bounties may be absorpt in consideration of thy beauties and may wholly dive into thy heart by sacred ardours of thy love The third EXAMPLE upon the third Drawn from Josephus 18. book of his antiquities and S. Luke Act. 11. MAXIM Of the weakness of man and inconstancy of humane things AGRIPPA WHo saith Man says all vanity He is a wretched Arist creature affirms that Ancient whom fortune tosseth as a tennis-ball whom misery and envy poize in a ballance whom time despoyleth death takes away and of whom inconstancy makes Bernard l. 2. de consider c. 9. Fragili corpore mente sterili cui infirmites corporis fatuitus cordis cumulatur traduce sortis a continual metamorphosis He entereth into the world by the gate of sin with a body as frail as his spirit is barren weakness of mortal members and stupidity of heart are given him as a portion of his birth and a necessity of his condition If you as yet be not perswaded of this verity and more esteem to confide in the world and to frame to your self an arm of straw than to seek support from him who sustaineth with three fingers of his power the whole globe of the earth King Agrippa of whom S. Luke maketh mention in the Acts of Apostles and Josephus in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities is able to give you a fair lesson of it You have heard in the History of Herod how this Agrippa grand-child of Herod unnatural Prince put his two sons to death lawful children by the chast Mariamne This Agrippa of whom I speak son of the youngest named Aristobulus came into the world with great priviledges of nature dexterous courteous amiable pleasing born to court and entertain the favour of the world Judaea was a Theater too streight for his great Spirit he burnt with impatience to be seen in the Court of Tyberius Caesar where his mother was already become gracious with one of the greatest Princesses of the Empire Antonia mother of the great Germanicus and the Emperour Claudius It was no hard matter for him to satisfie his desire For behold him presently at the Court of Rome where he closely adhered to the person of Drusus the Emperour Tyberius his son honoured by all the world as successour of the Empire Agrippa â—o well knew how to gain this great Amities of great men barren Prince by the sweet charms of his conversation that he could not live without him but as Tyberius was a frugal man suffering his son not to fall into any excess so Drusus was full of free affection towards his favourite the effects whereof were yet very slender In such sort that Agrippa entertaining correspondence with the son of so great an Emperor more pleasing than profitable for him dayly consumed as the butter-flys in the flames of this greatness so profuse was his
the resentment of injuries Necessitie of salvation since prayer and sacrifice essential parts of our salvation cannot subsist without the pardon of our neighbour And pursuing this precept we have a tradition from the Hebrews which saith He who being entreated to pardon after warning given before competent witnesses if he shewed himself inexorable was surnamed as with a title of infamy the Sinner and held as one excommunicate as a rotten member and cut off from the society of the faithfull I likewise say necessity of salvation since according to S. Augustine without this virtue all devotion is but August super Joan. homil 10. Quid prodest quia credis blasphemas Adoras illum in capite blasphemas in corpore c. hypocrisie all religion blasphemy all faith infidelity To what purpose is it saith this Prelate to believe and blaspheme to adore God in his head and blaspheme him in his members God loveth his body which is his Church if you dissever your self from his body he will not for all that forsake his own members Hear you not the head which speaketh to you from heaven saying O Man it is in vain thou honourest me hating thy neighbour If any one whilst he is giving thee low obeysance with his head tread on thy foot thou wouldst in midst of all his complement cry out Sir you hurt me What is there either more powerfull or persuasive The horrour and confusion of revenge than these reasons Yet notwithstanding among so many lightnings and thunders which encompass us on every side there are to be found infinite many black souls in the world which practise hatred some in secret some in publick make vaunts to eternize their revenge in the everlastingness of their punishments What a horrour is it to see a man who besought and entreated with all earnestness to pardon a brother who hath offended him answereth with disdain furious and intolerable he will never agree nor hold correspondence with him no more than with a Turk or Moor Ah Barbarian Shut up that mouth unhappy creature and never open it at least never open it before the wounds of Christ which bleed against thee Thou wilt embrace no other friendship with thy brother but such as may be found between Turks and Moors Lyer that thou art seek yet out words more out-ragious to express the gall of thy passion For if thou knowest it not Turks and Moors retain the amities and sense of man whereof thou art despoiled Turks even in the general desolation of Moors entertained them into their Countreys and afforded them helps which thou hast denied thy flesh and bloud If that seem worthy of thee take a turbant and become a Turk But when thou hast put it on yet shalt thou find laws which will oblige thee to love a man The Turks have their Behiram a feast wherein they pardon all injuries and wilt thou turn Turk to retain an injury Out of God's Church out of the society of men out of nature bloudy monster as thou art Where wilt thou any longer find place in the world when thou once hast pulled down the Altars of clemency That also which is spoken in choller and hasty precipitation might seem pardonable in repentance were it not there are some who in cold bloud foster suits and immortal pertinacities and which is worst many times in publick shewing a fair face in secret they transfix the heart of a poor man like unto witches they rip up the bowels of wife and children to satisfie a revenge Barbarous man eat rather eat the miserable heart than pierce it perpetually with thy infernal bodkins I would in the rest be silent if there were not women who being infirm in all things get diabolical strength for revenge What may we say of a creature of this sex who being very slightly offended by another of the same sex whilst she advised by her Confessour disposed her self to all duties of satisfaction the other looked on her with a Gorgons eye and foaming with anger spitefully reviled her with bloudy words so that nothing now remained but to take her by the hair and drag her on the floar which violence reproved by other she repeated the burden of the old ballad That she wished her not ill but would never see her again Inhumane and furious creature a Maegera not a woman what mouth will you hereafter bring to the Altars which you seem to honour Have you any other than that by you polluted with this poisonous choller What heart remains in you for God Is there any part of it not steeped in gall What expect you at the hower of death and in the instant of your souls separation but that God repeat unto you your own words I wish thee no ill I will not put thee upon the wheel nor the rack I have neither rasors nor flames to torment thee but thou never shalt see my face Wilt thou then cherish quarrels maintain sides spread rumours either true or false secretly undermine the fortune of men and make thy self as inexorable to reconciliation as thou art inflexible to reason Lord have mercy on us Semper jurgia quaerit malus Angelus autem crudelis mittetur contra eum Proverb 6. a cruel Angel will be sent against thee an ill suit commenced a ruinous business a tedious sickness a loss of goods a confusion of understanding and then shalt thou see whether fire being in the four corners of thy house thou still retainest the itch of revenge But you generous souls march on by union to the chief of unities and think the onely revenge is well to be revenged on your self If as I have shewed pardon be possible glorious and necessarie why foment we our curiosities to enflame our feavours Let us take away these silly humane respects this slender pride which often broodeth under silken devotions and which is the cause that God is daily beheld and adored upon both the knees by those who will not see nor speak to any that have committed some slight indiscretion whilst feigning to honour God the Master with lips the servant within the heart is strangled Say O Christian say to thy self Am I more powerfull Goodly considerations to pacific the mind in my small family than God in the universe He daily endureth so many injuries not threatening mortals with his thunders what am I who have ears so tender Many have forgiven their deaths and I cannot pardon a cold countenance a silly word a slender negligence Is it a child is it a young man hath offended age excuseth him is it a woman sex a stranger liberty a friend familiarity He hath offended he hath displeased Vid. de I thee once and how many other times hath he done thee good offices But this is not the first time so much the better shall we bear what we already have suffered Custome of injuries is a good Mistress of patience He is a friend he did what he would
summons you shall have from the will of God It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience nor to have an ear not deaf to death through faintness of courage This resignation was most excellent and very admirable in our Ladie for two reasons First the great knowledge she had of beatitude Secondly the ineffable love she bare to her Son For I leave you to think if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges and if we be so much the more earnest after a good as we are the better informed of its merit what impatience Patience of our Lady to endure life must our Ladie needs have of life since she received a science of beatitude strong powerful and resplendent above all other creatures God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories in the depth of his dolours It is no wonder we so very easily affect life seeing we are as the little children of a King bred in the house of a shepheard as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth touching the education of Nebuchadnezzar We know not what a scepter Kingdom or crown is in this great meaness of a life base and terrestrial But had we talked onely one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul and discoursed of the state of the other life our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires Which makes me say It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin in those great knowledges she had of Paradise to have continued so many years in this life and if you consider the most ardent love she bare her Son who was the adamant of all loves you shall find the holy Virgin who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb more merited in this resignation she made to see her self separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange bloudy and hydeous There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of Martyrdom of love love It is an exhalation in a cloud It is a fire in a myne a torrent shut up in ditches a night of separation lasteth Ages and all waxeth old for it but its desires Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining without complaint or disturbance peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour what virtue and how far are we from it So now adays throughout the world you see nothing Worldly irresolutions of death Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negos but mourners who are loth to live or faint-hearted that would never die Some crie out Come to me O sluggish death thou hast forgotten me what do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Ah death hast thou ears of brass and diamond for me alone Canst thou not shut up mine eyes which I daily drown in my tears Much otherwise when we see one die young fresh flourishing in honour wealth health prosperity we crie out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious To take saith one this young betrothed this poor maid this husband intended this excellent man who so well played the Rhodomont to lay hold of one so necessarie for the publick in the flower of his age Why took it not away this cripple this beggar who hath not wherewith to live Why took it not away this other who daily dies yet cannot die once O our manners O dainty conceits O fit language Were it not some little humane respect we would take Gods Providence by the throat Whom do we contend withal The indifferency we daily see in the death of men where as soon the young is taken as the old the happie as the miserable the Emperour as the porter is one of the greatest signs of Gods Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth It is not a punishment but a wholesom doctrine by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom First when we entered into life our advise was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age such a day such a year such an hour so when we must be gone from hence there is no reason to ask our counsel Let us onely yield up this last loan and not murmure against the father of the family Let us not say this man should go before and this after Who knows them better than God You complain this miserable creature lives so long how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience Why gnash you your teeth for anger that this man rich that man fortunate and that other so qualified is taken hence in his flourishing youth How know you the misadventures and shipwracks which attended him had he still continued in the world You say he was necessary why God will shew there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself Vnâ— aâ—ulso non deficit alter aureus Poor eyes of a bat which see nothing but darkness you would give eyes to Argus and light to the Sun If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just handle the matter so that for the first sign of a good death you be ever indifferent to live or die accordding to our Ladies example Daily expect death stand perpetually on your guard Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus which is so well practised Instinct of the Onocratalus Constancy of faith to expect the Hawk to grapple with her that even when sleep shuts up her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted as if she would contend with her adversary Know we are continually among rocks and dangers that there needs but one hour to get all or loose all that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief and that we must be ready to receive it and resolute to combat with death to gain immortalitie Hold this concluding sentence of Tertul. Idol c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat tuta si cauta secura si attonita Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum inexplicabile impactis naufragium irrespirabile â— devoratis hypocriphium Second quality of good death Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian as an Oracle Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea called life Christian faith passeth on breaking the waves filling the sails with Gods spirit ever assured yet ever distrustful and perpetually fearless yet still carefull of the future As for the rest it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched a gulf which suffocates all such as it once swalloweth The second
