and be simple as Doves CHAP. VI. THirdly it is not enough for us like Dives dogs only to lick mens sores with our tongues to give them good words only but no further helps but in our actions also we must follow all men so far as in us lyeth yea and prevent them with our good turns observing therein that order which S. Paul sets down Gal. 6.10 While we have time saith he let us doe good unto all but especially to the houshold of faith and that time that Salomon mentioneth Prov. 3.28 Say not unto thy neighbour goe and come again to morrow and I will give thee if thou canst give now We should be so covetous of doing good that we should seek nay make occasions rather than expect them and that with a mind so zealous of wel-doing that the world should sooner cease to afford opportunities than we want will to apprehend them as S. Paul testifieth of the Churches of Macedonia 2 Cor. 8.3 that to their power yea and beyond their power they were willing and as Job witnesseth of himself Job 29. v. 11 12 15 19. I was an eye unto the blind and a foot unto the lame J was father of the poor the ear that heard did blesse me and the eye that saw gave testimony of me because I delivered the poor man that cryed and the pupill that had no helper And with good reason for as St. Chrysostome saith it is much more excellent to feed hungry Christ that is to say his members than to raise one from the dead in the name of Christ for in this Christ deserveth at thy hands in that thou deservest at his for miracles thou art Gods debtor for mercy he is thine And they that cannot contribute one sort of good works for the assistance of their brethren let them doe another for there is scarce any so barren of power to doe good but that in something or other either spirituall or corporall either great or little he may be serviceable to his neighbour as the fable well expresseth which saith that when the Lion was taken in a snare the poor weak Mouse gave him his help to gnaw the cords in sunder We must therefore like the taper which burns it self out to give light unto others spend the talent that God hath given us next unto his glory to the benefit of our brethren yea to his glory in the benefit of our brethren as our saviour saith Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your father which is in heaven And this must be done not only when we are hereunto invited by the counter courtesies or inoffensive necessities of others but even then when we receive from them the sharp encounters of contrary mischief When we are assaulted with injuries in humane construction beyond the ability of sufferance or degree of reconcilement we must strike off the tally of all their injuries and if their need require repay them with good turns Rom. 12. â—0 as St. Paul saith Jf thy enemy shall hunger feed him if thirst give him to drink like the Patriarch Joseph who rewarded the mercilesse cruelty of his brethren by preserving that life in them which they would have destroyed in him The law of requitall is a principle deeply rooted in the nature of man whereby wee deem that if one have broken his duty unto us by offering us an injury we are absolved from our duty to him and may without the imputation of wrong requite him with an equall injury but we must know that the duty of man unto man is enjoyned in Scripture without condition or limitation Do good unto all saith St. Paul not only if they doe good unto you for that exceedeth not the righteousnesse of Scribes and Pharisees which can never enter into the kingdom of heaven but though they doe evill as S. Paul saith again Rom. 12.21 Be not overcome of evill but overcome evill with good To yield unto our repentant enemies the favour of pardon is a degree of Charity of which there is a shadow and image even in noble beasts for the Lion they say abateth his fierceness against any thing that doth prostrate it self unto it To pardon our enemies persisting without satisfaction or submission is a second degree of Charity which is found in the soft and gentle natures of some men But to pardon our persisting enemies yea more to deserve well of them by doing of them good and that not out of a bravery or greatness of the mind which delighteth in the fruit of its own vertue but out of a heart appassionated with sorrow for his misery if he be in any and entendred with the love and desire of his good this is the purest and the highest exaltation of fraternall Charity this is a simplicity imitating the divine nature and the hardest lesson in all Christianity Whose coppy we have pencild out unco us in the practice of our Saviour who being God and his enemies but men did infinitly excell them in dignity which made their injuries infinite and in power also whereby he was able either to prevent their mischiefs or escape them yea to speak them all into nothing aswell as his word at first gave them a being out of nothing did yet notwithstanding with a love as great as their