veins and fill the most innocent pleasures of our life with bitter sorrows what have I more to do with you My children shall be what God will They shall be but too rich when they have virtue for their portion and but too high when they shall see a true contempt of the world under their feeet God forbid that I should go about any worldly throne upon the holy Lambs bloud or that I should talk of honours when there is mention made of the holy Cross O Jesus thou father of all true glories thou shalt from henceforth be my onely crown All greatness where thou art not shall to me be onely baseness I will mount up to thee by the stairs of humility since by those thou camest down to me I will kiss the paths of Mount Calvary which thou hast sprinkled with thy precious bloud esteem the Cross above all worldly things since thou hast consecrated it by thy cruel pains and brought us forth upon that dolorous bed to the day of thy eternity The Gospel upon Thursday the second week in Lent out of S. Luke 16. Of the rich Glutton and poor Lazarus Tâ—e was a certain rich man and he was clothed wâ—th purple and silk and he fared every day magnifically And there was a certain begger called Lazarus that lay at his gate full of sores desiring to be filled of the crums that fell from the rich mans table but the dogs also came and licked his sores And it came to pass that the begger died and was carried of the Angel into Abraham's bosom And the rich man also died and he was buried in hell and lifting up his eyes when he was in torments he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom And he crying said Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger into water for to cool my tongue because I am tormented in this flame And Abraham said to him Son remember that thou didst receive good things in thy life time and Lazarus likewise evil but now he is comforted and thou tormented And besides all these things between us and you there is fixed a great Chaos that they which will pass from hence to you may not neither go from thence hither And he said Then father I beseech thee that thou wouldest send him unto my fathers house for I have five brethren for to testifie unto them lest they also come into this place of torments And Abraham said to him They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them But he said No father Abraham but if some man shall go from the dead to them they will do penance And be said to him If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither if one shall rise again from the dead will they believe Moralities 1. A Rich man and a poor meet in this world the one loaden with treasures the other with ulcers They both meet in the other world the one in a gulf of fire the other in Abyss of delights Their ends are as different as their lives were contrary to teach us that he which shall consider rightly the end of all worldly sins and vanities will have in horrour the desire of them And as there is nothing for which goodly poor men may not hope so is there nothing which wicked rich men should not fear He that is proud of riches is proud of his burdens and chains but if he unload them upon the poor he will be eased of his pain and secured in his way 2. The life of man is a marvellous Comedie wherein the greatest part of our actions are plaid under a curtain which the Divine Providence draws over them to cover us It concealed poor Lazarus and kept him in obscurity like the fish which we never see till it be dead But Jesus draws the curtain and makes himself the historian of this good poor man shewing us the state of his soul of his body of his life and death He makes him appear in Abrahams bosom as within the temple of rest and happiness and makes him known to the rich man as to the treasurer of hells riches Are we not unworthy the name which we carry when we despise the poor and hate poverty as the greatest misery since the Son of God having once consecrated it upon the throne of his manger made it serve for his spouse during life and his bride-maid at the time of his death 3. This rich glutton dreamed and at the end of his dream found himself buried in hell All those pomps of his life were scattered in an instant as so many nocturnal illusions and his heart filled with eternal grief and torment His first misery is a sudden unexpected and hydeous change from a huge sea of delicacies into an insufferable gulf of fire where he doth acknowledge that one of the greatest vexations in misery is to have been happy Another disaster which afflicts him is to see Lazarus in Abrahams bosom to teach us that the damned are tormented by Paradise even to the very lowest part of hell and and that the most grievous of their torments is they can never forget their loss of God So saith Theophylact that Adam was placed over against the terrestrial Paradise from whence he was banished that in his very punishment he might see the happiness he had lost by his soul fault Now you must adde to the rest of his sufferings the great Chaos which like a diamond wall is between hell and Paradise together with the privation of all comfort those losses without remedy that wheel of eternity where death lasteth for ever and the end begins again without ceasing and the torments can never fail or diminish 4. Do good with those goods which God hath given you and suffer them not to make you wicked but employ your riches by the hands of virtue If gold be a child of the Sun why do you hide him from his father God chose the bosom of rich Abraham to be the Paradise of poor Lazarus So may you make the needy feel happiness by your bounty your riches shall raise you up when they are trodden under feet The Prophet saith you must sow in the field of Alms if you desire to reap in the mouth of Mercy Aspirations O God of Justice I tremble at the terrour of thy judgements Great fortunes of the world full of honour and riches are fair trees oft-times the more ready for the ax Their weight makes them apt to fall and prove the more unhappy fuel for eternal flames O Jesus father of the poor and King of the rich I most humbly beseech thee never give my heart in prey to covetousness which by loading me with land may make me forget Heaven I know that death must consume me to the very bones and I shall then possess nothing but what I have given for thee Must I then live in this world like a Griffin to hoard up much gold and
Ordures which never are washed off miseries which are without end But this world wherein we live as it hath sanctities which are not without hazard and Felicities which cannot be without change so it hath sinnes waited on by pardon and miseries comforted by remedies yet against iniquities God hath given us penance and against calamities mercy Deum extra se effici creaturis omanibus providendo S. Maximus God in heaven produceth another God not in substance but in person and on earth a second image of himself which is this divine mercy It is an infinite goodnesse of the Father of Nature and grace to have here below seated this excellent passion to the end great maladies might not be without great medicines Of all living creatures there is none more miserable Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures so he is the most mercifull then man nor is there any likewise more mercifull then man whilest he is man and that he despoil not himself of that which God hath made him to do that which ought never to be so much as thought on And if he forget mildnesse and Compassion which is naturall to him our sovereign Creatour teacheth it him by his own miseries Alas How can one man harden his heart one against another on what side soever he look he seeth the tokens of his infirmities and scarce can he go a step but he finds a lesson of humility against his vanities If he consider what is above him he beholdeth the heavens and the air which so waste and change his life that yet without them he cannot live If he cast his eye round about him and under his feet he sees waters which in moistening him rot him and earth which being spread as a Table before his eyes fails not to serve him for a Tomb. It is a strange thing that even evils are necessary for him and that he cannot overslip things which kill him Smelling tasting meat and drink sleep and repose do with his life what Penelope did with her web what one houre makes another unmakes and the very sources of the greatest blessings are found to be wholly infected with mortall poyson But if man come to examine himself he finds he hath a body frail naked disarmed begging of all creatures exposed to all