from whence we all come we are content to have virtues onely by imagination and vices in their true essence Nembroth professed himself a servant of the true God and yet adored the fire in secret Jesus hath many worshippers in words but few in truth Some stand upon formalities others upon disguised habits others amuse themselves about ceremonies others go as upon certain springs to make themselves counted wise Most men would seem what they are not and much troubled to be seen what they are All their time doth pass in fashions and countenances but death and Gods judgements take off all those masks 3. To say that we have seen a man exteriourly devout and spiritual except he be so inwardly is to say we have seen a house without a foundation a tree without a root a vessel move upon the sea without a bottom and an excellent clock without a spring For the same which the foundation is to a house the root to a tree the bottom to a ship and the spring to a clock the same is a mans interiour life to all virtue What is a man the better who resembles window-cushions which are covered with velvet and stuft with hay or to be like the picture of Diana in Homers Island which wept to some and laught to others A little spark of a good conscience is better than all the lights of the world Why do we crucifie our selves with so many dissimulations so many ceremonies so many enforcements upon our natures to serve and please men onely to get smoke He that sows wind saith the Prophet shall reap a storm Let us live to our selves in the purity of a good conscience and of a perfect humility if we desire to live for ever with God Those shadows of false devotion proceed from the leaves of that fig-tree wherwith Adam and Eve covered their nakedness do not we know that hypocrisie is the same thing to virtue which painting is to faces and that it is the very moth which devours sanctity and will at the day of judgement make all those appear naked which to the world seem well apparrelled Aspiration O God of all truth wherefore are there so many fictions and counterfeit behaviours Must we always live to please the eyes of others and run after the shadow of vanity which leaves nothing but illusion within our eyes and corruption in our manners I will live unto thee O fountain of lives within whom all creatures have life I will retire my self into my own heart and negotiate with it by the secret feeling of a good conscience that I may treat with thee What need I the eyes of men if I have the eyes of God They alone are sufficient to do me good since by their aspect they give happiness to all the Saints I will seek for thee O my beloved Lord from the break of day till the dead time of the night All places are solitary where thou art not and where thou art there onely is the fullness of all pleasures The Gospel for Wednesday the second week in Lent S. Matth 20. The Request of the wife of Zebedce for her sons James and John ANd Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve Disciples secretly and said to them Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of man shall be delivered to the chief Priests and to the Scribes and they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified and the third day he shall rise again Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons adoring and desiring something of him who said to her What wilt thou She saith to him Say that these my two sons may sit one at thy right hand and one at thy left hand in thy Kingdom And Jesus answering said You know not what you desire Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of They say to him We can He saith to them My cup indeed you shall drink of but to sit at my right hand and left is not mine to give to you but to whom it is prepared of my Father Moralities 1. WHat a short life have we and yet such large and vast ambitions We fear every thing like mortal men and yet desire all as if we should be immortal upon earth It is a strange thing to observe how the desire of honour slides even amongst the most refined devotions Some one is counted an Angel of Heaven amongst men who hath not forsaken his pretence upon earth Ambition sleeps in the bosoms of persons consecrated for the Altars It overthrows some whom luxury could not stir and moves those whom avarice could not touch We desire all to be known and to seem what we are not but this seeming is that which doth bewitch us All passions grow old and weaker by age onely the desire of worldly riches and honours is a shirt which we never put off till we come to the grave Why do we so extreamly torment our poor life by running after this shadow of honour which we cannot follow without trouble nor possess without fear nor lose without sorrow It is not a strange folly that men love such vanities till the very last instant of their own ruins and fear nothing so they may tumble into precipices of gold and silver 2. What great pains you take for these children as if they did not more belong to God than you you cast day and night where to place them when the Providence of God which is the great Harbinger of the world hath already markt their lodgings One is settled in a good Religious course another in the grave another perhaps shall have more than is necessary to make him a good man Eve imagined that her son Cain having all the world would have become some great God when ambition made him a devil incarnate You shall rarely make your children great Saints by getting them great honours You desire they should possess all that which overthrows them and pretending to make a building with one hand you destroy it with the other By all your earnest wishes and all your laborious endeavours for advancement of your children you effect nothing but thereby give them enticements to pleasure and weapons for iniquity 3. Whereupon should we build our ambitions if not upon the bloud of the holy Lamb At the foot of the Cross we behold a God covered with bloud crowned with thorns and reproches who warns us to be humble and at the same time we eagerly pursue worldly glory and ambition We resemble that unhappy daughter of Miltiades who did prostitute her self under her fathers Tropheys By our unmeasurable hunting after honours amongst the ignominies of Jesus Christ we abandon our selves to dishonour and make no other use of the Cross but onely to be a witness of our infidelity Aspirations AVoid be gone you importunate cares of worldly goods and honours you little tyrants which burn the bloud within our
make horrible havock unlesse Grace and Reason cause some temper There is not any devil more familiar in Court more injurious to civil conversation more pernicious to States then Choler and Revenge Pride which is born with the most eminent conditions nourisheth it flatterers enkindle it insolent tongues sharpen it fire and sword end it In some it is haughty and cruel as it appeared in Dagobert a young Prince son of Clotharius the Second who in his tendrest years had I know not what of salvage in him which savoured of the manners of Paganisme or the humours of his Grandmother Fredegond Aymonius l. 4. p. Aemilius Annals of France albeit he afterward gained victories over himself The King his Father had appointed him two Governours Arnold to rectifie his manners Sadragesillus to breed him up to Armes and Court-like behaviour The first governed him like the Sun the second as the Northern-wind The one insinuated himself with much sweetnesse the other undertook him with too proud and arrogant an apgroach which in him rather caused Aversion then Choler of Dagobert somewhat rough Instruction From whence it came to passe that he being one day invited to the Princes Table where he did eat apart as the Kings son he placed himself right ouer against him took Dagoberts glasse and drank to him wherewith he was so desperately offended that instantly he fell upon him and taking a knife on the table cut off his beard and most contemptuonsly disfigured him Sadragesillus in this plight presented himselfe to King Clotharius who was likewise enraged and caused his son to be pursued commanding his Guard to apprehend him but he saved himself in the Sanctuary of Montmartre under the protection of S. Denis untill his fathers anger was pacified who spared not to give him a sharp reprehension and to raise Sadragesillus to great dignities to take away the acerbities of the affront he had received Another time S. Arnold asking leave of the same Dagobert to retire from Court out of the desire he had to passe the rest of his dayes in sweet solitude the King many times denied him and he growing a little earnest in a good cause he furiously draws froth his sword threatning to kill him if he persisted in this request A Lord there present stayed the blow and the Queen shewing her husband the unworthinesse of his Choler so gained him that he came to himself gave his Master full satisfaction and permitted him to go whither he thought good most affectionately recommending his person and state to him Seneca hath well said that Choler was not a sign of a courageous but a swoln spirit as it by experience appeared in Dagobert who was little war-like For being but in one piece of service against the Saxons where he received a very slight hurt he made so many ceremonies about it that he sent a lock of his bloudy hair to his father to implore his aid It is true that this Prince being in his youth a little unruly hearkned afterward to the good reasons of his Councel and became very temperate 2. There are Martiall angers which are generous Generous anger of K. Clotharius and bold when a heart upon a good occasion is enflamed to the avengement of some Injustice as it happened to Clotharius the Second who coming to succour his son Dagobert presently appeared marching along the Rhine and made himself remarkable by a notable head of hair whereupon Bertrand Captain of the Saxons darting some insolent words at him the King suddenly passed the river with great danger of his person observeth his enemy pursues him strikes him down from his horse and cuts off his head which he fixed on the top of a launce to fill the Saxon Army with terrour Thus should the anger of a great Prince be bent against proud and unjust adversaries not against his own Subjects This spurre hath sometimes added valour to the sweetest natures witnesse Charles the Simple Valour of Charles the Simple who seeing that Robert had gathered together a huge army of Rebels against him passed the river of Aisne to charge him and the other putting himself into a readinesse to resist him animating his own side and braving in the head of his army Charles looked him in the face as the Butt against which he should unburden all his gall spurs forward directly towards him and so succesfully hits him with a thrust of his lance in the mouth that he tore out his tongue and killed him 3. Yet Choler is extremely dangerous in matter of Arms especially in things where some resolution is to be taken with counsel and maturity For it troubleth The passion of anger is very prejudiciall to Military art in a General the art said an Antient and many times causeth errours irreparable This is but too much verified in the fatall day of Crescy-field where Philip of Valois one of the most valiant Monarchs which ever handled Sceptre gave battel to Edward King of England The English Army bravely encamped heard Masse leasurely took its repast and coolely expected the enemy to fight with firm footing at which time our Philip animated with anger and above all fearing lest the English might escape him hastned his army what he could causing it to march and tyring it out on the day of battel The Monk Basellus a man wel experienced in feats of arms Philip of Valois a great and a generous King loseth a battel out of a peevish humour of anger shewed him it were much better to expect till morning on which he seemed to be resolved but this Choler had already put fire into his souldiers and although some cryed out Stay Ensign-bearers yet those who marched before were so afraid to be out-gone by them who followed that they had not the patience When they came to joyn battel the Genoway Archers who were in the French army protested aloud they were not able to do their duty and instantly disbanded whereupon the King grew into a fresh anger and commanded to cut them in pieces which with all possible violence was executed ours being cruelly bent to devour their members whilst the arrows of the enemy fell upon them like hail and the horse gauled with shot horribly neighing ran away with their riders and all the place was covered with dead bodies This trouble of mind cost the losse of a battel wherein Froissard saith were eight French against one English-man and thirty thousand men where among others the King of Bohemia and Charles Count of Alencon the Kings brother were slaine in the place Behold the disasters of an il-governed Passion which never is well knowne but by the experience of its misery 4. There are other nice and haughty Cholers which are brought forth in the Curiosities of an imperious life as it happened to many Emperours who took a glory in being angry and to make their brutishnesse famous by bloudy effects Bajazet shewing one day the pleasure of hawking to the Count
profession he spake these words unto them My holy daughters It is not yet three years since I undertook Excellent speeches to virgins this charge and you know from whence I was drawn and the small time given to dispose me to so weighty a burden notwihstanding I afford you the fruits of my tongue since I have learned more in your manners than in books The flowers which grow in my discourses come from your garden It is not precepts for Virgins but examples drawn from the life of Virgins Your manners have breathed a certain grace into my soul I may say that all that which my endeavour hath of good odour in it is derived from your prayers For who am I but a barren thorn But God who heretofore spake to Moses among thorns will now to day speak by my mouth His Sermons and books had so much effect that Virgins came from the utmost limits of Christendom to be veiled at Milan which S. Ambrose seeing he could not wonder enough that he perswaded virginity where he was not it not being in his power sufficiently to multiply it according to his desire in places where he resided (f) (f) (f) Hic tracie alibi persuadeo si ita est alibi tractemus ut vobis persuadeamus L. 1 de virginibus He caused the Bishop of Bologna to come unto him led on by the same spirit as himself to assist in this design of whom he one day said in full assembly (g) (g) (g) Adest piscator Bononiensis aptus ad hoc piscandi genus Da Domine pisces qui dedisti adjutores Behold the fisher of the Church of Bologna fit for this sort of fish Lord afford fish since you have given us coadiutours And considering that some murmuted at these his proceedings as if the world should instantly fail by this means he shewed in a most eloquent Sermon that no one had cause of complaint either married or unmarried the married because they had wives not virgins the unmarried because they should find sufficient and that the carnal who opposed virginity under pretext of multiplication resisted by this means the chastity of marriages where continency is oftentimes exercised even by necessity as for the rest we are not to believe the world will be ruined through virginity For admit it should fail it would ever be a matter more honourable for it to decay by virtue than concupiscence But it is so much otherwise said he that we should lay hold of that which we see by experience in the Churches of Africa and Alexandria where there are most virgins they have the greatest number of men This employment nothing lessened the assistances which he afforded for the instruction of those who lived in an ordinary course (h) (h) (h) Su perstitions and excesses taken away Above all he endeavoured to root heresies out of their hearts and certain customs of Gentilism which easily stole in by contagion into the houses of the faithfull Among other things there was a Pagan-guise much practised at Milan and other places of Christendom which was to celebrate the first day of the year with riots and disorders a matter much resenting the Bacchanals He so cut off this abuse by his great authority that of a day prophaned with so much sensuality he in few years made it among Christians a day of penance and fasting which for some space afterward was observed in the Church until such time as the memory of the superstitions of Gentilism was wholly extinct Others entertained this foolish belief that when the moon was eclipsed she suffered much through the persecution of ill Angels who then endeavoured to exile her and therefore they went out of their houses with many pans and cauldrons making a loud noise to dissolve as they said the design which evil spirits had against the Moon The sage Pastour made an express homily against this superstition wherein he much confounded those who were infected herewithal Moreover it being a custom very ancient and introduced by the Apostles to make in Churches which then were the houses of the faithfull Agapes that is to say bankets of charity in favour of the poor this by little and little was changed into liberties unworthy of Christianity For sensuality had got such ground that stifling charity in this action it rather seemed a sacrifice to the belly than an act of piety S. Ambrose abolished all these rites and cut off such abuses even in the least root that it was never seen again to sprout in the Church S. Augustine in cited by his example practised the like in Africa and afterward caused the decree to be inserted in the third Councel of Carthage In the proportion that he extirpated vice he planted solid virtues in the hearts of the faithfull whom he ordinarily entertained with these ensuing instructions counselling other Bishops to do the like (i) (i) (i) Puritie of intention First he sought in all places to form in minds a strong imagination of the presence of God unwilling that Christian virtues should be petty hypocrisies guided by the natural extent of humane respect but rather intentions wholly celestial and for that cause he said (k) (k) (k) Si quis solus est seipsion prae caeteris erubescat If any man be alone let him regard himself more than any other in the world (l) (l) (l) Covetousnes opposed Secondly seeing the inordinate desire of riches was a petty apostacy of faith and root of all disorders he very often did beat on this anvile labouring by all sort of good endeavours to withdraw hearts from the love of earth that he might raise them to Heaven Among other things you have these excellent words in the epistle to Constantius (m) (m) (m) Multaoneri moderata usui Viatores sumus vitae hujus multi anbulant sedopus est ut quis benè transeat Saj ienti nihil alienum nisi quod virtuti incongruwn Quocunque accesserint sua omnia Totus mundus possessio ejus est quoniam eo toto quasi suo utitur Ep. ad Constantium To enjoy much is to have a great burden Great riches are a vain ostentation the indifferent for use We are all Pilgrims in this life all the business is not in going perfection consisteth in a ready passage To what purpose do you so torment your self with the desire of boarding Be wise and you shall have sufficient A virtuous man thinks nothing is without him but sin Wheresoever he sets his foot he finds a kingdom All the world belongeth to him because he useth all the world as his own In the third instance he made sharp war against the ambitions and vanities of the time disposing minds as much as he could to Christian humility by this Maxim (n) (n) (n) Ambition Nihil interesse in quo statu quis se probabilem praestaret sed illum esse sinem bonorum ut quocumque quis statu probaretur
