Ancients both Greek and Latine they will tell us wonders but let us hearken to Holy Scripture and Fathers First Immisit Deus soporem in Adam cumquè obdormivisset tulit unam de costis ejus replevit carnem pro eá aedificavit Deus costam quam tulerat in mulierem Adam particeps Angelicae curiae intravit in sanctuarium Dei August l. 9. de Genes ad lit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aquila 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Symach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertul. Accidentium spiritus in Genesis chap. 2. where the creation of woman is declared it is said that God caused a profound sleep to steal upon Adam and that being asleep he drew woman out of his side These words are very considerable What meaneth it that God before he made woman caused sleep to steal into the eyes of Adam I will not here tell you that some have glossed that he could not have admitted this production of woman in any other manner but I affirm with the Septuaginta this sleep was an extasie with Saint Augustine that it was a repture and with others a trance of spirit For he then had need enough to fortifie himself with consideration since woman came into the world who would bid him many battels Poor Adam fell into an apoplexy into a convulsion into swooning fits as already feeling the cross thwartings passions and afflictions he should receive from woman Moreover who can but admire the phrase which the Scripture useth in this creation where it is said woman was built Good God! what meaneth this thou already hadst erected so many goodly buildings Heaven and earth the high and low stations of the world thou hadst created Adam with a plentiful concurrence of many parts and yet the Scripture saith not thou then didst build but when woman was to be created God built God made his first piece of architecture And why It is because woman is a house wherein the heart of man should inhabit who is alas there but too often captive Or is it that a woman costs as much in making as a fair house To build a house you must have so much sand lime stone timber iron-work manufactures hands strokes of hammers masons carpenters and to dress and attire a woman so many coiffs kerchiefs cawls so many false hairs paintings gowns petticotes chopins verdingals whalebones so many carcanets gold chains jewels gemmes attendants that a house were almost as soon built as a woman furnished What doth she when she is built Saint Augustine saith she becomes the scholler of a serpent the gate of sin the fountain of errour and the rust of pietie Good God! what unhappiness is this If from the side of man a flaming dart or keen sword had been drawn they would have done less hurt than an evil woman which I speak without prejudice of the virtuous The first woman ungrateful towards God a traiteress to her husband a murderess of her race made a bridge for Satan to pass into the world and needs would lodge him in her heart whom God had confined to the deep pit of hell Others who have prostituted themselves to evil for these five thousand sixe hundred and thirtie years that the world hath circumvolved have acted upon this large Theatre of many forms so many bloudy tragedies that they make histories to blush thereat The daughters of Loth the Thamars Athaliaes Jezabels Vasties Helenaes Fredegondaes approve it and their ashes also incessantly produce others into the world Work-mistresses of all mischief Alas Mothers instruct your daughters well whilst they are young breed them up in the fear of God frame them to duty imprint on their tender hearts as with a searing-iron the love of chastity modesty in their behaviour and devotion in their souls And you young men who suffer your selves to be cheated and deceived by impudent women permitting them to bewitch you with love-drinks and wicked attractives open your eyes and behold the precipice before you and then I doubt not you will abhor it Trust not their familiar conversation Efficacissimum est glutinum ad capiendas animas mulieris August and dalliances know they are full of danger and that there is not any can resist them without the particular grace of God Strength little availeth the Sampsons sunk to the ground Wisdom is to seek the Solomons fell Valour therein is short the Davids found it Sanctity is not free from their batteries the Elishaes were persecuted by women and the John Baptists therein lost their heads That venerable face those eyes enflamed with heavenly rays which won reverence from the wild beasts of the desert could not mollifie a female dancer That wise head where the maxims of eminent virtues resided was taken from the shoulders of a Saint carried in a dish to a banquet by the sacrilegious hands of a shameless woman That tongue from whence distilled a stream of honey was pricked and pierced with a bodkin wherewith the wretch used to curle her hair Now according to the counsel of Saint Chrysostom take into your hands this bloudy head ask of it O head which should never die who hath drenched thee into the wanness of death Who hath bathed thee in this bloud Who hath put out thine eyes the torches of the elect and thunder-strokes of the wicked Who hath layed an eternal silence on that tongue which first of all announced the Kingdom of Heaven The love of women Lyons and Tigers reverenced me in wildernesses and women massacred me in a Kings Palace women mingled my bloud with wine and made me as a pompous morsel of their tragical banquets When I say this I not onely accuse women but carnal men who suffer themselves to be allured and surprized with sottish love and trampling under foot the honour of God the presence of Heaven and Angels the conjugal bed and faith promised to their wives wallow themselves in execrable adulteries which fill families with opprobrie confusion and tragedies why say I families nay Kingdomes and Empires and if we will well examine it we shall find the greatest part were turned topsie-turvie by foolish love O you that sigh hearing speech of the furious disorders this unhappy sin brings into the world I beseech you with Saint Paul by the very bowels of our Lords mercy offer your bodies to God as an hoast lively holy and acceptable to the Divinity and you especially who are in the state of marriage entertain your beds honourable and chaste cemented with a perpetual knot of faith love and peace that God may please thereon perpetually to shower down from on high his holy benedictions and after the course of this painful life crown you with comforts in the glory of the Blessed The thirty fifth SECTION That the evils of marriage ought not to be imputed to sex but sin and of the disorders committed in this Sacrament IF the unhappiness of marriages proceeded onely from women we might necessarily conclude they were alwayes unfortunate
leave a spirit in perpetual dotage Let us rather set our feet on the steps of Catholick Religion where we planted them from our tender age It is not so cloudy as the Manichees suppose it Ambrose hath already much freed me from errours let us pursue the rest I but Ambrose hath not leasure for thee Let us read where shall Disturbances of mind in S. Augustine we find necessary books and where have fit time Thy schollars busy thee all the mornings take at least some hours after noon to enjoy thy self But when shall I admit the necessary visits of friends that must be entertained and when the preparations for my lectures and when my recreations Let all be lost so I may gain my self This life as thou seest Augustine is most miserable and death uncertain If it catch thee upon a surprise in what estate wilt thou leave this world And where dost thou think to learn that which here thou hast neglected But how if death also should conclude the faculties and life of the soul It is a madness to think onely on it since all the greatness and choise of Religion wisdom and sanctity fights for the immortality of the soul We should never so much employ the spirit of God in so great advantages as he hath given us if we had no other life but that of flies and ants Augustine thy evil is thy sensuality If thou wilt find God thou must forsake thy self and from this time forward bid a long adue to worldly pleasures Thou art deceived when thou hast left them thou wilt have the repentance to have done that too soon which thou oughtest not to do nor canst thou any more make an honourable retreat into the world Let us live we have good friends we may in the end have an office a wife means and all sort of contentments There are too man◠miserable enough through necessity that consent not to it by any act voluntary To conclude a wife and the truth of the Gospel are not things incompatible Behold how this poor spirit turmoiled it self in the retirement of his cogitations as himself hath declared in his Confessions He beheld the life of Saint Ambrose and his chastity with an eye yet benummed and surcharged with terrestrial humours and it reflected some rays upon him but he found it so high mounted in the throne of its glory that the sole aspect affrighted him he measured continency by his own forces not by the grace of God Behold why he Confes 6. 11. Amans beatam vitam timebam illam in sede suâ despaired of a single life and thought a wife was a chain sometime unhappy but ever necessary He lived at that time with Alipius and Nebridius two noble Africans his intimate friends who followed him charmed with his doctrine and sweetness of his conversation and from this time they proposed that life to themselves which they afterward led He often put them upon the intention to establish a good manner of life to pass the rest of their days in the study of wisdom Alipius who was very chast maintained this could not be done in the company of women according to an ancient saying of Cato who affirmed If all the world were without a woman it would not be exempt from the conversation of gods Augustine that was less chast than Alipius and much more eloquent prepared himself to dispute this question strongly and firmly against him so that it seemed saith he that the old serpent spake by his mouth so much he connected together reasons and allegations to maintain his opinion The good Alipius was much amazed to behold such a great spirit so tyed to flesh and as he attributed much to all his opinions respecting him as his Master it was a great chance he had not drawn him into voluptuousness through a simple curiosity of experience This miserable snare stayed all his good purposes and needs must he break them to put this great soul into full libertie The ninth SECTION Three accidents which furthered this Conversion IT happened either by the industry of holy Saint Monica who failed not to observe opportunities for the salvation of her son or by a secret inspiration of God that the woman whom he had brought with him from Africk and with whom he had always lived in fair correspondence preserving to him inviolable faith as if she had been his lawfull wife resolved to leave him saying That she had now fulfilled the measure of her sins That it was time to think upon a retreat that she should die with this onely grief not to have tears enow to wash the offences of her youth so unthriftily wasted For the rest never man should possess her after him and that all her loves should be from this time forward for him who made her onely she recommended unto him a son which she left praying he would shew himself as a father and mother unto him Augustine was much amazed at this speech It seemed his heart was pulled away from him to see himself separated from a woman he so faithfully had loved and on the other side he was full of confusion to behold that she shewed him the way which he sought he not yet feeling himself strong enough to follow her example It was not in his power to stay her any longer nor to approve what she did His spirit was pensive and divided not knowing upon what to resolve After the departure of this woman the mother who as yet knew not the will of God speaks to him of marriage and he cast his eyes upon a young virgin of a very good house which much pleased him who though she were two years younger than the lawfull age of marriage permitteth he resolved to stay for her but in the mean space he found out new loves taking another unlawfull woman in the place of her whom he had forsaken Yet for all that he desisted not from the enquiry of truth feeling none of all those engagements more than that of love which made the sharpest resistance against him and seeing he could not accost S. Ambrose in his great multiplicity of affairs with that facility he wished he made his address to Simplicianus Holy Simplicianus Priest of the Church of Milan He was one of the most venerable men that was then in Europe endowed with infinite piety and excellent literature For this consideration he was delegated by his holiness to serve as a spiritual Father to S. Ambrose Otherwise he was so humble and modest that to give his Bishop the upper-hand he very often counterfeited ignorance in questions which he right well knew consulting with S. Ambrose as an Oracle because of his dignity and giving a perfect example to all of the duty we ow to the Prelates of the Church Besides these ornaments of virtue and science this holy man had strong attractives in the facility of his conversation and sweetness of entertainment so that a certain particular grace
your self by the practise of retirement of penance of hair-cloth and fasting A holy maid of Alexandria was twelve years in a sepulchre Raderus to free her self from the importunities of concupiscence cannot you be there one hour so much as in thought Another had this stratagem to elude love for she seeing Speculum Anonymi a young man to be very much touched with her love who ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits which passion could suggest told him she had made a vow to fast forty dayes with bread and water of which she would discharge her self before she would think of any thing else and asked whether he pleased not to be a Party for the triall of his love which he accepted but in few dayes he was so weakned that he then more thought upon death then love Have not you courage to resist your enemy by the like arms your heart faileth you in all that is generous and you can better tell how to commit a sin then to do penance Then chuse out that which is most necessary and reasonable separation from that body so beloved which by Separation the first remedy its presence is the nourishment of your flames Consider you not that comets which as it is said are fed by vapours of the earth are maintained whilst their mother furnisheth them with food so love which shineth and burns like a false star in the bottome of your heart continually taketh its substance and sustenance from the face which you behold with so much admiration from the conversation which entertains you in an enchanted palace full of chains and charms Believe me unlose this charm stoutly take your felfe off dispute not any longer with your concupiscence fly away cut the cable weigh anchor spread sails set forward go fly Oh how a little care will quickly be passed over Oh how a thousand times will you blesse the hour of this resosolution Look for no more letters regard not pictures no longer preserve favours let all be to preserve your reason Ah! why argue you still with your own thoughts Take me then some Angel some Directour The counsel and assiduity of a good directour is an excellent antidote who is an able intelligent industrious couragious man resign your self wholly up to his advice he will draw you out from these fires of Gomorrha to place you in repose and safety on the mountain of the living God I adde also one advice which I think very essentiall which is infinitely to fear relapses after health and to avoid all that may re-enkindle the flame For Love oft-times resembleth a snake enchanted cast asleep and smothered which upon the first occasions awakeneth and becomes more stronger and more outragious then ever You must not onely fortifie your body against it but your heart for to what purpose is it to be chast in your members and be in thought an adulterer Many stick not to entertain love in their imagination with frequent desires without putting them in execution but they should consider that Love though imaginary makes not an imaginary hell and that for a transitory smoke they purchase an eternall fire § 10. Of Celestiall Amities BUt it is time we leave the giddy fancies of love to behold the beauties and lights of divine Charity which causeth peace in battails conquest in victories life in death admiration on earth and paradise in heaven it self It is a strange thing that this subject the most amiable of all proves somewhat dreadfull to me by the confluence of so many excellent Writers antient and modern who have handled it so worthily since thier riches hath impoverished their successions and their plenty maketh me in some sort to fear sterility They had much furtherance in their design they took as much stuffe as they thought good referring all that to the love of God which is in nature and above nature in grace and beyond grace They have enlarged themselves in great volumes the sight whereof alone seems to have much majesty and to please their own appetites they have said all they might possible But here forasmuch as concemeth my purpose I have reduced my self into contractions of great figures which will not prove troublesome if measures and proportions be therein observed and nothing forgotten of all that which is most essentiall to the matter we treat I find my self very often enforced to confine giants to Myrmecidia opera apud Aelianum the compasse of a ring and to cover ships under the wing of a fly drawing propositions out of a huge masse of thoughts and discourses to conclude them in a little Treatise not suffering sublimity to take ought away of their facility nativenesse of their majesty shadows of their lustre nor superficies of their dimensions Besides that which renders this my discourse the lesse pleasing is that speaking to men of the world I cannot disguise the matter in unknown habits splendid and pompous words conceptions extatick I cannot perswade them that a Seraphin hath penetrated rhe heart of one with a dart of fire and that another hath had his sides broken by the strength of the love of God I must pursue ordinary wayes and teach practises more nearly approching to our humanity I am then resolved to shew there are celestiall Amities which great souls contract with God that their condition is very excellent and most happy and that the practice of them must begin in this world to have a full fruition of them in the other Carnall spirits which onely follow animall wayes have much a-doe to conceive how a man can become passionate in the love of God and think there is no affection but for temporall and visible things It is a Love too high say they to transferre their affections into heaven It is a countrey wherein we have no commerce There comes neither letter nor message thence No ships arrive on that coast It is a world separated from ours by a great Chaos wholly impenetrable That there may be a celestiall amity by the commerce of man with God How would you I love God since he is all spirit and I a body He is Infinite I finite He so High and I so low It is a kind of insolency to go about to think of it Behold how spirits ignorant of heavens mysteries do talk But I maintain upon good grounds that we are made to place our love in the heart of God and that if we do not seasonably take this way well we may go on but never shall we arrive at repose First the Philosopher Plato hath worthily observed An exellent conceit of Plato Plato in Sympos Marlil Ficinus Amor memoria primi ac summi purissuni pulchri Appetitor artis desertor artificis amplectitur speciem eujus non miratur authorem S. Eucherius ep Paraenâ—t that the love we have here below is a remembrance of the first fair sovereign and most pure of all beauties which is
nothing but God and It God who was in it with eternall contentments It which was in God with reciprocall and wholly ineffable affections This heart of Jesus resembled the Halcions nest which cannot hold one silly fly more then the bird it self So he knew not how to lodge one creature in himself to the prejudice of the Creatour but could tell how to lodge them altogether to uâ—ite them to their Head O it was properly his businesse to give us this lesson which he afterward dictated by one of his Oracles He loveth thee not August â—olil Minà s tâ— amat qui tâ—cum aliquid amat quod propter te non amat Apoc. 8. enough whosoever loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee From solitude he entred into the silence which Synesius calleth Beatifick Silence and which S. John placeth in heaven in the peacefull condition of the Blessed It was properly the calm and repose which the holy soul of Jesus took with his heavenly Father in his divine Orisons which he many times continued the space of whole nights watching and weeping for us and dwelling as it were in the fire of love It is that silence which the Canticle calleth the Cantic 3. Bed of Solomon encompassed with threescore valiant ones but of that great Host of Angels From silence he passed to the suspension whereof Job speaketh Job 7. 15. Elegit suspendium anima 〈◊〉 where his soul felt it self totally pulled up by the root from earth but not as yet placed in heaven because he was corporally in this transitory life We verily find three admirable suspensions in Nature That of water in the clouds of Heaven above the clouds and of earth under the clouds and two ineffable suspensions in the Humanity of Jesus The first is that of his blessed soul which was alwaies hanging at the heart of God and the second of his body on the Crosse to purifie by his death all the regions of the world both above and beneath above by the exhalation of his spirit beneath by the effusion of his bloud After suspension he mounted to insatiability which Daâ—iâ—â— Cardi. â—â— Hymno dâ— Paradiso Avidi semper plâ—ni quod habent de â—â—â—â—rant caused him that drinking those eternall sources by long draughts in the delighrs of Contemplation which streams upon him from heaven he slaked his thirst in his own bosome not quite quenching it therein retaining the condition of those who see God of whom it is said That they are still replenished yet still greedy incessantly desiring what they possesse From insatiability he came to the degree of Indefatigability which caused him perpetually to spend himself in most glorious labours for the redemption of the world measuring and running over the earth as the sun doth Heaven and fowing virtues and benefits every where to reap nought but Ingratitude From thence he proceeded to that Inseparability which tied him for the love of his heavenly Father not onely to the punishment of the Crosse but to so many scorns and miseries as he embraced for us and he made so much account of this mortall flesh which he took of us that he associated it unto himself with an eternall band and hath transmitted it into the bosome of Immortality placing his wounds which were the characters of his love and of our inhumanity even in the sanctuary of the most blessed Trinity From this Inseparability he suffered himself to slide into languours extasies and transanimations which make up a Deified love such as was that of Jesus Languour dried him up with the zeal he had for our salvation exhausting all the strength of his body and to speak with Philo he seemed as if he would have transformed his flesh into the nature of Mark 3. 21. his spirit causing it to melt and dissolve under the ardours of ineffable affection as we see a Myrrhe-Tree which distilleth the first fruits of its liquour under the lustre of the sun-beams Extasie which bare this great soul with a vigorous violence to the heart of God made a truce in all the actions of sensitive nature and as it happeneth that the Ocean extraordinarily swelling up upon one shore forsaketh the other So the spirit of our Saviour already divinized amassing together the whole multitude of his forces to serve his love and satisfie the passion he had towards his celestiall Father overflowed in the heart of the Divinity with so immeasurable a profusion that all his inferiour Nature seemed to be forsaken and despoiled of the presence and government of his soul In the end he entred into that transanimation which Orig. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anima ilia quasi scrâ—um in igne semper in verbo semper in sapientia semper in Deo in convertibilitatem ex verbi Dei unitate indesinenter ignita possidebat so powerfully united him to God that onely retaining the property of two natures Divine and Humane he made an incomparable commixtion of heart of love of affections and conformities which made Origen say This soul like unto Iron which is on burning Coles was alwayes in the word alwayes in wisdome ever in God and took an immutable constancy from the ardour wherewith it is enkindled in the union of God If you find this love too sublime for you behold it as it were tempered and reflected in so many saints as were S. Paul S. Augustine S. Bernard and so many other §. 13. A notable Example of worldly love changed into divine Charity I Will give you a very familiar one in a man of the world a man of the Court and one who is at this present a treasure hidden from many who was hated by the envious persecuted by the proud condemned by the Ignorant and yet a great servant of God It is the learned and pious Raymundus Lullus as it Vitae Patrum Occid l. â— Ex Carolo Bovillo appeareth by his life faithfully written in the Tome of the lives of the Western Fathers This man flourished above three hundred years ago and was born in the Island of Majorica of a notable extraction which gave him passage into worldly honours and caused him to be bread in the Court of his King by whom he afterward was made one of his prime Officers Never was there a man more inclining to love for he loved transportedly and spent all his youth in this vanity having no employment more acceptable then to write amourous verses to expresse his passion In the end he fell into the snare of a violent affection that long turmoiled him which was the love of an honourable Lady endowed with an invincible chastity Here ordinarily love which delights to pursue what it cannot arrive unto finds most admiration for the eyes and food for its flame He was so on fire in this quest that he thought he should lose his wits suffering himself to fall into unbeseeming and extraordinary actions so farre as being one day on horse-back
