to heare his diuine word He was pleased to feed fiue thousand mē with fiue loaues of bread and before he would allow them this Regalo he made them stay till towards might when his disciples sayd Lord the houre of eating is come and gone let these troupes diuide thēselues amongst these neighbouring villages that so they may haue meanes to eate When already they had exercised their Patience by suffering hunger he vouchsaffed to shew them so great a mercy as it was to refresh them with a plentifull and sweet food whereby their bodies were sustained and he also made faith and confidence encrease in their soules So saith Saint Chrysostome Those troupes of people declared their faith by suffering hunger and expecting till the euening In this sorte doth God impart illustrious fauours to such as cōserue and exercise Patience in their aduersities and troubles to whom he is pleased to vouchsaffe particular fauours mercies he sends crosses and tribulations that so exercising Patiēce therein they may grow more capable and be more worthy of the especiall gifts and graces which he will impart So saith Saint Isidorus Then are the eyes of our Lord behoulding iust persons with greater piety and mercy when they are afflicted and persecuted by the wicked and then doth he prouide greater blessings for them and more eminent rewards of glory when once they are tried by some tribulation which they suffer with Patience Let not therefore any man cōceiue that when he is afflicted he is forgotten by Almighty God nor that he hath lost the vertue and grace he had when he is abased and persecuted by men Let him not permit the diuell to deceiue him who would faine perswade him to this errour but let him be very confident that God hath then a more particular care of him and loues him more and comunicates more gifts more singular fauours to him and that then he growes vp more in vertue augments his merits both of grace and glory Thus saith Saint Chrysostome Let vs not conceiue it to be a signe as if God did forsake or forget or esteem vs little because he sends vs aduersities or troubles but rather let vs hould it for a most certaine tokē that he hath particular care of vs and that then he is to shew vs greater mercies when he afflicts and tries vs. For if we haue committed many and very grieuous sinnes wee may free our selues from them by Patience and thanksgiuing in tribulatiō which grows from a contrite heart And supposing that we should not be liable to those many grieuous sinnes yet by suffering tribulation with a thankefull minde we shall obtaine most abundant grace at the hand of God For so good he is so liberall in doing vs good that when he sends vs any aduersity he giues vs matter to exercise more vertue that he may shew vs more mercy This is deliuered to vs by Saint Chrysostome And this so excellent and admirable effect of Patience which is exercised in tribulations Christ our Lord declared when he said Io. 15. I am the true vine For as much as concernes the nature of man which I haue taken I resemble some very fruitfull and perfect vine which yeelds most excellent fruite My celestiall father is the husband man it is he who planted this vine of my humanity and who cultiuates the same he it is who made mee man and who placed in mee the immense fullnes of grace and glory which I haue he who workes all that fruite in mee which either I doe or shall herafter yeeld Euery brāch that is euery man who being vnited to me by faith shall not yet yeeld the fruite of a good life my father will cut off from me either whilest he is to liue by letting him fall into errours whereby he will loose his faith or els when he comes to dy by despoyling him of those supernaturall giftes through which he was once vnited to mee and also of power to doe penance and so to be saued And euery branch that is to say euery true faithfull man who is vnited to mee through faith quickened by charity who shall produce the fruit of good works my father will purge by celestial doctrine and by inspirations and interiour gifts and by aduersities also and tribulations that suffering them with Patience and charity he may yeeld both faire and most abundant fruite of holy actions most pleasing to God and full of profit to soules which shall deserue most pretious gifts of grace be crowned with that most sublime reward of eternall glory THE XIIII CHAPTER Of the meanes whereby the vertue of Patience may be obtained which is that wee be watchfull to consider the fruite thereof and the examples whereby wee haue been taught it by Christ our Lord. NOt only did Christ our Lord instruct vs by his example concerning the necessity which wee haue of Patience and the effects and merits thereof but he also taught vs the meanes wherby wee are to obtaine it and of this wee are going now to speake And because wee treated thereof abundantly in another booke we will heer content our selues to declare briefly some examples whereby Christ our Lord hath instructed vs. The first meanes towardes the receiuing and suffering with Patience all the euills of punishmēt which may happen to vs in this life is that we be prepared and armed with the particular knowledge and consideration thereof It would not faile to be matter of most grieuous affliction paine to the disciples of Christ our Lord euen the greatest which they euer felt in this world that their Master must suffer such a death therfore our most blessed Lord did arme them for it long before announcing his Passion to them many times At the first he tould them of it thus in couert termes Io. 2 dissolus this Temple and I will build it againe in three dayes and Io. 3. As Moyses lifted vp the serpent in the the desere so must the sonne of man be raised up on high After this he spake of it in a more distinct and cleer manner saying once Matt. 16. I must goe to Ierusalem to suffer and dy and another time Matt. 20. Luc. 18. Behould wee ascend to Ierusalem and the sonne of man is to be deliuered ouer to the Gentiles and he is to be scorned and scourged and spit vpon and crucified In this manner did he giue them notice of his Passion a long time before that so they might be prouided and prepared to endure it and that when it should be present to them they might not be scandalized nor troubled nor dismaied thereby but might endure it with Patience So saith Saint Hierome Our Lord spake often of his Passiō to his disciples prouiding them against the temptation to the end that they might not be scandalized when the persecutiō should arriue and should see the ignominy of the Crosse He also aduertised them a long time before Matt. 23.
remedy thereof ANother meanes which wee must vse for the conseruing of Patience in aduersity is to consider the many sinnes which wee haue committed in this life and how iustly we deserue the aduersity which we suffer for the same and indeed all these which may possibly come vpon vs in this world and to moue our selues to compunction for the same and euen to a desire that wee may be punished for them by Almighty God with mercy in this life Christ our Lord himselfe admonished vs of this meanes in the holy Ghospel There fell a Tower neer the Poole of Siloe by the Citty of Ierusalem which killed eighteene persons Luc. 13. and againe after this some of the Galileans being in oblation of the Sacrifice of certaine beasts Pilate sent out a squadrō of soldiers who killed them and so mingled their blood with the blood of the beasts which they had sacrificed Now when they related this accident to Christ our Lord he said thus to them Doe not conceiue that those Galileans were the greatest sinners of all the Galileans in regard that this aduersity of suddene death came thus vpō them for it is not so but I say to you that if you doe not penance you all shall perish And so also doe not thinke that those eighteene men vpon whom the tower of Siloe fell were the wickedst men who d'welt in Ierusalem for it is not so but I declare to you that if you doe not penance you all shall perish By these diuine speeches Christ our Lord taught vs two thinges The one that those sad accidēts and deaths which men call disastrous doe many time come in the way of punishment for sinne but yet that God doth not alwaies punish sinners in this life with such calamities as these but he doth often either reserue thē for their punishment in the other world or els expect that they should voluntarily doe penance and so inflict some punishment vpon themselues in this life And secondly he lets vs knowe that when such afflictions and tribulations happen to others we must be sure to enter into our owne soules and to consider the sinnes which wee haue committed and how iustly wee merit all kinde of punishment for them we must conceiue in our hearts a great repentance and grief for hauing committed them in penance and satisfaction for the same we must punish and mortify our bodies with penall workes and be willing to accept whatsoeuer troubles or tribulations it may please God to send vs. A most certaine truth it is that God sends aduersity to his true and faithfull seruants who yet haue sinned in this life to the end that suffering them with Patience they may discharge and satisfy for those sinnes which they haue committed As that holy Virgin Sara confessed saying Iob. 3. Blessed be thou ô God of our fathers for that when thou art offended with vs and doest send vs troubles and afflictions it is then that thou shewest great mercy towards vs For in the time of tribulation wherby thou punishest thou pardonest the sinnes of them who inuoke thy name with a true heart Thus doth God proceed with mā by meanes of tribulation Some who are in sinne he induces by this meanes to do penance wherby they grow to be free from the offences into which they had fallen and such as are in the state of grace he occasions to exercise Patience whereby he deliuers them from those penalties which they had incurred for their former sinnes And so great care hath God to shew this mercy to this elect that he permits other men either through ignorance or malice to afflict and trouble them and by occasion and vnder the title of faults which they haue not cōmitted in the sight of God Iust as the brethren of Ioseph Exod. 1. who finding themselues to be afflicted and punished in Aegypt for the supposed offence of being spies which they had not committed came to know that indeed God sent them that punishment for the sinne which they had cōmitted in selling their brother And so they confessed it saying This punishment is iustly inflicted on vs for wee haue sinned against our brother and this trouble is come vpon vs for that sinne Saint Esrem relateth of himselfe that being a boy and going into the fields to play he hunted a calfe of another mans so hard and threw so many stones at it as that he killed it at length And walking about a moneth after through that field againe he fell out to take him rest amongst some shepheards who were looking to their flockes a parte of which flocke was wanting that night for it had bene scattered by some rauenous beasts The Lords of the flocke thought they had been theeues who did that hurt that Efrem was some Camerade of theirs They accuse him and take him for a theefe And whilest he was in prison and much afflicted an Angell appeared to him in his sleepe demaunding the cause of his being there He answered that he had been taken without any fault of his Then the Angell said I know well that thou art free from any fault in this but remember that thou madest a fault not long agoe in killing the calfe of that poore man and so thou wilt see that now thou art iustly taken made prisoner in the part of God and that his iudgments are very iust He also tould him of others who were there imprisoned for offences which indeed they had not committed but they had committed other sinnes in regard whereof God sent them that punishment which they had iustly deserued The Angell vanished Efrem speaking after with those prisoners found that to be true which the Angell had told him and they were executed for offences which they had not committed and satisfied thus for others which had been committed by them These are the iust iudgments of God whereby he gouernes the world and addresses his elect to the end of eternall happines for which he chose them And from hence wee must learne to thinke holily of God in all those tribulations and aduersities which he may send vs in this life confessing and acknowledging that he proceedes most iustly with vs because for our sinnes wee deserue those punishmēts which he sends vs yea and others which are incomparably greater And we must know confesse moreouer that herein he shewes vs an vnspeakable kinde of mercy for as much as by the light and short punishments of this life he not onely deliuers vs from those fierce paines of Purgatory but also from the eternall torments of Hell Thus did that holy Tobias proceed in the tribulations which God sent him for he receiued thē willingly for his sinnes and acknowledged that the punishment was very iust that he deserued both that a farre greater And he acknowledged that God shewed him a soueraigne kind of mercy for as much as he punished him that so he might deliuer him both from the faults and from the
A TREATISE OF PATIENCE WRITTEN BY FATHER FRANCIS ARIAS OF THE Society of Iesus in his second parte of the Imitatiō of Christ our Lord. Translated into English In patientiâ vestrâ possidebitis animas vestras In your Patience you shall possesse your soules IHS With permission of Superiours Anno 1630. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY To the right honorable and most noble Lady the Lady B. A. MADAM In the translating of this Treatise of Patience I haue had no cause to exercise Patience for I dispatched it with a great deale of gust in regard that I was commaunded therein by your Ladyship the expression of whose will giues euer occasion of much ioy to mee Now therefore since vpon the matter it came from your Ladyship it is but reason that it returne againe though it must not be without the interest of my humblest thankes for your ministring mee so faire an occasion whereby I may haue seen more clearly what in my selfe I ought to be and consequently what I am not To the end that hereafter if I growe not more patient yet at least I may grow more hūble through the too certaine knowledge of my great defects Your Ladyship I assure my selfe will be pleased to looke vpon it with attention especially in regard of what it is in it selfe though partly also because it is a poore presēt of mine And I shall pray our good God with whole my heart that you also may be much the better by it in thanking his diuine Maiesty for that which you shall perceiue him to haue giuen you and in praying him hard to enrich you with whatsoeuer you may yet finde your selfe in this vertue to want And if his holy name may be glorified hereby and your soule and mine assisted to doe him the better seruice it is that very reward which most willingly I would bestowe vpon my selfe for this little labour though I had all power in mine owne hāds yours Ladyships I most humblie kisse and doe you reuerence with the hart of A most obliged and most humble seruant euer T. M. A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS THE I. CHAPTER IN what the vertue of Patience consists and how the supernaturall fauours of God are necessary for our suffering the miseries of this life with true Patience Chap. 2. Of the euils or inconueniences of paine which Christ our Lord beganne to suffer euen from his Conception and Birth and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs therein Chap. 3. How Christ our Lord endured the company of the wicked and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs thereby Chap. 4. Of the euills of paine which Christ our Lord suffered in his Passion and of the example of Patiēce which he gaue vs by suffering them with so great good will Chap. 5. Of the Patience desire and loue wherwith Christ our Lord indured all those torments for the example and edification of our soules Chap. 6. Of the Patience wherwith wee ought to suffer the losse of temporall goods and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue vs herein Chap. 7. Of the Patience wherwith wee are to endure corporall infirmities and of the example which Christ our Lord hath giuen vs herein Chap. 8. Of the other great benefits which are drawen from