affairs of Christianitie in this flourishing Monarchy with prowesses and successes incomparable so likewise are we tied to her in an immortal obligation to have cast the first seeds of piety into the Court of our Kings that it might with the more authoritie enter into the souls of all their subjects The good Princess like to a pearl which cometh from the salt sea beheld her self involved almost from her birth in great acerbities and horrible confusions from whence she arose with so much lustre as she made of adversities the steps to the temple of glory She was daughter of Chilperick who contending for the scepter against Gombaut his elder brother King of Burgundy with more temeritie than reason sunk down to the ground and was forsaken by the people whom he had excited against this his brother who verily was a bad King But God who giveth Sovereigns leave to reign favouring a just cause even in the person of an evill man gave victorie to the elder He most truly made use of his fortune for having surprized his younger brother at the siege of a City he caused him to loose his head on a scaffold and not content with this murther extended his vengeance against the wife of the deceased by an act most unworthy For causing a stone to be tied to her neck she was thrown into the river and it was a great chance he had not inflicted the like upon two other virgins the lamentable remainders of this unfortunate marriage But beholding them as yet so young and innocent he thought their life could not be prejudicial to his estate and their death might be ignominious to his reputation Behold the reason why he contented himself to shut the one of them up in a Monastery and retained the other which was our Clotilda with himself that she might be bred in his Court. The holy maid entereth into the Palace of her Uncle as a sheep into a Lions den having no reason to repose much assurance in a man who still had the bloud of her father and mother in his hands Notwithstanding great is the power of virtue when it is enchaced in beautie For this cruel Basilisk who had an eye of bloud and poyson no sooner considered the praise-worthy parts of this Princess but that feeling himself dazeled with her aspect and his heart softened with the innocency of this poor orphan he instantly took compassion upon her who never inclined to it before He began to behold her with a pleasing countenance to endear her to wish and promise her much good But the good creature who could not think after so strange an affliction she was any more to pretend to greatness and pleasures of the world threw her self between the arms of the Cross that there she might find those of God and though in publick she stifeled the resentments of her sorrow with a discreet patience not resisting the storm nor striking her head against the rocks yet in the secrecy of her retirement she daily dissolved her self into tears and found no comfort but in the wounds of the worlds Saviour My God said she to him I adore your holy providence which drencheth me with gall and wormwood in an age wherein maidens of my qualitie accustom not to walk but on roses perhaps you know my pride hath need of such a counterpoise and you in all equitie have done that which your wisdom thought good Behold I have my eyes still all moistened with the bloud of my father and the bodie of my poor mother which being covered with so many waves cannot have over it one silly tear from the eyes of her daughter which fail not every night to pour forth streaming rivers My God Your name be blessed eternally I require nought else of you but the participation of your sufferings It is no reason I here should live without some light hurt seeing you wounded on all sides for my example Some have been pleased to wish me I should receive and take contentments in the hope of a better fortune where would they have me gather those pleasures I am yet upon the weeping shores of the river of Babylon I fix all my consolations and songs at the feet of your Cross promising to desire nothing more in the world but the performance of your holy will There is I know not what kind of charm in holy sadness which cannot be sufficiently expressed but such it is that a soul contristated for God when it is fallen into abysses wherein all the world reputes it lost findeth in the bottom of its heart lights and sweetnesses so great that there is not any comfort in the world to be compared with them Clotilda was already come to these terms and if for obedience she had not learned to leave God for God she had been softened with those tears by suffering her self voluntarily to slide into a lazy sorrow but considering that whilest she was in the house of this uncle an Arian heretick she was bound by God to instruct with her example all those who were to be spectatours of her actions she set her hand couragiously to the work and shewed her self so able of judgement in her carriage and so regular in all her deportments that her life became a picture of virtue which spake to all the world Although she were derived from the bloud of Kings she shewed to have no other nobility but that which springs from worthy Actions As her face was free from adulterate beauty so her soul was exempt from those affected authorities and disdains which ordinarily grow with great fortunes Her aspects were simple and dove-like her words discreet her actions sober her gestures measured her carriage honest her access affable her conversation full of sweetness and profit She was a virgin in mind and body living in marvellous purity of affections and amities which she fomented by the virtue of humility which the Ancients esteemed to be as the wall of the garden of charity God oftentimes suffering impurity of body to chastise the rebellion of the soul She was so humble of heart that she accounted her self as the meanest servant of the house not scorning at all to apply her self to inferiour offices which she notwithstanding performed with so much majesty that even in spinning with a distaff she seemed a Queen She was marvellously wise in her counsels prompt and agil in execution moderate in all good successes constant in bad ever equal to her self She spake little never slandered envied none did good to all the world not pretending her own interests expecting from God alone the character of her merit and the recompence of her charities She had no worldly thing in her person and as little regarded her attyres as the dust of the earth She knew almost but one street in the City where she dwelt which was the same that lead to the Church Sports and feasts were punishments to her and she was seldom found in the company of men unless it were
that we cannot look upon them but if with these defects we also there find a soul wicked ungratefull an enemy to God and men we then conceive such horrour that one had need to be more then a man to endure them Now we were in this estate which I speak of for besides the misfortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides we were enemies to God by having been too much a friend to our selves and which is more we could not have one silly spark of love for him if it were not inspired into us by himself mean while he accepteth us and appropriateth us to himself among all these contrarieties He out of his goodnesse will not lose him who through his own malice delighteth to lose himself he then stretcheth forth his hand unto him when the other tums his back the one flyeth and the other pursueth this fugitive with the pace of his charity even into the shadow of death He calleth him he flatters him he courteth him and not content to pardon him a crime he promiseth him a Kingdome What may one say of so profuse a Bounty How can we in the world so greedily seek for all the contentments of nature seeing the God of nature so roughly handled in the world which he built with his own hands we cannot abide the stinging of a fly a noise a smoke the sight of a thing which is in any sort displeasing a world must be made of gold and silk to satisfie our desires Jesus is the sign of a Contradiction reverenced in appearance and in effect used as a thing of nought O how divinely hath Saint Augustine expressed the humour of a worldly man an enemy to the life of God in the book he wrote of the Christian Combat Jesus was not wise enough according to the opinion of the world He hath indifferently taken upon himself all that which his heavenly Father would not shewing any Aversion from things the most distastefull This is it which is hard to digest It displeaseth the covetous that he coming into the world hath not brought with him a body of gold and pearl It displeaseth the luxurious that he was born of a Virgin It displeaseth the proud that he so patiently suffered injuries It displeaseth the nice that he endured so many afflictions and torments Lastly It pleaseth not the timorous that he dyed Prophane spirits cease not to say but how can that be done in the person of God and in stead of correcting their vices which are very great they find cavills at the perfections of Jesus Christ which are most innocent § 4. The Conclusion against Disdain VVIll we still out of humour love things pleasing It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of body or some other deformity of nature when we are bound to love him to sensuality and have a perpetuall distaste against all which may maintain virtue A Father and a Mother to have an aversion against their own children under colour that they have some defect in nature and in stead of regarding them with an eye full of pity and compassion to comfort their infirmities wipe away their tears and provide for the necessities of their life to leave them at randome in the storm and if out of necessity we must do them some good to throw them out bread in an anger as if they had committed a great crime to come into the world in that rank which the providence of God had prepared for them what a shame is it to entertein amities and petty loves onely to please flesh and bloud that if the eyes find not contentment the heart will no longer observe fidelity This creature which hath heretofore been so much beloved is now forsaken rejected and used like an excommunicate having no other crime but some deformity of body some infirmity or other accident nothing at all in its power to remedy A husband traiterous to Altars and to the Sacrament of Marriage barbarously useth a wife who brought with her the wealth of her parents and her own heart and body in lawfull wedlock but now this carnall man taken in the snare of his lust by a wretch and a prostitute rejecteth a lawfull wife as if she were a serpent or the froth of an enraged Sea elswhere to satiate his brutishnesse to the prejudice of his reputation and the death of his soul Must I here produce the actions of Infidels to confound ours One Mnesippus relateth in Lucian How that he one Lucianus in Toxaride A generous act of a Pagan who teacheth us powerfully to command over our Aversions day seeing a man comely and of eminent condition passing along in a Coach with a woman extreamly unhandsome he was much amazed and said he could not understand why a man of prime quality and of so brave a presence should be seen to stir abroad in the company of a monster Hereupon one that followed the Coach overhearing him said Sir you seem to wonder at what you now see but if I tell you the causes and circumstances thereof you will much more admire Know this Gentleman whom you see in the coach is called Zenothemis and born in the City of Marseilles where he heretofore contracted a firm amity with a neighbour-citizen of his named Menecrates who was at that time one of the chief men of the City as well in wealth as dignities But as all things in the world are exposed to the inconstancy of fortune it happened that having as it is thought given a false sentence he was degâ—â—ded of honour and all his goods were confiseated Every one avoided him as a Monster in this change of fortune but Zenothemis his good friend as if he had loved miseries not men more esteemed him in his adversity then he had done in prosperity and bringing him to his house shewed him huge treasures conjured him to share them with him since such was the laws of amity the other weeping for joy to see himself so enterteined in such sharp necessities said he was not so apprehensive of the want of worldly wealth as of the burthen he had in a daughter ripe for marriage and willing enough but blemished with many deformities She was saith the history but half a woman a body misshapen and limping an eye bleared a face disfigured and besides she had the falling sicknesse with horrible convulsions Neverthelesse this noble heart said unto him Trouble not your self about the marriage of your daughter for I will be her husband The other astonished at such goodnesse God forbid saith he I lay such a burthen upon you No no replyeth the other she shall be mine and instantly he married her making great feasts whilst the poor Father was rapt out of himself with admiration Having married this miserable Creature he honoured her with much regard and made it his glory to shew her in the best company as a trophey of his friendship In the end she brought him a goodly son
all rhe Nations that are from India to Ethiopia To the Princes and Governours of the seven and twenty Provinces of our Empire Greeting Many abusing through their Pride the Goodnesse of Princes and the Honours that have been given them do not onely endeavour to oppresse People but also by a detestable Felony to attempt upon the Life of their Benefactours not being able to bear the Weight of the Glory to which they are Exalted They are not contented to be Ingratefull for Benefits and to Violate the Laws of Humanity but perswade themselves that though they runne out into so great Crimes they shall escape the Judgments of that Great God from whom nothing is Concealed Their Fury is so irregulated that though they be defiled with all sorts of Vices they Accuse those that are Innocent and observe punctually all the Justnesse of their Duty endeavouring to ruine them by the Artifices and Juglings of their Lyes And for this they surprise the Ear of Kings who have an Heart full of Goodnesse and Sincerity measuring those that are near their Persons by their own Dispositions The Proof of this may befound in Antient Stories and even in those of our Dayes too which shew sufficiently how the Good Intentions of Kings are Corrupted by the wicked Counsels of their Ministers and Servants For this Reason we ought to give order for the Peace of our Provinces and if we are Constrained to make you a Countermand know that it proceeds rather from the necessity of the Times then from the inconstancy of our Resolutions It is necessary that you should understand that Haman the son of Amadatha a Macedonian by Nation and Affection after he had been promoted by our Goodnesse to the second Place of our Kingdome hath defiled by his Cruelty the effects of our Piety and hath puffed himself up with so great an Arrogance as to have dared to attempt to deprive us of our Sceptre and of our Life For he resolved to cause Mordecai to Dye to whose Fidelity I own my preservation and to destroy with him Hester the Companion of our Bed and of our Sceptre with her whole Nation by Inventions pernicious and till this time unheard of He hoped by this means that having taken away ouâ— Conservatours he might surprise us in a Dereliction and translate the Kingdome of the Persians to the Macedonians But we have discovered that the Jews destined to death by this wicked Villain are without fault That they use good Laws and that they are the true Children of the most High most Great and Everliving God by whom the Empire is given and preserved to us And for this Reason we make void and disannul the Letters that he hath directed to you in our Name to cause them to be Murthered making you to know that the Authour of the Lye hath been hanged upon the Gallowes at the Gate of Shushan God rendering to him that which he hath deserved Furthermore we Will and Ordain that the Jews live in all our Provinces according to their Law and Ceremonies and that you assist them in bringing their Enemies to Punishment the same day that they had determined to destroy them seeing that the God Almighty hath turned to them into Joy that day of Tears and Grief And since that that is Important even for our Life and Preservation We Command that that Day be put in the number of the Feasts that Posterity may know the Recompenses of our Faithfull Servants and the Punishment of those that oppose our Will and make attempt upon our State And if there be any Province or City that refuses to solemnize that very Day with Joyes and Chearfulnesse befitting it we Will that it be destroyed with Fire and Sword and that it be made inaccessible to Men and Beasts to perpetuity to give an Example to others by the punishment of their contempt and Disobedience The Commands of the King were diligently executed and the Jews Dreaded and Honoured in all places by reason of the great Credit that Mordecai had with the King his Master It seemed that the Sunne was risen a new for these people heretofore afflicted and that Heaven powred down upon them blessings in abundance There was nothing every where but Joyes but Dances but Feasts in Testimony of so publick an alacrity But it is clear that Hester held yet somewhat of the Old Testament in the searching out of the enemies of her Nation and in the Revenge that she caused to be ex-excised every where upon them that had sworne her Ruine Haman's House was given her and ten of his Sons hanged to accompany the punishment of their Father Five hundred men were slain in Shushan for having adhered to that miserable man and through all the rest of the Cities of the Kingdome much blood was shed on the same day that had been assigned for the Massacres of the Hebrews We must avow that this History is wonderfully Tragicall and one of the most wonderfull Revolutions of Fortune that ever arrived to Great ones to make Posterity feare the Judgements of a God whose Hand is as weighty in the Chastisement of Crimes as his Eye quick-sighted in the discerning of Hearts The SOULDIERS JOSHUA JUDAS MACCABEUS IOSVE IVDAS MACHABEE HE must be ignorant of the chief and most visible of beauties that knowes not Joshua One cannot see the Sun without remembring the great commerce that this Valourous Captain had with the King of Stars All the World lift their eyes up to it but none hath ever lifted his voyce as far as it to make himself be heard and to make himself to be obeyed The Stars knew Joshua because he bore the Name of him that formed them It is he that first gave us the fore-tasts of the name of Jesus at which the Heaven the Earth and Hell do bend the knee What lovely thing had not this generous Joshua seeing one cannot name him without mentioning Salvation which is the wish and content of all men Who would think that such a spirit had been born and bred in servitude And yet he was Pharaohs slave he was as the rest in the chain that was at that time common to all his people Those were very patient that could endure it but he was far more valiant that found a means to break it When in his little infancy he played upon the banks of the River of Nile with the other prisoners he then strook terrour into all its flotes and the Angels of Egypt knew that he should tread under his feet the pride Pharaoh and carry away the spoils of that proud kingdome so many times cemented with the blood of his brethren He did every thing by Moses's orders and Moses did nothing without him If one was the eye of his people the other was the arm if one was the Conductour of them the other was the Protectour If one had the Providence the other reserved to himself the execution which is ordinarily the most difficult piece of Prudence
eyes enlightened with the Beams of the face of God Consider the waves of the Ocean which cease not to carry the Memory of your Deeds unto the ends of the earth pardon your Subjects and wash away the stain which the effusion of that generous bloud hath made since you had rather be a Messenger of Reconciliation than to be the Bearer of Vengeance O great and illustrious Brittanie Is it possible that this bloud hath yet wrought nothing on the hardness of thy heart and that thou dost still delight by force of Arms to fight against Heaven to oppose thy own safety and to shut the gate against thy own happiness Where is that glory of thy Christianism which heretofore did make thee to be lookt upon as on a land of Benediction which opened her liberal breasts to give so many Doctours to Europe so many Lights of learning to the Church so many Examples of piety to all Christendom and so many Confessors unto Paradise Thy Kings by a pious violence have forced their way to Heaven and their people have followed their foot-steps There was nothing spoken of thee but obedience to the Church of Rome of Saints of Reliques of Piety of Combats of Virtue and of Crowns And since the devil of lust and rebellion raised from the most black Abyss hath seized on the soul of a miserable King thou hast sullied thy perfection thou hast destroyed thy Sanctuary the lamentable Reliques whereof are now spread over all the world and the sacred stones of thy Temples groaning amongst the Nations do attend the day of the Justice of God and the Re-union of the hearts of thy people in the performance of his service What hast thou done with the cradle of Constantine and of S. Helena who were born with thee to give Laws unto all Christendom What hast thou done with those precious stones which composed that Diadem the beams whereof did sparkle with admiration in the eyes of all the people in the world Return O Sbunamite return Return fair Island to thy first beginning the hand of God is not shortned his arms all day are stretched forth to receive thee If the insolent hands of Heresie have made them bars which have been planted for so many years do not think but the hands of true piety will tear away the disorders which protect themselves in the night of so corrupted an Age. Feign not to thy self imaginary horrours and overthrowings of Estates by the Inquisitions and Thunders of Rome The beams of the Sun will make the Manna to melt which no Power can destroy The bloud of this immortal Queen shall break the Diamond in pieces and one day work those great effects which we our selves cannot believe nor our Posterity sufficiently admire It is in your veins most mighty Monarch of Great Brittain where still her bloud doth run That cruel Axe which made three Crowns to fall with one head hath not yet poured it all out it doth preserve it self in your body and in the body of your Posterity animated with the Spirit of Marie and imprinted with the image of her goodness It is she who hath given you so temperate a spirit such attractive inclinations such royal Virtues and so triumphant a Majesty It is she who uniteth you with the Queen your dear Spouse with a will so cordial and with a love so perfect and makes your marâ—iage as a continual Sacrifice of the Ancients whose offerings that were presented had no gall at all in them The Queen of Scotland your Grand-mother was given unto France and France hath rendered you a Princess according to the heart of God and according to your own-heart a Blossom of our Lilies the Daughter of a King the Sister of a King the Wife of a King Royal in her bloud Royal in her Religion Royal in her Piety in her Prudence and Royal in her Courage She enters into your cares she partakes of your troubles She conspires with your Designs her spirit turneth unto yours and yours continually is ready to meet with hers They are two clocks excellently ordered which at every hour of the Day do answer one another Great Majesties of Brittanie carry the same yoke in the service of God and the piety of your Ancestours and as you have but one heart maintain also but one Religion Establish that which your Grand-mother of everlasting memory hath practised by her Virtues demonstrated by her Examples honoured by her Constancy and sealed with her Bloud CARDINAL POOL LE CARDINAL POLVS NExt unto Boëtius I will insert Cardinal Pool one of the most excellent Men of the Age before us who being chief of the Councel in the Realm of England under Queen Marie did know so well to marry the Interests of the State to the Interests of God that rendering himself the Restorer of Religion he repaired the Ruins of the Kingdom which were fallen into a horrible desolation His Birth most high and illustrious made him a His birth and Education near Kinsman to the King of Great Brittain as well by the Fathers side as by the Mothers His spirit did equal his Nobility but his Virtue did exceed them both and proved him to be the wisest and the most moderate person in all the Clergy The care of his good Mother did with great advantage improve his more innocent and tender years and omitted nothing that might either enlighten his understanding in the knowledge of learning or inflame his heart with a generous heaâ— after gallant actions In his most tender age he testified a Divine Attraction His love of solitude which made him to eschewall commerce of company and secretly did inspire him with the love of Solitude He did delight in the Countrey life where the pureness of the Air the aspect of the Stars the ennammel of the Meadows the covert of the Woods the veins of the Waters and other objects did prepare him as many Degrees to mount up to God as he did there behold Beauties in the discovered breasts of Nature It was for this that he made his first studies near unto the House of the reverend Fathers of the Charters whose conversation he loved more than all the pleasures in the world which occasioned a certain tincture of Devotion and of probitie to pass into his manners which continued with him all his life From thence he removed to the Universities in England where he gave most admirable proofs of his Capacity On the approach of the twentieth year of his age His Travels he travelled into Italie where he beheld the wonders of Rome and had a tast of the rarest spirits in that Age some whereof did afterwards live with him and did much conduce to fill his spirit with the height of learning which made him to be admired by all and the rather because it no way diminished the holy heats of his Devotion Having travelled into forreign Countreys for the space of five years he returned into England where he was lookt
meae fidem quà m formam irritamentum alienae libidinis esse malus in my face extinguishing with my bloud the flames of them that sought me For I loved better to seal my innocency as with the seal of voluntarie deformitie than to possess a beauty that served onely as a bait for anothers lust O thou Christian woman who dost paint thy self with an ill intention seeking to gain that by imposture which thou canst not attain by truth and not satisfying thy self with adulterating thy beauty sparest not to discover among company a scandalous nakedness to shew in thy breasts the impudence of thy forehead Consider a little what thou wilt answer to this Paynim with all thy curiosity when her bloud her wounds scars her beauty disfigured which served as a sacrifice to her chastity shall accuse thee before the inevitable tribunal Behold likewise Lycurgus is elected King of the Greatness of Lycurgus Lacedemonians if so his dead brother should leave no heir in his wives body The perfidious and unnatural Queen sendeth this message to the King new chosen SIR I am with child and according to the laws of the countrey it may fall out the fruit of my body may snatch the Scepter out of your hands I see the kingdom is a dainty morsel hard for them to disgorge who once have swallowed it If you will be wise in your own affair I know a means by a potion to put your crown in safetie and by anticipation taking away the life of this little creature settle your throne for ever Onely be mindful of me your faithful hand-maid who with loss of my own bloud tender this grateful office Hereupon Lycurgus detesting in his heart the treacherie of this ravenous she-wolf dissembleth and answereth MADAME Let the infant come into the world be it male or female it importeth not we alwayes shall find means enough whensoever we shall think good to dispatch it As soon as the child was born which proved a boy he took it in his arms he assembled the Magistrates and people and covering the little Creature with his royal Robe saith Sirs long live justice and loyaltie Behold your King I am but his vassal O Christian what sayest thou to this Pagan that would not purchase a Kingdom by the single sin of another Yet many times a little interest makes thee neglect all that which is divine in Faith Justice and Religion It is not required of thee thou shouldest be a S. Antony a Macarius an Angel of the desert It is demanded of thee that for Gods honour thou shew some small resistance of sin which these infidels have done for a shadow of virtue and it shall suffice Dost thou not behold that thou art enforced not onely for good fashion but for necessity to this Christian perfection which thou imaginest to be far separated from thy condition Conclude O ye Noble men out of this discourse that the obligation which you have to be perfect is most evident since you have JESUS CHRIST for a sharer the charges easie it consisting not but in loving a goodness which one cannot hate and which never any one can love if he offer not the homage of his proper interest to his divine Majesty Behold all perfection The second REASON Drawn from Nobilitie HAving in general declared the obligation all Christians have to become perfect let us in particular behold the reasons which invite Nobilitie to perfection I doubt not if you maturely ponder those which I have to propose you shall find them no less obliged to the solid eminencie of all Christian virtues than Hermits themselves and this by the right of their condition so as that which seemeth to enlarge their scope to a life of greater libertie rather serveth as a bound of their dutie and a bridle for their dissolutions Let us take the first reason which is their Nobilitie It is an argument that cannot proceed but from a low judgement or a spirit soothed with its own effeminacie to say he is Noble he is a Courtier he is a States-man his qualitie tieth him not to perfection his virtue must be measured by the ell of the world if he were over virtuous the excess of his sanctitie would be prejudicial to his fortune What an extravagant humour is it to fix ignominie upon the front of Nobilitie in the first beginning He is Noble he therefore should be the less devout and less virtuous Change the Gamuth and say He is Noble he hath therefore the more obligation to be perfect Nobilitie hath put the yoak of a happie necessitie upon him which he cannot shake off without much cowardize And to make you thereby behold that Nobilitie is a bond of Christian virtue in all eminencie no man will deny but that by how much the more God giveth powerful and effectual means to man to arrive at a good end so much more obligation he hath to carry himself with fervency of affection and in case of failing his neglect is made the more faultie The servant to whom the Master hath given five talents to negotiate with ought much more to profit and bring gain home than he that received but one single talent Who can deny Nobilitie first gift of God Mihi Deorum immortalium munus primum videtur maximum in lucem statim felicem venire Panegyr Constant this if he will not belie the light of nature Now so it is Great men have many more talents of God for the traffick of virtues than others have and behold the first of all which is the happiness of their birth An Oratour making a solemn Oration in the praise of Constantine the Great in the Citie of Trier let fall these words The first and greatest gift of heaven was to be born happy and as soon to be in the lists of felicitie as of nature The Scripture it self recommendeth Nobilitie in the persons of the three valiant children held in the Captivitie of Babylon in that of Eleazar and others It is a wonder how S. Hierome in the Epitaph of S. Paula hath not omitted that she was descended from Agamemnon Which would never have been mentioned were it not that Nobility is valued amongst the temporal goods which are distributed to us by the providence of Almighty God Now that Nobilitie is a good instrument to conduct to perfection appeareth by an irrefragable reason which I intend to express I will not say what might be proposed and fortified by experience that the bodies of Noble and Gentlemen are ordinarily better composed and as it were more delicately moulded by the artful hands of nature that they have their senses more subtile their spirits more agile their members better proportioned their garb more gentile and grace more accomplished and that all these prepare a fair shop for the soul to exercise her functions with greater liberty Let us rather Nobilitie not tied to bloud Omnis propemodum sanguis est concolor sicubi forte alter altero