gaudium sed Lazarus mortuus est inquir gaudeo propter vos quia non eram ibi An tristitiaâ—â— sed triâ—â—is est anima mea usque ad mortem An excellens observation upon the terming our Saviour a Lambe light of his glory Notwithstanding we must not think he would undergo all sorts of passions especially such as carry in them any uncomely misbeseeming but those he took upon him which were most decent and incident to man If love saith the oracle of Doctours be a humane passion Jesus hath taken it shewing many times tendernesse of affections towards persons of merit as it is said that seeing a young man who had strictly kept the commandments of God from his most innocent years he loved him and had some compassion of him for that he entred not directly into the way of the Gospel being withheld by the love of his riches If fear be accounted among the motions of nature had not he fear and anxiety when he was near unto his passion If you look for joy doth not he say Lazarus is dead but I rejoyce for your sake because by this means the Apostles faith must be confirmed Lastly if sadnesse be the inheritance of our condition hath he not said My soul is heavy to the death But there are other passions which he would never admit as sensuall Love Hatred of a neighbour Envie and Anger As for that which concerneth this last passion it is certain that our Lord was more meek and gentle then all men from whence it came that he would be called the lamb of God by a solemn title and that he in the primitive Church was represented under the same figure as it appeareth in the Christening Font of Constantine where the statue of a Lamb of massie gold poured out the water of Baptisme Never in his greatest sufferings hath he shewed one least spark of anger or impatience but was alwayes calme and peacefull even shewing an incomparable sweetnesse to a naughty servant who had cruelly wronged him at the time of his passion And as for that he did in the matter of buyers and sellers that ought not to be called anger but a servent and vigorous zeal which caused him to punish irreverences committed against his eternall Father Good God! Had we perpetually before our eyes this mirrour of meeknesse we need not seek for any other remedies His aspect would remedy all our anger as the brazen serpent cured the plagues of Israell This sacred fish would cause a Calm wheresoever it rested and the presence of his aspect would banish tempests but since passion so cloudeth our reason let us apply remedies more obvious against the motions of anger §. 5. Politick Remedies to appease such as are Angry ANger being a jealous passion ever grounded upon the opinion of contempt ought to be handled with much industry and dexterity There are some who very soon are cured by joy by the meeting of light-hearted people and by some pleasing and unexpected accident This notably appeared at the Coronation of Philip Augustus where there was a prodigious confluence Rigordus of many people who out of curiosity excessively flocking thither much hindered the Ceremony A certain Captain troubled to see this disorder was desirous to remedy it ceasing not to cry out and thunder with a loud voice to them to be quiet but the earnestnesse of those that thronged had no ears for Thunders which made him being much incensed with anger to throw a cudgell he had in his hand at the heads of such as were the most unruly and this cudgell being not well directed lighted upon three lamps of Chrystall hanging right over the King and Queens heads which breaking the oil abundantly poured down upon them All there present were troubled at an act so temerarious but the pleasure of the fight put off their anger The King with the Queen his wife instead of being offended laughed heartily seeing themselves so throughly besmeared and a Doctour thereupon inferring that it was a good presage and that it signified aboundance of unction both of honours and prosperities which should overflow in their sacred persons they had no power to be angry out of the Imagination of glory which drieth up the root of this passion Verily there is no better a remedy to appease such as are cholerick then to flatter them with honour and submission which likewise was to be seen in that which happened in the person of Carloman He was a virtuous religious man brother of King Pepin who had buried himself in humility Chronicon Cassinense that he might couragiously renounce all the greatnesse whereunto by birth he was called It fell out that being in a Monastery of Italy not discovering himself he begged he might serve in the Kitchin which was granted him But the Cholerick cook seeing him to do somewhat contrary to his liking not contented to use him harshly in words with much indignity strake him But there being not any thing which more vexeth a generous spirit then to see him ill treated whom he most loveth Carlomans companion who was present not remembring himself to be a religious man entereth into a violent anger and suddenly taketh a pestle and throws it at the cooks head to revenge the good father who bare this affront with incredible generosity But so soon as this his companion had declared his extraction and related all which had happened the whole convent fell at his feet who was affronted and begged pardon of him Where were to be seen sundry sorts of passions Some of indignation others of compassion the rest of Reverence But Carloman thought it a thing intolerable to see himself honoured in such a manner whilst his Companion laughed beholding the Cook beaten and the submissions yielded to his Prince There are others who seeing their friends much incensed seign to take their part and seem angry with them saying this wicked fellow must at leisure be chastised to render his punishment the more exemplary Mean while they give time and expect the return of reason and then they perswade the contrary Many also have in apparence pretended fear to flatter the anger of great ones who take pleasure to render themselves awfull in this passion as did Agrippa towards the Emperour Caligula §. 6. Morall Remedies against the same Passion I Will descend into more particulars against the three More particular remedies against the three sorts of anger kinds of choler which we infinuated As for the first which consisteth in that hastinesse and heat of liver that breaks forth in motions somewhat inordinate First I say God is offended to see persons who make profession of a life more pure and whose soul verily is not bad to be perpetually upon the extravagancies of passions unworthy of a well composed spirit Besides it causeth a notable detriment to our repose For by being often angry our gall increaseth as Philosophers observe and the encrease of gall maketh us the more
Imperiall Palace that all such as should have any ill purpose towards the chastity of Ladies and meant to debauch the wife of another were to take heed under grievous penalties never to lodge within the circuit of the house Verily this is a rare example of integrity able to shame the nobility so much defamed by giddy and base luxury which hath blasted the lustre of its conquests and not spared to raise up bloudy tragedies which still make Historians to lament 9. Clodoveus who brought not virginity from Paganisme Baronius ad annum 499. so much honoured virgins that in the liberty of arms he permitted not any to touch either their bodies or lands He bare a singular reverence to S. Geneviefue who made profession of this angelicall virtue he willingly gave ear to her request and often granted her what he had denied the greatest in his kingdome even to the drawing of offendours from the gates of hel who had already the executioners ax over their heads 10. Gontranus his grand-child made himself much Greg. Turon l. 9. c. 27 worthy of praise by a notable act he did in the behalf of Chastity It happened that in his time one Amalon Count of Champaine who no more spared the honour of Virgins then his own of which he was infinitely prodigall caused a Virgin as fair as chaste to be taken that he might dishonour her Whilst he expected the successe of this theft he feasted and drank according to his custome immoderately Wine which enkindleth concupiscence quenched it in him by reason of his excesse and whilst he more thought upon sleep then love this poor unfortunate victime was stoln into his bed with all menaces and violences that fury could invent The poor Virgin seeing this Holophernes was fast asleep thought it were not amisse to renew the History of Judith to vindicate her honour from this gulf whereinto the craft of this treacherous man had precipitated her she takes a sword which hung at the beds-head draweth it out of the scabbard and gave him a wound on the head which awakened him from this dead-sleep and made him cry out Murder His servants speedily ran thither and were ready to knock down this Amazon when the other touched with remorse of conscience hindered it and gave her leasure to escape through the throng of the people The wound being mortal quickly carried him out of the world after he had had some time to detest his sin But his kindred and allies sought for nothing but to cut this young Judith in pieces who had dared to lift up a sword against a man of so eminent quality Wherefore she had recourse to King Gontranus and prostrated her self at his feet telling him all the story which had passed between the Count and her The King hearkned to her and freed her taking her into his protection against all such as would enterprise upon her life or honour 11. Lewis the Courteous consecrated his Kingdome by the honour he gave to chastity resolving not to enter into his father Charlemaignes palace until it was sanctified He instantly banished thence all those plagues which laid snares for the honour of the Princesses his sisters replenishing his whole Royal palace with a holy odour of virtue and reputation 12. S. Lewis may serve for an Example to all Princes Vita S. Ludovici inasmuch as may concern the continency of the married To banish all Love-toyes from his heart he resolved perfectly to love the Queen his wife whom he Conjugall Chastity S. Lewis espoused in his most tender years and both of them lived and conversed with so much integrity sweetnesse and admiration that one would have thought them a pair of Angels on earth The husband secretly stole into the chamber of his dear spouse and much he feared to be met by the Queen his mother who seemed to such as did not well understand her intentions to be somewhat jealous to see them together But to say truly she managed these interviews in their tender youth that their health might not be prejudiced and their marriage might become the more fruitfull And the good King to give her no cause of suspicion had little dogs in the lobby of purpose that they might bark and afford him leasure to save himself and not be surprized by the diligence of Blaunch in the Queens chamber His love was accompanied with so much respect and confidence that he dispatched not any businesse without communicating it with her in such sort that when he was to conclude the conditions of his deliverance with the Sarazens he freely told them he could not sign them without the advice of the Queen his wife who was not farre off At which these Barbarians were much amazed but he answered them it onely belonged to them to account their vvives for slaves and that his vvas his Lady and Mistresse 13. Our most Christian King an imitatour of S. Lewis in the virtue of purity possesseth it in such a degree that in him it more dependeth on a gift from God then the temper of man Praises are often given to Princes which are as colours in the air and have no foundation in their merit but this hath taken such an incorruptible root in the integrity of his manners that it will never die which might minister matter for me here to enlarge had I resolved to write a Panigyrick and not a History which treateth of things past as Prophecy those which are to come 14. I think I have sufficiently touched in the first and second Tome the notable acts of Charles the Eighth and Chevallier Bayard and I am confident History Helgaldus Monachus Floriacensis will never suffer the austerities of holy K. Robert to die who to mortifie concupiscence sometimes lay on the boards the seven whole weeks before Easter 15. I do not account them contemptible who having not had the happinesse to live in this great purity of S. Lewis have not spared to resist love which had formerly mastred them Dagobert a young King bred Notable victory of Dagobert against love Paulus Aemil. Haymonius in all virtue by the care and zeal of S. Arnold his Tutour took liberty in vice very irregularly so soon as this grave directour had obtained leave to retire from the Court There are spirits which resemble the wooden Dove of Archytas the Philosopher which flew by engines whilst they had their operation and soared in the air but so soon as they ceased it trailed the wing on the earth Such was our Dagobert who perpetually having this worthy man Arnold by his sides he spake as an Oracle and lived like an Angel There was not any thing more chaste more devout and more affable which was the cause that his Tutour thinking there was no more need of him about his person urgently entreated he might be permitted to withdraw into the Countrey which the King gain-said even to the expression of anger if he spake any more of this
great store of sheep that had violently taken one onely Ewe from a poore man which David finding very strange judged him worthy to dye The other hits him home and tells him that it was himself that had caused poor Vriah to be slain after he had taken his Bathsheba from him He brought to his memory the good things that he had received from the Divine Bountie even from his infancy and how by this action he had ill rewarded them with so great ingratitude Whereupon he declared to him the mischances that should happen to him to his house and posterity David awaking as it were out of a dead sleep acknowledged his sin with a true humility and submitted himself to all the chastisements which it would please that great Judge to draw forth for his unfaithfullnesse He entred at that very present into great grief for the Davids repentance fault committed not so much for the punishment that he should receive therefore as for the love of his so good master accounting it the greatest punishment of sinnes to have offended He was presently changed into another man he was no more that amorous David but a Penitent exceedingly humbled a heart bleeding eyes weeping a sad and disfigured face a body made thin sighings redoubled one upon another joynts pined away with fastings and austerenesse a continuall avoiding of all Society of the light and day which reproched him with his offence and a fixed love of solitarinesse and tears His Harp hanging up knew no more what songs of Triumphs meant and was wholly employed in expressing his griefs This heart dying to all mortall things of the earth was upon the coasts of the sea of Repentance which he made to eccho with his groanings and swell continually with his weepings whereby he fell into a great sicknesse and God beginning the punishments of a sinne pardoned caused the child conceived in adultery to dye and suffered him not to bring up any young one of Bathsheba before he had espoused her by lawfull marriage A year after those pittifull Tragedies of his house Punishment upon the house of David began which covered it with horrour and filled his heart with terrours Amnon the eldest son of David fell in love with his sister Thamar a very fair Princesse and which was of the mothers side as well as of the fathers of the blood Royall The more hindrances that he saw in that his love both by his quality and virginity and kindred and the inclination of the maid the more was his concupiscence enflamed This kind of passion ordinarily covets that which it should least of all desire and that which it can least bring to passe This was a subtle poyson breathed forth by the contagion of the fathers example which had possessed the brains of this miserable one His burning lust was His that which tormented him most The King his Father goes to see him to take order for his health There is but one medicine saith he that could heal him which is that his sister Thamar who hath the skill of making excellent broth may prepare some with her own hand for to cause him to have an appetite This is very readyly granted to him The poor maid which suspected nothing is ready to give him content for the better recovery of his person he causes all others to avoid the place and prayes her to stay in the chamber for to give him to eat but without any other counterfeits he takes away the Mask and declares to her his detestable passion at which Thamar who was a Maid of Honour conceived as great horrour as could be alledging unto him that this was a deed unheard of amongst the people of God But this barbarous one proceeded on to force her and deflowred her body without getting the consent of her minde The passion was no sooner evaporated but that he entred into as furious a repentance not enduring to behold her with his eyes which caused him to remember his heinous crime He drives her out of his house with reproch where she would have left her life with her honour her mourning attire and head covered with ashes testified the funerall of her virginity At last she cast her self under the protection of her brother Absolon who was born of the same mother and rehearsed to him the disastre that had happened unto her Her brother comforts her and injoyns her silence having in the mean while no vein in his body that did not swell to revenge this dishonour The report thereof came to the knowledge of the father who remembring his own offence durst not censure that of his sonne besides that he loved him with too tender an indulgency and feared to grieve him the which made him seem to wink at all that had passed wherein he cannot be excused from having committed a great fault which proceeded from a vicious mildnesse Absolon seeing that David said nothing continued in great dissimulation never complaining of Amnon but resolved to do himself justice with his own hands And having kept two years his design fast lock'd up in his breast to avoid all suspition thereof he prepares a Royall Feast to which he invites the King his Father and all his brethren David excuses himself and the other earnestly entreats that his eldest brother Amnon might supply his place unto which the father consents The brethren enter joyfully into the Hall where the Banquet was where the Furies had prepared a bloody spectacle and horrible sacrifice Absolon gives the word to his servants to take the time wherein his brother Amnon had already drank plentifully and to kill him in the middle of the Feast without any fail saying that it was sufficient that it was he which had so appointed it and that he would provide for their safety The Wine the good Chear and heat did let loose their tongues to merryment when as Swords drawn out of the Scabberds glittered before the eyes of the Guests fear came upon all but the danger was onely to Amnon who was suddenly massacred his blood leaping on his brothers table for a just revenge of his shamefull lust The brethren affrighted get up upon their Mules and get to the Town the report mixing false with true brings sad news to David and gives him to understand that Absolon had slain all his brethren The poor King casts himself on his face upon the ground weeping and all the Court tear their clothes and put on mourning Jonadab in the mean while certifies that there was none but Amnon that remained upon the place in revenge of the offence committed against Thamar David returns a little to himself and his other children present themselves before him affrighted and weeping for that which had passed Absolon Absolon out of favour saves himself in the house of his Grand-father by the mother the King of Gesher where he remains three years without daring to see the King his father who would no wayes pardon that his enterprize Joab
trust to be planted by the hand of God to serve as a prop for the house of God to be the seat of glory for the Lord of Hosts to carry the moveables riches and greatness of the Church on his shoulders Finally for a third reason to conduct the Nobility to Ecclesiastical dignities is to bring it into its house All things willingly return to their source The waters cease not to glide along to render themselves to the Ocean The rays of the Sun touch the earth not forsaking their star the branches of the tree offer the homage of their verdure leaves and fruit to the root he goeth well that hasteneth to his beginning Now so it is that the greatest part of Church endowments came from the Nobility who then despoiled themselves to cover the Altars and now many unveil the Altars to cloath themselves If you O Noblemen desire to enjoy the patrimony which your Ancestours have left to the Church you ought not to seek it by unlawfull mischievous and tyrannical ways but by means proportionable to the intentions of those who laid those rich foundations And what intentions had they but to cut the trees Ezech. 17. Quercus Basan dolata in remos navis Tyri divites saeculi Ecclesiae appliciti Hieron super Ezech. of Basan to make oars for the vessel of S. Peter but to lay their wealth at the feet of God who according to the Prophet made himself a foot-step of Saphirs to serve as a ladder for glory but to entertain on earth an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem to grant to the Church men of science and conscience men of courage and fidelity for the ornament support and maintenance thereof If you approach thither with such an intention I am of opinion the gates ought to be opened unto you and that you should enter into your self to govern the house of Jesus Christ and not destroy it We have thanks be given to God a great King all whose inclinations dispose him to goodness as lines to the center as much love as he hath for justice so much zeal hath he for the glory of Altars As God is pleased to sow the stars on the azure of the firmament so hath he a sensible delight to furnish the Church with good Prelates because they are the stars of the earth Merit under him is in possession of good hopes and hope is not far distant to be consummate in fruition He is pleased to gratifie the Nobility with the goods of the Church but he will his intention be seconded by the merit of those that shall enjoy them Take the ways of wisdom and virtue to enter into your inheritance which ever are most assured and the most honourable The time hath been when one must as it were have done evil to receive good if now good be offered to those who do it who would willingly be vitious and sow crimes to reap miseries The second SECTION That the Nobility should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices but by lawfull ways PRophane Lucian spake truer than he thought Lucian in Jov. Trag. when he feigned Gentilism was filled with gods whereof some were made of wood and stone subsisting by the prerogative of antiquity which age and time gave them the other much more lately formed were of gold and silver resenting the profuse prodigality of the latter Ages This caused a divorce in the Temples the gods of earth were still willing to hold their ranks shewing besides the antiquity of their original that they were framed by the confident hands of admirable work-men and had lineaments excellently polished The gods of gold and silver dignified by the riches of the stuff of which they were composed spake proudly and needs would have priority since the mettal whereof they were made transcended much in the estimation of men The matter was put into deliberation in the great Parliament of Olympus and the golden gods carried it not by merit but by authority of their riches Should this scoffing spirit be raised again in these our days to make a Satyre on the manners of these times he could not be better fitted For to speak not universally of all Ecclesiastical Nobles since thanks be to God there are many who most happily have linked to Nobility all the other qualities requisite to their condition but considering in gross the disorder and corruption we may well say the gods of gold at this day have the upper hand We heretofore saw divers spiritual men extracted from low condition who arrived to dignities by the degrees of labour integrity knowledge and were finally crozier'd and mytered by the strength of much merit These men appeared in the Church of God as those ancient Statues made by the hand of Policletes Phidias and Sysippus there was not a lineament in them which spake not But when gold and silver began to sway more than ever the rich allured with the wealth of the Church brake a way through by the help of contentions authority and command which silver gave them over the courses of human things they maugre industrie and virtue have made golden gods which banish as it were all the gods of the earth notwithstanding the excellent forms and all the gifts of nature and grace they could possibly acquire It seemeth for these men the Church is at this day become a great Oak over-turned where men hastily on every side run for prey there is not a hand so little that will not become outragious to bear away some spoil thereof But you noble and generous spirits who in your minorities dedicate your selves to the ministeries of the Church behold the first step you must tread Be carefull herein as your lives and salvation are dear unto you aim well your carrier enter by the gate of honour to free your self from the disturbances of life and troubles of death Be ye assured it is the abomination of the desolation foretold by the Prophet Daniel Daniel 9. 27. Act. 8. 27. the gall of bitterness and perplexity of sin declared by the Apostle S. Peter to enter into an Ecclesiastical benefice by unlawfull and strained ways without vocation The reasons hereof are evident First the Saints have called this vice the iniquity of Libanus alluding to these words of the Prophet Habacuck The Iniquity of Libanus shall cover thee Habac. 1. Iniquitas Libani operiet te where the text spake to those who despoiled the holy Land because the mount Libanus is a holy hill of Palestine all covered over with fair Cedars much renowned in the Scripture from whence it cometh it mystically signifieth the Church and those are truly covered with the iniquity of Libanus who surcharge themselves with the weight of inexorable justice for attempting on the highest pieces of the patrimony of God which are the offerings of the faithfull left for the maintenance of Ecclesiastical state This iniquity of Libanus is the sin of Zeb Zebeus and Salmana who are branded with perpetual infamy for