wholly acquired to death sighing after a young Gentleman then absent and not daring fully to manifest her passion In the end death took away the spoils of her life with her pretences The father and mother bewailed her with inconsolable tears furnishing out very honourable obsequies And whereas she most ardently affected her dressings and little cabinet they buried with her all whatsoever she held most precious Six moneths were now past since her burial when the Gentleman she loved named Machates arriving at Trayls came to lodge in the house of his friend her father The spirit of the maid which was of the condition of those whom Plato called body-lovers retaining still the affections with which she went out of her bodie appeared one evening to this Machates with words of affection embraces and dalliances which plainly discovered it was a damned spirit and an instrument of the divel that tormented the one to burn the other The young man at the first was much affrighted with these proceedings notwithstanding becoming tractable by little and little he soon made this specter very familiar It happened during this time that an old servant sent by her Mistress to see what their guest did found Philenion sitting neer unto him with the same countenance and the same garments she ware in her life time whereat much amazed she ran to the father and the mother to tell them their daughter was alive They sharply reprehended her for a distracted and wicked woman as going about again to open their wound which still bled The servant justified her self and answered she had not lost her wits nor spake ought but truth Hereupon she so enkindled the curiositie of her Mistress that she secretly conveyed her self by night into the chamber yet perceived nothing at all able to resolve her The next day being vehemently excited with the curiositie of knowing what to believe of this apparition she threw her self at the feet of Machates and conjured him to tell her the name of the young maid who conversed with him The Gentleman in the beginning was much surprized and sought evasions to divert her but in conclusion either through compassion of the mother whom he saw in the posture of a suppliant or by vanity of his passion which easily unloosned his tongue he confessed he was married to Philenion that it was a business accomplished by the will of the Gods wherein nothing must be altered and speaking this he drew forth a little casket wherein he shewed her a gold ring her daughter had given him with a piece of linnen she ware about her neck protesting she was his wife so much was he seduced by the subtile practizes of the evil spirit The mother having acknowledged the tokens of the deceased fell down with astonishment and coming again to her self she a thousand times kissed one while the ring another while the linnen moistning them with her tears and moving the whole family to sorrow which ran to see this spectacle Then again embracing Machates she signified it would be an infinite favour from heaven to have him for a son in law but that she entreated as a courtesie one comfort he could not deny an afflicted mother which was once again to see her daughter whom she accounted dead The other promised to give her all satisfaction and as Phelenion came secretly according to custom to converse with him he closely sent his lackey to the mother who advertised her husband of it and both of them came into Machates his chamber where they surprized their daughter at which they were so rapt that being not able to utter a word they cast themselves about her neck straightly embracing and with tears bedewing her which fell from their eyes But the daughter with a sad and dejected countenance fetching a deep sigh out of her breast Alas saith she loving father and mother your curiosity will cost you dear for you will lament me the second time Thereupon she fell down dead leaving a horrible stinck in the chamber which filled the whole house with terrour groans and out-cries in such sort that the neighbours came in upon the noise and consequently the whole Citie ran thither to behold the corps The magistrates wondering at an accident so frightfull deputed some Cittizens neerest of kin to open the tomb where the body of Philenion could not be found but a cup a ring she had received from this Gentleman The carrion lying in the fathers chamber was by decree of the Senate thrown on the dunghil the Citie purged and as for Machates he was so overwhelmed with shame and confusion that he slew himself with his own hands Behold what an Authour recounteth onely illuminated by the light of nature who wrote this historie after he had been a spectatour of it of purpose to send a man immediately to the Emperour Hadrian to make a recital thereof unto him as he saith in a letter he directed to a friend of his I might have many things to say upon all circumstances which are not repugnant to that which Ecclesiastical Authours relate concerning other apparitions of the damned But I will not exceed the laws of Historians and it is enough for me here to let you see the belief of the Ancients and the punishment of God upon souls resigned to sin XVIII MAXIM Of Purgatorie THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That death is the remedy of all evils and that the soul separated from the body hath no more to suffer That the soul which hath not in this Ne dogmata de Pâ—râ—atorio pro saâ—â ecclesiae doctrinâ nobis obtrudant Pontificii cavendum est world satisfied Gods justice must pass in the other life through Purgatorie HAve you well considered in Genesis an Genes 2. Angel of fire who with a flaming sword keepeth the gate of terrestrial Paradise placed as an usher of the enterance into the delicious hall which prepared by God to entertain the first man of the world after it had been the theater of his glorie became the scaffold of his punishments Procopius Purgatorie compared to the Cherubins fiery sword observeth that poor Adam at the time of his banishment was placed just over against this Cherubin and that this centinel of the God of hosts no sooner lifted up his curtelaxe but he made a terrour and icie horrour creep into his bones and in that proportion the sparkles flew from the sword of justice fears and affrightments invaded the heart of this offender who being a murderer of his race before he was a progenitour had brought forth a thousand deaths by the sole bite of an apple Alas if the miserable Adam was so astonished at the steel of the Cherubin which dazled his eyes what ought our representments to be what our apprehensions when we think on the flames of purgatory enkindled by the breath of the love and wrath of God So many souls lie there now plunged having heretofore conversed amongst us in mortal abode and we
gate against all hopes and opens it to all despairs Ask of S. John (b) (b) (b) Lacus ira Dei magnus sâ—agnus ignis Apoc. 14. 20. what hell is he will tell you aloud and plainly hell is the great lake of Gods anger It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent And what do the damned there (c) (c) (c) Life of the damned Horreo verutem mordacem mortem vivacem horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis vitae morientis Gulielm Paris de univ p. 1. c. 55. Locus purâ— felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati They burn and smoak On what live they On the gall of dragons What air breath they That of burning coals What stars and lights have they The fire of their torments What nights Of palpable darkness What beds The couches of aspicks and basilisks What language speak they Blasphemies What order have they amongst them Confusion What hope Despair What patience Rage O hell O hell Avant O gnawing worm avant O living death avant death which never dies avant life which daily not dying dies I speak not here of the pain of sense excercised by this pittiless element which worketh upon souls as I have shewed you in the beginning of this discourse I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures gibbets tortures snakes burning pincers and all the instruments of terrours I onely speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God Imagine within your self a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris who in a Treatise he made of the universe pertinently sheweth that as Paradise is the house of all felicity so hell must be the receptacle of all miserie and calamity Now the blessed besides beauty of the glory of their bodies the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God which is the period of their essential felicitie So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournfull incomparably dolorous and according to its nature infinite which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities And what is this object Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire and horrid legions of divels That truly is horrible but that is not yet the top of their supream miserie What is it then I do assure my self you will at first be astonished with what I shall say and will hold it as a paradox but it is undoubted The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intollerable evil and that with just cause Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned and heigth of their notable calamities is light I say light of science and knowledge To understand this you The souls of the damned tormented by their lights Aspectus Christalli terribilis must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts who prepareth to chastise the wicked he representeth him unto us like a hydeous christal mirrour that is to say God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature as of a mirrour of Christal and a terrible light in which and through which it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God and the evil incurred by drenching it self into the sad habitation of the reprobate It seeth how in loosing God it hath lost a good delicious fruitfull infinite everlasting incomprehensible a good for which it was created and formed by the hands of God A good which is meerly and absolutely lost by its infidelity ingratitude wickedness perverse obstinacy in sin A good which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacitie And that which is also more terrible is that as God is replenished with a full and most plentifull felicitie because he hath all his contentments assembled together so the damned soul by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years and hath them all as present in thought From these two lights and two knowledges in the damned soul spring as it were two snakes fastened both to the one and other side of its heart which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juyce and marrow of its substance The holy man Boetius the eye of the Roman Senate Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer c. and ornament of the Church lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is when he saith there needeth neither wheels tortures nor gibbets to punish the wicked He who might onely shew them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash and say unto them behold wretched creatures behold what you have lost by your folly the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible that no keen raisour devouring flames gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment Now I leave you to think if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse what may a damned soul that sees in this hydeous chrystal not for a moment but through all moments of eternity the infinite good it hath lost the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees it self involved Then is it yea perpetually gnawn torn and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause it to break into furies and unprofitable frenzies O Palace of God saith it which I have lost O ugly dens of dragons whereinto I am head-long thrown O brightness of Paradise which shalt be nothing to me O hydeous darkness which shalt eternally be my inheritance O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls with whom I should eternally have lived had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes O infernal countenances of enraged divels which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions O torrent of delights which pourest thy self upon those blessed spirits how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch sulphur and scortching flames enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger O couch of King Solomon how have I given thee away for a bed of coals O God O God whom I have lost and whom I cannot loose I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains O eternity It is then true that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world thou wouldest rather feel these torments than