often observed that Noblemen who have established tyrannie in the world have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their posteritie and as nature is scantie in the propagation of wolves designed for spoil which otherwise would bring all the world into desolation so Almightie God by a secret oeconomie of his divine Providence permitteth not that great men who have made themselves disturbers of publick peace and infringers of laws both divine and human whereof they ought to be protectours should make the bruitishness of their savage souls to survive them in their posterity But as for those who are arranged in the list of sanctitie and modesty God hath as it were immortalized their bloud in their posteritie as we see it happen in worthie and illustrious families But to what value amounteth all this which I have said in comparison of that crown of glorie which God placeth on the heads of Noblemen in the other life when they have virtuously governed in this mortal mansion O what a brave death it is to die under the shadow of the Palms of so many heroical virtues Oh it is the death of a Phoenix to die in the odours of a holy conversation to change his sepulchre into a cradle and even draw life out of the Tomb Oh what an immortalitie it is to survive eternally in the mouths of men but much more to live in Heaven enjoying the knowledge love life and felicitie of God! O Nobles betake your selves betimes and in a good hour to the way of this temple of honour by the exercise of holy virtues which are like Elias chariot all flaming with glory to carrie your purified souls even to the height of the Emperial Heaven THE SECOND BOOK Of Hinderances which worldly men have in the way of SALVATION and PERFECTION The first OBSTACLE Faintness and weakness of Faith Against Atheists HAving sufficiently proved the obligations which Great-ones and men of qualitie have to perfection let us now see the hinderances which may stop the increase thereof as well to take from them all pretext of false libertie as to denote the confusions very frequent in the corruptions of this Age. The first is a certain languor and debilitie of faith which openeth the way to all sorts of vices so that putting all the greatness of the world into a false seeming it beholdeth Paradise and all the blessings of the other life with blear-eyes and clouded with a perpetual eclipse And that you may well Two sects of men conceive this let us observe that in this Age greatly changed by heresie libertie and vice two sorts of men are to be seen whereof the one doth symbolize with just Abel and the other are of the sect of Cain These two brothers began to contend together even in the worlds cradle as Jacob and Esau in the bellie of Rebecca Abel had a soul impressed with a good stamp religious docile pure perpetually fixed in the chaste apprehensions of the Divinitie Cain quite contrary an impious soul greatly infected with the serpents breath black variable wavering in faith and in the virtue of the Divine providence He verily is the father of Atheists and S. Bernard hath properly Bern. serm 24 in Contic Fideicida antequam fratricida Procop. in Genes said He killed faith before he murdered his brother Procopius calleth him the son of the earth because this unfortunate creature perpetually looked downward having already as it were buried in the tomb of oblivion the lights and knowledges of heaven From thence proceeded the irreverence of his unbridled spirit his wicked sacrifices his envie against his brother afterward his furie murder and bloud and lastly a deluge of calamities The onely example of his disaster should suffice to terrifie those who following him in his impietie make themselves undoubtedly the companions of his misfortune but since it also is expedient we proceed herein by discourse and reason I observe the causes and remedies of this infidelitie Faintness and debilitie in Three sorts of consciences from which impiety springs faith and consequently atheism is formed in three sorts of consciences to wit the criminal the bruitish the curious Atheism proceedeth from a criminal conscience when a soul findeth it self involved in a long web of crimes and as it were overwhelmed in the habits of sin In the mean time God doth inwardly Horrible state of a sinful conscience torture prick forward and scourge it and then all bloudy and ulcerous as it is not able longer to remain within it self but tasting so many disturbances in its proper mansion it searcheth evasions and starting-holes expatiateth in the pleasures and delights of the world to dissolve her many griefs and findeth in every thing her gnawing worm She looketh back upon the path of virtue which she hath either forsaken or never trodden as an impossible track the spirit of lies representing it unto her all paved with thorns and briars she re-entereth into herself and saith in her heart that there is none but God who afflicteth her and that necessarily she must free herself from him for our felicities are measured by the ell of our opinion and no man is miserable but he that apprehendeth his own unhappiness Then soothing herself with these humane discourses she herein much laboureth to acquit herself from God from the belief of judgement of hell and the immortality of the soul Notwithstanding she cannot albeit these wicked spirits have scoffed at the mysteries of Religion with their companions as if they would put on a bold fore-head and an impudence strong enough to endure a stroke so dreadful but contend against the essence of God Care findeth them in their bed and is pinned to their silken curtains the thoughts of a Divinitie which they supposed to have totally banished from their hearts in pleasures upon Et ubi Deus non timetur nisi ubi non est Tert. de prescrip 41. Ponam eam possessionem Ericii Isaiah 14. 2. the least afflictions return and make themselves felt with very piercing points which head-long throw them into despair The Prophet Isaiah hath divinely prophesied of such a soul I will make her the inheritance and possession of hedge-hogs Verily the miserable caytif hatcheth in her entrails a thousand little hedge-hogs which as they encrease make their pricks and darts multiply a thousand gnawings a thousand apprehensions as uncapable of repose as apt to afflict a conscience Such heretofore was the state of Nero for this Condition of Nero. barbarous monster who so often had dipped his hand in bloud sought out a bath of delights to bath himself in he ran up and down to prie into all the inventions of the pleasures of the world to rid himself from the arrow which he had in his heart and to dispoil himself for ever of an opinion of the Divinitie This was a matter for him impossible When he was at feasts sports or Theatres the apprehension of God stung his heart as a Bee and
satietas poenitentia The disorder of it wicked love is full of anxiety and ever in its satiety it finds repentance Disorder You may as well tell the leaves of the trees the sands of the sea and the stars in the skie as number the disorders which have vomited and still overflow upon the face of the earth by means of the sin of luxury If there be poyson to be dissolved love mingleth it If swords be forged and fyled to transfix the sides of innocent creatures love hammereth and polisheth them in his shop If there be halters to be fastened wherewith to strangle love weaveth and tyeth them If there be precipices love prepareth them If there be massacres love contrives them If you go about to find little embryons even in the mothers womb to be bereaved of the life which they have not as yet tasted love is the authour and actour of these abominable counsels All the mischief and crimes which have in former Ages been perpetrated love hath done them and daily invented them It hath from all times pushed and shouldred good order out of the world It hath been the butt and aim of all the vengeances of God It hath been strucken with fire and brimstone from Heaven swallowed in the entrails of the earth drenched in the waters of a general deluge Yet it escapeth yet it perpetually armeth yet it walloweth it self in bloud and slaughter yet it holdeth the sword of justice ever perpendicular over the head and in conclusion it is esteemed but as a sport Is not all this of power sufficient to make it be believed that this filthy vice is an infallible mark of reprobation Flie O Noblemen this fleshly pestilence of mankind and never suffer it to exercise its tyranny over hearts consecrated by the precious bloud of the Lamb. All consisteth in flying far from the occasions thereof If you love danger you shall perish therein If you had the best intentions which did ever bud in the hearts of Saints yet if you seek out occasions of doing ill they become crooked and distracted Nature being Remedies as now it is corrupted the ignorance of vice better serves our turn than all the precepts of virtue Our affections attend on our knowledge the absence of objects maketh us to forget all our most enflamed desires To live in lust and idleness to have our eyes always in pursuit unchaste books in our hands to hear comedies and impure stage-plays to have gluttonous discourse in our mouth to frequent buffons and loose livers to converse familiarly with women these are not the instruments of chastity it is â—ather to put oyl into the flame and then to complain of much heat Petrarch in his books against vanity giveth remedy Petrarch l. 1 2. c. 23. de remediis Occupatio liber incultier habitus villus asperior secessus inque unum aliquid jugiâ— intentio aâ—â—aec testis charus verendus frequâ—nâ— admonitio dulces minae si quando res exigat asperae Cyprian de bono pudor Ante ocules obversetur defermis atque dejectus peccati pudor nihil corpori liceat ubi vitandum est corporis vitium Cogitetur quam honestum sit viâ—â—â—se dedecus quam inhonestum victum esse à dedecore to the wounds which seem to have been inflicted in the time of his loves Love creepeth into idleness handle the matter so that he may always find you busied Love is pleased with curiositie of attire give him hayrcloth He is entertained with feasts subdue him with austerity He will fall upon some object scatter and confound him He laboureth to find out a loose and unbridled spirit hold yours extended upon some good affair He requireth liberty private places night darkness let him have witnesses and enlighten him on every side He will be governed by fantasie keep him dutiful both by admonitions and menaces S. Cyprian found nothing more powerful to conquer a temptation of dishonest wantonness than to turn the other side of the medal and as this sin hath two faces so not to stay upon that which looketh amiable and attractive to deceive us but to behold that which under a black veil sheweth it self to be pensive sad shamefac'd desperate and full of confusion The great Picus Mirandula said the most part of men yielded to temptation because they never tasted the sweetness of glory which is drawn from the victory over a sin Above all it is behoveful to use the advise of a wise Arabian who represented to himself perpetually over his head an eye which enlightened him an ear which heard him a hand which measured out all his deportments and demeanours The exercise of the presence of God joyned with prayer frequentation of Sacraments often invocation of the Mother of purity and the Angels Guardians of chastity daily blunt a thousand and a thousand arrows shot against the hearts of brave and undaunted Christian Champions Adde hereunto that it is good to live in a ceaseless distrust of ones self which is the mother of safety that you may not fall into the fire it is good to avoid the smoke not to trust ones self too much to those petty dalliances which under pretext of innocency steal in with the more liberty Mother of pearls produce sometimes windy bunches for true and native pearls and the will through complacence of passion ill digested in stead of good love bringeth forth silly abortions of amities which are nothing but flashes and wild fantasies yet such as may notwithstanding dispose an emptie soul to some finister affections The tenth OBSTACLE Excess in diet and apparel THe world was as yet in her cradle man was Terrestrial Paradise the chamber of justice no more than born when God making a Palace of justice of terrestrial Paradise pronounced against him the sentence of labour and pain and afterward wrote it as with his finger in the sweat of his brow Thou shalt eat thy bread Gen. 3. 19. In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane Noblemen appeal from the sentence of labour with the sweat of thy brow Noblemen perpetually appeal from this sentence as if they were not men it seemeth labour is not for them Let nature hold to the chain and labour those grosser bodies which are moulded of the clay of Adam they have forsooeth bodies composed of I know not what kind of starrie matter which never must sweat nor take pains but in a dance What a folly it is Ought not he to be dissolved into sweat since he is to be reduced into ashes He cannot free himself from the sentence of death and why shall he decline pains-taking seeing it proceeded from one and the same mouth in the same time and upon one and the same subject But behold the reason which is that to satisfie the sentence of labour sureties are found the houses of rich men are filled with officers and servants who take pains in their fields prune their vines carry
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
Anthony could find no other way to make Herod to be acknowledged for King while there was yet any of the bloud Royal left capable of rule so much this people loved their natural King and abhorred a stranger After these slaughters Herod mounteth to the top Entry of Herod to the crown of the wheel behold all the thorns as he thinketh pulled out of his feet he now had nothing to grapple with but an old man an infant and two women the last remainder of the noble race of the Asmodeans Hircanus was the aged man who in truth grew old among the thorns and horrible changes of his state He was as yet captive among the Parthians but the King although a Barbarian had so much commiseration of his so greatly afflicted goodness that he permitted him to live with all free libertie in his Citie of Babylon This poor Prince who had passed his whole life void of ambition bare the change of his fortune with great equalitie and temper of mind The Jews who at that time inhabited in the Parthians dominions beholding him all wounded disfigured wretched abandoned disarrayed did notwithstanding honour him as their King with so much respect and reverence that he had almost found a Kingdom in Captivitie Herod who saw this man might serve as a colour for those spirits that would aym at him in the swinge of his affairs as yet not well confirmed dispatcheth an express Embassadour to the Parthian King with many presents and letters sweetned with silken words wherein he besought him not to bereave him of the greatest contentment he could possibly have in this world which was to be grateful to those who had obliged him Hircanus said he was his benefactour his Protectour his Father and since God had given him some repose in his affairs it was an unspeakable comfort to him to share the scepter greatness and affluent content of Kings with a friend so faithful worthy to be beloved The King of Parthia willing to gratifie King Herod whom he beheld supported by the Roman Empire the power whereof he more feared than honoured the virtue gave free leave to Hircanus to go whither he would he put the business in consultation with the prime Peers of his countrie who much disswaded him But through the easiness of his singular nature which ever swallowed the bait without consideration of the hook he yielded himself to the dissembled courtesies of Herod and returned directly to Jerusalem where he was received with infinite demonstrations of amitie Behold the whole Regal familie in the hands of this Tyrant Hircanus had but one onely daughter named Alexandra a woman no whit of her fathers temper for she was extreamly haughtie and had much adoe with herself to bite the bridle in this servitude She was mother of two children one son and one daughter the son was the little Aristobulus and the daughter Mariamne married to Herod Mariamne was accounted the most beautiful Princess Marriage of Mariamne to Herod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Euphonie Mariamne of the earth for Gellius who went prying after all the beauties of the world to make relation thereof to Mark Anthony having well considered all the most exquisite Master-pieces of Nature when he beholdeth Mariamne in Palestine he protesteth all other beauties were terrestrial in comparison of this which seemed to have been composed amongst the the heavenly Orbs. This man saw nothing but the exteriour bark and was rapt with admiration but her form was not worthy esteem in comparison of the noble qualities of her mind She was a grandchild of the great Machabees well versed in the Law of God discreet wise stayed circumspect courteous chast as Susanna but above all couragious and patient who lived in Herods Court as Job on the dunghil Never beautie and virtue were so disgraced in any match This creature which had power to make so many brave Princesses to sigh for her and who might have beheld so many obsequious services done at her foot hath now Herod for her husband who had nothing humane in him but lineament and figure It was to match the Lamb with the Wolf the Dove with the Faulcon and to tye a living body mouth to mouth with the the dead to marrie such a Lady to so Prodigious a Monster But he who already had power in his hand passionately sought her as well for her in comparable beauty as besides for ever to establish his state considering the alliance of this little creature descended from so many Kings would cover the obscuritie of his house and gain him more reputation among the Jews Hircanus grand-father to Mariamne and Alexandra her mother seeing Herod was Master of his desires the Scepter already in his hands although by injustice and tyrannie measuring all things by his fortune not person judged this way might be yet advantagious and that his wife might mollifie him and make him favourable to the Royal bloud The generous Lady well foresaw that the putting her into Herods hands was to cast her into the Lions jaws But not to gainsay those to whom she had been taught to sacrifice her whole life and to obey the Laws of necessitie she under-went the yoke fortifying her Royal heart against all the stormy tempests which seemed already to menace her Behold her married Herod loveth her as the hunter venison for his appetite and advantage his love being not of power to make him loose one sillie grain of his ambition or crueltie This perverse Herod depresseth the Royal stock and violent spirit who held the Kingdom as a wolf by the ears ever wavering yea even in the secure safetie of his affairs endeavoured nothing but to rid himself of those whose spoils he possessed the respect of this good Queen being not able to sweeten or soften his savage humours He well shewed how little affection he bare towards her allies when it might any way import his pretended interest even at that time when there was question to substitute a High-Priest in the place of Hircanus who having his ears cut off with much deformitie necessarily fell into the irregularity ordained by Law which forbad him Altars Herod daily saw the Aristobulus the brother of Mariamne put from the High-Priesthood young Aristobulus in his Palace son of Alexandra and sole brother of his wife a most accomplished Prince to whom every one destined the Myter He sets his eyes a-wandering and finds out on the further side of Euphrates in the Citie of Babylon an unknown Jew named Ananel and createth him High-Priest This was a pill which Alexandra the mother of Aristobulus and Mariamne could not swallow yet thought fit to dissemble it She saw her house manifestly dejected in that her son after so many obligations was dispossessed of an honour to which bloud nature and the consent of the whole world called him to give it to a man of no value she could not so well digest her choler but that she thundred more lowdly than
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
the same time Bathyllus set at liberty by Antipater was taken coming from Rome to Judea to advise Pheroras to hasten the business and bearing with him a new poyson if the first were not of force In the mean time Antipater wrote to the King his father that he laboured earnestly at Rome to dissolve obloquies and accommodate his affairs with clearness that he hoped to come to a period in them and quickly return into Judea Herod was desirous to lay hold upon him sendeth him this letter My son the frailtie of my age and debilitie of my bodie daily instructeth me that I am mortal One thing comforteth me that having made choice of your person to succeed me in my estate I shall behold the decrepitness of my age flourish again in your youth and as it were burie my death in your life since I shall live in one part of my self to me most precious I wish you presently were with me not so much for the assistance I expect from your pietie as for the prejudice your absence may impose on my fortune Fail not with the good leave of Caesar to return hither as soon as you can delays nothing advance our affairs This bayt was too tempting to defend him from Subtilty against subtilty the hook upon this news he would as it were flie to Jerusalem he dispatcheth his affairs takes leave of Augustus and hastily posteth to obey his fathers commandments It was an admirable thing that in the way he never had any notice of that which passed so hated he was both of God and men Yet so it was that being in Cilicia he learned his mother was disgraced which much astonished him so that he resolved to retire back again but one of his counsel perhaps wrought by Herod shewed unto him that if nothing were plotted against him he ought not to fear and if any calumny were forged he rather should hasten to strangle it otherwise his absence would thrust him further into suspition This counsel he believed and notwithstanding the remorse of his conscience he took the way to Judea When he was arrived in the port of Sebaste he began Woful event of Antipater to enter into greater apprehensions of his own unhappiness than ever For upon the same haven where he before had beheld so great confluence of people which made many loud acclamations at his departure not for the love they bare him but for obedience to Herod who so would have it he perceived the chance of the dye to be now changed he was entertained with respectless countenances and that some beholding him scornfully muttered between their teeth as cursing him for shedding the bloud of his brothers He was too far engaged to retire back and the vengeance of God already had scored him out his lodging He goeth directly from Sebaste to Jerusalem and hasteneth to the Palace magnificently attired and well attended The Guard suffered him to enter commanding all those who accompanied him in the Kings name to withdraw He was much amazed to see himself taken like a bird in a snare notwithstanding he went forward and entereth into the Hall where his father expected him accompanied by Quintilius Varus newly sent from Rome as Governour of Syria After he had made an humble obeysance according to the custom he came to kiss his father but at that instant he heard the roaring of the Lion For Herod retiring back said unto him Avant thou murderer of brothers and father the kiss of a father was not instituted for thee Behold Quintilius thy Judge Advise with thy self what thou art to morrow to answer upon crimes whereof thou art accused He strucken with this word as with a thunder-clap withdrew bearing terrour in his face and the image of his crime in his thoughts He in the next chamber found his mother and. wife weeping with many laments already preparing his funerals amazement so seized him he had not language to comfort them nor so much as tears to bemoan his own mishap He spent the whole night in great afflictions finding by experience it was much more easie to commit a crime than excuse it The next morning he is sent for by the Councel where he found the King his father with Quintilius Varus and many Counsellours of State Yea letters were then intercepted Antipater accused before his father very lately written by his mother which signified all was discovered and that he should carefully beware not to return and put himself into the hands of his father if willingly he would avoid the throat of the Lion This was represented unto him at the entrance to the Councel he expected nothing but the instant of strangling so much his conscience tormented him Behold the cause why casting himself on his knees he besought his father not to condemn him before he was heard Herod replieth Impious villain what hast thou to say Hath God then preserved thee to be the last scourge of my old age Thou knowest I have extracted thee from the dregs to place thee over thy brothers above and beyond all hope I have given thee my money my revenues my authoritie my favour my secrets my heart and Crown into thy hands in a Will signed with my own hand and thou canst not a little stay till thy fathers eye is closed by natural death to enjoy it It was thither thy purpose aimed when with such heat thou didst pursue the death of thy brothers nothing have I done in their inditements but by thy information and advise Wicked creature I fear lest thou hast stained me with their bloud thy crime now makes their innocencie appear At these words he bitterly wept the memory of Mariamne and his unfortunate children coming into his mind He was so oppressed at his heart that he was enforced to intreat Nicholas Damascen who was as his Chancellour to pursue the rest Antipater preventeth him and speaketh in his own defence That he was much wronged in giving credit to slaves and silly women to his prejudice that he had received letters from Caesar whom a man could deceive no more than God himself which gave a most ample testimonie of all his demeanours and of the satisfaction he had given to Rome That he never had failed in duty towards his father and that it were a passage of extream folly to put himself into an uncertain hazard for a Crown which he had as it were already in his hands Briefly without any further discourse be offered himself to be used like a slave and to be put to the torture for proof of his innocency And therewithal he dreadfully tormented himself in such sort that he began to move all the company Nicholas Damascen who was a rough garnster taketh the word out of his mouth he confronteth the witnesses he interrogateth urgeth involveth and puts him into confusion and thundereth a very bloudy invective against him which at large is couched in Josephus history where like an Oratour he exaggerateth all the
was your enemie you were his but he never yours For hostilitie comes from an usurper and defence from a lawfull Prince You do well to justifie your self upon this attempt but there is not a man will believe your justifications Who sees not you hated his life whose burial you hinder Paulinus addeth that for conclusion he dealt with him as one excommunicate and seriously adviseth him to expiate the bloud he had shed by a sharp penance This liberty of our admirable Prelate amazed all the Councel and Maximus who never thought that a Priest in the heart of his State in the midst of his Legions in the presence of his Court could have the courage to tell him that which he would never endure to hear in his Cabinet commanded him speedily to depart from the Court All those who were friends of the holy man advised him to be watchfull upon the ambushes and treason of Maximus who found himself much galled but he full of confidence in God put himself on the way and wished Valentinian to treat no otherwise with Maximus but as with a covert enemy which did afterward appear most true But Justina the Empress thinking S. Ambrose had been over-violent sent upon a third Embassage Domnin one of her Counsellours who desirous to smooth the affairs with servile sweetness thrust them upon despair of remedie The fourteenth SECTION The persecution of S. Ambrose raised by the Empress Justina WE may well say there is some Furie which bewitcheth the spirits of men in these lamentable innovations of pretended Religions since we behold effects to arise which pass into humane passions not by an ordinary way Scarcely could Justina the Empress freely breath air being as she thought delivered from the sword of Maximus which hung over her head tyed to a silken threed when forthwith she despoiled her self furiously to persecute the authour of her liberty O God what a dangerous beast is the spirit of a woman when it is unfurnished of reason and armed with power It is able to create as many monsters in essence as fantasie can form in painting Momus desired the savage bull should have eyes over his horns and not borns over his eyes but Justina at that time had brazen horns to goar a Prelate having eyes neither above nor beneath to consider whom she struck Authority served as a Sergeant to her passion and the sword of Monarchs was employed to satisfie the desperate humours of a woman surprized with errour and inebriated with vengeance Saint Ambrose like a sun darted rays on her and she as the Atlantes who draw their bowe against this bright star the heart of the world shot back again arrows of obloquie As women well instructed and zealous in matter Herod lib. 4. Solem orientem execrantur of Religion are powerfull to advance the Christian cause so when they once have sucked in any pestilent doctrine they are caprichious to preserve their own chymeraes The mistresses of Solomon after they had caused their beauties to be adored made their idols to be worshipped so Justina when she had gained credit as the mother of the Emperour and Regent in his minority endeavoured to countenance the Arian Sect wherein she was passionate that the sword Sect of Ariant of division might pass through the sides of her own son into the heart of the Empire The Arians had in the Eastern parts been ill intreated under the Empire of Theodosius and many of them were fled to Milan under the conduct of a false Bishop a Scythian by Nation and named Auxentius as their head but who for the hatred the people of Milan bore to this name of Auxentius caused himself to be called Mercurinus He was a crafty and confident man who having insinuated himself into the opinion of the Empress failed not to procure by all possible means the advancement of his Sect and did among other things very impudently demand a Church in the Citie of Milan for the exercise of Arianism Justina who in her own hands held the soul of Justina an Arian demandeth a Church in Milan her son Valentinian as a soft piece of wax gave it such figure as best pleased her and being very cunning there was not any thing so unreasonable which she did not ever colour with some fair pretext to dazle the eyes of a child She declared unto him that the place she possessed near his persō wel deserved to have a Church in Milan wherein she might serve God according to the Religion which she had professed from her younger days and that it was the good of his State peacefully to entertain every one in the Religion he should chose since it was the proceeding of his father Valentinian which she by experience knew had well succeeded with him To this she added the blandishments of a mother which ever have much power over a young spirit so that the Emperour perswaded by this Syren sent to seek S. Ambrose and declared unto him that for the good of his State and peace of his people it was in agitation to accommodate his thrice-honoured mother and those of her Sect with a Church in Milan At this word S. Ambrose roared like a Lion which made it appear he never would yield to the execution of such requests The people of Milan who honoured their Prelate as the lively image of the worlds Saviour when they once perceived that Valentinian had suddenly called him and that some ill affair was in hand they left their houses and came thundering from all parts to the Palace whereat Justina was somewhat astonished fearing there was some plot in it and so instantly commanded the Captain of the Guard to go out and disperse the rude multitude which he did and presenting himself with the most resolute souldiers he found no armed hands to resist him but huge troups of people which stretched out their necks and cried aloud They would die for the defence of their faith and Pastour These out-cries proceeding as from men affrighted terrified the young Emperour and seeing the Captain of his Guards could use no other remedie he besought S. Ambrose to shew himself to the people to mollifie them and promise that for the business now treated which was to allow a Church to the Hereticks never had those conclusions been decreed nor would he ever permit them S. Ambrose appeared and as soon as he began to open his mouth the people were appeased as if they had been charmed with his words whereupon the Empress grew very jealous seeing with the arms of sanctity doctrine and eloquence he predominated over this multitude as the winds over the waves of the sea A while after to lessen the great reputation of S. Ambrose Strange conference pretended by the Empress she determined to oppose her Auxentius against him in a publick reputation and though she in her own conscience wel understood that he in knowledge was much inferiour to S. Ambrose notwithstanding she reputed him impudent
laying aside all humane respects which had hitherto tyed him to Gentilism for considerations of his State he caused a Throne to be prepared in the Palace of Trajan where having sent for the Senate he declared with the eloquence of a Monarch the reasons which had moved him to this alteration of Religion and said SIRS I doubt not but the change of Religion which Notable Oration of Constantine partly drawn out of his acts and Edicts I have made will appear strange to many who blame all that which they cannot understand and will understand nothing but what flatters their presumption All noveltie is odious to those who love the old age of errour Yet I can tell you this is no new Religion which I have imbraced but that which was begun in the purified souls of the golden Age happily finished in our days The first men of the world had verity in bloom we now see the fruit which we may and shall enjoy if we be not ungratefull to our happiness and traiterous to our own conscience Believe me Sirs the world is almost grown out of it's non-age for God hath taken pitie of the ignorance thereof and made it see it was not time any longer to place Dragons and Owls upon Altars nor other Gods accounted as monsters if they would return into the life of men If our Ancestours blinded by mishap have made to be esteemed for Divinities so many criminals for whom our laws do now ordain punishments we are not bound to participate with the crimes of the one nor the errours of the other under pretext of antiquitie I must confess that I from my infancie have had great distrust upon the follies which I saw in the superstition of Gentiles and that which further confirmed me in this opinion was that one day I heard the answer of an Oracle which had long time stood mute and being demanded the cause of this silence answered The Just hindered it from speaking and we found those Just were the Christians who then had power to stop the mouthes of devils Afterward I began to consider those men whom I saw so persecuted and that there was not a corner of the earth that was not ruddie with their bloud yet were they notwithstanding so patient in their persecutions that they had prayers on their lips for those who rent their hearts out of their bodies This then gave me matter of amazement but when I came to think on their Church which flourished among so many storms and encreased under the swords of persecution this seemed to me more than humane yet transported with the torrent of common opinions I still resisted the voice of God which spake in my heart when it opened my eyes and made me once lively apprehend the dreadfull ends of Emperours who had persecuted Christianitie comparing them to the felicitie of my father Constantius of most glorious memorie who had preserved his hands innocent even to death free from any stain of Christian bloud This was sufficiently potent to move a soul which would easily yield to reason but God redoubling his inspirations made me one day behold in the Heavens a prodigie which many saw with me to wit the figure of the Cross composed of most resplendent light which appeared just at the time I was to wage battel against Maxentius I call the living God to witness that I therein read distinctly these words written as with the rays of the Sun IN HOC VINCE And it is a wonder that I deferred still to yield my self up till such time that the Saviour of the world advertised me in a vision to take into my Standards the sign which I had seen in Heaven the day before I instantly obeyed and have seen so prodigious effects succeed in the defeat of Maxentius which you have admired attributing to man that which was a work of the Divinitie I thought then to have discovered what I was but considerations of state which had too much force upon my soul stayed me and have made me walk along hitherto in a life more licentious than I intended I now protest before the face of Heaven and earth that I am a Christian both in heart and profession nor shall any motives ever alter that which I have so constantly resolved on Yet for all this I purpose not to force any man in his Religion leaving for this time belief as free as elements Yet for the charitie I hear towards my good subjects I cannot but wish them as much good as my self Now all my greatest happiness and which I esteem more than my Purple and Diadem is to entertain the knowledge of a living God which hath been revealed to us by his onely Son Jesus Christ the Doctour and Saviour of the world His person is full of miracles his life of wisdom and goodness his doctrine of puritie and if to conquer our pride and expiate our demerits he hath humbled himself to the punishment of the Cross so much therefore the more ought it to be honourable since he hath done for us all that which an incomparable love can do and endured all that which an invinoible patience may suffer I can do no other but love and singularly honour those who are enrolled under his Standard as my brothers in Religion and let it not seem strange to any if heretofore shewing my self very liberal to beautifie and enrich the Temples of Gentilism I now apply my self to build and adorn the Churches I will render what I ow to God and my own conscience nor shall my subjects who are of a Religion different from mine be any way interessed therein desiring to preserve them as persons whom I hope one day to have companions in faith and coheirs in glorie if they adde never so little consent to the lights wherewith the wisdom of God Incarnate hath replenished the world I onely beseech thee O great God on whom all Scepters and Crowns depend since you have united the East and West under my hands you would arrange them under the yoak of your Law which is the knot of Empires and source of felicitie I offer unto you my person mine Arms my Scepter and all mine abilities humbly begging of you to accept my slender service and to give me the assisting wisdom of your Thrones to govern in all honour all justice all peace and amitie the people which you have committed to my charge This Oration was heard by all the world with Admirable change of the world by the Oration and example of the Emperour very great applause in such sort that for the space of two hours the cries of an infinite number were heard who made many acclamations in favour of Christian Religion Fourty times was repeated UNUS DEUS CHRISTIANORUM There is but one God which is the God of the Christians and thirty times was proclaimed LET THOSE WHO DENY CHRIST COME TO NOUGHT and ten times LET THE TEMPLES BE SHUT UP LET THE CHURCHES BE OPENED And fourteen