flourished in France Mounsieur Godefroy hath published this written by an ancient Authour under Charls the Sixth These petty Rodomonts who make boast of duels meer cowardice covered with an opinion of courage durst not behold this Captain without doing that which heretofore was done to the statues of the Sun that is to put finger on the mouth and admire For not to speak of his other acts of prowess it is he who was present The Marshal Boucicaut at that furious battel wherein Bajazet the Turkish Emperour waged war against the King of Hungarie where there were many French-men the Duke of Burgundie then called the Count of Nevers being there in person The history saith that the Turk coming to fight with dreadfull forces began so furious a charge the air being thickened with a black cloud of arrows that the Hungarians who were reputed good souldiers much trembled at this assault and fled away The French who ever had learned in all battels Piety and valour of a French souldier to vanquish or die unwilling so much as to hear any speech of the name of flight pressed into the Turkish Army notwithstanding the stakes and pyles fixed in the earth to serve as hinderances and attended by some other troups brake the Vanguard of the Turks by the counsel and example of this brave Marshal whereat Bajazet much amazed was ready to retire at which time it was told him there was but a very little handfull of French men who made the greatest resistance and that it were best to assault them He who kept his battalions very fresh returneth and came to fall upon these poor souldiers now extreamly tired Never did angry Lion exercise such violent force amongst the javelins of hunters as was then the prowess which shined in this generous Captain For he having no further purpose but to sell his own life and those of his companions as dear as he could so negligently betrayed he with the French Cavalry and some few other people who stuck to him did such feats of arms that it was thought twenty thousand Turks were slain in the place In the end this prodigious multitude able to weary out the most hardy although it had been but to cut them to pieces did so nearly encompass our French that the Count Nevers with Marshal Boucicaut and the most worthy personages were taken prisoners The next day after this dismal battel Bajazet sitting Horrible spectacle under a pavillion spred for him in the field caused the prisoners to be brought before him to drench himself in bloud and vengeance which he so passionately loved Never was spectacle seen more worthy of compassion the poor Lords who had done wonders in arms able to move Tigers were led as it were half naked straitly bound with coards and fetters no regard being had neither to their bloud which was noble nor youth which was pitifull nor their behaviour most ravishing these Saracens ugly and horrible as devils set them before the face of the Tyrant who in the winck of an eye caused their throats to be cut at his feet as if he meant to carrouse their bloud The Count Nevers with two other Counts of Ewe and Marche had now their heads under the symitar and their lives hung but as it were at a thread when Bajazet having heard by his interpreters that they were neer kinsmen to the King of France caused them to be reserved commanding they should sit on the ground at his feet where they were enforced to behold the lamentable butchery of their Nobilitie The valiant Marshal Boucicaut in his turn was produced covered with a little linnen cloth to massacre him over the bodies of so many valiant men He who was wise and particularly inspired by God in this extremity made a sign with his fingers before Bajazet who understood not his language as if he would declare himself the kinsman of the Count of Nevers who beheld him with an eye so pitifull that it was of power to rent rockie hearts Bajazet being perswaded by this sign that he was of the bloud Royal caused him to be set apart to remain a prisoner where he afterward by his great prudence endeavoured the liberty of those noble Gentlemen and his own I cannot think these petty Novices of war will compare themselves to the valour of this man accomplished with such heroick prowess Let us come if it please you to consider him at Pietie of a souldier leisure whether he were of the number of those who profess themselves wicked that they may seem valiant He was a man who in time of peace whilest he governed the Citie of Genoa daily heard two Masses with so exemplar devotion that he never suffered any man to speak to him in the Church where he said the Office with singular attention for which he so accommodated his company that you should never see the least action of uncomeliness in Divine service which he did not severely punish But the Historian addeth that who had beheld his people at Mass would rather think he saw Religious men than Souldiers Noblemen are of power to bend their families to what they please were it not that through softness of spirit they many times give way to the torrent and contenting themselves to be good make all the rest nought by the easiness of their natures I speak not here to you of a Canonical Saint a Hermit a Religious man a Priest I speak of a Marshal of France of a most ardent warriour Behold I pray whether piety be incompatible Notable devotion of a souldier with arms This brave Captain happily made his Will disposing of all his devotions his affairs and charge each day he executed some part hereof doing all the good he could during his life not expecting the casual portions of others piety as those who cause the torch to be carried behind to light them when they have lost their eyes and indeed never do well but when they are in a condition to be able to do no more The charitable Lord informed himself very particularly of the necessities of the bashfull poor set their names down in his Registers as the rarest pieces of his cabinet appointed on every side his alms to poor Religious to widdows to orphans to needy souldiers namely those who through inability of old age and sickness could labour no more He visited Hospitals giving according to his means round sums of money to furnish and acommodate them if he walked in the streets he ever had charity in his hands that himself might give all he could for he therein took a singular contentment and never was he seen to be so merry as when he had distributed good store of money this was his hunting his game his delight He bare a singular devotion towards the friday in memory of the passion of our Saviour and whilest he was able did eat nothing on that day but fruits and pulse abstaining from all which participated of the
life of beasts and clothed himself likewise with a most simple habit desirous to shew exteriourly some tast of the reverence we ow to the bloud of the Son of God Besides abstinencies commanded he ordinarily fasted the saturday which is dedicated to the memory of the Blessed Virgin He never fed at his repast but on one dish and though he had great quantity of silver vessels he caused himself to be served in pewter and earth being glorious in publick and in his particular an enemy of worldly pomps and vanities I leave you to think how much this kind of life is alienated from the curious Nobility to whom we must daily give so many priviledges and dispensations that it seems it is for their sakes needfull to create another Christendom besides that which hath been established by the Son of God A man would say to see how they pamper their bodies they were descended from Heaven and that thither they should return not passing through the sepulcher for they deifie it and to fatten and guild a dung-hill covered with snow sport with the bloud and sweat of men Superfluity of tast being so well repressed all went Sage government of a family in true measure in the house of this good Marshal his retinue was very well entertained according to his quality and he had a very solemn custom by him religiously observed which was speedily to pay his debts and as much as he might possible to be engaged To pay his debts to none It is no small virtue nor of sleight importance if we consider the Nobility at this time so easily engulfed in great labyrinths of debts which daily encrease like huge balls of snow that fall from mountains and which require ages and golden mynes to discharge them Is it not a most inexcusable cruelty before God and men to see a busie Merchant a needy Artificer every day to multiply his journeys and steps before the gate of a Lord or a Ladie who bear his sweat and bloud in the pleyts of their garments And in stead of giving some satisfaction upon his most just requests it is told him he is an importunate fellow and he many times menaced with bastonadoes if he desist not to demand his own Is not this to live like a Tartarian Is not this to degrade ones self from Nobilitie Christianitie and Reason Is not this to thrust the knife into the throat of houses and entire families Alledge not unto me that it is impossible for you to pay at that time what is demanded Why well foreseeing your own impotency have you heaped up debts which cannot be discharged Why do you not rather admit the lessening of your port Why cut you not off so many superfluous things Are not your sins odious enough before God but you must encrease them with the marrow of the poor From hence ariseth the contempt of your persons the hatred of your name the breaches and ruin of your houses This man in well paying his debts was served and A singular discretion respected of Officers like a little Deitie there was no need to doubt nor to make a false step into his house Never would he suffer a vice or a bad servant were it to gain an Empire Blasphemies oaths lies slanders games quarrels and such like ordures were banished from his Palace as Monsters and if he found any of his family in fault he dismissed them lest they should infect the other yet not scandalizing them nor divulging their offences At the table he spake little and did voluntarily entertain himself with example of virtues in the lives of Noblemen not opening his mouth to discourse of his own proper acts but with singular sobriety In his marriage he demeaned himself most chastely and had such a horrour against impuritie that he would not so much as keep a servant who had a lustful eye Behold the cause why passing one day on horsback through the streets of the Citie of Genoa as a Ladie presented her self at her window to comb her hair and one of the Gentlemen of the Marshals trayn seeing her tresses very bright and beautifull cried out Oh what a goodly head of hair staying to behold her the Lord looked back on him with a severe eye saying It is not well done it is not fit that from the house of a Governour a wanton eye should be seen to glance In this point and all the rest which concerned the commerce and repose of Citizens he rendered so prompt and exact justice that it was a proverb amongst those of Genoa when any one was offended to say to him who had wronged him If you will not right me my Lord Marshal will The other understanding it oft-times rather chose to submit himself to right than expect a condemnation which was inevitable He so by this means gained the good opinion of the people that the inhabitants of the Citie sent to the King beseeching he might continue the government to the end of his days which having obtained it seemed to them they had drawn an Angel from Heaven to fix him at the stern of their Common-wealth At the time that the Emperour of Constantinople then dispossessed of one part of his Empire by the great Turk came into France to demand succour and had obtained of the King twelve hundred men defrayed for a year many widdow-Ladies were seen at the Court who complained of injustices and oppressions by them endured after the death of their husbands whereby this good Marshal was so moved with compassion that with much freedom he instituted an Order of Knights for the defence of afflicted Ladies which he surnamed The Order of the white Ladie because they who made profession of it bare a schuchion of gold enameled with green and thereon the figure of a Ladie in colour white thus sought he by all occasions to do good and shewed himself a great enemy of idleness the very moth of minds He ordinarily rose early in the morning and spent about three hours in Prayer and Divine Service at the end whereof he went to Councel which lasted till dinner time After his repast he gave audience to all those who would speak with him upon their affairs not failing to behold his Hall daily full of people whom he speedily dispatched contenting every one with answers sweet and reasonable from thence he retired to write letters and to give that order to his Officers which his pleasure was should be observed in every affair and if he had no other employment he went to Vespers At his return he took some pains then finishing the rest of his office ended the day The Sundays and Holy-days either he went on foot in some pilgrimage of devotion or caused the life of Saints or other victories to be read daily more and more to dispose his manners unto virtue When he marched in the field he had an admirable way not to oppress any of his company nor would he permit even in the