would he not die for fear the part of his friend which yet lived in himself might perish All this well declared he had great dispositions to love and that to what side soever his affections tended they never would be with mediocrity It seemed now all things conspired against him to kindle a coal in his veins which the revolution of many years could not extinguish First as nothing is more dangerous to foment this passion than ill example he lived in a place as contagious for chastity as the North wind for plants Saluianus a great Writer speaking Salvian l. 7. de gubernat Tam novum est impudicum non esse Afrum quâ—m Afrum non esse Afrum of Africk which bred S. Augustine saith It was the Country of loves and that it was as strange a man should be an African without being an African as to be an African and not lascivious Secondly these dangers so frequent which seemed to require much retention found liberty enongh in the house for the tears of the blessed S. Monica were not as yet sufficient to stay the course of insolent youth since the father little cared for that he having one day beheld his son in the baths spake some free words which served rather as a spur for sensuality than a motive to continency In the third place as the eye must be open to direct occasions so he therein used so little study that having a soul as it were of sulphure so much was it disposed to take fire he hastened to throw himself into the midst of flames He haunted the company of Libertines who are the most dangerous enemies to chastity and being of a humour very gentile and pleasing gave love and reciprocally received and although he had none needs must he counterfeit When he came to Carthage about the sixteenth year of his age there was not a street where love spread not his nets He as yet knew not well what it was to love and yet desired to be beloved and grew weary of living in innocency He hated his liberty and sought a hand which captived him He went to Theaters there to behold loves represented where he servently was enamoured of the passions of imaginary lovers yea his very eyes hunted in the Church after objects of concupiscence by glances too too dissolute for which he confessed to have been very particularly chastised by the hand of God since he mingled the sanctity of the place with the enterainment of the profane actions This ulcered soul threw it-self out of its compass and took wind and fire on every side It seemed to him he must excel in vice as well as in science He made himself more vicious than he was to appear more gentile in the eyes of evil men and there remained for him nothing more as it were in this point but one shame not to have been sufficiently impudent In the end he fell into the snares he desired and was involved in admirable labyrinths where ever the end of one love was the beginning of another This life so carnal was a perpetual hinderance to the visitations of God For as Platonists say stars cannot exercise their virtue on the sphere of fire So all the light of good counsel had no force in the flames of such a passion His spirit was depraved by sensuality allured by the bait of worldly beauties and darkned with the obscurity of his blindness in such sort that the light of the spirit of God in him found no place If there be a vice in the world which tyeth the soul to flesh and makes it stupid to the feeling of God it is this foul sin and although it be not wholly incompatible with science yet never accorded in the wisdom of heaven which is more conversant in the tast of heavenly things than in knowledge The seventh SECTION Dispositions towards the conversion of Saint Augustine BEhold the principal impediments of the conversion of S. Augustine but God who insensibly wove this work and draws good even from the evil of his elect caused him to use the remedy of the scorpion that stung him For as he pursuing his ordinary curiosity plunged more and more into solid sciences he began by little and little to distast the doctrine of the Manichees finding it very strange that a man should make all kind of dreams and sottishness to pass for verities under the false seal of the holy Ghost Those of his faction who saw him waver oft lent their helping hands too weak to support him and knowing their own inability promised quickly to cause the prime man of their Sect to come from Carthage who should disengage his mind from so many doubts and afford him ample satisfaction They failed not in their promise for in few Faustus and his qualities Pretiosorum poculorum decentissimus ministrator Conf. 5. 6. days the false Bishop Faustus arrived who was as the sword and buckler of the Manichees He was a man of a fair presence had charms in his tongue and many attractives in his conversation able to ensnare the most subtile wits He instantly set himself to frame some studied discourses upon the maxims of his superstition which were heard with great applause by the whole faction For indeed he was an Eagle among Parrets These men supposing that Augustine was fully setled in all their apprehensions and approbations asked him what he thought of the Bishop Faustus and whether he were not an incomparable man He very coldly answered he was eloquent and throughly able to tickle an ear but his malady daily encreasing could not be cured by a man who perpetually speaketh and shuffles up the matter and threfore besides his goodly sermons there was need of a particular conference where he might fully discharge his mind Faustus endowed with a natural curtesie thinking he had to do with a young spirit whom he with words would amuse accepts the disputation where instead of finding a crane he encountred an eagle who handled him roughly from the beginning of the battel This man made him presently appear to be of base gold and that this tallent was no other than that he was an indifferent Grammarian had read some orations of Tully the memory whereof were very fresh in him some epistles also of Seneca with a mixture of poesy but in the books of his own Sect he had very little knowledge All that which made him esteemed in publick consisted in a grace of language which proceeding from a fair body was exposed with the more exteriour pomp Behold that which now throughout the world authorizeth an infinite number of men who are in the opinion of ignorant or the indifferently knowing as flying fires in the air When Augustine put him upon the solstices equinoctials eclypses the course and motion of stars wherewith the books of Manes are replenished this man then found himself in a new world but yet was wily for he was not as the sottish Manichees who promising evidence upon this
Sects making his arrows of every wood so to hit the white of honour Verily if there be any vice deserving the execration Detestable hypocrisie of all mankind it is that which distendeth snares over Altars and which under colour of piety and zeal entrappeth men Cities and Provinces with a kind of theft which seeketh to make it self honourable under pretence of piety and Religion This was very familiar with this bad man for seeing many Pagans of quality who bit the bridle expecting the re-establishment of Idols he under-hand entertained them with very fair hopes On the other side he favoured the Synagogue of Jews in secret supposing these men being lost in Religion and conscience might one day serve his turn though but to fill up ditches But then beholding the Catholick Church in an eminent height he openly courted it and that with demonstrations of respect and service which might seem to proceed from none but the most zealous Letters also of his were found written to the Emperour Valentinian the Second where he made many declarations of the duty he owed to the Catholick Church so compleat that they seem much fitter for the mouth of a Bishop than of a Tyrant He speaketh of God like a Saint saying (a) (a) (a) Periâ—â—â—â— mihi crede divina teâ—tanâ—â—r Insanuâ— ubi error exâ—fabilis non est ibi velle peccare Baron an 387. 35. Great hecd must be taken not to contend with ones Master and that sins committed against Religion admit no excuse He talks of Rome (b) (b) (b) Româ— Veâ—â—rabilis enjus hac parte Principitatâ—s est Epist ad Siricium eod anno sect 65. as a Pope calling it in full voice The most Venerable and Princess of Religion He seemed to sweat bloud and water in defence of S. Ambrose whose virtue he infinitely feared it being joyned to a liberty which never accustomed to bow under tyranny In another Epistle where he writeth to Pope Siricius he tells how going from the Font of Baptism he had been transported to the Imperial Throne which being ignorant of the life of the children of God he esteemeth an incomparable favour from Heaven and in recompence thereof promiseth all service to the Church of Rome satisfying himself onely to execute that which should be commanded him without any desire to enter into the knowledge of the cause Moreover if he saw any forlorn Hereticks who were feeble in faction and much out of favour he ran upon them with all manner of violence and then shewing spiders webs of one side filled with little flies and on the other side all broken by creatures of a larger size he raiseth mightie tropheyes thinking so to piece out his fortune by the effusion of contemptible bloud In this manner he caused Priscillian and many other of his Sect to be put to death who were Hereticks possessed with a black and melancholy devil and such as in truth according to the laws both divine and humane well deserved punishment but not according to the proceedings were observed in their process much blamed by S. Martin and other wise Bishops who took notice of passions over-bloudy even in the Ecclesiasticks that sought after spoil O God! it is verily one of the greatest unhappinesses Virtutibus vitia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot Origen Basil Albertus in Paradiso animz Prolog of humane life to say that vices keep shop near to virtues and often deceive the best experienced merchants with their artifices That is most true which is spoken by Albertus the Great Master of Saint Thomas Severitie counterfeiteth justice melancholy calleth it self gravitie babble stealeth into the name of affabilitie as doth dissolution pass under colour of free mirth The prodigal saith he is an honest man the covetous provident the self-conceited constant the craftie prudent curiosity borroweth the title of circumspection vain-glory of generosity presumption of hope carnal love of charity dissimulation of patience pusillanimity of mildness indiscreet zeal of fervour in matter of Religion and the worst of all is hypocrisie puts on the mask of sanctity Yet if with these Pretext of devotion daÌ„gerous semblances and borrowed faces they onely deceived vulgar souls it were somewhat tollerable but it is a thing most deplorable that the subtile who have no other God but their own interests by slight complacences and petty affectations of devotion ensnare noble and Religious souls who measuring all by their own innocency daily afford more support to credulity A little outward shew handsomly exprest ravisheth men with admiration and causeth Altars to be raised to them for whom God hath prepared gibbets There are also many silly A parable of the fowler birds who seeing the fowler with blear and running eyes role a huge pair of beads in his hands say this is a holy man and full of compassion but the more judicious answer We must not regard his eyes nor beads but the bloud and rapine which is in his hands Had Maximus been beheld upon this side he had never deceived the world but his plaistered devotions served his turn to amuze easie natures whilest his ambitions cleft mountains to climb to the Throne of Caesars Pope Siricius beguiled with the mask of this false piety gave demonstration of much affection to him and when he was declared Emperour many Bishops used with him at Trier sundry complements which too near approched to servitude There was none at that time but our Saint Martin who held a strong power over this spirit and the wily Maximus who well foresaw there was no resistance to be used against a stroke of thunder submitted with all pliantness and postures to draw this great Prelate to his amity He who heretofore made himself to be petitioned unto by the Bishops received the commandments of S. Martin as decrees and endeavoured to yield him all satisfaction One desire onely he fixed in his heart which was some one time to invite this holy man to his table to wipe away all the ill reputation of which the most judicious could not be ignorant but S. Martin constantly refused it until Maximus upon a time having made a thousand protestations of the sincerity of his intentions in that point which concerned the usurpation of the Empire the man of God whether perswaded by reasons or mollified by so many prayers went thither and used there passages of generosity which you shall know In this banquet were present the false Emperour Sulpitius in vita S. Martini cap. 23. Maximus with his brother and his uncle a Consul and two Counts S. Martin for his honour was placed in the middle near the person of Maximus and when about the midst of dinner the cup-bearer presented a goblet to his Master he for a singular testimony of his affection put it into the hands of the good Bishop seeming to have a holy ambition to drink therein after it was consecrated by the touch of his lips but S. Martin not using any other complement
Sun stood still in the time of Josuah the Moon and all the Stars made the like pause Governours and Masters have this proper to themselves that in all they do they pour forth their spirits into such of their subjects who are for the most part neither good nor bad but by the relation they have to the life of those on whom their fortunes depend The second is not to suffer an evil since as said Peceare non cohibere peccantes juxta aestima Dostheus l. Italicorum Agapetus to the Emperour Justinian to commit and permit crimes when one hath full power to hinder them is as it were one and the same thing There are no flatteries so charming nor importunities so forcible which should ever make a well composed spirit to bend to the permission of a sin which he knoweth to be against the honour of God and the tranquilitie of his conscience Fabricianus a Roman Captain in ruining a Fortress of the Samnites kept their Venus which he sent to Rome for the beauty of the workmanship and it is thought the aspect of this statue was the first occasion of making his wife an adulteress and caused him afterward to serve as a victim to the loves of this unchaste woman by horrible massacre It happeneth oftentimes that Masters of families who seem very innocent in their persons retain scandals in their houses through a certain pusillanimity and dissimulation which draw upon them the chastisements of God and disasters very extraordinary The Scripture saith the High Priest Eli was the lamp of God before 1 Reg. 33. juxta 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was extinguished by a wicked toleration of the excesses of his children which rent his house and buried him in publick ruins Take good heed there be not some houshold servant raised by your indulgence who rendereth your favours odious and liberalities criminal by abuse of the power which you have put into his hands Alkabicius the Astrologer observeth there are stars of their own nature benign and which would ever behold us favourably were it not the neighbour-hood of some others malign altered their sweet inclinations And there are many Masters and Mistresses to be found in the world endued with a humour exceedingly good if the near approaches which bad servants make to their persons did not destroy this temper That man Qualities of an Officer is truly stout and happy who findeth or maketh men of honour well disposed faithfully affected industrious vigilant laborious indefatigable sober in speech prompt in execution patient and able in their charges for good souldiers make glorious Captains and good Officers great States-men The third condition of the zeal of justice is that you never be pleased an ill act be done under the shadow that you were not of counsel thereunto or that it never came to your knowledge You may very well rejoyce not to have at all contributed to evil yea not to the birth of evil for this were otherwise to betray your conscience which ought to have the same capacity to abhor all vices and embrace all virtues as faith inclineth to believe all verities revealed unto it I leave you to think what conscience Sextus Pompeius of elder time had to whom as he entertained Augustus and Mark Anthonie in his ship and being in the heat of his feast a servant came to tell him if so he pleased he quickly would put these two Princes into his power thereby to make him Monarch of the world He a little while thinking on this matter said to him who brought the news Thou shouldst have done it and never told me of it This well shewed he bare some respect to fidelity but was very far from that perfection which hateth evil yea even that which is out of the compass of ones own knowledge The fourth is that you must correct disorders as much as you possibly may declaring you have a natural horrour against all sins which resist laws both divine and humane and that the love of honesty hath made you to pass it as it were into your nature I do not see where the virtue of a great States-man may shew it self with more lustre than in the exercise of justice S. Gregorie the Great saith A Greg. in Job 29. Justitiâ— firmatur â—â—lium Prov. 16. mixture of oyl and wine must be made to heal the wounds of men in such sort that minds may not be ulcered with too much severity nor grow remiss by an excess of indulgence The rod must be used to touch and the staff to support love should not soften nor rigour transport matters into despair Moses the first States-man burned inwardly with the fire of charity and was outwardly wholly enkindled with the flames of the zeal of justice As a loving father he offered his soul to God even to the wish to be blotted out of the book of life to save his people as a Judge he took the sword and bathed it in the bloud of Idolaters He was in all kinds both a couragious Embassadour and an admirable mediatour pleading before God the cause of his people with prayers and before his people the cause of God with the sword It is to do all to execute good justice God Evectâ—s in exâ—â—lsum iâ—â—e magis â—itis despice Cassiod hath set you on high for no other cause but to behold vices beneath if you exalt them they will trample you under-foot you shall perpetually drink the greatest part of the poison you mingled for others and when you shall break down the hedge the snake as the Scripture threateneth will sting you Eccles 10. 8. the first When a good conscience hath accommodated you with this condition so that you have no other intention but to advance goodness in your own person and in those who belong to you you are not a little advanced in the perfections of a great Statesman yet it is fit Conscience Science and Capacity be had for the discharge of great employments and especially by him who makes profession to govern men sometimes as untractable as Hydra's of many heads Campanus Bishop of Terni of whom we have some Campanus Interamneâ—us Episcop Works in the Bibliotheca Patrum in the book which he composed of magistracy requireth four conditions in him A wit vigorous a carriage neither dejected nor unpleasing a prudence full of maturity when there is occasion to consult upon an affair and a promptness to take time in the instant to execute that which hath once been well resolved on He saith a vigorous wit for it is very fit the soul should be full of lights and flames which is to serve others for a guide and as there is no wit so great which hath not many defects so it is very necessary it be polished by good letters which unite and incorporate in one sole man the faculties of many others and by the conference of the wise which taketh away all that which excellent natures
mirrour what perfection My eyes dazle in beholding her actions and my pen fails in writing her praises What a courage that a young maid not above fifteen or sixteen years of age entereth into a Kingdom with intention to conquer it for God much otherwise than the Caesars who so many times have devoured it by ambition What a prudence to tolerate the conversation of a step-mother whilest she medled not with her Religion What liberty of spirit and what strength of words to defend her faith so soon as she saw her self assailed in this virtue which was more dear unto her than the apple of her eye What patience to endure to be dragged along upon the pavement by the hair to be beaten even to bloud to be thrown into the river to be used like the dust of the earth for the honour of Jâ—sus Christ not challenging any one not complaining not seeming offended nay not telling her husband into whose bosom she poured forth her most secret thoughts the affront she had received for fear to break peace with a creature who deserved the hatred of all the world What wisdom what grace what eloquence used she in the conversion of her husband What love for his soul what zeal for his salvation what care for his direction What authority to stop with a word the armies of the father and son instantly ready to encounter What resignation of her own will in this separation from her husband And what a heart of diamond against a thousand strokes of dolours to take thankfully a death so bloudy so tragical so pitifull To see her self at an instant bereaved of a son and a husband and of all things in the world offering up unto God in all her afflictions the obedience of her heart prayers of her lips and victims of all the parts of her body What triumph when after her death her brother-in-law who had participated of her good instructions in rememberance of her and her husband was absolutely converted to the Catholick faith and changing the whole face of the Kingdom repealed the banished restored the Bishops to their Sees Religion into force Laws into authority and the whole Province into peace What miracle to see sage Indegondis on the top of all her tropheys whereof she tendereth homage to God in the glory of Saints How ought we here to render to her the offerings of our most humble services Behold here the limits which I proposed to my self so to give an end at last to these Histories having thought it more fit and suitable to my employments to abbreviate my self in these four Models than unboundedly enlarge them yet it hath been somewhat difficult with me to make a resolution to put forth this second Volume among so many duties of our ordinary functions being thereunto sollicited by entreaties which held as it were the place of commands And I may well say I were stupid and ungratefull if I should not confess to have been much excited to prosecute this labour by the honourable invitations which my Lord Bishop of Bellay hath used towards me in his Works I cannot set too high a price upon his recommendation in such a subject For he is verily one of the most able and flourishing wits that ever handled a pen. To see the number of his books one might say he began to write so soon as to live and to consider their worth it is a wonder how so many graces and beauties which other attain not but with much labour encreased with him as in a soil natural for eloquence If there be any slight discourses who amuse themselves to argue upon some words of his writings it is not a matter unusual seeing we are now in an Age where there are some who revive the example of those corrupted Grecians that preferred a sauce made by the Cook Mithecus before the divine Works of Phidias If this piece have given you any contentment take the pains to read it over again sometimes at your leisure tasting the Maxims therein with an utilitie worthy of its subject For believe me the precipitation now adays used in slightly running over all sorts of books causeth a certain indigestion in the mind wherewith it is rather choaked than nourished Reading is never good if the understanding take not occasion thereby to negotiate by meditation and industrie that which concerneth the health and ornament thereof 1 TIM 1. To the King of Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be honour and glorie given for ever and evermore THE HOLY COURT MAXIMS OF CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST THE PROPHANE COVRT Divided into three Parts WHEREOF The I. Treateth of the Divinitie The II. Treateth of the Government of this life The III. Treateth of the State of the other World THE THIRD TOME Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS and translated into English by Sr. T. H. DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM LONDON Printed by William Bentley and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS at the Crown in St. Pauls Church-yard 1650. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADIE FRANCES Countess of PORTLAND and Baroness WESTON RIGHT HONOURABLE THe excellent endowments of your soul acknowledged even by envie and admired by truth together with your known propension to the reading of pious Books invites me to this Dedication as proper for your sweet retirements and consonant to my intentions which onely aim in some measure to express my humblest respects to your Honour The matters herein handled are Instructions apt to inform the mind by way of Maxims learned discourses made familiar to less able understandings and choise Histories exemplifying both that so all sorts of Readers though of different capacitie disproportionable judgement may find somewhat to entertain their curiositie My scope Excellent LADIE in this Translation is through your Honours hand and under so noble a Patronage to convey the third Part of the HOLY COURT into English light which as the first breathed air under the benign aspect of her sacred Majestie may also hope in this latter piece with like happiness to be crowned with your Honors chearful acceptation The height of my ambition is by this poor way to serve you since more ample demonstrations are wanting to my weak abilities as likewise not to doubt your noble disposition will be satisfied with such my humble acknowledgements The advancement of virtue and depression of vice is my Authour's scope throughout the whole Work which he elegantly pursues and victoriously atchieveth Triumphs of that kind best become his grave and serious pen whilest my task is faithfully in our language to imitate his living figures though in dead and discoloured forms and confidently to tell your Honour that I will ever be The most Obsequious Servant of Your Commands T. H. TO MONSIEUR MONSIEUR THE PRINCE SIR THe excellency of the subject I handle in these discourses makes me reflect on that of your Greatness to offer you a Work which being conceived by your authority must needs seek for
God but wayes likewise easie and yielding to natural inclinations Oblike love is that which holdeth of both the other and which imitating the Angels of Jacobs ladder climbs to God by creatures and descends to creatures by the love of God But behold a love of enemies commanded by God which seemeth not comprized in this division so much it seeketh out wayes alienated and inaccessible to nature yet I intend to shew it may be found in the third part of this list and that it is a love which by the love of God descendeth unto the love of man to love him according to God A love which I maintain to be possible Three proofs of this discourse glorious and necessarie in three proofs that shall make three heads of this discourse 2. To deny the possibility of the love of enemies is First reason possibility of the love of enemies Diligite inimicos vestros to bely the Gospel and reason the Gospel which commandeth it reason which fortifieth the justice of the commandment The words spoken by our Saviour Love your enemies is not a counsel but a commandment so explicateth the Councel of Carthage the fourth chap. 93. the Councel of Agde Can. 22. and all holy Fathers who lent the light of their stile to the first light in the Gospel Now to say God commandeth a thing impossible is to make a tyranny of the Divinity and to make a God like to the cruel duke of Muscovia named Basilides who commanded from his subjects a tribute of sweat and of nightingales in the midst of winter Reason dictateth to us this commandment is not Right of nature onely of Divine right but of nature so far is it from being contrarie to nature that to speak naturally we judge that should be done to our neighbour we would have done to our selves and we desire to be beloved by all the world yea by those whom we have offended we then necessarily conclude we are bound to love those who have done us some injury Besides we well see that to seek revenge by proper authority is to destroy the right of nature and to make of a civil life the life of a Cyclop which were to have no other reason than strength nor limit but the sword Some will say it were good could love as easily be Answer to an objection put on as a shirt but if we have much ado to love things indifferent how can we affect bad and offensive Love ever pursueth good as the shadow the body and God who made both love and nature will not that it settle it self unless there be some attractive or appearance of good which inviteth it to love Now what is lovely in an enemy in whose person all is odious yea the very name Behold how carnal Philosophy with strong passions and weak reasons strikes at the eternal Word as if in the worst man in the world there could not ever be found something which may be an object of reasonable love We are not commanded to affect him with a love of tenderness but of reason It is not said you must love him as vicious you must endear Omne animal diligit simile sibi sic omnis homo proximum sibi Eccl. 13. 19. him as injurious or wicked for that were to force nature but we are commanded to love him as a man to love him as a Christian to love him as the work of God and as a creature capable of life eternal All things in the world said an Ancient have two handles and two faces Take a good hold-fast look on the good countenance and you shall find that easie which you thought impossible Let us also pass with Divinity to a reason more eminent and say it is not a thing against nature to love above nature by the commandment of him who made nature It is asked whether a creature can naturally love God more than it self since all that nature loveth it loves as a thing united to it it self according to the Amicabilia ad alterum sumumtur ex amicabiltus ad se Arist Ehick l. 4. c. 8. D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26. saying of Philosophers all well considered the most learned Divines answer that the soul of man remaining within the lists of natural reason should love the Creatour more than its own life because naturally the will well rectified hath a strong inclination to its end which is the Sovereign Good and the understanding necessarily judgeth the subsistence of essence increate and independent which ought rather to be preserved than that of essence create And if that be done by ways of nature how may one say it is against nature to love an enemy when there is the commandment and honour of God in it Nay it is so much otherwise that I will adde a reason which perhaps may seem strange but it is undoubted true I say it is much more hard to love ones self well than an enemy For I beseech you why was A remarkable consideration it that the Son of God so much spake laboured wept and bled if not to teach how we should aptly love our selves And wherefore were so many Saints fifty yea threescore years at school in desarts but to learn this hard lesson And who hath ever thought self-Self-love very hard to be repressed any thing more difficult to be repressed than self-love which powerful in fury and impotent within it self forgetful of God still mindful of its own interests ever gluttonous and still hungry swalloweth like a gulph sweepeth along like a torrēt beateth down like thunder and in the end is buried in the ruins it made If well to love ones self this monster be necessarily be to tamed who sees not there is much difficulty therein and that on the other side there is nothing to be done but to love the gift of God in man which cannot be ill but in your imagination Why create we so many impediments in the love of an enemy and find none in the love of our selves Were it not natural Effects of the love of enemies in the Law of nature Senec. l. 3. de irâ c. 38. why in the Law of nature did Cato smilingly wipe away tough phlegme which an enemy spit on his face when he pleaded a cause Why was Socrates content having received a blow on the cheek from an insolent man to set over his head the scroul used on ancient tables Lycus faciebat Why did Augustus in an absolute sovereign power of revenge tolerate with so much courtesy a certain writer named Timagenes who perpetually barked against him Traytours that we are to nature so to cover our neglect and weakness with the pretext of nature 3. Let us yet adde more force to truth and more Second point of proofs drawn from the glory of pardon scope to our pen. Let us enter into the second point of this discourse which teacheth us the greatness and glory of a man who