corporall infirmities when they are borne with Patience Chap. 9. Wherein it is confirmed by the example of Saints how great the fruite of sicknes and other tribulation is and how this is an effect of Gods mercy which he shewes towards his friends Chap. 10. Of the fruite of the encrease of Faith and Patience which wee must gather from the Patience which the Saints haue shewed in suffering their infirmities and paines Chap. 11. Of the Patience wherwith discomforts and spirituall desolations are to be endured and of the exāple which Christ our Lord gaue hereof Chap. 12. Of the necessity and fruite of Patience and how it is a signe of the election and predestination of God Chap. 13. How pleasing the vertue of Patience is to God and of the great fauours which he affoardes them who suffer with Patience Chap. 14. Of the meanes whereby the vertue of Patience may be obtained which is that wee be watchfull to consider the fruite thereof and the examples whereby wee haue been taught it by Christ our Lord. Chap. 15. Of other meanes wherby wee are to obtaine and conserue the vertue of Patience namely to consider our sinnes and to resort to Almighty God for the remedy thereof A prayer for obteining Patience of Almighty God WHy doe I complaine ô Lord when I am wronged or afflicted vniustly if I call to minde how grieuously I haue offēded thee how often I haue deserued Hell how great thy mercy is appointing me to suffer light temporall punishment in this life wheras I haue deserued most grieuous and euerlasting torments in the next For it is not fitting that there should be delicate members vnder a thorny head and which hath been most cruelly vsed for them Why should I complaine if I doe but remember that for suffering patiently for a time these present labours thy mercy will cōfort me and with thine owne hand thou wilt wipe the teares from mine eyes and wilt giue rest to my broken and afflicted bones and that thy comfort and reward will be according to the measure of my Patience and suffering Let therefore whatsoeuer aduersities reine downe vpon me for thy sake ô Lord so that thou giue me strength and spirit to endure them because that without the helpe of thy grace the weakenes of my nature would faile Make me ô Lord to beare all false iudgements vaine suspicious slaunders al iniuries couragiously without repining without complaining without excuses without any interiour feeling of them and without any exteriour signe and let my soule be so much the more ioyed and delighted within it selfe by how much the more innocent it findeth it selfe and free from the fault where with it is charged Strengthen my soule ô Lord with the knowledge and loue of thy most sacred Passion that I may not only beare present aduersities with ioy but also wish them when they are absent and that I may account it a kinde of crosse to liue and dy without a crosse A SHORT TREATISE OF PATIENCE VVRITTEN BY Father Francis Arrias in the secōd part of his booke of the imitatiō of Christ our Lord. THE I. CHAPTER In What the vertue of Patience consists and how the supernaturall fauours of God are necessary for our suffering the miseries of this life with true Patience IT belongs to the vertue of true Patience to suffer all those thinges which are aduerse and serue for the punishment of man in this mortal life with a heart so firm and constant that to auoyd and fly from them he doe nothing which is faulty and contrary to the will of Almighty God It belongs also to Patience that the sorrow which naturally is raised in the soule of man by the approach and presence
but he conserued them in being and life and he gaue them holy inspirations and all the actiōs which he performed and all the wordes which he vttered were ordayned to make them doe penance that they might not be lost and damned but become saued soules in heauen At that time did he endure the society and the sinnes of that miserable Iudas with vnspeakable Patience Our Lord perceiued well the malice and ingratitude of his hart the thefts which he committed vpon the almes which was deliuered to his care that trechery wherwith he knew he would sell him ouer to his enemies and yet did he not cast him out of his company nor did he depriue him of the dignity and authority of his Apostolate wherof he had made himselfe so vnworthy nor spake he any word of affront to him nor shewed him any offended or vntoward countenance but he affoarded him al those common benefits and fauours which be imparted to the rest of his Apostles By these examples of Patience which our Lord gaue vs in the time of his life and course of his preaching he taught and perswaded vs to haue Patience whereby wee are to suffer all the crosses and contradictions of this life and all the persecutiōs oppressions and iniuries of mē not giuing place nor so much as entry into our harts to ill will or hatred against any man nor for complaints or murmuring either against God or mā nor yet to any inordinate grief but suffering them with a moderate firme cōstant minde which swarues not from the rectitude and rule of vertue and is desirous that in all thinges the will of God may be fulfilled So saith Saint Cyprian most excellently describing the example of the Patience of Christ our Lord by these wordes What glory is so great as that a man may become like God in the exercise of Patience enduring the inconueniences of this life and the iniuries of men as God doth long endure the offences which sinners commit against him Which Patience Iesus-Christ our Lord did teach vs as he was man not onely by word but by deed also For he said he came into the world to worke the will of his father And amongst those other admirable vertues whereby he discouered to vs the power of his diuinity one was the Patience whereby he imitated his eternall Father and so all those thinges which he did from the time when he was borne with mortall flesh into this world did carry the seale and stampe of Patience vpon them For he tooke on him as hath been said the waight of all the sinnes of men that he might pay by suffering for them He was tempted by the enemy and yet he did him noe hurt for it but was onely content to ouercome him He endured the horrible wickednes of Iudas with a Patience so large as lasted till the end of his life He endured the Iewes who were incredulous vngratefull proud rebellious and contrary both to his doctrine and to his example And he indured them in such sorte as to heape benefits vpon them and to treate them with meekenes and to receiue such of them to his fauour and friendship as would be conuerted to him What greater Patience and what greater clemency can be conceiued then by meanes of shedding his blood to purchase and to impart a life of grace and glory to them who through hatred and by most wicked meanes tooke a course to spill that very blood And since wee are the members and disciples of Christ our Lord who is the way of saluation and life it selfe it will become vs to follow his example These ar the wordes of Saint Cyprian THE III. CHAPTER How Christ our Lord endured the company of the wicked and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs thereby ONe of the thinges which good men finde most difficulty to endure in this life is the society and conuersation of wicked men whilest they continue in their wickednes For in regard that they abhorre sinne so much and haue such feeling of the offences which are committed against God and of the losse and damnation of soules for them to see those offences before their eyes and to obserue their neighbours to lie vnder the wrath of God condemned and lost according to the state of present iustice yet not feeling their own misery by reason of the great blindenes and obstinacy wherein they are and to see withall that they can prouide no remedy for this so great mischiefe nor giue any impediment to these offences against God and to this losse of soules they receiue I say herby intollerable paine and carry their hearts euen trāspersed from side to side with the sword of sorrow and haue extreame desires to depart out of the society conuersation of such sinners and to be still remayning farr from thē And in regard this misery happens sometimes to good men because sometimes the wicked are such persons as whose company they cannot leaue because they are either sonnes or parents or brothers or husband or wife or their gouernours or seruaunts of the same Lord or subiects of the same Prelate their paine grief doth extreamly increase vpō this occasion Now how vehemēt this torment is for good men to endure and how great desire they haue for as much as may concerne themselues to depart out of their company Christ our Lord himself did ōce declare in waightie wordes Matt. 17. Marc 9. When he descēded from the Moūt Thabor he came to those troopes of people which were expecting him and he found his disciples much afflicted and confounded in that men had brought one to them who was both a possessed a lunaticke person whom they were not able to cure And by occasion thereof the Scribes and Pharisees who were present reproached them as wanting vertue from heauen to send deuills out and they affirmed that their Master did it in the power of Belzebub Saint Marke signifies thus much by saying that Christ our Lord foūd the Scribes in debate and argument with his disciples And then our Lord said to them O you incredulous and rebellious generation how long shall I remaine conuerse amongst you how long shall I expect you and endure your obstinacy malice By these wordes did Christ our Lord declare the trouble which the wickednes and conuersation with vitious persons who would not be conuerted and hindered the conuersion of others did put him to and that he felt that paine more then death it selfe So saith Saint Chrisostome Our Lord signified by this that he euen desired death and that his Passion was not to be troublesom or grieuous to him but that the thing whereof he was most sensible and which afflicted him most was to conuerse with rebellious sinners who made resistance to the truth and vpon whom he sawe that the fruite both of his life and death would be lost Now as this was an immense torment to Christ our Lord so is it very
grieuous to be endured by vertuous men But that which they are to doe for suffering it with that Patience which is fit and for gathering from thence that fruite of merits which God desires is this To distinguish on the one side by the vse of reason between that which is the fault of others and the losse of soules and the offence of God and that on the other side which is their owne affliction and paine and then to be afflicted for those sinnes for asmuch as they imply the offence of God and withal to be sory for the losse which soules receiue thereby and to make instant prayer to God for them and as for the paine and torment which results thereby vpon them selues to accept it at the hands of almighty God and willingly to be content to suffer it during all that time which God shal thinke fit not to take them out of that company and conuersation of the wicked By this meanes that company of the wicked will be a diuine Purgatory to them which may clēse their soules both from sinnes and the punishments due thereunto and a way of exercising chatity and humility and patience which ar of so great worth and merit and so very acceptable in the sight of God And to animate them to suffer this punishment with this Patience they are to consider those exāples of Christ our Lord wherof wee haue spoken which are the immense and continuall tormēt which he felt in behoulding all the sinnes of mankinde and that which he felt in being carryed by the diuell to Ierusalem and to the Mount that which he receiued by his conuersation with the Iewes who continued rebellious in their infidelity and that particularly which he receiued by keeping Iudas in his company and in the Colledge of his Apostles For to this end it was that he chose that miserable creature for an Apostle as well knowing how wicked he was to be and for this after he was peruerted did he continue him in his owne company and he tolerated him to the end that by this example they might seriouslie endeauour to endure those wicked and peruerse people with Patience whom they might chaūce to haue in their neighbourhood their house their family and their society So doth Saint Augustine aduise vs saying Christ our Lord had one amongst his Apostles who was wicked and he serued himselfe well of that wickednes First by complying with that eternall ordination of God concerning his Passion and secondly to giue an example to the world of the Patience wherwith they were to endure wicked men Let vs therefore animate our felues by these exāples of Christ our God and Sauiour to suffer with a good will and a constant minde whatsoeuer troubles contradictions and crosses may grow to vs by our neighbours our domesticks and our familiar freinds Let vs consider and ponder well what Christ our Lord endured at the hands of sinners for the loue of vs and how he hath endured our very selues dissembling our sinnes when we deserued hell for committing thē bestowing benefits on vs when wee committed offences against him imparting mercies to vs when wee did him wronges cryinge out and drawing vs to him and conuerting vs by his grace when we had departed from him and were fled out of his house and were making warre against his Law This Patience of Christ our Lord wherwith as God he endures all sinners hath endured our selues and as man endured those wicked people with whom he cōuerst in this world must induce and strengthen vs much in the way of sufferance Great saith Saint Ambrose is the Patience of God in not instātlie punishing sinners but in suffering them for sometime till they may be conuerted And in another place If our Lord our God and Sauiour Iesus Christ who with one single word could haue cast his enemies into the most profound pit of hell did yet endure them with Patience why should not miserable men who are full of sinnes endure thē also with Patience whē in this life they receiue paine and trouble from other men by whose meanes they are corrected and punished by Almighty God for their sinnes This is the discourse of Saint Ambrose Let vs therefore giue this glory to God that for his loue wee may endure all euills of punishment Let vs yeeld this honour a d giue this gust to Christ our Sauiour in that to imitate him wee may haue occasion to suffer all the iniuries and contradictions of men Let vs bestow this benefit vpon our owne soules in wiping away our sinnes by exercising this vertue of Patience and let vs fill it full of comforts and merits For as Ecclesiasticus chap. 1. saith the Patient man suffers onely during a time which is limited and afterward for his hauing suffered Almighty God giues him true ioy which springes frō that grace which at the present he receiues and from that hope of glory wherewith he is to be indowed afterward THE IV. CHAPTER Of the euils of paine which Christ our Lord suffered in his Passion and of the example of Patience which he gaue vs by suffering them with so great good will THe chief examples of Patience which Christ our Lord gaue vs were of his most sacred Passion by reason of the many and various kindes of sorrowes and tormentes which he suffered therein with vnspeakeable Patience and wee will declare these torments and the Patience wherwith he suffered them for the edification of our soules and particularly that wee may learne to suffer all the miseries of this life with Patience When they apprehended our Lord he giuing them leaue to put the malice and fury of their wrathed harts in execution the torments were many and very grieuous which they gaue him with their hands and feet by cudgells and irons and other instruments which they had and vsed throughout that whole way till they came to the house of Annas For if after they had imployed vpon his person so many and most cruell kindes of torment through all that night and so much of the next day till they nailed him fast to the crosse they yet were not satisfied at all but after they had crucified him they did yet cōtinue to persecute him with their viperous tongues and after they had fetched all the blood out of his vaines together with his life they would needes open his side and fetch the blood forth from his very heart what is to be thought that they would doe in that furious onset when first they began to exercise their cruelty vpon him and to streame out their deadly poison against him which had lyen for so long time horded vp in their malitious heartes In the house of Caiphas the High Priest whē Christ our Lord had confessed who he was and when all the Iudges had condemned him as a blasphemous persō and worthy death the soldiers Ministers of iustice together with the seruāts of the Priests in whose power he was