bodies of his servants and Nilus overflowing with the bloud of his French himself surprized and taken by his enemies and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours out-cries infernal countenāces of Sarazens and all the images of death able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper notwithstanding though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion ever making use of reason he entered into the Barbarians pavillion not at all changing colour and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace he asked his pages for his book of prayers and taking it disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his oraisons in a profound tranquility of mind which I conceive to be very rare since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle to stay devotion which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Councel of Lyons and see how he laboured to depose the Emperour Frederick the second who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent but that they readily invade the goods of others when some religious pretext is offered them would have been very ambitious to be enstalled in his place whom they meant to despoil but the universal consent of great men judged this throne could not be worthily supplied but by this great King yet he notwithstanding declined it as a wise Pilot would a rock and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Sarazens than to mount to the Empire by such ways But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle may be observed in his valour never weakened by his great devotion for he was one of the most couragious Princes in a cold temperature with reason that was then under Heaven It was courage which taking him from the sweet tranquility of a life wholly religious caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment and delights to go to a land of Sarazens live in all incommodities imaginable to nature It was courage which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person not onely to the toyls of a desperate voyage but to the strokes also of most hazardous battels witness when at his arrival in Aegypt the coast being all beset with Sarazens very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water where he was plunged up to the shoulders with his target about his neck and sword in hand as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army which encouraged by the example came to the land as the King had commanded The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the world that it were to bring light into day to go about to mention them If some say He is to be a pattern for Kings and Divers Ladies excellent in piety Lords Ladies who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex shall never want great lights and worthy instructions if they will consider those who being more near to our Age should make the more impression upon their manners If we speak of the endeavour of prayer look upon See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia who continuing days and nights in prayer all covered over with fackcloth affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband and for him gained battels If account be made of the chastity of maidens and sequestration from worldly conversation reflect on Beatrix du Bois who being one of the most beautifull creatures of her time and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her put her self upon so rough a pennance for others sin that she was fourty years without being seen or to have seen any man in the face If you speak of modesty let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon wife of Claudius first Duke of Guize who after the death of her husband was clothed in serge and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women to teach them the practise of alms If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous cast your eye upon Anne of Austria Queen of Poland who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every munday the very same day she yielded her soul up to God when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner and that death might close her eyes when she opened her hands to charity If the instruction of children be much esteemed fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungarie mother of eleven daughters and admire her in the midst of her little company as the old Hen-Nightingale giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues and so breeding these young creatures that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts If you delight in the government of a family which is one of the chiefest praises of married women take direction from Margaret Dutchess of Alencon who governed the whole family with so much wisdom that order which is the beauty of the world found there all its measures and that if the domestick servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries she caused hers to be known by their modestie If you desire austerities look with reverence on the hair-cloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon the Kings great Grand-mother and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay who during a widow-hood of three-score years was twenty of them without ever coming into bed If you praise chast widows who can pass without an Elogie Elizabeth widow of Charls the ninth who in a flourishing youth being much courted by all the great Monarchs of the world answered That having been the widow of a Charls of France she had concluded all worldly magnificencies and that nothing more remained for her but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical amongst religious women whom she had founded If constancy in the death of kinred have place let the lesson be hearkened unto which Magdalen wife of Gaston de Foix gave who having seen the death of a husband whom she loved above all the world and afterward of an onely son remaining the total support of her house made her courage to be as much admired among the dead as her love was esteemed among the living And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions and who can but think the choise becometh hard by
the power of God in his Saints caused a fair Church to be built to this most blessed woman and a Cross to be erected in the place where she left him which was called the Cross of the place Thus was God pleased to ratifie by so great miracles the pardon Constantia had given to Prince Charls I will shut up this discourse with a passage of so rare clemency of a Monarch offended in the honour of a daughter of his by a mean vassal as it seems could never have fallen but into the heart of a Charlemaigne It is to this purpose recounted that one Eginardus Curio l. 2. rerum Chronologicarum who was Secretary to the Prince having placed his affections much higher than his condition admitted made love to one of his daughters which was in mine opinion natural who seeing this man of a brave spirit and a grace suitable thought not him too low for her whom merit had so eminently raised above his birth She affected him and gave him too free access Goodness and in dulgence of Charlemaigne to her person so far as to suffer him to have recourse unto her to laugh and sport in her chamber on evenings which ought to have been kept as a sanctuary wherein relicks are preserved It happened upon a winters night these two amorous hearts having inwardly so much fire that they scarcely could think upon the cold Eginardus ever hastening his approches and being very negligent in his returns had somewhat too much slackened his departure The snow mean while raised a rampart which troubled them both when he thought to go out Time pressed him to leave her and heaven had stopped up the way of his passage It was not tolerable for him to go forward Eginardus feared to be known by his feet and the Lady thought it not any matter at all to see the prints of such steps about her door They being much perplexed love which taketh the diadem of majesty from Queens so soon as they submit to its tyranny made her do an act for a lover which had she done for a poor man it would have been the means to place her among the great Saints of her time She tooke this Gentleman upon her shoulders and carried him all the length of the Court to his chamber he never setting foot to the ground that so the next day no impression might be seen of his footing It is true which a holy Father saith that if hell lay on the shoulders of love love would find courage enough to bear it But it hath more facilitie to undertake than prudence to hide it self the eye of God not permitting these follies should either be concealed or unpunished Charlemaign who had not so much affection in store for women that he spent not some nights in studie watched this night and hearing a noise opened the window and perceived this prettie prank at which he could not tell whether he were best to be angrie or to laugh The next day in a great assembly of Lords and in the presence of his daughter and Eginardus he proposed the matter past in covert tearms asking what punishment might a servant seem worthie of who made use of a Kings daughter as of a Mule and caused himself to be carried on her shoulders in the midst of winter through night snow and all sharpness of the season Every one gave hereupon his opinion and there was not any who condemned not this insolent man to death The Princess and Secretarie changed colour thinking nothing remained for them but to be flayed alive But the Emperour looking on his Secretarie with a smooth brow said Eginardus hadst thou loved the Princess my daughter thou oughtest to have come freely to her father who should dispose of her libertie and not to play these pranks which have made thee worthy of death were not my clemency much greater than the respect thou hast born to my person I now at this present give thee two lives the one in preserving thine the other in delivering her to thee in whom thy soul more survives than in the body it animateth Take thy fair portress in marriage and both of you learn to fear God and to play the good husbands These lovers thought they were in an instant drawn out of the depth of Hell to ascend to heaven and all the Court stood infinitly in admiration of this judgement It appears by the narration what was the mild temper of Charlemaign in this point and that he followed the counsel of S. Ambrose who advised a Father named Epist l. 8. ep 64. Si bonam duxit acquisioit tibi gratiam Si erravit accipiendo meliores facies refutando deteriores Sisinnius to receive his son with a wife he had taken for love For receiving them both said he you will make them better rejecting them render them worse The goodness of these great hearts for all that justifieth not the errours of youth which grievously offendeth when it undertaketh resolutions in this kind not consulting with those to whom it oweth life XIII MAXIM Of the Epicurean life THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That the flesh must be daintily used and all possible contentment given to the mind That life without crosses and flesh void of mortification is the sepulcher of a living man EXperience teacheth us there is in the World a sect of reformed Epicures who do not openly profess the bruitishness of those infamous spirits which are drenched in gourmandize and lust but take Maxims more refined that have as they say no other aim but to make a man truly contented For which purpose they promise themselves to drive all objects from their minds which may bring the least disgust and to afford the bodie all pleasures which may preserve it in a flourishing health accompanied with grace vigour and vivacity of senses Here may the judicious observe that such was the The Philosophie of Epicurus swayeth in the world doctrine of ancient Epicurus For although many make a monster of him all drowned in ordure and prodigious pleasure yet it is very easie to prove that he never went about to countenance those bruitish ones who through exorbitance of lusts ruin all the contentments of the mind and bodie But he wholly inclined to find out all the pleasures of nature and to banish any impediments which might make impression on the soul or bodie For which cause I think Thedor l. 2. Therap Nicet 2. Thesau c. 1. Tertul. apol c. 38. Hieron 2. in Jovin Laertius lib. 10. Senec. l. de vitâ beatâ Theodoret mistook him when he made him so gluttonous as to contend with Jupiter about a sop and that Nicetas who representeth him so licourish after honied tarts well understood him not For Tertullian S. Hierom Laertius and Seneca who better noted his doctrine assure us he was a very sober man and speaketh not in his writings but of pulse and fruits not for the honour he bare to
fall no lower but may contemplate all above him and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble Is a man tempted with pride The consideration of Ashes will humble him Is he burned with wanton love which is a direct fire But fire cannot consume Ashes Is he persecuted with covetousness Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloud-Suckers cast their Gorges Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities 3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death we should there find the streams of life All the world together is of no estimation to him that rightly knows the true value of a just mans death It would be necessary that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napel which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Deaths head And if the other Tulips do please their senses that will instruct their reason Before our last death we should die many other deaths by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin We should resemble those creatures sacred to the Aegyptians called Cynocephales which died piece-meal and were buried long before their death So should we burie all our concupiscences before we go to the grave and strive to live so that when death comes he should find very little business with us Aspiration O Father of all Essences who givest beginning to all things and art without end This day I take Ashes upon my head thereby professing before thee my being nothing and to do thee homage for that which I am and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties Alas O Lord my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousness arise from this caitiffe dust which I am so little do I yet learn how to live and so late do I know how to die O God of my life and death I most humbly beseech thee so to govern the first in me and so to sweeten the last for me that if I live I may live onely for thee and if I must die that I may enter into everlasting bliss by dying in thy blessed love and favour The Gospel for Ashwednesday S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocritical Fasting WHen you fast be not as the hypocrites sad for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Amen I say to you that they have received their reward But thou when thou doest fast anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast but to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret will repay thee Heap not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust and moth do corrupt and where thieves dig through and steal But heap up to your selves treasures in heaven where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not dig through nor steal For where thy treasure is there is thy heart also Moralities 1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise who fasts and afflicts his body to draw the praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger who starves himself that he may swell and burst with vain glory He stands for a spectacle to others being the murderer of himself and by sowing vanity reaps nothing but wind Our intentions must be wholly directed to God and our examples for our neighbour The Father of all virtues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions such lies are abominations in his sight and Tertullian saith they are as many adulteries 2. It imports us much to begin Lent well entering into those lists in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictness have been glorious before God and honourable before men The difficulty of it is apprehended onely by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchen-stuffe It is no more burdensom to a couragious spirit than feathers are to a bird The chearfulness which a man brings to a good action in the beginning does half the work Let us wash our faces by confession Let us perfume our Head who is Jesus Christ by alms-deeds Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience when it is accompanied with pureness and charity but it breeds great thirst when it is not nourished with devotion and watered with mercy 3. What great pain is taken to get treasure what care to preserve it what fear to loose it and what sorrow when it is lost Alas is there need of so great covetousness in life to encounter with such extream nakedness in death We have not the souls of Giants nor the body of a Whale If God will have me poor must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth that I may become rich To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures To rust to moths and thieves were it not better we should in our infirmities depend onely on God Almighty and comfort our poverty in him who is onely rich and so carrie our souls to heaven where Jesus on the day of his Ascension did place our Sovereign good Onely Serpents and covetous men desire to sleep among treasures as Saint Clement saith But the greatest riches of the world is poverty free from Covetousness Aspiration I Seek thee O invisible God within the Abyss of thy brightness and I see thee through the vail of thy creatures Wilt thou always be hidden from me Shall I never see thy face which with a glimpse of thy splendour canst make Paradise I work in secret but I know thou art able to reward me in the light A man can lose nothing by serving thee and yet nothing is valuable to thy service for the pain it self is a sufficient recompence Thou art the food of my fastings and the cure of my infirmities What have I to do with Moles to dig the earth like them and there to hide treasures Is it not time to close the earth when thou doest open heaven and to carrie my heart where thou art since all my riches is in thee Doth not he deserve to be everlastingly poor who cannot be content with a God so rich as thou art The Gospel for the first Thursday in Lent S. Matthew 18. of the Centurions words O Lord I am not worthy ANd when he was entered into Capharnaum there came to him a Centurion beseeching him and saying Lord my boy lieth at home sick of the palsie and is sore tormented And Jesus saith to him I will come and cure him And the Centurion making answer said Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof but onely say the word and my boy shall be healed For I also am a man subject to Authority having under me