injuries were grievous reward their reproaches with his prayers their buffetings with his balsome their treasons with his truth They disgracefully spit on his eyes and he with spittle healed their eyes they made the blood to issue out of him and he stopt the issues of blood in them they took away a life from him and he restored life to many of them yea that very life of his which their cruelty sacrificed to their revenge did his love sacrifice for their redemption There was never sorrow like unto his sorrow nor ever love like unto his love both being byeyond all example and propounded to all for an example which while we make haste to imitate Rom. 12.20 we shall upon our enemies heads heap coles of fire as the Aposlle speaketh which shall either enflame them with a correspondency of affection as heat begetteth heat or else for their unrelenting hearts shall serve to augment their quenchless flames in hell And for our selves receive we our comfort in the words of our Saviour Mat. 5.11.12 Blessed are ye when they shall curse you and persecute you and speak all manner of evill against you falsly for my sake rejoyce and be glad for great is your reward in heaven And thus if wee order our thoughts our words our deeds both negatively by thinking speaking doing no evill and positively by thinking speaking doing good and this not to our own alone but even to our enemies we shall reach the height of the example propounded to us and be simple as Doves FINIS
they were like unto that flower which Pliny speaks of which springs in the morning is full blown at noon and fades at night Heb. 11.25 and therefore chose rather to bee afflicted with the children of God than to enjoy the temporall pleasure of Sin counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the Egiptians The world for the frailty and inconstancy thereof is by S. John compared to a sea as he saith in the Apocalips Before the thron there was a sea of glasse Apoc. 4.6 like unto crystall by which sea is meant the world which for it's frailty is glasse for it's unconstancy a sea A sea swelling with pride blew with envie boyling with anger deep with averise frothy with luxury It is a Sea tempestuous with controversies stormy with afflâ—ctions tumultuous with disorders The sea yealds an obedient conformity to the motions of the moon and swels highest in a joyfull imitation when shee is in the spring-tide of her light either towards the heavens as in the change or towards the earth as in the full and as shee doth wax or wain so doth he either flow into a pleurisy or ebbe into a consumption of his waters and even thus is the world the page of fortune whose unconstant and ever-changing motions doe hurry about like spokes in a wheel the condition of all mortalls as the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 7.31 The fashion of this world passeth away An hour-glasse doth change it's posture every hour and that part which was even now above is now below that which was even now full is now empty nor can one side be filled but by emptying the other such is the world every moment turn'd upside down and men are now full now empty Nor can they often fill themselves without the ruin or prejudice of others yea many times as Laban did to Jaacob when men have toyled in it's service many years it rewards them with loathed Leah insteed of loved Rachel Like Jael it carrieth milk in one hand to nourish and a hammer and a nayl in the other to destroy and as Joab did to Amasa while it kisseth us it killeth us And although like the moon it be sometimes at at the full of glory yet is it even then like her also mingled with the spots of adversity and subject to the change of every moment And therefore as they say at the consecration of the Popes the Master of the ceremonies goeing before carrieth in one hand a burning taper in the other a stick with some flax tyed on the top thereof which he setting on fire cryeth with a lowd voyce Pater sancte sic transit gloria mundi Holy Father so passeth away the glory of the world The plenty of histories in this kind exceedeth our Arithmetique every particular mans condition almost being a volume of the worlds frailty and a constant witnesse of it's inconstancy Adonibezec in the first of the book of Judges who had been the triumphant Victor over seventy Kings and in his wanton cruelty cutting off the thumbs of their hands and feet made them pick up crums under his table enforcing the act yet depriving them of the power making them doe that which hee had disabled them to doe was ere long returned with an equall measure which made him cry out Judg. 1.7 As I have done so God hath rewarded me Nabuchadonozor's unparallel'd mâ—tamorphosis who knoweth not Who in the despite of Philosophy prov'd in himself the transmigration of Species and from a man fell into a beast in nature now as was in practise before to shew that when men sinne against the light of nature they may suffer against the