the injuries of elements of beasts and men and there is not a hand so little which strives not violently to pull off his skin Heat cold drouth moisture labour maladies old age exercise him and if he think to take a little repose idlenesse corrupteth him If he enter farther in to himself he meeteth a spirit fastned to the brink of his lips which is invaded by an army of passions so many times fleshed for his ruine And yet we must truly say that of all the evils of man there is not any worse then Man hath no greater evil then Man man It is he who causeth wars and shipwracks murthers and poysons he who burneth houses and whole Cities he who maketh Wildernesses of the most flourishing Provinces he who demolisheth the foundations of the most famous buildings he who rednceth the greatest riches to nakednesse he who putteth Princes into fetters who exposeth Ladies to dishonour who thrusts the knife into the throats of the pleople who not content with so many manner of deaths daily inventeth new to force out a soul by the violence of torments by as many bloudy gates as it receiveth wounds Good God! what doth not man against man when he hath once renounced humanity Novv vvhat remedy vvould there be in so great and horrible confusions vvhich make a hell of the earth vvere it not that God hath given us this vvholesome mercy vvhich it seems is come from heaven to unloose our chains to vvipe avvay our tears to svveeten our acerbities repair our losses and rebeautifie our felicities Mercy tilleth the fields of heaven and had it not descended on earth all which God did had been lost saith the golden mouth of the West Chry l. 1. 4. so § 2. The Essence of Compassion and how it findeth place in hearts the most generous GOd then hath caused Compassion to grow in our hearts as a Celestiall inspiration which stirreth The Essence of this passion up the will to succour the miseries of another and taketh its source as Theology observeth from a dislike we conceive out of the consideration of a certain dissent and disorder we see in a civil life when we behold a man like unto us according to nature so different in quality and so ill handled by the mishap of the accidents of life Thence it comes to passe that all good souls have tender hearts and especially such as know what worldly miseries are as learned men and those who have had experience of them and who think they may also feel them in the uncertainty of life and condition of humane things The bowels of mercy open with some sweetnesse in the evils which nearly touch us namely when we see persons innocently qualified delicate well disposed to fall into great calamities and ruines of fortune Honourable old men ill used young people snatched away in the flower of their age and beauty Ladies despised and dishonoured afflictions without remedies or remedies that come too late when the evil is ended And moreover when those afflicted persons shew constancy and generosity in their affliction it penetrateth into the deepest apprehensions of the soul Yet we still find among so many objects of miseries hearts which have no compassion and as if they were made of rocks or anviles are never mollified with the sufferings of mortals This proceeds in some from a great stupidity from a nature very savage in others from a narrownesse of heart caused by self-love which perpetually keeps them busied within themselves never going forth to behold the miseries of another in some from long prosperities which make them forget the condition of men in others from the nature of a Hangman who takes delight in bloud in fire and in all horrid things Such kind of men think nature did them wrong in not having given them the horn of a Rhinoceros Detestation of Cruelty the paws of bears the throat of a Lion the teeth of Tigers to crush to quail to devour and tear men in pieces They supply by a cursed industry that which by nature faileth them They make themselves mouths of fire by the means of flaming fornaces and boiling caldrons hands by the invention of Iron hooks arms with combs of steel fingers with scorpions and feet with the claws of wild beasts You would say these are men composed of the instruments of all torments or rather devils crept into humane bodies to create a Hell on Earth Such are those Tonoes of Japonia who study to saw to hack asunder to beat and bray in a morter the courage of Christians thinking the greatest marks of their power to be scaffolds and gibbets where are practised inventions
which desires so earnestly to praise and confess thee everlastingly Alas O eternal Sweetness wouldest thou damn a soul which hath cost thee so much sweat and bloud giving it for ever to those cruel and accursed powers of darkness Rather O Lord pierce my heart with such a fear of thy judgement that I may always dread and never feel them If I forget awake my memory if I flie from thee recal me again If I deferre my amendment stay for me If I return do not despise my soul but open those arms of mercy which thou didst spread upon the Cross with such rigorous justice against thy self for satisfaction of my sins The Gospel upon Tuesday the first week in Lent out of Saint Matthew 21. JESUS drove the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple ANd when he was entered Jerusalem the whole City was moved saying Who is this And the people said This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee And Jesus entered into the Temple of God and cast out all that sold and bought in the Temple and the tables of the bankers and the chairs of them that sold pigeons he overthrew and be saith to them It is written My house shall be called the house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves And there came to him the blind and the lame in the Temple and he healed them And the chief Priests and Scribes seeing the marvellous things that he did and the children crying in the Temple and saying Hosanna to the Son of David they had indignation and said to him Hearest thou what these say And Jesus said to them Very well have you never read that out of the mouthes of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise and leaving them he went forth out of the Citie into Bethania and remained there Moralities 1. JEsus entering into Jerusalem went streight to the Temple as a good Son goes to his Fathers house as a High-Priest to the Sanctuary and as a sacrifice to the Altar He doth very lively interest himself in the goods of his Heavenly Father and chaseth out every prophane thing out of that sacred place to give thereby glory to the living God and to put all things in order It is a wicked stain to Religion when Ecclesiastical persons are vicious and when Churches are profaned Saint John Chrysostom saith That Priests are the heart of the Church but when they are wicked they turn all into sin A decaying tree hath always some ill quality about the root so when any people are without discipline the Pastours are without virtue The want of reverence in Churches begets the contempt of God they cannot have Jesus in their hearts when they give him affronts even in his own Temple 2. His house saith he is a house of Prayer but your heart should be the Sanctuary and your lips the door So long as you are without the exercise of prayer you shall be like a Bee without a sting which can make neither honey nor wax Prayer is the chiefest and most effectual means of that Angelical conversation to which God calls us by the merits of his passion and by the effects of his triumphant resurrection It is the sacred business which man hath with God and to speak with Saint Gregory Nazianzen it is the art to make our souls divine Before all things you must put into an order the number the time the place the manner of your prayers and be sure that you pay unto God this tribute with respect fervour and perseverance But if you desire to make a very good prayer learn betimes to make a prayer of all your life Incense hath no smell without fire and prayer is of no force without charity A man must converse innocently and purely with men that desire to treat worthily with God 3. Keep your person and your house clean from ill managing all holy things and from those irreverences which are sometimes committed in Churches It is a happy thing for a man to be ignorant of the trade of buying and selling benefices and to have no intercourse with the tribunals of iniquity Many other sins are written in sand and blown away with a small breath of Gods mercy But the faults of so great impiety are carved upon a corner of the Altar with a graver of steel or with a diamond point as the Prophet saith He deserves to be made eternally culpable who dries up the fountain which should waste himself or poisons the stream which he himself must drink or contanimates the Sacraments which are given him to purifie his soul Aspirations SPirit of God which by reason of thy eminent height canst pray to no body and yet by thy divine wisdom makest all the world pray to thee Give me the gift of prayer since it is the mother of wisdom the seal of virginity the sanctuary for our evils and fountain of all our goods Grant that I may adore thee in Spirit with reverence stedfastness and perseverance and if it be thy divine pleasure that I pray unto thee as I ought inspire into me by thy virtue such prayers as thou wilt hear by thy bountie The Gospel for Wednesday the first week of Lent S. Matth. 