approching near the light love their own darkness They hate the light of their salvation as the shadow of death and think that if you give them eyes to see their blindness you take away their life If they seem Christians they yet have nothing but the name and the appearance the book of Jesus is shut from them or if they make a shew to read they may name the letters but never can produce one right good word 4. Others destroy themselves by false lights who being wedded to their own opinions and adoring the Chimera's of their spirit think themselves full of knowledge just and happy that the sun riseth onely for them and that all the rest of the world is in darkness they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductours but at the end of their career they find too late that this pretended light was but an Ignis fatuus which led them to a precipice of eternal flames It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eye-sight and the worst of all temptations is for a man to be a devil to himself 5. Those ruin themselves with too much light who have all Gods law by heart but never have any heart to that law They know the Scriptures all learning and sciences they understand every thing but themselves they can find spots in the sun they can give new names to the stars they perswade themselves that God is all that they apprehend But after all this heap of knowledge they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaob and can produce nothing but bloud and frogs They embroil and trouble the world they stain their own lives and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins It would be more expedient for them rather than have such light to carry fire wherewith to be burning in the love of God and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge All learning which is not joyned with a good life is like a picture in the air which hath no table to make it subsist It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit like the Prophets except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues Aspirations O Fountain of all brightness before whom night can have no vail who seest the day spring out of thy bosom to spread it self over all nature will thou have no pitie upon my blindness will there be no medicine for my eyes which have so often grown dull heavy with earthly humours O Lord I want light being always so blind to my own sins So many years are past wherein I have dwelt with my self and yet know not what I am Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great and see all my crimes in little I too often believe my own judgement and adore my own opinions as gods and goddesses and if thou send me any light I make so ill use of it that I dazle my self even in the brightness of thy day making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage if I were so happy as to know it But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee I will onely contemplate thee O life of all beauties and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes that I may the better apprehend the mystery of thy bounties O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerfull that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory The Gospel upon Thursday the fourth week in Lent S. Luke the 7. Of the widows son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour ANd it came to pass afterward he went into a Citie that is called Naim and there went with him his Disciples and a very great multitude And when he came nigh to the gate of the Citie behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the Citie with her whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not And he came near and touched the Coffin And they that carried it stood still and he said Young man I say to thee Arise And he that was dead sate up and began to speak And he gave him to his mother and fear took them all and they magnified God saying That a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people And this saying went forth into all Jewry of him and into all the Countrey about Moralities JEsus met at the Gates of Naim which is interpreted the Town of Beauties a young man carried to burial to shew us that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the laws of death We fear death and there is almost nothing more immortal here below every thing dies but death it self We see him always in the Gospels we touch him every day by our experiences and yet neither the Gospels make us sufficiently faithfull nor our experiences well advised 2. If we behold death by his natural face he seems a little strange to us because we have not seen him well acted We lay upon him sithes bows and arrows we put upon him ugly antick faces we compass him round about with terrours and illusions of all which he never so much as thought It is a profound sleep in which nature lets it self fail insensibly when she is tired with the disquiets of this life It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh It is an execution of Gods will and a decree common to all the world To be disquieted and drawn by the ears to pay a debt which so many millions of men of all conditions have paid before us is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torrent We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us we die piece-meal every day we assay death so often in our sleep discreet men expect him fools despise him and the most disdainfull persons must entertain him Shall we not know and endeavour to do that one thing well which being once well performed will give us life for ever Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon than to stay late amongst the occasions of sin 3. It is not death but a wicked life we have cause to fear That onely lies heavy and both troubles us and keeps us from understanding and tasting the sweets of death He that can die to so many little dead and dying things which makes us die every day by our unwillingness to forsake them shall find that death is nothing to him But we would fain in death carry the world with us upon our shoulders to the grave and that is a thing we cannot do We would avoid the judgement of a just God and that is a thing which we should not so much as think Let us clear our accounts
before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance and a moderate care of our bodies burial Let us order our goods by a good and charitable Testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children and kinred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the Divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Jesus fountain of all lives in whose bosom all things are living Jesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdom of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud and sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us and we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous and antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud and thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be always of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. John 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sick man Lazarus of Bethania of the Town of Mâ—ry and Martha her sister And Marie vvas she that anointed our Lord vvith ointment and vviped his feet vvith her hair vvhose brother Lazarus vvas sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he vvhom thou lovest is sick And Jesus hearing said to them This sickness is not to death but for the glorie of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Jesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he vvas sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Jewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Jews sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Jesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man vvalk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this vvorld but if he vvalk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Jesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I vvas not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore vvho is called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Jesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania vvas nigh to Jerusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Jews vvere come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore vvhen she heard that Jesus vvas come vvent to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Jesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that vvhat things soever thou shalt ask of God God vvill give thee Jesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this vvorld Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sickness to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God than when she raiseth up the greatness of her courage the body being cast down with sickness A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolours 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange God as they do who seek for health by remedies which are a thousand times worse than the disease But they addressed themselves to the living God the God of life and death to drive away death And to recover life they were content onely to shew the wound to the faithfull friendship of the Physician without prescribing any remedies for that is better left to his providence than committed to our passion 3. He defers his cure to raise from death The delay of Gods favours is not always a refusal but sometimes a double liberality The vows of good men are paid with usury It was expedient that Lazarus should die that he might triumph over death in the triumph of Jesus Christ It is here that we should always raise high our thoughts by considering our glory in the state of resurrection he would have us believe it not onely as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies upon the plants or elements of the world and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature but also as a belief which is fast joyned to the faith we have in the Divine providence which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosom of the earth so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power having passed his word and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity 4. Jesus wept over Lazarus thereby to weep over us all Our evils were lamentable and could never sufficiently be deplored without opening a fountain of tears within heaven and within the eyes of the Son of God This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise How could those heavenly
purified by thy favours that they may celebrate continual days of feast in my soul I am already there in desire and shall be there in presence when by help of thine infinite grace and mercy I can be wholly thine The Gospel upon Saturday the fifth week in Lent S. John 12. The chief Priests thought to kill Lazarus because the miracle upon him made many follow JESUS BUt the chief Priests devised for to kill Lazarus also because many for him of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus And on the morrow a great multitude that was come to a festival day when they had heard that Jesus cometh to Jerusalem they took the boughs of Palms and went forth to meet him and cried Hosanna blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord the King of Israel And Jesus found a young Ass and sate upon it as it is written Fear not daughter of Sion behold thy King cometh sitting upon an Asses colt These things his Disciples did not know at the first but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered that these things had been written of him and these things they did to him The multitude therefore gave testimony which was with him when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from the dead For therefore all the multitude came to meet him because they heard that he had done this sign The Pharisees therefore said among themselves Do you see that we prevail nothing Behold the whole world is gone after him And there were certain Gentiles of them that came up to adore in the festival day These therefore came to Philip who was of Bethsaida of Galilee and desired him saying Sir we are desirous to see Jesus Philip cometh and telleth Andrew Again Andrew and Philip told Jesus but Jesus answered them saying The hour is come that the Son of man shall be glorified Amen Amen I say to you Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die it self remaineth alone but if it die it bringeth much fruit He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world doth keep it to life everlasting If any man minister to me let him follow me and where I am there also shall my minister be If any man minister to me my Father will honour him Moralities 1. ADmire here the extasies of our sweet Saviour He is ravish'd by the object of his death and is transported by the Idaea of his sufferings The trumpet of Heaven sounded in the voice which was heard by this great multitude He encourages himself to his combat he looks confidently upon the Cross as the fountain of his glories and planted his elevation upon the lowest abasements Shall not we love this Cross which Jesus hath cherished as his Spouse He gave up his soul in the arms of it to conquer our souls We shall never be worthy of him till we bear the Ensigns of his war and the ornaments of his peace Every thing is Paradise to him that knows how to love the Cross and every thing is hell to those who flie from it and no body flies it but shall find it It is the gate of our mortality whither we must all come though we turn our backs to it 2. What a great secret it is to hate our soul that we may love it To hate it for a time that we may love it for all eternity to punish it in this life to give it thereby a perpetual rest in that to come To despise it that we may honour it To handle it roughly that it may be perfectly established in all delights And yet this is the way which all just men have passed to arrive at the chiefest point of their rest They have resembled the Flowers-de-luce which weep for a time out of their own tears produce seeds which renew their beauties The salt sea for them becomes a flourishing field as it did to the people of God when they came forth of the chains of Aegypt The cloud which appeared to the Prophet Ezechiel carried with it winds and storms but it was environed with a golden circle to teach us that the storms of afflictions which happen to Gods children are encompassed with brightness and smiling felicity They must rot as a grain of wheat that they may bud out and flourish in the ear They must abide the diversity of times and endure the sythe and flail They must be ground in a mill and pass by water and fire before they can be made bread pleasing to Jesus Christ Our losses are our advantages we loose nothing but to gain by it we humble and abase our selves to be exalted we despoil our selves to be better clothed and we mortifie our selves to be revived O what a grain of wheat is Jesus Christ who hath past all these trials to make the heighth of all heavenly glories bud out of his infinite sufferings Aspirations O God I have that passionate desire which these strangers had to see Jesus I do not ask it of Philip nor shall Philip have cause to ask Andrew My Jesus I ask it of thy self Thou art beautifull even in the way of the Cross Thou didst shew thy self couragious in the Abyss of thy pains thou art admirable in the contempt of death The heavenly trumpet hath already sounded for thee and chearfulness gives wings to carry thee to this great combat where death and life fight singly together which makes life die for a time and death live for ever I will forsake my very soul to follow thee in this Agonie and find my life in thy death as thou hast extinguished death in thy life The Gospel upon Palm-Sunday S. Matthew 21. Our SAVIOUR came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his Passion ANd when they drew nigh to Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage unto mount Olivet then Jesus sent two Disciples saying to them Go ye into the Town that is against you and immediately you shall find an Ass tied and a colt with her loose them and bring them to me And if any man shall say ought unto you say ye That our Lord hath need of them and forthwith he will let them go And this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying Say ye to the daughter of Sion Behold thy King cometh to thee meek and sitting upon an Ass and a Colt the foal of her that is used to the yoke And the Disciples going did as Jesus commanded them and they brought the Ass and the Colt and laid their garments upon them and made him to sit thereon And a very great multitude spred their garments in the way and others did cut boughs from the trees and strawed them in the way and the multitudes that went before and that followed cried saying Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Moralities 1. OUr Saviour goes to his death in triumph he appears to