COURT That it is to no purpose to think upon death so far off and that it always cometh soon enough without thinking on it That the best employment of life is to bewel prepared for death and that good thoughts of death are the seeds of immortalitie 1. IT is a strange thing that men being all made out of one and the same mass are so different in beliefs in reasons in customs and actions as the Proteus in Poetical fables Our manners daily Diversitie of men teach us a truth which says There is not any thing so mutable upon earth as the heart of man Yet we see in the world many honourable personages and good men who travel apace to this triumphant Citie of God this Heavenly Jerusalem looking on the blessings of the other life with an eye purified by the rays of faith and expecting them with a hope for which all Heaven is in bloom But there Opinion concerning the other life are an infinite number of black souls marked with the stamp of Cain who consider all is said of the state of the other world as if it were some imaginary Island feigned to be in the Ocean to amuze credulous spirits and fill them partly with pleasing dreams partly with irksom visions If these people could find some apparent proofs they would easily perswade themselves there were no death but their senses convinced of the contrary from experience of all Ages they believe that which they dare not think on and commonly die after so bruitish a fashion that a man may say They had converted the lights of an immortal spirit wholly into flesh But you generous souls whom at this present I intend to guid through the hopes and terrours of the other life observe this first step you must make to enter into a new world with constancy not unworthy a soul sensible of its immortality 2. Life and death are two poles on the which all Life death the two poles of the world creatures rowl life is the first act moveable and continual of the living thing death the cessation of the same act And as there are three notable actions in things animated the one whereof tendeth to nourishment and increase the other to sense the third to understanding so there are three sorts of lives Divers kinds of life the vegetative the sensitive and the intellectual the vegetative in plants sensitive in beasts the intellectual which onely appertaineth to God Angels and men The intellectual life is divided into two other which are the life of grace and glory In Heaven the place of things eternal reign those great and divine lives which never die and which are in a perpetual vigour being applied to the first source of lives which is God But in the more inferiour rank of the world are dying lives of which we daily see the beginning progress and end Here properly is the dominion of death and our onely mystery is to die well Some do it of necessity others every day anticipate it by virtue Now it is my desire here to shew you That death in the state wherein the world is at this present is a singular invention of Divine Providence whether we consider the generality of men whether we look on the vicious or fix our thoughts on the just 3. Some complain of death but you would see Providence of God concerning the sentence of death in the generality of men much other complaints if in such a life as we live there were no death You would see men worn with years and cares daily to charge altars with vows and prayers men insupportable to all the world irksom to life inexpugnable to death men old as the earth incessantly calling upon the hour of death and almost eating one another with despair God hath herein saith Plato well provided for seeing the soul was to be Plato in Timaeo Pater misericors illis mortalia vincula faciebat shut up in the body as in a prison he hath at least made it chains mortal What makes you so much desire life I find saith the worldling it is a pleasure to behold the light the star elements and seasons There will be much more delight to see them one day under your feet than there is now to behold them over your head Are there now so many years you have been upon the earth and have you not yet sufficiently looked upon the elements There were certain people among the Pagans who by laws forbade a man of fifty years to make use of the Physitian saying It discovered too much love of life and yet with Christians you may find at the age of four-score who will not endure a word of the other world as if they had not yet one days leisure to look into it But I must still Ambr. l. 2. de Abel Cain Non advertitis senectutem hanc aerumnarum esse veteranam processionibusque aetatis miseriarum crescere stipendia Scyllâ—o quodam usu circumsonari nos quotidianis naufragiis perform the actions of life Have you not done them enough See you not that to live long is to be long in the entertainment of travel and misery which extend their power over our heads according as the web of our life lengtheneth Do you not consider we are in this life as fish in the sea perpetually in fear of nets or hooks Will you not say we live here in the midst of misery and envie as between Scylla and Charybdis and that to decline once perishing we daily make ship wrack Notwithstanding we are pleased with life as if man were not so much a mortal creature as an immortal misery Do you not know life was given by God to Cain Revolution troublesom the most wicked man on earth for a punishment of his crime and will it rest with you as a title of reward There is great cause to desire life Were there no other miseries which are but too frequent this anxiety and turmoil of relapsing actions would tyre us What is life but clothing and unclothing rising and down-lying drinking eating sleeping gaming scoffing negotiating buying selling masonry carpentery quarreling cozening rowling in a labyrinth of actions which perpetually turn and return filling and emptying the tub of the Danaïdes and to be continually tied to a body as to the tending of an infant a fool or a sick man That is not it which withdraweth me say you But I must see the world and live with the living Had you been all your life Baseness of the world time shut up in a prison and not seen the world but through a little grate you had seen enough of it What behold you in the streets but men houses horses mules coaches and people who tumble up and down like fishes in the sea who have many times no other trade but to devour one another and besides some pedling trifles hanged out on stals When I have seen all this but for half an hour
summons you shall have from the will of God It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience nor to have an ear not deaf to death through faintness of courage This resignation was most excellent and very admirable in our Ladie for two reasons First the great knowledge she had of beatitude Secondly the ineffable love she bare to her Son For I leave you to think if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges and if we be so much the more earnest after a good as we are the better informed of its merit what impatience Patience of our Lady to endure life must our Ladie needs have of life since she received a science of beatitude strong powerful and resplendent above all other creatures God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories in the depth of his dolours It is no wonder we so very easily affect life seeing we are as the little children of a King bred in the house of a shepheard as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth touching the education of Nebuchadnezzar We know not what a scepter Kingdom or crown is in this great meaness of a life base and terrestrial But had we talked onely one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul and discoursed of the state of the other life our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires Which makes me say It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin in those great knowledges she had of Paradise to have continued so many years in this life and if you consider the most ardent love she bare her Son who was the adamant of all loves you shall find the holy Virgin who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb more merited in this resignation she made to see her self separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange bloudy and hydeous There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of Martyrdom of love love It is an exhalation in a cloud It is a fire in a myne a torrent shut up in ditches a night of separation lasteth Ages and all waxeth old for it but its desires Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining without complaint or disturbance peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour what virtue and how far are we from it So now adays throughout the world you see nothing Worldly irresolutions of death Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negos but mourners who are loth to live or faint-hearted that would never die Some crie out Come to me O sluggish death thou hast forgotten me what do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Ah death hast thou ears of brass and diamond for me alone Canst thou not shut up mine eyes which I daily drown in my tears Much otherwise when we see one die young fresh flourishing in honour wealth health prosperity we crie out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious To take saith one this young betrothed this poor maid this husband intended this excellent man who so well played the Rhodomont to lay hold of one so necessarie for the publick in the flower of his age Why took it not away this cripple this beggar who hath not wherewith to live Why took it not away this other who daily dies yet cannot die once O our manners O dainty conceits O fit language Were it not some little humane respect we would take Gods Providence by the throat Whom do we contend withal The indifferency we daily see in the death of men where as soon the young is taken as the old the happie as the miserable the Emperour as the porter is one of the greatest signs of Gods Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth It is not a punishment but a wholesom doctrine by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom First when we entered into life our advise was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age such a day such a year such an hour so when we must be gone from hence there is no reason to ask our counsel Let us onely yield up this last loan and not murmure against the father of the family Let us not say this man should go before and this after Who knows them better than God You complain this miserable creature lives so long how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience Why gnash you your teeth for anger that this man rich that man fortunate and that other so qualified is taken hence in his flourishing youth How know you the misadventures and shipwracks which attended him had he still continued in the world You say he was necessary why God will shew there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself Vnâ— aâ—ulso non deficit alter aureus Poor eyes of a bat which see nothing but darkness you would give eyes to Argus and light to the Sun If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just handle the matter so that for the first sign of a good death you be ever indifferent to live or die accordding to our Ladies example Daily expect death stand perpetually on your guard Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus which is so well practised Instinct of the Onocratalus Constancy of faith to expect the Hawk to grapple with her that even when sleep shuts up her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted as if she would contend with her adversary Know we are continually among rocks and dangers that there needs but one hour to get all or loose all that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief and that we must be ready to receive it and resolute to combat with death to gain immortalitie Hold this concluding sentence of Tertul. Idol c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat tuta si cauta secura si attonita Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum inexplicabile impactis naufragium irrespirabile â— devoratis hypocriphium Second quality of good death Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian as an Oracle Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea called life Christian faith passeth on breaking the waves filling the sails with Gods spirit ever assured yet ever distrustful and perpetually fearless yet still carefull of the future As for the rest it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched a gulf which suffocates all such as it once swalloweth The second
pleasures Fortitude Fortitude is a virtue which confirms us against the pusillanimity that may hinder good actions It hath two arms one to undertake the other to suffer Aristotle assigneth it four parts that is confidence patience love of labour and valour Patience Patience is an honest suffering of evils incident to nature The points thereof are To bear the loss of goods sickness sorrows injuries and other accidents with courage neither to complain nor to groan but discreetly to conceal your grief to be afflicted in innocency for justice sake and sometimes even by those that are good to covet and embrace persecutions out of a generous desire to be conformable to the patience of the Saviour of the world Justice Justice is a virtue which giveth to every one that which is his due and all the acts of it are included in this sentence You must measure others by the same measure wherewith you desire to be measured your self Magnanimitie Magnanimitie according to Thomas Aquinas is a virtue which aimeth at great things by the direct means of reason The acts thereof are To frame your self to an honest confidence by purity of heart and manners to expose your self reasonably to difficult and dreadfull exploits for Gods honour neither to be bewitched with prosperitie nor dejected at adversitie not to yield to opposition not to make a stay at mean virtues to despise complacence and threats for love of virtue to have regard onely to God and for his sake to disesteem all frail and perishable things to keep your self from presumption which often ruins high spirits under colour of Magnanimitie Gratitude Gratitude is the acknowledgement and recompence as far as lies in our power of benefits received The acts thereof are To preserve the benefit in our memory to profess and publish it to return the like without any hope of requital Amitie Amitie is a mutual good will grounded upon virtue and communitie of goods The acts thereof are To choose friends by reason for virtues sake communicating of secrets bearing with imperfections consent of wills a life serviceable and officious protection in adversities observance of honesty in every thing care of spiritual profit accompanied with necessary advice in all love and respect Simplicitie Simplicitie is nothing but union of the outward man with inward The acts thereof are To be free from all false colour never to lie never to dissemble or counterfeit never to presume to shun equivocation and double speech to interpret all things to the best to perform business sincerely to forgo multiplicity of employments and enterprizes Perseverance Perseverance is a constancy in good works to the end through an affection to pursue goodness and virtue The acts thereof are firmness in good quietness in services offices and ordinary employments constancy in good undertakings flight from innovations to walk with God to fix your thoughts and desires upon him neither to give way to bitterness nor to sweetness that may divert us from our good purposes Charitie toward God and our neighbour Charitie the true Queen of virtues consisteth in love of God and our Neighbour the love of God appeareth much in the zeal we have of his Glory the acts thereof are to embrace mean and painfull things so they conduce to our Neighbours benefit To offer the cares of your mind and the prayers of your heart unto God for him To make no exceptions against any in exercise of your charge to make your virtues a pattern for others To give you what you have and what you are for the good of souls and the glory of God to bear incommodities and disturbances which happen in the execution of your dutie with patience Not to be discouraged in successless labours To pray fervently for the salvation of souls to assist them to your power both in spiritual and temporal things to root out vice and to plant virtue and good manners in all who have dependence on you Charitie in Conversation Charitie in the ordinary course of life consisteth in taking the opinions words and actions of our equals in good part To speak ill of no man to despise none to honour every one according to his degree to be affable to all to be helpfull to compassionate the afflicted to share in the good success of the prosperous to bear the hearts of others in your own breast to glory in good deeds rather than specious complements to addict your self diligently to works of mercy Degrees of Virtues Bonaventure deciphers unto us certain degrees of Virtue very considerable for practise his words are these It is a high degree in the virtue of Religion continually to extirpate some imperfection a higher than that to encrease always in Faith and highest of all to be insatiable for matter of good works and to think you have never done any thing In the virtue of Truth it is a high degree to be true in all your words a higher to defend Truth stoutly and highest to defend it to the prejudice of those things which are dearest to you in the world In the virtue of Prudence it is a high degree to know God by his creatures a higher to know him by the Scriptures but highest of all to behold him with the eye of Faith It is a high degree to know your self well a higher to govern your self well and to be able to make good choice in all enterprizes and the highest to order readily the salvation of your soul In the virtue of Humilitie it is a high degree to acknowledge your faults freely a higher to bow with the weight like a tree laden with fruit the highest to seek out couragiously humiliations and abasements thereby to conform your self to our Saviours life It is a high degree according to the old Aâ—iom to despise the world a higher to despise no man yet a higher to despise our selves but highest of all to despise despisal In these four words you have the full extent of Humility In Povertie it is a high degree to forsake temporal goods a higher to forsake sensual amities and highest to be divorced from your self In Chastitie restraint of the tongue is a high degree guard of all the senses a higher undefiledness of body a higher than that puritie of heart yet a higher and banishment of pride and anger which have some affinity with uncleanness the highest In Obedience it is a high degree to obey the Law of God a higher to subject your self to the commands of a man for the honour you bear your Sovereign Lord yet a higher to submit your self with an entire resignation of your opinion judgement affection will but highest of all to obey in difficult matters gladly couragiously and constantly even to death In Patience it is a high degree to suffer willingly in your goods in your friends in your good name in your person a higher to bear being innocent the exasperations of an enemy or an ungratefull man a higher yet to suffer much and repine at nothing but
woman answered and said I have no husband Jesus saith to her Thou hast said vvell that I have no husband for thou hast had five husbands and he vvhom thou now hast is not thy husband This thou hast said truely The vvoman saith to him Lord I perceive that thou art a Prophet Our father 's adored in this mountain and you say that Jerusalem is the place vvhere men must adore Jesus saith to her woman believe me that the hour shall come vvhen you shall neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem adore the Father You adore that you know not vve adore that vve know for salvation is of the Jews but the hour cometh and now is when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and verity For the Father also seeketh such to adore him God is a spirit and they that adore him must adore in spirit and verity The vvoman saith to him I know that Messias cometh which is called Christ therefore vvhen he cometh he vvill shew us all things Jesus saith to her I am he that speak vvith thee And incontinent his Disciples came and they marvelled that he talked vvith a vvoman No man for all that said what seekest thou or vvhy talkest thou vvith her The vvoman therefore lest her vvater-pot and she went into the Citie and saith to those men Come and see a man that hath told me all things vvhatsoever I have done Is not he Christ They went forth therefore out of the Citie and came to him In the mean time the Disciples desired him saying Rabbi eat But he said to them I have meat to eat vvhich you know not The Disciples therefore said one to another hath any man brought him for to eat Jesus saith to them My meat is to do the will of him that sent me to perfect his vvork Do not you say that yet there are four moneths and harvest cometh Behold I say to you lift up your eyes and see the Countries that they are white already to harvest And he that reapeth receiveth hire and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoyce together For in this is the saying true that it is one man that soweth and it is another that reapeth I have sent you to reap that for which you laboured not others have laboured and you have entered into their labours And of that Citie many believed in him of the Samaritanes for the vvord of the vvoman giving testimonie that he told me all things vvhatsoever I have done Therefore vvhen the Samaritanes vvere come to him they desired him that he vvould tarrie there And he tarried there two dayes And many moe believed for his own vvord and they said to the vvoman That now not for thy saying do vve believe for our selves have heard and do know that this is the Saviour of the vvorld indeed Moralities 1 THe God of all power is weary the main sea desires a drop of salt water the King of Angels becomes a suppliant for a little part of all that which is his own This Gospel shews us clearly the love of God toward humane nature and the infinite zeal which he hath to the salvation of souls Is it not a thing which should load us with confusion to see that he who is filled with all felicities hath onely one thirst which is that we should thirst after him and that we should make chief account of that living water which he carrieth within his breast which indeed properly is grace the onely way to glory 2. Behold the difference between Jacobs Well and the Well of Jesus between contentments of the world and the pleasures of God The Well of Jacob is common to men and beasts to shew unto us that a man which glorifieth himself of his sensual delights makes a Trophee of his own baseness and and a Triumph of his fault It is just â—s if Nâ—bucadnezzar forsaking his Crown and Throne to transform himself into a beast should brag that he had gotten a hansom stable and very good hay But the fountain of Jesus holds in it the water of graces a wholesom water pure and Christalline which brings us to the society of Angels The water of Jacob though it be but a water for beasts yet it is hard to obtain There are many which run mad after riches honours and contentments of this world and can never come to possess them They live in a mill and gain nothing out of it but the noise and dust They turn round about upon the wheel of disquiet and never rest But if good fortune sometime cast them a bone there are a hundred dogs which strive to catch it All their life is nothing but expectation and their end onely despair Whereas the Well of Jesus is open to all the world he seeketh he asketh he calleth he giveth gratis he requireth nothing of us but our selves and would have us for no other reason but onely to make us happie The Well of Jacob begetteth thirst but doth not quench it Do not you consider that the Samaritan woman left her pot there and did not drink After so many fantasms and illusions which do amuse worldlings they must part from the world with great thirst But the fountains of our Saviour free us from the desire of all creatures and do establish within mans spirit an object of which the heart can never lose the delight O happy Samaritan saith Saint Ambrose which left her pot empty that she might return full of Jesus Christ She did no wrong to her fellow Citizens for if she brought no water to the Town yet she made the fountain it self come thither 3. Is it not a shamefull thing that God should seek us amongst the heats of his love and sufferings desireth nothing but us is contented with the possession of our heart and yet we cannot be content with him Shall not we forsake all the disorders of a sensual life which hinder the effect of Gods grace Shall not we forsake and leave behind us our pitcher bidding farewell to all those occasions which lead us to sin to avoid that fire whereof we have reason to fear the smoke Aspirations O Unexhaustible fountain of all beauties that my soul hath been long alienated from thee I have so many times run after the salt waters of worldly pleasures and contentments which have not ceased to kindle a wicked thirst within my veins in such a violent proportion that I could not quench it But now O sweet Saviour my soul being weary and distasted with all the fading delights of this transitory world doth languish incessantly after thee Whether the break of day begin to gild the mountains with his brightness whether the Sun be advanced high in his course or whether the night do cast a dark vail over all mortall things I seek and desire thy entertainments which are the onely sweet Idea's of my soul I plunge my self within the contemplation of thy greatness I