rushed in vpō him with extreame cruelty and most grieuously tormented him with buffers blowes and spitting on him and they went continuing and augmenting those torments throughout that whole night with many inuentions all full of cruelty hellish fury And some holy men to whom God hath reuealed many secrets of his life death haue said that in that night our most blessed Lord was stroken foure hūdred times with hard buffets and cruell blowes vpon his face and necke and all the rest of the parts of his most blessed body This passed in the house of the High Priest and now let vs see what torments he suffered in the house of Pilate The first was to be bound to a pillar and there to be most cruelly scourged What extreame paine must it be for him to be tyed so forcibly to a pillar that the cordes and ropes would be ētering so deep into his delicate flesh as to make the blood euen breake forth What torment nay what flood of torments would it be for him to be scourged after that manner For the whippes wherewith they did it were most cruell consisting of sharpe rods and biting cords which as many affirme had hookes and spurres of iron at the ends thereof The executioners were strong fierce many who yet changed by turnes and all were full of mortall hate and spite against our Lord. His sacred flesh was most tender and most delicate and all framed of the blood of that most pure Virgin The imaginatiue parte of Christ our Lord did perceiue euerye one of those scourges which they gaue him after a most distinct and perfect manner In other men the feeling of a deeper paine or grief doth astonish the imagination so they haue no feeling of other lesser paines and therefore it happens that some mā may haue his very skull parted and his body thrust through and yet not feele the paine by hauing his imaginatiō so much imployed and discomposed by his inward Passion and rage But in Christ our Lord it was not so for he had his imagination and the apprehension of his soule so perfectly bent vpon euery particular paine which he felt as if he had onely felt that single paine the sence and apprehension of one paine did not hinder his feeling of any other And this proceeded from the great perfection which he had in all the powers and sences both of his sacred body and soule Those scourges being so cruell and those executioners being so able and strong and his sence of the paine so perfect there was besides so great multitude of strokes and blowes which he receiued that some holy men affirme that those which were inflicted vpon him at the pillar did passe the number of fiue thousand And not onely did they scourge his backe but after they had drest that in such a fashion that there was nothing to be seen but wounds and blood they vntyed him first and then tyed him againe with his backe turned towards the pillar and scourged him the secōd time with the same cruelty vpon the belly brest face all the other parts which were discouered in such sorte as that the whole most holy body of Christ our Lord was flead and plowed ouer into such furrowes as discouered the very bones And he who had bene the most beautifull of all those men whom God euer made remained so disfigured and deformed that it was euen a horrour to behould him So saith Saint Augustine The force of those cruell scourges being renewed so many times did breake the skin and discouered the very flesh of the most blessed body of Christ our Lord. That torment of his scourging was followed by that other torment of the crowne of thornes For those Pagan soldiers to please the chiefe of the Iewes and as Saint Chrisostome saith for the interest of that money which was giuen them to the end that they might be the more cruel towards him tooke our Lord into their power who was already wounded and as it were euen all opened by those scourges and then they placed him all tremblinge with cold in the Court of Pilates house and in that publike Theatre in the sight of all that people they stript him againe of his owne cloathes and they put an old purple vest vpon him for scorne and vpon his head a crowne of thornes This act of theirs besides that it was of extreame affront as we haue already shewed was also most painful to him for the thornes whereof the crowne was wouen were extreame heard and sharpe and they enuironed his whole head and temples and they passed and penetrated them euen to the veines nerues and bones made his sacred blood streame downe ouer his face his necke and his haire The sacred head of Christ our Lord had in all that day the night before receiued innumerable blowes woundes sometimes with cudgells other times with irons sometimes with swordes other times with gauntlets and often with the fists and by this meanes it was so battered that whatsoeuer touched it caused excesse of paine being then such already and then instantly placing a crowne of thornes vpō it so cruel as this whereof wee haue spoken what excessiue paine or rather tormēt would it be sure to cause And to this it may be added that the paine and torment which the crowne of thornes caused had no intermission like those others which either were soone ended or much diminished but it still continued and lasted euen till his very death For he euer had it on and the thornes serued to nayle it to his head and if at any time they tooke it off either to cloath or strip him they instantly put it on againe And not only did these sorrowes last till his death but they encreased much For euery time when they stroke his head either with the cane or any other instrument of paine and euery time when the crowne did by chaunce stirre of it selfe that paine renewed and encreased Another principall torment which followed vpon this was to lay the Crosse vpon his backe that so he might carry it to the place where he was to be crucified This torment was extreamly grieuous for that the Crosse was very heauy and contayned as holy men obserue fifteene feet in lēgth Our Lord was all worne and wounded euen to his bowells his strength was vtterly consumed and his shoulders vpon which the waight was laid were flead And now if the onely touching of such a parte with the hand doth put a mā to great grief and paine what paine and grief would it cause to our Lord to lay so heauy a waight vpon a body so wearyed and so wounded And for as much as the Crosse was longe and would be dragging vpō the ground by meeting with stones in the way and stirring by that meanes vpon his shoulders his paine and grief would be encreased In this sorte went our Lord with great sorrow and paine all that long way from Pilates
which bleyes not when his throate is cut so went he in sufferance and silence as he was carryed to death and as an innocent and still lambe which is silēt quiet whilest they sheere him so our most blessed Lord did in quiet silence and repose endure that fierce outrage wherewith his enemies tormented him and that most cruell fury wherewith they put him to death By these and other testimonies did Christ our Lord declare the immense loue and most ardent desire which he had to suffer the torments and death which he endured for man yea yet to endure greater torments to suffer more deathes if his enemies had power to giue him more wheereupon wee may inferre the vnspeakeable Patience and ioy wherewith he suffered them Wee must ponder and continually meditate with a very profound and deep consideration vpon these examples of Patience which shine in the life and Passion of Christ our Lord and thereby we must be animated to suffer endure with true Patience all those euills of punishment which may happē to vs in this life how great or tedious soeuer they may be For therefore saith Saint Efrem the afflictions and tribulations of this life seem grieuous and intolerable to vs because wee consider not the Passion and death of Christ our Lord. Let vs therefore allwaies carry before our eyes imprint in our hearts this death and Passion of his and all those examples which he gaue vs therin of Patience and let vs imitate him by suffering all the contradictions and penalties of this life with a good will And since it becomes a soldier to follow his captaine with much labour and with offering himselfe to troubles and wounds and dangers of death though he be but a mortall man who cannot giue him strength wherewith to fight nor can raise him from death if he should by in the combat nor can giue him who conquers any other reward then some tēporall thing of small value how much more is it reasonable that wee follow and imitate Christ our Lord Sauiour by suffering with Patience Since he giues strength to them who follow him wherewith to suffer and cōforts wherewith to do it cheerfully and deliuers them who imitate him from eternall death and and bestowes the most excellent reward vpō them of eternall life For as the Apostle saith it is a word most faithfull true worthy of all estimation that if wee dy with Christ our Lord that is to say if wee dy to our sinnes and ill desires abhorring and mortifying them as Christ our Lord died to his corporall life we shall lead a most glorious and blessed life together with him And if we suffer the sad and painfull things of this world and euen death it selfe with Patience for the loue of Christ our Lord and in imitation of him wee shall reigne with him for euer in his celestiall Kingdome THE VI. CHAPTER Of the Patience wherewith wee ought to suffer the losse of temporall goods and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue vs herein THough any one of the paines torments which were suffered by Christ our Lord may serue for a sufficient motiue to animate vs to endure all the afflictions and tribulations of this life with Patience yet that kind of paine endured by him which carries most resēblāce to the Crosse which most vsually is to be suffered by vs doth vse to comfort induce vs best to suffer it and for this reason wee will treat of some particular Crosses for which we may finde particular examples of Patience in the Passion of Christ our Lord. One of the ills of punishment which happens ordinarily to men is the losse of their estate temporall goods which befalles them sometimes because they are robbed sometimes they loose them by meanes of fier and shipwrackes sometimes by vniust suites in lawe sometimes they are coosened of them sometimes they are put to preiudice by the intemperate seasons of the yeare By what way or meanes soeuer we growe to loose our temporall goods wee must eudure it with Patience accepting it at the hand of God and conforming our selues to his holy will The particular example which must comfort vs in this afflictiō and giue vs heart to beare it with Patience is to see that Christ our Lord was vniustly stript of all his cloathes in his most sacred Passiō by those most base soldiers who crucified him He liued poore in this world and because he loued and extreamely delighted in pouerty he possessed no temporall goods at all Those things which he receiued by way of almes to sustaine his Apostles to deuide amongst the poore he had already bestowed There remained no more to him but his cloathes and of those they stript him and left him naked that nakednes was accōpanyed with great cold and great shame which he suffered by remayning in that sorte till he dyed From others who are executed mē take not their cloathes till they be dead but from our most blessed Lord they tooke his whilest yet he was aliue and he was pleased to ēdure this being dispoiled of his cloathes and this paine and shame in remaining naked that he might suffer for vs and withall might giue vs an example of Patience Let vs therefore animate our selues by this example of Christ our Lord to suffer any want or losse of temporall goods and let vs say thus in our owne hearts Since Christ the Kinge of glory and the vniuersall Lord of the whole world would needes for loue of me and for my saluation endure pouerty and the want of temporall goods was content that they should strip him of all his cloathes and expose him naked to the ayre and put him to the shame of appearing so to the whole people most iust it is that I for loue of him and for the saluatiō of mine owne soule should endure this want of meanes and this losse or wrong whereby I am depriued of the temporall goods which once I had And let vs consider for the better exercise of our Patience that whatsoeuer preiudice or temporall losse wee haue doth come to vs from the hand of God and for the good of our soules This did Christ our Lord discouer to vs by another example and testimony of the holy Ghospell Matt. 8. Luc. 5. Mar. 8. He went into the country of the Gerasens where he found two men tormented with diuells He cast the diuells out and so cured the men by the power of his word The diuells besought him that since he had cast thē out of those men he would giue them leaue to enter into a great heard of swine which was feeding in those fields hard by and which belonged to the inhabitāts of that Citty Our Lord gaue them leaue to doe it and instantly they possessed those swine which might arriue to the number of two thousand they carried them with extreame fury into the sea where they were drowned Hereby wee are
taught that the diuells could do no hurt to the swine vnles our Lord had giuen them leaue as neither the diuell nor any other creature can doe vs any hurt at all vnlesse God giue thē power to that purpose and vnlesse he worke by meanes of the diuel or that other creature which doth vs hurt whatsoeuer it be For though God be not the cause of any fault or sinne yet is he the cause of the punishment which is brought on by reason of the sinne or fault is receiued by meanes thereof So saith Saint Athanasius Since the diuels haue not so much as power ouer swine which are but the goods of men it is cleer that they haue no power ouer men who are made according to the image of God and so wee haue no cause to feare the diuells but onely God And the same did he declare concerning the hurt which might growe to vs from any other creature that it also proceeds from the hand of God saying Matt. 10. Two sparrowes are of so little value that they are sold for a toy and yet God hath so particular care and prouidence ouer euery one of them that not one can fall dead to the ground or be taken in a snare without his disposition will And thē how much more will he take care of men and not consent that any creature should so much as touch them either in soule or body or so much as in their goods without his leaue In this māner did Christ our Lord declare that all ills of punishment proceed to vs from the hād of God He also shewed how he ordaines them all to the good of soules that is to the end that sinners may be cōuerted and iust persons saued because he desires not the death of a sinner but that he may be conuerted and liue particularly he procures this when he takes their goods from them as Saint Augustine notes saying thus When God visits his seruants with the want of thinges necessary for this life and makes them suffer hunger or thirst as he proceeded with the Apostles he failes not thereby of the promise which he made them that nothing should be wanting to them For these temporall goods are helpes and kinds of Physicke to the soule and God is the Physitian who best knowes when to minister them and when to remoue them and so when they are wanting to vs as they are many times wee must knowe that God Almighty is the cause thereof for the exercise of our vertue and for the good of our soules And speaking in particular of that which Christ our Lord did with the Gerasins in depriuing them of their goods when he gaue the diuells leaue to drowne their swine Saint Ierome saith Christ our Lord gaue thē not that liberty by way of granting their desire or to performe their will but to the end that the losse of their goods might be profitable to the owners for their soules be an occasion of their saluation And the spirituall profit which came to them hereupon as Saint Chrisostome