He is never damnified but alwayes equall to himself because he admitteth not Age but is one day composed of Eternity One may object here that to hope for any thing from another it is not alwayes necessary he be absolutely greater or more worthy then we We hope from artificers we hope likewise from our servants the performance of businesses which we put into their hands and therefore one might inferre that it is not a proposition contrary to reason to say that God can hope something from us as are the praises and service which we are bound to render to him as were likewise our conversion To that I answer it is true that the greatest Monarchs of the earth may hope from the meanest persons of their God is independent of all creatures and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinity of his persections kingdome because they are men and have dependence of men and in this God greatly humbleth great men when he makes them see that all this glorious pomp of their fortune which seems to afford matter of jealousie to heaven and of new laws to earth subsisteth not but by the commerce of merchants and by the labour and sweat of peasants all which makes no impression on the Divinity It exspecteth say you our praises as if God were not his owne praise to himself as if he stood in need of a mortall mouth to honour an Essence Tanquam momentum staterae sie est ante te orbis terrarum Sap. 11 3. Resoluto mundo diis in unum confusis cessante naturâ acquiesâ—â— sibi cogitati onibus suis traditus Sence ep 9. immortall Were all the lipps of men the most eloquent at this present covered under ashes what would it concern him All the world is before him no more then the turn of a ballance Hath not he the morning starres round about his awfull throne I mean those great Angels all replenished with lights and perfections who praise him incessantly And were the world annihilated and the very Angels confounded in the masse of starres and elements he would ever be God alwayes as great as himself and even left alone to his thoughts in his own thoughts he would find heaven But yet you will say he may expect our conversion which partly dependeth on our selves since he who made us without us will not save us without us It is easie to reply thereupon that God hath no need of the God hath no need of our conversion to encrease his glory Fasciculum suum super terram sundavit Amos 6. conversion of men to augment his glory but to establish their salvation and should he have need he continually hath his elect before him in the book of his prescience without blotting forth or thereunto adding any names Think you he expecteth till we have done to judge of our works He knoweth from all eternity what we must do in such or such an occasion his prescience not imposing any necessity upon our free-will This great God sitting in the highest part of heaven continually Manet spectator cunctorum Deus visionisque ejus praesens aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum qualitate concurrit Boet. l. 5. p. 6. beholdeth all the actions of men and the eternity of his vision perpetually present infallibly meeteth with the quality of our merits It letteth us go according to the current of the stream and the choice of our liberty but if he would proceed with absolute power there is no will so determinate upon evil which can resist him And therefore we must conclude his account is already made both within himself and without himself he not any whit depending on the future It is more clear then the day that God cannot hope God supporteth all good hopes by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence Sperastis in Domino in seculis aeternis in Domino Deo forti in perpetuum Isa 16. 2. but it is likewise most manifest that he supporteth all good hopes by reason of the capacity of his Essence of his power and of his goodnesse and therefore Esay speaks very notably You have put your hope in our Lord who is in eternall ages In our Lord I say the true God whose strength is not limitted by length of time Men are weak and God is the God of the strong Men sometimes preserve for a time but God guardeth us eternally Men have their wills as changeable as their power is limitted but God besides that he is of a constancy unshaken exerciseth a power unbounded Where then may we better lodge our hopes then in the Divinity There it is where our second modell I meane the holy We must place our hopes in God by the example of the holy Humanity of Jesus Christ In te projectus sum ex uteâ—o spes mea ab ube ribus matrismeae For what reasons our Lord prayed humanity of Jesus placed all his hope My God my Hope I did cast my self between thy arms so soon as I began to be born in the world and at my going from my mothers bosome But one may here aske of theology If Jesus had the virtue of Hope what is it then he might hope I answer that if he might pray he might hope For prayer and namely a request is not made but with hope to obtein that we seek for Now who doubteth but that Jesus prayed on earth and doth he not also pray now in heaven He prayed saith Theology for four reasons First for the exercise of his virtue which is most excellent Secondly for our example Thirdly for the accomplishment of his commission and lastly for necessity I am not ignorant that S. John Damascen hath said that Christ prayed not but in appearance Damascen l. 4. de side insomuch as prayer being properly an ascension of the mind to God it could not be that the soul of Jesus Christ should mount anew into the Divinity since from the day of his Conception it was there as it were enchased not being able to be separated from it one sole moment But this question is satisfied by saying with Vazquez that it is true that our Lord in regard of the person of the Word could not pray having in this kind no superiour but by reason of the Humanity which might be wanting and indigent without the help of the Divinity therefore he mounted up to the source of the word not by vision and beatifick love which he already enjoyed but by the knowledge of science infused and by a new desire to impetrate something of his heavenly Father I say he already had Beatitude and that he was as it were engulfed in lights of glory he notwithstanding had not yet glorification of his body exaltation of his name extent of his Church from one pole to the other which made him pray and to say with S. John I beseech thee O Father make me glorious and resplendent before the face of all Creatures as I was from
one naturally delights more to obey him that seemeth to entreat in commanding then a power that cometh with an armed hand and threatens to root out that which refuseth it It is fitting neverthelesse that the Prince dispense his favours according to the deserts of his Subjects for it would be a great inequality to be alike to all the world Affectation oftentimes spoils the profession of courtesie and when one gives too many words at too cheap a price and almost indifferently to every one it maketh one think that they are none of the sincerest false gold is too high in colour and a dissembling courtesie is too glorious in appearance this deceiveth some which are not accustomed to it and have no great skill in discerning carrying it self like the Ivy as fairly over crackt pillars as sound ones but those which are better advised are quickly wary of empty courtesies when they with good reason expect better effects Kings although they are great are not able to enrich the whole world there are very many which must be contented with good words but to think alwayes to escape paying with this coin is to deceive himself and the whole world There are so many hungry ones which cannot feed upon flowers which expect gifts and rewards after they have been at great charges and run through great hazards for the glory of the Prince and the good of the State that it is necessary really to acknowledge their services The Prince which thinks himself bound to give nothing or very little betraies his birth shews himself to be lowly minded and of as low a fortune having little reason to expect a great harvest from that field where he sowed nothing he declares his too much greedinesse after temporall goods and if he knoweth little what the love of his Subjects is worth he heaps up the Indian Clay and neglects that patrimony of hearts wherewith God as rich as he is contents himself it happens oft that he finds himself afterwards in the midst of thorny affairs where his silver without friends serves for nothing but to lose But although it behoveth him to give one can hardly say how difficult this profession is to do it rightly there can be no greater losse then to give away all and to give unadvisedly to those which deserve least He that gives too much and above his ability destroyes his liberality intending to confirm it for that by giving too much he taketh the way to be able no more to give any thing John Michel in his Anatomy of a Body Politick saith that the Doctour Bricot in an Oration which he made to King Francis the Just shewed him that he was like to S. Francis whose name he bore that his hands were pierced and could hold nothing as it were which he gave not away and if that he took not heed this would consume all his Revenues and that thereby he would make more poor in his Kingdome then Saint Francis had drawn to his Religion Those Sovereigns that starve their people to nourish the unsatiable greedinesse of some particular are like those mountains that bear fruit not for the use of men but for the birds of prey they give to a few that which they take from the whole and oftentimes fatten full monsters and abominable ones with the bloud of the Publick that they make the ground to tremble under their feet and the heaven to thunder upon their heads Others give that which they can hold no longer as Manuel Comnenus which offered his silver to his souldiers then when he was in the hand of the Sarazens Others give after an evil manner more for that they are not able any longer to deny then with intent to gratifie Others give slowly and little in such a fashion as after they have long time fed mens hopes with wind they pay them at length almost with smoke Others repent themselves presently for having given that which they could hold no longer and have no other content by their liberality then to repent of their hastinesse He that would be truly liberall and magnificent will avoid all these rocks he will give with good advice according to his ability and with a comely grace to the poor Gentry to the Souldiery maimed by his service to Churches to Religious Persons to people of Virtue Knowledge and Desert which do shew themselves profitable for the Publick But to say truth it is a great gift to pardon that by Clemency which one might justly punish by Justice this is that admirable quality that Kings have and nearest approaching to God they cannot create they cannot raise men from the dead and yet to give safety and life to a man is to give him as it were a second Creation it is to give him a being without a not being and to bestow on him a Resurrection without causing him to taste of death What would a man do which should suddenly be made an half-God and which should be transported amongst the stars what would he dream of in what businesse would he take most pleasure unlesse it were to do good and amongst all good to give and preserve the foundation of all the rest which is life There is nothing more glorious then to be able and not willing to revenge an injury the power makes the greatnesse of Majesty but the good will giveth its perfection The Hebrews said that the chiefest work of God was Mercy that he dwelt in his Tabernacle from the beginning of the world unto the day of judgement and that giving all the rest of the time to Clemency he reserved but one day for Justice Away with those Kings of the Macedonians that would appear in their stateliest walks with the head of of a lion this was not to shew their greatnesse but to testifie their brutishnesse The heart of the King saith the Scripture is in the hand of the Lord within that hand that doth nothing but open it self to fill every creature with a blessing from heaven to earth how can it take then there any thought into it self of rage of killing or of sacking It ought to be mercifull even in punishing taking great heed to do nothing by way of revenge but doing all by Goodnesse Clemency doth not exclude Justice but moderate it and if it suffer the life to be taken away from one that is faulty it is to preserve a thousand Innocents It is a cruelty to pardon nothing but it is a double cruelty to pardon all seeing that one cannot equall the evill to the good in so great an inequality of lives and manners unlesse one overthrow a whole State It behoves him wisely and with good advice to discern that which is worthy of pardon and that which is worthy of punishment there are pestilent crimes scandalous and which draw great consequences with them which the Prince cannot leave unpunished without condemning himself There are other faults committed by errour by frailnesse by surprize by strong inducements mighty
extremity particularly inspired by God made a sign with his fingers before Bajazet because he understood not his Language as if he would declare himself the Kinsman of the Count of Nevers who beheld him with so pitifull an eye that it was able to have rent the most rocky-heart Bajazet being perswaded by this sign that he was of the Bloud Royall caused him to be let a part among the prisoners where afterwards by his great wisdome he endeavoured the liberty of those noble Gentlemen and his own I cannot think that the puny Novices of war of our time will compare themselves to the valour of this Heroick man accomplished with such gallant prowesse Let us come if you please and look into his deportment and conversation and consider whether he were of the number of those who professe themselves wicked that they may seem valiant Our Boucicaut was a man who whilest in time of peace he governed the City of Genoa heard daily two Masses with so exemplar devotion that he never suffered any man to speak to him in the Church where he said the office with singular attention for which he so accommodated his company that you should never see the least action of uncomlinesse in Divine Service which he did not severely punish And the Historian addeth that he who had beheld his people at Divine Service would rather think he saw Religious men then Souldiers Noblemen have power to draw their families to what posture they please were it not through pusillanimity of spirit they many times give way to the torrent of nurture and contenting themselves to be good make all the rest naught by the easinesse of their Natures I mention not here a Canonized Saint an Hermit a Religious man or a Priest I speak of a Marshall of France of a most ardent Warriour and Valiant Souldier Behold I pray whether Piety be imcompatible with Arms. This Brave Captain happily made his Will disposing of all his devotions his affairs and Charge each day he executed some part hereof doing all the good he could whiles he lived not expecting the casuall portions of others piety as those who cause Torches to be carried behind to light them when they have lost their eyes and indeed never do well but when they are in a condition to be able to do no more This charitable Lord particularly informed himself of the necessities of the bashfull poore and as the rarest pieces of his Cabinet set their names down in his Register He appointed on every side his Alms to the poor Religious to Widows to Orphans to needy Souldiers namely to those who through disability of old age and sicknesse could labour no more He visited Hospitals giving according to his means round summes of money to furnish and accommodate them if he walked in the streets he ever had charity in his hands that himself might give all he could for he took therein a singular contentment and never was he seen to be so merry as when he had distributed good store of money This was to him as his hunting his game his delight He bare a singular devotion in memory of the passion of our Saviour towards the fryday and whilest he was able did eat nothing on that day but fruits and Puls absteining from all which participated of the life of Beasts and clothed himself likewise in a most simple habit desirous to shew outwardly some taste of the Reverence we owe to the bloud of the sonne of God Besides abstinencies commanded he fasted ordinarily on the Saturday which is dedicated to the memory of the Blessed Virgin He never fed at his repast but on one dish and though he had great quantity of silver Vessels he caused himself to be served in Peuter and Earth being glorious in publick but in his particular an enemy to worldly pomps and vanities I leave you to contemplate how far this kind of life is alienated from the curious Nobility of our dayes to whom so many Dispensations and Priviledges must daily be given that it seems it is needfull for their sakes onely to create another Christendome besides that which hath been established by the Sonne of God A man would say to see how they pamper their bodies they were descended from heaven and that thither they would return without passing through the Grave they Deifie themselves and to fatten and guild a stinking Dunghill covered over with snow they sport with the bloud and sweat of men Superfluity of taste being so well qualified all went in true measure in the house of this good Marshall his retinue was well enterteined according to his quality and he had a very solemn custome by him religiously observed which was speedily to pay his debts and as much as he might possible to be ingaged to none It is no small virtue nor of mean importance to be out of ingagements of this kind if we consider the Nobility at this time so easily plunged in great labyrinths of Debts which daily increase like huge Snow-balls that fall from the mountains and require Ages and golden Mines to discharge them Is it not a most inexcusable cruelty before God and man to see a busie Merchant a needy Artificer every day to multiply his journeyes and steps before the gate of a Lord or a Lady who bear his sweat and bloud in the pleits of their garments And in stead of giving some satisfaction upon his most just demands it is told him he is an importunate fellow and many times is menaced with bastinadoes if he desist not to demand his own Is not this to live like a Tartarian Is not this to degrade ones self from Nobility Christianity and Reason Is not this to ruine and as it were to cut the Throats of whole Houses and Families Alledge not to me that it is impossible for you to pay what is demanded at present foreseeing your weaknesse of estate why have you heaped so many debts which cannot be discharged Why do you not rather lessen your port and live more frugally Why do you not cast off many superfluous things that might be spared Are not offences odious enough before God but you must increase them with the marrow of the poor From hence cometh the contempt of your Persons the hatred of your Name the breaches and ruine of your Houses This man by paying his debts well was honoured and respected of his Officers like a Demy-god there was no need of making any question or doubt nor to make a false step into his house He would never suffer a Vice or bad servant were it to gain an Empire Blasphemies Oaths Lyes Slanders pastimes Quarrels and such like disorders were banished from his Palace as monsters and if he once found any of his family in fault he put them away least they should infect the other yet he would not scandalize them nor divulge their offences At the Table he spake little and did voluntarily entertein himself with the example of virtues which he observed