12. The Pharisees demand a Sign of JESUS THen answered him certain of the Scribes and Pharisees saying Master we would see a sign from thee who answered and said to them The wicked and adulterous generation seeketh a sign and a sign shall not be given it but the sign of Jonas the Prophet For as Jonas was in the Whales belly three days and three nights so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas And behold more than Jonas here The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemn it because she come from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold more than Solomon here And when an unclean spirit shall go out of a man he walketh through drie places seeking rest and findeth not Then he saith I will return into my house whence I came out And coming he findeth it vacant swept with besoms and trimmed then goeth he and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last of that man be made worse than the first So shall it be also to this wicked generation As he was yet speaking to the multitudes behold his mother and his brethren stood without seeking to speak to him and one said unto him Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking thee But he answering him that told him said Who is my mother and who are my brethren And stretching forth his hand upon his Disciples he said Behold my mother and my brethren for whosoever shall do the will
of my Father that is in Heaven be is my brother and sister and mother Moralities 1. IT is a very ill sign when we desire signs to make us believe in God The signs which we demand to fortifie our faith are oft-times marks of our infidelity There is not a more dangerous plague in the events of worldly affairs than to deal with the devil or to cast nativities All these things fill men with more faults than knowledge For divine Oracles have more need to be reverenced than interpreted He that will find God must seek him with simplicity and profess him with piety 2. Some require a sign and yet between Heaven and earth all is full of signs How many creatures soever they are they are all steps and characters of the Divinity What a happy thing it is to study what God is by the volume of time and by that great Book of the world There is not so small a flower of the meadows nor so little a creature upon earth which doth not tell us some news of him He speaks in our ears by all creatures which are so many Organ-pipes to convey his Spirit and voice to us But he hath no sign so great as the Word Incarnate which carries all the types of his glory and power About him onely should be all our curiosity our knowledge our admiration and our love because in him we can be sure to find all our repose and consolation 3. Are we not very miserable since we know not our own good but by the loss of it which makes us esteem so little of those things we have in our hands The Ninivites did hear old Jonas the Prophet The Queen of Sheba came from far to hear the wisdom of Solomon Jesus speaks to us usually from the Pulpits from the Altars in our conversations in our affairs and recreations And yet we do not sufficiently esteem his words nor inspirations A surfeited spirit mislikes honey and is distasted with Manna raving after the rotten pots of Aegypt But it is the last and worst of all ills to despise our own good Too much confidence is mother of an approching danger A man must keep himself from relapses which are worse than sins which are the greatest evils of the world he that loves danger shall perish in it The first sin brings with it one devil but the second brings seven There are some who vomit up rheir sins as the Sea doth cockles to swallow them again Their life is nothing but an ebbing and flowing of sins and their most innocent retreats are a disposition to iniquity For as boiled water doth soonest freeze because the cold works upon it with the greater force so those little fervours of Devotion which an unfaithfull soul feels in confessions and receiving if it be not resolute quite to forsake wickedness serve for nothing else but to provoke the wicked spirit to make a new impression upon her It is then we have most reason to fear Gods justice when we despise his mercie We become nearest of kin to him when his Ordinances are followed by our manners and our life by his precepts Aspirations O Word Incarnate the great sign of thy heavenly Father who carriest all the marks of his glory and all the characters of his powers It is thou alone whom I seek whom I esteem and honour All that I see all I understand all that I feel is nothing to me if it do not carry thy name and take colour from thy beauties nor be animated by thy Spirit Thy conversation hath no trouble and thy presence no distast O let me never lose by my negligence what I possess by thy bounty Keep me from relapses keep me from the second gulf and second hell of sin He is too blind that profits nothing by experience of his own wickedness and by a full knowledge of thy bounties The Gospel for Thursday the first week in Lent out of S. Matth 15. Of the Woman of Canaan ANd Jesus went forth from thence and retired into the quarters of Tyre and Sidon And behold a woman of Canaan came forth out of these coasts and crying out said to him Have mercy upon me O Lord the Son of David my daughter is sore vexed of a devil who answered her not a word And his Disciples came and besought him saying Dismiss her because she crieth out after us And he answering said I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel But she came and adored him saying Lord help me who answering said It is not good to take the bread of children and to cast it to the dogs but she said Yea Lord for the dogs also eat of the crums that fall from the tables of their masters Then Jesus answering said to her O woman great is thy faith be it done to thee as thou wilt and her daughter was made whole from that hour Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus Christ after his great and wondrous descent from heaven to earth from being infinite to be finite from being God to be man used many several means for salvation of the world And behold entering upon the frontiers of Tyre and Sidon he was pleased to conceal himself But it is very hard to avoid the curiosity of a woman who seeking his presence was thereby certain to find the full point of her felicity A very small beam of illumination reflecting upon her carried her out of her Countrey and a little spark of light brought her to find out the clear streams of truth We must not be tired with seeking God and when we have found him his presence should not diminish but encrease our desire to keep him still We are to make enterance into our happiness by taking fast hold of the first means offered for our salvation and we must not refuse or lose a good fortune which knocks at our door 2. Great is the power of a woman when she applies her self to virtue behold at one instant how one of that sex assails God and the devil prevailing with the one by submission and conquering the other by command And he which gave the wild Sea arms to contain all the world finds his own arms tied by the chains of a prayer which himself did inspire She draws unto her by a pious violence the God of all strength such was the fervency of her prayer such the wisdom of her answers and such the faith of her words As he passed away without speaking she hath the boldness to call him to her whiles he is silent she prays when he excuseth himself she adores him when he refuseth her suit she draws him to her To be short she is stronger than the Patriarch Jacob for when he did wrestle with the Angel he returned lame from the conflict but this woman after she had been so powerfull with God returns strait to her house there to see her victories and possess her conquests 3. Mark with what weapons she overcame the