obserues was that they might knowe the power which diuells had to doe men hurt if God did not hinder them and so they might be thankefull to him for defending them by his diuine prouidēce as also to the end that they might feare and fly from sinne by meanes whereof men grewe subiect to the power of diuells to be vexed by them in this life with temporall paines and in the next with eternall torments These are the motiues reasons which a faithfull Christian must consider to the end that he may beare the losse of temporall goods with Patience namely the exāple of Christ our Lord that it comes from the hand of God and for the good of his soule And thus the losse of temporal goods will be of greater profit to him then the encrease thereof would haue bene For that little temporall losse will be the occasion of a great spirituall gaine The Saints of God haue confessed experimented this truth Whilest the blessed Laurentius Iustinianus he who afterward was Patriarch of Venice was one day out of his Monastery the house fell on fier and that parte thereof was burnt where he kept the prouisions of food which he had laid vp for the whole yeare When the Saint came home from abroad the Religious men tould him what had past and they were afflicted by occasion of so great a losse But the Saint cōsidering how it came ordained by the prouidence of God who so deerly loues vs and who in all thinges procures the good of soules and especially of such as serue him receiued this losse with much contentment though not for the losse it selfe but because the will and ordination of Almighty God was accomplished thereby And so with a cheerfull contenance he said to his Religious What hurt is there my children in this which hath happened to vs It is no ill but good it is no losse but gaine since by meanes thereof wee shall better execute our good desires in practising pouerty and Patience It is a great benefit to the seruant of God and of much merit and value when he may distribute his goods to the poore and imploy them vpon the workes of mercy but if he chāce to loose his goods if they be stolne from him if gotten away by iniustice or lost by any other accident and if he accept of that losse with much Patience and with much contentment for the loue of God and to conforme himself with his diuine will who so ordained he ordinarily doth aduantage his soule more and it doth merit more and please God more by this course then by the other For this Act of the vertue of Patience resignation is more pure free frō selfe loue thereby a man doth more deny and mortify his owne will doth more exercise Faith and hope in God as also the loue of his and the estimation of his holy will And so wee see that our Lord hath takē away these goods by some sinister accident from many Saints which they would haue giuen away in almes to affoard them meanes of greater merit thereby and for the exercise of that rare Patience wherwith they accepted and loued their aduersity and had gust therein as proceeding from the will of God Saint Iohn the Patriarch of Alexandria a man of rare mercy towards miserable men and euen a very miracle of mercy sent from Alexandria to the Adriaticke sea thirteene ships full loaden with marchandise and thinges of value which he had raised out of the Reuenues of his Church that so they might be sold in diuers parts remote and the whole price be giuen by him to poore people in the way of almes as his custom was Now it pleased Almighty God that vpon the rising of a great tempest at Sea al the goods were cast away and the shippes returned empty to Alexādria And God did thus ordaine because he more esteemed the
great Humility and Patience which the Saint would exercise in this wracke thē the Mercy which he would haue exercised if the goods had not bene lost And so without all faile the profit which the Saint drew from thēce was admirably great he receiuing it with a good will and giuing God harty thankes for the same and humbling himselfe much by the knowledge of his sinnes in regard whereof he confessed that God had sent him that losse to clense him more perfectly from those sinnes Saint Chrisostome teaches vs this truth and confirmes it by the example of holy Iob saying thus Nor onely the doing of good but the suffering of ill obtaines a high reward in the sight of God and Iob seemes to haue profited more in vertue by the afflictions which he endured then by the good deeds which he performed For really it was not so illustrious so high an act in him whē with the wooll of his sheepe he clad the naked set his house open to the destitute that they might take parte of the goods he had as when hearing that the fier had consumed his stocke and that his house was fallen and his fortune ouerthrowen he accepted of that losse at the hands of God and thanked him for it And a greater victory did he obtaine of the enemy and he confounded him more in giuing thankes to God vpō the losse of his goods then in bestowing thē vpō poore people For certeinly it is an act of greater vertue to endure the losse of goods with a generous gratefull minde to God then to bestow almes vpō the poore Nor is it a thing to be admired for a man to giue God hearty thankes when he is in good estate when things succeed prosperously with him but vpon the arriuall of mischances and in the losse of temporall goods to giue harty thāks to God and to esteeme such contradictions for benefits is a very admirable thing and giues a very excellent testimony of great vertue This is the discourse of Saint Chrisostome Let vs therefore serue our selues of these examples and testimonies of Christ our Lord and of his Saints to make vs suffer all losse of temporall goods with Patience Let vs so much esteeme of of the spiritual health of our soules that whatsoeuer may be profitable to vs for them wee may value as a great mercy and gift of God And since the losse of tēporall goods giues vs matter and occasion for the exercise of Charity towards God by louing it because he loues it and for the exercise of Patience by enduring it and accepting it willingly because God sends it and because therby we discerne the loue which God carries towards vs and the care he hath of our saluation since he giues vs helpes and ministers vs occasions whereby wee may serue him the better and so profit more let vs esteeme of euery temporall losse for a very great benefit and mercy of God and as for such let vs thanke and praise him saying with holy Iob. chap. 1. It is God who gaue mee this temporall blessing and it is he who hath taken it away as himselfe was pleased so hath he proceeded with mee Most iust and holy was his will both in giuing it and in taking it and his holy will the blessed for euer THE VII CHAPTER Of the Patience Wherewith wee are to endure corporall infirmities and of the example which Christ our Lord hath giuen vs herein ANother euill of punishmēt and very vsuall and common in the life of man is corporall infirmities and feauers and seueral other paines torments and wounds which he suffers by reason whereof he is in great need of Patience we must fetch it also in this kinde from the example of Christ our Lord. And though our most blessed Lord had no naturall infirmities at all nor was it fit that he should haue any because these are wont to proceed from some defect of cōplexion or natural faculty of the body or from some disorder in life yet all the paines and torments of his most sacred Passion may serue for a most efficacious motiue to make vs support all kinde of those infirmities with Patience which may happen to vs in this life and particularly the paine torment of thirst which he suffered vpō the Crosse the being so forsaken abandoned as then he was For that which mē are much troubled with in their sicknesse in their sicknesse is the paine and torment which sicknesse put them to and the want of that assistance seruice which is necessary for the cure or ease at least of the infirmity al this was found extreāly in that thirst which Christ our Lord endured vpon the Crosse The thirst which Christ our Lord suffered was most vehemēt First by reason of the incomparable labours vexations which he had suffered all that day and the night before and secondly because by the hurts and wounds which they had giuen him he had shed either all or in a manner all the blood out of his veines and by the waie as he went and by the vexation and labour to which he was put he had sweat away all the humour of his sacred body which then was growen all consumed and dry And to this it must be added that from the supper of the night before and in all that day following he had not drūke so much as one drop of water Now if any one of these thinges be wont to cause great thirst as wee see in men who are wounded and haue shed much blood and in them who haue laboured and sweat much and in them also who haue not drunke of a long time before what kinde of thirst shall that haue bene which was endured by Christ our Lord Infallibly it was most extreame the torment which it caused was grieuous beyond any thing which we are able to expresse And now declaring the paine and torment which he felt thereby he said thus I thirst and the remedy and comfort which he obtained for the ease thereof was that one of the soldiers tooke a spunge and wetting it in wine which was spoyled and growen vineger and mingled with gall he tyed it to a long cane and so applied it to his sacred mouth and our Lord tooke thereof not to drinke it downe because it was not fit that he should drinke of so deadly a thing but he tooke it to haue a taste thereof he tooke as much as might serue to afflict torment his taste so to suffer the more for vs. So doth the deuout Lanspergius declare saying Our Lord vnderstanding well how bitter that drinke was which they gaue him did yet take therof through his great loue to vs not so swallow it downe but onely to afflict his tongue and taste with bitternes that so he might take torment in that parte of him from which sinne grew in vs. For Eue committed her sinne by tasting of the forbidden fruite and by
meanes of her sinne did Adam sinne and so haue wee all done after him Such a kinde of refreshinge was allowed to Christ our Lord against his paine and torment of thirst which was to encrease the same paine and torment So saith Saint Cyrill In stead of some wholesome drinke which might refresh him they gaue him a bitter and hurtfull drinke and that curtesy which they would seeme to vse in giuing him somewhat to take was conuerted into cruelty by giuing him so vile a thing And this did Saint Luke chap. 23. signify saying that the soldiers putting a scorne vpon our Lord did offer him vineger The Psalme recounts the iniury and affliction which hereby they put vpō Christ our Lord amongst the rest of his torments saying Psal 68. They gaue mee gall in steed of meate and in my thirst they gaue mee vineger to drinke That is to say they were so farre from hauing compassion of me in my miseries so great was the cruelty which they vsed towards me that when I came with my Crosse vpon my backe to the place of torment in steed of some aromaticall wine such as they vsed to giue dying men for their comfort they gaue mee wine corrupted and mingled with gall and mirrhe which being so very thicke was become as a most bitter and most hurtful meate And being afterward nayled vpon the very Crosse hauing my blood exhausted and I being totmented with thirst and declaring the thirst I had they gaue mee vinagre mingled with gal to drinke This was the torment of thirst which Christ our Lord suffered vpon this Crosse and thus was he content to be abandoned and by meanes of this and the rest which he endured there all faithfull Christiās are to comfort thēselues in their corporall infirmities and must be animated to endure them with Patience to imitate our Lord thereby and conforme themselues to his holy wil. So saith Saint Gregory To the end that sicke persons may conserue the vertue of Patience in their sicknesses they must cōtinually consider the paines which our God and our Redeemer did suffer at the hands of his owne creatures how many affronts how many buffets how many spittings how many scourges and how many thornes he endured for our saluation and particularly how to bestow the sweetnes of heauen vpon vs he tooke when he was most thirsty the bitternes of gall for himselfe This is the saying of Saint Gregory Besides this Christ our Lord declared by many examples and testimonies of the holy Ghospell how great blessings are contained in corporall infirmities and how great fruites are gathered from thence by such as endure them with Patience By this meanes of sicknesse he drew many to his Faith and to his grace and to the obedience of his Ghospell and he cured them so of many sinnes For when they found themselues sicke they went in search after health of the body and then belieuing and doing penance for their sinnes they obtained also health for their soules So doth the holy Euangelists informe vs often For speaking of those woemen who with great deuotion faith followed Christ our Lord Saint Luke saith chap. 8. Our Lord going to preach amongst those Citties and townes diuers woemen followed him whom he had deliuered from impure spirits cured of their infirmities Some of these were Marie Magdalen and Ioanna the wife of Chusa a lawyer of Herods and Susanna and many others And they following our Lord did supply him out of their meanes with necessaries for the sustentation of his life By these words the holy Euangelist giues vs to vnderstād that their hauing bene sicke and cured by our Lord was the way to make them beleeue in him to follow him both in body and soule And of the womā who was sicke of a bloody fluxe Matth. 9. Marc. 5. and had found no remedy by her Physitians S. Matthew declares the same and that her infirmity had made her looke for remedy in Christ our Lord to be beleeue and confide in him with so liuely faith that shee obtained health both in body and soule And the same thing happened to the paralitike Mat. 9. Mar. 2. for whom the roofe of the house was taken of that he might be brought before our Lord for his infirmity was the cause why he made himselfe be carryed presented to him and that he would beleeue in him with sorrow for his sinnes and so obtaine pardon thereof The same also happened to innumerable other sicke persons whose sicknesses were the cause why they sought out Christ our Lord and gaue eare to his word and beleeued in him and amended their liues and obtained true cure of their soules A great blessing of God is this kinde of corporal infirmity since it is the roote and occasion of so high a good as it is for man to know his sinnes and to be sory for them and to obtaine a cleane and healthfull soule and eternall happines afterward Saint Gregory aduises sicke persons to consider this well that so they may vnderstand the great benefit of sicknesse and thus he saith Let sicke persons consider how profitable the sicknes of the body is for the health of the soule how great a gift of God it is For it makes a man enter into himselfe and knowe his weakenes and his sinnes and the miseries to which he is subiect It makes him feare God and reforme his life that so by meanes of penance he may be made cleane from his former sinnes and may be bridled and fortified towards the not cōmitting others afterward Saint Gregory Nazianzen relates how being one day present with Eudoxius a holy man who was sicke and interpreting at the request of the sicke man the seauenty second Psalme wherein the holy Ghost declares how God is wont to visit his seruants in this life with the scourges of sicknesses and other afflictions that holy man whom some cōceiue to haue bene Saint Basill lift vp his eyes to heauen and exclamed saying I giue thee thankes ô celestiall Father and Creatour of mankinde for that thou doest vs good against our wills that is thou sendest vs infirmities other miseries which wee would not haue whereby yet thou doest good to our soules by exercising this exteriour man which is the body thou clensest the interiour man which is the minde and thou carriest vs on towards eternall happines by aduersities and contradictions to our gust And Saint Gregory addes further that the Saint spoke those words as reioycing and delighting in his sicknesse This diuine effect of sicknesse is thus declared in holy scripture by the mouth of the wise man Prou. 20. The signe of the hurt and the secret woundes of the belly doe cure mens euills His meaning is that both the exteriour hurts of the body which are not very grieuous and those also which are deep and dangerous and doe pierce euen into the most inward parte of the bowells doe clense the soule