fearfull maladie 135 His notorious cruelty even in his extreamest sickness ibid. His miserable death ibid. Hermingildus his retreat and conversion 325 His father's letter to him and his to his father 326 He is wickedly betrayed by Goizintha 328 His letter to his wife and his undaunted resolution 330 His death 331 His young son Hermingildus died not long after 332 A notable Observation upon the habit of a High-Priest 93 Hilarion of Costa a reverend Father 388 Hippocrates his desire how to cure the itch of ambition 56 House of the Moth. 25 House of Swallows ibid. A notable Doctrine of Hugo 61 Humility defined 468 Humiliation of Death 350 State of Humilitie 18 All the world teacheth us the lesson of Humilitie 56 The kingdom of Hypocrisie 11 Reasons against Hypocrisie ibid. Baseness of Hypocrisie ibid. Hypocrisie confuted in the great School of the world 42 Hypocrisie condemned by the Law of Heaven ibid. Deformity of Hypocrisie ibid. I JAcques de Vitry his pretty Observation 39 Idleness the business of some Great men 44 Abuse of an Idolatrous spirit 13 Jesus one and the same for Nobles and Plebeians 3 Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ 376 He is the Concurrence of all perfections ibid. Three Excellencies of Jesus in which all other are included ibid. His Sanctity Wisdom and Power 377 Practice of the love of Jesus reduced to three heads ibid. Miracles of the person of Jesus 442 Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit ibid. Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour Jesus ibid. Imitation of Jesus Christ the abridgement of Wisdom 3 Images of Emperours how much reverenced 13 Impietie hath its misery 36 Impietie condemned in the Tribunal of Nature 420 Impietie chastised 451 Against Toleration of Impietie 452 Impuritie of life ariseth from three sources 85 Reasons against Inconstancie 40 Inconstancie of men 236 Indegondis transporteth the Catholick Faith into Spain 323 The persecutions of Indegondis 324 By her mediation there is a Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son 327 The glory and greatness of that man who knows how to suffer Injuries 40 Observation of Isaiah 30. 8 406 Belief of Judgement most general 430 Judea in what condition before Herod came to the Crown 89 The causes of the corruption of Julian 373 The School of Julian ibid. How he became depraved 374 He is a Christian for policie and an Infidel in soul ibid. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls ibid. His subtility to invade the Empire ibid. His Embassage ibid. His remarkable punishment ibid. He had ill success with the qualities that Machiavel furnished him with 260 Jupiter painting goats in the Clouds what it meaneth 14 Justina an Arian requireth a Church in Milan 206 Justice and Mercy the two Arms of God 22 Necessity of Justice with its acts 89 Justice without favour very remarkable ibid. Justice of Belizarius and Aurelianus 226 Justice defined 468 K KNowledge of good and evil doth make the sin more foul 23 Knowledge of ones self very hard 69 No certain Knowledge of four things 440 L LAcedaemonians practice 381 LAdies excellent in pietie 388 Sordid Liberalitie of Emmanuel Comenus 91 Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines 449 Arrogancy of Libertinism 450 The Table of Philo of the manners of Libertines ibid. Punishment of God upon Libertines ibid. Evil of a sleight Lie 145 Lying the key of vice 469 A Life led by opinion is ridiculous 8 Condition of this Life well described 65 Man must lead a Pilgrims Life in this world 72 Our Life is a Musick-book 84 Four sorts of Life 137 Opinion of the other Life 403 Life and Death the two poles of the World ibid. Divers kinds of Life ibid. Life was given to Cain for a punishment 414 Disturbances of Life 435 Divers wayes of humane Life according to Saint Gregorie ibid. The choice of conditions of Life is hazardous ibid. Miseries of this present Life 436 Of the Lilie with six leaves 72 Divers kinds of Love 228 229 Love turned into rage 244 The baseness of Love 375 Love of invisible things most penetrating ibid. Worldly Lovers being converted are the most servent in the Love of God illustrated by a comparison 379 Excellency of Love 399 Division of Love ibid. There is a possibility in man to love his enemies ibid. Effects of the Love of enemies in the Law of Nature 400 Loyalty of a wife to her husband 352 Lust ruineth Empires 154 Lust is a fire that burneth the garment of the soul 182 Luxurie the sin of the heel 195 Lycinius his condition 242 His end 242 Lycurgus his greatness 3 M MAgnanimitie 468 MAn a Stage-player upon the Theatre of the world 12 Three sorts of Man in every man 61 Character of the carnal and spiritual Man ibid. Of the nature and dignity of man what he hath been what he is and what he shall be 64 Man hath more non-essence than essence 350 Mans ingratitude towards God 346 Mutability of men ibid. Miseries of an indebted man 352 It is dangerous to disoblige pious and learned Men. 379 Diversitie of Men. 413 Monument of the Empress Marie 418 Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass 74 Mass a sacrifice ibid. Instructions for the Married 96 Mariamne's accusation and pitifull death 124 Martianus of whom a marvellous accident 150 His good success ibid. A great Massacre at Thessalonica 214 Maxims very dangerous used by Hereticks 183 Maxentius acteth a strange Tragedie 240 He is defeated by Constantine 241 Maximian the Baloon of Fortune 239 A remarkable speech of Maximus 79 Maximus overthrown and put to death 209 210 Meditation its definition 75 Necessity and easiness of Meditation ibid. What you must understand to Meditate well ibid. Practice and Form of Meditation consisteth in six-things 76 Seven ways to dilate ones self in Meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts ibid. Modestie important 87 Modestie of a son of S. Lewis 418 Modestie defined 468 The actions of Modestie ibid. Marvellous contempt of money 227 Monica the mother of S. Augustine her qualities 193 Her death 198 A singular saying of Sir Thomas Moor. 90 Mother of Macchabees persecuted 348 N NAtures evils 355 NAtures voice 370 Nature delighteth in contrarieties 412 Nature the price of time 43 Nebucadnezzar nursed by a Goat 16 Nero his folly 12 Notable action of Noah 414 Nobility the first gift of God 4 Nobility not tied to bloud ibid. Against such as betray their Nobility 5 Nobility of Noah wherein ibid. Nobility of Eleazar and his excellent speech ibid. Priviledges of Nobility 8 Noble-men why ill educated 16 Nobility very much corrupted 17 Noble-mens particular obligation 20 Noble-men examples of great importance in the world 21 Noble-men appeal from the sentence of Labour 51 Disorders in corrupt Nobility 218 219 Novelty in Religion dangerous 31 Novelty ever suspected by the Wise 32 O OAths of Magistrates 90 OBedience defined 468 The qualities of an Officer 272 Onocratalus his instinct 417 Souls in the torrent of Opinion 37
de concent l. 38. I were created to live free from all worldly contrarieties I who commit so many fins on the other part will to day do an act of virtue in honour of my Master and in despite of passion Let us go to heaven by love since we cannot go thither by sufferings This is the true gate by which we enter into the sanctuary eternally to enjoy the sight of the inaccessible beauties of the holy and regall Trinity Hear you not the God of peace who saith to us If thou O unhappy soul wilt still persist in Hatred I pronounce unto thee the six punishments of Cain Banishment from the sight of God fear stupidity of mind the life of a beast the malediction of the earth and as Procopius addeth persecuting Angels armed with swords of fire who shall pursue thee like spectres and spirits in all places and shall make themselves visible and dreadfull to thee at the last day of thy life Behold here deservedly thy inheritance since being mortall thou makest thy enemies immortall and dost still persecute the afflicted widow and her children who are become orphans after the death of a husband and a father whom thou hatest The strongest enmities oft-times are appeased at the sight of a dead body and a tomb which we find exemplified in Josephus for Alexander was extremely hated by the Jews as having reigned over them with a rod of Iron But when death had closed up his eyes and that the Queen his wife most sorrowfully presented Joseph l. 3. c. 23. A notable example to appease hatred her self accompanied by two young children and exposed the body of her husband saying aloud Sirs I am not ignorant that my husband hath most unworthily used you but see to what death hath brought him if you be not satisfied tear his body in pieces and satisfie your own revenge but pardon a deplorable widow and her little innocent orphans who implore your mercy The most salvage spirits were so softned by this act that all their hatred turned into pity yet you Barbarian still persist to hate a man after his death to persecute him in a part of himself to tear him in pieces in his living members O good God if you renounce not this revenge you will be used like Cain as an enemy of mankind and a hang-man of Nature O flame O love O God! As thou art dispersed throughout us by love so banish all these cursed Hatreds of Hell and make us love all in thy goodnesse to possesse all in thy fruition § 6 Of the profit may be drawn from Hatred and the course we must hold to be freed from the Danger of being Hated THere now remains to consider here what profit may be derived from hatred and with what Oeconomy Utility of hatred it may be husbanded to render it in some sort profitable and in case it be hurtfull to prevent its assaults and sweeten its acerbities If the industry of men found out the way to make preservitives out of the most dangerous poysons why should it be impossible for us to make some notable utilities to arise out of a passion which seems not to be created but for the dammage and ruine of all things yet it is certain that Nature which never is idle in its productions hath given it us for a great good For it may serve love well rectified in its pretentions it furnisheth it with centinels and light-horse to hinder that which opposeth its inclination and to ruine all contrarieties banded against its contentments How often would Nature throw it self out of stupidity into uncertain dangers and most certain mischiefs were it not that naturall a version did awaken it did avert it from its misery and insensibly shew it the place of repose Is it not a wholesome Hatred to hate Pride Ryot Ambition and all ill Habits Is it not a reasonable Hatred discreetly to fly from maladies crosses incommodities which hurt the body and nothing advantage the mind This passion which in the beginning seemed so hideous teacheth us all this When it is well managed it conspireth against others by an according Discord to the lovely Harmony of totall Nature One may say there is happinesse and advantage to hate many things but what profit can one find in passive Hatred which makes a man many times to be hated and ill wished without cause or any demerit To that I answer with Saint Ambrose that it is That it is good to be honestly loved good to avoid such a kind of Hatred that it is fit to make ones self to be beloved with all honour by good men and to gain as much as possible the good opinion of all the world thereby to render glory to God as Rivers carry their tribute to the Ocean A publick Bonum est testimonium habere de multorum dilectione hinc nascitur fides ut committere se tuo affectul non vereatut alienus quem charum advertit pluribus Ambr. l. 2. offic c. 7. Means to gain the good will of the publick person who is in the employments and commerce of the great world may have all the treasures of the Indies and all the dignities of old Rome but if he have not the love and good-will of men I account him most indigent and poor Thence it is that confidence taketh beginning without which there is no fortune maketh any notable progression nor affair which can have such successe as might be expected It is infinitely profitable for great men that they may divert the Hatred of the people to have innocency of life greatnesse without contempt of inferiours revenues without injustice riches without avarice pleasures without ryot liberty without tyranny and splendour without rapine All the rich who live in the society of men as Pikes called the tyrants of rivers in the company of other fishes to ruine devour and fatten themselves with the bloud of the commons are ordinarily most odious but as there is a certain fish which Elians History calleth the Adonis of the Sea because Adonis an admirable fish Aelian l. 9. c. 16. de animal it liveth so innocently that it toucheth no living thing strictly preserving peace with all the off-spring of the sea which is the cause it is beloved and courted as the true darling of waters so we find in the world men of honour and estate who came to eminent fortunes by pure and innocent wayes wherein they demeaned themselves with much maturity sweetnesse and affability which put them into the possession of the good opinion of all the world But those who are hated ought diligently and carefully to consider from whence this hatred proceedeth and by what wayes it is fomented that fit remedies may thereunto be applyed There is a hatred which cometh from equals another How hatred is to be diverted from inferiours a third from great ones and sometimes from powerfull and subtile women which is little to be feared That which proceedeth