law of nature It is reported of Demetrius one of Alexander the great his Captains that in the whole circle of his life being threescore years and four after the measure of his age had stil'd him man never continued three years in one condition Of Julius Caesar also that great awer of the world and tyrant over the Common-wealth it is doubted whether in the whole course of his life Fortune were an indifferent arbitrer unto him of good and evill successe but in the misery of his death no doubt all his lives happinesse was exceedingly overballanc'd who in the Zenith and highest erection of his glory with three and twenty wounds the deepest whereof given by his dearest Brutus and that in the Court of his deadly enemy Pompey yeelded up his life a sacrifice to the peoples liberty The like unhappy change pursued the ever-renowned and once highly advanced Captain Belisarius who after he had triumphed over the Persians and reduced to the Roman obedience all Africa and Italy which had been long possessed by the Gothes and Vandalls and after he had brought one of the Kings of the Vandalls to such a passe that hee begged three things a loaf of bread a spunge to wipe his eyes and a harp to tune his sorrow to his wife who was given him for a help became the only help to his destruction whose insolent behaviour against the Empresse like winds thrown upon the Seas raised such billows of indignation in the Emperour that they put this good mans fortune to an utter shipwrack who did not only lose all his goods but the means wherby he might get more his sight and was forced to beg his bread with Da obolo Belisario Viator and thus though blind did most cleerly see the frailty of this worlds felicity Therefore Dionisius the King of Syracusa represented the brittle felicity of his kingdome unto his Parasite Damocles which Damocles had made to seem exceeding great through the multiplying glasse of his flattery by seating him in a royall throne at a sumptuous Banquet with all the state and glory of the kingdome about him but withall causing a naked sword to be hung over his head which was only held up by a horses hair which every minute threatned his destruction It was likewise the custome of the Romans in their triumphs for a slave to ride behind in the Chariot with the triumpher who did often whisper unto him to look behind him there was likewise a whip and a bell tyed to the Charyot to admonish him that notwithstanding the present exaltation of his honour he might be brought to such a degree of calamity as to be scourged or put to death of which the bell was the signe it being the custome of the old Romans to ring a bell before a dead Corps lest any by approaching too neer should defile themselves thereby Now if we would allow these and the like images of the worlds frailty a place in our considerations and remember that all the glory beauty and pleasures thereof are as truly short as they are seeming sweet and that though they bee sweet in the enjoying yet they are bitter in the end surely it would so steel our resolutions against the devils temptations it would so stop our ears against the voyce of his charms
mans harbour where striking sayl and casting anchor he returns his lading with advantage to the owner that is his soul fraught with good works unto God leaving his bulk still mored in the haven which is but unrig'd to be new built again and fitted for an eternall voyage And as that earth in which the men of China doe bury their clay after a hundred years doth render it purified and refined and fit out of it to form their choysest dishes so our graves after many years shall restore us again glorified and immortalized and fitted vessels for the house of God Of the simplicitie of the Dove CHAP. I. AS the Serpent is the wisest amongst the Beasts of the field and is therefore propounded as the pattern of our imitation in the vertue of wisdome so the Dove doth farre leave behind her the examples of all the brute creatures in the practise of simplicity And therefore the Holy Ghost who is the love of the Father which love is the Fountain of Simplicity deigned above others in the exhibition of his testimony of Christ to invest his Deitie with the form of a Dove Whose harmlesse simplicity on which our imitation must attend discovers it self as Pliny saith in these particulars First she hurts nothing with her clawes Secondly she hurts nothing with her bill Thirdly she wants a gall Fourthly she nourisheth and bringeth up both her own and others young ones Now these severall pieces of the Doves simplicity do teach us that as she hurts nothing with her clawes no more should we throw any evill upon others by our hands or actions Secondly as she hurts nothing with her bill no more ought we to prejudice any by our words Thirdly in that shee wants a gall it forbids us to give birth unto a thought which shall direct it self against the good of our neighbour The first noteth unto us the simplicity