Saint Paul doth not consist in words To build upon the Promises which were made to David concerning 1 Par. 2. 9. Solomon if there be some favourable there are also others that say That if he leave God he shall be cast away by God for ever To alledge that he was buried in the Sepulchre of his father how many of the damned have had a quiet death and a stately buriall To bring forth all the kindnesses and favours of God towards him are but so many reproaches of his unthankfulnesse The argument which is drawn from the negative which they esteem ordinarily very weak is here too strong for his condemnation For whence comes it that Nathan his Master and Partizan who wrote the Books of the Kings or caused them to be continued by Aziah and Haddo his disciples whence comes it I say that Authours so affectionate to Solomon so zealous for the honour of their Nation having undertaken to give us his story and having forgotten nothing of the least things even to the numbering of Solomons horses after they have so expresly spoken of his sinne have not added his repentance This thing was too much important for the glory of God for the reputation of their Master for the edification of their people for the example of other Kings to passe it over in silence Surely we might well accuse them either of great malice or of grosse stupidity a thing which cannot happen to Prophets which write by the inspiration of God Further who knows not that repentance ought to be followed by outward actions and conformable to the movings of the heart Who will not avouch that it ought to be testified by a renouncing of sins and all things that have drawn us to offend Where is it then spoken that Solomon had dismissed one onely of his thousand women which were those nets of his destruction Where is it written that he destroyed the Temples and beat down the Images which he had erected at the solicitations of his Mistresses We know all the contrary that these Abominations remained standing untill King Josiah who caused them to be overthrown That which causes the more fear is that by how much the more a man comes near the great understanding which they attribute to the Devils by so much also he takes the greater part in their punishment when he falls into any grievous sinne The great lights of these rare Spirits turned themselves into the flames of their punishments and their knowledge serves for nothing but to nourish the more the worm of Conscience Now as Solomon was advantaged by understanding and wisdome aboue other men and that he fell into the sinne of Apostacie and turning from God there is great danger lest God turned from him his Mercy which is used more ordinarily towards those that sinne by ignorance although culpable Adde unto all this that those which in their old age continue in the sins of unthankfulnesse which they have contracted by long habits are very hard to cure because that old men become more hardned in evil more despising all admonitions which are made to them by presuming on the authority which they think is due to their age Further also their luxury is not onely a sinne of the flesh which then lesse feels the violence of great temptations but a spirituall sinne which proceeds from a spirituall and enraged concupiscence which makes them offered professedly rather then by frailty He that shall The conclusion touching Solomons salvation well weigh this shall find that it is better to leave to the secret mercy of God that which one cannot attain by reason and to fear every thing in this life even to the gifts of heaven and ones own surenesse thereby JUSTINIAN CHARLEMAGNE Or CHARLES THE GREAT IVSTINIAN EMPEROVR CHARLEMAINE EMPEROVR AND K. OF FRANCE PRovidence is an excellent work-woman which renews yet every day in the world that which God did in the terrestriall Paradise He took clay to make a Man the most excellent piece of all the Creatures and she takes some men of the earth to make them Sovereigns and Demi-gods in the Universe This Emperour that hath filled the world with his brave Deeds and the Ages with his memory was of a very base extraction which served to him as a cloud of glory and caused a marvellous day to spring out of the deep of his obscurity The beginning of his Nobility came from his uncle Justine who having been born a Cow-herd mounted by the stairs of Virtue and of Valour even to the Throne of the Emperours of Constantinople Nature had furnished him with a good understanding with a body well made and robustuous and God had inspired into him from his most tender years a particular grace of Devotion which rendered him good officious and charitable towards all the world As he was keeping the Cows he saw passing by some men of warre who were going in an expedition against the Infidels he perswaded himself that he was very fit for that employment and stout enough to give good strokes to the enemies of God and his Religion Upon this thought he sold a cow that was his own buyes a sword and the rest of the small equipage of a Souldier bids adieu to his kindred goes and lists himself and suddenly of a peasant becomes a man of war Yet Procopius makes him so poor that he gives him nothing but a little bread in a scrip when he entred into Constantinople He passed through all the proofs of a long and laborious warfare in which he behaved himself with an exact discipline a great dexterity a courage invincible and above all with a discretion that made him lovely and gained the hearts of all the world He came to the office of an Ensign of a Lieutenant of a Captain of the Guard of a Collonel of a Generall and in the end was put amongst the Counts of the Court that were the greatest Lords of the Imperiall house Anastasius at that time was Emperour happening to die Amantius his high Chamberlain who was a very rich and a great monied man had a very earnest desire to make himself Emperour But he was disfavoured by nature having not been born a perfect man he thought therefore that he should never be liked by the Militia in so high a dignity and would needs make it fall upon Theocritus who was his creature that he might reign in him and by him with a full satisfaction of his whole desires To this end he opened his treasures and resolved to make great distributions of money to the souldiers committing the managery of the hors-men to the Earl Justin who he knew was well affected by all the world and very capable to favour his canvasing But the men of warre looking upon the hand that gave the gold and not upon the coffer from whence it came nor the design of him that did it unexpectedly proclaimed Justin Emperour whereto the Senate and the People shewed a strong inclination
bounty that he would vouchsafe to comfort her and confirm her spirit which was descended into the bottom of the Abyss of the miseries of this world Her prayer being ended she was inspired with infusions of love towards her Creatour and armed with a noble confidence she in this manner did express her self Wherefore art thou so sad my soul if GOD permits She comforteth her self in prison this for thy sins shouldest thou not kiss the Rod that strikes thee and adore that infinite mercy who doth chastise thee by temporary punishments not willing to make thee an object of that choler which is kindled by an eternity of flames and if this comes unto thee to approve thy virtues dost thou fear to enter into the furnace where that great workman will consume the straw onely that burns thee and will make thee to shine as gold wherefore art thou so sad my heart To be deprived of liberty and the delights of the Court take unto thee the wings of contemplation and of love and fly thou beyond these waters fly thou beyond the seas which inviron these Islands and understand that there is no prison for a Soul which GOD doth set at liberty and that all the world doth belong to him who knows how to misprise it In these considerations she took incomparable delight 1. Hope against all hope and as well as she could did charm the afflictions of her imprisonment when behold a blind felicity which made her to see unexpected events GOD stirred up a little Daniel to deliver this poor Susanna a little Infant the son of the Earl of Douglas did feel his little heart touched with the miseries of this brave Queen and had the hardiness to speak thus unto her Madam if your Majesty will understand a way to your deliverance I can give it you We have here below a Gate at which we sometimes do go forth to delight