which draw thence all thy vitall humour and make thee have a life which hath nothing lesse then life in it Temerarious soul who hast dared to think that forsaking thy Creatour thou elsewhere shouldst find a better match Go and see the obstacles which daily meet with those who hunt after honours favours and worldly wealth Go go behold and thou shalt see a thousand fishes swim in a pond after a rotten worm How many battails must thou wage how many sweats of death must thou sweat how many iron-gates must thou break through to content one onely of thy desires O how often will the Heavens and the Elements conspire against thy affections which thou so unworthily so disastrously hast placed O what bloudy sorrows at thy death when God shall draw aside the curtain of the city of peace and shall shew thee an infinite number of souls in the bosome of Beatitude for having well disposed their Desires and on the other side burning coals to expiate affections ill managed O what horrour what terrour and what despair if the Angels come and say with a voyce of thunder Foris Apoc. 22. 15 Canes and that we must wander up and down in affection with a hunger everlastingly enraged after a good we so many times have despised O Jesus the desire of Eternall mountains draw to thee all my desires since thou art the Adamant Jesus the love of all faithfull souls take all my affections since thou art the Centre of all hearts Jesus the Joy and Crown of all the Elect stay my floating hopes since thou art the haven of hearts stretch out an assisting hand to so many errours and set me in a place where I may desire nothing but let it be such a place wherein I may love that which is infinitely amiable The fourth Treatise Of AVERSION § 1. The Nature and Qualities thereof AVersion is a passion apprehensive disdainfull The essence and nature of Aversion of distastes which is shut up as a snail in its shell and hath no inclination to any thing in the world Covetousnesse presenteth it many objects to see if it can snare it with a bait but it doth nothing but fly away and turn the face to the other side and albeit it seems not to desire ought of all is offered unto it it neverthelesse coveteth good but goes towards it by by-paths and flight from all that which seems opposite to its felicity Well to understand the nature of this Passion we How Aversion is formed must know that as in motions of affections there is first made in the soul a love wholly simple which is an inclination and a complacence towards some object from thence Desire is created by which we consider the same object not onely as good and convenient but as a thing absent and out of us which we must endeavour to have and to bring within our power But if we have the good hap to possesse it from thence joy ariseth which is a perfect complacence raised upon the possession of the thing desired Likewise in passions which resist and oppose our heart first a simple hatred is created which onely importeth an Antipathy and a certain dissenting from the object which the understanding proposeth to the will as disagreeable or hurtfull Thence we come to consider this object either as farre distant and hard to be avoided and then Fear laies hold of our heart or we behold it more near at hand and very easie to be repelled being wholly unable to make any great or strong impressions upon us as Fear doth and then it is properly called Aversion but if the evil happen to be present it is a vexation and a trouble and when it is past there remains a horrour which we call Detestation We may say this passion which is disgusted withall The character and true image of a spirit subject to Aversion hath nothing so distastefull as it self There you behold a soul oppressed still apprehensive still retired and ever harsh and as nothing pleaseth it so easily it displeaseth all the world If there be cause to name one he will never call him by his name but will say of whom speak you of that wretch of that sluggard of that miser of that ignorant fellow Or if he hath some deformity of body of that crooked piece that crump-shoulder of that unfortunate caitiffe who is much duller then a winters-day or the snows of Scythia If a Book be to be censured there is nothing worth ought in it they are discourses and words ill placed If merchandize be to be bought the shop and store-houses of a merchant shall be turned over and over and nothing found that gives contentment If he be in his own house he makes himself insupportable to his domesticks this garment is ill made this chamber ill furnished this bed too hard these dishes unsavoury the wind at a door the creaking of a casement the crying of a child the barking of a dog all is troublesome to him If a man of this condition be to be married there is not a maid in the world worthy of him he must have one framed out of his own rib as God did for the first Man or suffer him to raise his love in imitation of Endymion and Caligula up to the sphere of the Moon But most especially women Humour of coy women of this humour are extremely troublesome They have no small businesse to do who are to find them out maid-servants and nurses this is too rusticall she hath nothing amiable in her eye she speaks too big her body is not slender enough the other is a piece of flesh not worth ought needs must she be perpetually upon change and out of too much curiosity to meet with a good service be the worst served of any woman in the world Behold one distasted with professions conditions and offices all displeaseth him Shall he become a Church-man that seems a slavery to him Shall he betake him to a sword It is hazardous To an office It costs too much To traffick Little is to be gotten To a Trade He cannot find a good one Lastly it troubleth him to be a man and would gladly entertain the invention of Ovids Metamorphosis to be transformed into some other kind of Creature There are young wenches who have much a-do with themselves Shall they marry There is not any match likes them this man is unhandsome that other is but simple this man too way-ward that too melancholly one too wild another hath not living enough nor that other good alliance an Angel must be fetched out of heaven to marry them In the mean time some amorist learneth to dance his cinque-pace and to powder and frizzle himself to please this coy piece whom nothing contenteth but her own distastes If one the other side this creature looks towards Religion she will multiply her paces and visits and will run over all the Monasteries and find none to content her one is
be for our advantage There are who escape out of prison by fire others who are faln into precipices very gently and have in the bottome found their liberty others to whom poysons are turned into nutriment others to whom blows of a sword have broken impostumes so true it is that the seeds of good hap are sometimes hidden under the apparances of ill Besides this give your self the leisure to find out the To take things at the worst whole latitude of the evill which strikes you Take if you think good all things at the worst and handle your self as an enemy yet you shall find that this evil is not so bad as it is said that many have gone that way before you and that if God permit it he will give you strength to bear it The fear it self which is the worst of our evils is not so great a torment since it affordeth us precaution industry and fit means and suggesteth us wayes to fear no more If you never have experienced evil you have much to complain that you so little have been a man and if you have some experience of the time past it will much serve you to sweeten the apprehension of the evils to come Vanquish your own conceits as much as you can and pray them not to present unto you under so hideous a mask those pains which women and children have many times laughed at If you in the beginning feel any horrour and the first rebellions of nature lose not courage for Fiducia pallens Statius Theb. Rodericus Toletanus rerum Hisp l. 5. c. 23. all that since the Poet painted Boldnesse with a pale visage We have often seen great Captains as Garcias to quake in the beginning of dangerous battels because their flesh as they said laid hold of their courage and carried the imagination into the most hideous perils Lastly be it how it will be you shall find the remedy of your fears in the presence of that which you fear since there are some who in the irresolution of some affair do endure a thousand evils and so soon as the determination thereof succeedeth though to their prejudice they fell themselves much more lightned Many prisoners who stand on thorns in prison expecting the issue of their triall go very resolute to execution seeing it is better to die once then to live still in the apprehension of death David shook with fear Reg 2. 12. wept and fasted lay on the ground for the sicknesse of his young son But after the death was denounced him he rose up from the earth changed his habit washed and perfumed himself then having worshipped in the house of God he asked for his dinner and first of all comforted Bathsheba upon this accident whereat his houshold-servants were amazed But he taught them we must not afflict our selves for those things whereof there is no remedy I conclude with the last kind of fear which comes from things very extraordinary as are Comets Armies of fire Prodigies in the Heavens and the Air Thunders Lightnings Monsters Inundations Fires Earthquakes Spirits Spectres Devils and Hell Good God! what terrour is there in this miserable life since besides these which are so ordinary with us we must expect other from places so high and so low But howsoever we notwithstanding do find courages which surmount them with the assistance of God although it do not ordinarily happen without some impressions of fear otherwise we must be far engaged in stupidity Comets Eclipses flying fires and so many other Meteors do not now-a-dayes so much affright since we have discovered the causes which is a powerfull proof that ignorance in many occasions makes up a great part of our torments Pericles strook Stratagem of Pericles Polyaenus l. 3. a fire-steel in an assembly of his Captains and Souldiers who were astonished at a thunder and lightning happened in the instant of a battel shewing that what the heavens did was that he was doing before their eyes which marvellously satisfied them Superstition makes a thousand fantasies to be feared whereat we might laugh with a little wisdome The Euseb l. 1. de praeparat Evang. c. 7. Egyptians were half dead when the figure of a huge dragon which sometimes of the year was shewed them did not seem to look well on them and the Romans fell in their Courage when the Cocks which governed their battels did not feed to their liking Hecataeus Hecataeus apud Cunaeum l. 2. de Rep. Hebraeorum an antient Historian telleth that Alexanders whole army stood still to look on a bird from whence the Augur went about to derive some presage which being seen by a Jew named Mosellan he drew an arrow out of his quiver and kill'd it mocking at the Grecians who expected their destiny from a creature which so little knew its own As we laugh at this present at these fopperies so we should entertain with scorn so many dreams and superstitious observations which trouble them enough who make account of them Wild beasts inundation of rivers productions of mountains big with flames sulphur and stonas are other causes of terrour nor hath there ever been seen any more hideous then that which happened these late years in Italy in the last fiering of Mount Vesuvius The burning of Vesuvius in the year 1631. Julius Recupitus which is excellently described by F. Julius Recupitus Then it there can be nothing seen more able to excite terrour unlesse in an instant the bottome of Hell were laid open and all the hideous aspects of the torments of the damned Yet it is a strange thing how among waves of fire which ran on all sides clouds of Ashes which appeared like vast mountains continuall Earthquakes countrebuffs of Hillocks and of houses of Abysses of Gulphs and of Chaoses there were people to be found who yet thought upon their purses and took the way towards their houses to lay hold of their slender substances which makes us see that there is nothing so horrid where the soul of man returned to it self findeth not some leisure to breathe The monsters of the Roman Amphitheatre which in the beginning made the most hardy to quake were in the end despised by women who were hired to combat with them Things not seen which it seems should most trouble the mind because they are most hidden are also in some sort surmounted since we read how that many great Anchorets lay in Church-yards infested with ghosts and spectres and about solitudes in forrests and wildernesses the most retired in the midst of so many illusions of evill spirits as it is written in the Acts of Saint Anthony S. Hilarion and S. Macarius There is nothing but the day of Judgement Hell and the punishments of the damned we should reasonably fear and not out of visionary scruples to free us from all fear § 4. That the Contemplation of the power and Bounty of God ought to take away all our fears BUt if these reason
of devils to draw life drop after drop out of a miserable body But not speaking at this present of these extremities of Cruelty which arise out of Hell it is evident that the Hardnesse of heart and the harshnesse of a nature devoid of Compassion is a monster in humane nature All great souls have I know not what tincture of good nesse which rendreth them pliant to the afflictions of such as suffer It is a feeling which God hath poured into the masse of mankind and which he would have communicated by the prime men of the world to all posterity The tradition of the Hebrews holdeth that the Mildnesse of the first men Patriarch Noah recommendeth mildnesse even among beasts accounting it a capitall crime to tear off a member of a living beast And the most sage common-wealths Fab. Quintilian l 5. cap. 9. have walked in the same wayes since that of Athens condemned to death a young child who took delight to prick out the eyes of crows and having made them blind let them fly for his pastime It judged this heart was base and bloudy and practised its first apprentiship of crueltie upon birds to exercise it one day upon men The Carthaginians publickly condemned Plin. l. 8. c. 16. a very industrious Citizen for no other cause but for having made a lion tractable supposing that a man who had so great conversation among wild beasts would lose all he had humane in him and put on the manners of a tyrant What can those answer to this call of Nature who are ashamed to compassionate their neighbours seeing pity extends it self even to beasts They fear that by shewing compassion it may be thought their courage thereby is greatly effeminate and see not that to seem valiant they cease to be men Conquerours have wept over their Laurels as yet Compassion of great courages all verdant blaming the just rigour of their arms albeit they could not hate the glory Marcellus desired to quench the coals of the city Syracusa with his tears Titus seeing the city of Jerusalem all covered with dead bodies found his heart much softned therewith protesting it was an act of Heaven and not an effect of his own disposition There is some touch of Divinity in good natures and God hath alwayes been pleased that they who nearest approach to him should be the most humane The first Images of the Saviour of the world were ordinarily painted in the form of a Lamb and it was likewise a Lamb of God which represented him in Great Constantine's Font and which poured forth the water of Baptism to shew us that the fountains of his Bounty ran throughout the whole Church The holy Ghost hath never been seen Concil 6. in Teul can 82 Damasus in Pontifieibus qui est potius Anastafius Bibliothecarius in the form of an Eagle or of a Hawk but of a Dove to stamp on our manners the impressions of his bounty It is an insupportable thing when there is observed even among those who approach nearest to Altars and who consecrate the Lamb of God in their hands some to be of imperious spirits and wills inflexible who torment poor subjects and make them groan under Non dominantes in Cleris sed forma facti◠gregis ex animo 1 Pet. 5. 