from sinne An admirable mercy of God i◠this and a most singular testimony of his loue and of the most ardent desire which he hath of our saluation For man being forgetfull of himselfe and carelesse of his saluation and in stead of vertue louing vice not walking on towards heauen but towards hell Almighty God is pleased to visit him with sicknesse and tribulation against his will whereby he makes him enter into himselfe and to abhorre the sinne which he loued before and to forsake the way of hell wherin he was going and to pursue the way of heauen which he had left and to fly from many sinnes into which formerly he had fallen This is that mercy of God which Saint Isidorus ponders saying Almighty God seeing that many men will not reforme themselues vpon the motion and at the instance of their owne will sends them aduersities that being troubled afflicted they may be amended and so growe to loue those things which formerly they loued not And finding that some are so inclined and prompt to sinne he scourges them with infirmities of the body to the end that they may giue it ouer and he leaues them sicke because it is better for them to be broken by sicknesse and paine and so to obtaine the eternall saluation of their soules then to liue full of health and full of sinne and so to walke on towards hell This is the saying of Saint Isidorus And because sicknesse doth not produce so excellent and diuine effects in all Christians to take away their former sinnes and to hinder such as are future but onely in some who when they are sicke doe enter seriously into their owne hearts and haue contrition for their sinnes and change their liues it is therefore necessary for all men vpon obseruing that they are sicke to opē the eyes of their soule to examine their consciences well and to consider seriously of all those thinges which may giue impediment to their saluation and confessing their sinnes with sorrow giue a faithfull account of all to their ghostly Father instantly put all things in order with great diligence which concerne the amendment and reformation of their liues least otherwise that sicknesse which God did send a man with loue and mercy and to the end he might be clensed from sinne and so be saued doe not growe to serue but as a preface and beginning of those endles torments which are to be suffeby him in the next life as it will be to all them who will not profit by the sicknesses which God sends So saith the same Saint The scourge of aduersity and tribulation doth then clense the soule from sinne when the man changes his manner of life for vnles he change his life his sinnes remaine where they were So that vpon the whole matter euery scourge aduersity which God sends a man in this life is either to be as a spirituall Purgatory for his sinnes committed and of the penalty to which he is subiect for the same or els it will serue for a beginning of that other paine which he is to suffer afterward For certainly the paines and torments which are eternally to be suffred by some in the life to come are begun to be suffered some of them euen in this life The truth which this holy Doctor hath drawē out of holy scripture carries great force with it and the Holy Ghost therein doth teach vs and confirme by the example of many sinners that God did scourge them with great infirmities and because they profited not thereby they passed on from temporall paine and death to eternall And this ought to moue vs much to receiue any sicknesse as a most pretious gift of God and to giue him great thankes for it and to profit by it making a change of our life to the better to the end that being cleer both of guilt and paine we may make a short and certaine entry into eternall life And so that may be fulfilled in vs which Ecclesiasticus chap. 3 saith A great infirmity of the body makes a mās minde sober that is it cleers it from sinne and doth moderate and iustify it in all thinges THE VIII CHAPTER Of other great benefits which are drawen from corporall infirmities when they are borne with Patience BEsides this so excellent effect of clensing and freeing the soule from sinne infirmity of the body vses to produce diuers others which are very high of incomparable benefit Which dispose the soule to the end that it may receiue giftes from God that it may better and perfect it selfe more in vertue and increase in merit and that it may praise and glorify almighty God more and that a man may so become a particular instrumēt of the glory of God which shines in him either by his freeing him from that sicknesse with particular prouidence and loue or by giuing him admirable vertue and strength wherby to endure it with so great Patience that it may be seen how it is God who helpes him to endure so much and with so good a will in contemplation of eternall life Those blinde men to whom Christ our Lord gaue their sight at his entry and issue out of the Citty of lericho Luc. 18 Mat. 20. had neither seen his miracles nor heard his doctrine but had onely met with the fame of the wonderfull thinges which he did and of the mercy which he vsed towards all and thereby they grew to beleeue in him with so great faith and deuotion that before all those troopes which followed him they did with great cries confesse him to be the true Messias and the Sauiour of the world saying Iesus thou sonne of Dauid haue mercy on vs. And after when they receiued their sight they followed our Lord praising and glorifying God Many of the children of Israell and of the wise and prudent men of the people had heard the doctrine of Christ our Lord and seen his miracles with their owne eyes yet they had not embraced his faith nor had they bene moued by his works to glorify Almighty God whilest yet these blinde men by the onely fame of the workes of Christ our Lord which had come to their eares receiued his faith and glorified and confessed our Lord. And the cause thereof was in regard that the blindenes and pouerty of these men made them more capable and better disposed to consent to those diuine inspirations wherewith Christ our Lord toucht their hearts and called them to receiue the light of faith which Christ our Lord offered thē as also to the end that the fier of diuine loue might more easily inflame their soules with true deuotion and moue them to glorify the diuine Maiesty The Ghospell expresses not that Christ our Lord did pardon their sinnes or that he bad them sinne no more as he had done to other sicke persons but that he gaue them light both in body and soule to the end that they might see and beleeue
in him deuotion wherewith to confesse praise follow him Vpon which wee may inferre that they were already good men and in the fauour of God and so this is prooued to be that effect of sicknesse which wee are now declaringe Namely that it disposes such as are good to receiue new giftes from God and to better them and perfect them by their growing in vertue and by making thē increase in merits both of grace and glory The blessed Euagrius Bishop of Antioch and disciple of Saint Macharius relates that going one day in company of other seruants of God to visit that most holy man Iohn a Moncke of Aegypt and a great Prophet and much reuerenced by the Emperour Theodosius as being one of the greatest Saints of that time one of those cōsorts of his fell sicke of a violent burning feauer and besought the Saint to cure him But the Saint made him answere in these words Thou desirest to driue that from thee which it imports thee for the good of thy soule to keepe For know that as bodies are washed and clensed with salt-peter and other thinges of that nature and doe so become more beautifull and more pleasing to the eye so are soules more clensed by corporall sicknesse made more beautifull and acceptable to the eyes of God Thus said this Saint And this is the effect which is produced by sicknesse in good men Namely that the soule growes thereby in purity and grace and in all those vertues whereby they are to please and serue God And let vs now cast our eyes vpō some other examples which may declare to vs how sicknesse makes men become instruments of the glory of God that so his power and goodnes may shine more in them When Christ our Lord was curing the mā who was borne blind his disciples asked him 10.9 what sinne it was which had caused blindnes in that man whether it were of him or of his parents Christ our Lord made them this answere That it was neither for his nor his parēts sinne but to the end that the workes of God might be manifested in him His meaning was that neither the actuall sinne of him nor of his parents was the cause of his being borne blinde nor was that blindnes imposed on him in punishment of any sinne which either his parents or himselfe had committed but he was borne blinde by the good will of God to the end that by giuing him sight the world might growe to see those workes which were proper to the diuinity namely the working of Miracles by his proper vertue which might testify and declare that he who wrought them was true God By these wordes did Christ our Lord discouer his vnspeakeable goodnes and liberality and most sweet prouidence which sometimes permittes small inconueniences to arriue to the body thereby to bestow great benedictions vpon the soule and to honour his seruants after an extraordinary manner making thē admirable instruments of his glory as he proceeded with this blinde man whō he made blinde to the end that deliuering him by this miracle it might grow publike that himselfe was the true God and Sauiour of the world and that as such he might be beleeued and obeyed and glorified both by that blinde mā who receiued the benefit and by all those others also who would profit by the notice thereof And so by imparting a great blessing to the soule of that blinde man by the light of faith grace which he gaue he declared the glory of his diuinity Let vs produce another example of the same nature When Lazarus was fallen sicke his sisters sent a messenger to our Lord 10.11 who said looke heer O Lord for he whom thou louest is sicke Now in that Lazarus was sicke being so good a man and so much beloued by Christ our Lord wee are taught that sicknesse is a great gift which God not onely bestowes vpon sinners for their cōuersion but also vpon iust and holy men for the bettering of their soules and for their encrease in grace and merit and therefore when God sends sicknesse it should be receiued with a right good will Saint Augustine saith he who loues God loues that which God loues and therefore it is that he loues corporall sicknesse which is the worke and gift of God O how full it is of all reason that a man who is the seruant of God should receiue that sicknesse which God sends him with a great good will and a cheerfull heart If a man being sicke God should giue him health he would receiue it very readily and with much ioy and thanksgiuing and yet certainly ought he to receiue that sicknesse wherewith God visits him with greater affection and thankesgiuing as being a most profitable gift of God This is deliuered by Saint Augustine And although it be true that for the point of not sinning through impatience it suffices to endure and beare the infirmity without desiring to be quit of it by vnlawfull meanes as wee declared before yet to gaine and merit much more therby and to obtaine greater giftes and graces from God a man as Saint Augustine faith must receiue it with much contentment and with a very affectuous manner of thankesgiuing And it is fit that wee proceed after this manner in regard that sicknesse is of much greater profit to many seruants of God then health would be and it is a great gift of God towards all giues them meanes of much spirituall good and for this reason doth God giue it to whom he loues as he did to Lazarus whom he loued much Our Lord hauing receiued this message from the two fisters said to them who brought it This sicknesse is not to death but for the glory of God and to the end that the sonne of God may be glorified by occasiō therof His meaning was that that infirmity was not to end in death because though the man were to dy yet he was not to continue dead but shortly to returne to this present life and so it was not ordained for his death but for the glory of God And the particular glory of God to which it was ordained was that the son of God might be glorified by occasiō of that sicknesse death which followed thereupon he giuing life to the dead man perfect health to him who at that time was sicke so he was knowē by meanes of that worke with faith and obediēce to be the true God and Sauiour of the world By these examples did Christ our Lord discouer to vs how the sicknesse of his seruants might turne to his glory which happens sometimes by his freeing them from their infirmities and from the dangers paines therof of by such particular and extraordinary meanes of his diuine prouidence as greatly serue to manifest the loue and care which he hath of them and inuite all such as knowe thereof to praise and loue confide in his goodnes more and more At other times
and this is most vsuall this is performed by Christ our Lord in the sicknesse of his seruants by his giuing them great and efficacious fauours succours wherby they are made able to carry their infirmities with rare Patiēce with admirable contentment And so whilest they are sicke they performe high acts and of great seruice to God by meanes wherof thee awake and prouoke all men to praise and glorify Christ our Lord for working such wonders in his seruants This so pretious fruite of sicknesse is excellently described by that diuine Diadocus in these wordes As for the making of a good impression by any seale vpon waxe it is necessary first to soften that waxe with the fingars or with fier so to the end that the seale of diuine vertue may be imprinted vpon the soule that it may encrease and growe perfect in vertue and in the gifts of God it is necessary that it be exercised and refined by infirmities and many other tribulations and troubles whereby is may be disposed and softened for receiuing the impression of this diuine seale And iust as in the primitiue Church God wrought this glorious effect in his seruants out of the persetion of Tyrants and through the tormēts wherwith they afflicted and martyred Christians so now doth God produce the same effect in the soules of his seruants by meanes of temptations and interiour assaults of the diuell as also of exteriour and corporall sicknesse and paine I say that in place of persecutions which are ceased God sends them the affliction of tēptations in their soule and of sicknesse in their body to the end that the image of diuine beauty may be made perfect in their hearts It doth therefore much import that wee receiue with great contentment the tēptations and sicknesses which God sends vs and that wee giue him thankes for them for by this meanes they will growe to be a kinde of martyrdome to vs. This wee are taught by Saint Diadocus Let vs therefore be much animated to receiue any infirmities or tribulatiōs which God may send vs with a good will and let vs be content to suffer them as long as it shall please God not limiting him either in the degree or quality of the Crosse nor yet in the time that it is to last For it is God who knowes what is conuenient for vs to endure and therfore wee must remit our selues to his will and resigne our selues wholly into his hands For if as Saint Ephrem saith mē who haue beasts vpō which they cause their burdens to be laid and carryed from one place to another doe well know what waight or burdē euery one of thē is able to beare and that very burden doe they impose and no greater and if the potter who makes vesselles of clay and puts them into the furnace of fier doth well know how long they are to be kept there to the end that when they are taken forth they may be well conditioned and tempered and profitable to the vse of man and not remaine therein more time then is conuenient least so they growe to be burnt vp or broken nor yet lesse time then is necessary least so they be taken forth too soft and be subiect