our selves upon the water I will bring you the key and have the Boat ready in which fearing my fathers anger I must save my self with you The Queen extreamly amazed at the discourse of the child made answer My little friend your counsel is very good Do as you speak and acquaint no man with it otherwise you will ruine us if you will oblige me for so great a favour I will make you a great man and you shall have content all your dayes In the mean time for want of pen and paper she wrote on her hand-kerchief with a coal and found a means to advertise the Viscount of Selon touching that design assigning both the day the place where he should attend her to which he disposed himself with so much activity as if he had rather wings to flie than paces by foot to measure The child failed not to put in execution what he promised The Queen took the key in her hand opened Her departure the Gate and nimbly leaped into the Boat with this little Companion of her fortune she took her self the pole into her hand seeing the young child had not force to steer the boat she began to guid it and to save her life by the favour of her arms One of her maids named Queneda seing her Mistress in this difficulty did leap into the water out of a window of the Castle and abandoned her self to the mercy of the waves to joyn herself unto the fortunes of her Mistress O good GOD How may the stars in the greater silence of this world with admiration behold so great a Queen to sit at the stern of a boat with oars in her hand and practising a trade of life which necessitie doth teach her and felicity doth govern The waters stroaked into a calm did perceive the effects of her fair hand and gently opened themselves to make a passage for her At last she arrived at the bank on the other side and found there the Viscount who received her with all reverence and joy She retired her self into a place of safety and thought on the means to re-establish her self to which she found her good subjects well disposed and in a short time raised an Army of about seven thousand men At which the Enemies being inraged drew up against them in great bodies and giving them battel they over-powered them in number and obtained the victory The encounter was bloudy to which one part did contribute courage and the other fury Seven and fifty personages of Honour of the House of Hamilton which is next unto the King did with their dead bodies cover the field where the Battel was fought The Queen who with horrour entertained the apprehension of so many massacres did prefer an innocent Retreat before an uncertain Victory Her bastard Brother the chief of the Rebellion of an imaginary King did now make himself an absolute Tyrant and as much as in him lay he endeavoured to root out the rest of the true Religion in Scotland by the perswasion of Knox and Buchanan he stripped the Churches naked to cover himself he oppressed all honest men and let himself loose unto all manner of insolence 8. The deplorable Queen is constrained to depart Her Retreat into England where her enemies accused her out of her Kingdom to fall no more into such cruel hands She took shipping having a desire at first to sail into France where her Memory was still preserved in singular Reputation but having a lofty heart though excellently well tempted she was ashamed to transport her self to be seen in the condition of a banished woman in a place where all the graces and virtues had given her so many tropheys She cōceived that concealed Misery was the more supportable and that it was more expedient for her to live in an Island which was an out-corner of the world than in the splendour of France Besides she conceived that she A civil shame doth hinder good designs ought to continue within the Neighbour-hood of her own Kingdom the better to facilitate her Return unto it The Archbishop Hamilton a most wise old man did disswade her from that resolution understanding very well the Deportments of Murray with the Queen of England and because she made apparence to give but little heed unto his counsels he threw himself at her feet with tears in his eyes and besought her not to follow the greatness of her mind as to make choice of that place which would be her certain destruction On the other side Elizabeth did sollicite her again and again and did importune her by a thousand courtesies to repair into England to which at last she condescended as if Necessity had prepared links of Diamonds to chain her to her misfortunes The innocent Dove in endeavouring to eschew the nets of the Fowler did fall into the talons of the Hawk She came into a Kingdom from whence Justice and Religion were banished by the horrible factions of the Hereticks She put her self into her hands who had usurped her Scepter and who made use
due to God ibid. 5 Of the Reverence which the Holy Humanity of our Lord did bear to his Eternall Father 84 THE TWELFTH TREATISE Of Anger 1 THe Origen of Anger its Nature Causes and Diversities 86 2 Three principall kinds of Anger 87 3 The Contemplation of the serenity of the diuine Spirit is the mistresse of meeknesse 88 4 That the example of our Saviour doth teach us the moderation of Anger ibid. 5 Politick Rimedies to appease such as are Angry 89 6 Morall Remedies against the same passion ibid. THE THIRTEENTH TREATISE Of Envie and Jealousie 1 THe Picture thereof 91 2 The Definition of Envie its severall kinds and first of Jealousie ibid. 3 Two other branches of this stock which are Indignation and malicious Envie with Calumny its Companion 93 4 Humane remedies of Envie 94 5 Divine remedies drawn from the benignity of God 95 6 The mercifull eye of Jesus serveth for an antidote against all sorts of Envie 96 7 A Detestation of Envie 97 THE FOURTEENTH TREATISE Of Mildnesse and Compassion 1 THe great misery of Man makes Compassion necessary in the world 98 2 The Essenc of Compassion and how it findeth place in hearts most generous 99 3 Moderate severity is necessary in Government but it ought to be free from Cruelty 100 4 The goodnesse of God beateth down the rigour of men ibid. 5 The Mercies of the incarnate word are able to soften the harshest hearts 101 HISTORICALL OBSERVATIONS Vpon the four Principall Passions which are as four Devils disturbers of the HOLY COURT OBSERVAT. Page 1 THe disasters of such as have yielded to the Passion of Love and the glory of souls which have surmounted it 107 2 Observations upon the Passion of Desire wherein we may behold the misery of Ambitious and turbulent spirits 112 3 Observations upon Anger and Revenge 117 4 Observations upon Envie which draweth with it Jealousie Hatred and Sadnesse 121 A TABLE Of the LIVES and ELOGIES of Illustrious Persons contained in the Fifth Tome MOnarchs 131 David 139 Solomon 151 Justinian 158 Charlemaign 172 S. Lewis King of France 177 Judith 181 Hester 187 Josuah 196 Judas Machabeus 197 Godfrey 207 George Castriot 209 Boucicaut 211 Bayard 214 Joseph 218 Moses 227 Samuel 235 Daniel 241 Eliah 248 Eyisha 265 Isaiah 260 Jeremiah 263 S. John Baptist 267 S. Paul and Seneca 271 Mary Stuart 291 Cardinall Pool 313 A Treatise of the Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes 1 THE HOLY COURT FIRST BOOK Of Reasons which should excite men of qualitie to Christian Perfection That the COURT and DEVOTION are not things incompatible The FOUNDATION of this TREATISE THe wise Hebrews have observed a matter worthy of consideration for the direction of Great-ones to wit that between the bed of the Kings of Judea The gloss upon Isaiah ch 38. observeth also Juxta parietem Templi Solomon extruxit palatium A notable observation of the Hebrews and the Altar of God there was but one single wall and they adde that David one of the most holy Monarchs had reserved for himself a secret postern through which he passed from his chamber to the house of God that is to say the Tabernacle which served as a sanctuarie for his afflictions and an arsenal for his battels They say likewise he left the key of this sacred postern to his Posteritie a key a thousand times more pretious than Fortune the golden Goddess of the Romans giving to it the imitation of his virtue as an everlasting inheritance Achaz was he who stopping up the gate of the Temple Parali 2. 