nor fetters may prejudice the libertie of your spirit The third reason which is very much at large deduced in this divine Work is drawn from the vanitie of all temporal goods where wisdom proveth by very good reasons That if the sorrows we have for the world might be measured at the rate of the things which contristate us as there is nothing great in this vale of tears so should there not be any thing capable of much disquiet Mourn we for mettals which are the nests of rust and the tinder of concupiscence for attires which are the nourishment of mothes for bodies which are the food of worms for houses which are the bones of the earth piled one upon another with cement and morter for precious stones which are the excrements of an enraged sea borrowing their worth from our illusion for honours which are golden masks and weather-cocks of inconstancie What a folly is it to hold retirement for a punishment which so many brave spirits have taken for a Paradise and to think our selves sharply punished when we no longer behold behind us great trains of servitours who burden us with their crimes and make us become answerable for their souls What an errour is it to desire to hold riches locked up which never are what they ought to be but when they are distributed For they resemble a dung-hill which stinketh when it is together heaped and fatteneth the fields when it is spread abroad We move Heaven and earth to flie from povertie and find it in our riches for great fortunes are now adays so hungrie and have so much ado to maintain themselves that although the needie are ever the most poor yet is there nothing more beggerly than the rich who have a thousand dependances and a thousand necessities whereunto their felicitie is fastened as with a chain What a charm is it to think then to be happie when you mannage the affairs of Great-ones where never is any thing done to please them if you make not your self a slave to all their passions where favours are granted of feathers and disgraces inflicted of lead Where your sleep your life and your faith is sold for a pleasing fantasm which lasteth no longer than the dream of one night Deserveth not a man to be strucken down as an enemie of reason when unloosened from this slaverie he withereth languisheth and sighs for his fetters ready prest a thousand times to kiss the hands of him who again would enchain him Prof. 6. l. 3. O gloria gloria millibus hominum mortalium nihil aliud nisi aurium in statio magna What a mockerie is it to affect greatness among men as if a rat would make himself a lord among mice and to feed himself with glorie which is nothing but a swelling of the ear Oh Boetius Seneca desired under Nero and Papinian under Antoninus the solitude which thou now enjoyest but whilst they endeavoured to break their bands leaned to a ruinous wall the mass of their greatness transported and buried them Behold thy self retired Dum ruitures moles ipsa trahit from affairs into a chamber of Pavia behold thy self in repose and among books the first entertainment of thy young days why dost thou not now presently make a virtue of the happiness which the providence of God offereth thee For a third point he considered the fruits that might be derived from tribulation when it is well mannaged Prosperitie saith this wisdom unto him is windie open slipperie and inconsiderate Adversitie quite otherwise is sober reserved prudent and circumspect the one under apparences of felicities bringeth unto us an infinitie of lies the other is ever grave and sincere the one deceiveth us the other instructeth us the one blindeth us the other enlighteneth us the one polluteth us the other purifieth us the one charmeth us and tieth up our understanding the other enfranchizeth us the one separateth us from our sovereign good and maketh us fall into a thousand sorts of vanities the other draweth us back as with a book to the consideration of eternitie the one createth for us many flatteries the other discovereth unto us many true friends Let us suffer a little Boetius and if this seem troublesom think that as thy prosperities have passed away so shall thy adversities The last day of thy life which cannot be far off will ever be the last of thy ill fortunes if thou leave not it it will forsake thee it is an ordinance of God that favours and disgraces cannot be of long continuance and that for mortals there is no evil immortal Finally for the last reason the holy man who had composed so learned books of the mysteries of our faith forsaking all the comforts of humane things drenched himself very far into the consideration of blessings in the other life of eternity and the excellency of God He considered it as an infinite sea of essence This is inserted in my Journâ—â— bounty beatitude which encloseth in it self all being all good all veritie He saw the whole Universe in this immensity of God as a spunge would be in the midst of the ocean an atom in the air and a little globe of glass enchased in the first Heaven He saw in his bosom all glory all dignities all riches all treasures all pleasures all consolations all delights all joys and all beatitudes he walked at ease in those fourteen abysses of greatness which are in God to wit infinitie immensitie immutabilitie eternitie omnipotencie wisdom perfection sanctitie benignitie power providence mercie justice and the end whereunto all things tend From thence he beheld the Word Incarnate the true King of the afflicted and all the Saints laden with crosses and persecutions thinking himself very happy to mingle his tears with the bloud of so many brave courages who had gained Heaven with violence This consolation overflowing his heart drowned all his acerbities and infinitely sweetened the sharpness of his captivity Behold the fruits which the wise Boetius gathered in his prison well shewing that virtue is an hostess tractable in every lodging and who looseth no part of her liberty in chains It onely appertaineth to huge mountains to bear snow and verdure at one and the same time and to great souls to retain a holy vigour in the strength of afflictions The seventh SECTION The death of Boetius IT is a loss that the Authours which have written of this death have cut off so short the last act of a life so eminent There is not any thing saith one so curious in a statue nor so hard to polish as the nails and nothing which more clearly maketh the perfection of a man accomplished in virtues to be seen as a good death I will here speak that which I have drawn from the most probable authours touching the death of Boetius It is certain he was very long in this prison since he complaineth in the Preface of a book which he composed during the time of
than the executioner they retained in their own proper entrails We oftentimes in this point more bewail our own interests than the offence done to God and it is no strange thing that she who loveth ill should be deprived of what she affecteth When there is sin in it let us deplore it let us endeavour to remedie it by prayers by discretion by patience by all the most holy industries we may use therein We shall find our selves strong in silence and hope and not in ceaseless complaints which have no other effect but to fret wounds and renew disasters The tenth SECTION The care of children TO hide nothing from you women who are called to the Sacrament of Marriage ought to be very perfect because they have as it were in their mannage the most precious interest of posteritie they being chosen out to bring forth and educate Children which are to be members of the body of State It hath often been questioned from whence proceeded the good and evil nature of men and I find that many have attributed it to the divers aspects of Planets as by a fatal necessity But to say truly this Astrologie of fools and webs of spiders are as it were but one thing both being fit to catch flies and not deceive understanding men I hold opinion good mothers make the good nature of children and it hath ever been observed that great personages who have flourished in some eminencie of virtues have taken from thence as it were generally the first impressions of sanctitie If chast daughters chance to be born of incontinent mothers it is almost as rare as to see nettles bear gilliflowers Let us preserve our bodies as temples to bring forth more virtues than flesh for the publik and when God affordeth us issue let it be one of our chiefest cares to train it up in his service My heart bleedeth when I consider how now adaies many children of quality are bred which are stifled with servile indulgences under the shadow of dandling them God sends them as creatures with which he intendeth to support the world govern Common-wealths people heaven and adorn even the conversation of Angels but to see how they are used it seemeth that pieces of flesh are ingendered which are onely to be licked as bears to give them true perfections They are loaden with fat and the kitchin they are entertained in the full fruition of all the desires of their hearts they are observed like little Kings who are not as yet many times above five years of age and already exercise a Monarchy in the houses of their parents Jesus Christ banished Idolatrie from the world with so much sweat and bloud and it is again daily renewed when children are set up as certain little Idols to whom all hearts respects hopes fears and homages are sacrificed I beseech you let us not cause them to learn that which we should make them forget let us not accustom them to mimick affectation of words to pomp of habits to liberty to pleasures Let us attire them for the service of God and exercises suitable to their sex and condition and above all let us take heed they be not poysoned by the ear in the frequent conversation of such bad company who seem to be born for nought else but to infect purity The eleventh SECTION The conclusion of the discourse THe Emperess held ears and hearts suspended with this her discourse when seeing the hour approch wherein choice should be made of a wife for the Emperour her son Behold the time saith she my Lord and son when your Majestie must consign the golden Apple into the hands of her whom you shall judge to have the best portion of those excellent qualities which I have recited And saying that she caused a goodly room to be opened whereupon one side were seen pictures of Ladies who flourished in the more elder Ages in sanctitie in spirit in courage and in all virtues mentioned by us which composed a triumphant Court There was Sarah Rachel Lea Deborah Abigail Susanna Esther Judith Mariamne S. Agnes S. Cecilie S. Helena S. Monica S. Faelicitas the ten Sybils Zenobia Amalazunta Placidia Pulcheria Eudoxia Theodora Marcella Paula Eustochium Victorina Clotilda Radegundis and very many other not comprizing those who have flourished within these eight hundred years which much amazed me and made me say that such as affirmed women of honour were so rare to be found would perhaps have some trouble to find leaves on trees and water in the river All these pourtraits appeared with lights of glory in a most pleasing manner having enchasements all enriched with pretious stones Behold saith Euphrosina O virgins how precious us the memorie of holy Ladies Then turning her self to the other side she shewed with her finger the figures of such as had forsaken honour and virtue which were pale pensive cloudie and encompassed with flames as if they came out of hell There was Semiramis Phedra Thisbe Phillis Hellen of Greece Clitemnestra Cleopatra Agrippina Julia Messalina Calirrhoe Thais Phryne Rhodope Flora and in perspective so great a quantitie that it seemed to equal the sands of the sea not accounting those therein who afterward had a share in their miserie The Emperour having observed them entered into the room called the Pearl where he saw so many pearls selected from all the provinces of his Empire There was nothing to be seen but stars lightening and rays so much these beauties on every side mingling their lights afforded lustre which gave him much difficultie how to resolve There was among others one named Icesia a maid of much knowledge to whom the Emperour Theophilus spake a Greek verse to which she replied with an admirable promptness notwithstanding he relished not this spirit finding it too curious for his humout but after information taken from his eyes his ears and the mouthes of those who bred these creatures he gave the golden apple to one named Theodora a Paphlagonian by Nation whom I notwithstanding cannot think to come near her whom I here represent for a model S. CLOTILDE I.R.C.D.E.F. CLOTILDA The first SECTION Her Birth and Education THE number of Ladies eminent in sanctitie Ex Greg. Turonensi Ammonio Hincmaro Philippo Bergonensi Baronio c. is so great that it rebateth the point of wit to think thereon and the virtues are so resplendent that in the commixtion of their lights they dazle all eyes in such manner that it is a hard matter to speak of it unless we put some limits upon the discourses of so many singular subjects who set none on their merits And that is the cause why out of a great number of Princesses some of those whose names I have produced I here undertake one raised upon the most perfect idaea's which is the first Christian Queen of France I mean the most glorious Clotilda wife of our great Clodovaeus who verily is much bound to Heaven to have been chosen out for the advancement of the
away by the hand of a hang-man the life which he gave him Had his condition been capable of tears even Tygers themselves would have deplored him seeing so much piety such faith so much goodness such worth eclipsed in a bloud so precious in an Age so flourishing in a fortune so replenished with hope The news of his death hastened to find out Indegondis who was yet in Africa where she also received the last Letter which her husband wrote to her out of prison The servants that were about her person began to make hydeous lamentations as if they themselves had been condemned to death But the couragious Indegondis kissing the letter of her dear husband then opening it with singular reverence and reading the last words which he as it were had steeped in his bloud she cried out Alas Generous and faithfull heart you have done all that which a good man might you have manfully fought you are happily arrived at the Crown Nothing can be desired in you but the imitation of your constancy Servants Why do you weep This is the very day wherein I am a Queen and when I esteem my self the most triumphant woman in the world having my husband a Martyr in Heaven Give me roses and flower-de-luces that I may crown his Image and honour at the least with these testimonies a soul which hath left unto us such sweet odours of virtue She had with her her little Hermingildus almost dead with the wearisomness of travel on the way which indeed had been somewhat easie for the tenderness of his age The mother beholding him Go my son saith she follow your good father God hath given you a favour in your cradle that he doth not to all children which is to be banished for the faith and to take part in the Martyrdom of him who begot you Go little innocent and rejoyce with others before the Altar of the Lamb your mother shall not long stay behind you The child died shortly after and the good Princess Others say he was sent prisoner to the Emperour Mauritius but without ground having for a long time combatted in a brave manner against the apprehensions of nature poured forth on a sudden thick sobs and a main tyde of tears which distilled from her eyes against her will whereupon she mildly said Alas my tears what fitness can you find to bemoan a Martyr My God it is done the father and the son are alreadie at rest there remaineth nothing but to take the mother Behold two parts of the world Europe and Africk which I have filled with my miseries If you will that I yet pass into Asia your will be done But if I no longer be ought but an unprofitable burden to the earth what do I here I have spun out all the web which you gave me I have ended all the hopes of the world why stay you O my God to receive my soul which I bear on my lips She was heard For in few days being all wasted with love travel and desires after an exemplar death she found her tomb in Africk What shall I say here and what shall I do to shut up this discourse We have all certain natural softnesses in the bottom of our souls and some humane apprehensions which alter the force of our judgement My pen cannot almost pass over this history and not commix the waters of mine eyes with mine ink and perhaps also you my Reader cannot peruse it without compassion It seemeth unto you these chaste loves of Hermingildus and Indegondis are too unhappy that such virtues are cruelly handled that such noble courages have met with a fortune sinister hydeous and persecutive even to the tomb You would gladly see these brave spirits after so many tempests such thunder-claps and whirle-winds arrive at a Port of some large temporal felicity You would behold them with Crowns on their heads with Scepters in their hands with Provinces flourishing in revenues with prosperities perpetually smiling in their house with loves free from disturbance desires void oâ— denials affairs without trouble greatness without change pleasures without acerbities and a long posterity fully laden with honours It grieves you that this poor Prince hath passed away as a pearl parched up with lightening in its growth or as an eagle strangled in the shell You bewail this Princess that being born in France she died in Africk separated by the sword from a husband who loved her so tenderly deprived of a son who gave so many good hopes abandoned by all her allies but some poor waiting-women that buried her with sorrow so full of pitie that it was of power to move the monsters of Africk to commiseration Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God perpetually fixed to the earth and deprived of those sparkles of fire and light which burn under the most generous breasts Let us a little draw aside the curtain and see through so many clouds one sole ray of the Sanctuary What injury hath the Divine Providence done to Prince Hermingildus if for a Crown which is the weather-cock of winds if for a Scepter which is the reed of the times if for a life which is the harbinger of death it afford him virtues delights and glories which out-strip the flight of our thoughts which drie up our mouthes which out-run our desires which surmount all our imaginations What injury if it make a Saint of him whose name is couched in Martyrologes whose memory liveth in writing whose praise flourisheth in mouthes whose words are nought but honour and works but blessings whilest his step-mother Goizintha dies like a dog and is buried in the opprobrie of her name What injury if it have so handled the matter that his father touched with a lively repentance hath justified him as an innocent deplored him as a son invoked as a Martyr If it hath sanctified his setters consecrated the tower of his prison raised up his ashes above all the Crowns of the Kings of Spain If it hath given him Altars on earth and a Diadem of beatitudes in Heaven Is it to have despised his virtue neglected his sufferings disobliged his constancy and frustrated his travels What would you have God to have made the virtuous Indegondis A Queen delicate ambitious covetuous haughty which had not spit but in gold walked but on roses flown over the heads of men and putrified in delights How many such like are there who have defiled their names with reproach wearied the earth with their importunities astonished posterity with their deportments and peopled hell with their crimes But this Ladie having been purified with the burning coals of tribulation issued from the hands of God as a vessel of glory to make her lustre resplendent in the sight of all Ages Ah Ladies who read this piece and who many times flatter your selves with the title of virtue in some petty tracks of devotion which have nothing but outward semblance what example of piety see you here What
might have tied you unto him and not made use of so many things For what is more essential for the foundation of a belief than the revelation of the first Verity which might have been known to us by fewer proofs But behold his goodness and how he dealeth with our infirmities as to be willing to strike us so sensibly with reflection of the greatness of our faith to win us to his direction The Jews ran after a simple figure and tied themselves to weak elements The Gentiles are filled with childish toys and dotages which made the most learned amongst them to mock at their religion and say That should their gods have appeared alive in such Senec. l. de superstitione apud S. August l. 6. de Civitate Dei manner as they painted them they would be accounted Monsters In the heart of Mabumetans a tyrannous law is planted with sword and empalements No man is permitted to dispute upon it so many ridiculous and shamefull things there are in it which makes a soul recoyl in the very beginning that hath never so little humanity But Christian Religion hath appeared in the bosom of glory ever holy ever victorious ever opposed by the wicked and still triumphant over impiety It is enriched by its losses glorified by its persecutions established by its totterings and honoured by its wounds God for it hath opened all the most learned lips directed all the best pens and for it bound himself with as many witnesses as there are letters in the Scripture Have not we then cause to proclaim with Tertullian O how happie are O beatos nos quâ—rum causâ Deus jurat O miserrimos si nec juranti Deo credimus Tertul. c. 4. de poen we to say God engageth his own faith by oath to confirm ours And are not we worthie of all unhappiness if we any whit distrust this Eternal Veritie 3. You perhaps will say all it teacheth is very high and that to be faithfull one must as it were cease to be reasonable But tell not me faith is opposite to reason It is above not against it it commandeth our sense to obey God it laboureth to raise not demolish or if it demolish it is but by ruining rebellion to establish obedience What is more reasonable That to be faithfull is to be conformable to reason than to subject your reason to God and to suffer your self sweetly to pass along in the current of this puissant Authority which hath drawn so many Ages after it destroyed so many errours gained so many battels and won so many Crowns Faith is a great gift although it be the gift of the humble It is the first life of humane understanding Guillelm Paris de moribus Guillelm Lugdun de fide Prima vita mentis humanae c. the Jasper stone which serves for foundation of the Citie of God the virginitie of the soul the source which watereth all the felicities of mankind Why are you amazed when God would have you believe that which is above your understanding and surpasseth your knowledge It is a most happie ignorance said S. Hilarie which rather deserveth reward than pardon S. Hilarius 8. de Trinit Habet non taus veniam quam praemium ignorare quoâ— credaâ— Necessity of faith when one trusteth to the word of God in that be cannot comprehend You see how policie is guided by human faith without which all the world were nought but disorder and life a perpetual confusion And yet you think it a strange matter that God in his great policie exacteth a faith absolutely Divine to serve as an enterance into your felicity If you take away humane faith and stick fast in the resolution not to believe any thing but what you see you will become a monster fit to be excluded from humane Si quod nescitur credendum non est quomo do servient parentibus liberi quos parentes suos esse non credent society you will disturb the beds of the most chast wedlocks you will accuse the modesty of the sincerest women you will make the children to be doubted not onely by the fathers but the mothers also who are so often enforced to believe mid-wives and nurses you will almost make doubt whether you have a liver a heart a spleen or any lungs nor will believe you have any thing but that which you cannot behold without death These are considerations S. August l. de utilitate credendi Sine hoc nec ipsa exigi potest vita communis â—ypr in symbol Apostol which Saint Augustine and Theodoret pursued in the Treatise they wrote of Faith by which they shew the necessity of humane belief to pass on further to the Divine Then what occasion have you to make your sense rebel against God who becomes a surety for what he promiseth us since we every moment must give credit to the fidelitie of most abject persons in the actions of civil life Who seeth not that to take faith from Religion is to tear the Altar out of the Temple the apple from the eye and the heart out of humane body Do you not consider likewise that it was an invention Great Providence of God in the establishment of faith worthy the Eternal Wisdom to draw us to him by three degrees which are as three Heavens observeable in nature and above nature The first is that of science the second of faith the third of glory Science appertaineth not to the whole world All are permitted to live well but few to speak well Lactantius Some have not will for it others means Some have no inclination others can never make application Needs must then three parts of mankind be deprived of the knowledge of things most divine and persevere in ignorance according to the unhappiness of accidents without the help of faith which replenisheth us with the knowledge of God Besides we find sciences are extreamly sophisticate as well through the weakness of our understanding as the corruption of our manners Academies are framed as palaces of veritie yet it is never so ill handled as in places where shew is made to adore it Under the shadow of defence it is rent asunder and as the ancient Teletias it is strangled in making much of it What inconvenience then do we find if God to remedy this misery hath given us faith which contenteth the whole world by its universality as it assureth all well composed minds by its certainty If the perfection S. Thomas 2. 2. q. 2. art 3. of our nature had been limited within natural actions divine faith had not needed to conduct us But since God hath called us to a felicity above nature were it not fit we were directed thereto by a supernatural knowledge 4. Consequently look on the Operation of Religion The powerfull operations of out Religion Esther 10. the second note of its excellency you shall see the fountain of Mordecheus which in the beginning creepeth
prepare a precipice for the despair of other Let us not in this article make God so liberal that he gives us blessings wherewith we may take occasion to be evil and think his mercy will countenance our sluggishness He sleepeth too much at ease who thinks to carry his happiness behind him (b) (b) (b) Note the danger that followeth if the consideration of good works be taken away What care would you have a man take of his salvation who thinks it depends not at all upon his care and what despair will not strike down a feeble brain who shall imagine all his travels do nothing for his avail towards beatitude since the conclusion of his good or ill hap were estimated without any consideration of his merit A labourer would not trouble himself to till the ground which were infallibly condemned to barrenness or to a certain proportion of fruit and his industry to be idle And who would care to pollish his soul if his glorie were confined without any regard to his free will All labours would seem nought but wretched accessories and good works but frivolous amusements 2. But when we fix our thoughts upon this verity True doctrine of Praedestination which says Praedestination to be a Divine Providence by which certain persons are mercifully drawn out of the mass of corruption and picked out to be exalted to eternal beatitude by ways infallible and that it is chiefly done by the mercy of God who decreeth in his eternal counsel to prevent us with his grace and that according to the correspondence we therein ought to use he judgeth of our good or ill hap we call it a proposition conform to the doctrine of the Church advantagious to the glory of God and infinitely available for repose of conscience These are the three points upon which we must Three points of reasons of this doctrine insist in this discourse And first there is no cause to become jealous upon the words of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine who S. Paul and S. Augustine interpreted in the matter of praedestination seem sometime to attribute all to the meer will of God without admitting any consideration of our good works For we must weigh with our selves these two great men like two huge seas that through impetuous power of water swell so upon one brink that they seem for a time to leave the other drie But as the Ocean after he hath largely dilated himself upon one side returns within the limits God prescribed him so these men falling upon contumacious spirits who rebel against truth return into a peacefull equality to build the house of God The one sought to overthrow a Judaical opinion which maintained the eternal happiness of Praedestination was of necessity tied to the bloud of Abraham to Circumcision to works and ceremonies of the old Law without observation of which the Jews acknowledged no salvation Behold the cause why the excellent Apostle who saw in this a contempt of grace and a manifest foil given to Gentilism which he had taken into his protection strongly insisteth and argueth with a torrent of reasons to confound this arrogance of the Hebrews who boasted the reliques of a dying law and ran after it with chymaeraes From whence it comes to pass that all the reasons he produceth have no other aim but to exalt the mysteries of redemption and to shew that the origin and beginning of our salvation consisteth in the grace of Jesus Christ who calleth us to Christianity of his meer mercy without consideration of the observation of the Mosaical Law or other works which preceded this calling And it is in this sense he saith grace is life eternal Rom. 6. 23. Ephes 1. 4. 6. Aug. l. de praedest Sanctor c. 19. because it is by its means we obtain beatitude and in this sense that he assureth us God chose us before the worlds creation to be Saints to wit according to the same interpretation of Saint Augustine we were selected in the idaeaes of God from all eternity to participate in the grace of the Gospel we thereto contributing nothing on our part For the first grace being the beginning of all merit cannot be produced by merit Finally it is in the same sense he maintaineth God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they Rom. 3. 11. had done good or evil For it is to be understood he gave temporal favours and spiritual graces likewise to Jacob which he gave not to Esau although he had bestowed on him favour sufficient for his accommodation Otherwise if one would bring this passage to the point of Praedestination to glory who seeth not we must conclude that as Jacob was praedestinated to eternal beatitude without any consideration of good works so Esau had been reprobated without any regard of his demerits which is most false and condemned by the Church Let us then undoubtedly hold that all passages of S. Paul which he alledgeth in this point have no other scope but to exalt the free gift of redemption and fruits of the Cross of Jesus above all legal ceremonies 3. And as for Saint Augustine he labours mainly S. Augustine onely pretendeth to ruin the opinion of Pelogians to ruin from the top to the bottom the opinion of Pelagians and Semipelagians whereof the one said we were chosen to glory immediately by the good works we do by our own natural forces and the other to exercise some corrective upon this opinion which seemed too rigid have written The works of nature dispose us to grace and grace to glory Now our eminent Doctour undertaking to humble this proud nature which they sought to raise to the prejudice of grace and the bloud of our Saviour gives many assaults wherein he hath no other aim but to teach us this Praedestination which he calleth preparation to grace is not due to the merits of our free-will but that God by his mercifull bounty poureth it into our hearts to be the beginning of good works to which he affordeth life eternal crowning the favours himself inspired and in this regard he with S. Paul exalteth good works which are productions of that seed of grace which the Holy Ghost sowed in our hearts Doth not the Apostle say (a) (a) (a) Quos praescivit pradestinavis conformes fieri imagini filii sui Rom. 8. Aug. l. de praedest Sanctor c. 3. Antequam faceret nos praescivit nos in ipsa nos praescientis cum nondum fecisset elogit Aug. l. 13. God praedestinated those he foresaw would be conformable to the Image of his Son where four of the most famous Fathers of the Church S. Cyril S. Ambrose S. Chrysostom and Theodoret no otherwise understand this passage but that praedestination to glory followeth the prescience of good works And what would S. Augustine affirm when he said (b) (b) (b) Quae voluntas Dei injusts esse non potest venit enim de occultissanis meritis Apud Mag. l.