3. their Commands They resemble Semiramis who on her Banners bare a Dove which in its beak held a bloudy sword as meaning to say that under a vvomans face she had the courage and stem violence of tyrants So their name theircharacter and degree testifieth Revertamur ad populum nostrum à facie gladii columbae Hier. 46. 16 nought but mildnesse but their manners are full of rigour and acerbity which wound hearts even to bloud This happeneth to many out of a certain stupidity in such sort that it seems they entering into office at that instant drink of the water of forgetfulnesse which Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiasticall Its causes and differences in them blotteth out the memory of all they were to become that which they ought never to be They forget their inferiours are men who put their precious liberty to wit a good inestimable into their hands as a pledge and that they must very skilfully handle them there being not a creature in all nature more tender or more sensible then the King of creatures They consider not that the power of one man over another is a thing which is alwayes somewhat suspected by nature on what side soever it come and that it must be practised insensibly so that the flesh be rather cast into a slumber then irritated To others it comes from a most refined pride which being under the subjection of a superiour kept it self close in the interiour of the soul a serpent enchanted and fast asleep but so soon as he sees himself armed with a sword of authority he cuts with both edges not sparing any one as if the great mystery of making a dignity valuable were to encompasse it with all the ensignes of terrour Some are not Porta in Chao of a bad nature and do resemble the sea which is not by nature salt but the sunne stirreth up unto it vapours cold dry and terrestriall which being burnt by heat spread themselves on the superficies of the water and cause saltnesse so these lights of authority which environ a man raise smokes in him which being not wel tempered by prudence leave a bitter impression on manners communicating some haughtinesse to words and conversation It is gotten in others by a long assiduity of superiority which is the cause that beholding themselves perpetually with a head of gold and a breast of silver they consider not that being in some sort like to Nabuchodonozors statue they yet have feet of clay Others come thereunto by an indiscreet zeal and out of small experience of humane things who are no sooner raised unto some degree but they talk of reformation of correction of chastisements and to see them you would say they were so many Archimedes who seek for a place out of the world to set foot in of purpose to turn the world to psie-turvey Their power is not alwayes answerable to their purpose which makes them sad and dejected in their courage causing them to fall back to the other extremity from whence it cometh that they are one while harsh and another time gentle and by inequality in their manners thrust all into disorder That is it which Saint Gregory the great observed Gregor M. in epist ola ad Utbicum in Abbot Vrbicus saying that his Monastery was in distemper because he made himself unequall one while flattering some and another while reprehending the rest with immeasurable anger Lastly there are others who have a very good conscience and whose manners are rigid and they be not imprudent but they have such a desire to frame the whole world to their humour that out of the assiduity of their admonitions
habit of penance with which he was put into the hands of the Guard and a few dayes after led along in Lotharius his train All Histories mourn in the horrour of this narration and there is not any who in his thoughts condemns not the Authours of this attempt But this good King being re established by the endeavour of his best Subjects did never pursue his injuries witnessing in all occasions an extream facility to be reconciled to his children and when afterward he was upon the point of death he rallyed together all he had of life spirits and strength to forgive them asked of God that he would not take vengeance upon their crimes This was to fulfil the whole law and to do at the Court all that which the most perfectly religious can perform in a Cloister 18. I will yet tell you for a conclusion that there are certain industries which they who are near great ones may use to appease their Anger and to divert the pernicious effects by some delay which is the best Counsellour Argentre this furious passion can have This is to be seen in the course that Bavalon took Addresse of Bavalon to appease that anger of the Duke of Brittaign with the Duke of Brittaigne The Prince being offended with the Count of Clisson Constable of France resolved to take him in a snare and undo him To compasse this enterprise he made a great feast whereto he invited all the principall Lords of Brittaigne courting Clisson with incomparable courtesie After all he let him see his Castle of Lermine where leading him from story to story and from chamber to chamber he brought him to the chief Turret praying him to consider the fortifications to reform the defects whilst he spake a word to Seigneur Laval brother in law to Clisson He no sooner entred in but he saw himself arrested by the Guard and put into irons with commandment given to Mounsieur Bavalon Captain of the Castle to throw him the next night in a sack into the water Bavalon who perceived his Master was very quick and thought that night might give him better counsel resolved to do nothing In the mean time solitude and darknesse having recollected the Dukes spirits together which had all day been scattered by the tempest of passion he found his heart infinitely ballanced between the satisfaction of revenge and the apprehension of inevitable dangers which would wait on it imagining the shadow of the Constable already drowned as he thought would draw fire bloud and havock upon his desolated Countrey The hideous visions which already pitched battell in his distempered brain the displayed Ensignes and Armies heaped together from all parts drew deep sighs from him which were observed by the gentlemen of his chamber Bavalon about break of day comes into his chamber and being asked concerning the secret execution of his command he answered It is done loth to open any more untill he could clearly look into his masters mind The Duke upon this word beginneth his sobbs again with beating his hands which testified great despair in him But he insisting and many times demanding whether Clisson were drowned The Captain replyed He was and that he about mid-night had buried the body fearing it might be discovered Then began the Prince afresh to curse and to abhorre his own anger which had transported him to this out-rage and said Would to God Bavalon I had believed thee when thou didst counsel me to do nothing or that thou hadst not believed me when I so passionately commanded thee His trusty servant seeing he spake in good earnest and that it was time to declare himself assured him Clisson was alive and that he had deferred his commandment out of this consideration that if he persisted in the same mind he should alwayes have means enough to execute him The Duke rapt with this prudence embraced him and gave him a thousand florins for finding out so excellent a remedy for his Passion Observations upon ENVY Which draweth along with it Iealousie Hatred and Sadnesse WE enter into black and Saturnian Passions which are Envie Jealousie Fear Sadnesse and Despair wherein we shall observe a venemous malignity which replenisheth the heart with plagues the life with furies and the world with Tragedies I will begin this order with two Court-Monks who in their time made a great noyse one of which being born for cruelty and bred in massacres his life was a continuall crime and his memory a perpetually execration But the other profiting by the experience of his evils Lamentable envy and enmity of Ebroin against S. Leger opened himself a way unto glory and drew upon him the blessings of posterity Under the reign of Clotharius the third Ebroin governed the State in the quality of the Major of the Palace who was of a spirit ambitious cruell and subtle valuing nothing above his own ends and placing conscience under all things in the world He entred into this charge like a Fox and swayed therein like a Lion doing nought else but roar against some and devour others there being no power able enough to bend his pride as if there were not riches enough in all the world to satisfie his avarice God who often-times suffereth not things violent to be long-lasting gave an end to his tyranny by the death of his Master whose reign was short and life most obscure He left two sons the eldest of which bare the name of Childeric and the youngest was called Thierry Ebroin seeing himself like creeping Ivie which seeks a pillar for support not to stand fair in Childerics mind whether this Prince were too clear sighted to discover his jugglings or whether under the reign of his Father he had otherwise used him then his condition deserved it made him arrogantly to adhere to Thierries faction thinking he had power and credit enough to make an alteration both in nature and State-affairs He then raiseth a controversie in a matter which was sufficiently decided by birth and assembleth the Estates to deliberate upon it where there were so many creatures whom he accounted to be obliged to follow his liking that the palm of so doubtfull a battell seemed to him already absolutely gained There was then in France one Leger a man of great birth of an excellent spirit of an eminent virtue accompanied with grace of body and other parts which made him fit for the Court. His Uncle who was a great Prelate had very nobly bred him giving him admittance into the Palace and his affairs but the sweetnesse of his nature not born for much trouble made him addict himself to the Church and become a religious man but was afterward taken out of his Monastery to be Bishop of Autun His degree and merit then obliged him to be present at this Assembly where it was treated of making a new King and seeing Ebroin insolently supported the younger to the prejudice of Nature and the laws of the Kingdome he undertook to
them with all the inventions of their Nation for to surprize him there was one that would gain him to her another that would keep him another that would draw him from one sin to another even unto the bottome of hell It is farre more easie to become a fool with a woman then to make her wise he had endeavoured perhaps to covert them to his Religion but they perverted him and drew him to theirs He took their loves and afterward He is perverted in Religion their behaviour and at last their Superstition Every one of these women would bring her God into esteem and thought not her self to have any credit in her love if she did not make her false Deity to partake thereof they made such Gods as had no honester Title then the sinnes of debauched women As soon as he had made an Idol for one he must do the like for another all there went by the Emulation of their brains weak in reason and ardent in their passions They reckon about six Temples built round about Jerusalem to the Gods of six principall Nations But it was not sufficient to make these Gods they must be adored and presented with Sacrifices and Incense to content his Loves And he did not all this in shews onely nor dissimulation but his heart as the Scripture saith was wholly turned aside from the true God and fell as S. Austin saith into the depth of the gulf of Idolatry What might the admirers of his great Temple have said or rather the true worshippers of the great God What discourse might so many Kings and Queens have held that had had in so high esteem the wisdome of Solomon The report of his Loves and his Superstitions ran throughout all Kingdomes as a story unheard of which caused laughter enough to wicked ones as tears to good people and astonishment to the whole world How art thou faln from heaven O fair starre of the The dissipation of his estate morning Thou faithfull fore-runner of the King of Lamps which wert adorned with the purest and most innocent flames of the firmament who hath made thee to become a coal and who could bury thy lights in a dung-hill This lamentable King lost that great wisdome that made him esteemed over the whole world and became stupid leaving the care of all the affairs of his Kingdome All those great riches were exhausted and cast as it were into the gulf of Luxury He began to over-charge his people to maintain his infamous pleasures which made all their minds revolt against him The Prophets and Priests could not relish with him by reason of his changing Religion All the understanding Nobility did abhorre him seeing him so plunged in his filth The Commons desired nothing but to shake off the yoke that they could no longer bear God raised him up Rebellions on every side which prepared themselves â—â— overthrow his Empire But no man took it so much to heart as Jeroboam an able and subtil man whom he had advanced and employed in gatheâ—â—ng his Tributes for him It was he to whom he Prophet Ahaziah gave ten pieces of his garmeâ—t fore-telling him that he should reign over to Tribes of Israel and that was the cause that the King would have put him to death but he fled â—nto Egypt and returned