28. clausit januas Templi shut against himself the gates of Gods mercie and thereby opened the passage to his own confusion This is to instruct Princes and all persons of quality that as the element of birds is the air and water of fishes so the element of great spirits if they will not betray their own nature nor bely their profession is piety Yet notwithstanding it is a wonder how the Court where the most noble spirits should reside hath in all Ages been cried down in matter of virtue You will say hearing those speak who make many fair and formal descriptions of the manners of Courtiers that the Court is nothing else but a den of darkness where the heavens and stars are not seen An admirable definition of the Court drawn out of divers ancient Authors but through a little crevis that it is a mil as the Ancients held it always skreaking with a perpetual clatter where men enchained as beasts of labour are condemned to turn the stones That it is a prison of slaves who are all tied in the golden guives of speciors servitude yet in this glitter suffer themselves to be gnawn by the vermine of passion That it is a list where the combatants are mad their arms nothing but furie their prize smoke their carreer glassie ice and utmost bounds but precipices That it is the house of Circes where reasonable creatures are transformed into savage beasts where Buls gore Lions roar Dogs worrie one another Vipers hiss and Basilisks carrie death in their looks That it is the house of winds a perpetual tempest on the firm land ship-wrack without water where vessels are split even in the haven of hope Briefly that it is a place where vice reigneth by nature misery by necessity and if virtue be found there it is but by miracle Such discourses are often maintained with more The Answer fervour of eloquence than colour of truth For to speak sincerely the Court is a fair school of virtue for those who know how to use it well In great seas great fishes are to be found and in ample fortunes goodly and heroick virtues This proposition which putteth an incompatibilitie of devotion and sanctitie into the life of men of eminencie seemeth to me very exorbitant for three reasons The first for that it is injurious to God the second prejudicial to humane societie and the third sheweth it to be false by the experience of all Ages To prove these three verities The Defence of the Court. is to ruin it in the foundations the proofs whereof are easie enough which we will begin to glance at that hereafter we may deduce them more at length For as concerning the first it cannot be denied to be a great injurie to almightie God to strike at his heavenly and paternal providence This is to touch him in the apple of his eye and in the thing which he esteemeth most pretious Now so it is this maâ—ime which establisheth an impossibilitie of devotion the first wheel of virtue in the life of Great ones imputeth a great defect unto the government of God The divine providence is a skilful posie-maker who knoweth artificially how to mingle all sorts of flowers to make the Nosegay of the elect called in holy Scripture Fasciculus viventium It constituteth the different manners of lives different qualities and conditions It leadeth men by divers way
enriched you enameled you with so many perfections that justly we may call you the children of admiration Be you then to mankind that which the Rainbowe is to plants leave it to the odour of a good conversation which may become natural you shall reap here below true and solid glory contentments so tasteful that a man may more easily feel them than express them and in Heaven your recompence shall be equalled to the profit which your example shall have made on earth I know not what may be produced more pressing to a generous heart to oblige him to perfection The twelfth REASON Drawn from punishment CLemens Alexandrinus observeth that the belief Clemens Alex. Stromat 5. of one God and the faith of one judgement are in the soul of man by like consequence necessary and that the Heathens in the dead obscurity of infidelity were not able to shut their eyes against this veritie There is no soul in the world so barren which by force of the light of nature conceiveth not that if there be certain rays or reflections of virtue diffused through the actions of men the same ought to be in God as in their source with a radiant lustre of supereminence Wherefore Because as Dionysius Areopagita God a great Thesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dionis de divin nomini c. 2. August de Trinit l. 8. c. 3. saith in the book of divine attributes God is a great Thesis which hath but one word for expression but this draweth along with it all essences verities and perfections And for the same cause S. Augustine calleth this Sovereign Majesty Bonum omnis boni Now so it is that we behold shining in men though otherwise very imperfect certain traces or draughts of Justice and we observe they are naturally addicted to the love of this virtue were it not that passion maketh them belie their hearts and betray their own nature We must then necessarily conclude that Justice is in God as water in the fountain lines in the center and beams in the Sun Justice and Mercy are the two arms of God Justice and mercy which embrace bear and govern the whole world they are the two engins of the great Archimedes which make Heaven descend upon earth and earth mount to Heaven It is the base and treble-string of this great lute of Heaven which make all the harmonies and tuneable symphonies of this Universe Now as Mercy is infinite so is Justice The divine Essence holdeth these two perfections as the two scales of the ballance always equally poized Judge hereupon O Noblemen if the favours and mercies of God are so eminent with you what part shall Justice have amongst you David who had felt the scourges cried out as in Psal 89. Quis novit potestatem irae tuae aut prae timore tuo iram tuam dinumerare Sap. 6. Horrendè citò apparebit vobis quoniam judicium durissonum his qui praesunt fiet Exiguo enim conceditur misericordia potentes autem potenter tormenta patientur Non enim subtrabet personam cujusquam Deus nec verebitur magnitudinem cujusquam a deep extasie Oh my God who can be able to know the force of thy anger Who can be able amongst so many perplexities and affrightments to recount the effects of thy indignation True it is thy Justice doth most extraordinarily appear on the rebellious heads of sinners but especially upon the Great-ones of the earth These words of the Wise-man are terrible to any that will maturely consider them You who hold the highest place amongst men and live without fear or aw of that Majestie which hath constituted you where you are know God will visit you and appear to you with speed and horrour A most rigorous judgement shall be executed on those who command over others Mercy is for the little ones and humble but if you persevere in your wicked life as being potent you shall powerfully be tormented God is not a man to sooth you to distinguish your persons and treat with you with observance of your qualities Beware The reasons why the chastisement of great men shall be most severe are clear and evident the principal whereof I will briefly here produce First by how much the more a sin is committed Knowledge of good and evil makes the sin the more foul with exact knowledge of good and ill so much the more punishable it is because it participateth the more of the venom of malice Ignorance unto many is part of their sanctitie others with open eyes run headlong to ruin Now can it be denied but that great men ordinarily being endowed with good spirits capable judgements and most happie memories and they instructed by so many Doctours both speaking and dumb should have much more light and knowledge than the ordinary sort of men Behold why degenerating it cannot be but they must needs break a thousand bonds that held them in their dutie blunt a thousand sharp points a thousand inspirations from Heaven that feelingly touch their conscience the which cannot be done without great and determinate malice which rendreth their sin the more enormous and their heads the more punishable This is the reason Divines give touching Why bad angels were punished without mercy the punishment of the Angel apostate A strange thing that God coming from Heaven upon earth to take human flesh to distend his imperial robe upon man who lay on a dung-hill drawing him out washing him guilding him over with grace the true seed of glory in the mean time left the bad Angel without mercy for a prey of punishment which shall not end no more than God himself Wherefore is this but that the Angel offended with an Ob perfectam cognitionem solutum animi impetum peccatum Angelorum incomparabiliter gravius Vide Gregor l. 4. Moral c. 9 Marvellous Justice absolute and deliberate malice as one much more illuminated and Adam suffered himself to slide into sin rather by surprizal by infirmitie by complacence to the humours of his wife as S. Augustine observeth than purposely or contemptuously Alas me thinks this horrid punishment of the contumacious Angel should make the bloud congeal in the veins of all the Great-ones of the earth who offend their Creatour with as much malice as they have knowledge Ask O Noblemen of the Divine Justice from whence it proceedeth that these evil spirits have been so roughly handled If beauty could mollifie the rigour of a Judge they were adorned with an incomparable beauty above all creatures If the excellency of nature be esteemed they were the most lively Images of the Divinity amongst all things created If the spirit contribute thereunto they penetrated by their active vivacity even from Heaven to the deepest abyss If the glory of God were in this act considerable they were creatures who could love bless and glorifie God eternally If evil had been to be prevented this great Judge saw there would arise