longer deferred their execution Procopius having once again been tormented before he was brought back to prison recommended these first victims to Heaven by his prayers whose example was quickly waited on by twelve Ladies full of honour who made open profession of faith Justus thinking it was a feminine heat which would be quenched when torments were applied to their bodies caused them cruelly to be tortured commanded their sides and arm-holes to be burnt yet they persevered singing and praising God in the ardour of the most exquisite torments Theodosia mother of our Martyr being present at this spectacle felt her self touched to the quick for the spirit of God entered powerfully into her It suddenly took off the film which in her had clouded the light of reason making her see into the bottom of her soul at which she conceived much horrour Alas then said she within her self who ever Change of Theodosia lodged a heart so barbarous as thine in the body of a woman All the bloud thou seest shed distilleth now to satisfie a revenge thou conceivedst against thine own bloud Thy son is in prison all rent and torn and if he yet have not rendered up his soul he keeps it on his lips expecting perhaps thy last words If thou art not yet satisfied go bathe thy self in his wounds and pull away that little life nature gave him by thy means and which cruelty taketh from him by thy practises Ah Theodosia the most rigorous of women and the most unfortunate of Mothers though thou hast abjured nature renounce not the God of nature Hear the voice which speaketh in thy heart and render thee to that Jesus who begins to resign thee up to thy self Why wilt thou not do what they act before thine eyes They have neither hearts of steel nor bodies of brass more than thou but more resolution because far greater faith And why shouldst not thou be faithfull by imitating their example If thou hast provoked Gods mercy thou hast not wasted it Let us go to Heaven by the purple way since the Providence of Heaven presenteth it unto thee The bloud of thy poor son yet speaks to thee in so many tongues as there are drops of it shed in the streets Let us follow him and never think that done too late which soon shall work thy eternal salvation She feeling the combat of these cogitations in her heart suddenly cried out as in an extasie I am a Christian The Judge who feared this act gave semblance to hear nothing of it but she redoubled her voice so loudly and made so solemn a profession that it was impossible for him to dissemble it So that seeing she would not desist from this resolution he was enforced to send her into the prison where her son remained Procopius beholding her to come fettered with other Ladies was infinitely joyed at this spectacle and cried out aloud Madam my dear mother who brings you To whom she answered Loving son the cause which put you here brought me hither to be the companion of your death since I am the murderess of your life I have betrayed bloud and nature and delivered His imprisonment and martyrdom my bowels to executioners to satisfie passion Virtue and honour being lost nought else remains for me but the happiness to die with you for Jesus Christ It is Son at this instant I must accomplish the words you spake to me at your return that I should take example from you as you birth from me O God most honoured Mother behold here a great touch from Heaven said Procopius I have nothing more to wish in the world since I this day behold you the precious conquest of Jesus Christ It is at this time when being a mother by nature you shall likewise be a mother to me by the example of your piety You are come to the point whither God would have you and all that is past was but to augment the glory of your conversion Let us go by the way of bloud to the place where the soul of your good husband and my dearest father expecteth us These two hearts wholly dissolved into the love of God spake in thought having not language enough to express their affection Theodosia being in a short time after baptized by Leontius was led to execution with the twelve Ladies where she appeared as the singular ornament of this holy Quire leaving her head in the place where she had first confessed Jesus Christ with a constancy so heroick that she drew tears from all the world Procopius having been tumbled up and down at divers Sessions before the Tribunals whipped roasted broyled salted torn in all his body the strength of his courage no whit shaken stretched out his neck to the executioner and yielded up his fair soul to God learning in the conversion of his mother and his own the divine power of this great Praedestination VII MAXIM Of the Divinitie of JESUS THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That God will be served in any kind and that every sect hath reason in its Religion That none but Jesus is Authour of truth and salvation to whom all creatures bear witness of his Divinitie THis Maxim of the Prophane Court is an old dotage of obsequious spirits who having no zeal for faith and likewise less courage against impiety do in apparence approve all Religions and follow none That is it which made Symmachus say God was a great secret and that it was no wonder every one sought after it and spake according to his weak endeavour of it some in one fashion and some in another That is it also which made Maximus Madaurensis write He was too great to enter whole and entire into the understanding of man but must be taken piece-meal every one contenting himself to adore some Symbol of God which seemed most convenient unto him Behold the shortest way can be taken to arrive at gross impiety for it is to make a Roman Pantheon of Religion where you shall have a thousand imaginary Divinities without one least glimmer of the knowledge of the true God Lies for some space accord together although they spare not to oppose one another but true Religion hath this property to tend wholly to Monarchy and if you speak to it of tolerating other sects as if they were reasonable it is to thrust thorns into the feet and put straws into the eyes of it Jesus hath nothing to do with Belial the faithfull 2 Cor. 6. with the unfaithfull nor the Temple of God with the synagogue of devils All religions which wander from the ray of Christian and Catholick verity are but chymaeraes of piety spectres of wisdom and flames which lead these souls into an abyss of fire and darkness There is but one Redeemer to whom are due all services and adorations And it is my desire for your comfort to shew you that the Authours of all Sects having in the end appeared so monstrous it onely appertained to the Eternal
bodies of his servants and Nilus overflowing with the bloud of his French himself surprized and taken by his enemies and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours out-cries infernal countenāces of Sarazens and all the images of death able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper notwithstanding though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion ever making use of reason he entered into the Barbarians pavillion not at all changing colour and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace he asked his pages for his book of prayers and taking it disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his oraisons in a profound tranquility of mind which I conceive to be very rare since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle to stay devotion which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Councel of Lyons and see how he laboured to depose the Emperour Frederick the second who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent but that they readily invade the goods of others when some religious pretext is offered them would have been very ambitious to be enstalled in his place whom they meant to despoil but the universal consent of great men judged this throne could not be worthily supplied but by this great King yet he notwithstanding declined it as a wise Pilot would a rock and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Sarazens than to mount to the Empire by such ways But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle may be observed in his valour never weakened by his great devotion for he was one of the most couragious Princes in a cold temperature with reason that was then under Heaven It was courage which taking him from the sweet tranquility of a life wholly religious caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment and delights to go to a land of Sarazens live in all incommodities imaginable to nature It was courage which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person not onely to the toyls of a desperate voyage but to the strokes also of most hazardous battels witness when at his arrival in Aegypt the coast being all beset with Sarazens very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water where he was plunged up to the shoulders with his target about his neck and sword in hand as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army which encouraged by the example came to the land as the King had commanded The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the world that it were to bring light into day to go about to mention them If some say He is to be a pattern for Kings and Divers Ladies excellent in piety Lords Ladies who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex shall never want great lights and worthy instructions if they will consider those who being more near to our Age should make the more impression upon their manners If we speak of the endeavour of prayer look upon See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia who continuing days and nights in prayer all covered over with fackcloth affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband and for him gained battels If account be made of the chastity of maidens and sequestration from worldly conversation reflect on Beatrix du Bois who being one of the most beautifull creatures of her time and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her put her self upon so rough a pennance for others sin that she was fourty years without being seen or to have seen any man in the face If you speak of modesty let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon wife of Claudius first Duke of Guize who after the death of her husband was clothed in serge and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women to teach them the practise of alms If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous cast your eye upon Anne of Austria Queen of Poland who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every munday the very same day she yielded her soul up to God when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner and that death might close her eyes when she opened her hands to charity If the instruction of children be much esteemed fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungarie mother of eleven daughters and admire her in the midst of her little company as the old Hen-Nightingale giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues and so breeding these young creatures that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts If you delight in the government of a family which is one of the chiefest praises of married women take direction from Margaret Dutchess of Alencon who governed the whole family with so much wisdom that order which is the beauty of the world found there all its measures and that if the domestick servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries she caused hers to be known by their modestie If you desire austerities look with reverence on the hair-cloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon the Kings great Grand-mother and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay who during a widow-hood of three-score years was twenty of them without ever coming into bed If you praise chast widows who can pass without an Elogie Elizabeth widow of Charls the ninth who in a flourishing youth being much courted by all the great Monarchs of the world answered That having been the widow of a Charls of France she had concluded all worldly magnificencies and that nothing more remained for her but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical amongst religious women whom she had founded If constancy in the death of kinred have place let the lesson be hearkened unto which Magdalen wife of Gaston de Foix gave who having seen the death of a husband whom she loved above all the world and afterward of an onely son remaining the total support of her house made her courage to be as much admired among the dead as her love was esteemed among the living And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions and who can but think the choise becometh hard by
the resentment of injuries Necessitie of salvation since prayer and sacrifice essential parts of our salvation cannot subsist without the pardon of our neighbour And pursuing this precept we have a tradition from the Hebrews which saith He who being entreated to pardon after warning given before competent witnesses if he shewed himself inexorable was surnamed as with a title of infamy the Sinner and held as one excommunicate as a rotten member and cut off from the society of the faithfull I likewise say necessity of salvation since according to S. Augustine without this virtue all devotion is but August super Joan. homil 10. Quid prodest quia credis blasphemas Adoras illum in capite blasphemas in corpore c. hypocrisie all religion blasphemy all faith infidelity To what purpose is it saith this Prelate to believe and blaspheme to adore God in his head and blaspheme him in his members God loveth his body which is his Church if you dissever your self from his body he will not for all that forsake his own members Hear you not the head which speaketh to you from heaven saying O Man it is in vain thou honourest me hating thy neighbour If any one whilst he is giving thee low obeysance with his head tread on thy foot thou wouldst in midst of all his complement cry out Sir you hurt me What is there either more powerfull or persuasive The horrour and confusion of revenge than these reasons Yet notwithstanding among so many lightnings and thunders which encompass us on every side there are to be found infinite many black souls in the world which practise hatred some in secret some in publick make vaunts to eternize their revenge in the everlastingness of their punishments What a horrour is it to see a man who besought and entreated with all earnestness to pardon a brother who hath offended him answereth with disdain furious and intolerable he will never agree nor hold correspondence with him no more than with a Turk or Moor Ah Barbarian Shut up that mouth unhappy creature and never open it at least never open it before the wounds of Christ which bleed against thee Thou wilt embrace no other friendship with thy brother but such as may be found between Turks and Moors Lyer that thou art seek yet out words more out-ragious to express the gall of thy passion For if thou knowest it not Turks and Moors retain the amities and sense of man whereof thou art despoiled Turks even in the general desolation of Moors entertained them into their Countreys and afforded them helps which thou hast denied thy flesh and bloud If that seem worthy of thee take a turbant and become a Turk But when thou hast put it on yet shalt thou find laws which will oblige thee to love a man The Turks have their Behiram a feast wherein they pardon all injuries and wilt thou turn Turk to retain an injury Out of God's Church out of the society of men out of nature bloudy monster as thou art Where wilt thou any longer find place in the world when thou once hast pulled down the Altars of clemency That also which is spoken in choller and hasty precipitation might seem pardonable in repentance were it not there are some who in cold bloud foster suits and immortal pertinacities and which is worst many times in publick shewing a fair face in secret they transfix the heart of a poor man like unto witches they rip up the bowels of wife and children to satisfie a revenge Barbarous man eat rather eat the miserable heart than pierce it perpetually with thy infernal bodkins I would in the rest be silent if there were not women who being infirm in all things get diabolical strength for revenge What may we say of a creature of this sex who being very slightly offended by another of the same sex whilst she advised by her Confessour disposed her self to all duties of satisfaction the other looked on her with a Gorgons eye and foaming with anger spitefully reviled her with bloudy words so that nothing now remained but to take her by the hair and drag her on the floar which violence reproved by other she repeated the burden of the old ballad That she wished her not ill but would never see her again Inhumane and furious creature a Maegera not a woman what mouth will you hereafter bring to the Altars which you seem to honour Have you any other than that by you polluted with this poisonous choller What heart remains in you for God Is there any part of it not steeped in gall What expect you at the hower of death and in the instant of your souls separation but that God repeat unto you your own words I wish thee no ill I will not put thee upon the wheel nor the rack I have neither rasors nor flames to torment thee but thou never shalt see my face Wilt thou then cherish quarrels maintain sides spread rumours either true or false secretly undermine the fortune of men and make thy self as inexorable to reconciliation as thou art inflexible to reason Lord have mercy on us Semper jurgia quaerit malus Angelus autem crudelis mittetur contra eum Proverb 6. a cruel Angel will be sent against thee an ill suit commenced a ruinous business a tedious sickness a loss of goods a confusion of understanding and then shalt thou see whether fire being in the four corners of thy house thou still retainest the itch of revenge But you generous souls march on by union to the chief of unities and think the onely revenge is well to be revenged on your self If as I have shewed pardon be possible glorious and necessarie why foment we our curiosities to enflame our feavours Let us take away these silly humane respects this slender pride which often broodeth under silken devotions and which is the cause that God is daily beheld and adored upon both the knees by those who will not see nor speak to any that have committed some slight indiscretion whilst feigning to honour God the Master with lips the servant within the heart is strangled Say O Christian say to thy self Am I more powerfull Goodly considerations to pacific the mind in my small family than God in the universe He daily endureth so many injuries not threatening mortals with his thunders what am I who have ears so tender Many have forgiven their deaths and I cannot pardon a cold countenance a silly word a slender negligence Is it a child is it a young man hath offended age excuseth him is it a woman sex a stranger liberty a friend familiarity He hath offended he hath displeased Vid. de I thee once and how many other times hath he done thee good offices But this is not the first time so much the better shall we bear what we already have suffered Custome of injuries is a good Mistress of patience He is a friend he did what he would
not if an enemy he hath done according to the world what he ought If he were wise he hath not done it without reason if simple he deserves compassion Who ever bit a dogg because he was bitten by a dogg Or who ever entered into a combat of kicking with a Mule If he did it in anger let us give him leisure to come to himself and he will correct himself without our trouble to give assistance If it be a superiour or man of eminent quality let us suffer that which God hath set over us if a person of base condition why by striving against him shall we make him our equal What pleasure hath a woman whose hands are so delicate to seek to foul them with crushing flies and catterpillars Let us reflect on the carriage of humane things we are all faulty and live among errours There is no wise man whom some indiscretions escape not We shall never live content if we learn not to excuse in another what our selves are Are we not ashamed to exercise in a life so short eternal enmities Be hold death comes to separate us although we forcibly hold one another by the throat let us give a little truce to our reason light to our understanding and rest to our ashes JESUS in his last words recommended forgiveness to us moistned with his tears and bloud Go we about to tear his Testament that we afterward may pull his Images in pieces The bloud of Just Abel still bubleth on the earth and is unrevenged shall we then seek to revenge it O my God we utterly renounce it with all our hearts and are ready to seal peace with our bloud that by thy bloud thou maist sign our mercy The twelfth EXAMPLE upon the twelfth MAXIM Of Reconciliation CONSTANTIA THere is nothing more certain than that he who seeks revenge shall find the God of revenge It followeth those who pursue it and when they think to exercise it on others they feel it falling on their own heads It is onely proper to base and infamous spirits to endeavour to glut themselves with bloud and to delight in the miseries of mortals but souls the most noble are ever beautified with the rays of clemency Theophilus one of the most bloudy Emperours that Zonar Theophilus a bloudy Emperour ever ware the diadem an enemy both of heaven and earth of Saints and men as he had lived on gall would end in bloud He felt his soul on his lips flying from him and saw death near at hand which he could not escape It was time he should now yield up life to others when it appeared he could no more take it from them But this wicked man holding at that time Thephobus one of his prime Captaines imprisoned in his own Palace upon certain jealousies conceiv'd he was too able a man and well worthy of Empire commanded a little before his death to have his head cut off and causing it to be brought to his bed side he took it by the hair held it a long time in his hands so much was he pleased with this massacre then seriously beholding it he cried out It is true I shall no langer be Theophilus nor art thou any more Theophobus And many times repeating these words he yielded up his damned ghost like a ravenous wolf which passed from bloud to infernal flames although certain revelations spake of his deliverance Behold how having taken in his youth evil habits of cruelty and revenge he persevered in them to his death being besides most unfortunate and infamous in all his enterprises But contrariwise it is observed all great-ones disposed to clemency have been very glorious and most happy before God and men I could here reherse very many yet pursuing our design I rest contented with relation of a notable pardon given by a Queen to a Prince on a Friday in memory of our Saviours Passion It cannot be said but so much the greater and more outragious injuries are so much the more difficult is their pardon especially when one hath full power of revenge in his hands Now the injury whereof we Conradinus speak was the death of poor Conradinus which well considered in all its circumstances rendereth this clemency whereof I intend to speak much more admirable Know then this Prince son of the Emperour Conradus went into Italy with a huge army to defend the inheritance of his Ancestours pretending it to be unjustly usurped by the wily practises of Charls of Anjou He stood at that time in the midst of his armies sparkling like a star full of fire courage when Pope Clement the fourth seeing him pass along with so much Nobility said Alas what goodly victims are led to the Altar His valour in the tenderness of his age was as yet more innocent than wary and he had to do with a Captain whom warlike experience had made more subtile in this profession Charls being ready to give him battel resolved it He gave battle to Charls of Anjou was best to weary out this young vigour to afford him the bait of some success in appearance the more easily to draw him into his snare He gave the leading of one part of his army to a Captain of his called Alardus commanding him to bear all the royal ensings as if he had been Charls of Anjou's person Conradinus thinking he had nothing to do but to conquer what he saw before his eyes for decision of the difference advanced his troups which falling like a tempest upon the enemies quickly dispatched Alardus who was slain in the battel as some histories record carrying from all this ostent of regallity a fatal glory into a tomb This young Mars supposing the war ended by the death of his Adversary presently proclaimed victory at which time Charls of Anjou who lay hidden in a trench with the activest troups as yet very fresh came suddenly upon him He did all that for his defence which a brave spirit might in an evil fortune But his army being cut in pieces he was enforced to save himself after the loss of twelve thousand dead in the place His calamity caused him to change the habit of a King into that of a horse-keeper for his greater security so much he feared to be known by those who would decide the dint of war by his bloud He embarked His taking with his cousin Frederick of Austria to pass unto Pisa committing himself in this disguised habit to a Pilot who much importuned him for his hire He had not then about him either bread or money so that he was constrained to pull off a ring and leave it in pledge to the Pilot to assure the debt He seeing these young men of a graceful garbe and considering this jewel was not a wealth suitable to their habit doubted some trick and gave notice to the Governour a crafty man who complying with the times laid hold of the Princes and put them into the hands of the Conquerour
Charls of Anjou much fearing this young Lion forgat His sentence and death all generosity to serve his own turn and did a most base act detested by all understandings that have any humanity which is that having kept Conradinus a whole year in a straight prison he assembled certain wicked Lawyers to decide the cause of one of the noblest spirits at that time under heaven who to second the passion of their Master rendered the laws criminal and served themselves with written right to kill a Prince contrary to the law of nature judging him worthy of death in that said they he disturbed the peace of the Church and aspired to Empire A scaffold was prepared in a publick place all hanged with red where Conradinus is brought with other Lords A Protonotary clothed after the ancient fashion mounteth into a chair set there for the purpose and aloud pronounceth the wicked sentence After which Conradinus raising himself casting an eye ful of fervour and flames on the Judge said Base and cruel slave as thou art to open thy mouth to condemn thy Sovereign It was a lamentable thing to see this great Prince on a scaffold in so tender years wise as an Apollo beautiful as an Amazon and valiant as an Achilles to leave his head under the sword of an Executioner in the place where he hoped to crown it â—e called heaven earth to bear witness of Charls his cruelty who unseen beheld this goodly spectacle froÌ„ an high turret He complained that his goods being taken from him they robbed him of his life as a thief that the blossom of his age was cut off by the hand of a hang-man taking away his head to bereave him of the Crown lastly throwing down his glove demanded an account of this inhumanity Then seeing his Cousin Frederick's head to fall before him he took it kissed it and laid it to his bosom asking pardon of it as if he had been the cause of his disaster in having been the companion of his valour This great heart wanting tears to deplore it self wept over a friend and finishing his sorrows with his life stretched out his neck to the Minister of justice Behold how Charls who had been treated with all humanity in the prisons of Sarazens used a Christian Prince so true it proves that ambition seemeth to blot out the character of Christianity to put in the place of it some thing worse than the Turbant This death lamented through all the world yea which maketh Theaters still mourn sensibly struck the heart of Queen Constantia his Aunt wife of Peter of Arragon She bewailed the poor Prince with tears which could never be dried up as one whom she dearly loved and then again representing to her self so many virtues and delights drowned in such generous bloud and so unworthily shed her heart dissolved into sorrow But as she was drenched in tears so her husband thundred in arms to revenge his death He rigged out a fleet of ships the charge whereof he Collenutius histor Neapol l. 5. c. 4. 5. recommended to Roger de Loria to assail Charls the second Prince of Salerno the onely son of Charls of Anjou who commanded in the absence of his father The admiral of the Arragonian failed not to encounter The son of Charls of Anjou taken him and sought so furiously with him that having sunck many of his ships he took him prisoner and brought him into Sicily where Queen Constantia was expecting the event of this battle She failed not to cause the heads of many Gentlemen to be cut off in revenge of Conradinus so to moisten his ashes with the bloud of his enemies Charls the Kings onely son was set apart with nine principal Lords of the Army and left to the discretion of Constantia Her wound was still all bloudy and the greatest of the Kingdom counselled her speedily to put to death the son of her capital enemy yea the people mutined for this execution which was the cause the Queen having taken order for his arraignment and he thereupon condemned to death she on a Friday morning sent him word it was now time to dispose himself for his last hour The Prince nephew to S. Lewis and who had some sense of his uncles piety very couragiously received these tidings saying That besides other courtesies he had received from the Queen in prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on the day whereon Christ died innocent This speech was related to Queen Constantia who was therewith much moved and having some space bethought her self she replyed Tell Prince Charls if he take contentment to suffer An excellent passage of clemency death on a Friday I will likewise find out mine own satisfaction to forgive him on the same day that Jesus signed the pardon of his Executioners with his proper bloud God forbid I shed the bloud of a man on the day my Master poured out his for me Although time surprize me in the dolour of my wounds I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him and it shall not be my fault that he is not at this instant in full liberty This magnanimous heart caused the execution to be staied yet fearing if she left him to himself the people might tear him in pieces she sent him to the King her husband entreating by all which was most pretious unto him to save his life and send him back to his Father Peter of Arragon who sought his own accommodation in so good a prize freed him from danger of death yet enlarged him not suddenly For his deliverance must come from a hand wholly celestial Sylvester Pruere writes that lying long imprisoned in the City of Barcellon the day of S. Mary Magdalen aproaching who was his great Patroness he disposed himself to a singular devotion fasting confessing his sins communicating begging of her with tears to deliver him from this captivity Heaven was not deaf to his prayers Behold on the day of the feast he perceived a Lady full of Majesty who commanded him to follow her at which words he felt as it were a diffusion of extraordinary joy spread over his heart He followed her step by step as a man rapt and seeing all the gates flie open before her without resistance and finding himself so cheerful that his body seemed to have put on the nature of a spirit he well perceived heaven wrought wonders for him The Lady looking on him after she had gone some part of the way asked him where he thought he was to which he replied that he imagined himself to be yet in the Territory of Barcellon Charls you are deceived said she you are in the County of Provence a league from Narbon and thereupon she vanished Charls not at all doubting the miracle nor the protection of S. Mary Magdalen prostrated himself on the earth adoring
Emissenus The eternal nights of hell have been visited by the rays of God plaints and clamours ceased direful chains fell off executioners were amazed and the whole habitation condemned to eternal pains shook under the feet of this admirable Conquerour The Prophet pursueth (b) (b) (b) Parata sedes tua c. Elevaverunt flumina c. Mirabiles elationes maris The seat of glory O Saviour was prepared for thee from all eternity and thereinto thou makest a victorious triumphant entry after so great an inundation of sufferings All the waves of persecutions have roared over thy head and have buried thee in the acerbities of death How much the more this sea of passions immeasurably swelled so much the more thou appearedst resplendent in the supream eminency of thy glory and triumphs 6. (b) (b) (b) The sweetness of the repose of Jesus and all the elect in the state of the resurection Transfer your consideration from thence to the effect of our Saviours glorification which consisteth in repose and stability represented by the Angel which appeared at the resurrection sitting on a solid stone This verily is the great day which we may call the mystical Sabbaoth and the eternal repose of Jesus It is said in the mystery of the creation (c) (c) (c) Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat requievit die septimo ab universo opere quod patrarat benedixit diei septimo sanctificavit illum Genes 2. 1. The relation of the resurrection to the creation that God rested on the seaventh day and casting his eye on all these great works which he drew out of nothing he thereupon took satisfaction in his spirit and impressed them all as with the seal of his approbation To speak according to our understanding it was an incomparable comfort to the heart of the Sovereign Creatour to behold in six days so goodly a world where before that time reigned an huge imaginary vacuum accompanied with a sad horrour of darkness And to consider how a Nothing in the hands of a great work-man was a mighty thing having been as the ground of the greatness beauty of the universe What contentment to see a heaven distended as a Pavilion over all creatures which already circumvolved with so much impetuousness and besides to see it enameled with so great a number of stars in the peaceable silence of the night and in the day to see it enlightened with a sun which is the visible Image of God invisible the eye of the world the heart of nature the treasury of heat light and influences that animate illustrate and quicken all the parts of this great work To see a moon to serve for a sun by night so constant in her in constancy so regular in her increasings and waynings so measured in all her course so effectual and fruitfull in the impressions she maketh on nature To see days and nights return into our hemisphere at a time prefixed to agree as brothers sisters to afford time one to another and to yield it one in winter another in summer with so much integrity that all therein goes in compass To see the order of seasons a delicious spring-tide strewed all over with flourishing beauties a summer with harvests an Autumn with its fruits and a winter which is as the depository of nature dies to live again with the first rays of renovation To see the Sea so spacious in its extents so fertile in its productions so concluded in its limits to see the floud and ebbe of the Ocean the tomb of curiosity the impetuous stream of rivers the eternal veins of fountains the height of mountains the depth of valleys the winding of hillocks the wideness of fields To see so prodigious a quantity of trees herbs flowers so curious in beauty so wholsom in their utility and so divers in their multiplicity To see so many speckled birds flying in the air which they fill with their natural musick so many fishes to swim in the chrystal of waters so strange a variety of beasts armed some with horns some with teeth some with spurs other with saws many with paws And lastly man who contracteth in himself all the draughts and works of the divine hand and epitomizeth the whole world in his perfections and beareth the most animated character of the living God Is it not true that God casting his eye on this had a certain delight therein as the Master of a family when he sees a house which he had long time designed to be raised in one night entirely perfect throughly furnished and in all kinds accommodated with whatsoever concerns necessity and beauty Here raise your thoughts above all that is mortal The joys of the heart of Iesus in the first instant of the resurrection and momentary Imagine with your self the ineffable joy of the heart of Jesus and the profound repose of his spirit when at the first instant of his resurrection he represented unto himself not creatures elements plants and a corruptible world but a world of wisdom understanding love beauty force and felicity A Church which was to take birth from his The goodly world he beheld in his Jdaea's at the day of his resurrection bloud life from his death and spirit from the most subtile spirits of his heart He then saw this Church as a great Temple divided into two parts whereof one made the Quire another the body In the Quire he beheld an infinite number of Angels who chanted a song of triumph in honour of his victories He saw in his idea the number of the elect who should accompany the magnificent legions of Intelligences He saw about him those sacred first-fruits of immortals whom he very lately had taken out of Limbo and himself he beheld in the front of so many clean and purified souls rejoycing to busie the earth in the memory of his triumphs and to make heaven happy by his sweet aspects He beheld himself as in a picture in that manner Ecce equus albus qui sedebat super cum vocabatur fidelis verax In capite ejus diademata multa vestitus erat veste aspersa sanguine c. Apoc. 19. wherein S. John presenteth him in his Apocalyps all laden with crowns clad in a white garment imbroidered with precious drops of his bloud which gave him a lustre a thousand times more honourable than that of diamonds and rubies and after him an infinite number of celestial Courtiers who waited on the triumph of his resurrection He heard acclamations which gave him the title of True and Faithful voices of trumpets of water and thunder which ceased not to resound Alleluja O what a source of joy did then over-flow the breast of God that treasury of chast delights From the Quire he cast his eyes on the body of his great Temple and saw in magnificent idea's all the state of the Church militant which is compared to