to loose the forme they haue how much more doth God who is of infinit wisedome and goodnes and mainteines a most exact prouidence ouer all his creatures and especially ouer mankinde know that iust burden of sicknes or other afflictiō which euery one is able to vndergoe beare by meanes of that helpe which himselfe is pleased to affoard as also the time during which it is fir that he beare it Nor will he impose more waight then a man can carry nor let it continue longer time then it is fit for him to beare it to the end that he may growe a faithfull true seruant of his and may be capable of that glory which from all eternity he had prouided for him A most certaine truth it is that God of whom the holy Scripture saith that he made all thinges in waight number and measure and gouernes them all with so great suauity and who well knowes the quality and degree of that infirmity or other affliction which euery one is able to beare either by that naturall or supernaturall strength which he hath receiued of him as also how long he is able to beare it will not impose a sicknes or other Crosse nor permit that it continue any longer time then he can suffer it with Patience or then is fit for the good of his soule So saith Saint Augustine Be not troubled about thy bodily health but desire thou of God that he will giue thee that which is most conuenient for thee and so if he know that thy health will be good for thee he will be sure to giue it thee and if he giue it not be thou well assured that it would not haue bene good for thee Wee see many who being sicke conserue themselues cleane from sinne who if they had bene in health would haue comitted many and many men being in health deliuer themselues vp to great wickednes who if they had bene sicke would haue auoided the same God doth well know what is fit for euery one In this let vs place our chief care that our soules may be and continue whole This is deliuered to vs by Saint Augustine Let vs therfore herein be very faithfull and true to God and very obedient to his diuine will let vs so desire health or any other conueniency of this life and so let vs beg it of God as that wee may yet be ready still to receiue any sicknes or other contradiction at his holy hand whēsoeuer he shall be pleased to send it since our suffering these things with Patience serues so greatly to the glory of God to the good of our soules And not onely whē the inconuenience which happēs to vs is very great let vs esteem it for a great mercy and blessing of God and full of profit to our soules but also wee must thinke highly of it value it as a great benefit and of much profit and merit euen when the sicknesse is not great For as the diuine Rusbrochius saith whatsoeuer euill of punishment how light soeuer it may be we suffer to the honour and glory of Almighty God will be of greater benefit to vs then if he had giuen vs the Empire dominiō of the whole world For whatsoeuer euill wee suffer with Patience for the glory of God how light soeuer it may be God doth giue vs for the same no lesse thing then himselfe For giuing vs his grace he giues vs himselfe with it and so possessing the gift we come to possesse therewithall that Lord himselfe of infinite goodnes who giues it Our Lord will not permit that wee should suffer aduersities for his loue without much profit and great reward and so by meanes of that which wee suffer he communicates all
to suffer them that he sought not for comfort and ease of his miseries in this life but onely desired it for the next And he esteemed thē for singular blessings and gift of God and was thankfull for them as being such as he declared in an Epistle which he wrote to Saint Leander Archbishop of Seuill who had written a letter to him wherein amongst other thinges he tould him that he had bene much tormented by the goute and Saint Gregory answered him after this manner You tell mee that you are tormented by the goute and my selfe am also vehemētly tormented by the continuall paine of the same disease but it will be easy for vs to finde comfort in these miseries if wee call our sinnes to minde and consider that wee are purged from thē by these infirmities and that so they are not meer scourges of God but blessings also whereby his diuine Maiesty doth vs so much good With such Patience as this did Saint Gregory beare his sicknesses and so they were of great helpe to him for the obtaining of that most eminent sanctity and most profound humility and of that most plentifull light which shined in his most holy soule Of the insufferable infirmities of Saint Iohn Chrysostom and of the inuincible Patience and constancy wherewith he suffered them and loued them and of the great merits which he acquired by them it would be a long businesse to write and therefore wee will remit our selues to his history and to his letters where he speakes of them Almighty God gaue also to the holy Saint Bernard many grieuous and dangerous sicknesses for the encrease of his vertue for the greater purifying of his life And yet to giue more encrease to the paine of his sickenesse and of his sanctity thereby God ordained so that such remedies as were giuen him for the ease of his paine should prooue to be of greater torment to him For a certaine holy Bishop a friend of his through the feare he had least the Saint would not there be cured well by reason of the rigour which he was wont to vse against himselfe tooke him out from the Monastery wherein then he was and deliuered him to an Infirmarian who through ignorance chanced to treate him so ill and gaue him thinges so hurtfull to eate and so painfull to take that euen men who had bene healthy and hungry would haue had difficulty therein And if the Saint asked for one thing the Infirmarian gaue him an other very cōtrary to that wherof he had need Now the Saint endured these sicknesses and this ill treatinge with so great Patiēce that he neuer complained nor vttered so much as any one word of disgust but obeyed that rude fellow in all thinges as any very obedient subiect would doe his superiour Saint Hugh the Bishop of Lincolne had extreame paines in his side which to any other man would haue bene of great impediment in the exercise of the Episcopall function but he suffered them with so great Patience and strength of minde that he laboured with that afflicted body of his as if he had bene perfectly in health and indeed it was a kinde of miraculous thing how he could haue strength and courage to doe so much Saint Dominicke had many infirmities and extreame paines in his stomacke and yet through the great desire which he had to suffer and well decerning that those were particular giftes of God he had much ioy therein And though whilest he was sicke they did diuers thinges of much contradiction trouble to him he neuer complained nor shewed that he was offended thereby but gaue God thankes for all Saint Francis besides the sicknesse he had wherein he was conuerted to God had after eight and twenty yeares for the space of twenty other yeares of his life many grieuous sicknesses and he suffered extreme paine in them He had a sorenes of eyes which put him to extreame trouble and once through the paine thereof he was faine to be shut vp fifty dayes without being once able to behould any light at all either by day or night and the torment was so great that he could take no rest at all He had extreame aches in his head in his side and in his spleen he had also great burning feauers His sicknesses and torments were such that he had not a parte of his body which was not tormented with excessiue paines his flesh was so wasted that his skinne did euen cleaue to his bones And besides all the rest of his infirmities he had a kinde of dropsy in his feet which gaue him much affliction So that his very diseases were so painfull that they may be accounted to haue brought him a tedious martyrdome full of tormēt Now this Saint endured these infirmities with so admirable Patience that he neuer complained of them nor so much as shewed to be troubled at them but he loued them and reioyced in them and through the great loue which he bare to them he called then his sisters and he was wont to say I giue thee thankes ô Lord for these paines and I beseech thee that if it be pleasing to thee thou giue mee a hundred times as much this shall be of great gust to me For the gust of my heart consists in this that thy will may be accomplished in mee Saint Thomas of Aquine had great sicknesses He suffred grieuous paines in his stomacke and he had a Fistula in one of his legs and he endured these infirmities with so great loue of God and desire to suffer that he mortified himself by forbearing to take such things as might haue giuen him gust and ease Being one day wholly without appetite thinking vpon a certeine fish whereof he might well haue eaten they brought it but he to mortify his sence did then refuse it and God accepted this act of abnegation at his hands and remedyed his necessity by other meanes The blessed Laurentius Iustinianus had grieuous and dangerous diseases Once they thrust a hot iron through his necke another time they opened a parte of his throat with a razour These paines were extreame and the Saint endured thē with so great Patiēce that neither did he complaine nor sigh nor made any shew that he was in torment but remained immoueable as if it had not bene he whom they burnt and wounded but some other man That which happened to those Saints whom wee haue mentioned her hath happened also to innumerable others namely to be exercised by almighty God with most grieuous sicknesses to endure them with admirable Patience to gather inestimable fruite from thence THE X. CHAPTER Of the fruite of the encrease of Faith and Patience which wee must gather from the Patience which the Saints haue shewed in suffering their infirmities and paines FIrst we may drawe from hence a very great and cleare testimony of the in fallible truth of the most holy Religion of Christ our Lord which was professed by all
those Saints For to suffer so grieuous sicknesses and so bitter paines so many yeares with so inuincible Patience for the obtaining of spirituall inuisible benedictions doth incomparably exceed all the naturall power and strength of man And so wee see by experience that men who are voyd of the Faith of Christ our Lord cā not beare such sicknesses and paines with true Patience but they faint and faile of courage therein and they fall into great sorrowes and other disorders against reason and some goe so farre as to despaire Silicius Italicus a most worthy man amongst the Gentiles and of great wisedome and authority who had bene Proconsul in Asia and Consul in Rome had a grieuous sicknes and was subiect therein to much paine and not being able to endure it and being seauenty and fiue yeares old he killed himselfe And as Cato Vticensis who went for so wise a man not being able to endure the affront of being held to be ouercome by Caesar killed himselfe to be free from that affront So did Silius Italicus kill himselfe to be freed from the paine of his sicknesse which he was not able to endure The Gentiles who through their owne fault were not assisted by supernatural fauours from God for the suffering of such paines with Patience were subiect to this great weakenes and impuissance in suffering them And euen amongst Christians they who are not in the grace of Christ suffer sicknesses and paines with great difficulty and when they chance to be very great men doe by occasion thereof commit many sinnes and fall into much disorder against the vertue of Patiēce Whereas wee see that Saints and the seruants of Christ our Lord endure most grieuous sicknesses and intollerable most tedious paines with so great Patience that they loue them and reioyce in them and thanke God for them And al the power of the sicknesse and the fiercenes of the paine can not make them cōmit any little errour against vertue as we haue proued by so many examples It is therefore a most clear and certaine truth that these men are greatly assisted and strengthened by Almighty God as true faithfull soules and seruants of his and that they are exalted by supernaturall fauours both to doe and suffer those things which all the power and strength of humane nature can by no meanes doe or suffer For certainly Patience whē a man is in some great aduersity is a gift of God as the Psalmist saith Psal 61. Patience comes to mee from our Lord. And S. Augustine thus declares the reason and root of this truth Amongst wicked people so much more couragious is any of them towards the enduring the inconueniences of this life as there aboundes in him more couetousnes and concupiscence and loue of the world in regard wherof he endures thē amongst iust persons so much the more couragious is any such man to suffer paines and tormēts as he hath the greater charity and loue of God in him for whose sake he suffers them The loue of the world hath his roote in free will being assisted carryed on by the gust and delight which men take in thinges of the world and the charity and loue of God is infused by God himselfe and so the Patience of iust mē is a gift giuen by God which was communicated to them by charity whereby they exercise true Patience The second fruite which wee must gather from hēce is a great courage and heart for the enduring of any sicknes or afflictions which it may please God to send vs as also a firme confidence that wee shall be able to endure them by Gods grace with true Patience and to the great benefit of our soules We know well indeed that wee are not able to endure them by the only strength of mans nature but by the fauour and helpe of God and that God is ready to impart those helpes and fauours in great abundance with much liberality and that in fine he will bestow them vpon vs as he hath done to all his Saints and true seruants For so the eternall God who is truth it selfe hath promised and so hath Christ our Lord merited for vs. And as the truth of God cānot faile nor the merits of Christ our Lord be diminished so it is certaine that succour cannot be wanting to vs on the parte of God if wee be disposed to profit by it Because as S. Paule saith 1. Cor. 10. God is faithfull and true in the accomplishment of his promises and will not permit vs to be tempted with any affliction or tēptation which may be too heauy for vs to beare and maister being assisted with that grace and fauour from heauen which he is ready to giue vs for that purpose But rather he will take care that in the time of the temptation or tribulation things shal succeed in such sorte either by encreasing our strēgth or by diminishing our Crosse as that wee may be able to endure it yea and to ouercome it at good ease and reape much fruite and merit by it This is deliuered by Saint Paule And since after the example of Christ our Lord and of his Saints wee are resolued to make the right vse of these helpes from God and to serue our selues of these fauours and to doe on our parte what wee can wee may be confident assured if we still rely vpon that succour from heauen that wee shall endure sicknesses and all other Crosses with Patience And that those thinges which it is impossible or at least very hard for our naturall weaknes to endure will be made easy and sweet to vs by these helpes from heauen namely by the gifts of grace and those diuine consolations which God will impart to vs to the end that wee may suffer them not onely with Patience but euen with ioy also as the Saints did Not onely must this hope encourage vs to suffer but it must greatly comfort vs therein Saint Saint Basil declared it by these words In the time of our tribulation wee must not seeke for helpe at the hands of our owne strēgth or power or riches or authority or humane glory but at the hāds of God who giues it to all such as seeke it And with this confidence in God be glad if thou be sicke for whō God loues he corrects and betters by sicknesse and if thou be poore be glad for God hath prepared eternall blessings for thee and if thou suffer any affrōt for Christ our Lord esteem thy selfe happy therein for that affront will be changed into that glory which the Angells enioy Let vs therefore resolue our selues not to make our first recourse in our tribulations to humane helpe and let vs not rely theron but haue recourse to God with prayers sighes and teares Let vs place our confidence in him and expect that from him for he it is who can saue vs. This is the saying of Saint Basil And by this very reason of hope doth