in the lives of the Nobility never discoursing of his own atchievements but with singular sobriety In his marriage he demeaned himself most chastely and had such an hatred against impurity that he would not so much as keep a servant that had a lustfull eye Behold how passing one day on horse-back through the streets of the City of Genoa as a Lady presented her self at a window to comb her hair and a Gentleman of the Marshalls train seeing her tresses very bright and beautifull cryed out Oh what a goodly head of hair standing still to behold her This Lord looking back on him with a severe eye said It is not well done it is not fit that a wanton eye should be seen to glance from the house of a Governour In this kind and all others which concerned the commerce and peace of the Citizens he rendred so ready and exact justice that it was a Proverb amongst the Genoes when any one was offended to say to him who had done him wrong If you will not right me my Lord Marshall will The other understanding it oft-times rather chose to submit to the right then expect a condemnation which was inevitable By this means he so gained the good opinion of the people that the inhabitants of the City sent to the King beseeching him that he might continue the Government to the end of his dayes which having obtained it seemed to them that they had procured an Angel from Heaven to be set at the Stern of their Common-wealth At that time when the Emperour of Constantinople then dispossessed of one part of his Empire by the great Turk came into France to desire succour and had obtained of the King twelve hundred men defrayed for a year many widdow Ladies were seen at the Court who complained of injustice and oppressions which were offerred them after the death of their husbands whereby this good Marshall was so moved with compassion that with much freedome he instituted an Order of Knights for the defence of afflicted Ladies which he sirnamed The Order of the White Ladie because they who made profession of it bare a Scutcheon of gold enamelled with green and thereon the figure of a Lady in a white Vestment thus sought he by all occasions to do good and shewed himself a great enemy of idlenesse as being the very moath of great Spirits He ordinarily rose early in the morning and spent about three hours in Prayer and divine Service after that duty was performed he went to Councel which lasted till Dinner-time After his repast he gave audience to all those who would speak with him upon their affairs never failing to behold his Hall daily full of people whom he speedily dispatched contenting every one with sweet and reasonable answers from thence he retired to write Letters and to give such order to his Officers which his pleasure was should be observed in all his affairs and if he had no other employment he went to Vespers At his return he took some pains or recreation then finishing the rest of his Office he ended the day On Sundayes and Holy-Dayes he either went on foot in some Pilgrimage of Devotion or caused the Life of Saints or other Histories to be read daily more and more to dispose his Life and Conversation unto Virtue When he Marched into the field he used most admirable discretion never oppressing any of his company nor would he permit even in the enemies Countrey that the least disturbance should be done to Churchmen Behold you not here a Life worthy of a French Cavalier Oh Nobility This man was not a Petty Roister that makes boast to fight in a green meadow But a Souldier who during the Warres with the English kept the Field of Battell three times thirty dayes together against those brave Souldiers who did oppose him from whence he went out all sparkling with glory and wonder I would here willingly adde a Bertrand of Guesclin Count of Longuevil and Constable of France whose Life Mounsier Menard hath given us written by a Pen of that antient Age in as antient Language You should see a man who after he had dedicated his Soul Body and Arms in the Offertory of a Masse at the Altar fought six or seven times hand to hand in the Field exercised strange Feats of Battell and Arms stood in the midst of Combats unmoved and confident as in his Chamber being otherwise furious strong and stout in the presse You should see a man sage in Counsels prompt in Execution whom an Enemy found near at hand when he thought him thirty miles off A man in all things else free from Fraud or Dissimulation Chearfull Courteous obliging and liberall of his own employing his Movables and his Wives Jewels for the relief of poor Souldiers Then you may judge whether by being Valiant you may live in the Court of a Christian Prince like a little Turk Where is your Judgement and where is your Reason BAYARD BEhold a man whose life not long since hath been published to serve as a modell for the Nobility we yet touch him as it were with our finger for he dyed under the reign of Francis the First having served three Kings in their Armies the space of two and thirty years It is the valiant Terrail otherwise called Cavalier Bayard born in Daulphine I willingly make use of his Example both because one of our most warlike Kings the sonne of Francis the First would needs be knighted by his hands to witnesse the honour he bare to his valour as also for that I see therein many noble Martiall virtues of a brave French Souldier passages which taste of the virtue of a true French souldier He was a courageous Captain of excellent direction valiant and magnanimous of whom it was said that he had the assault of the wilde Bull the defence of the Bore and flight of the wolf I set aside his warlike deeds I take some of his virtues which here I will make use of This royall courage had no other aim in arms but the glory of God the service of his Prince and the honour of his profession whereof we have an ample testimony in a short Elogy which his secretary made upon him saying That after these two and thirty years service he dyed almost as poor as he was born Much is spoken in these few words and I think Bayard more glorious under this title then if he had born the Dutchy of Milan on his back He had the true piety of a good Souldier for every morning he prayed to God most devoutly and would not permit any man to enter into his chamber during his devotions He was so obedient to those who commanced in the Army that he never refused any commission imposed upon him Yea well foreseeing that the last charge enjoyned him by the Marshall Bonivet was most dangerous and as it were impossible yet he went thither sacrificing his life to the commandments of the Lieutenant of his Prince
lodged in the heart of spirituall men she sleeps in their bosome as in her nest and because that she is alwayes a companion of ambition and that such kind of persons are ordinarily extreme desirous of the glory that proceeds from the reputation of virtue and of learning it comes to passe that she hath in them more exercise and nourishment This ill-boding Comet discovers in them without ceasing new vapours to be digested and by how much the more aged the envious are by so much the more strong are their habits to this sinne The rayes of virtue and of all perfection are darted continually into the eyes of those of the same house which makes this iniquity increase by the frequentation of its objects Little things prick as well as great and those Spiders find every where matter for poyson Good must be hid from them that their evil may not be discovered and virtue be put out of sight that she may be put out of the danger of being envyed Oleaster saith that God covered Moses with a cloud in those familiar Colloquies which he had with him for fear that that being perceived by the Jews who were at the bottome of the Mountain in its highest lustre might move envy by an object that merited nothing but veneration But how just is God to turn that fury of the Serpents against her self to cause her to promote whiles she abases and to honour while she insults and to sanctifie whiles she persecutes those on whom she imprints the strongest venome of her rage O what a brave spectacle it is to see so many storms poured down continually at the foot of the mountain Athos with an eternall despair to cover it And what an excellent Theatre of Providence is it to behold envious men that envy without ceasing and that are never envied because they have nothing that merits envy they cast out their foam and their froth against a man whom Gods raises upon the wings of glory and by making themselves an hell in their entrails they prepare for him a paradise Joseph sold to the Ishmaelites is bought by Potiphar a great Prince of Egypt who had the confidence of King Pharaoh and his Arms in his hands He enters into the Court a thing which he never had so much as thought on he comes thither with a chain to carry away one day the collar of gold he is received there as a Slave to become a Master and submits his neck under the yoke of Servitude to Govern He enters powerfully into the favour of his Lord who finding him discreet industrious and faithfull gives him the charge of all his house of his goods and of his revenues which he causes greatly to encrease so much were his pains accompanied with an abundance of the benedictions of heaven But the immodest love of his Mistresse raised him great combats that served for an exercise to his virtue to put it in the highest lustre of its glory Behold a point where God shews plainly that one never loses any thing by being faithfull to him and that the greatest triumph of virtues is to have sin in ones power and innocence in ones will Those that would raise fortunes of glasse upon the foundations of iniquity would have thought that Joseph had had a fair opportunity in his hands to promote himself at Court seeing himself beloved of one of the chief Ladies of the Kingdome who was as much disposed to wish him well as powerfull to make his happinesse There was no need to woo her and to gain her heart by many artifices she loves she desires she presses love hath robbed her of the quality of a Mistresse to make her take that of a Servant who offered to him her passion That pleasing beauty of Joseph which virtue placed upon the highest of the thrones of love darted arrows at her that made her forget her self to run after her slave What shall this faithfull servant do that sees that his beauty hath passed him Master in one day of his Lords house and bed He is young it is a vice some one will say pardonable to his age He is a stranger he hath need of an upholder he is a man of fortune he ought not to shut the door against her when she offers her self to him It is a deed that will passe in an eternall secret if he grants his Mistresse's request wealth content authority credit are for none but him if he denies it he must fear chains prisons fire and sword and all that a woman will and all that a provoked love can do It was a great combate wherein Reason had the upper-hand of Passion Grace of Nature and God of Man Joseph would not be fair to the prejudice of another thinking that that was not the true beauty that was adorned to the disadvantage of Chastity but that which is preserved to the honour of Modesty He settled his eyes fast upon the Naturall Law of God whom he adored and although he seemed then to use him harshly in that captivity yet he forgot nothing of his duty He represented to himself the faithfulnesse that he had promised to his Master the short pleasures that accompany sin and the remorse that follows he extinguished the flames of love he brake all his darts and in his slavery made himself master of him that hath captivated so many Kings He came out of the chamber where the snare was laid as a ruby out of burning flames without losing any thing of his integrity and making his fair lustre glitter in the eyes of heaven his onely witnesse He quitted his coat and thought it no more his own after it had touched the hands of that immodest woman he feared lest that contageous venome of love might communicate it self to his heart by the simple touch of a garment he stayes not near her he busies not himself so much as to make her a discourse of continence he answers her by running away and conquers the strongest of the passions by turning to it his back O why were not all the roses and all the lillies that flourished in the gardens of Egypt for that time employed to make immortall crowns for that Chastity that consecrated it self so highly even in the Kingdome of loves O how well did he then merit to be mounted upon a chariot drawn with horses whiter then the snow and to be shown to all Egypt as a tamer of monsters and a triumpher over vices Neverthelesse the love of his Mistresse turning it self into rage he is accused of having attempted to ravish the honour which he preserved His innocence is born down by the artifices of a wife and the credulity of an husband he suffers for virtue all that the most faulty could expect in punishment of their crimes He is put immediately into the dungeon loaden with irons used with all possible rigours without being defended or succoured of any one he expects nothing every moment but an ignominious death to put an
to tell the Governour of Egypt that they had yet another brother Whereupon they informed him that he himself had inquired particularly about the state of all the family and that they had no list to lye not being able to Divine that he would demand that child The necessitie of food and the love of a father combated at the same time in that afflicted heart and he knew not what to resolve on His sons seeing him a little stagger urge him eagerly as one does those that are slow and fearfull when one would wrest any thing from them Reuben offers him his two little sonnes in hostage and would have him kill them if he brings not back to him his Benjamin Judah engages himself for him upon his head and life The battery was too strong for him not to yield he orders them therefore to take some of the best fruits of their Land to make presents to that great Lord of Egypt and to carry their money double to restore that which had been put into their sacks lest it should have happened by an over sight and also to take their little brother seeing that such was the necessity When they came to a departure he felt great convulsions and said to them go then in an happy hour I pray my God the God Almighty which hath never yet forsaken me that he would render that great Governour of Egypt favourable to you and that you may quickly bring back that poor prisoner and my little Benjamin which I put now into your hands upon the promises which you have made to which I call heaven to witnesse Know furthermore that I am deprived of all my children and that I shall be as in the Grave till such time as the happy news of your return shall give me a Refurrection This being said they put themselves on the way arrive at Egypt and present themselves suddenly to their brother who perceived that Benjamin was there whereat he was wonderfully pleased and commanded his Steward to make ready a dinner because he would eat with those strangers They are brought into the house with much courtesie yet as an evil conscience is ever fearfull they perswade themselves that it is to put them in Prison and to keep them in servitude by reason of that money which they had found in their sacks They addresse themselves to the Cash-keeper of the house very much scared and beseech him to hear them they relate to him with great sincerity all that had happened to them protesting that that came not by their fault and offering all that they thought they were indebted to him The other made answer with great affability that he had received of them good money that he held himself satisfied and that if they had found any in their sacks it was their good luck and the God of their fathers that had a mind to gratifie them He gave them notice that they were to dine that day with their Lord who would suddenly return from his affairs to set himself at Table They order in the mean time their present and their brother Simeon is released who embraces them with a joy which was as the fore-runner of a greater They are made to wash and repose themselves and meat is also given to their Mules And when all this was dispatched Joseph enters to go to dinner they prostrate themselves before him with a profound reverence and offer him their presents He receives them with great courtesie and asks of them at first sight how their good Father did and whether he was yet alive To which they answered that God of his goodnesse had preserved to them that which they held most dear and that he was in a very good condition Then he fixt his eyes upon his brother Benjamin and said unto them Is this then your little brother of whom you have made mention to me To which they answer that they had brought him with them to obey his commands and to justifie the sincerity of their proceedings His heart was ravished at him and turning himself towards him My child sayes he to him I pray God to give your his holy Graces and to keep you in his protection Upon this speech he felt his heart very much moved and ran into his Closet not being able any longer to hold his tears and wept in secret so great an impression had bloud and nature and perhaps the remembrance of his Mother who had born them both made upon his Spirit When he had wiped his face he returns with a merry countenance he commands his men to wait He dined apart a little separated from his brethren and from another company of the Egyptians who were also at the Feast and had no communication with the Jews He gives charge above all that they use well the youngest of those eleven brothers which say that they are all the sons of one and the same father and that they should spare nothing on them After all he ordered that they should fill their sacks with Corn and that they should put again the money also in them as they had done at their first journey and spake to his Steward giving him charge to take the Cup in which he drank and to put it in the sack of little Benjamin which he did and after they had well dined they passed the rest of the day in all tranquility expecting the morrow to put themselves upon their way and to return to their father When the day began to dawn after they had bid their Adieus and given their thanks they depared from the City very joyfull for that they had had so happy Accidents But they were not very far before they see a man coming from Joseph that seems exceedingly to chase stops them and sayes to them that some body had stoln away his Masters Cup with which he serves himself to drink in and to Divine things hidden that this could not happen but from them and that they were very injurious after they had been enterteined in the house of the Governour of Egypt with so much courtesie to render him evil for good and to fly away after they had committed a Theft so base and so outrageous The brothers extreamly astonished answer that this cannot be and that they should be the wickedest men upon the earth if they had as much as dreamt of such an attempt That there was no likelihood that they that had brought back faithfully the money that had been put into their sacks would steal in the house of so high a Potentate Furthermore that there was no need of words but that he should come to proof and search every where and that if any one of them was culpable of that sacriledge they were content to deliver him up to death and to render themselves all the Governours slaves for reparation of that fault The condition is accepted with moderation that the faulty should be punished and that the innocent should go free They are all searched in order