adore thy powers The first which torments me by loving thee is so precious that I would not lose it to drink Nectar and I can never quench it but in the streams of those delights and pleasures which proceed from the throne of the holy Lamb. The Gospel upon Saturday the third week in Lent S. John the 8. Of the woman found in adultery ANd Jesus went into the mount O livet and early in the morning again he came into the temple and the people came to him and sitting he taught them And the Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery and they did set her in the midst and said to him Master this woman was even now taken in adultery And in the law Moses commanded to stone such What sayest thou therefore and this they said tempting him that they might accuse him But Jesus bowing himself down with his finger wrote in the earth When they therefore continued asking him he lifted up himself and said to them He that is without sin of you let him first throw the stone at her And again bowing himself he wrote in the earth And they hearing went out one by one beginning at the Seniours and Jesus alone remained and the woman standing in the midst And Jesus listing up himself said to her Woman where are they that accused thee Hath no man condemned thee who said No man Lord. And Jesus said Neither will I condemn thee Go and now sin no more Moralities 1. MEn naturally love better to censure the life of another than to examine their own The Ravens accuse Doves and he sits often upon a Tribunal to condemn vice who doth lodge it in his heart Many resemble the Cocks which crow against a Basilisk and yet bear the seed of it in their entrails Reason would always that we begin to reform others by the censure of our own life No word can carrie such life and vigour with it as that which is followed by action To talk all and do nothing is to build with one hand and destroy with the other The land of the living shall never be for those who have their tongues longer than their arms 2. To what purpose is it to speak good words and yet lead an ill life A man can neither hide himself from God nor himself his conscience is a thousand witnesses Those who were ready to lift up their hands to stone the adulterous woman were diverted and departed with confusion seeing their sins written in the dust with certain figures to express them If we could always behold our own life before our eyes as a piece of Tapistry we should there see so many Serpents amongst flowers that we would have more horrour of our own sins than will to censure those who are like our selves 3. God shews mercy but will not suffer his mildness to be abused sin must not print its steps upon his clemency It is a false repentance for a man to act that which himself hath condemned and after so many relapses to take but one fall into everlasting pain The ordinary Gloss observes that our Saviour bended down when he wrote upon the earth to shew that the rememberance of our sins lay heavy upon him But when he began to pardon he arose up to teach us what joy and comfort he takes in the Kingdom of his mercy Aspirations O Sovereign Judge who sittest upon a Tribunal seat born up with truth and power make me rather judge mine own life than censure the lives of others Must I be full of eyes without and blind within Shew me my stains and give me water to wash them out Alas I am altogether but one stain and thou art all purity My soul is ashamed to see it self so dark before thy light and so smutted over before thine immortal whiteness Do not write me upon the ground as a child of earth write me in heaven since I am the portion which thou hast purchased with thy precious bloud Blot out my sins which are but too deeply graven upon my hands and pardon by thine infinite mercy what thou mayest condemn by justice The Gospel upon Sunday the fourth week in Lent S. John 6. Of the five Fishes and two Barly loaves AFter these things Jesus went beyond the Sea of Galilee which is of Tiberias and a great multitude followed him because they saw the signs which he did upon those that were sick Jesus therefore went up into the mountain and there he sate with his Disciples And the Pascha was at hand the festival day of the Jews When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes and saw that a very great multitude cometh to him he saith to Philip Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat and this he said tempting him for himself knew what he would do Philip answered him two hundred penyworth of bread is not sufficient for them that every man may take a little piece One of his Disciples Andrew the brother of Simon Peter saith to him There is a Boy here that hath five Barly loaves and two Fishes but vvhat are these among so many Jesus therefore saith Make the men sit down And there vvas much grass in the place The men therefore sate down in number about five thousand Jesus therefore took the leaves and vvhen he had given thanks he distributed to them that sate In like manner also of the Fishes as much as they vvould And after they vvere filled he said to his Disciples Gather the fragments that are remaining lest they be lost They gathered therefore and filled twelve baskets with fragments of the five Barly loaves vvhich remained to them that had eaten Those men therefore vvhen they had seen What a sign Jesus had done said That this is the Prophet indeed that is to come into the vvorld Jesus therefore when he knew that they vvould come to take him and make him a King he fled again into the mountain himself alone Moralities 1. WHat a happie thing it is to serve God whose conversation is so worthy all love See how he carried himself toward this poor multitude which followed him with such zeal and constancy It seems they were his children that he carried them all upon his shoulders that he had their names their Countries their qualities and the conditions of their small fortunes graven in his heart He is so tender over them he so afflicts himself about them as a Shepherd over his poor flock He instructs them he speaks to them of heavenly things he heals their maladies he comforts their sadness he lifts his eyes up to heaven for them and for them he opens his divine hands the treasures of Heaven and nourishes them by a miracle as they had wholly resigned themselves to him with such absolute confidence O how are we cherished by heaven since God doth bind himself to help us And we should be unfaithfull not to trust him who makes nature it self so faithfull to us It is here much to be observed
honour of God and the reverence of sacred things shall not accompany all your pretences For if you ground your piety upon any temporal respects you resemble that people which believes the highest mountains do support the skies 2. There are no sins which God doth punish more rigorously nor speedily than those which are committed against devotion and piety He doth not here take up the scourge against naughty Judges usurers and unchaste persons because the Church is to find remedy against all faults which happen in the life of man But if a man commit a sin against Gods Altar the remedy grows desperate King Ozias felt a leoprofie rise upon his face at the instant when he made the sume rise from the censor which he usurped from the high Priests Ely the chief Priest was buried in the ruins of his own house for the sacriledge of his children without any consideration of those long services which he had performed at the Tabernacle Keep your self from simonies from irreverence in Churches and from abusing Sacraments He can have no excuse which makes his Judge a witness 3. Jesus was violently moved by the zeal which he bare to the house of his heavenly Father But many wicked rich men limit their zeal onely to their own families They build great Palaces upon the peoples bloud and they nothing care though all the world be in a storm so long as they and what belongs to them be well covered But there is a revenging God who doth insensibly drie up the roots of proud Nations and throws disgrace and infamy upon the faces of those who neglect the glories of Gods Altars to advance their own He who builds without God doth demolish and whosoever thinks to make any great encrease without him shall find nothing but sterility Aspiration O Most pure Spirit of Jesus which wast consummate by zeal toward the house of God wilt thou never burn my heart with those adored flames wherewith thou inspirest chaste hearts Why do we take so much care of our houses which are built upon quick-silver and roll up and down upon the inconstancies of humane fortunes while we have no love nor zeal towards Gods Church which is the Palace which we should chuse here upon earth to be as the Image of heaven above I will adore thy Altars all my life with a profound humility But I will first make an Altar of my own heart where I will offer sacrifice to which I doubt not but thou wilt put fire with thine own hand The Gospel upon Tuesday the fourth week in Lent S. John 7. The Jews marvel at the learning of Jesus who was never taught ANd when the festivity was now half done Jesus went up into the Temple and taught And the Jews marvelled saying how doth this man know letters whereas he hath not learned Jesus answered them and said my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me If any man will do the will of him he shall understand of the doctrine whither it be of God or I speak of my self he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glorie but he that seeketh the glorie of him that sent him he is true and injustice in him there is not Did not Moses give you the Law and none of you doth the Law Why seek you to kill me The multitude answered and said thou hast a Devil who seeketh to kill thee Jesus answered and said to them One work I have done and you do all marvel Therefore Moses gave you circumcision not that it is of Moses but of the Fathers and in the Sabbath ye circumcise a man If a man receive circumcision in the Sabbath that the law of Moses be not broken are you angry at me because I have healed a man wholly in the Sabbath Judge not according to the face judge just judgement Certain therefore of Jerusalem said Is not this he whom they seek to kill And behold he speaks openly and they say nothing to him Have the Princes known indeed that this is Christ But this man we know whence he is But when Christ cometh no man knowerh whence he is Jesus therefore cried in the Temple teaching and saying Both me you do know and whence I am you know and of my self I am not come But he is true that sent me whom you know not I know him because I am of him and he sent me They sought therefore to apprehend him and no man laid hands upon him because his hour was not yet come But of the multitude many believed in him Moralities 1. IT appears by this Gospel that Jesus was judged according to apparences not according to truth It is one of the greatest confusions which is deeply rooted in the life of man that every thing is full of painting and instead of taking it off with a spunge we foment it and make our illusions voluntary The Prophet Isay adviseth us to use our judgement as men do leaven to season bread All the objects presented to our imaginations which we esteem are fading if we do not adde some heavenly vigour to help our judgement 2. To judge according to apparences is a great want both of judgement and courage The first makes us prefer vanity before truth the second gives that to silk and golden clothes which is properly due to virtue We adore painted coals and certain dark fumes covered outwardly with snow But if we did know how many great miseries and what beastly ordure is hidden under cloth of gold silk and scarlet we would complain of our eyes for being so far without reason It is a kind of Apostacy and rebellion against Gods providence to judge without calling God to be a president in our counsel or to take in hand any humane inventions without the assistance of his Spirit 3. God is pleased to lodge pearls within cockles and bestows his treasures of wisdom and virtue many times upon persons who have the most unfashionable outsides to countercheck humane wisdom He makes his orators of those who are speechless and numbers of frogs and flies to overthrow mighty armies He makes Kings out of shepherds and serves himself of things which are not as if they were The most pleasing Sacrifice which he receives upon earth is from the humble and when we despise those we divert the honours of God We offer Sacrifice to the worlds opinion like the Sages of Egypt who did light candles and burn incense to Crocodiles The Jews lost their faith to follow apparences and there is no shorter way to Apostacy than to adore the world and neglect God 4. An ill opinion make folks many times pass a rash judgement They mount into Gods chair to judge the hearts of men The chaste doves are used like Ravens and Ravens like Swans Opinion puts false spectacles upon our eyes which make faults seem virtues and virtues crimes Yet nevertheless we should think that virtuous persons will not conceive an ill suspition of their neighbour without a very sure
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-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
have fastned to thy scale all the fishes of the waters wherein thou bearest sway I will drag thee from the midst of the Kingdome of waves and I will throw thee into a wildernesse thou shalt lie upon the dry land nor shall any one care to sae thy obsequies performed For I have abandoned thee to the beasts of the field ard to the birds of the air to be devoured This sentence of God was executed on the person of the Emperour Tyberius under whom our Saviour suffered that death which gave life to the world Verily he was a man who through the whole course of his Empire made himself the God of himself the slave of his passions and the hatred of mankind He lay close as an Owl in the retirement of his filthy lusts he was greedy as a Griphon in such sort that dying he had above three-score and six millions of gold in his coffers which he with the Empire left to an infamous nephew who as it is thought hastned his death tearing that sensuall soul out of the body which in the world breathed nothing but the love of it self How can a man so wretched so caitive behold himself as a Divinity seeing God in the heighth of glory riches and beauties which so happily entertains him within himself hath so affectionate bowels of mercy for man that he thinks of him from all eternity he presenteth himself unto him on all sides with hands replenished with benefits in so great a diversitie of Creatures and hath in generall so much care of all men and of every one in particular S. Tho opus de Beatit Quasi homo sâ—t Dei Deuâ— that he who were not well instructed by faith might have matter to imagine that Man were the God of God himself Let us besides produce another proof which more 2. Reason drawn from the communication of creatures evidently convinceth this obduratenesse of heart and this cruel rechlessnesse of the Philosophers who teach Indifferency which is that all creatures yea the most insensible are made by God to impart and to compassionate If the Sun hath light it is not for himself he clotheth the Air the Land and Sea with a golded net he imparteth it also as well to the little eyes of the Ant as to those of the mightiest Monarch in the world he soweth seeds of flames and vigour to warm and quicken totall nature If the Air hath Rain it keeps it not eternally within the treasurie of clouds but distilleth it as in a Limbeck to moysten the earth If the Sea have waters it so diveth them among all the Rivers as to bear men and victuall in Vessels and to make it self a knot of commerce from Land to Land from Countrey to Countrey from World Unaquaeque res cogitur dare â—eip â adeo exclusit Deus avaritiam à rebus humanis Guil. Paris l. de univers to World If the earth hath fruits it preserves them not for it self no more then the trees which bear them but plentifully opens its bosome profusely to communicate it self to all nature Every thing saith a great Bishop of Paris is bound by the Divine Providence to communicate it self so true it is that God hath banished avarice from humane things As each creature giveth it self by love so it suffers with others by conformity All the world is united and collected within it self as the parts of an Egg are tyed one within another All the members of the Universe mutually love and embrace and if they make warre it is but to establish their peace If there be want of an element as of Air the Water would mount to heaven or heaven descend to the water rather then not supply the defect of a neighbour It is a law which God hath engraven as with a toole of Adamont in the bosome of Nature It â—ath been observed that Palmes divided one from another by an arm of the Sea which had overflowed the countrey bowed their tops one towards another by a naturall inclination as witnessing their Amity and protesting against the fury of that element which had disunited them and if this sense be in plants what may we say of living creatures where we see cares troubles anxieties goings and comings combats yells neglect and losse of body repose and life with the sense they have of the detriment and dammage of their like And shall we not say then that a man who loveth nothing in the world and onely studieth the preservation of himself is a prodigie in Nature fit to be denyed the Air he breatheth the light which reflecteth on him the fire which warms him the viands which feed him and the earth which bears him I add for a third reason that pity and tendernesse 3. Reason of the tendernesse of great hearts of heart is not onely authorized by God and nature but it is established as by a common decree of nations Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople observeth in his Bibliotheque a wonderfull judgement A notable sentence of the Areopagites given in the City of Athens where he saith the Senate of Areopagites being assembled together upon a mountain without any roof but heaven the Senatours perceived a bird of prey which pursued a little Sparrow that came to save it self in the bosome of one of their company This man who naturally was harsh threw it from him so roughly that he killed it whereat the Court was offended and a Decree was made by which he was condemned and banished from the Senate Where the most judiciall observe That this company which was at that time one of the gravest in the world did it not for the care they had to make a law concerning Sparrows but it was to shew that clemency and mercifull inclination was a virtue so necessary in a State that a man destitute of it was not worthy to hold any Place in government he having as it were renounced Humanity We likewise see that the wisest and most courageous men in the world have been infinitely tender full of love zeal affection care anxiety and travel for the good of another David and Jonathan who were the bravest Princes over the people of God loved each other so much that the Scripture speaking of this Amity saith Their souls were tied together with an inseparable band S. Paul was so affectionate and jealous for the salvation of his Corinthians that he seemed to carry them all in his bowels and daily to bring them forth with convulsions and pains attended by joyes and delights not to be expressed Saint Ambrose bitterly bewailed the death of his brother Satyrus that to hear him speak one would think he meant to distill out his eyes and breathe out his soul on his Tombe So did S. Bernard at the decease of his brother Gerard. S. Augustine was a man all of fire before and after his conversion with onely this difference that this fire before the morn-tide of his salvation was nourished with
her to be valued with whole Books Another while he descendeth into particulars he recounts unto her his voyages his adventures his comforts his discomforts He omits nothing of the condition of his health of the disposition of his body of his chamber of his habit of his ordinary exercises in this ugly place whereunto he is banished He protesteth he is much troubled he sees her not he assures her all his pains are nothing in comparison of the want of such an one whom he so tenderly loved which he confirmed unto her by the example of S. Paul who challenged S. Paul tender in holy affections Angels and Devils who mocked at all persecutions who was ready to carry all hell on his shoulders had it been possible out of the desire he had to suffer And yet the separation of Titus his well-beloved Disciple afflicted him so much that he could not give his thoughts any repose He dilates much upon this affection of S. Paul to excuse his own which shewed it self at the height when the news was brought him of the sicknesse of the same Olympias For then it was when the winters of Scythia the countenances of Barbarians the hideous roughnesse of some place where it seemed Nature had never been the noise of warre and the incursions of souldiers fleshed in massacres and spoils are nothing in comparison of the affliction he feels for the indisposition of this dear Virgin He conjureth her by all things the most precious to tender her health he sendeth her to skilfull Physicians he teacheth her medicinall drugs which help himself he promiseth her long letters which she infinitely loved so that she take care of her health he assureth her as it were in the spirit of prophecy that he must visit her again to comfort his cares wipe away his tears and replenish his heart with satisfaction What can be more lovely what more affectionate then this whole discourse Saint Jerome is in the same passions for Saint Paula Great affection of S. Hierom toward Sancta Paula S. Hierome in Epitaph Paulae All the splendour of Romes greatnesse all the riches of the earth are nothing with him in comparison of his little Bethleem made resplendent by the virtues of this noble Lady He telleth us that Pilgrims who come from the remotest confines of the world cannot see any thing in all the affluent wealth thereof comparable to her When he goes about to praise her he wisheth all the members of his body were changed into tongue and that he were nought but voyce to be throughout the whole Universe the Trumpet of her praises He describeth her life and death with extasies he playes the Poet in his old age to make her an Epitaph and fetcheth out a pedigree for her from the ashes of old Troy and the conquests of Agamemnon He formerly had made himself a Secretary to her and her daughter enditing their letters for them to invite Marcella their companion into the solitudes of Bethleem When he thinks of her coming all the holy land is turned topsie-turvey the hillocks leap for joy the fields deck themselves in their best beauties the rivers carry the news thereof to the meadows squadrons of religious and virgins go before there is nothing but salutations and transportations and rejoycings incomparable Out of which we may conclude Saints have very lively affections towards all they love That blessed Prelate the Bishop of Geneva had The affectionare â—etter of my Lord Bishop of Geneva the same spirit for his Philothea For behold how he speaks of her in the first letter of his second Book When you unfolded your self to me more particularly it was an admirable joy to my soul that I might more and more comfort yours which made me believe that God had given me to you not imagining any thing might be added to the affection I felt in my mind and especially when I prayed for you But now my dear daughter there hath upon it succeeded a new business which to my seeming cannot benamed but the effect of it is onely a great interiour sweetnesse which I have to wish you all the perfections of the love of God and all other spirituall benedictions In the 16 Epistle he saith It is a dew which moistneth his heart without blow or noise I speak before the God of my heart and yours every affection hath its particular difference one from another That which I bear you hath a certain particularity which infinitely comforteth me and to say all it is infinitely available for me Account this as an irrefragable verity and do not you doubt it at all Then he adds when many particular persons recommended to him come into his mind she is alwayes the first or the last who there longest abideth See how the wayes of the just are hidden and leave no prints to follow them by the tracks An ill informed Censurer would here have wrinckled the brow he would have said with a supercilious countenance a severe aspect in the words of Cato That it must needs be a manifest snare of Satan to have a womans face in his mind in the midst of his prayers and yet we know this worthy man lived in most perfect purity in imitation of immateriall Angels This teacheth us Necessitudo Christi glutine copulata quam non utilitas â—ei familiatis non subdola palpans adulatio sed Dei timor divinarum scripturarum studia conciliant S. Hierom. there may be amity between Sex and Sex purre and ardent as the flames which enlighten stars But this onely belongeth to persons infinitely prudent and absolute in virtue who are therein more worthy of admiration then imitation yea indefatigable circumspection must be used to contein them within their limits And then is the time that they produce chast and strong delights when two spirits perpetually look one upon another as the Cherubins of the Ark having continually the Propitiatory of the living God in the midst of them or when they resemble the Sunne and Moon who for these six thousand years have courted each other and never touched § 5. Of the enterteinment of Amities AMity in the world wherein we are is a fire out of its sphear which properly is heaven where knowledges are without darknesse joyes without discomforts and love without blemish For which cause Mollis est animus diligentis ad omnem sensum doloris argutus si negligentiuâ— tractes cito marcet ut â—osa si durius teneas livet ut lilia Sâ—nthacus ep 34. it stands in need of precaution to defend it self and of strength to abide in a place where constancy is rare change ordinary errours naturall assaults violent and resistance weak The mind of a Lover is delicate nice and sensible in injuries if you handle it slightly it withereth like a Rose if roughly it fadeth like a Lilly I then will briefly glance at those things which alter Amity and shew you likewise the Antidotes that