Saint Peter comfort vs saying 1. Pet. 4. Do you greatly reioyce since you cōmunicate with Christ our Lord in his afflictions and paines by suffering in imitation of him to the end that when after this life the glory of Christ our Lord shall be manifested in heauen you may also be made partakers thereof and may exult in that supreme and euerlasting ioy becoming like him in glory as you haue bene in paine THE XI CHAPTER Of the Patience wherewith discomforts and spirituall desolations are to be endured and of the example which Christ our Lord gaue hereof THese ordinary euills of paine of the remedy whereof wee haue already spoken such as are losse of goods and sicknesses are common both to the good and bad but there is another euill of paine which vsually doth onely happen to such as are good and for the enduring whereof they stand in great necessity to learne Patience frō the example of Christ our Lord. This euill are those discomforts and drynesses and spirituall afflictions which God is wont sometimes to impose vpō the soules of such as do most cordially serue him to the end that by the exercise of Patience and humility they may grow vp in vertue and serue him better Whē a seruant of God who loues him much doth treate and conuerse with him by meanes of Prayer and Meditation and contemplation and gusteth much in that familiar communication commerce with God he findes by experience the vnspeakeable dear sweetnes of his loue he enioyes a most liuely feeling of his presence his goodnes and his mercy he possesses a most euident and ioyfull hope and very intire promptitude of deuotion Now it happens sometimes that this man remaining in this spirituall paradise and passing there a great parte of his pilgrimage in this life God doth so ordaine concerning him not onely sometimes but very often and long together that enabling him still to mainteine and hould the substantiall parte of his loue which consists in louing that which he loues aboue all thinges and in taking contentment therein and in yeelding obediēce to his commaundments and in carying a hatred against all sinnes and in vsing diligence to auoid them in being watchfull and attentiue in the performing of all good workes enabling a man I say to doe all this God yet depriues him of the experimentall knowledge gust which he had of him and of his goodnes and of the sweet feeling of his presence and of the facility and ease which he was wōt to finde in treating and communicating with him and the readines of his deuotion and the ioy which he was wont to take in his hope And though that soule remaine still in grace and friendship with God and with a firme determination euer to serue him and neuer to offend him yet is it dry withall and sad and discomfortable and full of feares and assaulted by dismaies doubts And though it be true that this soule hath lost nothing in point of vertue or of the merit which it had or of the loue wherewith it loued God and was beloued by him yet in finding it selfe so altered it feares least it should be hated and abandoned by Almighty God This is the greatest tribulation and affliction to which good men are subiect in this life that which they apprehend most and Christ our Lord discouered both the inconuenience and the remedy in the holy Ghospell The Apostles were full of comfort in the society of Christ our Lord Matt. 14. Maro 6. enioying the suauity regalo of the sight of his presence of the hearing his doctrine and of the fauour priuilege of his Miracles And our Lord hauing once wrought that Miracle of the fiue loaues of bread whereby he had so particularly giuen them comfort and done them honour he seperated them from himselfe comanding them to imbarke them selues without him and that so they should transport them selues to the other side of that sea The Apostles found this to be a very vntoward and vnpleasing businesse and notwithstanding that they obeyed yet they did it with great repugnāce the thing being much against their minde This was noted by the Euangelist saying He compelled and constrained his disciples that they should enter vpō the ship without him which is as much as to say he made them enter perforce and much against their will And the reasons of this repugnance in thē was first because they would faine not haue wanted that sweet presēce of Christ our Lord which they did so deatly loue For so saith Saint Chrisostome Our Lord constrained his disciples in regard it was a thing so very hard for them to depart from him Which grewe without doubt frō that great ardour of affection which they carried towards him Another reason therof might be the feare they had least wanting his presence and fauour some trouble or danger might happen to them at sea And thus also saith Saint Hierome The disciples had reason to depart vnwillingly with much repugnance from our Lord for feare least in his absence they might sustaine some hurt or incurre some hazard by sea The disciples being departed from our Lord and being embarked and already vnder saile there rose a stiffe and contrary winde which made them a high Sea and brought a great storme vpon them The disciples rowed hard but could not aduance their backe a whit and so passed the rest of that day and all the night following in great labour and hazard till at length toward the morning our Lord did visit and comfort them make the tempest cease By this difficulty the disciples knew their owne weaknes the great need which they had of our Lord and so they desired his presence much the more And when he had visited them freed them from that danger they grew more in faith hope and loue of him and so casting themselues all prostrate at his feet they cried thus out with a more feruorous faith and with more intire deuotion Thou art certainly the sonne of God By the departure which Christ our Lord caused his disciples to make from him against their wil he taught vs how sometimes he would parte his faithfull great friends who serue him and loue him and haue much gust in his presence from that dear company of his Not for as much as concernes the friendship which he beares them nor for as much as concernes the state of grace wherein they liue but onely concerning the sweet comunication which they had with him and the ioy and comfort which they felt by his presence And this he doth very much against their will but howsoeuer he doth it yet for their good to the end that they may growe to vnderstand their weakenes better and what poore thinges they would be without God may become more humble and distrustful of themselues and exercise themselues more in Patience and haue a greater desire and make a greater estimation of the gifts of
God and that when afterward he shall visit them restore them to the gift of his delightfull and dear presence they may grow vp in faith and hope and loue of him Thus saith Saint Chrysostome Our Lord suffered his disciples to labour all night by rowing and to let their ship be tossed from one side to the other that so they might desire his presence so much the more and that the feare and danger of shipwracke being passed ouer they might confide the more in him and carry him the more deeply impressed in their memory and their heart An other time Christ our Lord tooke his Apostles with him and he put himselfe with them vpon the Sea and laid himselfe downe to sleepe in the pup of the ship and whilest he was sleeping there rose so fierce a tempest that it put them in danger of perishing And they cōceiuing that because our Lord was sleeping he saw not the perill wherein they were came towards him and awaked him saying Saue vs Lord for wee perish Our Lord then rose vp and hauing reproued them for their little faith he made the tempest cease By this did our Lord discouer to vs the same mystery although in other termes In that when Christ our Lord was on shipboard with his disciples a tempest rose wee are taught that whilest he is present by grace with his seruāts who are iust and holy men the tribulation temptation the seeming to be abandoned by Almighty God rises vp against thē And though our Lord doe well discerne the afflictiō wherein they are and hath great care of them and will be sure not to let them perish yet to their thinking he hath little better then forgotten them and it seemes to them as if they were forsaken and abandoned by him and that they are in great dāger of perishing Now our Lord proceeds thus with thē for their greater good to the end that they may the better knowe themselues and vnderstand by experience of how little strength they are in time of tribulation and that being freed from it by our Lord vpon whom they call they might the better iudge of the assistance and fauour which he affoardes them and that they may confide more in him and more admire his goodnes and power and diuine prouidence and become more perfectly subiect to his heauenly will So saith Saint Cyrill Our Lord permitted that a tempest should rise for the exercising of the Apostles in vertue and that knowing and confessing the danger wherein they were they might frame the higher conceit of the power of the power of the same Lord might resorte to him and place all their confidence in him And although they were in so great feare of perishing yet in very deed they were safe nor was it possible that they should be lost hauing that omnipotent Lord so present with thē as they had This is deliuered by Saint Cyrill But that example of Christ our Lord which is most proper to comfort his seruants in this kinde of tribulation and to animate vs to suffer it with Patience is that abandoning by the eternall Father which Christ our Lord endured vpon the Crosse which he declared when he said thus My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee The eternall Father had not forsaken him for as much as concerned the grace and glory of his soule nor for as much as concerned the vnion of the humane and diuine natures in him but he abandoned him according to what we haue already declared for as much as concerned the sensible ease and comfort which might flowe from the superiour parte of his soule to the inferiour parte of the same soule and to the sensitiue parte of the body which he suspended and deteined to the end that it might not redound vpon it nor be communicated to it that so the paine of his Passion might be the more pure more grieuous and more hard to be endured By this abandoning discōfort of Christ our Lord all the seruants of God are to be hartened and comforted in this kind of affliction of drynes and desolation considering and discoursing with great waight of reason after this manner Since the eternall Father did abandon his Sonne in his Passion whom he infinitely loued depriuing him of all sensible ease and comfort and since the Sonne himselfe would also haue it so to the end that he might suffer so much the more for the loue of man most iust it is and most reasonable that the men of God who are members of the same Christ be also depriued at some time of sensible cōforts and that they may be afflicted and forsaken to the end that they may resemble Christ himselfe and that the parts of the body may be like the head Yea it is most reasonable that they should suffer this discomfort and desolation euen gladly and with gust for the loue of the same Lord. Let them also consider that as Christ our Lord though he were abandoned by his Father departed not as he was man frō the vnion which he had with him by loue nor from the vniō which he had with the diuinity nor did he loose one iote of the infinite grace and immense glory which he had in his most holy soule so also his seruants though they want those spirituall feelings and sensible comforts though they be molested and afflicted are not therfore departed from the amity vnion with God nor haue they lost any parte at all of his grace and loue but they continue still his friends and still are pleasing in his sight but by this exercise of humility and Patience they growe vp in all vertue and merit both of grace and glory Most excellently doth Iustus Lanspergius thus describe these afflicted seruants of God of whom he had knowen many by experience Wee finde many friends of God in this world who want all that sensible cōfort in all the spirituall exercises of deuotion which they were wont to enioy so farre as that sometimes they can hardly once raise their spirit vp to God and by a secret dispensation of Gods prouidence they seem to be as it were oppressed with a great obscurity of heart And notwithstanding all this for as much as concernes the substance of vertue they haue it with a great feare to offend God they fly from al kinde of sinne whether it be great or small with much care and they watch very attentiuely and keep straight ward vpon their hearts for mainteining the purity of their conscience complying exactly in all those thinges which they vnderstand to cōcerne the will of God and they are truly mortified and humble Such persons as these although they haue not those feelings of loue and sensible deuotion haue yet a true and liuely faith whereby they liue and direct their course they are certainly great friendes of God though themselues doe not vnderstand it so This is said by Lanspergius Let therefore the seruants of God be
comforted in this kinde of tribulation and be encouraged to beare it with Patience resoluing to take it at the hand of God and resigning themselues to his diuine will to the end that he may doe and dispose of them as shall be most pleasing to himself And let them remaine firmly perswaded in their very hearts that so long as they conserue a hatred against sinne and a firme resolution to comply with the commaundments of God and that chiefly for the loue of him and through an effectuall desire and will to please God in those thinges which he hath ordained although they be much afflicted withall and loue without any comfort or sensible feeling of deuotion yet in truth they are the friends of God they are in the state of grace they walke on towards saluation eternall life they are pleasing to God by their good workes and he will neuer abādon or forsake them For thus hath he promised to such as with loue perseuer in his seruice saying to euery one of thē as he said Iosue 1. and Heb. 13. I will not forsake thee nor take my hand off from thy defence THE XII CHAPTER Of the necessity and fruite of Patience and how it is a signe of the elect and predestinated of God BY many waies did Christ our Lord declare the great fruites and merits of Patience in his holy Ghospell First by hauing ordained that tribulations and aduersities should be the way to heauē which cannot be well borne and without disaduātage to the soule but by the vertue of Patience This ordination of his did he discouer to vs in that himself being come into this world to saue it and to restore man to the grace glory of the eternall Father which man had lost by sinne he was pleased that his most holy life should be assaulted and exercised from the first instant of his birth to the last when he expired vpon the crosse by many persecutions aduersities of many kindes And this is that which was signified by Simeō Luc. 2. when taking the infant Iesus into his armes he said to the Virgin This infant shall be set vp for a signe which shall be contradicted Christ our Lord was the signe of mans reconciliation to God and of the pardon of sinne and of eternal life for Christ our Lord wrought all this And as a cause is a signe of the effect so Christ our Lord was the signe of all the good which came to man and of that mercy and loue which God shewed him but yet withall he was a signe contradicted by the diuell and by the world A signe he was against which al the louers of the world and all maligne spirits did by their meanes dart forth the arrowes of persecutiōs of iniuries of torments and contradictions both in word deed This is that way which Christ our Lord chose for himselfe in this world and since all the elect and predestinated of God are to be like Christ our Lord as Saint Paul Ro. 8. declareth saying They whom God elected and approued from al eternity he ordained that they should be like his sonne who is the perfect image of the eternall Father it followeth that they all must walke in the way of tribulations and aduersities as Christ our Lord did