on thy part what ingratitudes on mine Preserve me in what is thine and wash away with the precious bloud of thy Son what is mine Shelter me under the wings of thy protection from so many shadows apparitions and snares of the father of darkness and grant that though sleep close my eys yet my heart may never be shut to thy love Lastly fall asleep upon some good thought that your night as the Prophet saith may be enlightened with the delights of God and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep supply it with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of heart as the just did of old called for this reason The crickets of the night Thus shall you lead a life full of honour quiet and satisfaction to your self and shall make every day a step to Eternity The marks which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination are eleven principall 1. Faith lively simple and firm 2. Purity of life exempt ordinarily from grievous sins 3. Tribulation 4. Clemency and mercy 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth 6. Humility 7. Charity to your neighbour 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament 9. Affection to the word of God 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue which you have upon occasion exercised You will find this Diary little in volume but great in virtue if relishing it well you begin to put it in practice It contains many things worthy to be meditated at leisure for they are grave and wise precepts choisely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers Though they seem short they cost not the less pains Remember that famous Artist Myrmecides employed more time to make a Bee than an unskilfull workman to build a house EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY In the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5. 3. Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Psal 184. 22. My dayes are like the dayes of an hireling Untill the day break and the shadows flie away Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6. Beginning a good work In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal 40. 7. 8. In good Inspirations The Lord God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious neither turned away back Isaiah 50. 5. At Church How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts Psal 84. 1. Before reading Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Samuel 3. 9. Speaking My heart is inditing a good matter I speak of the things which I have made touching the King Psal 45. 1. Eating Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Psal 145. In Prosperity If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth If I prefer not thee above my chief joy Psal 137. 6. Adversity The Lord killeth and maketh alive 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glorie Luke 24. 26. Troubles Surely man walketh in a vain shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 6. Calumnies If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Praises Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glorie Psal 115. 1. Against vain hope As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image Psalm 73. 20. Pride Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased Luke 14. 11. Covetousness It is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20. 35. Luxury Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ 1. Cor. 6. 15. Envy He that loveth not his brother abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. Gluttony The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 14. 17. Anger Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. Sloth Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48. 10. Rules of Faith God cannot be known but by himself What is to be understood of God is to be learned by God Hilar lib. 5. de Trin. God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions In simplicity must we seek him in piety profess him Idem lib. 10. Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set Prov. 22. 28. Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholick Church Consent of people and nations Authority begun by miracles nourished by hope encreased by charity confirmed by antiquity August lib. De utilitate credendi To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance is insolent madness Idem Epist 118. Let us follow universality antiquity consent Let us hold that which is believed every where always by all Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus Acts of Faith Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Marc. 9. 24. I know that my Redeemer liveth c. Job 19. 25. Hope Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal 24. 4. I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him Psal 90. 15. Charity Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 25 26. Feed me O Lord thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity This I request this I desire that vehement love may throughly pierce me fill me and change me into it self Blosius PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions For the Church WE beseech thee O Lord graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church that she being delivered from all adversitie and errour may serve thee in safety and freedom through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the King WE beseech thee O Lord that thy servant CHARLS by thy gracious appointment our King and Governour may be enriched with all encrease of virtue whereby he may be able to eschew evil and to follow Thee the Way the Truth and the Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Friend ALmighty and ever-living Lord God have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternall salvation that through thy grace he may desire those things which please thee and with his whole endeavour perform the same through Jesus Christ our Lord. For Peace O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give that both our hearts may be set
which desires so earnestly to praise and confess thee everlastingly Alas O eternal Sweetness wouldest thou damn a soul which hath cost thee so much sweat and bloud giving it for ever to those cruel and accursed powers of darkness Rather O Lord pierce my heart with such a fear of thy judgement that I may always dread and never feel them If I forget awake my memory if I flie from thee recal me again If I deferre my amendment stay for me If I return do not despise my soul but open those arms of mercy which thou didst spread upon the Cross with such rigorous justice against thy self for satisfaction of my sins The Gospel upon Tuesday the first week in Lent out of Saint Matthew 21. JESUS drove the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple ANd when he was entered Jerusalem the whole City was moved saying Who is this And the people said This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee And Jesus entered into the Temple of God and cast out all that sold and bought in the Temple and the tables of the bankers and the chairs of them that sold pigeons he overthrew and be saith to them It is written My house shall be called the house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves And there came to him the blind and the lame in the Temple and he healed them And the chief Priests and Scribes seeing the marvellous things that he did and the children crying in the Temple and saying Hosanna to the Son of David they had indignation and said to him Hearest thou what these say And Jesus said to them Very well have you never read that out of the mouthes of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise and leaving them he went forth out of the Citie into Bethania and remained there Moralities 1. JEsus entering into Jerusalem went streight to the Temple as a good Son goes to his Fathers house as a High-Priest to the Sanctuary and as a sacrifice to the Altar He doth very lively interest himself in the goods of his Heavenly Father and chaseth out every prophane thing out of that sacred place to give thereby glory to the living God and to put all things in order It is a wicked stain to Religion when Ecclesiastical persons are vicious and when Churches are profaned Saint John Chrysostom saith That Priests are the heart of the Church but when they are wicked they turn all into sin A decaying tree hath always some ill quality about the root so when any people are without discipline the Pastours are without virtue The want of reverence in Churches begets the contempt of God they cannot have Jesus in their hearts when they give him affronts even in his own Temple 2. His house saith he is a house of Prayer but your heart should be the Sanctuary and your lips the door So long as you are without the exercise of prayer you shall be like a Bee without a sting which can make neither honey nor wax Prayer is the chiefest and most effectual means of that Angelical conversation to which God calls us by the merits of his passion and by the effects of his triumphant resurrection It is the sacred business which man hath with God and to speak with Saint Gregory Nazianzen it is the art to make our souls divine Before all things you must put into an order the number the time the place the manner of your prayers and be sure that you pay unto God this tribute with respect fervour and perseverance But if you desire to make a very good prayer learn betimes to make a prayer of all your life Incense hath no smell without fire and prayer is of no force without charity A man must converse innocently and purely with men that desire to treat worthily with God 3. Keep your person and your house clean from ill managing all holy things and from those irreverences which are sometimes committed in Churches It is a happy thing for a man to be ignorant of the trade of buying and selling benefices and to have no intercourse with the tribunals of iniquity Many other sins are written in sand and blown away with a small breath of Gods mercy But the faults of so great impiety are carved upon a corner of the Altar with a graver of steel or with a diamond point as the Prophet saith He deserves to be made eternally culpable who dries up the fountain which should waste himself or poisons the stream which he himself must drink or contanimates the Sacraments which are given him to purifie his soul Aspirations SPirit of God which by reason of thy eminent height canst pray to no body and yet by thy divine wisdom makest all the world pray to thee Give me the gift of prayer since it is the mother of wisdom the seal of virginity the sanctuary for our evils and fountain of all our goods Grant that I may adore thee in Spirit with reverence stedfastness and perseverance and if it be thy divine pleasure that I pray unto thee as I ought inspire into me by thy virtue such prayers as thou wilt hear by thy bountie The Gospel for Wednesday the first week of Lent S. Matth. 12. The Pharisees demand a Sign of JESUS THen answered him certain of the Scribes and Pharisees saying Master we would see a sign from thee who answered and said to them The wicked and adulterous generation seeketh a sign and a sign shall not be given it but the sign of Jonas the Prophet For as Jonas was in the Whales belly three days and three nights so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas And behold more than Jonas here The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because she come from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold more than Solomon here And when an unclean spirit shall go out of a man he walketh through drie places seeking rest and findeth not Then he saith I will return into my house whence I came out And coming he findeth it vacant swept with besoms and trimmed then goeth he and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last of that man be made worse than the first So shall it be also to this wicked generation As he was yet speaking to the multitudes behold his mother and his brethren stood without seeking to speak to him and one said unto him Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking thee But he answering him that told him said Who is my mother and who are my brethren And stretching forth his hand upon his Disciples he said Behold my mother and my brethren for whosoever shall do the will
before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance and a moderate care of our bodies burial Let us order our goods by a good and charitable Testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children and kinred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the Divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Jesus fountain of all lives in whose bosom all things are living Jesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdom of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud and sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us and we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous and antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud and thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be always of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. John 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sick man Lazarus of Bethania of the Town of Mâ—ry and Martha her sister And Marie vvas she that anointed our Lord vvith ointment and vviped his feet vvith her hair vvhose brother Lazarus vvas sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he vvhom thou lovest is sick And Jesus hearing said to them This sickness is not to death but for the glorie of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Jesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he vvas sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Jewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Jews sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Jesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man vvalk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this vvorld but if he vvalk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Jesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I vvas not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore vvho is called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Jesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania vvas nigh to Jerusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Jews vvere come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore vvhen she heard that Jesus vvas come vvent to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Jesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that vvhat things soever thou shalt ask of God God vvill give thee Jesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this vvorld Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sickness to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God than when she raiseth up the greatness of her courage the body being cast down with sickness A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolours 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange God as they do who seek for health by remedies which are a thousand times worse than the disease But they addressed themselves to the living God the God of life and death to drive away death And to recover life they were content onely to shew the wound to the faithfull friendship of the Physician without prescribing any remedies for that is better left to his providence than committed to our passion 3. He defers his cure to raise from death The delay of Gods favours is not always a refusal but sometimes a double liberality The vows of good men are paid with usury It was expedient that Lazarus should die that he might triumph over death in the triumph of Jesus Christ It is here that we should always raise high our thoughts by considering our glory in the state of resurrection he would have us believe it not onely as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies upon the plants or elements of the world and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature but also as a belief which is fast joyned to the faith we have in the Divine providence which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosom of the earth so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power having passed his word and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity 4. Jesus wept over Lazarus thereby to weep over us all Our evils were lamentable and could never sufficiently be deplored without opening a fountain of tears within heaven and within the eyes of the Son of God This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise How could those heavenly
be a King but a King of hearts who requires nothing of us but our selves onely to make us happy and contented in him He triumphs before the victory because none but he could be sure of the future certainty of his happiness But he watered his triumphs with tears to weep for our joys which were to proceed out of his sadness It is related by an ancient Oratour that when Constantine made his entery into great Brittany where he was born the people received him with so great applause that they kissed the Sails and Oars of the vessel which brought him and were ready to pave the streets with their bodies for him to tread on If they did so for a mortal man what should we not do for an eternal God who comes to buy us with his precious bloud and demands enterance into our hearts onely to give us Paradise 2. He walks towards his Cross amongst the cries of favours and joy to teach us with what chearfulness we should conform our selves to abide our own sufferings imitating the Apostles who received their first reproches as Manna from heaven He would have us prepared and resolved always to suffer death patiently whether it be a death which raiseth up our spirit to forsake sensuality or a natural death Whethersoever it be we should embrace it as the day which must bring us to our lodging after a troublesom pilgrimage Doth it not appear plainly that those who are loth to forsake the world are like herbs put into an earthen pot among straw and dung and yet would be unwilling to come forth of it The furniture of our worldly lodging grown rotten the roof is ready to fall upon our heads the foundation shakes under our feet and we fear that day which if we our selves will shall be the morning of our eternal happiness It is not death but onely the opinion of it which is terrible and every man considers it according to the disposition of his own spirit 3. The Palm-branches which we carry in our hands require from us the renewing of a life purified and cleansed in the bloud of the holy Lamb. In the beginning of Lent we take upon our heads the ashes of Palm branches to teach us that we do then enter as it were into the Sepulcher of repentance But now we carry green bows to make us know that now we come out of the tomb of Ashes to enter again into the strength of doing good works in imitation of the trees which having been covered with snow and buried in the sharpness of winter do again begin to bud out in the Spring time 4. The garments spred under the feet of Jesus declare that all our temporal goods should be employed toward his glory and that we must forsake our affections to all things which perish that we may be partakers of his kingdom No man can stand firm that is delighted with moveable things He that is subject to worldly affections binds himself to a wheel which turns about continually Jesus accepted this triumph onely to despise it he reserved the honour of it in his own hands to drown it in the floud of his tears and in the sea of his precious bloud If you be rich and wealthy do not publish it vainly but let the poor feel it You must live amongst all the greatness and jollity of this world as a man whose onely business must be to go to God Aspirations O Sovereign King of hearts after whom all chaste loves do languish I am filled with joy to see thee walk amongst the cries of joy and the Palms and garments of thy admirers which served for carpets I am ravished with thy honours and the delights of thy glory and I applaud thy triumphs Alas that all the earth is not obedient to thy laws and that the tongues of all people do not make one voice to acknowledge thee sole Monarch of Heaven and earth Triumph at least in the hearts of thy faithfull servants O my magnificent Master make a triumphal Ark composed of hearts Put fire to it with thy adored hand Pour out one spark of that heat which thou camest to spread upon the earth Let every thing burn for thee and consume it self in thy love I do irrevocably bind my heart to the magnificence of thy triumph and I love better to be thy slave than to be saluted King of the whole world The Gospel upon Munday in holy week S. John 12. Saint Marie Magdolen anointed our Saviour feet with precious Ointment at which Judas repined JEsus therefore six days before the Pasche came to Bethania where Lazarus was that had been dead whom Jesus raised and they made him a supper there and Martha ministered but Lazarus was one of them that sate at the table with him Marie therefore took a pound of Ointment of right Spikenard precious and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled of the odour of the Ointment One therefore of his Disciples Judas Iscariot he that was to betray him said Why was not this Ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor And he said this not because he cared for the poor but because be was a thief and having the purse carried the things that were put in it Jesus therefore said Let her alone that she may keep it for the day of my burial for the poor you have always with you but me you shall not have always A great multitude of the Jews knew that he was there and they came not for Jesus onely but that they might see Lazarus whom he raised from the dead Moralities 1. LAzarus being raised from his grave converseth familiarly with Jesus and to preserve the life which he had newly received he ties himself continually to the fountain of lives to teach us that since we have begun to make a strong conversion from sin to grace we must not be out of the sight of God we must live with him and of him with him by applying our spirit our prayers our fervours our passionate sighs toward him and live of him by often receiving the blessed Sacrament Happy they saith the Angel in the Apocalyps who are invited to the wedding-supper of the Lamb. But note that he who invites us to this feast stands upright amidst the Sun to signifie that we should be as pure as the beams of light when we come unto the most holy Sacrament Lazarus did eat bread with his Lord but to speak with S. Augustine he did not then eat the bread of our Lord and yet this great favour is reserved for you when you are admitted to that heavenly banquet where God makes himself meat to give you an Antepast of his Immortality 2. God will have us acknowledge his benefits by the faithfulness of our services S. Peter's mother in law as soon as she was healed of her Feaver presently served her Physitian And observe that Martha served the Authour of life who
time Jesus sanctified it by his sacred touch He took the Bason which being in his hands became greater and more full of Majesty than all the Ocean Our spots which eternity could not wash clean are taken away at Baptism by one onely drop of water sanctified by his blessing He prevents the bath of his bloud by the bath of an element which he doth expresly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament to teach us what purity of life of heart of faith of intentions and affections we must bring to the holy Eucharist It is necessary to chase away all strange gods which are sins and passions before we receive the God of Israel we must wash our selves in the waters of repentance and change our attire by a new conversation Is it too much for us to give flesh for flesh the body of a miserable man for that of Jesus Christ The consideration of our sins should bring up the bloud of blushing into our cheeks since they were the onely cause why he shed his most precious bloud upon the Cross for us Alas the Heavens are not pure before his most pure Spirit which purifies all nature Then how can we go to him with so many voluntary stains and deformities Is it not to cast flowers upon a dung-hill and to drive Swine to a clear fountain when we will go to Jesus the Authour of innocency carrying with us the steps and spots of our hanious sins 3. Jesus would not onely take upon himself the form of man but also of a base servant as S. Paul saith It was the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies which made David say That Moah should be the Bason of his hope expressing thereby that he would humble the Moabites so low that they should serve onely to bring water to wash unclean houses Alas who would have said that the Messias was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite What force hath conquered him what arms have brought him under but onely love How can we then become proud and burn incense to that Idol called Point of honour when we see how our God humbled himself in this action Observe with what preparation the Evangelist said that his Heavenly Father had put all into his hands that he came from God and went to God yet in stead of taking the worlds Scepter he takes a Bason and humbles himself to the most servile offices And if the waters of this Bason cannot burst in us the foul impostume of vanity we must expect no other remedy but the eternal flames of hell fire Aspirations OKing of Lovers and Master of all holy Loves Thou lovest for an end and till the accomplishment of that end It appertains onely to thee to teach the Art of loving well since thou hast practised it so admirably Thou art none of those delicate friends who onely make love to beauties to gold and silk thou lovest our very poverty and our miseries because they serve for objects of thy charity Let proud Michol laugh while she list to see my dear David made as a water-bearer I honour him as much in that posture as I would sitting upon the throne of all the world I look upon him holding this Bason as upon him that holds the vast seas in his hands O my merciful Jesus I beseech thee wash wash again and make clean my most sinfull soul Be it as black as hell being in thy hands it may become more white than that Dove with silver wings of which the Prophet speaks I go I run to the fountain I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters I desire affectionately to humble my self but I know not where to find so low a place as thine when thou thus wast humbled before Judas to wash his traiterours feet Upon the Garden of Mount Olivet Moralities 1. JEsus enters into a Garden to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man The first Adam stole the fruit and the second is ordained to make satisfaction It is a strange thing that he chose the places of our delights for suffering his pains and never lookt upon our most dainty sweets but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows Gardens are made for recreations but our Saviour finds there onely desolation The Olives which are tokens of peace denounce war unto him The plants there do groan the flowers are but flowers of death and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and bloud He that shall study well this Garden must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips to make his heart become another manner of Garden where Jesus should be planted as the onely Tree of Life which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice 2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great Combats which began with sweat and bloud but ended with the loss of his life There were three marvellous Agonies of God and Death of Joy and Sorrow of the Soul and Flesh of Jesus God and Death were two incomparable things since God is the first and the most universal of all lives who banisheth from him all the operations of death and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our redemption The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights whereunto nothing which displeased could have access and yet Jesus suffered sorrow to give him a mortal blow even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity He afflicted himself for us because we knew not what it was to afflict our selves for him and he descended by our steps to the very anguishes of death to make us rise by his death to the greatest joyes of life To be short there was a great duel between the affectionate love and the virginal flesh of Jesus His soul did naturally love a body which was so obedient and his body followed wholly the inclinations of his soul There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties that their separation must needs be most dolorous Yet Jesus would have it so and signed the decree by sweating bloud And as if it had been too little to weep for our sins with two eyes he suffered as many eyes as he had veins to be made in his body to shed for us tears of his own bloud 3. Observe here how this soul of Jesus amongst those great anguishes continued always constant like the Needle of a Sea-compass in a storm He prays he exhorts he orders he reproves and he encourages he is like the Heavens which amongst so many motions and agitations lose no part of their measure or proportion Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his Heavenly Father he tears himself from himself to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death amongst all his inclinations to life to teach us that principal lesson of Christianity which is to desire onely what God will
extream love Jesus the most supream and redoubted Judge who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world fire and lightening streaming from his face and all things trembling under his feet was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminal person Every thing is most admirable in this judgement The Accusers speak nothing of those things which they had resolved in their counsels but all spake against their consciences As soon as they are heard they are condemned justice forsaketh them and they are wholly possest with rage Pilate before he gave judgement upon Jesus pronounced it against himself for after he had so many times declared him innocēt he could not give judgement without protesting himself to be unjust The silence of Jesus is more admired by this infidel than the eloquence of all the world and Truth without speaking one word triumpheth over falshood A Pagan Lady the wife of Pilate is more knowing than all the Laws more religious than the Priests more zealous than the Apostles more couragious than the men of Arms when she sleepeth Jesus is in her sleep when she talketh Jesus is upon her tongue if she write Jesus is under her pen her letter defended him at the Judgement-Hall when all the world condemned him she calleth him holy when they used him like a thief She maketh her husband wash his hands before he touched that bloud the high price of which she proclaimed She was a Roman Lady by Nation called Claudia Procula and it was very fit she should defend this Jesus who was to plant the Seat of his Church in Rome All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his bloud he reconciles Herod and Pilate by the loss of his life He sets Barrabas at liberty by the loss of his honour he speaks not one word to him that had killed S. John the Baptist who was the voice And the other to revenge himself without thinking what he did shewed him as a King He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours that he might become for us the King of glories But what a horrour is it to consider that in this judgement he was used like a slave like a sorcerer like an accursed sacrifice Slavery made him subject to be whipped the crown of thorns was given onely to Enchanters and that made him appear as a Sorcerer And so many curses pronounced against him made him as the dismissive Goat mentioned in Leviticus which was a miserable beast upon which they cast all their execrations before they sent it to die in the desart He that bindeth the showers in clouds to make them water the earth is bound and drawn like a criminal person He that holds the vast seas in his fist and ballanceth Heaven with his fingers is strucken by servile hands He that enamels the bosom of the earth with a rare and pleasing diversity of flowers is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns O hydeous prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowfull darkness Behold what a garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head to expiate the sins of both Sexes It was made of briars and thorns which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us and which the virtue of his Cross took away All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins while we live in delicacies and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts to which though he that spake it gave the swiftness of wings yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts that it getteth leaden heels which make it continue there fixed Aspirations ALas what do I see here A crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns A man of dolours who burns between two fires the one of love the other of tribulation both which do inflame and devour him equally and yet never can consume him O thou the most pure of all beauties where have my sins placed thee Thou art no more a man but a bloudy skin taken from the teeth of Tigers and Leopards Alas what a spectacle is this to despoil this silk * * * Ego sum vermis non home Psalm 21. worm which at this day attires our Churches and Altars How could they make those men who looked upon thy chaste body strike and disfigure it O white Alabaster how hast thou been so changed into scarlet Every stroke hath made a wound and every wound a fountain of bloud And yet so many fountains of thy so precious bloud cannot draw from me one tear But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross who hath put thee within these thorns to make so great harmonies onely by thy silence O holy thorns I do not ask you where are your Roses I know well they are the bloud of Jesus and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns if they had any feeling of that which you have Jesus carried them upon his head but I will bear them at my heart and thou O Jesus shalt be the object of my present dolours that thou mayest after be the Fountain of my everlasting joys Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of JESUS CHRIST MOunt Calvarie is a marvellous scaffold where the chiefest Monarch of all the world loseth his life to restore our salvation which was lost and where he makes the Sun to be eclipsed over his head and stones to be cloven under his feet to teach us by insensible creatures the feeling which we should have of his sufferings This is the school where Jesus teacheth that great Lesson which is the way to do well And we cannot better learn it than by his examples since he was pleased to make himself passible and mortal to overcome our passions and to be the Authour of our immortality The qualities of a good death may be reduced to three points of which the first is to have a right conformity to the will of God for the manner the hour and circumstances of our death The second is to forsake as well the affections as the presence of all creatures of this base world The third is to unite our selves to God by the practise of great virtues which will serve as steps to glory Now these three conditions are to be seen in the death of the Prince of Glory upon Mount Calvarie which we will take as the purest Idea's whereby to regulate our passage out of this world 1. COnsider in the first place that every man living hath a natural inclination to life because it hath some kind of divinity in it We love it when it smileth upon us as if it were our Paradise and if it be troublesom yet we strive to retain it though it be accompanied with very great miseries