hour of the day to remain shut up in the enclosure of a palace walls as old owls and to have no other pleasure but to make fire and bloud rain upon the heads of men What contentment to wax pale at every flash of lightning to tremble at every assault of the least disease to prepare poisons and haltars for every change of fortune to live for nothing but to make men die and to die for nothing but to make the devils a spectacle of their pains Is this it that deserves the name of felicity and the admiration of the world After that Josiah had drawn tears from the eyes of all the Kingdome the people honouring his memory set his son Jehoahaz upon the Throne who reigned but three moneths because that Nechoh puft up with his victory that would not suffer them to think of making a King without his consent came and fell upon Jerusalem and carried him away prisoner into Egypt where he died of displeasure and bad usage He took his brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim to put him in his place and to make him reign under his authority But Nebuchadonozor who esteemed himself the God of Kings could not endure that the Egyptian should intermeddle with giving Crowns came to besiege Jerusalem with great forces and having won it carried away the miserable Jehoiakim captive into Babylon with the flower of the city and the sacred vessels of the Temple when he reckoned yet but the third year of his reign It was a pitifull thing to see this infortunate King in chains after a dignity so short and so unhappy but this so lamentable a change moved his adversary to compassion who released him upon condition of a great annuall tribute He discharged it for the space of three years by constraint his heart and inclinations leaning alwayes towards Egypt and never ceasing tacitely to contrive new plots Besides he so forsook the service of God and abandon'd himself to the impiety of the Idolaters that the admonitions and menaces of the Prophet Jeremy that had foretold him of a most tragicall issue had no power upon his spirit And therefore Nebuchadonozor returned the eleventh year of the reign of this unhappy King and having conquered him again caused him to be assassinated and his body to be cast on the dunghill for a punishment of his rebellion He permitted his son Jehoiachin otherwise Jechonias to succeed him but scarce had this disastrous Prince reigned three moneths before this terrible Conquerour transported him with his mother his wives and servants and made him feel in Babylon the rigours of Captivity after he had robbed him of all his treasures and drawn out of Jerusalem ten thousand prisoners of the principall men of all Judea so that this deplorable Realm was then between Egypt and Babylon as a straw between two impetuous winds incessantly tossed hither and thither without finding any place of consistence Nebuchadonozor made a King after his own fancy and chose Zedekiah the uncle of Jehoiachin who was at last the most miserable of all the rest Here it it that Jeremy received a good share of the sufferings of his dear countrey and found himself intangled in very thorny businesses in which he gave most excellent counsels that were little followed so resolute were the King and Nobles to their own calamity He had been very much troubled under the Reign of Jehoiakim for as he was prophecying one day aloud of the ruine of the city of Jerusalem and the entire desolation of the Temple the Priests seized upon his person and caused the people to mutiny against him out of a design to make him be torn in pieces But it chanced by good hap that some Lords of the Court ran to appease that tumult before whom Jeremy justified himself and protested that it was the Spirit of God that moved to fore-tell those sad disastres for the correction of the sins of Jerusalem and that the onely means to shelter themselves from the wrath of heaven was seriously to embrace repentance and told them that it was in their hands to do him Justice and that if they used him otherwise they would shed innocent bloud that would rebound against them and the whole city Those Courtiers judged that there was nothing in him worthy of death and delivered him from the hands of those wicked Priests that were ready to assassinate him there being no persecution in the world like to that which comes from sacred persons when they abuse their dignity to the execution of their revenge After this shaking command is given him again to hold his peace and to remain shut up in a certain place without preaching or speaking in publick which was the cause that he dictated from his mouth his thoughts and conceptions to Baruch his Secretary commanding him to read them in a full assembly of the people which he did without sparing the great and principall men to whom he communicated them so that this passed even to the ears of King Jehojakim who would needs see the book and when he had read three or four pages of it he cut it with a penknife and cast it into the fire commanding that Jeremy and his Secretary Baruch should be apprehended But God made them escape ordaining that that deplorable King that had despised his Word and the admonitions of his Prophet should fall into that gulf of miseries that had been fore-told him The same abominations ceased not under the Reign of Zedekiah and Jeremy resumed also new forces to fight against them and to publish the desolations that should suddenly bury that miserable Nation then Pashur one of the principall and of the most violent Priests caused the Prophet to be brought before him to reprehend him for that he ceased not to fore-tell evils and to torment all the world by his predictions Whereupon he entred into so great a wrath against the innocent that without having any regard to the decency of his dignity he stroke him and not content with that caused him to be clapt in prison and chains to be put upon him This Divine personage seeing himself reduced to that captivity for having brought the Word of God and being left as it were to himself to do and suffer according to nature and humane passions was seized with a great melancholy and made complaints to God which parted not but from the abundance of love that he bare to him Ha! what said he my God have you then deceived me And who doubts but that you are stronger then I Who am I to resist you You have made me carry your word and to speak boldly your adorable truths to Kings and Peoples and for this I am handled as an Imposture and as the dreg of nature and the reproach of the world Behold what I have gained by serving you with so much obedience and fidelity Often have I said by my self I will obey the Magistrates I will hold my peace and remember no more the thoughts that God
best testimony of full satisfaction As he departed the King came in and then it appeared Love and Piety how Grace and Nature wrought their effects for the innocent Queen fashioning her countenance and her words to the most sensible passion spake thus unto him Alas and wherefore thus SIR Is this that I have deserved for loving you above all the men in the world Must I be forced from your friendship to adhere to my most cruel Enemies If I have deserved death for doing you all the good that lay in the possibility of my power what hath this little Innocent in my womb commited whom I do not preserve but onely to increase your power The Excess of these violent proceedings will tear away the life both from the Mother and the child and then I am afraid you will too late discover the violence and rage of those who perswade you to destroy that which you should hold most dear and to bury your self in my ruins As she spake these words and mixed them with The King reconciled with the Queen her tears the Kings heart was softened into compassion Upon his knees he demanded pardon breathing forth many sighs accompanied with groans and tears of love And having declared to her the conspiracy that was plotted for her ruine he told her That he now came either to live or to die with her This confidence did greatly rejoyce her and having exhorted him above all things to appease the anger of God and particularly to have recourse unto his mercy she gave him instructions necessary for him she counselled him to dissemble this their love and make not the least discovery of it to the Conspiratours but onely to represent unto them that he had found the Queen very ill and that the violence of her malady might be as strong as poison or steel to take her out of the world That there was now no more need of keeping any Guard upon her for in passing affairs according to their advice he would answer for her if God should not otherwise dispose of her This counsel was followed and after the King had perswaded the Rebels to what he had desired he returned to his dear wife and about midnight both of them saved themselves nine or ten thousand armed men being drawn together by the diligence of the Earl of Bothuel who in one morning made the whole rebellion to vanish with the Rebels Now the Earl of Murray had re-possest himself Choller and Vengeance Nejudicial of the favour and good opinion of the Queen but the King who well understood the pernicious counsels of which he was the Authour and that he made him serve to be his instrument at the death of the Secretary could by no means endure him and though the good Queen who would have nothing done violently had expresly charged the contrary he was resolved to seize upon him But Murray apprehending the ill intent of the King towards him did by a most detestable crime prevent it by drawing to him the Earl of Bothuel a man bold of spirit and of hand and prevailing on him to massacre the King assuring him that he should marry the Queen if ever he arrived to the end of his fatal Enterprize This miserable King whom Jealousie had transported to the cruel murder of the Secretary was now again fully reconciled to his wife and loved her most tenderly and conceived an extream pitie to see her youth intangled among such pernicious counsels of her enemies He was then at Glasco sick of the Small-pox which the Queen understanding she immediately repaired thither to bring him unto Edingborough where were better accommodations for him At the same time Horrible inventions of Envy and Vengeance the Conspiratours assembled themselves to accomplish their Design and moreover they had a desire to involve the Queen and her Son in the same ruin but they feared that it would be too apparent and it would be more expedient for them to bring all the Envy of the death of the husband upon the head of his wife whom they conceived to be still highly offended for his ill demeanour towards her To which purpose they undertook to torment her spirit and prompt her to thoughts of vengeance which they never could effect so strong was the new knot of their reconciled love They deliberated amongst themselves to put this miserable Prince to death by fire and because it was inconvenient to perform it in the Palace they entered into counsel amongst themselves to remove him into a fair house which was at the upper end of the Citie where they had prepared a fatal Myne for his destruction His sickness being such the Queen accorded to his removal and very innocently did take her husband by the hand and did conduct him to the Entery of his Lodging where with a singular prudence she disposed of every thing which concerned the recovery of his health And not contented with that she stayed with him without the apprehension of any danger of infection which put the Plotters of this delicate conspiracy into fear but she seemed to be nothing troubled at it and staying with him until midnight she entertained him with all the satisfaction that he could expect from so bountifull a Nature As soon as she was retired behold by the secret The death of Henry Stuart artifice of the powder to which fire was given under the lodging of the King the chamber was blown into the Air and the bed all on fire He found himself to be desperately in wrapped in this calamity and the Authours of the Mischief conspiring with the Elements did dispatch him outright having found him half dead in a Garden into which place the violence of the fire had thrown him The Queen hearing of it was possessed with a wonderfull amazement and lost in the depth of sorrow she feared every thing and knew not what to do or what to hope every hour attending to see the end of that Tragedy to be the beginning of another on her own life The malicious Earl of Murray who now had given the blow by the instrument of his wickedness as he had spoken a little before to those that were nearest to him that the King should die the same night did cunningly retire himself The people murmured and knew not what to take to but the clearest sighted amongst them perceived that it was a work of this pernicious Brother who had a desire utterly to destroy the Royal Family to mount himself upon the Throne And this is that which Cambden assureth us in the Cambden in the first part of his History in the year 1567. first part of his History who though by Religion he was a Calvinist and by profession the Historiographer to the Queen of England yet he hath not dissembled the truth in confirmation whereof he produceth proofs as clear as the day with the attestations of the Earls of Huntley and Argathel two principal Lords of Scotland who