to the end that being partakers of his Passion they may also partake the honour of the sonnes of God the glory of being kings in heauen This is explicated by Saint Gregory in these words He asketh what is the reason why God afflicts and abases them in this life imposing contempt and paine vpon them whom he hath elected from all eternity to become so very high and glorious in the Kingdome of heauen And he answeres his owne question thus Because God sees that he is to recompence and reward men with such immense and eternall benedictions in heauen for this very cause doth he afflict them cōcerning these inferiour things of the earth depriuing them of things of small value and inflicting paines vpon them which last not long Since therefore it is so certainly true that a man can not beare the aduersities of this life to the profit of his soule and with the fruite of vertue and the merit of eternall glory but by fortifying his heart through the the vertue of Patience it followes that Patience is that thing which carries men on with security and certeinty through the right way to heauen which is that of tribulations and that consequently the same Patience is the marke of such as are elected and predestinated by Almighty God For all men both good and bad haue aduersities tribulations in this l◅ though some more then others and therefore the onely hauing them is no signe of predestination but the suffering thē with Patience that indeed is the signe which distinguishes them who are elected and predestinated frō such others as are not so This did holy Iudith lib. Iud. c. ◠confesse saying that all they who haue bene pleasing to God haue passed faithfully through many tribulations He saith not that they only had tribulations but that they perseuered faithful therein to God and obedient to his diuine will which signifies that they exercised true Patience in their tribulations This very ordination did our Lord discouer also in that being able to cast all those damned spirits into the bottomles abisse of hell and to keepe them shut vp there till the end of the world without giuing then power to goe once out from thence yet he doth not so but allowes them liberty to goe forth to remaine in the aire amongst men though yet withall for as much as concernes themselues they carry the very paine of hell about them Of this wee haue a testimony in the Ghospell For Christ our Lord being in the company of the Gerasens Luc. 8. and hauing cast a legion of diuels out of a certaine man they besought him not to cast them into hell which he graunted so he gaue them liberty to possesse a heard of swine which they drowned And that liberty which our Lord gaue to those diuels to remaine here amōgst mē he allowes to innumerable others he doth it to the ēd that they may assault mē with seuerall temptations that so they may exercise Patience and humility by suffering their attempts and by ouercoming the persecution of the diuells So saith Saint Chrysostome The diuells desired of Christ our Lord that he would not cast them downe into that bottome that is out of the world into that darkenes and Abisse of Hell as the diuells had deserued and our Lord forbore to cast thē downe and suffered them to remaine in this world to the end that vertuous men might not loose those crownes of glory which they were to gaine by resisting those diuells and by fighting with them and ouercoming their temptations Since therefore for the suffering of the persecutions vexations of diuells resisting their temptations and continuing in combate against
them the vertue of Patience is so necessary it followes that it is the fruite and effect of Patience to conserue the soule in such sorte as that it may receiue no hurt from temptatiōs and assaults of the diuell and to encrease their merits in heauen by the victory ouer those temptations and thereby to manifest by an experimentall way who are truly iust and elect of God So doth the holy scripture declare to vs in many places It saith in Ecclesiasticus c. 27. As the furnace of fier tries the pots of the potter so doth temptation and tribulation try iust men The meaning is that as the hot burning furnace doth examine and declare which vessells are good and fitly tempered and which indeed are they which being cast into the fier are not cracht or broken therby but remaine hard and whole and fit for the vse of man and as it doth also shew which other of them are ill made for they cracke and breake in the hot furnace so doth temptation and tribulation whether it be offered by diuels or by men declare and shew who are iust and holy And these are they who through the euills and temptations which they endure are not broken or ouercome by impatiēce or other sinnes but through the vertue of Patience perseuer firme and constant in the practise of vertue and the keeping of the lawe of God THE XIII CHAPTER How pleasing the vertue of Patience is to God and of the great fauours which he affoardes them who suffer with Patience ANother way whereby Christ our Lord declared the fruit and merit of Patience is the particular fauours extraordinary benefits which he vouchsafed to to men who suffered aduersity with Patiēce Christ our Lord came to the Piscina of Hierusalem and amongst so many sicke persons as he found there he imparted only to one of them who had remained there sicke eight thirty yeares so great a fauour and so illustrious a benefit as it was both to cure his body and to iustify his soule And the cause why our Lord bestowed this blessing rather vpon him then any of the rest was because he endured his sicknesse with more Patience then others As is plaine in that he hauing bene sicke so many yeares made no cōplaint but answered so meekly to what was asked Saint Chrysostome obserues this and saith Christ our Lord Io. 5. did not aske the sicke man if he had any desire to be cured as if he had doubted of his will but only for the manifesting of his Patience who hauing been eight and thirty yeares and daily hoping for health which he could not finde did yet neuerthelesse continue without going away and despaired not being there to teach vs also that the reasō why he cured rather him then others was his great Patience Let vs declare another exāple to the same purpose Christ our Lord Io. 9. cured a man who was borne blinde and for the constancy where with he confessed the same Lord and defended his truth the Pharisees did persecute and affront him both by word and deed and they cast him as an excommunicate persō out of the Sinagogue The good man obeyed this vniust comandment endured that wrōg with Patience and Christ our Lord who knew it al seeing the afflictiō wherein his faithfull seruant was the Patience wherewith he bore it sought him out of set purpose and spake to him after this manner with great affability loue Doest thou beleeue in the sonne of God which was as much as to say Wilt thou beleeue that he who cured thee is the true sōne of God And euen as he was speaking these wordes he did withall infuse a most excellent clear light into the most inward part of his soule to make him know and beleeue that he who had cured him was not onely a Prophet and a Saint as already he had confessed him to be but also the true and naturall sonne of God for the question did import so much And so he beleeued and asked Who is he O Lord And that Lord answered him thus It is euen he who is speaking with thee Then instantly he fell prostrate adored him This so admirable fauour to seeke him and comfort him and honour him and communicate so great light of faith grace to him did God vouchsaffe to this mā for his hauing been so faithfull in confessing him and so patient in suffering that wrong which they had done him in regard of Christ our Lord. So saith Saint Chrysostome they who with Patience suffer the iniuries which are imposed on them for mainteining the truth of Christ our Lord these men are greatly fauoured and honoured by him as wee see by the example of the blinde man whom the Iewes cast out of the Tēple for the Lord of the very tēple sought him out he receiued him with great loue and as a soldier who had fought valiantly he crowned him with a crowne of inestimable worth and beauty such as was the eminent grace pawne of heauen which he bestowed vpon him So great account as this doth Christ our Lord make of a faithfull and patient man and so much doth he esteem him that omitting many others he seekes him out with care he comforts him by his words he ioyes his heart by his presence he honours him by his fauours and he aduances him by his gifts This doth Saint Thomas obserue in these words The Euāgelist by relating that Christ our Lord sought out the blinde man whom he had cured giues vs to vnderstand that he was diligent in harkening him out because he found more faith and vertue in him then in others whereby wee may inferre that he more esteems one iust person thē ten thousand sinners This wee are tould by S. Thomas And though it be no exaggeration at all to say that God doth more loue one iust man thē the whole world of sinners put together since absolutely speaking he onely loues such as are iust with the loue of grace yet considering how greatly God esteems the saluation euen of sinners and the care he hath to conuert them to say that God more loues to saue fauour one iust man then many thousand of sinners is no sleight expressiō but doth greatly discouer the particular prouidēce and care which God carries towards iust persons and it giues matter also of much confidence to them who serue him that through his goodnes they are to be greatly fauoured and assisted by him towards their saluation Christ our Lord did also discouer the value and fruite of Patience in this that when he would vouchsaffe any great vnusual benefits to any he first disposed and prepared them by the exercise of Patience He was pleased Matt. 15. to feed foure thousand men with seauen loaues of bread and before he would impart this benefit to them he made them stay three daies in the patient sufferance of hunger the paines of being in a desert and continuing
penalties also which he had incurred thereby so to saue him in the eÌ„d This doth he coÌ„fesse by saying thus Tob. 3. Iust art thou ô Lord and all thy iudgments are very iust for if we haue been deliuered into the hands of our enemies to be made captiues and to be destroyed and killed by theÌ„ and to become the very scorne of all nations it is because we haue sinned against thee in not keeping thy comaundments nor conuersing with a pure hart in thy presence And further confessing the great mercy wherewith God punished them for their sinnes he saith Tob. 13. Our Lord punishes vs for our sinnes and the same Lord shall saue vs for his mercies sake After this manner by the knowledge of our sinnes and of the punishment which we deserue for the same wee are to embrace all those aduersities which God may send vs in this life with much Patience yea and wee must praise and thanke him for them Another and a very efficacious meanes whereby wee must helpe our selues to suffer all tribulation with Patience is instantly to resort to Almighty God in any affliction of ours whether it be great or small beseeching him with our whole hearts that he will giue vs strength to beare it well and to conforme our selues entirely to his most holy will And although it be lawfull to desire of God that he will take the tribulation from vs so that yet wee still resigne our selues to his good pleasure that so he may doe that which shall most import our saluation yet this is not necessary but our better suite is to be that he will helpe vs to endure it and ouercome it When Saint Peter with the leaue of Christ our Lord begaÌ„ to walke vpon the water Matt. 14. and when he found that a stiffe winde was risen he grew troubled and distrustfull and began to sincke and our Lord to deliuer him out of that great danger of drowing did not cause the winde to cease as Saint Iohn Chrysostome obserues but stretched forth his hand and laid hold on him therewith and made him walke vpon the water till he brought him backe to the ship Now this must wee beg of God in our troubles namly that he will take vs by the haÌ„d and that he will vouchsaffe vs his helpe and fauour that so our afflictions may doe vs no hurt but that suffering them with Patience they may yeeld great fruite to our soules and be of much glory to Almighty God This is that which Dauid Psal 117. begged of God in his tribulations and that which he desired and begged he also obtained as himselfe affirmed saying In my tribulation I called vpon my Lord and my God and cryed out to him in the most internall part of my heart and he of his infinite mercy heard my voice from that holy temple of his which is heauen and he accepted my prayer and imparted that fauour which I desired Besides these meanes there is yet another which is very effectuall towards the obtaining of Patience and it is to ponder profoundly well how all the contradictions and punishments which happen to vs in this life be ordained by the prouideÌ„ce of God and are sent vs by his holy hand for our good And besides those other testimonies whereby wee haue proued this truth elswhere Christ our Lord declared it in his holy Ghospell saying thus Matt. 10. Feare not for all the haires of your heads are numbred The meaninge is that God hath so particular care and prouidence ouer you that he hath counted euen all the haires of your heads and knowes the number of them all and there is nothing done euen concerning any of them which he ordaines not for the good of that man who puts his confidence in him Now if Almighty God conserue the memory and care of so light and triuiall thinges as are the haires of our head which serue but for the ornament of men and which although they be cut off doe not put the parties to any paine and this so faâ—…e as that euen one of them must not be cut or lost without his pleasure how much more tender care will he take of the life and saluation of that man who puts his trust in him and of all those principall thinges which belong to him that he may conserue and cherish and ordaine them for the good of his soule and not permit that he be put to the least preiudice without his pleasure and that whatsoeuer happens to him in order to his temporall affaires may proue to the good and remedy of his soule and for the doing all that which is fit for the carrying him on to the end of eternall felicity for which he was created This is the nature of Patience whereof wee haue spoken and these are the most excellent effects and fruiâ—s thereof These are the meanes whereby it is to be obtained and these are the examples whereby wee haue been taught it by Christ our Lord. Let vs therfore procure to obtaine it and moreouer to exercise it towards the whole world complying with that which the Apostle saith thus to Timothy ep 1. c. 6. Embrace and exercise Patience diligeÌ„tly And that also which he saith to the Thessal ep 1. c. 5. be patient and suffer at the hands of all men By this most pretious vertue of Patience wee shall obtaine and conserue all the gifts of God and become superiours to all our enemies For Patience will fortify vs in the confession of our Faith against tirants giuing vs strength to endure all their torments Patience conserues the supernaturall loue of God and of our neighbour for it giues vs courage to resist all those thinges which are contrary to charity Patience conserues and giues perfection to wisedome taking away those impediments of anger and sorrow which obscure the soule Patience builds vp abstinence and temperance inabling a man to suffer hunger and thirst and to bring sensual appetites into subiection Patience defends iustice encreases humility conserues peace and purity of heart and giues perseuerance in all vertue And so it fulfilles that whereof Saint Iames chap. 1. saith that it makes the worke perfect because it giues perfection and completenes to all the vertues O blessed Patience happy are they who possesse thee For thou art the vertue which giuest perseuerance in all good things and which openest the way to heauen where wee may see with perfect charity delight with supreme loue in that infinite beauty of God and possesse for euer those giftes of glory which he hath prouided for them who continue in his seruice according to that which our Lord promised saying He who perseuers to the end shall be saued FINIS