And if we must needs forsake this miserable body we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easie death This maketh us plainly see the generosity of our Saviour who being Master of life and death and having it in his power to chuse that manner of death which would be least hydeous being of it self full enough of horrour yet nevertheless to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father and to confound our delicacies he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious which was to be found among all the deaths of the whole world The Cross among the Gentiles was a punishment for slaves and the most desperate persons of the whole world The Cross amongst the Hebrews was accursed It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouthes did pronounce against their greatest enemies The death of a crucified man was the most continual languishing and tearing of a soul from the body with most excessive violence and agony And yet the Eternal Wisdom chose this kind of punishment and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter He should have died upon some Trophey and breathed out his last amongst flowers and left his soul in a moment and if he must needs have felt death to have had the least sense of it that might be But he would trie the rigour of all greatest sufferings he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour and having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life to make his death compleat he would spare none of those infinite dolours The devout Simon of Cassia asketh our Saviour going toward Mount Calvarie saying O Lord whither go you with the extream weight of this dry and barren piece of wood Whither do you carry it and why Where do you mean to set it Upon mount Calvary That place is most wild stony how will you plant it Who shall water it Jesus answers I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood which must conquer him who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood I carry it to mount Calvarie to plant it by my death and water it with my bloud This wood which I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of all the world and to draw all after me And then O faithfull soul wilt not thou suffer some confusion at thine own delicacies to be so fearfull of death by an ordinary disease in a doun-bed amongst such necessary services such favourable helps consolations and kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition We bemoan and complain our selves of heat cold distaste of disquiet of grief Let us allow some of this to Nature yet must it be confest that we lament our selves very much because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified Let us die as it shall please the Divine Providence If death come when we are old it is a haven If in youth it is a direct benefit antedated If by sickness it is the nature of our bodies If by external violence it is yet always the decree of Heaven It is no matter how many deaths there are we are sure there can be but one for us 2. Consider further the second condition of a good death which consists in the forsaking of all creatures and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death Ferrara a great Divine who hath written a book of the hidden Word toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour 1. His apparrel leaving himself naked 2. The marks of his dignitie 3. The Colledge of his Apostles 4. The sweetness of all comfort 5. His own proper will 6. The authority of virtues 7. The power of Angels 8. The perfect joys of his soul 9. The proper clarity of his body 10. The honors due to him 11. His own skin 12. All his bloud Now do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things how bitter it was First the abandoning of nearest and most faithfull friends is able to afflict any heart Behold him forsaken by all his so well-beloved Disciples of whom he had made choice amongst all mortal men to be the depositaries of his doctrine of his life of his bloud If Judas be at the mystery of his Passion it is to betray him If S. Peter be there assisting it is to deny him If his sorrowfull mother stand at the foot of the Cross it is to increase the grief of her Son and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners to crucifie him again by the hands of Love The couragious Mother to triumph over her self by a magnanimous constancy was present at the execution of her dear Son She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds to engrave them deep in her heart She opened her soul wide to receive that sharp piercing sword with which she was threatened by that venerable old Simeon at her Purification And Jesus who saw her so afflicted for his sake felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross and the heart of his dear Mother We know it by experience that when we love one tenderly his afflictions and disgraces will trouble us more than our own because he living in us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Jesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a Throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his Passion became like a scaffold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entered to be tormented and crucified upon the cross of love which was the Cross of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from Heaven to accomplish the business of all Ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and in this so precious shipwrack there remained one onely inestimable pearl which was his divine Mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hand of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Jesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered it to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively and in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the
whole world as he did proportioning his torments according to the fruits which were to proceed from his Cross Perhaps O faithfull soul thou lookest for a mans body in thy Jesus but thou findest nothing but the appearance of one crusted over with gore bloud Thou seekest for limbs and findest nothing but wounds Thou lookest for a Jesus which appeared glorious upon Mount Tabor as upon a Throne of Majestie with all the Ensigns of his Glory and thou findest onely a skin all bloudy fastened to a Cross between two thieves And if the consideration of this cannot bring drops of bloud from thy heart it must be more insensible than a diamond 3. To conclude observe the third quality of a good death which will declare it self by the exercise of great and heroick virtues Consider that incomparable mildness which hath astonished all Ages hath encouraged all virtues hath condemned all revenges hath instructed all Schools and crowned all good actions He was raised upon the Cross when his dolours were most sharp and piercing when his wounds did open on all sides when his precious bloud shed upon the earth and moistened it in great abundance when he saw his poor clothes torn in pieces and yet bloudy in the hands of those who crucified him He considered the extream malice of that cruel people how those which could not wound him with iron pierced him with the points of their accursed tongues He could quickly have made fire come down from Heaven upon those rebellious heads And yet forgetting all his pains to remember his mercies he opened his mouth and the first word he spake was in favour of his enemies to negotiate their reconciliation before his soul departed The learned Cardinal Hugues admiring this excessive charity of our Saviour toward his enemies applies excellent well that which is spoken of the Sun in Ecclesiasticus He brings news to all the world at his rising and at noon day he burns the earth and heats those furnaces of Nature which make it produce all her feats So Jesus the Sun of the intelligible world did manifest himself at his Nativity as in the morning But the Cross was his bed at noon from whence came those burning streams of Love which enflame the hearts of all blessed persons who are like furnaces of that eternal fire which burns in holy Sion On the other part admire that great magnanimity which held him so long upon the Cross as upon a throne of honour and power when he bestowed Paradise upon a man that was his companion in suffering I cannot tell whether in this action we should more admire the good fortune of the good thief or the greatness of Jesus The happiness of the good thief who is drawn for a cut-throat to prison from prison to the Judgement-hall from thence to the Cross and thence goes to Paradise without needing any other gate but the heart of Jesus On the other side what can be more admirable than to see a man crucified to do that act which must be performed by the living God when the world shall end To save some to make others reprobate and to judge from the heighth of his Cross as if he sate upon the chiefest throne of all Monarchs But we must needs affirm that the virtue of patience in this holds a chief place and teaches very admirable lessons He endures the torments of body and the pains of spirit in all the faculties of his soul in all the parts of his virgin flesh and by the cruelty and multiplicity of his wounds they all become one onely wound from the sole of his foot to the top of his head His delicate body suffers most innocently and all by most ingrate and hypocritical persons who would colour their vengeance with an apparance of holiness He suffers without any comfort at all and which is more without bemoaning himself he suffers whatsoever they would or could lay upon him to the very last gasp of his life Heaven wears mourning upon the Cross all the Citizens of Heaven weep over his torments the earth quakes stones rend themselves Sepulchers open the dead arise Onely Jesus dies unmoveable upon this throne of patience To conclude who would not be astonished at the tranquility of his spirit and amongst those great convulsions of the world which moved round about the Cross amongst such bloudy dolours insolent cries and insupportable blasphemies how he remained upon the Cross as in a Sanctuary at the foot of an Altar bleeding weeping and praying to mingle his prayers with his bloud and tears I do now understand why the Wiseman said He planted Isles within the Abyss since that in so great a Gulf of afflictions he shewed such a serenity of spirit thereby making a Paradise for his Father amongst so great pains by the sweet perfume of his virtues After he had prayed for his enemies given a promise of Paradise to the good thief and recommended his Mother to his Disciple he shut up his eyes from all humane things entertaining himself onely with prayers and sighs to his Heavenly Father O that at the time of our deaths we could imitate the death of Jesus and then we should be sure to find the streams of life Aspirations O Spectacles of horrour but Abyss of goodness and mercy I feel my heart divided by horrour pitie hate love execration and adoration But my admiration being ravished carries me beyond my self Is this then that bloudy sacrifice which hath been expected from all Ages This hidden mystery this profound knowledge of the Cross this dolorous Jesus which makes the honourable amends between Heaven and earth to the eternal Father for expiation of the sins of humane kind Alas poor Lord thou hadst but one life and I see a thousand instruments of death which have taken it away Was there need of opening so many bloudy doors to let out thine innocent soul Could it not part from thy body without making on all sides so many wounds which after they have served for the objects of mens cruelty serve now for those of thy mercy O my Jesus I know not to whom I speak for I do no more know thee in the state thou now art or if I do it is onely by thy miseries because they are so excessive that there was need of a God to suffer what thou hast endured I look upon thy disfigured countenance to find some part of thy resemblance and yet can find none but that of thy love Alas O beautifull head which dost carry all the glory of the highest Heaven divide with me this dolorous Crown of Thorns they were my sins which sowed them and it is thy pleasure that thine innocency should mow them Give me O Sacred mouth give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips suffer me to sprinkle all my pleasures with it since after a long continuance it did shut up and conclude all thy dolours Give me O Sacred hands and adored feet the Nails which have pierced
you love binds you fast enough to the Cross without them But do thou O Lord hold me fast to thy self by the chain of thine immensity O Lance cruel Lance Why didst thou open that most precious side Thou didst think perhaps to find there the Sons life and yet thou foundest nothing but the Mothers heart But without so much as thinking what thou didst in playing the murderer thou hast made a Sepulcher wherein I will from henceforth bury my soul When I behold these wounds of my dear Saviour I do acknowledge the strokes of my own hand I will therefore likewise engrave there my repentance I will write my conversion with an eternal Character And if I must live I will never breathe any other life but that onely which shall be produced from the death of my Jesus crucified The Gospel for Easter-day S. Mark 16. ANd when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought spices that coming they might anoint Jesus And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen And they say one to another who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the Monument And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great And entering into the Monument they saw a young man sitting on the right hand covered with a white Robe and they were astonied Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seck Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him But go tell his Disciples and Peter that be goeth before you into Galilee there you shall see him as he told you Moralities 1. THe Sepulcher of Jesus becomes a fountain of life which carries in power all the glories of the highest Heaven Our Saviour riseth from thence as day out of the East and appears as triumphant in the ornaments of his beauties as he had been humbled by the excess of his mercies The rage of the Jews looseth here its power death his sting Satan his kingdom the Tomb his corruption and hell his conquest Mortality is destroyed life is illuminated all is drowned in one day of glory which comes from the glorious light of our Redeemer It is now saith Tertullian that he is revested with his Robe of Honour and is acknowledged as the eternal Priest for all eternity It is now saith S. Gregory Nazianzen that he re-assembles humane kind which was scattered so many years by the sin of one man and placeth it between the arms of his Divinity This is the Master-piece of his profound humility and I dare boldly affirm saith S. Ambrose that God had lost the whole world if this Sacred Virtue which he made so clearly shine in his beloved Son had not put him into possession of his Conquests We should all languish after this Triumphant state of the Resurrection which will make an end of all our pains and make our Crowns everlasting 2. Let us love our Jesus as the Maries did that with them we may be honoured with his visits Their love is indefatigable couragious and insatiable They had all the day walkt round about the Judgement-Hall Mount Calvary the Cross and the Sepulcher They were not wearied with all that And night had no sleep to shut up their eyes They forsook the Image of death which is sleep to find death it self and never looked after any bed except the Sepulcher of their Master They travel amongst darkness pikes launces the affrights of Arms and of the night nothing makes them afraid If there appear a difficulty to remove the stones love gives them arms They spare nothing for their Master and Saviour They are above Nicodemus and Joseph they have more exquisite perfumes for they are ready to melt and distil their hearts upon the Tomb of their Master O faithfull lovers seek no more for the living amongst the dead That cannot die for love which is the root of life 3. The Angel in form of a young man covered with a white Robe shews us that all is young and white in immortality The Resurrection hath no old age it is an age which can neither grow nor diminish These holy Maries enter alive into the sepulcher where they thought to find death but they learn news of the chiefest of lives Their faith is there confirmed their piety satisfied their promises assured and their love receives consolation Aspirations I Do not this day look toward the East O my Jesus I consider the Sepulcher it is from thence this fair Sun is risen O that thou appearest amiable dear Spouse of my soul Thy head which was covered with thorns is now crowned with a Diadem of Stars and Lights and all the glory of the highest Heaven rests upon it Thine eyes which were eclipsed in bloud have enlightened them with fires and delicious brightness which melt my heart Thy feet and hands so far as I can see are enamel'd with Rubies which after they have been the objects of mens cruelty are now become eternal marks of thy bounty O Jesus no more my wounded but my glorified Jesus where am I What do I I see I flie I swound I die I revive my self with thee I do beseech thee my most Sacred Jesus by the most triumphant of thy glories let me no more fall into the image of death nor into those appetites of smoke and earth which have so many times buried the light of my soul What have I to do with the illusions of this world I am for Heaven for Glory and for the Resurrection which I will now make bud out of my thoughts that I may hereafter possess them with a full fruition The Gospel upon Munday in Easter-week S. Luke the 24. ANd behold two of them went the same day into a Town which was the space of sixty furlongs from Jerusalem named Emmaus And they talked betwixt themselves of all those things that had chanced And it came to pass while they talked and reasoned with themselves Jesus also himself approching went with them but their eyes were held that they might not know him And he faid to them What are these communications that you confer one with another walking and are sad And one whose name was Cleophas answering said to him Art thou onely a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not known the things that have been done in it these dayes To whom he said What things And they said Concerning Jesus of Nazareth who was a man a Prophet mighty in work and word before God and all the people And how our chief Priests and Princes delivered him into condemnation of death and crucified him But we hoped that it was he that should redeem Israel And now besides all this to day is the third day since these things were done But certain women also of ours made us afraid who before it was light were at the Monument and not finding his body came saying That they saw a vision also
scatter in the air to serve as instruments and hands to their attractions This being common to other natures of plants metals and living creatures we must not think but that the body of man participateth therein by reason of its vivacity and the multitude of pores which give a more easie passage to such emissions There then cometh forth a spirituous substance which is according to Marsilius Ficinus a vapour of bloud pure subtil hot and clear more strong or weak according to the interiour agitation of spirits which carrieth along with it some quality of a temperate friendly and convenient which Marsilius Ficinus l. 1. de vita c. 2. insinuating it self into the heart and soul doth if it there find a disposition of conformity abide as a seed cast into the earth or as a Leaven which swelleth up a piece of dough and forms this love of correspondence with an admirable promptnesse and vigour From thence it cometh that brothers many times feel motions and affections of tendernesse one for another Surius without knowing each other as it happened to S. Justus who knew his brother Justinian among sundry slaves who were at the chain by this notice without any other fore-judgement Thence it comes that at first we are passionate for persons we never saw and that we wish them well though they alwayes have not so much grace nor beauty but there is some relation of humour which weaveth the web and tieth such affections All nature is full of such communications which are effects of Sympathy observed in the Corall which sensibly changeth according to his disposition who hath it about him as also in the flesh of beasts which boileth in the powdring-tub at the time of the fury of dogs because they have been bitten by a mad dog And in wine which seems to be sprinkled all over with certain white flowers when the vines are in blossome So it happeneth that the spirits which do in our bodies Modification of the opinion who place love onely in transpiration Species forma semel per oâ—ulos illigaâ—a vix magni luctaminis manu solviter Hieron in Threnos cap. 3. what the winds do in Nature being transpired from one body to another and carrying in their wings qualities consonant do infallibly excite and awaken the inclinations But it is not credible or at least ordinary that this manner of working should be as in things inanimate and that it hath nothing to do with the senses for it is principally the eyes which are interressed therein breathing thence the most thin spirits and darting forth the visuall rayes as the arrows of love which penetrate the heart are united confounded and lost one within another then heating the bloud they strike the Imagination and attract wills which are so linked one to another that one cannot perceive the knot which so fast tied them together If transpiration alone of spirit indifferently proceeding from all the parts of the body were able to enflame concupiscence we must then say that a blind man set at a certain distance from a perfect beauty would become enamoured with beholding it hearing it smelling it couching it or by any sense understanding it which notwithstanding happeneth not in that manner and if nature thus proceeded and that this passion were to be taken as a Contagion we might extreamly fear the approch of bodies and persist in continuall apprehensions to be infected by them It is certain that the senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against love A Guard over the senses since the Imagination it self stirreth not but upon their report but after they yield themselves up by a too familiar conversation and resign their defences a terrible havock is made in the mind for love entereth thereunto as a Conquerour into a surprized City and imprinteth that pleasing face in every drop of the masse of bloud It engraveth it on the Imagination It figureth it on every thought and there is nothing any longer entire in the mind which is not divided between slavery and frenzy § 7. The effects of Sensuall Love IT is a strange thing that this fury hath a thousand hands and a thousand attractives a thousand wayes of working quite different and many times opposite It takes by the eyes by the ears by the imagination by chance of purpose by flying pressing forward honouring insulting by complacence and by disdain Sometimes also it layes hold by tears by laughing by modesty by audacity by confidence by carelessenesse by wiles by simplicity by speech and by silence Sometimes it assaileth in company sometimes in solitude at windows at grates in Theatres and in Cabinets at Bals at sports in a feast at a Comedy sometimes at Church at prayers in acts of Penance And who can assure us against it without the protection of God Eustatius the Interpreter of Homer saith there are some who feign Love to be the sonne of the wind and the Rainbow in Heaven in my opinion to signifie unto us its Inconstancy and diversified colours and this beautifull Iris in the beginning appears all in Rubies in Diamonds and Emeralds over our heads afterward to cause rain and tempests So love shewing it self at first with such bright semblances to our senses occasioneth storms and corruption in our minds Observe one transfixed with violent love and you The miserable state of one passionately in love Insomnia aetumnae terror fuga stultitià que adeò temerâ—tas in cogitantia excors immodestia c. Plautus in Moâ—cat shall find he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell darkenesse Flames the worm of Conscience an ill Savour Banishment from the sight of God You shall see a man whose mind is bewitched brain dislocated and Reason eclipsed All he beholdeth all he meditateth on all he speaketh all he dreameth is the creature he loveth He hath her in his head and heart painted graved carved in all the most pleasing forms For her he sometimes entereth into quakings sometimes into faintings another while into fits of fire and Ice He flieth in the air and instantly is â—â—enged in the Abysse He attendeth he espieth He fears He hopes he despairs He groneth he sigheth He blusheth he waxeth pale He doteth in the best company He talks to woods and fountains He writeth He blots out He teareth He lives like a spectre estranged from the conversation of men Repast is irksome to him and Repose which charmeth all the cares of the world is not made for him Still this fair one still this cruell one tormenteth him and God maketh him a whip of the thing he most loveth Yet is this more strange in the other sex which hath naturally more inclimation to honesty A Lady chaste or a Virgin well-bred who begins to wax cold in the love of God and in the exercise of devotion and takes too much liberty in her conversation with men finds her self insensibly surprized by the eyes and ears by
Perfecto odio oderaâ—â— illos Psal 138. is dangerous lest seeking to pull them away we be more passionate against the party who hath them then against all the most abominable iniquities We must not believe our selves when there is question of some important punishment nor such as are born to flatter our likings with too much servitude but those Angels for our counsellours if it be possible who are disintangled from the matter of Interests There are some who use to fortifie themselves in their resolutions by the deportments of those who are held for Saints in the Church and do readily alledge the examples of David who being upon his death-bed recommended to his son Solomon the punishment of Joab and Shimei But we must here consider that David is not a man impeceable to serve Question upon the act of David as a pattern for all our actions and that it is ever better to consecrate our dying lips with the words our Saviour spake a thousand years after on the crosse then with those he left in this instant as a Testament to his son The Jews had naturally great inclinations to revenge and many sought to perswade themselves it was by their laws permitted which is the cause this great King was not so perfectly free from all the seeds of Hatred in the whole course of his life But forasmuch as concerneth this last will of his one may excuse him for divers reasons nor can it be denyed an act of justice to put Joah to death who had defiled his hands with the bloud of two innocent Princes but it is strange that David reserved this so rough a punishment for him after fourty years of great and singular services when he was about threescore and ten years old Yet Theodoret brings a reason of state for it wherein he sheweth that Joah Theodoretin c. 2. l. 3. Regum citatus in Glossa Joah being in himself a great Captain was withall daring in his manners and tyrannicall in his undertakings and had already made it but too much appear that he meant to embroil the state after the death of his Master and to set Adonijah upon the throne to the prejudice of Solomon which was the cause that David who sought fixedly to establish the Kingdome upon his lawfull successour councelled him to take him away by a just punishment of other crimes which he had committed And as for Shimei who had surcharged him with injuries and curses when afterward he returned victorious into Hierusalem he came before him and craving pardon of his fault with lowly submission which stayed David and made him swear he should not dye for it which seemeth to convince him of perjury when he commanded his son Solomon to kill him I cannot approve Tostatus his distinction who saith When persons very different in the qualities of their rights treat together that he who hath justice on his side may promise things with an intention not to perform them as the other meaneth them For verily the permission of this manner of captious proceedings would throw a distrust upon all treaties But it is easie to see that David in this occasion beholding himself to be accomplished with joy and glory when Shimei came to cast himself at his feet and that Abishai counselled him instantly to put him to death he swore he should not dy and that the alacrity of a day so pleasing should not be purpled with humane bloud so that he had no further purpose but to assure Shimei for the time present and to promise him impunity in this conjunction of Kingdome and affairs but when he saw this spirit was insolent and like also to occasion trouble in the young King he did not absolutely command as Cajetan observeth to put him to death for what was past which had been pardoned but not to spare him in new occasions of commotion as actually Solomon following the intentions of the King his father troubled him not upon his slanders but upon another occurrent Now although one may alwayes give colour to the Hatred which is undertaken upon consideration and that it be sometimes necessary for the extirpation of the wicked yet must we more incline to clemency then justice in all which concerneth our selves For Hatreds of Interest which concern estates and Hatred of interest honour they many times in these dayes are incurable if they be not accompanied with some reasonable satisfaction It is a thing very remarkable that our Saviour Luc. 12. 14. who accordeth elements and pacifieth totall Nature would not undertake the agreement of two brothers upon the partition of their patrimony Nay there are some now a dayes so greedy and fleshed in prey that for a fingers breadth of land they would oppose Jesus Christ if he should visibly come to mediate their reconciliation After a thousand reasons which may be alledged for peace and good correspondence they derive but one conclusion out of it which is to have their will For which cause God chastiseth them and very often permitteth dissipation of goods ruine of families and many other accidents which stain their consciences and tarnish their reputation As on the contraty he blesseth the children of peace who forgo somewhat of their interest to acquire this inestimable treasure It is almost as hard to preserve charity in a great suit as to maintain fire in the water or under earth to keep inextinguible lamps He who will persist with a conscience indifferently Christian must never descend into suits Suits their nature and description but with a leaden pace and come out of them with the wings of an Eagle Suits are as the sons of Chaos and night there is nothing in them but confusion and darknesse It is a mixture of all evils which hath the heat of fire the threats the roaring thunders and tempests of the air the rocks of the sea the talons of birds of rapine and ravenous throat of fishes the gall of serpents the fury of salvage beasts and the malignity of poysons Before it ever walketh the desire of anothers goods by its side deceit revenge injustice falshood and treachery after it repentance poverty shame and infamy As war is made for peace so we sometimes undertake suits for justice and those are honest men who desire it but they who at this present do it with all sincerity are the greatest Saints of this age who seem to be given by God to mortifie civil hatreds and to establish minds in concord After suits Hatred brings forth another mischief Duell which is Duel a true Sacrifice of Moloch which hath cost France so much bloud mothers and wives so many tears which filleth families with sorrow friends with grief ages with horrour and hearts the most reasonable with the detestation of such a Crime The edicts of our most Christian King which have Means to use an efficacious remedy in Duell had more force then all other have served instead of a Jasper-stone to stanch
bloud But never would a remedy absolutely efficacious be had therein were it not that the King who is the true Arbiter of honour and distributer of glories did not pour a strong influence of his spirit upon the Marshals of France those great Captains and all the brave men who wield a sword by which he lively and powerfully perswadeth the whole nobility that this opinion conceived of the valour of those who fight Duels is a mere illusion since it may be common to lackies and to the most abject conditions Besides there is need of a strong and speedy military justice to accord differences of men of war and to chastise so many petty insolencies which seem to arise from nought but to put affronts on men of honour Otherwise it is hard to perswade a sword-man to forbear revenge seeing himself provoked byoutrages which would make him to live dishonoured according to tho world in his profession and as for these slight souldiers of Cad mus whose fingers itch and who ground Duels upon the wind of a word to let the world know they are tyed to a sword It were very good to send them into armies and to recommend them to some prudenr Captain who may put them into some good occasion to make triall of their courage and to give information of them that either their cowardise may be punished or their valour approved It seems to me that these proceedings being well observed might be of power to stifle this fatall plague which hath caused so many mischiefs For we must not wholly take away point of honour from the nobility no more then from women Now as virtuous women account it not a point of honour to be faithfull to an Amorist but to a husband so it is nor fit that reall gentlemen should think themselves valiant by the practise of a crime but by the exercise of a virtue As the first invention of Duels grew out of an opinion of point of honour so must it dye by a true judgement of honour which proceedeth not so much from Doctours as Captaines When the Gladiatours were in vogue and that it was accounted a glorious thing to descend into the Amphitheatre to fight against men and beasts all the world was inflamed therewith as with fury and not so much as women but would be partakers This manner of massacres also bare sway sometimes in the times of Christianity untill the Emperour Honorius who buried them after so many eloquent tongues had to Princes and Magistrates represented the horrour of those so barbarous actions so we ought to hope that the King to whom God hath given the plenitude of so many and so admirable blessings will cultivate the Palm which he already hath planted by his victory over Duels and will cover under earth and forgetfulnesse this infamy of mankind I satisfie my self with giving this advice having treated on this subject in the second Tome of the Holy Court § 5. Naturall and Morall Remedies against this Passion IF you require remedies and instructions both Naturall and Morall against Hatred Know that the Philosophers who consider all according to the course of Nature teach us that some have rebated and blunted the points of this cold and maligne Passion one while by living with hot and moist viands another while by consideration of the joyes and prosperities which God hath given them in divers negotiations and accidents of affairs thinking it not teasonable to employ the time in hatred which was too short to enjoy the benignities of heaven Others have cured themselves by conversation with good company which is one of the sweetest charms of life Others by hope and the desire they had to derive favour from the self-same party who had offended them another while also by a courteous interpretation of words and actions which had raised the same hatred Lastly by the change of those whom they hated before seeing them rather to be raised in great innocency or fallen into deep miseries which made them derive from mercy that satisfaction they could not expect from revenge But if they from nature have begged some comfort for their passion and have not been frustrated of their attempt in the practise of the means How much better helps have we then they ever had since that besides those naturall remedies which are not alwayes certain we have the grace and example of Jesus Christ Will you efficaciously remedy Hatred Learn not Who loves himself overmuch hath no friend to love your self so passionately as you do For that is the cause that you make of your self a little Idoll and that the least word which seems to be let slip against you many times not of purpose nor with intention grieveth you as if by displeasing your Chymeras a Divinity were offended That is the cause that you have burning and enraged desires towards money and the frivolous honour of the world so that one cannot touch you on this side but he strikes the apple of your eye Learn as a wholesome instruction those words of the Prophet Aggeus You have hastned to go into Agg. 1. Festinatis unusquisque in domum suam propterea prohibiti sunt coeli ne darent rorem your own house with contempt of mine for which cause I have stayed the clouds in the heavens from distilling down their dew upon the earth So long as you love your self so much you shall never have love nor friends So long as you think upon nothing but to raise your house and fortune on the ruines of the houses and fortunes of others you shall be deprived of the dew of heaven which is that Consolation of the just which they find in charity Secondly make account to compose your self to a Exercise of patience noble exercise of patience which is to tolerate the defects and imperfections of your like beholding them not on the side where they do you wrong but on that where they have connexion with God and upon every offence you receive say This man is troublesome but he is the image of God He is violent but it is he must crown my patience He is vicious but he is my flesh and bloud Let us hate his vice but love the man although he deserve it not Let us love him in the heart of God since we cannot love him out of his own merit S. John kissed the hand of an Apostate and a Thief covered all over with bloud to oblige him by whom he was traiteroufly disobliged and I cannot shew the least token of amity towards one who hath spoken one cold word to me S. Katharine sucked away the matter and filth of the ulcer of an infamous slanderer who had detracted her with all manner of virulence after infinite many benefits and I cannot endure so much as to see one who hath displeased me as if Haec est porta per quam quis ingreditur in Sanctum sanctorum inaccessae pulchritudinis spectator dignus constituitur S. Max.