under weak Rehoboam thâ— successour of Solomon who despising the counsels of the Antients that exhorted him to give his people content trusted to that of the young ones without brains which perswaded him to hold his own and that the people would not be brought under but by rigour Which made him to be forsaken by ten Tribes at once which cast themselves into the arms of Jeroboam who made a change of Religion and State in Samaria without ever being able either himself or his successours to bring them unto obedience again See here how Kingdomes change their Masters for the sins of lasciviousnesse impiety and oppressions of the people which are then greatly to be feared when despair hath brought them to fear nothing One may ask for a conclusion what became The estate of Solomon in the other world of this wise Solomon Whether he died in his sinne or whether he repented Whether he were saved or damned This is a Common place that hath exercised many excellent pens which have handled this subject curiously and eloquently I love not to do things done already I shall say onely that we may alwayes take the most favourable opinions which can with any likelihood defend themselves in favour of the safety of great persons There are some number of the holy Fathers which speak very openly thereof and perswade themselves that he repented S. Jerome upon the Prophet Ezekiel saith That although the founder of this great Temple sinned yet he was converted to God by a true repentance and for proof hereof he alledges the Book of the Proverbs in the four and twentieth Chapter that saith Novissimè ego egi poenitentiam respexi ut eligerem disciplinam that is At the last I repented and looked back that I might chuse instruction Although these words are not found in our Bible as he also draws them from the Septuagint and to uphold his opinion he will have Solomon to have written the Book of the Proverbs after his fall which is very hard to verifie And elsewhere also the same Authour upon the first Chapter of Ecclesiastes saith That this Book is the repentance of Solomon according to the Hebrews S. Ambrose in the second book of the Apology of David Chap. 3. puts Samson David and Solomon in the number of sinners converted Erraverunt tamen ut homines sed peccata sua tanquam justi agnoverunt Behold here that which is most formall without collecting many ambiguous passages S. Gregory the Great in the second book of his Morals Chap. 2. S. Prosper S. Eucherius Prosp lib. 2. de praedict cap. 27. Solomon clatus in senio fornicatus animo corpore Domiuo ipsum deserente malè obiit and amongst the Modern Tostat Bellarmine and Maldonat condemne him Tertullian Augustine Cyril of Alexandria Gregory Nyssen Isidore Bernard Chrysostome and Rupert leave this question doubtfull and undecided And to say truly this is all which can be said modestly and humanely and also the truestin a matter where there is nothing more certain then incertainty For to say that he hath composed the Book of Ecclesiastes after that he was deprived of his Kingdome and of all the Vanities is a story of the Rabbins which are little to be believed further also this Book is properly a Dialogue of divers men that dispute one against the other and bring forth good and bad sentences although the Authour of the Book doth take the good part To say that which Bonaventure saith That not one of the sacred Authours was damned if it be true the reason is because they lived well and not because they have written well For the kingdome of God saith
to go to the conquest of an Empire accompanied onely with eight persons He failed not upon the way to write to the Senate of Rome making great excuses for his so sudden a departure renewing the offers of his services and the oaths of his fidelity with a protestation that he went not to trouble his Nephew but to oppose Lysias that was an insolent fellow and would bring under the subjection of his tyranny both the King and Kingdome he forgat not to charge him with the murder of Octavius a Roman Embassadour that had been newly slain adding that he would become the revenger of so cowardly a treachery The Romans seemed neither to be astonished nor angry at his going but attended the succsse of his affairs to make him answer He quickly got as farre as the city of Tyre and sent secretly Diodorus into Antioch to hear the reports and sound the spirits of men which he found very much disposed to a change Whereupon Demetrius declar'd himself and took the Diadem with a generall applause of the Tyrians that made a great faction for him Lysias with his Eupator found himself much surprised at the news and deliberated a long time whether he should go out of that narrow passage to meet and fight with him or intrench himself in the city of Antioch or expect him with sure footing This last advice seemed the more secure but it was lesse glorious suddenly to shut himself up upon the first brute of a sedition and as a fearfull creature to run into his hole to hide himself It was represented to him That the sovereign remedy against those tumults was to flie speedily to them whereas delay would serve for nothing but to augment the boldnesse of the insolent that ordinarily they were very much amated when they were set upon with vigour before their conspiracy was settled that many that were yet but half engaged would retire from them at the least rumour that the Majesty of Kings bore something of great and sacred that astonished the Rebels In fine that it appertained to the dignity of so high a Prince and to the prudence of a Minister of State to endure nothing base but to put themselves suddenly into the field to defend their honour and their Kingdome which are two things whose losse is irrecoverable Those that desired most the ruine of Lysias were the first to flatter him concerning Courage and Generosity wishing nothing more then to see him in the field This made him go out of Antioch to go meet Demetrius But he that had seen himself so well accompanied in prosperity found himself almost all alone in danger for he was betrayed and sold by his own souldiers who seized upon the young King and him to deliver them to Demetrius who was yet in a great uncertainty of successe and said to those that had elected him Companions I am your work and the question of my life of your honour of your goods and of all that a mortall man can fear or hope for is this day to be decided If ye persist in the good will ye bear to me I esteem my self sufficiently and sufficiently rich The Sceptre is nothing to me in comparison of the approbation of your judgements and of your choice which ought now to be verified by your courage and by your arms We march under the favour of the Gods of the Roman Empire against a tyrant that hath possessed himself of that young Prince and of the Crown to assassinate the one and rob the other It is time either to defend Justice by our bloud or to conquer the Empire by our sweat As he was upon these discourses the news came wholly to him that Lysias had been apprehended with his pupil by the consent of all the Legions and they were to be brought to him prisoners This grand word gave him joy mingled with some doubt which made him meditate how he should use his fortune He shewed that he had a very great sense of the honour that had been bestowed upon him but he desired not to see Lysias nor his Nephew as the Scripture assure us whether it was that his heart was mollified with some tendernesse by the compassion of his bloud or whether it was a wile of a Politician who would not seem to do that which he procured to be done that he might have lesse blame in that action and that he might the more easily justifie himself to the Roman Senate about the death of the young King The souldiers finished that which he had begun slew Lysias and laid their bloudy hands upon the person of poor Eupator without having any regard either to the innocency of his life or to the tendernesse of his age or to the character that he bore so true it is that ambition is filled with a contageous venome that spares nothing for the satiating of it self Demetrius saw himself King by a generall consent of all the orders of the Realm and had no more any thing to sear unlesse it was from the Romans the disstributers of Empires and of Glories And therefore he employed all his cares to appease them by great submissions and reasons that made them plainly see that it was more for the interest of their State to preserve then to destroy him He sent them for this purpose a solemne Embassage with great presents and and above all a Crown of an high price for a mark that he submitted his Royall dignity to their discretion Further yet to testifie how he embraced their loves and their revenges he caused Leptines and Isocrates the Gramarian to be put in chains that were accused to have had an hand in the murdering of Octavius their Embassadour and sent them away to Rome to receive the sentence of the Senate The Roman relished well all those references and confirmed the new King in his pretensions upon the protestations that he made that he was not stained with his Nephews bloud whom he said to have been taken away by the misfortune of a Sedition raised against him without having any means to save himself and if he had not made a search after the crime he excused himself by the generality of the culpable as being a thing ordinary enough that sins that have an infinite multitude of complices have not any punishment He was no sooner upon the Throne but he saw himself involved by mishap in a warre against the Maccabees Alcimus that was a disloyall Jew and a traitour to his Nation pricked forward by the ambition of the Pontificate and jealous even to rage of the great progresses of Judas failed not to prepossesse the spirit of the King who was a man of an easie belief to make black his adversary by most horrible calumnies and to interest all the Kingdomes of Syria to his ruine This forger of warres and battles obtain'd all that he did desire by detestable artifices and caused armies to go to the ruine and desolation of his Countrey Judas Maccabeus upon
at the party that was made against him withdrew himself to the K. of Parthia to desire assistance of him where it hapned that by the calumny of his enemies he was clapt up in an honourable prison as if he had come to make an attempt upon the Kingdome of his neighbour His spirit that was alwayes wanton made love even in that captivity and debauched a daughter of that King his host whom he was constrained to wed although he was already married and when he had stoln out of prison he was caught and brought back again to this new wife Tryphon knowing what had befaln him caused his Pupil to be murdered by an execrable cruelty feigning that he had been taken away by a naturall death and took the Diadem professing himself to be the revenger of the Tyrant and the lawfull King of Syria After some time the liberty of the young Demetrius was mediated but his wife Cleopatra that had a crafty and proud spirit vext with the inconstant loves of her husband and wearied with his loosenesse raised up against him puissant enemies that massacred him and some are of opinion that she her self was one of the complices of that attempt and that Demetrius his brother whom she married afterwards was not innocent of it My pen hath horrour at these bloudy tragedies and passes over them as upon burning coals Antiochus Sidetes seeing himself on his brothers Throne eagerly pursued Tryphon and besieged him in the city of Dora where finding himself extremely straightned and out of all hopes of succour he killed himself with his own hand and yet could not deface by his bloud the villanous stain of perfidiousnesse that remained upon him by the death of the young King The Conquerour perceiving himself above his businesses saw that the Maccabees in the troubles of Syria possessed by so many Kings had made great progresses would represse them and made warre against Simon that succeeded his brother Jonathan and who was afterward assassinated at a banquet by Ptolomy his son-in-law The King as 't is thought upholding by his favour that cruel basenesse two of his sonnes were involved in the misery of the father and the murderers were already dispatched to adde to them John Hircan son of the same Simon But he having had intelligence of that first design stood upon his guard and governed Judea the space of more then thirty years with much prudence and happinesse out-living a long time that last Antiochus that was stoned to death as he was going to pillage the Temple of Mannaea Hyrcan had for Successour his son Aristobulus who took the Diadem and resumed the name of King among the Jews after a long discontinuation which hapned an hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord. Those of his race failed not to continue the Regall Dignity in their house till that Hyrcan which was so cruelly spoiled and mafsacred by Herod as I have said in the history of Mariamne Behold how the virtue of Judas Maccabeus extended it self through many Ages and without thinking of it put the Crown upon the head of those that were of his family and of his name God recompencing his Zeal and Justice beyond the fourth generation I have endeavoured to make in this discourse a little abridgement of that which is contained in the two books of Maccabees and relate it to you my Reader in a streight line and a method clear enough hoping that you will have content and edification to see the Justice of God reign over so many crowned heads who ceases not to punish the wicked and to render to the good safety and glory for a recompence of their virtue GODFREY of Bovillon GEORGE CASTRIOT GEORGE CASTRIOT OR SCANDERBERG GODFREY OF BOVILLON IT was not the voyce of a man but an Oracle of the holy Spirit that Pope Vrban the second pronounced when he gave to the Crofier for a Devise God will have it so This speech was the soul of all the Intentions of Godfrey of Bovillon It was the But of all his Actions God never made the prodigious effects of his power more visibly appear then in the conduct of this most Illustrious Personage It was a Captain formed in his Bosome and instructed by his hand that was to break the chains of the Christians and to pull down the pride of the Sultans So many other Expeditions were almost