facil and sweet The one took the golden branch with violence the other gathered it gently as if the Providence of God had put it into his hands Now Raymond not satisfied with seminaries of students embraced the conquest of the Holy Land and stirred up many cities of Italy in this matter exhorting them to make contributions wherein he was so perswasive that the city of Pisa alone which is none of the greatest furnished him with devotists who made of one sole free gift twenty five thousand crowns which he would by no means handle leaving it to the dispose of the Pope who would not give ear to the erection of new Colledges so much were the affairs of the Papacy embroiled He more easily obtained one thing which was one of his three wishes to wit the suppression of the books of Averroes an enemy to Christianity which many with too much curiosity read in the Schools of Philosophy God many times grants good dispositions to his servants whereof he will not they have the accomplishment making them appear more eminent in sufferings then actions This great man was of the number of those for he made himself most remarkable in the love of suffering wandring over the world in extreme poverty great incommodities of heat cold nakednesse hunger scorns contempts dolours banishments dangers both by sea and land shipwracks treasons chains prisons and a thousand images of death One day travelling alone through a huge forrest he met two lions which caused some little fear of death in him as he witnesseth in his writings desirous to live that he might yet on earth serve his well-beloved but in this great surprisall be had a thought that love would put it self into the midst of this passage and make him endure death with the more contentment herewith he comforted himself and the lions drew near and licked his face bathed in tears of Devotion and kissed his feet and hands doing him no harm Men were more sharp and discourteous to him who ceased not to drag him before Tribunals to charge him with calumnies for his extraordinary wayes to give sentence against him but in all he appealed to his well-beloved who never forsook him Seeing himself destitute of all succour for the conversion of Sarazens he passed alone into the kingdome of Thunes where he freely disputed with the chief of the Mahometans concerning the greatnesse and excellency of our Faith against the impostures of Mahomet which was the cause that he was immediately cast into prison and condemned by the King himself to have his head cut off to which he disposed himself with an incomparable fervour of love At which time one of the prime men of State in the countrey who had conceived well of him out of the admiration of his wit perswaded the King to be satisfied with banishing him out of his kingdome and that by this way he should do all he was obliged unto for the preservation of his own law and should get the reputation of a mild Prince among Christians abstaining from the bloud of such a man which he did but he was thrust out of Thunes with so many blows and ignominies that he therein gained a noble participation in the Crosse of Jesus Christ The fervour which incessantly boiled in his veins suffered him not to be long at rest He went into the kingdome of Bugia as Jonas into Nineveh crying out aloud through the streets that there was in the world but one Religion and that was ours and that the law of Mahomet was a meer imposture and a fantasie He was instantly laid hands on as a mad-man and lead to the high Priest named Alguassin who asked him whether he knew not the Laws of the countrey which forbad him upon pain of death to speak against Mahometisme To which he answered he could not be ignorant of it but that a man who knew the truth of Christian Religion as he did could do no other but seal it with his blood This Alguassin proud of science perceiving him to be a man of a good wit entred farther into discourse with him where he found himself shamefully gravelled which made him forsake the Syllogismes of the School to have recourse to the arguments of tyrants which are arms and violence for he caused him to be presently taken as an Emissary Goat there being not any Mahometan hand so little which delighted not to hale and leade him with blows untill they brought him into the most hideous prison which was rather a retreat then a gaol where he endured a thousand miseries with an unshaken constancy The Genowayes his good friends who traffick in these parts moved with his affliction got with good round summes of money a more reasonable prison for him where he began again to dispute with the most learned of the sect and made himself to be so much admired by those his adversaries that they endeavoured to gain him to their Religion promising him wife family honours and riches as much as he could wish but he mocked at all their machinations and seeing them fervent to dispute he persisted therein with great strength of reason and courage They said words were lost in the air but they must take the pen in hand and write on both sides with which he was infinitely pleased and spent nights and dayes in prison to compose a great volumn for defence of our Religion But the King of Bugea coming into his capitall city dissipated all these counsels much fearing the touch of his Law which was gold of a base allay and caused him the second time to come out of prison From thence he sought to get something in Greece passing over into Cyprus where he disputed against the Nestorians and Jacobites who rendred him poison for the honey of his discourses whereof he was like to die had he not been preserved by divine Providence and the assistance of a good Angel The blessed man had already passed forty years in a thousand toils and crosses and spared not to suffer by reason of the flames of love which burnt his heart but he knew not whether he suffered or no so much he took to heart the cup which God had mingled for him Verily our Lord appearing one day unto him and asking him if he well knew what love was of which he so many years had made profession he very excellently answered If I do not well know what Love is I at least well understand what Patience is meaning that it was to suffer since nothing troubled him for the satisfaction he had in Gods causes And another time being asked whether he had Patience he said All pleased him and that he had no cause of impatience which onely belongs to them who keep the possession of their own will Lastly being about fourscore years of age he considered within himself what he said afterwards that love was a sea full tempests and storms where a port was not to be hoped for but with the losse of himself and
considerable is self-love which is ever bent upon the preservation of it self and the exclusion of all things offensive from whence it cometh that all the greatest lovers of themselves are the most fearfull and the most reserved in the least occasions of perill as are ordinarily persons rich full of ease and nice who resemble the fish that hath gold on his scales and is Aelian l. 12. de animal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most timorous creature of the sea The second wherein many particular causes meet is the evil to come namely when it is great near inevitable and that it tends to the privation of our being From thence arise a thousand spectres of terrour as are poverty outrages maladies thunder fire sword inundations violent deaths wild beasts and above all men powerfull cruell revengefull wicked especially when they are offended or that they have some interest in our ruine and that they can freely be revenged without any fear of laws or punishment Adde to these the envious corrivalls greedy heirs friends treacherous provoked or timorous mutinous quarrelsome violent and greedy The third motive of fear is the ignorance and little experience we have in the evils of the world for all that which is covert and hidden from us seems the more terrible as are solitudes abysses darknesses and persons disguised From thence cometh that women children and men bred in a soft and sedentary life are more timorous sith the knowledge of dangers whereof they are deprived is a great Mistresse of Fortitude The fourth source is coldnesse and consideration which is the cause that the wisest justly fear perils where hair-brain'd young-men fools and drunkards carelesly jeast and make sport and that was the cause why Sylla finding himself many times too considerate in the forefight of evils did endeavour to drown his apprehensions in wine The fifth is observed in a nature cold melancholick imaginative and distrustfull which sometimes happeneth to Hypocondriacks such as was that of the antient Artemon who caused a buckler continually to be carried over his head by two Lackeys fearing lest something falling from on high might hurt him or that of Pisander who feared to meet his own soul or that other frantick fellow who durst not walk for fear of breaking the world which he perswaded himself was wholly made of glasse The sixth lastly comes from an ill conscience For there Semper enim praesumit saeva perturbata conscientia Sap. 17. 11. Plutarch de sera numinis vindicta is not any thing so turmoiled so torn and so divided as a soul which hath alwayes before it the image of its own crimes This was it which made the Nero's and Domitians to tremble This which caused Apollodorus of whom Plutarch speaketh to have horrible visions so that it many times seemed to him in his nightly sleeps that the Scythians flaied him alive threw his chop'd members one after another into a boiling caldron and that he had nothing alive but his heart which said to him in the bottome of this caldron I am thy wicked heart It is I who am the source of all thy Disastres §. 2. Of the vexations of Fear its Differencies and Remedies WE may well say this passion is one of the most Fear a troublesome passion troublesome and vexing among all the motions of our mind because it is extremely ranging sith not content with the evils which are on the sea and land yea in Hell it forgeth new which have no subsistence but in the perplexity of an imagination quite confounded Besides this it more spiritually tormenteth us making our Judgement and Reason to contribute to our vexations and many times so long turmoileth us that it maketh us to fear half an age of time that which The ignorance of our evils is a stratagem of the divine Providence passeth in a moment For which cause I account it a loving clemency of God to hide from us the greatest part of the things which befall us the knowledge whereof would continually over-whelm our wretched life with sadnesse and affrightment and not give us leave nor leisure to breathe among the delicious objects of Nature If so many great and eminent personages who being mounted to the highest degrees of honour have been thrown down into abysses had continually beheld the change of their fortune and the bloudy ends of their life it is not credible but that the joyes of their triumphs would have been moistned with their tears and by a perpetuall fear of an inevitable necessity they would have lost all the moments of their felicity Now in some sort to remedy a plague so generall Three sorâ—â— of fear I find the troubles which come to us this way either are naturall timidities or fears of things very frequent in the condition of humane life or are affrightments upon some terrible and unusuall objects Forasmuch as concerneth timidities which we see in fearfull natures Timidity its causes and symptomes they proceed either from the disposition of body and melancholick humour or from the quantity of heart which is sometimes too great and hath little heat or from idlenesse and effeminacy of life or from a base birth and from a sedentary breeding or from small experience or from overmuch love of reputation and ease both of mind and body Some are timorous in conversation and fear to approach men of quality they dread the aspect of those whom they have not accustomed to see they quickly change colour they have no consequence in their speech no behaviour no discourse their words are broken the tone of their voyce is trembling and their countenance nothing confident which very often happeneth to young men timorously bred and little experienced Others fear all occasions of Ceremonies of pomp and splendour to see and to be seen and would willingly borrow the veil of night to cover themselves from them Others are very bad sollicitours of businesses daring not to say nor contradict any thing and if they must needs ask a question they do it so fearfully that in asking they shew how they should be denied There are who more fear to speak in publick then one would a battel which hath happened to many great wits as to Demosthenes Theophrastus and Cicero who protesteth Fearfull Oratours that being already of good years he still became pale and trembled in the beginning of his discourse which in my opinion proceeded from an excessive love of honour which these men seemed to hazard when they made Orations before Princes the Senate and people A block-head exposeth himself with much more confidence because he hath nothing to lose and is like a Pilot who steereth a ship fraught with hay But these were masters who guided vessels furnished with pearls such credit and authority they had purchased Aeschines Aelian l. 8. variae Hist a man well behaved a great talker and a huge flatterer triumphantly spake before King Philip and the Macedonians where poor
body of the King with those of his three children and hung them upon the walls of Bethshan where they were seen untill the time that certain valiant men of his party took them away by night and gave them buriall Such was the end of this unhappy Prince whom impiety disobedience love of himself and the jealousie of State accompanied with his ordinary ragings threw head-long into a gulf of calamities At the same time that this unhappy battell was David receives the news thereof fought David was pursuing the Amalekites which in his absence had sacked the town of Ziklag which was the place of his retireing that Achish the King of the Philistims had bestowed upon him He was so happy that he overtook those robbers loaden with their prey and took out of their hands his two wives Ahinoam and Abigail whom they had taken away As he came from this battell a young Amalekite presents himself and brings him the news of the death of Saul of Jonathan and of his other sons affirming that he himself had stood by at the death of the King and had helped him to dye by order which he had received from him cutting off the thread of his life and delivering him from those deadly pains that caused him to languish and for a proof hereof he shewed him his Crown and his bracelet which he presented to David hoping for a great reward from him But this virtuous and wise Prince aswell for conscience sake as his reputation took great heed of receiving or manifesting any joy at this accident but on the contrary being moved with extream grief he tore his garments and put all his court in mourning he wept he fasted he made funerall Orations for the honour of Saul and Jonathan and set forth lamentations which caused as great esteem of his virtue as they moved pity to his countrey Not content herewith he caused the Amalekite that brought him the news of the death of Saul to dye by Justice which he himself had helped to confirm according as he had avouched by obedience and by compassion not enduring that he should lay hands upon a King for to take away his life from him by any pretence whatsoever that he could alledge It seemed that after the death of this unhappy Prince David should forthwith have taken possession of all his estates but wisdome hindred him from proceeding herein so hastily They knew that he had not assisted at the the battell for to help his people that he had retired himself into the hands of the capitall enemies of Israel and many might very justly think that he had born arms for Achish which might diminish much the great opinion that they had of his virtue Further also although that Saul was not so much loved in his life-time yet his death might very well have defaced that blemish of hatred that many had conceived against him They considered that he had sacrificed himself with his three sons for the publick safety and had spared nothing for his countrey They had pity on the evil usage that the Philistims had done unto his body his former good actions in time past the dignity of a King his laborious life and tragicall death did quell all the envie that any could have at his fortunes Hence it was that Abner his chief Captain who was a man sufficiently upright would not lose any time but seeing there remained yet a son of Saul named Ishbosheth aged fourty years although he was but of little courage and as little understanding he made him presently to come into the Camp and caused him to be declared the true and lawfull successour of the estates of Saul not so much for the esteem that he had of his sufficiency or for the love that he bore him as intending to reign by him and over him All the people gave unto him the oath of Allegiance except the kindred of Juda from which David was sprung which gathered together in favour of him and crowned him King in Hebron where he reigned about seven years before he possessed the whole power of the Empire The Kingdome of Judah was then one body with The kingdome divided by the ambition of the favourites two heads the house of Saul and David clashing against each other not so much by the inclination of the Masters as by the ambition of the Favourites and Servants which would reign at their costs Abner was high and courageous Joab also the Joab and Abner do seek for the government chief Captain of David stern and violent which would gain the favour of his Master by devouring him in the which he did not succeed well for that the spirit of David was not so feeble as to comply with such behaviour and it was nothing but necessity which caused him to passe by many things These two chief Captains full of jealousie the one Their combat over the other meeting together at the Fish-pond of Gibeon with the chief of the Nobility Abner began first and demanded a combat under pretence of play unto whom Joab which had no need of a spur easily consented Presently one might see the young men of each side nimbly to bestir themselves whose fingers did itch to be at it and did not fail quickly to surprise one another The sport growing hot by little and little came to a full combat and at last to a battell where many remained upon the place Joabs party was the stronger and that for twenty which he lost he killed three hundred and sixty of Abners men who was constrained to retire himself But Azael the brother of Joab a nimble runner followed The death of Azael by his rashnesse him lively with his sword at every turn ready to wound him the other which had no desire to slay him being not ignorant that if it should come to that it would prove the seed of an irreconcileable enmity between him and Joab his brother prayed him twice to depart from him and to content himself with the spoil of some other without being ambitious of his Azael would not hearken unto him but desired to make himself famous by getting the better of the Captain of the Army At last he seeing him insolent unto that extremity turned back and struck him through with his Launce Joab and Abishai his two brethren incensed with that his slaughter followed Abner with all their force who saved himself upon a hill where a great squadron of the family of Banjamin encompassed him and cryed with a loud voice unto Joab saying shall the sword devour for ever and would he make of a sport so deadly a tragedy as if he were ignorant that it was dangerous to drive them to despair Joab caused a retrait to be sounded making a shew to do that for courtesie which he agreed to for necessity Abner laying aside his warlike humour fell in love The disagreeing of Abner and Ishbosheth with a Concubine of Saul named Rispah which was a
Husband that he summoned her again to ask what ever seemed good unto her for there was no request but should be granted that proceeded from her mouth The Queen that would give her self leisure to consult with her Uncle first that she might effectually disclose that great affair put off the offer till the morrow after and said to the King That since his Majesty had expressed so great a satisfaction for her little Dinner and that the cheerfulnesse of his heart redounded to the benefit of his Health she would present to him again with all humility the very same Petition and convince him by his friendship which she prised above all things in the World to eat again the following day of the Viands that she should make ready for him and with the same Company This was fully granted her and after she had prepared the spirit of the King by these dispositions she resolved to open her whole mind with the Counsell and art of Mordecai Haman went out of the Palace gloriously triumphing and accompanied with a great Train But when he perceived Mordecai at the Gate who made as though he did not see him when all others killed themselves to make him Reverences he felt himself moved with fury and went suddenly to his house to conclude upon the Death of that innocent man Good say the Philosophers is never Good if it be not intire and Perfect which is the cause that there are few felicities in the World where all Light hath its Shadow all fruit its Worm and every Beauty fails not to have its embasement and Allay And this is it that Proud Haman experiments in the highest glory of his Fortune He makes a consultation with his Wife and Friends and tells them That he is this day according to the Worlds esteem one of the happiest men upon the Earth If he looks upon his Riches they are well-nigh infinite If he casts his eyes upon his House he sees it underproped with a good company of Children If he considers the favour of the Prince Never man was in a like degree His Counsels are the Felicities of the State his Words are Oracles and his Altitudes are Ravishments that dazle the whole Earth from Euphrates even as farre as Nilus Yet he confesses to them ingeniously that in this high heape of Honours and of Blessings that inviron him he hath no content at all as long as he sees himself outbraved by that beggarly Rascall Mordecai who vouchsafes not so much as to do him any Reverence All the Joyes that he hath in his House and all the Applauses that he receives every day in publick gives him not so much Pleasure as that sole Affront powres bitternesse into his heart which he cannot digest And therefore he prayes them to advise him on some means that he should use to rid himself of that Villain and sacrifice him to his vengeance He added that he had Dined with the King and Queen and that he was to go thither again the morrow after which was a favour that none could hope for after him yet he lost all the sense of it when it entred into his imagination that he must see a Mordecai at the Palace gate to reproch to him his impotence and that there was no more life for him as long as that cursed fellow that was to him as an ill-boding Bird remained at Court The Wife that was of the same humour with her Husband pronounced a short sentence and said that if there were not Gallowses enough at Shushan to hang a Rascall he shall cause one to be set up of fifty Cubits high and should desire the King that Mordecai should be suddenly fastened to it and that this being done he might go with a purified spirit to the Banquet of the Queen This Counsell pleased him very much and he resolved to forward it but Providence Prepared for him farre other businesse to dispatch to make him know that no body thinks upon the Ruine of another without hastening of his own The Angel of God that Governs Kings gives them thoughts not foreseene and raises to them occasions of Virtues and great Actions sometimes even when they least dream of it The King was laid upon his Bed to repose himself and could not shut his Eyes the whole night without having the least appearance of Care or Trouble in his spirit He calls for his Reader and bids him reade to him some Book or other to entertein him He reads in his presence the Annals of the Kingdome and particularly That which happened in his Time He comes without thinking on it to the Year that made mention of Thares and Bagathans Conspiracy discovered by Mordecai The Kings heart that was in the hand of God changed in an instant the remembrance of that good servant beginns to enter into his mind with some Tendernesse and Compassion That ardent and inconsiderate Love that he had had to his friend Haman grows cold again insensibly without having any Reason for it It seemed as if there had been a charm raised suddenly by an Heavenly hand He resumes thoughts of Consideration of Justice and affection towards honest men He asked what Recompense Mordecai hath had for so great and notable a Service that he did his Person and all his State It was found that he had gained nothing by it but Promises and Hopes The King demands of the Gentlemen of his Chamber who was in the Anti-chamber they answered Haman that was come according to his custome to discourse with him while he was rising and to presse hotly Mordecai's Ruine He commands them to bid him enter He enters with a Boldnesse that promised it self all things and sets himself to his Complements and his ordinary merriments Yet all that had pleased the King heretofore in the conversation of that man even to a Rapture begins to displease him now and he seeks nothing more then the means to humble him He frames to himself in Idea's a man of Fortune rising from nothing that hath prevailed over the simplicity of his Spirit that hath made great Magazines of Gold and Silver our of his Levies That disposes of all the Offices of his Kingdome That makes himself adored of great and small That is followed as Himself and morethen Himself That hath his Privy-Seal and all his Authority in his hands That hath so much money to lay out as to offer ten thousand Talents to satiate his Revenge and that Authorizes all wickednesse by the Name and avouching of his Master if at least he hath one on this top of glory whither he is mounted He hath now a mind to undo him and feels a powerfull motion pushing him forward to it and which permits him not to deliberate of it any more nor to Consider with what security he might execute so great a businesse He knew that he was hated of all the World by Reason of his Pride and that his Adorers themselves would have eaten him up with a very good