from their damnation an infinitie of blasphemies and invincible obstinacie a long web of contrarieties opposite to the advancement of his honour amongst men a subversion of the world All this might have been avoided in giving them one small hour of repentance which with what fervour detestation and dolour would they have embraced Yet notwithstanding without regard to this beauty this grace this excellency of nature these praises this good or ill behold them taken in the boiling ardour of their crime strucken with the thunder of the Divine Justice thrown down broken in shivers captivated in prisons of fire left to the sword of vengeance to eternal tortures never seeing amidst their darkness and sulpherous flames one sole beam of the eyes of Mercy O terrible sentence inexorable sentence Oh unhappy spirits O judgements of God! What a terrour what a bottomless depth you are Judge now O ye Great men if the crimes of knowledge and malice are so rigorously punished what will become of you if you live neglective of the Divine Majestie you being among the people as were the Angels among other creatures Secondly no punishment is more sharply nor Punishment of the ungrateful sacrifice of jealousie lawfully inflicted than upon the ungrateful who deserve that all the elements with their best forces should conspire in the avengement of their offences since they violate a law engraven on this universe by the hand of nature Their punishment is the sacrifice Non fundet oleum nec imponet thus Num. 5. of jealousie spoken of in Scripture whereon neither oyl nor incense is powred there is no more oyl of mercy to sweeten their torments no more incense of prayers to appease Gods anger nothing is theâ—e but thunder lightnings and vengeance Now it appeareth that Noblemen and Great-ones cannot depart from the service of God without a deep mark of ingratitude for the benefits which I have touched before and you thereon will necessarily infer they transcending others in condition should not in case of failing or neglect expect an equalitie of punishments God will call Heaven and earth Horrible execrations of God upon great men vitious to their Judgement and then speak to them in the presence of all creatures with a voice of thunder Hearken ye O you Princes of the earth I made you as Eagles I gave you strong wings to lift you up to mount Libanus and to extract pith from the Cedars I advanced you in spirit in judgement in courage in riches in reputation in honour above other men I imprinted the rays of my power upon your fronts to infuse the regard of your persons into the hearts of the people I held Heaven and earth men and beasts in breath to contribute to your authoritie and services And you have taken arms employing all my treasures to make war against me you have lived not as reasonable men but as bruit beasts without God without law without ever casting your eyes to Heaven but to vomit out blasphemies in the face of it If I haue put power into your hand you have employed it in oppressing the weak If justice you have perverted the use of it and made the ballance incline to the tyrannie of your passions What can such an ingratitude expect I leave the conclusion to your selves In the third place seeing the bad example of great Exemplar crimes deserve exemplar punishment men is most pernicious to the inferiours by the strength of their authoritie which draweth their weak souls to a servile imitation God expresly counterpoizeth the insolence of their vices by singular and remarkeable punishments to the end that those who are attracted by the lustre of their fortune may be affrighted with their falls It is true we are in this world as owls in the night our eyes benummed and surcharged with terrestrial humours which hinder us throughly to penetrate this cloud of the Divine Providence Notwithstanding God darteth forth as it were out of these clouds certain flashing sparks of fire and light to make you read in the punishment of so many ill-living great men the unrelenting rigour of his justice High steeples are not so often rent and defaced by Strange punishments the violence of thunder as are Crowns and Diadems on the heads of wicked Princes with Heavens chastisements Read sacred and profane Stories what strange punishments are there of great men One sheweth a desire to leap into Heaven to plant his throne among the stars yet God maketh him eat hay with the beasts enforcing him to die alive not onely to honours and the nature of man but to lead a life in bruitishness This was Nebuchadnezzar Another in the middest of the fervour of a feast heareth the great clock strike his hour and seeth the hand of a man on the wall drawing a dreadful sentence against him This was Belshazzar Another dieth eaten up with lice as Herod Another loathsom with infections as Antiochus Another hanged on a tree as Absalom Another on the gibbet which he had prepared for him whom he accounted for his slave as Haman Another dying by his own hand not being able to find any other in the world more cruel than himself as Nero. Another maketh himself a sepulchre with drunkenness as Alexander Another is massacred in the midst of the Senate as Caesar Another from the throne of the Roman Empire goeth to prostrate his foe the Persian to become thereby a foot-step for him to mount on horse back as Valerian Another is carried about in a Cage as Bajazet Another is strucken with lightening as Anastasius Another is slain in his camp by a hand invisible as Julian the Apostate Great volumns might be made if one would compile all these mortalities they make Theatres to resound and Tragedians deplore Consider O Noblemen if in this world good and ill are given to us as it were in picture since the figure of the world passeth away saith the Apostle Praeterit figuâ—a hujus mundi 2 Cor. 7. Sagitta tua transeunt vex tonitrui tui in rota Psal 76. 19. and since God useth such rough rods to chastise the vices of great men what will that be in the other world The arrows of chastisement do presently pass away but the voice of thunder the sentence of judgement shall go like a wheel and the execution shall have no end If there happen unto you a loss of goods it is an arrow that passeth loss of children an arrow that passeth sickness an arrow that passeth disgrace an arrow that passeth temporal death even a feathered-arrow which doth nought else but pass away But eternal death is the thunder in the wheel which never passeth To be drenched in a lake of sulphur as a victime of vengeance in a fire enkindled with the breath of Gods anger to see nothing but devils to abide in nothing but torments to suffer pains in every sense to find hell in his own conscience to have no other life but an eternity