of our works the second of our words the third of our thoughts Fourthly in that she nourisheth others young-ones we are directed not only to doe no evill but also to doe good and that not to our own alone but also to our neighbours yea though they be our Enemies These are the particulars which shall bound this brief discourse All works are intimated by the hands as the principall instruments of working and therefore Pilat when he would assoyle himself of that impious act of Christs condemnation washed his hands And the Prophet David saith â—sal 25.6 I will wash my hands among the innocent Therefore did the Pharisees wear the Commandements written about their hands to intimate their performance Now they who are altogether barren in good works are like unto Jeroboam whose right hand was dryed up And they who interline their good works with bad are not unlike Nehemiahs builders who held a trowell in one hand to build and a sword in the other to destroy One evill action amongst many good ones corrupts the vertues of all the rest like Pharaohs lean kine that did eat up the fat or the Colloquintida in the young Prophets broth which made them cry out O thou man of God death is in thy pot 4 King 4.40 And not only to doe no wrong but even to doe no hurt though lawfull is very sutable to the Doves Simplicity Our Saviour who gave us this precept gave himself also for an example who amongst all his miracles enrowled in Sacred writ never did any that tended to destruction but only in cursing the barren figg-tree S. Aug. saith all justice is comprehended in this word innocence all injustice reprehended To the injustice of the hands or deeds is referred generally all actions that strike at the body or goods of our neighbour God saith by Moyses Exod. 22.21 22. Thou shalt doe no injurie to a stranger neither oppresse him ye shall not hurt the widdow nor fatherlesse child More particularly to the injustice of Magistrates of Lawyers and publick officers who corrupted through hope fear hatred or love hope of preferment fear of mens power hatred of their persons or love sometimes to their persons but most times to their mony have renewed the antient copies of injustice yea and augmented them Pleaders tongues being like the tongue of a ballance their hands the scales into one of which if you put one pound into the other two the tongue will alwaies incline to that which is the heaviest Who is there that in the generall execution of the place of Magistracy or the particular designation to the decision of a controversie in the giving of voyces in matters of Election or in their choyce unto places of dignity which rest in their particular power swerveth not from the rule of justice and simplicity measuring the merit of the person not the quantity of the gift or relation of kindred or acquaintance Like Titus Manlius who in a case of justice gave Sentence against his own Son O no Themystocles saying pleaseth them better who being requested to bear himself indifferently in his censure answered Be it far from me not to pleasure my friends in all things Princes Courts doe swarm with their flattering dependents who either bridled with the fear of their displeasure or spurred on with the hope of preferment doe bind themselves with the sale of the liberty innocency and simplicity of their consciences to run the same course with them in avowing all their enterprizes in obeying all their commands like Pilat who lest he should strike against the rock of Caesars offence condemned the innocent Lamb of God unto death and Judas who betrayed him for a piece of money The example of Martinus a Cardinall is very memorable who travelling on his way one of his horses fell lame which the Bishop of Florence supplied with the free gift of another which Bishop afterwards comming to Rome craved the Patronage of the Cardinall in a cause of his to whom he answered first let me redeem my liberty and gave him another horse and now saith he if your cause be just I am your Patron I would this were the practise of all the Clergy and that of Philoxenus of all Courtiers who as Plutarch reports being demanded of Dionysius the King of Syracusa what he thought of certain verses of his answered according to his opinion that they were naught whereat the King displeased condemned him to digge in the Quarry-pitts but by the intercession of friends being restored Dionysius demanded again what he thought of other verses of his but he knowing that they were naught and remembring his late punishment answered not a word but called to one of the Guard to carry him again to the Quarry-pitts And he that will not with Phyloxenus rather suffer evill then doe it may deservedly receive the just punishment of Syamnes a certain Judge who as Herodotus reports being corrupted by money to give wrong Sentence King Cambyses caused his skin to be pulled off and nayled to the Tribunall that they that succeeded terrified by his example might