non fert infirmirates curare nescit Chrysol serm 150. punishments and glory He descended from heaven like a rich Merchant laden with great treasures he came to lodge in a wretched cottage among mortals whom he held for his brethren He was charmed with a love so powerfull and entranced in a manner so prodigious that he made a change admirable to all the world taking upon him our infirmities to give us strength our affronts to conferre his dignity upon us our wounds to bestow his health on us When I here below behold a man well may I have some small impression of his example but I thereby become not enriched with his merit Now Jesus hath this property that besides the benefit of the celestiall Doctrine which he communicateth to us besides that of example which is infinitely ravishing he maketh in us under the title of Adoption a powerfull infusion of his Graces He continually poureth his virtue on Tanquam caput in membra tanquam vitis in palmites in ipsos justificatos jugiter virtutem influit Concil Trid. sess 6. c. 16. Eccli 45. 9. souls who are in the possession of Justifying Grace as the head on the rest of the members and as the root of the vine sendeth nourishment to all the branches which depend upon it He is our Aaron who as it is said in the Book of Wisdome is crowned with vessels of virtue since the treasure of his merits are so many vessels of sanctity which flow over the whole masse of mankind Note that he communicateth to us three Pledges Three powerfull succours of our Saviour to animate our constancy of his inestimable Love to give us confidence that is to say his Name his Crosse and the Sacrament of his Body and his Bloud Good God! What dastardlinesse would not be animated and what courage not raised in the presence of three so much to be adored assistances The Name of Jesus is the Name of names The power of the name of Jesus which we should grave on our fore-heads as the Character of our Christianity and the assurance of our salvation against all hostilities This is the Name Facies laminam de auro purissimo in qua sculpes opere caelatoris saâ—ctum Domino Exod. 28. Oratio Manassis Conclusisti Abyssum signastieam terribili laudabili nomine tuo which the high Priest of the Jews bare on his Mytre It is the name in sight of which Alexander when he went out to besiege Jerusalem became a lamb of an enraged lion breaking all his choler at the feet of a Priest as waves are dashed against the rocks It is that Name which made Daniel to take his refection whilst he was in the paws of lions with all tranquillity That Name which the flames of the Babylonian fornace acknowledged That Name which God maketh use of to seal up the Abysses And what shall I say of the Crosse and of this Royall Standard of the Monarch of monarchs said The admirable effects of the Cross of Jesus Christ the voyce of heaven to Constantine It is he under whom so many brave Colonels of Christian souldiery have flown from one Pole to another as Eagles faln like tempests upon the armies of Sarazens cut like keen razours consumed as with coles all Powers opposed against Christianity How often hath this sign lifted up dejected Courages How often hath it thrown terrour among legions of Infidels How often hath it driven away Devils On this wood God established Dominus regnavit à ligno Aug. in Psal 91. Pugnavit Cruce sua Christus vicit Reges subjugatis eis ipsam Crucem in fronte fixit his Throne Jesus Chiist as saith S. Augustine fought with his Crosse He by it defeated the Kings and Monarchs of the earth and having gloriously overthrown them hath made them to carry the Crosse on their fore-heads O how unhappy be we if we resemble vipers who bear the Crosse but hidden under their jaws It is to do like the brood of vipers to blush at the Crosse and to be ashamed at the venerable scorns of the Passion of our Saviour But it is our work to bear it in the sight of all the world and to Raymund in Autechristo regard it as the sign of our Redemption and the harnesse of our Protection What shall we not do with it and with this adorable The courage we may derive from the help of the holy Sacrament of the Altar Sacrament of the Altar which maketh us present with God and God so present to us Is it not from thence that so many Saints have gone forth as lions casting fire and flames out of their mouths as saith S. John Chrysostome The learned S. Gregory of Tours teacheth us that antiently the holy Eucharist was kept An excellent observation of S. Gregory in Churches in a little tower of silver In my opinion to signifie that this pledge of the love of God is a fortresse inexpugnable against the assaults of our enemies That is it which at all times fortified Virgins against the ardours of Concupiscence and the importunities of carnall lovers who would have bereaved them of their honour That which made Martyrs run to flames and wheels as others to delights That which made them to look with alacrity upon their streaming bloud and to hold it more precious then orientall pearls The Scripture telleth us that the Children of Israel Numb 35. being departed from Marah as much as to say a place of Bitternesse arrived at Elim where they found twelve Fountains and seventy Palms And I must tell you that when after the Mortification of the flesh the afflictions of the world the fears of so many acccidents which menace us we come to this divine Sacrament there we meet with fountains which stream from the wounds of our Saviour there we gather palms and victories numberlesse Who then would not learn holy Boldnesse in the school of Jesus Christ But alas it often happens that instead of profiting in so good a school and in the Doctrine of so great a Master we are bold for the world and timorous in the affairs of God What a prodigy is it to see now-a-dayes so many who are onely bold to do ill If a falshood be to be averred if a wretched maid to be debauched if a revenge to be put forward even to the effusion of humane bloud if lawfull Powers to be resisted if laws both Divine and Humane to be spoken against there Boldnesse and Confidence appeareth But what say I Confidence yea Impudency fomented by the mildnesse of laws and impunity of so many crimes But in undertakings made for God we have hearts of wax and souls trembling like leaves under the breath of winds O detestable Boldnesse which art not born but to serve as an instrument to mischief dost thou not know there is no assured Power against God who in the twinkling of an eye overthroweth the children and race of
would be pleased to divert such a thought from thee lest thou become culpable of the anger of God which will fall on the whole Army if thou goest to this stranger It importeth not I will go Son if thou resolvest to sin then stay till night make a veil of darknesse further to cover thy wickednesse from the eyes of the world for fear lest thy example may serve for a rock of scandall to those who are yet novices in virtue Yet thou perversly sayest I will go in full day light I will enjoy my pleasures and who art thou that givest me a law Go Zimri Go impudent man thou in thy calamitie shalt know the salarie of thy sin You know the rest of the History he goes thither he accosteth the Madianite in sight of all the world At which time God raiseth a young Prince as courageous as a Lion grand-child of Aaron who followeth him armed with zeal and sword crying out aloud Ah Traytor Ah infamous man He finds him out in the throne of Lust in the bed of iniquitie in the heat of Crime and with his sword transfixeth him and the Madianite making the abominable Bed and their unchaste loves to float all in bloud O bloud horribly but justly shed which still cryeth out with a voyce of bloud and saith to all posteritie Men women children great little poor rich flie from Impudency flie from Impudency as the last of vices otherwise know there is a revenging sword and a Judgement of God inevitable to all the Shamelessnesse of Sinners The twelfth Treatise Of ANGER § 1. The origine of Anger its Nature Causes and Diversities FIre which is a Mean between Spirits and Bodies doth work very diversly according The marveilous effects of fire to the matter and disposition it meets withall In the heavens it enkindleth the stars with flames the most pure in totall Nature it diversifieth clouds with Gold and Rubies it maketh Bowes and Coronets in the air it enterteineth a heat of life in the bodie of living Creatures which being maintained in a good temperature cause all the harmonies of health but when it mounteth up into a tempestuous cloud when it boyleth in Fornaces and creeps into Canons which are as mouths of fire to pronounce war it maketh so strange devastations that it vanquisheth the most valiant beats down the most boysterous mollifieth the hardest and terrifieth the most daring In the same manner we may say heat which in our bodies is an admirable work-Mistresse multiplyeth its effects according to the diversitie of the stuffs and occasions it lights on it conspireth with our spirits to serve as an instrument for the soul in its great operations it exciteth the honourable flames of chaste loves it disposeth courage to generous resolutions it polisheth the mind to embrace worthy purposes It secondeth the Imagination in its apprehensions It makes it self the steward of the vegetatiue faculties for the generation and production of men But if it once meet with burnt blood and fuming Choler which is as it were in the hands of the imagination when it is touched with some displeasure it insinuateth it self thereinto as into a cloud swoln with storms and tempests which throws forth fires roareth with thunders shooteth with inflamed darts and practiseth nought but ruine This is it we call Anger which is properly an ardent What Anger is appetite of reuenge caused by an apprehension of contempt and injuries Now this opinion of Contempt springeth in some from disesteem or for that they are forgotten and neglected by those of whom they think they ought to be respected In others from being crossed in what they desire most as in their profession their ambition and especially their affections In others from being depressed in that wherin they imagine they excell and principally before such by whom they perswade themselves they are beloved and honoured In others from being derided for defects of nature aswel of body as of mind and extraction also In others from being injuriously disgraced and insolently outraged by base and abject people and such as they have obliged As the opinion of injury increaseth and as it meeteth with a nature disposed and matter prepared this ardour is inflamed and if it be accompanied with a great power it teareth down smoaking cities it desolateth Provinces it swims in massacres it raiseth scaffolds all sprinkled over with bloud and hung with black whereon it acteth horrible Tragedies The other passions are augmented by degrees but Dum incipit tota est Sen. de Ira. How Anger is formed this ariseth fully formed and appears perfect so soon as it beginneth The opinion of contempt no sooner entreth in by the eyes and eares but it striketh the imagination which promptly communicateth its influence to the irascible appetite and then as if fire were given to a Canon it becomes Thunder and Tempest which disfigureth the bravest bodies turmoileth the bloud and spirits and bendeth all the veins to vengeance You would say the heart is not at that time any other then Vulcans Forge where the thoughts like so many Cyclopes labour to make Hail-showrs Lightenings and Tempests It is not known in this countrey what kind of language Reason speaketh It is no better heard then words among the Catadupes of Nilus strength hath a hand lifted up to employ the sword and a thousand instruments of iniquity to commit outrages This passion resembleth the furious Martichora renowned among Indian wild beasts who teareth his members asunder to make of them the arrows of his vengeance It hath nothing so resolved on as to destroy all and to raise unto it self a Tombe in its own ruines Yet we cannot but say that there are Divers qualities of anger three very different sorts of Anger according to the offences and persons who either raise it or suffer it In some it is cold in apparence and more inward but these oftentimes have the aspect of Virgins who in conclusion throw forth the fire of dragons In others it is fervent and headlong In others haughty and scornfull In others dumb and malicious In others obstreperous and stormy In some it is frequent and sudden in others sticking and obstinate There are some who being offended for frivolous things cease not to persevere therein for fear some may think they began without reason in which the lesse the cause is the more passionate they become Others blame their greatest friends for having done them lesse good then they expected In some Anger is but yet in bloom in others it taketh great and deep root Some satisfie themselves with clamour and injuries others therein employ the hand others wood and Iron others would have lightening in their power for some time of purpose to prosecute their revenge with all advantage Lastly this passion thrusts forth Vir iracundus effodit peccata Caffiao de spirits irae c. 1. all that is hidden in the heart Which made Cassian according to the Septuagint to write that
the midst of Compared to the pit of the Abysse Apoc 9. 2. this smoke strange grashoppers are seen which waste and consume all that is verdant What is the pit of the Abysse but Jealousie And what are those smokes but its suspicions and what is the darkned Sun but Reason all over oppressed by Passion and what are those grashoppers but the evil effects of cruel Jealousie which over runneth mankind Ah! How many innocent Ladies have been wounded by this monster in their honour more precious with them then life Ah! How many miserable wives have served for victimes to the fury of enraged husbands who have thrust a sword through the moity of their owne flesh to satisfie their barbarous Tyranny Our eyes are still moistned with this bloud and our minds cannot speak of it but with horrour All the Jealousies men entertain for the goods and persons of the world have this proper that they presently make their deformity appear in the disorder of sundry passions which tosse turmoile them Who could see a jealous heart should behold a huge swarm of distrusts and suspicions which issue The havock it makes in the heart thence as spirits of Hell and hasten to whisper in its ear she becometh cool in love she was in such a place to watch an opportunity to see such an one If she be simple she dissembles if she be prudent she is cunning if she be pensive she contriveth plots if she be lightsome she figureth fruition to her self Never did a more detestable plague come out of the Abysse to trouble the peace of Marriages never was any thing seen so unjust never any thing so cruel An innocent Advice to women creature who abhorreth sin as hel sees her self wounded in reputation more dear to her then life transfixed with mortall arrows all covered over with ordure and bloud in the soule of a passionate man afterward this unhappinesse stretching further first filleth the house with division then the neighbours with curiosity and the whole city with a tale which trotteth on tongues Many times they passe from sport to actions tragicall direfull and diabolicall It hath happened that Jealous women running up and down the streets and fields to discover their husbands loves have been torne in pieces by wild beasts and husbands have been hanged and strangled for having sought by infamous wayes into the secret of confession Many times banishments and murders have followed which have put all into combustion witnes Theodosius his appeal and Mariamne of whom I have spoken very amply in the first volume of this Book It is undoubted that a husband makes his wife loyall by accounting her such and that he who suspecteth evil in an innocent creature gives her occasion of sin Never doth a generous husband slightly fall into these weaknesses Women also are most injurious when they give cause of suspicion by a licentious life which striketh the understanding of the most stupid man It is to cast oil into the flame and to wish it may not burn when one in all occasions carrieth her self ill and cannot endure suspicions which ordinarily wait on actions too free as the shaddow on the body And that which is more insupportable is that certain women chast enough in their conscience will needs many times appear Libertines to increase the distrusts of a husband and to hold his soul in a hell of torments when they should by all wayes endeavour to diver his Jealousies A woman is ill advised to complain of the Jealousie of her husband when she thinks it sufficeth to have a husband for the Sacrament and a friend for her own liking and so that she preserve her self from the extremity of Infamy that all is permitted her in wedlock When she imagines it a decent thing to be alone and in the obscurity of darknesse with men who are not reputed Angel-Raphaels guardians of Chastity to roam and run up and down the streets orchards and gardens to hearken after appointments walks and junketings to receive and write love-letters to be quaint and to desire to be esteemed such to serve others in their humours and to wish to be alike served to wear a wanton garment to be bare-brested to talk freely to live wantonly to despise all that is said to follow her own pleasure Doth not all this tend to prostitution of Honour and to shipwrack of Chastity § 3. Two other branches of this stock which are Indignation and malicious Envy with calumny its companion BUt let us lay aside that which concerneth the Jealousies of Marriage There are others plunged in Two other sorts of the envious Indignation this passion who have a perpetuall indignation to see those to prosper who are really wicked or whom they in their thoughts do imagine to be so They would willingly call God in question and see not to speak with S. Augustine that the fish which they esteem happy August in Psal 91. in the bait hath the hook already in his throat I behold others who afflict themselves and are unquiet not for these considerations only which were more tolerable but because others are farre more excellent then they either in wit industry beauty or in estate desirous out of an irregular appetite of proper excellency and most palpable ambition to stand in all things transcendently conspicuous to the prejudice and abasement of others and such Envy saith the most eminent of Doctours is of all the most perfect and absolute and is ordinarily to be found among concurrencies of age of fortune and profession We see others who are not content with simple thoughts but thrust their passion forward to wretched effects and I observe that these are disposed to evil by divers motives Some have a dark and cloudy Envy as the Philistims who went and secretly filled the pits with earth which the Patriarch Abraham had made with much labour for the benefit of many so we behold them who silently seek to frame obstacles against all the good works which they observe to be begun casting the stone of scandall as far as they can then pulling back the arm which threw it Others are possessed with a furious 1 Reg 18. 11 and fantastick Envy as that of Saul who setting himself loose to the extravagancies of his maligne spirit sought to transfix David with his launce to the wall when he for his Recreation plaid on the harp so we see mischievous souls who out of a transportation of frenzy do brutish acts against such as wish them well Others have a determinate Envy and a formall habitude which proceedeth to rage to glut themselves in bloud and massacres such was that of Josephs brothers and of Cain who embrewed his hands in the bloud of Abel out of the jealousie of a sacrifice It seldome happens but that this Fury concludeth in some execrable Tragedy At least it hath calumny for a perpetuall companion which is a hideous monster whose picture anciently Apelles drew He
dissolve his busie practise and to reduce misled minds unto reason Notwithstanding this violent Mayor of the palace ceased not openly to declare his design in full Assembly in favour of Thierry using many pretexts and colours which put a quite other face upon a businesse so unreasonable Good men who more feared his bloudy countenance and his irreconcileable enmities then approved his reasons looked one upon another expecting that some generous soul should stand for truth and all of them imagined that having declared themselves with much weaknesse and small effect they might not serve so much for a support to Childeric's cause as for an object of Ebroins revenge Cruelties and Jealousies often ruine many good affairs and they took the way to overthrow this if Leger had not risen up who spake with so much reason grace authority and courage that he alone gave a countrepoise to Ebroins malice and drew all the soundest in the Assembly to his side where Ebroins adherents seeing Truth carried as in Triumph by hands so courageous did disband studying more their own preservation then to serve his ambition Childeric mounts up to the Throne which nature had prepared for him Ebroin who knew the main and manifest contradictions he had framed against his right hath a soul full of affrightments and already accounts himself for a dead mad he searcheth for some sanctuary to hide himself but findeth none more safe then Religion Necessity makes a Monk where piety could never make a Christian He comes and throweth himself at Childeric's feet offers him his head and life with most humble submission by which he begged of the young King that if his goodnesse permitted him not to moisten the entrance into his Throne with the bloud of the guilty his Majesty would please to confine him to a Monastery to bewail his sinnes and daily to die as many times as he should call to mind his own Ingratiude Childeric who was not born to bloud and who at that time had his heart busied enough with the joy of his victory which is a time when Mildnesse costs him least permitted him to retire into the Monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy Mean time Leger who had given such testimonies of his capacity Courage and fidelity is put into Ebroins place and undertaketh the absolute government of all the affairs of the Kingdome His virtue should have dispensed with him at this time not to give others occasion to think that he had beaten down Ebroins tyranny of purpose to raise himself upon his ruines But there are certain chains of Adamantin charges and Court-dignities which oftentimes captive the most austere His Rivall bursts with anger to see him lifted up to this dignity when his calamity enforced him to be tyed to a Coul which is a piece he never had thought was for his purpose He was a strange Hermit like to Nicephorus Gregoras his fox who being blacked over with ink counterfeited the Monk and told the poultrey he much repented him to have used them so ill but that hereafter they might confidently converse with him since his habit and condition permitted him not to live otherwise then innocently This miserable man had no other repentance but that he had not prospered in his ambition no other poverty then the impotency of taking away others mens goods no other obedience then the hypocrisie of his submission no other singing then the sorrows of his fortune and no other Religion but his habite All his prayers tended to nothing else but to demand some change of State that he might change his fortune whereas Leger taking wayes quite contrary in his government made Religion Justice and Peace to flourish His zeal opposed impiety his equity injustice his sweetnesse violence and his authority carried all that was reasonable But there is a certain unhappinesse in the mannage of state-affairs which makes a man hate his own quiet and virtue too regular is often troublesome even to those it intends to oblige Leger is offensive to some because he makes them more honest then they would be to others because his lights manifest their darknesse whilst others think that in the newnesse and change of a Minister of State they shall better make up their own reckoning Childeric himself takes a distaste against the faithfullest of his servant and whether that Ebroins faction breathed this passion into him or whether it proceeded from his licentious youth or whether his humour felt too much constraint in the innocent severity of the manners of his Mayor of the Palace he shewed him not so pleasing a look as he had accustomed He desirous more efficatiously to sound the Kings opinion most humbly besought him to give him leave to passe the Feast of Easter in the city whereof he was Bishop which Childeric easily assented to But perverse souls who enkindled the fire of division under colour of friendship told the good Prelate that the easinesse his Prince had witnessed in this late occasion was but a bait to undo him and that he had resolved to cause his person be seized on of purpose to murder him One fears all from a power that taketh the liberty to do all which was the cause that Leger entred into great affrightments noon this news and resolved to leave the Court to free himself from Envy and the dangers which threatned him He communicateth his intention with his greatest confidents who are nothing of his opinion and they shewed him he must not yield to a little stormy gust but rather die in the midst of the waves holding the helm in his hand then to forsake the vessel that his flight would give matter of suspicion to the King of advantage to his enemies and of confusion to his own friends and that hitherto there was not any sign of disgrace which might make him to begin where the onely extremity of evils might constrain him to end Notwithstanding whether fear had taken too much hold upon this good Prelates mind or whether his conscience reduced into his imagination the repose of those innocent dayes he had spent in the Monastery he takes a sudden resolution not to forsake the world by halves but by laying down the government of the affairs of the Kingdome to rid himself also of his Bishoprick The conclusion of this businesse is followed by a speedy dispatch which made the King wonder who sent trusty persons to invite him to return and to give him assurance of his good affection towards him but his zeal had its ear in heaven not to hearken to the perswasions of the earth He goes to the Monastery of Luxeuil where he sees Ebroin who was there held as a fettered beast and not in a condition to bite The Abbot who knew the differences that were in Court fearing lest hatred might hatch its egg by the help of a religious habit caused them to be reconciled and to talk together although he had separated their abode fearing that too fiequent conversation might in them
awaken their former aversions Time slideth away very quietly with them untill the arrivall of a very unexpected accident Childeric after the departure of S. Leger useth the greatnesse of his power licentiously and soileth both his Name and Dignity with inconsiderate actions which quickly made this great Minister of State to be deplored and all the Envy to be cast upon the King for having so easily dismissed him The contempt of his person began so to creep into the minds of his subjects that defamatory Libels went abroad upon his Passions and Government which seemed to have no other aim but the weakning of his Authority He thought to quench a coal with flames and entreth into outrageous anger against those whom he suspected to raise any question upon his actions He causeth a gentleman named Bodil to be taken and having caused him to be tyed to a post he commandeth him to be ignominiously whipped contrary to the manner of ordinary punishments which occasioned so much acerbity in the Nobility that all in an instant rebelled against him Bodil transported by the fury of his Passion and encouraged by the number of his Complices out of a horrible attempt kills Childeric whilst he was a hunting and passing on to the Palace extendeth his revenge like a devil fleshed in massacres to the person of the Queen great with child whom he murdered The Court is drenched in deep desolation the pillars of the State totter there is need of able men to free them from this danger The friends of Ebroin and S. Leger who sought their own ends in the employment of these two invited them with urgent reasons covered with the good of the State to return to the world assuring them that all France went to ruine if they supported it not Ebroin to whom South-sayers promised wonders and who under hope he had to forsake the Monks Coul had already suffered his hair to grow to be the better disposed for all occasions shewed himself nothing hard to be perswaded S. Leger therein used more resistance but in the end suffered himself to be overcome leaving the sweetnesse of Solitude to enter again into the troubles of the world which never passeth unpunished but in such as do it by the Laws of pure Obedience He is received into his Bishoprick as an Angel and his friends do all they can to bring him to the Court and to gain him a good esteem in the Kings mind who seemed to stand in need of such a servant to purchase the more authority among the people who with much satisfaction had tasted the sweetnesse of his Government Ebroin on the other side seeing Thierry Childeric's brother had taken possession of the Kingdome was very confident of his return having formerly been of the faction of the young King But he being neglected Leudegesillus an antient favourite of Thierry 's had undertaken the government of affairs The furious Monk storms like a mad-man for the dignity of Master of the Palace which he had possessed and being unable to creep into it by mildnesse he entreth thereinto by open violence He rallieth together all his antient friends in this new change of State he gathereth a tumultuary army and flyeth into the field with so much speed that he almost surprized the King with his Favourite to use them at his discretion Necessity enforceth to offer candles and incense to this devil he is sought unto for peace great recompences are proposed to his crimes his ambition takes no satisfaction but in the object of his design He draweth Leudegesillus to a Conference under shew of accommodation and being a man without Faith or Soul he killeth him emptying his place by a murder to replenish it by a Treachery Notwithstanding he lets Thierry know his arms were not taken but for his service and that he had no other purpose but to reduce all powers under his Sceptre The other was in a condition of inability to defend himself which made him resolve rather to take him for a servant then to have him for a master In the end this horrible fury hidden under the habit of a Monk never ceased until it carried him to the nearest place of a Royall Throne So soon as he was possessed of his former dignity he bent all his powers to vengeance and thought upon nothing but of ridding his hands of such as had crossed his fortune S. Leger was the very first he aimed at in his wicked plots he dispatcheth troops to make havock about the city of Autun and gives commands to murderers executioners of his revenge to lay hold of his person The good Prelate who heard the lamentable cryes of the people afflicted by the detestation of these hostilities went forth and presents himself before these barbarians as a victime of expiation to deliver himself over to death and to stay the stream of the miseries which overflowed his diocesse He was prepared to make an Oration but they as Tygres which had no commerce with musick presently fell upon him and having taken him they pulled out his eyes to lead him in triumph to Ebroin He had already poisoned the ear of the young King having set forth this sage Bishop as the most execrable man on earth and the most capitall enemy he had in the world There remained nothing but to produce him in this state fully to accomplish the contentment his bruitishnesse did aim at He at the same time caused Guerin S. Legers brother to be taken doubly to torment him in that he most loved and having presented them both before the King he beginneth to charge them with injuries and scorns the Saints eclipsed eyes and faces covered all over with bloud nothing mollifyed the heart of this Polyphemus Captivity tyed not the tongues of the two brothers nor excesse of miseries dejected their courages They spake with all liberty what might be expected from their constancy rendering thanks to God that he in this world had chastised them with temporall punishments as true children and menacing Ebroin with an eternity of torments which the anger of God reserved for the exorbitancy of his wickednesse This cruel creature who expected some more pliantnesse in so great a misery was immeasurably offended and instantly commanded them to be separated and Guerin to be speedily put to death He received the sentence of death with great fortitude embracing his blind brother with all unexpressible tendernesse and encouraging him to the last conflict with words full of the spirit of God After this he is bound to a pillar and knocked down with stones Ebroin who would relish his revenge by long draughts found out in his heart inventions of a hangman to torment Saint Leger causing him to walk on stones as sharp as razours and appointing his face to be disfigured by cutting out his tongue his nose and lips to send him from thence a prisoner to the Monastery of Fecan All this was executed yet the patience of this incomparable man by so hideous