all splitted but this of Godfrey bore a God would have it so and nothing resisted its Good hap Many men torment themselves all their life-time in great designs that are as the Dragons the Chimera's and armed men that our fancy shapes upon the body of a Cloud The wind drives them the divers postures confound them the Asspects change them and all that we behold with admiration in the Heavens falls in water upon our head and makes morter under our feet How many Princes have made great preparations both of Men and Elephants of Horses and of Ships of Arms and Ammunitions out of a design to make great Conquests and all this hath vanished for want of a God will have it so There are certain impressions in great affairs which are never found without the favours of heaven One God will have it so will make us sail in the Sea upon an Hurdle or upon a Tortoise-shell one God will not have it so will drown us in a well Rigged Ship It was a God wills it that seized in an instant the spirit of the most excellent Cavaliers of Europe to undertake a voyage into the Holy Land It was a God wills it that made them followed by innumerable multitudes of Mortals But it was also a God wills it that made them cast their eyes upon Godfrey of Bovillon as upon the most valiant the most happy and the most able to pluck Jerusalem out of the hands of Saladine The King of the Bees appears not more visible in the middle of his swarm then this great Captain appeared amongst an infinite number of Cavaliers assembled to revenge the holy Sepulchre There was not one onely ray of the eyes that beheld him that did not expresse some favour to his Merit he had as many Approvers as Spectatours and every man signed him his Commissions even by his silence That illustrious blood of the Heroes that ran in his veins that advantageous Stature that raised him the head above so many Millions of men that face that Majesty had chosen for her throne that tongue that carried insensible chains to captivate mens hearts that comelinesse of the forehead that was at once modest and bold that valour that was painted on all his limbs that courage that kindled a delightfull fire in his eyes All the Virtues that seemed to march about his Person and in fine that finger of God that had imprnited on him the Character of Conquerour made him be chosen as the first Moover of that wonderfull design There was nothing but his Modesty that opposed the desires of all the World and that would
was wished him on the birth of his son did make answer that there needed not such acclamations for nothing could be born from him and Agrippina but what should be pernicious to the Empire Not long after this unfortunate man did die consumed with diseases that attended his filthy life and left behind him his son three years of age who saw his mother banished and being destitute of means was brought up in the house of his Aunt Lepida under the discipline of a dancer and a barber who did corrupt his spirit with the first impressions of vice which from his birth he was too much disposed to receive The times changing his mother returned into favour and by her charms prevailed upon the spirit of the Emperour Claudius the successour of Caligula a simple and The perfidiousnesse of his mother a stupid man who espoused this dangerous woman who afterwards poisoned him by a potion and so placed her own son on the Throne of the Cesars And although the Astrologians had fore-told her that he should be Emperour and withall the murderer of his mother she made nothing of it and thought it no hard bargain to buy the Empire with her own bloud saying Let him reign and let him kill me By the artifice of this wicked woman Nero was saluted Emperour in the seventeenth year of his age with a marvellous applause and in the publick acclamations honoured with all great Names and specious Titles all which he received saving onely that of Father of his Countrey saying He was too young to have so many children He was very tractable in his youth upright gentle discreet well-spoken and demean'd himself for the first five years very worthily under the conduct of Seneca But when he approached to the one and twentieth year of his age the ingredients of vice which with his birth he brought into the world the base education in his infancy the heat of his youth the delights of the Court and which is the greatest of all temptations the Power to do all did weigh down the Philosophy and the Instructions of Seneca who proved by experience That there is nothing more difficult then to perswade those to virtue whom too much Power had put in the possession of all vices His deboistnesse began by the ill examples which he learned in his infancy which were altogether unbeseeming his person he became a Tumbler a Puppet-player a Comedian a Waggoner a Songster and a Minstrel not for Recreation but to make a publick Profession of it to dispute with the Masters of those Faculties and to abandon all the affairs of Peace and Warre to be vacant to those exercises insomuch that he made it more to out-act a Comedian on the stage then to gain a Battle in the field He was also a night-walker and gave and sometimes received many sore blows which did not permit him to passe unknown From hence he laid himself open to most extravagant profusenesse insomuch that he gave to Tumblers the patrimonies of Consuls and made the funeralls of some inconsiderable men to equall the Magnificence of the Obsequies of Kings he never did wear the most gorgeous garments longer then one day He did build his Palaces with so much cost as if he would dispend on them onely all the wealth of Rome When he travelled he would be followed with a thousand caroaches and his mules were all shod with silver He made his halls after the form of the firmament where the vault being of gold intermingled with azure and illuminated with counterfeit starres did roul continually over his head and rained on him showers of flowers and waters of a most exquisite smell There would he dine from noon till midnight in the riot of execrable services He had a touch in his tender age of the vices of wantonnesse luxury avarice and cruelty but being in the beginning it was with some shame concealed in private But in the end he took off that mask by an open and inordinate dissolutenesse which knew no restraint He was of belief that there was not one chaste person in the world and took great pleasures in those who did repeat their filthinesse to him There was never man more abandoned to all manner of uncleannesse without distinction of kindred sex time place or man-hood There was not one part in all his body that was not sacrificed to dishonesty his polluted spirit made him invent those abominations which are not to be indured by chaste ears and with which I will not defile my paper The excesse of his insolencies did at last render him odious to those who were most near unto him and when they gently told him of his extravagancies he would leap into a fury and made a crime of their virtue who did best advise him He filled up the apprenticeship of his enormities with the death of Britannicus a young Prince the sonne of the Emperour His cruelty towards Britannicus Claudius and brother to his wife Octavia in which he imployed the most famous Sorceresse of Rome named Locusta who prepared the poyson and made an assay of it before him on a sucking pig who died immediately now finding it for his turn caused it to be served to his brother as he dined at the table with him The malignity of the poyson was so piercing that in an hour after he fell dead at the feet of his mother and his sister who were both present at this tragick spectacle Nero to excuse himself said That it was the effect of a great sicknesse to which he had been subject from his cradle and that they ought to be of comfort But the Princesses concealing their imagination for fear of provoking his rage did manifestly perceive that he sowed those seeds of his murder which he would afterwards continue in his Family It is almost impossible to believe the tender affection The love to his mother degenerated to misprision with which he prosecuted his mother Agrippina He sometimes did give to the souldiers that did guard his body for their word The good Mother He could not live without her He did put into her hands the most delicate interests of all his Affairs and desired that all things should stoop to her Authority The mother also did indeavour by all possible artifices to tie her self unto his person even unto the using of Charms for it is most certain that she gave him the skin of a serpent inclosed in a bracelet of gold which he carried ordinarily about him and afterwards in despite did lay it by and did look for it not long before his death but could not find it The endearments of this Agrippina were too fond and her kisses more hot then belonged to a mother Seneca was amazed at the horrour of it and to Seneca by a lesse evil diverts a greater avoid a greater evil he procured a young maiden named Acta who otherwise was a slave that came from Asia but very beautifull to serve as a
the day of its own brightness to consider how Providence guarding her dear Pool as the apple of her eye did reserve him for a time which made him the true Peace-maker of that nation For this effect it came to pass that Henry the Eighth The Estate of England having reigned eighteen years in schism leading a life profuse in luxury ravenous in avarice impious in Sacriledge cruel in massacres covered over with ordures bloud and Infamy did fall sick of a languishing disease which gave him the leisure to have some thoughts on the other world It is true that the affrighting images of his Crimes The death of Henry the Eighth and the shades of the dead which seemed to besiege his bed and perpetually to trouble his repose did bring many pangs and remorses to him Insomuch that having called some Bishops to his assistance he testified a desire to reconcile himself unto the Church and sought after the means thereof But they who before were terrified with the fury of his actions which were more than barbarous fearing that he spoke not that but onely to sound them and that he would not seal to their Counsels which they should suggest unto him peradventure with the effusion of their bloud did gently advise him without shewing him the indeavours and the effects of true repentance and without declaring to him the satisfactions which he ought to God and to his Neighbours for the enormities of so many Crimes He was content to erect the Church of the Cardeleirs and commanded that Mass should there be publickly celebrated which was performed to the great joy of the Catholicks which yet remained in that horrible Havock To this Church he annexed an Hospital and some other appurtenances and left for all a thousand Crowns of yearly Revenue As he perceived that his life began to abandon him he demanded the Communion which he received making a show as if he would rise himself but the Bishop told him that his weakness did excuse him from that Ceremony he made answer That if he should prostrate himself on the Earth to receive so Divine a Majesty he should not humble himself according to his duty He by his Will ordained that his Son Edward who was born of Jane Seimer should succeed him and in the case of death that Marie the Daughter of Queen Katharine should be the inheritress of the Crown and if that she should fail that his Daughter Elizabeth although a Bastard should fill her place and possess the Kingdom On the approches of death he called for wine and those who were next unto his bed did conceive that he oftentimes did repeat the word Monks and that he said as in despair I have lost all This is that which most truly can be affirmed of him for it is a very bad sign to behold a man to die in the honour of his Royal dignity and by a peaceable death who had torn in pieces JESUS CHRIST who had divided the Church into schisms who of the six Queens that he espoused had killed four of them who had massacred two Cardinals three Archbishops eighteen Bishops twelve great Earls Priests and Religious Men without number and of his people without end who had robbed all the Churches of his Kingdom destroyed the Divine worship oppressed a million of innocents and in one word who had assasinated mercy it self Howsoever he wanted not flatterers who presumed to say and write that his wisdom had given a good order to his affairs and that he happily departed this world not considering what S. dustine doth affirm That all the penitencies of those who have lived in great disorders and who onely do convert themselves at the end of their life being pressed to it by the extreamity of their disease ought to be extreamly suspected because they do not forsake their sins but their sins do forsake them It was observed indeed that at his death this King did testifie a repentance of his savage and inordinate life but we cannot observe the great and exemplary satisfactions which were due to the expiation of so many abominable sins King Antiochus made submissions of another nature and ordered notable restitutions to recompense the dammages which he had caused to the people of the Jews nevertheless he was rejected of God by reason of his bloudy life and the Gates of the Temple of mercy were shut against him for all eternity The foundation of a small Hospital which Henry caused at his death was not sufficient to recompense the injuries of so many Churches which he had pillaged nor of so much goods of his Subjects as he had forced from them seeing we know by the words of the wise man That to make a benefit Eccles 34. of the substance of the poor is to sacrifice a Son before the eyes of his Father He had by his Testament ordained many tutors to The Reign of Edward His Uncle Seimer spoileth all his Son who were able to have made as many Tyrants but Seimer Uncle by the mothers side to the deceased King gaining the favour of the principal of the Lords of the realm whom he had corrupted with mony and great presents did cause himself to be proclaimed Protector and Regent He took a great possession on little Edward the Son of Henry heir to the Crown whom he brought up in schism and Heresie against the intentions of his Father This furious man immediately began his Regency with so much insolence that he almost made the reign of Henry the Eight to be forgotten he fomented the poison which he had conceived under him he did use the Catholicks most unworthily and did cut off the head of his own Brother by a jealousy of women But as he had made himself insupportable so it came to pass that the affairs of war which he had enterprized against the French did fall out unfortunately for him Dudley one of the chiefest of the Lords drawing a party to him did accuse him of Treason and caused his head to be cut off on the same Scaffold where before he had taken off the head of his own Brother This death was followed with great fears and horrible commotions for the Regency which presently after was extinguished by the death of the young King Edward This poor Prince was rather plucked with pincers The Qualities and death of King Edward from his mothers womb than born and he could not come into the world without giving death to her who conceived him He was said to have none of the comeliest bodies He spake seven languages at fifteen years of age and in his discourse did testifie a rare knowledge of all those sciences which were most worthy of a King It seemeth that death did advance it self to ravish his spirit from his body which did awake too early and was too foreward for his age for he died in his sixteen year having not had the time throughly to understand himself and to see by what course