was his condition of life assigned him from his nativity but by this most detestable murder he is now become the Regenet of a great Kingdom Who had a more labouring desire to see the King out of the world than he who daily expected from the hand of death the just reward of his disloyalty We are here ready to represent unto him a paper signed with his own hand and the hands of his Adherents where amongst them all they are obliged against all to defend that person who should attempt upon the person of the King That execrable writing was intrusted in the hands of Bolfou Captain of the Castle of Edinborough whom at the first they had drawn unto their side and being since incensed against some of the Conspiratours hath discovered all the business This is that which we now manifest with reasons more clear than the day and with assurances as strong as truth it self My Lords We demand what is that which the Rebels oppose against all these proofs nothing at all but frivolous conjectures which are not sufficient to condemn the vilest creature in the world although they are made use of to overthrow the person and Majesty of a Queen Ten thousand tongues such as Murrays are and his Accomplices ought not to serve to make half a proof against the honour of Mary and yet you have the patience to hear them rather than chastise them Her poor servants have bin examined again and again they have been torn to pieces and flead alive to accuse the Queen and could ever so much as one effectual word be racked from them to stain her innocence Have they not in the middle of their torments declared aloud and before all the people that she was ignorant of whatsoever was done and that they never heard the least word proceed from her which tended to the murder of the King All their Reasons are reduced into two Conjectures The first whereof is That the Queen committed the said Act in revenge of the death of her Secretary The second is Her Love and Marriage with the Earl of Bothuel the murderer of her husband these two are the inevitable charges against her But to answer to the first I demand If the Queen had any desires of revenge on whom should she exercise that vengeance Upon her husband whom she loved with incomparable affection whom in all companies she defended as a young man seduced by evil counsels to whom she had given a full forgetfulness and abolition of the murder of David Riccio for fear that one day he should be called to an account for it whom she very lately had received into favour and the strictest friendship to whom she had given the testimonies of a fervent love unto the last hour of his death Is it on him that she would discharge her choller or on those who were the Authours and Executioners of the act If she hath pardoned the Earls of Murray and Morton her sworn Enemies whom on a thousand occasions she could cut off here is it to be believed that a Lady who had ever a most tender conscience would destroy a husband so agreeable to her and whom she knew to have never offended but through the malice onely of these desperate spirits But why then hath she married him who made this attempt against the King her husband This is their second Objection and to speak the truth the onely one which they so much crie up For this it is that they have taken away her Rings and Jewels and put in the place of them infamous letters invented by Buchanan or some like unto him who treat of love not as in the person of a Princess but of a loose licentious woman And these Letters when they were produced did appear to be never made up or sealed but exposed to all the world as if so chaste and so wise a spirit as this Queen could be so stupid or so wicked as to publish her own infamy to the face of all the world But in the end they say the Marriage was accomplished And who did do it but these onely who now do make it a capital Crime These are they who did give advice to this match by reasons did sollicit it by pursuits did constrain it by force and did sign it by continuance Behold we are here ready in your presence to represent unto you the Contract which doth bear their names and seals of Arms which they cannot disprove The Queen hath protested before God and men that she had rather die ten thousand deaths than to have married Bothuel if she had thought he had been stained but with one drop of her husbands bloud and if he had not been proclaimed to be innocent And now judge My Lords with what impudence they dare appear before you and do believe that the Queen of England hath sent you hither to serve their passions and sacrifice so great a Princess to their vengeance We do hope all the contrary and do firmly perswade our selves that the great God the undoubted Judge of the living and the dead will inspire you with such counsels as shall give the Day to Truth for the glory of your own consciences and the comfort of the most afflicted of Queens who desireth not to breathe out the rest of her life that is left her but under the favour of your Goodness This in this manner being spoken the Agents and Deputies for the Queen having aloud protested that they here assembled not to acknowledge any power Superiour to the Crown of Scotland but onely to declare in the behalf of their Queen being unwilling to lose time in words they came to the proofs and did defend them with incredible vigour making in the first place the falsifications which were very ordinary with the Earl of Murray to appear in full Councel In the second place representing the Contract of the Marriage with Bothuel which he condemned to be signed by him and his Adherents Moreover producing the instrument of the Conspiracy against the King subscribed by their own hands and signed by their own Seals And lastly reporting the Depositions of John Hebron Paris and Daglis who being executed for this Act did fully discharge the Queen at the instant of their death before all the people After that the Commissioners had judged the Her justification Queen of Scots to be innocent of all the Cases and Crimes which falsely had been imposed on her by her traiterous and disloyal Accusers and that the proceedings which they made were for no other purpose but to exempt themselves from the crimes which they had committed and to cover the tyranny which they had exercised in the Kingdom of Scotland The Earl of Murray did flie away filled with The confusion of her Accusers fear and with confusion seeing that his life was in great danger if he had not been secretly protected by the Queen of England In the pursuit of this Sentence the most honest of the Councel did
smiling she added some few words that she blamed Paulet and Deurey who guarded the Prisoner for not delivering her from that pain It is true that in the morning she sent one named Killigrew to Davison to forbid to put that command in Execution whether it were that her Remorse of Conscience had put her into some frights her sleeps being ordinarily disturbed with horrible Dreams which did represent unto her the images of her Crimes or whether it were an artifice to procure her the reputation of being mercifull in killing with so much treachery The Secretary came to her in the field and declared to her that the Order for the Queen of Scotland's death was now finished and sealed on which she put on the countenance of displeasure and told him that by the Counsel of wise men one might find out other expedients by which it is believed that she intended poison Nevertheless she now was commanded that the Execution should be delayed And as Davison presented himself to her three dayes afterward demanding of her if her Majesty had changed her advice she answered No and was angry with Paulet for not enterprising boldly enough the last of the Crimes And said moreover That she would find others who would do it for the love they did bear unto her On which the other did remonstrate that she must think well of him for otherwise she would ruin Men of great Merit with their posterity She still persisted and on the very same day of the Execution she did chide the Secretary for being so slow in advancing her Commands who as soon as he had discovered the affair the evil Counsellours did pursue the expedition with incredible heat for they sent Beal a Capital Enemy of the Catholicks with letters directed to certain Lords in which power was given them to proceed unto the Massacre who immediately repairing to the Castle of Fotheringhey where the Queen was prisoner they caused her to rise from her bed where the Indisposition of her body had laid her and having read unto her their Commission they did advertise her that she must die on the morning following 16. She received this without changing of her countenance and said That she did not think that the Queen her Sister Her death and miraculous constancy would have brought it to that extremity But since such was her pleasure death was most agreeable to her and that a Soul was not worthy of celestial and eternal joys whose body could not endure the stroke of the Hang-man For the rest she appealed to Heaven and Earth who were the witnesses of her Innocence adding that the onely Consolation which she received in a spectacle so ignominious was that she died for the Religion of her Fathers she beseeched God to increase her constancy to the measure of her afflictions and to welcome the death she was to suffer for the expiation of her sins After she spake these words she besought the Commissioners to permit her to conser with her Confessor which by a barbarous cruelty was refused a cruelty which is not exercised on the worst of all offendours and in the place for a Director of her conscience they gave her for her comforters the Bishop and the Dean of Peterborough whom with horrour she rejected saying That God should be her Comforter The Earl of Kent who was one of the Commissioners and most hot in the persecution of her told her Your life will he the death and your death will be the life of our Religion Declaring in that sufficiently the cause of her death whereupon she gave thanks to God that she was judged by her Enemies themselves to be judged an instrument capable to restore the ancient Religion in England In this particular she desired that the Protestants had rather blamed her effects than her designs After the Lords were retired she began to provide for her last day as if she had deliberated on some voyage and this she did with so much devotion prudence and courage that a Religious man who hath had all his Meditations on death for thirty years together could not have performed it with greater Justice And in the first place she commanded that supper should be dispatched to advise of her affairs and according to her custom supping very soberly she entertained her self on a good discourse with a marvellous tranquillity of mind And amongst other things turning her self to Burgon her Physitian she demanded of him if he did not observe how great was the power of the Truth seeing the sentence of her death did import that she was condemned for having conspired against Elizabeth and the Earl of Kent did signifie that she died for the apprehension which they had that she should be the death of the false Religion which would be rather her glory than a punishment At the end of supper she drank to all her Servants with a grave and modest chearfulness on which they all kneeled down and mingled so many tears with their wine that it was lamentable to behold As soon as their sobs had given liberty to their words they asked her pardon for not performing those services which her Majesty did merit and she although she was the best Mistress that ever was under heaven desired all the world to pardon her defects She comforted them with an invincible courage and commanded them to wipe away their tears and to rejoyce because she should now depart from an abyss of misery and assured them that she never would forget them neither before God nor men After supper she wrote three letters one to the King of France one to the Duke of Guise and the third unto her Confessor Behold the letter in its own terms which she wrote unto King Henry the Third SIR GOD as with all humility I am bound to believe A Letter unto Henry the Third having permitted that for the expiation of my sins I should cast my self into the Arms of this Queen my Cousin having endured for above twenty years the afflictions of imprisonment I am in the end by her and her Estates condemned unto death I have demanded that they should restore the papers which they have taken from me the better to perfect my last Will and Testament and that according to my desire my body should be transported into your Kingdom where I have had the Honour to be a Queen your Sister and ancient Allie but as my sufferings are without comfort so my requests are without answer This day after dinner they signified unto me the sentence to be executed on the next day about seven of the clock in the morning as the most guilty offendor in the world I cannot give you the discourse at large of what is passed It shall please your Majesty to believe my Physitian and my servants whom I conceive to be worthy of credence I am wholly disposed unto death which in this Innocence I shall receive with as much misprision as I have attended it with patience The
catalogue of Kingdomes and Titles as provokes the emulous terrifieth their neighbours and pricketh even those that are removed from them by intervals of distance They apprehend the Dignity of one to presage the danger of all They conjecture that the extent of his jurisdiction bodeth an unattempted servitude to all Kingdomes they fear whatsoever the land provideth and whatsoever monsters the sea nourisheth Greedy Domination that could never yet overcome it self when it hath once been cherished by Fortune it unlearneth nature and forgetteth moderation Moreover the temperature of the Nations as they report is fiery hot and dry swelling with pride patient of hunger and well enduring labour thirsty after glory prone to admire it self and apt to continue the virtue and valour of other Nations I produce not these things as the emanations of my own judgement which for the present is addicted to no Nation but comprehendeth all in Christ but I commemorate the vulgar reports and such things as are openly bruted by many which if they were supprest by a removall of their Causes it could cut off the occasions of many controversies The French on the other side as they write who have had knowledge of them although they are forward to dart reproaches against others unable to endure them and most impatient of contempt yet they know they are of that Nation whereof it was said Animóqūe supersunt Jam propè post animam They boast that they filled the world with the fame of their Arms before the Spaniards could redeem themselves from the diuturnall servitude of the Goths and Vandals That they have managed the Empire of the East and West that they have vanquished Constantinople by assault restored Jerusalem to Christ and Rome to the Pope seven times deprived of it by his enemies They affirm that the Gospel was first preached unto them that the primigeniall adoption of the Sonnes of God was given to them that they have advanced Learning in all Christian Kingdomes the whole world almost becoming Students of our Academy at their Paris in a word they think they have nothing to be contemned they are more apt to desire admirers then able to dispence with contemners From hence it comes to passe that both the Nations being prodigall in the accumulations of their own and envious of the others glory such flames have of late been kindled as will it may be feared become unquenchable Would to God that that Charity which is diffused in us by the spirit would suffocate these super-seminated tares of contentions Oh that it would cut off the occasions of these inhumane strivings then should we have fewer anxieties and more supportable labours of heart knowing by what remedies we might resist so pestilent an evil This is frequently augmented by the servants and favourites of Princes whilst with a familiar but a direfull glory to the greatest Empires they desire to boast the power of their Lords they display all their offensive strength and ability to hurt they presse a secret beneficence and whilst they proceed in these ambitious circulations nay whilst they bewray a fear and discover in themselves a caution by that very sedulity and caution they provoke things not to be feared and act things not to be tolerated Here I appeal to you great Masters of Policy and Participatours of hidden Councels I speak more willingly to you then to your Fortunes Consider how much God hath given you and how much he requireth of you You sit as Gods among men the Arbiters of mankind what shall be each mans lot is the verdict of your Dispensations What good things Felicity intendeth to each individuall person she pronounceth by your mouths what Navies must be prepared what Warres must be prosecured what Cities destroyed what Nations depopulated are the ambiguous effects of your opinions You are judges of the fortunes and bloud of men and of your behaviours and existimation men are judges God the discerner of all things judgeth of your head at the terrible and inevitable audit Every one beholdeth many things by the deception of his own sense uttereth many things from the dictates of affection I cannot believe what is reported that so eminent persons blest with such admirable wits adorned with the glorious gift of prudence and conscious of this frailty of humane affairs can think themselves seated in that heighth to measure all things by the circle of their own advantage that publick plenty should quit the preheminence to their private profit that all things should be serviceable to their amplitude that they should dispose their trust according to the level coyl of love hatred and ambition and that they should sacrifice the bloud of the people to their Fortunes that they therefore love Warres and are affected with Divisions and Confusion hoping thereby to purchase to themselves more beneficiall or honourable commands to close with an opportunity of treasuring up large summes of money and by the necessity of their Ministration to wed themselves to a more faithfull office or to leap into an Authority of a more hopefull permanency but goodnesse forbid that such sordid earthly and narrow cares should be the dishonourable employment of such capacious souls I rather believe that you are incited by emulous anhelations after your Masters glory whereof you have ever been most zealous ever prepared to retaliate his injuries to assert his Majesty and to dilate his Empire but I beseech you by the immortall God and by so many beloved pledges of your Kingdomes to take heed and diligently to beware lest a supervehement appetite of Glory make them averse from the right pursuit of Glory You follow Glory by a muddy search but now all mortall men desire it by a clear acquist Consider where there is the greatest splendour of celestiall virtues either in the loud cracks of thunder possessing all men with sudden fear and when fires and thunderbolts are promiscuously hurl'd about or in a fair day the air being defecated and serene and the pleasure of the light dispelling sadnesse from mens hearts hitherto you have made the power of your Lords sufficiently fearfull now render it sweet and make it amiable for therein onely it is invincible This is not the greatnesse of Princes to be alwayes encompassed with the terrours of his armed men and busied in warlike preparations with a fiery mouth to be alwayes denouncing the cruelties of torments and tortures to condemne these men to fetters those to the sword perpetually to carry about him fire and darts to make his progresse thorow smoaking Cities over the trampled bodies of half dead men and to exhaust all things lest they should be exhausted How much more glorious is it like a fortunate Cornet to prevent and exceed the hopes of all men with causes of rejoycing To repair things ruinous and disordered to conveigh glad tydings of consolation to the pensive soul to recollect things scattered and to reunite things divided By this heavenly solicitude many Kings lending their succour