the assistance of God upon their Arms. He also shewed himself very sensible of the favours of Heaven and desired that God should first of all triumph in all the good successes that accompanied his Standards which he expressed visibly when having defeated the Generals of King Antiochus in manifold assaults and gotten a little rest to his dear countrey he took a pressing care to cause the Temple to be repaired and cleansed that had been horribly profaned by the Infidels It was an incomparable joy to all the people when after so many desolations that had preceded he celebrated a Triumphant Dedication by which he caused the hopes of his Nation to reflourish His cares extended even beyond the World wherein we live and one may well affirm that he was the first of the Antient Fathers of the Old Testament that expressed more openly the charitable offices that ought to be rendred to the souls of the Deceased This manifestly appears in an encounter which he had with Gorgias Generall of the Army of the Enemy in which he lost some Souldiers and when he came to visit the field of battell to view the Dead and to cause them to be carried to the Sepulchre of their Fathers he found that some amongst them had in their clothes certain pieces of the offerings presented to the Idols thinking perhaps that it was lawfull for them to accommodate themselves with it for their use though in effect the Law forbad it This gave a shock at first unto his conscience that was very delicate and he deplored the unhappinesse of those forsaken people that had loaded themselves with profane Booties yet when he thought that that befell them more for want of consideration and by the hope of some little gain then by any consent that they had given to Idolatry he sent twelve thousand Drachmes into Jerusalem to cause Sacrifices to be offered for the rest of their Souls This made him to be honoured with very particular favours of heaven for he hath been sometimes seen in a combat environed with celestiall virtues that watched for his protection and filled his enemies with terror His very dreams were not without a mystery witnesse that which shewed him the Prophet Jeremy and the high Priest Onias who prayed before the face of God for the safety of the People the former of which two put into his hand a guilded sword telling him that it was that wherewith he should bring down to the earth the enemies of his Religion The great love that he had for God reflected it self continually towards his neighbour on whom he contemplated the image of the first beauty He bore in his heart all that were afflicted and burned with a most ardent love for the good of his dear countrey The zeal of Justice possessed his soul and he had no greater delights in the world then to succour widows orphans and all necessitous persons They ran to him as to their true Father they ranged themselves under the shadow of his virtue and found there a refreshment in their most parching heats His conversation was sweet his speech affable his manners without avarice He never sold his Protection nor made any Traffick of his Valour He knew not what it was to buy his neighbours lands to build palaces to plant orchards to make gardens and to heap up treasures He was rich for the poor and poor for himself living as a man untyed from all things else and fastned to virtue alone by an indissoluble knot of duty His Temperance passed even to admiration so greatly did he contemne those pleasures and delights that others regard as their chief felicity He never dreamed of causing the beautifull women-prisoners to be preserved for himself because he was skilfull in the trade of defending Ladies honours rather then assaulting them He never had any Mistresse being perpetually Master of himself and one shall have work enough to find out his wives name it is not read that he had any other children but Virtues and Victories He lived as an Essean estranged from all the pleasures of the flesh and tasted no other contentment in the world then to do great actions He never enterprised the warre against King Antiochus to make himself great and to reign but for the pure love of his Religion and dear countrey Traytours and corrupted spirits blame him for having taken up arms saying That it behoved them rather to suffer the Destinies then to make them That it behoved them to obey the Powers that God had set over their heads That it was a great rashnesse to think to resist the forces of all Asia with a little handfull of souldiers that it could not chuse but provoke the conquerours and draw upon the vanquished a deluge of calamities The world hath been full in all times of certain condescending Philosophers who accommodate themselves to every thing that they may not disaccommodate themselves for virtue They care not what visage is given to Piety so that they find therein their own advantages By how much the more mens spirits are refined to search out reasons to colour the toleration of vices by so much the more their courages are weakned and neglect to maintain themselves in duty There are some that had rather lie still in the dirt then take the pains to arise out of it Judas considered that King Antiochus was not contented with having brought the Jews to a common servitude but would overthrow all their Laws and abolish entirely their Religion He did not believe that it was lawfull for him to abandon cowardly the interests of God He thought that there are times wherein one ought rather destroy ones self with courage then preserve ones self with sluggishnesse He looked not so much upon his strength as upon his duty He perswaded himself that a good Cause cannot be forsaken of God and that we ought to essay to serve him applying our wills to his orders and leaving all the successe of our works to his disposall This great zeal that he had of Justice was accompanied with a well tempered prudence As he never let loose himself in that which was absolutely of the Law so did he never use to rack himself by unprofitable scruples that are ordinary enough to those that are zealous through indiscretion Some of his Nation shewed themselves so superstitious that being assaulted by their enemies on the Satturday they let their throats be cut as sheep without the least resistance for fear of violating the Sabbath if they should put themselves upon a defence Judas following the example of his father Matathias took away that errour which tended to the generall desolation of his countrey and shewed by lively reasons that God who hath obliged us to the preservation of our selves by the Law of Nature had never such an intention as to give us for a prey to our enemies by an indiscreet superstition That it was a good work to defend the Altars and ones countrey against the Infidels and
continually and forget all the functions of the reasonable life So may you see abundance of such men who perceiving themselves raised upon the wings of fortune fall into such a madnesse of glory that they are as it were dizzy-headed by certain venimous fumigations of ambition and know themselves no more But this man sees himself at his going out of prison mounted to the highest point of honour that ever happened to a Favourite He hath the Kings Ring and Seal he triumphs upon his Chariot he sees the Nobles in admiration of his Fortune and the Commons in veneration he sees the applauses he hears the Clamours of those that highly publish him the saviour of the world And yet for all this great preparation there escapes not from him one onely word of vanity He expresses not any complacency in those honours and in that habit and it is not read that after the day of the Ceremony he ever used them He publickly a vouches that he is the son of a Shepheard he causes his Father and his Brothers to come into the Kingdome of Egypt not to give them the Offices of the Court and the Treasures of Pharaoh but he lets them alone in their vocation contenting himself to procure their quiet and some small commodities sutable to that Pastorall life He humbles himself before his Father he acknowledges and makes much of his Brethren he gains the heart of all the world and bears so actively that high top of glory that he seems to be no more laden with it then a Bird is with his Feathers The third perfection of Joseph is remarkable in the great and laborious services that he rendered to his Prince with an high Prudence an exquisite Diligence and an inviolable faithfulnesse He visited in person all the Provinces of Egypt and in the great fertility of those fortunate years when Corn was almost as cheap as sand he laid up a prodigious store in the Kings Magazines to relieve the necessities of the barrennesse that was to come and indeed it did not fail to happen but indured the space of seven years with such a violence and so great disasters that it seemed that the bowels of the Earth were iron and that God had resolved to destroy mankind by a Generall Famine It was then that all the People implored the mercy of the King who sent them back to Joseph who caused the Granaries of all Egypt to be set open and sold corn to all those that had need of it first for money afterward for Cattell and at last when both money and Cattell failed the Egyptians they sold their Lands in great number so that all Egypt was submitted to the discretion of the King to avoid that raging Famine They gave themselves and their little possessions with all their heart for Bread But Joseph takeing pity of their great miseries made them Conditions that were above all their hopes This people was of a spirit bright enough addicted to novelties and seditions which made them often shake off the yoak but Joseph tamed them insensibly by their own necessities and subjected all Egypt to his Master causing him to reign peaceably and with a great authority and yet for all this drew no envy upon himself but quite contrary he made his Government be admired and his memory blessed Amongst all this it is not said that he enriched his house with the great treasures that he heaped up for Pharaoh and although that his Master had put all things into his power yet he used them so moderately that when he had a mind to offer presents to his brother Benjamin whom he loved as his own heart he contented himself to give him five suits of Clothes and three hundred Livers making the same largesse to his Father with some Mules to transport their Baggage Yet is is very true that he caused the Land of Goshen to be given them but it was as it were by way of loan to dwell there and to husband it till the return that Jacob pretended to make to the Countrey of his Fathers In a word Joseph plainly shewed that he was little affected to all the Riches of the Egyptians when he received of his father and made reckoning of it a little piece of Land that he had gained from the Amorites A fourth quality of this wise Governour which is greatly to be priz'd is seen in the great prudence and singular sweetnesse which he used in his Government in such a manner that he gained the affection of all the great men of Egypt David speaking of this discretion and of this goodnesse saith according to the Hebrew Text That he tyed them all to his heart which is as much as to say That he united them to his person by a great affability by good offices and by honest yieldings They looked upon him as a Father and as a Master and had him in veneration and yet for all this he was not puffed with Pride nor inebriated with the opinion of his own sufficiency But in all the extraordinary favours that he received of the King his Master he was communicable and esteeming himself as one of them he saw them all under him To speak sincerely it is an admirable thing That a stranger should have held the Stern of a Kingdome the space of four score years in a Nation full of Spirit and sufficiently seditious without complaints without discontents and without intermissions in a calm so peaceable a Peace so amiable a Love so Universall How many do we see in Histories that being come to some dignity seem continually to hold a Wolf by the ears and as they love nothing but their own Interest so are they loved sincerely of no body which puts them in continuall frights and makes them fear even the very shadow of an hair They think not that there is any security for themselves unlesse they put the whole world in danger nor safety unlesse it be in the publick Ruines This makes them be hated of God and Men and causes cares to leap over Ramparts of Steel and Iron to beset their silver Ballisters and to call them to an account at every moment for the Calamity of the Living and for the Blood of the Dead This was a fifth Lineament of his good demeanour that he had bowels of Compassion for the poor People in that cruell Famine and generall despair of all Egypt And although one might imagine that he had promoted the Interests of the King in an excesse to the detriment of the Subject yet is it true that he that will well consider the estate and Lawes of that Monarchy will impute to Josephs favour that which he would have taken at first sight for Rigour in his Government It is certain that according to the Antient Histories which treat of the Policy of that Nation the Revenue of Egypt was divided into three parts the first of which was claimed by the Priests that were in great number and in great esteem in a
with a prodigious army against which there was no humane resistance He sent a certain man named Rabshakeh in an Embassage to King Hezekiah who vomited out blasphemies and proposed to him conditions shamefull to his reputation and impossible to all his powers All the people were in an affright expecting nothing but fire and sword The King covered with sackcloth implores the heavenly assistance and sends the chief Counsellours of his State to the Prophet Isaiah to turn away this scourge by his prayers The holy man in that confusion of affairs wherein one could not see one onely spark of light encourages him animates him and promises him unexpected effects of the mercy of God The Prophecy was not vain for in one onely night the Angel of God killed an hundred fourscore and five thousand men in the Army of the Assyrians by a stroke from heaven and a devouring fire which reduced them to dust in their guilded arms This proud King was constrained to make an ignominious retreat and being returned to Niniveh the capitall city of his Empire he was slain by his own children This is a manifest example of the amiable protection of God over the Holy Court who defended his dear Hezekiah by the intercession of the Prophet as the apple of his eyes He expressed yet another singular favour to him in a great sicknesse caused by a malignant ulcer of which according to the course of nature he should have died and therefore Isaiah went to see him and without flattering him brought him word of his last day exhorting him to put the affairs of his State in order This good King had a tender affection to life and being astonished at that news prayed God fervently with a great profusion of tears that he would have regard to the sincerity of his heart and to the good services that he had done him in his Temple and not to tear away his life by a violent death in the middle of its course The heart of the everlasting Father melted at the tears of that Prince and he advertised Isaiah who was not yet gone out of the Palace to retread his steps and carry him the news of his recovery He told him from God that he should rise again from that sicknesse and within three dayes should go up to the Temple ro render his Thanks-giving Further he promised him that his dayes should be augmented fifteen years and that he should see himself totally delivered from the fury of the Assyrians to serve the living God in a perfect tranquility The King was ravished at this happy news and desired some sign of the Divine will to make him believe an happinesse so unhoped for Isaiah for this purpose did a miracle which since Joshua had not been seen nor heard which was to make the Sun turn back so that the shadow of the Diall which was in the palace appeared ten degrees retired to the admiration and ravishment of all the world And to shew that the Prophet was not ignorant of Physick he caused a Cataplasme composed of a lump of figs to be applyed to the wound of the sick man whereby he was healed and in three dayes rendred to the Temple This miracle was not unknown to the Babylonians who perceived the immense length of the day in which it was done and their Prince having heard the news of it sent Embassadours to King Hezekiah to congratulate his health and to offer him great presents whereat this Monarch that was of an easie nature suffered himself to be a little too much transported with joy and out of a little kind of vanity made a shew of his treasures and of his great riches to those strangers which served much to kindle their covetousnesse And therefore the Prophet who was never sparing of his remonstrances to the King rebuked him for that action and fore-told him that he made Infidels see the great wealth that God had given him through a vain glory which would cost him dear and that having been spectatours of his treasures they had a mind to be the masters of them and that at length they should compasse their design but that it should not be in his time This Prince received the correction with patience and took courage hearing that the hail should not fall upon his head passing over his to his childrens Manasses his son succeeded him a Prince truly abominable who wiped out all the marks of the piety of his father and placed Idols even in the very Temple of the living God All that Idolatry had shown in sacriledges cruelty in murders impudence in all sort of wickednesses was renewed by the perfidiousnesse of this man abandoned of God Poor Isaiah that had governed the father with so much authority had no credit with the son this tygre was incensed at the harmonious consorts of the divine Wisdomes that spake by his mouth and could no more endure the truth then serpents the odour of the vine Yet he desisted not to reprehend him and to advertise him of the punishments that God prepared for his crimes whereat this barbarous man was so much moved and kindled with fury that he commanded that this holy old man that had passed the hundreth year should be sawn alive by an horrible and extraordinary punishment O Manasses cruell Manasses the most infamous of tyrants and the most bloudy of hang-men this was the onely crime that the furies themselves even the most enraged should never have permitted to thy salvagenesse This venerable Master of so many Kings this King of Prophets this prime Intelligence of the State this Seraphim this instrument of the God of Hosts to be used so barbarously at the Court by his own bloud after so many good counsels so many glorious labours so many Oracles pronounced so many Divine actions so worthily accomplished All the Militia of heaven wept over this companion of the Angels and the earth caused fountains to leap up to bedew her lips in the midst of her ardent pains His Wisdome hath rendred him admirable to the Learned his Life inimitable to the most Perfect his Zeal adorable to the most Courageous his Age venerable to Nature and his Death deplorable to all Ages JEREMIAH BEhold the most afflicted of Holy Courtiers a Prophet weeping a Man of sorrows an heart alwayes bleeding and eyes that are never dry He haunted not great men but to see great evils and was not found at Court but to sing its Funerals and to set it up a tomb Yet was he a very great and most holy person that had been sanctified in his mothers womb that began to prophecy at the age of fifteen years a spirit separated from the vanities and the pretensions of the world that was intire to God that lived by the purest flames of his holy love and quenched his thirst with his tears He drank the mud of bad times and found himself in a piteous Government in which there was little to gain and much to suffer After that the
of a licentious King and of a wanton mother whose head the King did cause to be cut off for her unchastness The one from five years of age was brought up in France with so much piety gravity and honour that nothing more could be added or desired The other had a licentious Education under the bad Example of her licentious parents The one had an excellent an active and a clear spirit resembling the quality of the Sun The other was of a crafty malignant and a sullen Nature resembling the condition of a Cornet The one was experienced in the knowledge of tongues and sciences as much as was necessary for an honest Lady who ought not to appear too learned The other gave her self to such a vanity of study that oftentimes she committed some extravagances as when she undertook to translate the five books of the Consolation of Boetius to comfort her self on the Conversion of Henrie the Fourth The one did speak and write with an extraordinary clearness and an accurate smoothness The other in her expressions was harsh and did much perplex her thoughts as may appear in a subscription of a Letter written with her own hand and directed to Henrie the Fourth after his Conversion Vostre saeur sice soit a la virille avec novelle Je n'ay que faire Elizabeth R. which is in English Your Sister if it be after the old fashion with the new I have nothing but to do Elizabeth R I leave to the most liberal Interpreter to divine what she meaneth by it The one had a generous free and a credulous heart The other was malicious obstinate and deceitfull The one loved honour to which her condition had obliged her The other had a furious and bloudy Ambition and spared none to improve the interest of her Greatness The one retained an admirable constancy in her ancient Religion by reason whereof though she was outragiously persecuted yet she omitted nothing in her devotion The other did put on Religion as she did her mask making her self a Heretick amongst Hereticks and a Catholick amongst Catholicks for when in the reign of her sister Mary she made a high and solemn profession of the Roman Faith she afterwards counterfeited her belief and betrayed that character to authorize heresie and rebellion against the Church The one feared God and finding her self the Relict of Francis the Second at seventeen years of age she had rather stoop to the marriage yoke to give life unto a King than to live inordinately and under the veil of widow-hood to conceal her secret wantonness The other who had not so strict a conscience did find a way to reconcile Ambition and Love and lived not married and not a maid and though I am unwilling to believe that she lived so salt and melting a life as some have affirmed yet I cannot deny but that she had her Favourites and her Minyons which Cambden her own Historiographer doth not conceal The one studied for the advancement of Virtue The other for the advancement onely of vain Reputation The one held forth a generous liberty in all her actions The other painted her life and covered her vices with great pretences she extreamly feared the censure of Posterity which made her with so much artifice to indeer unto her the ablest men of forreign Countreys and entertained mercenary quills to increase her glory thinking by that means to conceal her Defects and blind the eyes of mankind Wherefore we ought not to give too much belief to some Historians though otherwise men of esteem who deliver many and great praises having received many and great Presents Men of that quality are always credulous enough and are not accustomed to bark at those who do feed them with bread The one was very religious in her promises the other was captious and inconstant and this most visibly she made apparent to the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henrie the Third of France who was come into England to espouse her and though the Contract of the Marriage was confirmed both on the one side and the other and though the Marriage-Ring was given yet she broke all for the Caprichiousness of one night and to obey the cries of some Maids of Honour who besought her that she would not marry The one was full of bounty to her poor Subjects to whom she could not do all the good she desired by reason of the Rebellions that were stirred up in her Kingdom The other was carefull enough not to tax her Subjects with Imposts or with Subsidies which caused her to be beloved of her people who in all the virtues of a Prince do cherish nothing more than a moderation in their Subsidies The one was indued with an extream sweetness of disposition which sometimes did seem to lie too open and defenceless as when with out seeing justice done she pardoned great Crimes which tended to the diminution of her Authority The other was naturally cruel a lover of bloud and one who horribly tormented the Catholicks and too easily would bring the Heads of her Great-ones upon the Scaffold to obtain the honour and title of being just among popular Spirits To conclude one reigned like a Dove and the other like a Bird of prey It is a horrible thing to read the History of her Reign written by her Admirers where in stead of the Contemplation of Virtues and of Beauties you shall observe in every page the Rages of Accusers bloudy Judgements Proscriptions Massacres which I alledge not in any disparagement to the Nation which I love with a true Christian charity but to the ignominie and the shame of Heresie It seems to me when I read the Life of Elizabeth that I enter into the Countrey of the Anthropophagi where I behold nothing but men drawn upon Sledges Hang-men tearing out of bowels and dividing carkases into quarters which are still dropping bloud and hanging in the most remarkable places of the Citie as the tapestry of the ancient cruelty of the Puritans I assure my self that those who are now in authority under so gracious a Prince do reflect upon it with as much horrour as my self and by their moderation will endeavour to wipe away the stains of so bloudy a Time Who is he then that is not amazed to see Virtue so forsaken and the best Queen in the world to lead so tempestuous a life persecuted in her estate in her body in her honour in her own person in the person of her friends despoiled outraged dishonoured torn by bloudy calumines drawn to unjust Tribunals locked up in so many prisons abandoned by those most near unto her and sacrificed by her kinred to the vengeance of her enemies and that in so tragical a manner and by so barbarous a hand And how comes it to pass that the other being laden with crimes did mount on the Throne by ways unexpected and did continue there by uncontrouled power and reigned as if she had all good Fortune at her own
eyes enlightened with the Beams of the face of God Consider the waves of the Ocean which cease not to carry the Memory of your Deeds unto the ends of the earth pardon your Subjects and wash away the stain which the effusion of that generous bloud hath made since you had rather be a Messenger of Reconciliation than to be the Bearer of Vengeance O great and illustrious Brittanie Is it possible that this bloud hath yet wrought nothing on the hardness of thy heart and that thou dost still delight by force of Arms to fight against Heaven to oppose thy own safety and to shut the gate against thy own happiness Where is that glory of thy Christianism which heretofore did make thee to be lookt upon as on a land of Benediction which opened her liberal breasts to give so many Doctours to Europe so many Lights of learning to the Church so many Examples of piety to all Christendom and so many Confessors unto Paradise Thy Kings by a pious violence have forced their way to Heaven and their people have followed their foot-steps There was nothing spoken of thee but obedience to the Church of Rome of Saints of Reliques of Piety of Combats of Virtue and of Crowns And since the devil of lust and rebellion raised from the most black Abyss hath seized on the soul of a miserable King thou hast sullied thy perfection thou hast destroyed thy Sanctuary the lamentable Reliques whereof are now spread over all the world and the sacred stones of thy Temples groaning amongst the Nations do attend the day of the Justice of God and the Re-union of the hearts of thy people in the performance of his service What hast thou done with the cradle of Constantine and of S. Helena who were born with thee to give Laws unto all Christendom What hast thou done with those precious stones which composed that Diadem the beams whereof did sparkle with admiration in the eyes of all the people in the world Return O Sbunamite return Return fair Island to thy first beginning the hand of God is not shortned his arms all day are stretched forth to receive thee If the insolent hands of Heresie have made them bars which have been planted for so many years do not think but the hands of true piety will tear away the disorders which protect themselves in the night of so corrupted an Age. Feign not to thy self imaginary horrours and overthrowings of Estates by the Inquisitions and Thunders of Rome The beams of the Sun will make the Manna to melt which no Power can destroy The bloud of this immortal Queen shall break the Diamond in pieces and one day work those great effects which we our selves cannot believe nor our Posterity sufficiently admire It is in your veins most mighty Monarch of Great Brittain where still her bloud doth run That cruel Axe which made three Crowns to fall with one head hath not yet poured it all out it doth preserve it self in your body and in the body of your Posterity animated with the Spirit of Marie and imprinted with the image of her goodness It is she who hath given you so temperate a spirit such attractive inclinations such royal Virtues and so triumphant a Majesty It is she who uniteth you with the Queen your dear Spouse with a will so cordial and with a love so perfect and makes your marâ—iage as a continual Sacrifice of the Ancients whose offerings that were presented had no gall at all in them The Queen of Scotland your Grand-mother was given unto France and France hath rendered you a Princess according to the heart of God and according to your own-heart a Blossom of our Lilies the Daughter of a King the Sister of a King the Wife of a King Royal in her bloud Royal in her Religion Royal in her Piety in her Prudence and Royal in her Courage She enters into your cares she partakes of your troubles She conspires with your Designs her spirit turneth unto yours and yours continually is ready to meet with hers They are two clocks excellently ordered which at every hour of the Day do answer one another Great Majesties of Brittanie carry the same yoke in the service of God and the piety of your Ancestours and as you have but one heart maintain also but one Religion Establish that which your Grand-mother of everlasting memory hath practised by her Virtues demonstrated by her Examples honoured by her Constancy and sealed with her Bloud CARDINAL POOL LE CARDINAL POLVS NExt unto Boëtius I will insert Cardinal Pool one of the most excellent Men of the Age before us who being chief of the Councel in the Realm of England under Queen Marie did know so well to marry the Interests of the State to the Interests of God that rendering himself the Restorer of Religion he repaired the Ruins of the Kingdom which were fallen into a horrible desolation His Birth most high and illustrious made him a His birth and Education near Kinsman to the King of Great Brittain as well by the Fathers side as by the Mothers His spirit did equal his Nobility but his Virtue did exceed them both and proved him to be the wisest and the most moderate person in all the Clergy The care of his good Mother did with great advantage improve his more innocent and tender years and omitted nothing that might either enlighten his understanding in the knowledge of learning or inflame his heart with a generous heaâ— after gallant actions In his most tender age he testified a Divine Attraction His love of solitude which made him to eschewall commerce of company and secretly did inspire him with the love of Solitude He did delight in the Countrey life where the pureness of the Air the aspect of the Stars the ennammel of the Meadows the covert of the Woods the veins of the Waters and other objects did prepare him as many Degrees to mount up to God as he did there behold Beauties in the discovered breasts of Nature It was for this that he made his first studies near unto the House of the reverend Fathers of the Charters whose conversation he loved more than all the pleasures in the world which occasioned a certain tincture of Devotion and of probitie to pass into his manners which continued with him all his life From thence he removed to the Universities in England where he gave most admirable proofs of his Capacity On the approach of the twentieth year of his age His Travels he travelled into Italie where he beheld the wonders of Rome and had a tast of the rarest spirits in that Age some whereof did afterwards live with him and did much conduce to fill his spirit with the height of learning which made him to be admired by all and the rather because it no way diminished the holy heats of his Devotion Having travelled into forreign Countreys for the space of five years he returned into England where he was lookt