to tell the Governour of Egypt that they had yet another brother Whereupon they informed him that he himself had inquired particularly about the state of all the family and that they had no list to lye not being able to Divine that he would demand that child The necessitie of food and the love of a father combated at the same time in that afflicted heart and he knew not what to resolve on His sons seeing him a little stagger urge him eagerly as one does those that are slow and fearfull when one would wrest any thing from them Reuben offers him his two little sonnes in hostage and would have him kill them if he brings not back to him his Benjamin Judah engages himself for him upon his head and life The battery was too strong for him not to yield he orders them therefore to take some of the best fruits of their Land to make presents to that great Lord of Egypt and to carry their money double to restore that which had been put into their sacks lest it should have happened by an over sight and also to take their little brother seeing that such was the necessity When they came to a departure he felt great convulsions and said to them go then in an happy hour I pray my God the God Almighty which hath never yet forsaken me that he would render that great Governour of Egypt favourable to you and that you may quickly bring back that poor prisoner and my little Benjamin which I put now into your hands upon the promises which you have made to which I call heaven to witnesse Know furthermore that I am deprived of all my children and that I shall be as in the Grave till such time as the happy news of your return shall give me a Refurrection This being said they put themselves on the way arrive at Egypt and present themselves suddenly to their brother who perceived that Benjamin was there whereat he was wonderfully pleased and commanded his Steward to make ready a dinner because he would eat with those strangers They are brought into the house with much courtesie yet as an evil conscience is ever fearfull they perswade themselves that it is to put them in Prison and to keep them in servitude by reason of that money which they had found in their sacks They addresse themselves to the Cash-keeper of the house very much scared and beseech him to hear them they relate to him with great sincerity all that had happened to them protesting that that came not by their fault and offering all that they thought they were indebted to him The other made answer with great affability that he had received of them good money that he held himself satisfied and that if they had found any in their sacks it was their good luck and the God of their fathers that had a mind to gratifie them He gave them notice that they were to dine that day with their Lord who would suddenly return from his affairs to set himself at Table They order in the mean time their present and their brother Simeon is released who embraces them with a joy which was as the fore-runner of a greater They are made to wash and repose themselves and meat is also given to their Mules And when all this was dispatched Joseph enters to go to dinner they prostrate themselves before him with a profound reverence and offer him their presents He receives them with great courtesie and asks of them at first sight how their good Father did and whether he was yet alive To which they answered that God of his goodnesse had preserved to them that which they held most dear and that he was in a very good condition Then he fixt his eyes upon his brother Benjamin and said unto them Is this then your little brother of whom you have made mention to me To which they answer that they had brought him with them to obey his commands and to justifie the sincerity of their proceedings His heart was ravished at him and turning himself towards him My child sayes he to him I pray God to give your his holy Graces and to keep you in his protection Upon this speech he felt his heart very much moved and ran into his Closet not being able any longer to hold his tears and wept in secret so great an impression had bloud and nature and perhaps the remembrance of his Mother who had born them both made upon his Spirit When he had wiped his face he returns with a merry countenance he commands his men to wait He dined apart a little separated from his brethren and from another company of the Egyptians who were also at the Feast and had no communication with the Jews He gives charge above all that they use well the youngest of those eleven brothers which say that they are all the sons of one and the same father and that they should spare nothing on them After all he ordered that they should fill their sacks with Corn and that they should put again the money also in them as they had done at their first journey and spake to his Steward giving him charge to take the Cup in which he drank and to put it in the sack of little Benjamin which he did and after they had well dined they passed the rest of the day in all tranquility expecting the morrow to put themselves upon their way and to return to their father When the day began to dawn after they had bid their Adieus and given their thanks they depared from the City very joyfull for that they had had so happy Accidents But they were not very far before they see a man coming from Joseph that seems exceedingly to chase stops them and sayes to them that some body had stoln away his Masters Cup with which he serves himself to drink in and to Divine things hidden that this could not happen but from them and that they were very injurious after they had been enterteined in the house of the Governour of Egypt with so much courtesie to render him evil for good and to fly away after they had committed a Theft so base and so outrageous The brothers extreamly astonished answer that this cannot be and that they should be the wickedest men upon the earth if they had as much as dreamt of such an attempt That there was no likelihood that they that had brought back faithfully the money that had been put into their sacks would steal in the house of so high a Potentate Furthermore that there was no need of words but that he should come to proof and search every where and that if any one of them was culpable of that sacriledge they were content to deliver him up to death and to render themselves all the Governours slaves for reparation of that fault The condition is accepted with moderation that the faulty should be punished and that the innocent should go free They are all searched in order
and the Cup was found in the sack of the youngest The brothers are seized with a profound astonishment and the poor child so amazed that he hath not a word to defend himself They begin all to afflict themselves and to rent their clothes and return to the City as Thieves taken in the fact to render an account to the Governour As soon as he saw them he reproched them of ingratitude and said to them that they were much deceived to come to him to steal seeing there was not a man in the whole world that had more news of secret things then he All prostrate themselves on the ground and do him Reverence Judah takes the word and sayes That they came not to excuse themselves that they had nothing to say since God had rendred their iniquity so visible that they were come all to offer themselves to him to be his slaves with him that had done the deed Nay it shall not go so saith Joseph but the culpable shall stay with me and ye shall return all of you at liberty to your house Then Judah drew near desired audience with a profound humility and declared how that child was his Fathers heart and life and that having received order from his Excellence to pluck him out of the arms of the old man and to bring him they had given him battells to make him resolve on that Voyage to which he would by no means hearken But the desire they had to give all possible satisfaction to his greatnesse had made them presse that businesse so farre as to oblige themselves life for life body for body and to deliver their little children to death in case that they brought not back their brother Benjamin that thereupon the goodman rendred himself with much difficulty and that to go and tell him at present that his dear sonne in whom he lives and by whom he breathes is stayed prisoner in Egypt for a case of theft would be to give him a double death and to send him to the Grave with inconsolable griefs And therefore he beseech'd his Greatnesse to shew them mercy and to take him for a slave in the place of his brother Benjamin Joseph could hear no more so much love and pity did he feell in the bottome of his heart He caused all the servants to withdraw not being willing that any of the Egyptians should be witnesse of this action and then he lifted up his voyce with a great sigh and a torrent of tears that glided from his eyes and said I am Joseph is my Father yet alive At that speech these poore men stood so surprised and in such an extasie that they made him no reply By how much the more he saw them astonished by so much the more did he make much of them and making them approach very near him he said again I am Joseph I am he that ye sold to the Ishmaelites to be carried into Egypt Trouble not your selves God permitted this for my good and for yours Two years of Famine are past there are yet five remaining and I have been sent from on high into Egypt to nourish you and to preserve you in the rigour of the time It was not by your counsels but by the ordinances of God that I came into this Kingdome And now behold I am as a father to Pharaoh the Superintendent of his house and the Prince of Egypt Go haste ye to return to my father carry him the news of my life and of my dignity relate to him all the glory and all the magnificence that invirons me and tell him that I expect him here and that it is the will of God that he should come to sojourn in the land of Goshen where he shall have all that he can desire for his children and for his flocks This said he embraced them weeping begining with the little Benjamin and then they took the boldnesse to speak to him with open heart about all that had passed thinking themselves obliged above all measure to his goodnesse The fame of this acknowledgement ran in the house of Pharaoh who ordered Joseph to cause his Father to come and sojourn in Egypt with his brothers dispatching many charriots to carry all his baggage The children returned Triumphing and gave him the news that his sonne Joseph was alive and the second person of the Realm of Egypt that had the managing of all The Good-man thought that it was a dream and the admiration of it held him so seized that he could not come to himself again at length when he saw that it was all in good earnest and that the Chariots that were to carry away all his family were at the gate he said that now there remained nothing more for him to desire if his sonne Joseph was alive and that he would see him before his death Some time after he departed being encouraged by an heavenly Vision that promised him all good successes in that journey and when he was arrived at Goshen he dispatched Judah to give the newes of it to his sonne Joseph who at the same instant went up into his Coach to go to meet him and seeing him embraced him with close enfoldings weeping for joy and tendernesse upon his neck His Father holding him between his arms said My son It is at this houre that I shall dye content since God hath shewed me the grace to see you and to leave you alive after me The holy man was also presented to King Pharaoh who made him a great enterteinment and demanded of him his age to which he answered that he was but an hundred and thirty years old that those dayes were few and evil and were not extended to the age of his Fathers He blessed the King and his place of abode was assigned in the land of Goshen where he lived in a most full content And now I demand of my Reader if there be any thing more magnificent more sweet and more benigne then the heart of Joseph in all the circumstances of that Reconciliation with his brethren We see many Histories wherein the Grandees of the earth that mount up on their Thrones after they have been offended who have nothing so ordinary as to make Furies and Vengeances with squadrons of Hangmen march with them by their side to Ruine those that have done them any displeasure But this man after he had been so cruelly used after he had been stripped of his cloathes cast into an old pit of water domineered over and sold to Barbarians by his own brothers with an intention to keep him in an hard slavery the rest of his dayes not onely forgets all that had passed but pardons them with a profusion of Charity he does them good he over-whelms with good offices those ungratefull men and in obliging them he hath but one trouble which is to see them shamefull of their crime He weeps while he embraces them one after another He would not that that fault should be imputed to them