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
superstitious Nation and that Portion was employed in the building of Temples in the expence of sacrifices and in the maintenance of the Sacrificers and Ministers that were preserved in their inheritances and possessions by the Reverence that was born to Religion The second was the Kings who was obliged to feed and pay the Souldiery and those that administred Justice The third belonged to the Common people composed of Labourers of Shepheards and of Artificers who seeing themselves oppressed with famine offered willingly their inheritances and their Bodies too for Bread But Joseph remitted all gave them wherewith to sow and even the Cattel to Plow the Ground on this condition that they would render to the King the fifth part of the Increase which they agreed to with a free will finding their repose their good and their safety in that transaction So that the holy Patriarch is free from blame in all these proceedings For if upon the foresight of the barrennesse he made provision of Corn it was Prudence if he sold it dear in a time that the want of it was great it was justice but if he exacted not of the Egyptians all that necessity prescribed them using them with more favour then the misery of their condition did bear it was mercy And to make it evidently appear that Joseph made himself beloved of the People one may observe an excellent Treatise of Julius Firmicus an antient Ecclesiasticall Authour that assures us That the Egyptians finding themselves infinitely obliged to his Providence and to his Courtesie consecrated him under the name of Serapis that carried a measure of Corn upon his head to signifie that he was the God that had given them bread For a sixth observation one cannot sufficiently admire that prodigious goodnesse which he testified in his reconciliation with his brethren Upon which the sacred History extends it self with magnificence and pomp for he did that action with much preparation and seasoned it with a certain gentlenesse and memorable circumstances to render it more solemn He frighted them to secure them he made them sad to make them joyfull He tormented them with fears and griefs to make them taste their felicity with a more delicious daintinesse An Antient said also That there is never any thing Good without the experience of Evil and for this purpose he afflicts them at first by a feigned Rigour to make them experiment a true Goodnesse for to follow in this History the paths of the holy Scripture without any other amplification such as one may reade in the History of the R. Fa. Talon who hath handled this subject with a flourishing and delightfull stile Consider how when they presented themselves unto him to buy Corn in Egypt by his permission he knew them without being known He assumed a severe countenance and harsh language he used them as Spies that come to observe the defects of the Cities and of the Citadels of Egypt to make a report of it to the enemy They very much astonished answered that they were very farr from all such practises being of a peaceable nature and condition the sons of a good man the father of twelve children the youngest of which stayed at home with him and the other was dead many years ago Joseph that had not his reckoning if he got not his dear brother Benjamin that issued from the same mother as himself frighted them more to make them resolve to bring him and told them that he perceived well that they were Impostours and that he would believe nothing of what they said if they came not to produce that little brother of whom they spake That these were but inventions to amuze him but he would not be satisfied nor put off with Fables Thereupon he gave command that they should all be put in prison under a good and safe Guard These miserable men say three dayes in a place where they endured very long and they began to think upon their conscience perswading themselves that it was their brothers blood that rebounded upon their heads Joseph causes them to be brought and questions them again as to make ready their indictment and to cause them to be put to death The fear wherein they thought themselves to be gave them great remorses and made them say amongst themselves It is upon a just ground that we suffer now an accident so little expected by us we well enough remember that we saw the anguish of our poor brother Joseph when we held him in our cruell hands to kill him we have sold him to the infidels and he dyed in slavery overwhelmed with miseries It is of his bloud that God makes us now to give an account They said this with a low voyce in Josephs and the Egyptians presence thinking that their language had not been understood by any one but all those words entred into the heart of their good brother who was very much melted with compassion and withdrew himself to let fall some tears which joy and pitty forced from his eyes In fine he commanded them to return unto their home on condition that one of them should remain Prisoner till such time as they had brought their little brother Simeon was chosen to be the sacrifice and was bound in their presence which they could not see without a sad displeasure This done they were dismissed with their Loads of Corn and the money which they had brought secretly put up again into their sacks by Josephs order When they perceived it it astonished them but being already far advanced upon the way they returned to their Father related to him faithfully all that had passed and expect thereupon his counsels and commands But when the Good-man heard them speak of taking away his Benjamin he felt himself touched in the apple of the eye and said that he saw plainly that all his children would be taken from him that they should remember that one had been devoured by the wild beasts another lay in chains in a strange Countrey and that instead of comforting him they would yet carry away him that assisted him in his old age and made him love more tenderly that little life that remained to him That if this should come short home It would precipitate his grey hairs to the Grave with most bitter Griefs It was pitifull to see the torment of that good old man and he was not for that time to be pressed farther upon a point so sensible They let some dayes slip away and as the famine increased and the Corn diminished Jacob without being brought to it by his Children begins again to speak of a voyage into Egypt They reply that it was a superfluous thing to think on it if he made not a resolution to send with them his sonne Benjamin but when they spake to him of that they opened the wound of his heart and he said that it was to make all the miseries of his unfortunate house fall back on him and that they might well have omitted
the Kings house a famous officer an Ethiopian by Nation and a man of heart who hearing of the cruelty that was used against the Prophet took pity on him and said boldly to the King What Sir can your Majesty well approve of the rigours that poor Jeremy is made to suffer for doing the function of a Prophet It well appears that his enemies would have his skin for they have let him down with ropes into a deep dungeon where it is almost impossible to breathe There is danger if this good man dyes by this ill usage that you are guilty of his death and that this may draw some wrath of God upon your Majesty He spake this with so good an accent that the King was moved and gave him charge to take thirty souldiers and to draw him thence which he did quickly casting down to him old linnen raggs to put under him that he might not be galled by the cords when they should make him ascend out of the bottome of that hideous prison When he was plucked up again the King had another time the curiosity to see him not in his Palace but in some secret place of the Temple where Jeremy spake to him with much fervency and tendernesse telling him that the onely means to save his person his house and all the City was to render up himself to Nabuchodonosor and that if he refused to do it he and all his would be destroyed The King answered that he was afraid to commit himself to the King of Babylon lest he should deliver him to his rebellious subjects that had fallen from him to the enemy Jeremy replyed That he need not fear any such thing and affectionately beseech'd him to have pity on his own soul on his wife and on his children for otherwise there would happen a great misery This poor Prince feared to attempt this against the opinion of those that governed him and to scatter them by this means from his party Nay he was afraid even to be seen with Jeremy and recommended to him very much to keep secret that discourse and to tell no body that he had spoken to him about State affairs He was sent back to Prison that he might not make the seditious mutiny and all that he could obtein was not to be plunged again in that pit from whence he had been delivered In the mean while Nabuchodonosor after a long siege carryed the city of Jerusalem which was taken about mid-night the enemies being entred by a breach that no body perceived Zedekiah much amazed betakes himself to flight with his wife and children and a few men of war about him taking his way through night darknesse affrights fear and a thousand images of death The Chaldeans had notice of his retreat and caught him on the plains of Jericho where he was immediately forsaken of his men and left with his wives and little children that sent out pitifull cryes through the apprehension of servitude and death He was carried away from thence to Riblah where Nabuchodonosor was expecting the issue of that siege This unfortunate Prince was constrained to present himself before the frightfull countenance of a barbarous King puffed up with his victories and prosperities who loaded him with reproaches and confusions upbraiding him with his rebellion his ingratitude and unfaithfulnesse he would willingly have been ten foot under ground before he suffered such indignities thinking himself sufficiently punished by having lost his crown and liberty But this cruell Conquerour would give other satisfactions to his revenge for after he had a long time digested his gall and thought on the means that he would use to punish him he causes his children to come before him and commands the Hangmen to murther them in the fathers sight These poor little ones seeing the glittering sword now ready to be plunged in their bloud cryed out for mercy and called pitifully upon the sad name of their father that had no other power but to suffer his calamity The sword passes throught the bodies of his children to find his heart who dyed as many deaths as nature had given him gages of his marriage He expected that the sword stained with the bloud of his dear progeny should have ended his life and griefs but this inhumane Tyrant having left him as much light as was needfull to illuminate his misery after that he had filled himself with this lamentable spectacle caused his eyes to be plucked out by an execrable cruelty and having commanded him to be put in great and heavie chains caused him to be carried into Babylon where he ended his miserable life and in his Person ended the Kingdome of Judea that had subsisted since Saul four hundred and fourscore years Nabuchodonosor having heard the narration that was made of Jeremy and the good counsell that he had given to his King esteemed him highly and gave charge to Nebuzaradan the Generall of his Army to give him content whether he had a mind to go to Babylon or whether he would stay in his own countrey But to shew he sought not the splendour of greatnesses he chose to make his abode amidst poor Labourers and Vine-dresses that were left after the sacking of the City the better sort being transported into Babylon He was recommended to Gedaliah who was settled Governour of those miserable Reliques of the people by Nebuzaradan but when this Gedaliah was murthered seven moneths after his creation Johanan that was one of the principall men counselled the Jews to quit that miserable land and to follow him into Egypt Jeremy opposed it and foretold misery to all those that should go thither but instead of believing him they dragged him along by force either to afflict him or to prevail over his Prophecyes He failed not to prophesy the desolation of Egypt that was to bend under the arms of Nabuchodonosor whereat his countreymen found themselves incensed and fearing lest he should draw some envy on them stoned him in a sedition The Egyptians hearing talk of the life and predictions of this great personage made account of him and set him up a Tomb where God to honour his servant did great miracles chasing away by his ashes the Crocodiles and serpents Alexander that flourished two hundred years after him admiring those wonders caused his reliques to be transported into Alexandria where he caused a magnificent Sepulchre to be erected for him as the Alexandrian Chronicle reports Behold how virtue persecuted in its own house finds a prop with strangers and even veneration amongst the Infidels God using all sorts of instruments to honour the merits of those that have rendered him proofs of a perfect faithfulnesse S. JOHN Baptist S. PAUL St. IOHN BAPTIST St. PAVL APOSTLE WHat makes an Hermit at the Court a Solitary man in a Tumult a Sacred amongst Prophane a Saint in the house of Herod He was far more secure amongst Wolves amongst Foxes and Tygers then amongst those wicked Courtiers He was more contented with his little
Right which my Birth doth give me to the Realm of England and the Catholick Religion are the causes of my condemnation although they disguise them as much as they are able by their calumnies They have taken from me my Almoner and deprived me of the consolation of the Sacrament which I intended at my death pressing me with all violence of importunity to receive the assistance and the Doctrine of their Ministers but I will never do any thing that shall be unworthy of my Birth or my Religion These who shall conveigh unto you the last sighs of my life shall assure you of my constancy It remains that I beseech you since you have always protested to have loved me to render to me the proofs of your charity to pray to God for a most Christian Queen who dieth a Catholick as she hath lived and to command that some reward may be given to my dear Servants for I depart this world deprived of all worldly goods As for my Son I recommend him to you as far as he shall deserve for I can not answer for him I have assumed the boldness to send you two stones which are very rare for health which I wish you may find perfect and happy in a long life you shall receive them from your most affectionate Sister in Law who dieth in giving you the last testimonies of her heart I recommend again my desolate Servants to you and if your Majesty shall bestow on me wherewith to found a little Covent and Alms requisite to it for some who shall pray for me you shall send my Soul unto God enriched with more merits This I beseech you for the honour of Jesus Christ whom near unto my death I pray unto for you in the quality SIR Of your most affectionate Sister in Law QUEEN MARY I am of opinion that the letter which made its address to the Duke of Guise was of the same substance The letter to her Confessor did import the Combats she had suffered for Religion and the zeal which did transport her to die in the Catholick faith and that most cruelly she had been denied to make her last will or to have her body transported or to have permission to confess her self In defect whereof she doth confess her sins in General as she had intended to rehearse them to him in particular She desired him to pray and to watch that night in spirit with her and to send her his absolution and to prescribe unto her the prayers which he thought most proper for her for that night and for the morning following adding that if she could see him at the hour of her suffering she would kneel down and take her leave of him with a desire of his Benediction This being done she took a Review of her Testament and caused the Inventory of her goods to be read and wrote down the Names of those to whom she had bestowed her wardrope she also distributed money to some with her own hand afterwards being retired she spent the rest of the night in watching and prayer Others affirm that having said her prayers she threw her self upon the bed and slept some hours very quietly to make her self more strong for the next days conflict Afterwards awaking she began to enter into an agony and her naked knees being humbled on the ground she did read the Passion to incourage her self to her last combat mingling almost already her tears and her bloud with the tears and the bloud of her best beloved she passed many hours in meditations untill she had wearied two of her servants whom she commanded to take their rest Her last day which was on the twenty eighth of February in the year 1587 and on the eighteenth of February according to the English account the sun beginning to rise she did put on those habiliments which she did usually wear on Festival dayes and having again assembled her Servants she caused her Testament to be read unto them and desired them to take in good part the small Legacies which she had given them because the condition of her Estate did not permit her to bequeath them greater She gave them all her last Farewell exhorting them to the fear and love of their Creatour to the preservation of their Religion and of concords amongst themselves and desired them to pray for the safety of her poor Soul In the end she kissed all the women and permitted the men to kiss her hand The Hall was filled with cries and lamentations and sighs and sobs and followed almost with an inundation of tears which they could not wipe away But as she had all her thoughts advanced to Heaven she retired her self again into her Oratory where she continued a long time imploring the Grace of God with sighs and with the groanings of a Dove until that Thomas Andrews Lieutenant of that County did signify unto her that it was time to come forth She suddenly obeyed him and came forth in a posture full of Majesty and with a joyfull Countenance Her habit was most modest her head was covered with a veyl which hung down beneath her shoulders She had a Chaplet at her Girdle and an Ivory Crucifix in her hand The Commissioners received her in the Gallery where they did attend her And Melvin her Steward did present himself before her and weeping fell on his knees to understand her last commands Weep not she said but rather rejoyce for this day you shall see Mary Stuart delivered from all her sorrows I conjure you to acquaint my Son that I have always lived and do die in the Catholick Religion and that I do exhort him with all my heart to preserve the faith of his Ancestors to love Justice and to maintain his people in peace and to enterprize nothing against the Queen of England I have committed nothing against the Realm of Scotland and I have always loved the Kingdom of France God pardon those who do thirst after my bloud as the Hart panteth after the fountain of waters Thou O Lord who art truth it self and soundest the deepest secrets of my heart thou dost know how much I have desired peace and the Union of the two Realms of England and Scotland Her Royal heart growing tender on her Son on the consideration of the cruelties and the persecutions of the Catholick Church and on the Indignities which most innocently she suffered her eyes poured down some tears of compassion which she suddenly wiped away Then turning to the Lords she desired that her poor Servants might after her death be used with humanity that they might be suffered to enjoy those poor Legacies which she had given them in her Testament that they might be suffered to assist her at her death and afterwards be sent safe into their Countreys upon the publick faith The Inhumanity of the Earl of Kent would not permit that her own Servants should assist her and said They would but serve to increase Superstition but she replied Fear
he should sway his Scepter or his life Cardan who was imployed no less than one hundred hours to make his Horoscope did easily observe in the stars the incommodities of his body and disasters of his person but he could no way attain to the period of his life which is of the secrets reserved in the knowledge and in the method of God All England was extreamly corrupted in her faith under the Regency of this Seimer and the Ladies of the Court were enveloped in the errours of the time He found none but the Lady Marie daughter to Henry the Eight and Katharine which continued in the Religion of their Grand-Fathers and though she was tempted and sollicited on all sides yet she would not suffer her self to be surprized with a new Faith but with a vigorous force did roar against all the torrents of Opinions and the overflowing disorders which reigned in that age It was for this that God did cause her to mount on the Throne of his own Tower and gave her the grace to be both the restorer of Religion and the State by the assistance of this Cardinal As soon as Edward was dead not without suspition Mary the lawfull heir is troubled and Jane is chosen Queen by Faction of poison Dudley Duke of Northumherland who was then most mighty in power and had newly married his Son to the Lady Jane issued from the bloud Royall conceived himself strong enough to begin the Regency of England the better afterwards to usurp the Crown He caused his Daughter-in-Law to be proclaimed Queen of England and seized on the Tower of London and gave order for the apprehending of Queen Mary But the generous Princess being advertised of the attempt did take horse in the time of night and secured her self in a place of strength and conjured all her good Servants to assemble themselves to defend her person and her right It is to be admired that persevering in the true Religion contrary to that of the great ones of the Kingdom at the same time when she conceived her self abandonned and her cause most deplorable that she should behold the principal of the Nobility and Gentry and Commonalty to fall down before her and to offer her their obedience and their Arms to take the possession of the Crown She marched immediately to London in the middle of her Army apparelled in a Gown of Velvet of a violet colour and mounted on a white horse She entered into the Citie with great applauses of her Subjects and surprized the Duke and caused him to deliver his Daughter in Law into her hands It was a spectacle worthy observation to consider the Inconstancy of these worldly affairs and to look on that person who but yesterday promised to himself to force the whole Kingdom under the power of his Laws to tremble now at the fear of death pronounced by his Judges who condemned him to be drawn upon a Hurdle to be hanged drawn and quartered The Queen sent him Catholick Divines to convert him to whom he gave ear and abjuring Heresie he imbraced the Catholick Religion which was the occasion that the Queen did moderate the Sentence of the Execution and was contented that his head onely should be cut off with his sons who was the husband of Jane This miserable Lady from a high Tower where she was prisoner beheld the body of her dear husband without a head at the sight whereof she fell down into a swoun and being a little recovered she melted into tears and did fetch from her heart so many and so deep sighs that they seemed to be able not onely to mollifie the hearts of men but to cleave the Rocks asunder There was a long Deliberation concerning her The Execution of the Lady Jane Fact because the Queen had an inclination to pardon her observing her to be both young fair knowing and of a delicate temper and one who had not offended but by the violent suggestions of her Father-in-law and of her Husband who had put the Crown upon her head But the Judges did remonstrate that it was of a most dangerous consequence to suffer that person to continue alive who had carried the Title of a Sovereign and that one day it might give a new fire to the enterprizes of the Remainder of her Faction On these Considerations the Sentence of Death was pronounced which she received with a Constancy admirable in her Sex and age A Doctour was sent unto her to reduce her to the Catholick Religion which at the first she refused alledging That she had too little time to think on an Affair of that importance Which being reported to the Queen she deferred the Execution for certain dayes to instruct her at more leisure so that she was gained to God and continued to the the last hour of her life in such tranquility of mind that a little before she came out of prison to go to her Execution she wrote divers Sentences in Greek Latine and English on the contempt of Death and when on the Scaffold it was represented to her that she should die by the sword which according to the custom of that Countrey is accounted a nobler kind of Execution than to die by the Axe she said That she would die by that Axe which was yet discoloured with her husbands bloud and couragiously she tendered her neck to the Hang-man drawing tears from her self and the hearts from all those that did behold her O most unfortunate Ambition that hast made so young a Princess a sacrifice of Death who for the excellency of her spirit might have been another Minerva or at least the tenth of the Muses Behold the strange Revolutions which did prepare the way to Cardinal Pool for the performance of those high Designs which God had committed to his Conduct Queen Marie did incontinently make void all the Sentences which had been pronounced against him and called him back into England to which place in a short time he came as if he had been carried on the shoulders of all honest men The Pope made him his Legate and gave him full power to ordain and execute all things which he should conceive necessary for the glory of God and the establishment of the true Religion He travelled to this Work with incomparable wisdom Pool travels to the Reducement of England to the ancient Faith and with a zeal invincible He well perceived that to restore Religion by arms was to undertake a most laborious if not an infinite work which would open all the veins in England and draw drie as well their purses as their bloud and cover the Kingdom with the calamities of civil wars which would continue for many Ages He resolved to put his good Counsels in execution with gentleness which others propounded to perform with all violence And in the first place he had recourse to Prayers The course he held to Mortifications to Vows and to Devotions which he performed in secret and which
by our glorious Father S. Gregory the Great it is that which our Fathers have embraced it is that which they have defended by their Words their Arms and their Bloud which they have shed for the Honour of it Nothing is left for those to hope for who are separated from it but the tempests of darkness and the everlasting chains of hell It is well known that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince hath caused these reprocheable furies and the inundations of bloud which hath covered the face of England He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen wherefore those who have followed him in his Errour may also follow him in his Repentance The Peace the Safety the Abundance the Felicity of the Kingdom are ready to re-enter with the true Faith which if you refuse I see the choller of God and a thousand calamities that do threaten you Return therefore O Shunamite Return O fair Island to thy first beginning feign not to thy self imaginary penalties terrours and punishments which are not prepared but for the obstinate The Sovereign Father of Christendom doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience and hath delegated me as the Dove out of the Ark to bring unto thee the Olive Bough to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee This is the acceptable Hour this is the Day of thy salvation The Night which hitherto hath covered thee is at the end of her Course and the Sun of Justice is risen to bring light unto thee It is time to lay down the works of darkness and to take up the Armour of Light to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice that thou abborrest what is past embracest what is present and dost totally put thy self into the hands of God for the time to come This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly and the Cardinal being departed from the Councel the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition which was presently taken into consideration and it was resolved That the ancient religion should be established The Chancellour made this resolution known unto the people and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholick faith In the end he demanded that they would testifie their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal Legate of the holy See which incontenently was done the paper was presented and openly read their Majesties did confirm it both by their authorities and their prayers and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees and all the people demanding mercy whereupon an authentick absolution was given by the Legate the bels did ring in all the Churches Te Deum was sung All places were filled with the cries of joyes as people infranchised and coming out of the gates of hell After this King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders by reason of the retreat of the Emperour his father Pool was left chief of the Councellours with Queen Mary who did wonders for the good of Religion of the State It is true that Cranmer and other turbulent and seditious spirits were punished but so great a moderation was used that the Benefices and the Reveneues of the Church did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King without disturbing them on that innovation all things were continued that might any way be suffered not so much as changing any thing in marriages because they would not ensnare their spirits The heart of the Queen and of her ministers did think on nothing more than to establish Religion to entertain the holy See to render justice to comfort the people to procure peace and rest to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom They did begin again the golden age when after the reign of five years and odde moneths they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness which did oppress with grief all honest men and did bury with them in one Tomb the happiness and safety of that Kingdom O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason what vail hast thou cast on our Councels and our works What might we have not hoped from such beginnings What wisdom would not have concluded That felicity had crowned for ever the enterprizes of this Cardinal An affair so well conducted a negotiation so happy a business of State and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity Where are the fine plots of policy Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect The Chariots of the Romans which covered with Lawrels did march on the heads of Kings did not make their wayes remarkable but by stormings of Towns by Flames and Massacres But behold here many millions of men struck down and raised again with one onely speech so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment and made the happiest that any Ages have seen And after all this to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate and ruinate the house of God which should have reached to the imperial heaven O how true is it that there are the strokes of Fate that is to say an order of the secret purpose of God which is as concealed as inevitable nothing can divert nothing can delay it The counsels of the wise are here blinded their addresses are lost their activity troubled their patience tried and all their reasons confounded Poor Brittain God gave thee these two Great Lights not to enjoy them but as they passed by to behold them Thou art soiled with sacriledges and impieties thou art red with the bloud of the Martyrs The sins of Henrie are not yet expiated and the ignominious passions of his life are punished by the permission of the Errour The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God they will abate nothing of their periods if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority It pertaineth to God onely to know and appoint the times of punishment and Mercy and there is nothing more expedient for man than to submit to his Laws to obey his Decrees to reverence his Chastisements and to adore the Hand that strikes him FINIS THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES Written in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. And now translated into English Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCL The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes IF it be