necessity in it I must obey the advise of my Councol such are the priviledges of Empires I could not otherwise save the repose of my people and secure the lives of my subjects Whensoever I shall fall into the like crime I wish to be used in the same manner Behold the true cause most dear daughter if there yet remain in you any resentment concerning this death I suppose you are wise enough to do that herein which the law of God ordaineth which is to forget what is past and not to be ungrateful for the present If I have hitherto deteined you in my Palace very retiredly it hath been to please your humour which I saw had sincere inclinations to devotion and to breed you as a child of honour which is the portion you are to carry presently with you to your husband My wel-beloved daughter endeavour to love your Countrey and to hold good correspondence with us You submitted to my humours whilst you lived with me you now must undergo those of a husband and in complying with them shall be most potent Forget not the fear of God which ever hath been a faithful companion to you from your most tender years and let us often hear good news from you In saying this he kissed her and the virgin most humbly thanking him for so many remonstrances of affection with promise to honour him all the days of her life began to weep which a Burgundian Gentleman perceiving who was of her train said that so long as he lived he would never confide in the tears of woman For were there a creature in the world which might make bone-fires of joy in her heart it was his Mistress who on this day was delivered from the Lions throat to become the wife of a great King and Queen of a vast Empire The fourth SECTION The arrival of Clotilda into France and the life which she led in the time of her wedlock NEver ship laden with gold so gladly arrived at the Haven after so many tedious tempests and a thousand disasters among Pirates at sea as Clotilda seemed content to behold her self to tread on the ground where she was to command after so long a servitude suffered in a Palace which had all her life time as it were served her for a prison Clodovaeus expected her at Soissons with so great impatience of love that he would have willingly hastened the course of the sun to measure it by his affections When he saw this most beautifull Princess he found she surpassed all the idaeaes he conceived of her and that her presence far prevailed above her fame He then imbraced her most lovingly nor could be satisfied with beholding her For God who was pleased to make use of this maid for the conversion of a great King had as it is said varnished over the Table of this mortal beauty and imprinted with his finger I do not know what kind of graces and attractives which Clodovaeus never had felt before She as an humble Abigail cast her self at the feet of a husband calling him her Lord and King and protesting she entered into his Palace to live there as his most humble hand-maid The Court stood wholy rapt with admiration to behold the worthy qualities of this Princess and took part in the contentment of their King The people ran by heaps on all sides to see â—er and so many poor Catholicks as were then in France looked on her as the dawning of the day which came to charm their cares wipe away their tears break their fetters guild the times with the luster of her Majesty There was nothing to be seen every where but jousts tournameÌ„ts sports feasts largesses to crown the solemnitie of these great nuptials Notwithstanding the good Queen suffered not her self to be transported with the current of her prosperities but that in the midst of pomps she held her eyes firmly fixed upon the many benefits she had received from God and sought out in mind the waies she should take to testifie her gratitude and pour her self as incense upon coals towards the divine Majesty She had one thorn in her heart which then entered very far therein It was that she saw the King spake not at all of the promise he had made to become a Christian and that she having attempted to put him on this discourse he subtilly declined it She knew not in what manner to speak to him of it nor where she might make enterance into his heart In the end she resolved to say unto him Sir I see your Majestie exerciseth at this time your liberalities towords all the world and I would gladly partake therein and receive a favour The King thinking she would beg a gift for a Favourite or some other person Ask saith he confidently for you must not be denied Thereupon she replied If your Majestie bear so sincere an affection to me as you make shew I most humbly intreat that on the first night of my nuptials I enter not into the bed of a Pagan Clodovaeus answered Madam I understand what you would say It shall be done but it is not yet time suffer the fruit leisurably to ripen and then either you shall gather it or it will fall of it self Alas would you now speak to me of Baptism and all your ceremonies Your attractives are not so faint as to permit me to entertain any other thoughts than of you all my devotion should be but of love and my pietie should have nothing but shews but this is not it you desire of me Give me time to look about me and I will advise on the means which I will use for the accomplishment of my promise As for the rest you ought not to have any scruple to lye with a Pagan husband for your law saith as I understand that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife The Queen doubted whether that she should intreat him to defer the nuptials at the least for some time and deny him all conjugal company till the accomplishment of his promise but she considered that her conscience was not interessed therein and the law of God commanded her not to separate her self from her Pagan husband that if she used so much cunning it would cause of two things one which were either to exasperate and put him off for ever from Christianity or make him to undertake a dissembled piety which would still be said to have been besieged with importunities and allurements and consequently would never be constant She resolved to render him all the duties of marriage and to gain him rather by the example of a good life and her humble prayers presented on Altars than by any other way Clodovaeus very well liked her humour in this proceeding and well saw she was wise which gave him occasion to honour her much the more He was about the age of thirty years when he married Clotilda and as a Pagan bred up in the liberty of arms he had not
spared to use many love-dalliances but the affection she bare to this good Queen was so great that it razed out of his heart all other love as the ray of the sun scattereth the shadows and phantasms of the night The holy Lady perceiving the spirit of her husband already moved in hers and that there was no need of power but example so composed her manners in her marriage that she made her self a perfect model of perfections requisite for this estate Royal Crowns loose their lustre on heads without brains and brows without Majesty But this Lady made it presently appear that although her birth had not made her worthy of a Crown nor her good fortune had afforded it her merit alone had been of power to make her wear the best diadem in the world She practised in the Court of a Pagan King a strong vigorous devotion which was not puffed up with outward shews and vapours but wholy replenished with wisdom For she had a fear of God so chast that she apprehended the least shadows of sin as death a love so tender that her heart was as a flaming lamp which perpetually burned before the Sanctuary of the living God Her faith had a bosom as large as that of Eternity her hope was a bow in Heaven all furnished with emeralds which never lost its force and her piety an eternal source of blessings She had made a little Oratory as Judith in the royal Palace where she attended as much as time would permit to prayers and mortifications of flesh abiding therein as in a fortunate Island which made the sweetness of her immortal perfumes to mount up to heaven Yet did she mannage all her actions with singular discretion that she might not seem too austere in the eyes of her Court for fear weak souls might be diverted from Christianity by observing in her carriage perfections transcendent above ordinary capacities But all that which most passed in a common life was done by her and her maids with much purity fervour majesty and constancy It was an Angelical spectacle to see her present at Mass and dispose her self to receive the blessed Sacrament which she very often frequented to draw grace and strength from its source She honoured Priests as Messengers descended from Heaven as well to discharge her conscience as to hold her Religion in much estimation among Pagans The zeal of the houses of God which are Churches enflamed her with so much fervour that she had no delights more precious than either to cause new to be raised or to adorn those which had been erected so far as to make them receive radiance from the works of her royal hands Her charity towards the poor was a sea which never dryed up and her heart so large that all the hearts of the miserable breathed in hers She composed and decked herself dayly before the eyes of God putting on all virtues as it were by nature and rich attire of Ladyes for necessity But the King her husband she honoured as if she had seen the Saviour of the world walking upon the earth and not staying alone on the body she penetrated even to the center of this infidel soul which she beheld with eyes of unspeakable compassion She most particularly endeavoured to observe all his humours and follow the motions of his heart as certain flowers wait on the sun All that which Clodovaeus affected took presently an honourable place in the soul of Clotilda if he delighted in arms in dogs in horses she for his sake praysed arms dogs and horses regarding even the objects of the honest pleasures of her husband as her best entertainments Her conversation was full of charms and attractives which ever carryed profit along with them Sometimes she sweetened the warlick humours of her husband with harmony of reason sometimes she comforted him upon occasion of troubles which might happen in the world sometime she withheld very soberly and with prudent modesty his spirit which took too much liberty sometime she repeated unto him certain precepts of wisdom and practices of the lives of Saints and worthy personages that he might love our Religion sometime she pleased him with an eloquent tongue and an entertainment so delicate that nothing might be said more accomplished She was magnificent and liberal towards her household servants most exactly taking notice of the faithful services they yielded to her husband and kept her house so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it seemed as it were a little Temple of peace Slander uncleaness idleness impudence were from thence eternally banished virtues industry and arts found there a mansion and the miseries of the world a safe Sanctuary For she embraced all pious affairs of the Realm and governed them with so much equality of spirit that she resembled Angels who move the Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation May we not very well say this divine woman was selected out by God to a set golden face on an entire Monarchy by the rays of her piety The fifth SECTION The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her husband THe holy Queen brought forth a King and a great Monarch to Jesus Christ bearing perpetually his Court and the whole Kingdom in the entrails of her charity She had her Centinels day and night before the Altars who ceased not to implore the assistance for Heaven of the salvation of her husband and she her self often in deep silence of darkness caused her weeping eye to speak to God and adressed many vows to all the elect for the conversion of this unbelieving soul She very well considered that that which oftentimes slackeneth these wavering spirits in their endeavour to find the way of eternal life is certain interests of flesh and bloud certain impediments of temporal affairs some inordinate passion which tortureth and tyrannizeth over the mind Behold the cause why she took great care to sweeten the dispositions of her husband calm his passions and through a certain moral goodness facilitate unto him the way of the mysteries of our faith This being done she took her opportunity with the more effect and found the King dayly disposed better and better for these impressions He alreadie had the arrow very deep in his heart and began to ask questions proposing conditions which shewed he would one day render himself He said to Clotilda Madam I should not be so far alienated from your Religion were it not that I saw therein matters very strange which you would have me believe by power and authotity not giving any other reason thereof You would have me believe that three are but one in your Trinity that I adore a Crucified man and that I crucifie my self in an enforced and ceremonious life wherein I was never bred My dearest had I your good inclinations all would be easie to me but you know that all my life time I have been trayned up in arms If I should to morrow receive
gate against all hopes and opens it to all despairs Ask of S. John (b) (b) (b) Lacus ira Dei magnus sâ—agnus ignis Apoc. 14. 20. what hell is he will tell you aloud and plainly hell is the great lake of Gods anger It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent And what do the damned there (c) (c) (c) Life of the damned Horreo verutem mordacem mortem vivacem horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis vitae morientis Gulielm Paris de univ p. 1. c. 55. Locus purâ— felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati They burn and smoak On what live they On the gall of dragons What air breath they That of burning coals What stars and lights have they The fire of their torments What nights Of palpable darkness What beds The couches of aspicks and basilisks What language speak they Blasphemies What order have they amongst them Confusion What hope Despair What patience Rage O hell O hell Avant O gnawing worm avant O living death avant death which never dies avant life which daily not dying dies I speak not here of the pain of sense excercised by this pittiless element which worketh upon souls as I have shewed you in the beginning of this discourse I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures gibbets tortures snakes burning pincers and all the instruments of terrours I onely speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God Imagine within your self a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris who in a Treatise he made of the universe pertinently sheweth that as Paradise is the house of all felicity so hell must be the receptacle of all miserie and calamity Now the blessed besides beauty of the glory of their bodies the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God which is the period of their essential felicitie So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournfull incomparably dolorous and according to its nature infinite which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities And what is this object Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire and horrid legions of divels That truly is horrible but that is not yet the top of their supream miserie What is it then I do assure my self you will at first be astonished with what I shall say and will hold it as a paradox but it is undoubted The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intollerable evil and that with just cause Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned and heigth of their notable calamities is light I say light of science and knowledge To understand this you The souls of the damned tormented by their lights Aspectus Christalli terribilis must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts who prepareth to chastise the wicked he representeth him unto us like a hydeous christal mirrour that is to say God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature as of a mirrour of Christal and a terrible light in which and through which it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God and the evil incurred by drenching it self into the sad habitation of the reprobate It seeth how in loosing God it hath lost a good delicious fruitfull infinite everlasting incomprehensible a good for which it was created and formed by the hands of God A good which is meerly and absolutely lost by its infidelity ingratitude wickedness perverse obstinacy in sin A good which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacitie And that which is also more terrible is that as God is replenished with a full and most plentifull felicitie because he hath all his contentments assembled together so the damned soul by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years and hath them all as present in thought From these two lights and two knowledges in the damned soul spring as it were two snakes fastened both to the one and other side of its heart which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juyce and marrow of its substance The holy man Boetius the eye of the Roman Senate Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer c. and ornament of the Church lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is when he saith there needeth neither wheels tortures nor gibbets to punish the wicked He who might onely shew them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash and say unto them behold wretched creatures behold what you have lost by your folly the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible that no keen raisour devouring flames gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment Now I leave you to think if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse what may a damned soul that sees in this hydeous chrystal not for a moment but through all moments of eternity the infinite good it hath lost the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees it self involved Then is it yea perpetually gnawn torn and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause it to break into furies and unprofitable frenzies O Palace of God saith it which I have lost O ugly dens of dragons whereinto I am head-long thrown O brightness of Paradise which shalt be nothing to me O hydeous darkness which shalt eternally be my inheritance O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls with whom I should eternally have lived had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes O infernal countenances of enraged divels which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions O torrent of delights which pourest thy self upon those blessed spirits how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch sulphur and scortching flames enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger O couch of King Solomon how have I given thee away for a bed of coals O God O God whom I have lost and whom I cannot loose I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains O eternity It is then true that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world thou wouldest rather feel these torments than
believe them Wert not thou mad Cruel ambition thou hast given me the stroke of death Disastrous riches you have forged gyves which now fetter me Loves pettie vipers of inhumane hearts you ceased not to breath and enkindle sparks which made these fires for me Wicked companies charming companies traiterous companies you were the chains of my ruin O why was not the womb of my Mother that served for the first bed of my conception the Sepulcher of my birth O why the stars which predominated at my coming into the world in lieu of their benign aspects threw they not darts of poyson against me Why did not the earth swallow me in my Cradle Must I live one sole moment to live an enemy of God eternally O God what an abyss is thy judgement Let us draw let us draw aside the curtain of silence thy spirit can no longer endure me nor my pen maintain the conceptions of my heart 6. It seems enough is said to shew the horrour of mortal sin which alone is the cause and procurer of Hell Think serously on all I have said and all I have omitted and if you desire to eschew the unhappiness of a reasonable creature which I have expressed observe I pray perpetually and inviolably these things which I would if I might inscribe on your hearts in unremoveable characters The first is that you must diligently seek to fore-arm your selves against a certain liberty of heart which neither feareth sin hell nor evils of the other life liberty of heart which swayeth now adays throughout the world of which Sathan makes use to blunt the darts of heaven and all the incitements to the fear of God as being the true way of athiesm and an undoubted note of damnation But contrariewise frame unto your self a conscience termed timorous a conscience filially and lovingly fearfull which layeth hold without scruple and disturbance even of the least offences and imperfections Fear is the mother of safety and the means Nemo saepius opprimitur quà m qui nihil timet frequentissimum calamitatis initium securitas Velleius not to fear hell at all is to fear it always In the second place you must effectualy apprehend frequent relapse into mortal sins which is the second note of reprobation For when a creature suddenly returneth into enormous sins and playeth as between Paradise and hell it is a sign he harboureth in this evil heart a plain contempt of God and an eternal root of sin the sprout whereof is an everlasting punishment In the third place you must still live in the state wherein you would die and often to call your soul to an account of your actions Ah my soul If you were at this present instant to dislodge out of this world are you in a state to be presented before the inevitable throne of the Sovereign Judge Have you not some touch of mortal sin Is there not some restitution to make some satisfaction not accomplished Rests there not in your heart some blemish of evil company worldly love which slackeneth your purposes Let us break let us break these chains there is neither pleasure money nor honour can hold You must seek salvation and say O God of mercy O most mild Saviour I embrace thy Altars and implore thy clemencie deliver my poor soul from the snares of Sathan and eternal death at the great day when heaven and earth shall flie before thy Justice I am neither greater than David nor more holy than S. Paul not to think of Hell All my members quake and bloud waxeth cold in my veins when I reflect on it O Jesus O love of eternal mountains deliver not a soul over to this infernal beast which will have no lips but to praise and confess thee eyes but to behold thee feet but to run after thy commandments nor hands but eternally to serve thee The eighteenth EXAMPLE upon the eighteenth MAXIM Of Judgement and of the pains of Hell ALl affairs of the World end in one great affair of the other life which is that of the judgement God will give upon our soul at its passage out of the body A heart which hath no apprehension thereof unless it have some extraordinarie revelation of its glorie is faithless or stupid to extremity The simple idea's of this day make the most confident to quake not so much as pictures but have given matter of fear and if some sparks of knowledge touching that which passeth at the tribunal of God come unto us it ever produceth good effects in souls which had some disposition to pietie Curopalates relateth that whilest Theodora possessed Curopalates Scilizza the Empire of Constantinople with her son who was yet in minoritie one named Methodius an excellent Painter an Italian by Nation and religious by profession went to the Court of the Bulgarian King named Bogoris where he was entertained with much favour This Prince was yet a Pagan and though trial had been made to convert him to faith it succeeded not because his mind employed on pleasures and worldly affairs gave very little access to reason He was excessively pleased with hunting and as some delight in pictures to behold what they love so he appointed Methodius to paint an excellent piece of hunting in a Palace which he newly had built and not to forget to pencil forth some hydeous monsters and frightful shapes The Painter seeing he had a fair occasion to take his opportunity for the conversion of this infidel instead of painting an hunting-piece for him made an exquisite table of the day of judgement There upon one part was to be seen heaven in mourning on the other the earth on fire the Sea in bloud the throne of God hanging in the clouds environed with infinite store of legions of Angels with countless numbers of men raised again fearfully expecting the decree of their happiness or latest misery Below were the devils in divers shapes of hydeous monsters all ready to execute strange punishments upon souls abandoned to their furie The abyss of Hell was open and threw forth many flames with vapours able to cover heaven and infect the earth This draught being in hand the Painter still held the King in expectation saying he wrought an excellent picture for him and which perhaps might be the last master-piece of his hand In the end the day assigned being come he drew aside the curtain and shewed his work It is said the King at first stood some while pensive not being able to wonder enough at this sight Then turning towards Methodius what is this said he The religious man took occasion thereupon to tell him of the judgements of God of punishments and rewards in the other life wherewith he was so moved that in a short time he yielded himself to God by a happy conversion If draughts and colours have this effect what do not visions and undoubted revelations which were communicated to many Saints concerning affairs of the other life Every one knows the