forementioned Emperour Antoninus saith the wisdom of man consisteth in three points well to behave Antonin l. 5. de vita sua himself towards God which is done by Religion with himself which is done by mortification of his passions and with men which is effected by sparing and tolerating them every where doing good and after he hath done good to have his ears prepared to hear evil IX To govern his desires within the limits of his 9. Government of pretensions capacity and modesty It is a great note of folly to attempt all things and do nothing to be turmoyled with the present and to have always the throat of an enraged concupiscence gaping after the time to come to be vexed with himself and not to be of power to repose within himself to make the steps of honour the degrees of his ruin to raise a fortune like a huge Colossus to make it fall upon his Senec. ep â—â— Contemnere omnia quivis potest omnia habere nemâ— own shoulders and to leave no other witnesses of his greatness but the prints of his fall It is a thing very difficult to have much and impossible to have all but it is so easie a matter to despise all that it consisteth in nothing but in a bare refusal X. To procure such an equality of spirit so even 10. Tranquility so regular that he scarcely feel the approach of happiness and when it is lost not to make any shew of it To behold the good of another as his own and his own as another mans To hold riches and honours as a river that glideth to day for you to morrow for another It is the nature thereof always to run gently what wrong doth it to us When prosperity laugheth on you look back upon adversity which cometh in the rere and remember you have seen tall ships lost in the harbour even as it were in jest S. Augustine pleased to repeat that verse of Virgil Mene sali placidi vultum fluctusque quietos August ep 113. alibi Ignorare jubes desirous thereby to signifie to us that we should no more confide in the prosperities of the world than to a still sea which in his over-great calm oft-times presageth the near approaching tempest Brave and valorous Captains heretofore made a Sacrifice to war in the midst of peace and in the midst of war dressed Altars to Peace to declare that in good we should live in distrust of ill and in evil in hope of good but in both the one and the other ever in equality This verily is one of the master-pieces of wisdom which God imparteth to spirits greatly resigned and who have passed through the most thin and slender searces XI To behave ones self prudently in all kind of 11. Discretion in affairs occasions to examine the tenents and utmost bounds the original progress end Never to judge till you have seen the bottom of the business and therein to carry your self so that if success cannot wait on your desires you may not justly accuse either any crooked intention or want of discretion We are masters of our wils but God hath reserved to himself the command over events XII To be always ready to depart from hence 12. Meditation of death chearfully when death shall sound the retreat Saint Chrysostom saith finely This life is a nest framed of straw Chrys hom 2. in epist Pauli ad Coloss and morter we are the little birds shall we putrifie in the stench of this filthy nest If devotion hath made us wings why are we slothful Let us bravely mount and take that flight which our Eagle tracked out unto us in the day of his Ascension Remember the quintessence of al wisdom is the meditation of death It is a business we should learn all our life time to exercise it once The faults therein committed are irreparable and the loss without recovery This consisteth in three things resignation dis-engagement and union As for resignation be not too faint-hearted nor suffer your self to be called upon to pay a debt which so many millions of men have discharged before you and which so many millions shall likewise pay after you shew to those who visit you patience in your sickness resolution at your last hour and not to desire any thing but spiritual assistances As for your departure go out of the world as the chicken out of the shell I. Dispose of your temporal goods in time by making a just clear and perspicuous will 2. Restore the goods of another 3. Pay your debts as far as you can 4. Lay open your affairs 5. Give pious legacies to charge the Altars of mercy with the last victims 6. Reconcile your self and above all things beware you carry not with you too much confidence and inordinate affection into the other world 7. Take order for the education of your children 8. Dispose of offices if you have any with an upright conscience 9. Forget not the labours of your poor servants After this disengagement draw the curtain betwixt your self and all creatures By a good confession unite your self to your Creatour by the sacred viaticum extream unction by acts of faith hope and charitie by good suffrages of the Church good admonitions good purposes good remembrances of the death of our Saviour yielding your soul up upon a Crucifix as a child who sleepeth on the breast of his nurce The eigthth SECTION The Practice of Devotion and Prayer ONe of the shortest ways to gain wisdom is to be devout Devotion is as it were the flame and lightening-flash of charitie and it is properly a prompt and affectionate vivacitie in Voluntas quâ—dam prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum S. Th. 2. 2. quaest 82. S. Dionys de divin nomin cap. 3. Prayer in mount Tabor things which concern the service of God It principally shineth in prayer and in the exercise of the works of mercy Prayer as saith the great Saint Dionysius the Areopagite is as it were a chain of silver which from heaven hangeth downward to draw man up from earth and unite him to God It is the mount Tabor where an admirable transfiguration is made of the soul into God It is the spirit which speaketh to God which poureth it self on God in conclusion it is coloured by God even as Jacobs ews did denote their burden to be of Genes 30. the same colour of which those wands were that they stedfastly beheld It is it which the Apostle pleased to say Beholding the glory of God we are transfigured Corinth 2. 3. Gloriam Domini speculantes in eandem imaginem transformamur à claritate in claritatem tanquam à Domini spiritu into the same image from brightness to brightness as by the spirit of God Prayer is the conduit of grace It is as very well S. Ephraim hath said The standard of our warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle
of our impatience the guardian of temperance the seal of virginitie the advocate of offenders the consolation of the afflicted the sepulture of the dying For the just are buried in prayer as the Phenix Praise of prayer in perfumes Prayer doth all A Christian without prayer is a Bee without sting who will neither make honey nor wax It is to little purpose to propose unto you the mysteries of faith and the maxims of Christian wisdom if you use not meditation to ruminate them It is as meat cast into a stomack without digestion which will do more hurt than good not of its own nature but by your indisposition which is bad From hence proceed the desolations of the earth From hence are derived so many fals so many miseries for that men apply not themselves to tast the things of God in prayer That which ought to incite us to this exercise is Necessitie of prayer first the necessitie which is so great that in matter of spiritual life it is as requisite to pray as in the animal to breath We are choaked with flesh and fat Oâ— meum aperui attraxi spiritum and the flames of concupiscence unless we upon all occasions open our mouthes to take the gentle air of God Secondly the pleasures we therein take in process of time is verily that which the prophet Isaiah calleth Sabbatum delicatum the delicate Sabbath As Isaiah 58. Sabbatum delicatum Pleasure Sola prima ac luminosissima veritas cibus est nostri intellectus Sola prima inundantissimáque bonitas cibus nostri nobilis ac sublimis affectus Perfection of the soul Albert. de virtut c. 37. much as to say the delicious repose of the soul The corporal eye as saith the learned Prelate William of Paris maketh its repast upon the beauty of the fields the flowers the heavens the stars and on all the objects which are found in this universe But the eye of contemplation by the means of prayer nourisheth it self with the excellencie of God and the perfections of Jesus Thirdly the puritie and perfection of the soul which is derived from this exercise ought to serve us as a special spur There it is saith Albertus Magnus where we carrie our mouthes even to the source and wel-spring of virtue There it is where God is known and knowing him that we love him and in loving him we search him in searching him we take pains and in taking pains we find him In the fourth place we have the example of our Pernoctans in oratione Dei Luc. 6. 12. Saviour who for our instruction spent the nights in prayer the example of the Apostles and all Saints who have practiced and recommended this exercise to us The ninth SECTION The necessitie of Confession MEn resemble snails every one carrieth his own house with him a house wholy replenished with darkness although it ever seem lightsom A house which hath neither door nor window though therein be a thousand witnesses which see all that passeth with as many eyes as heaven hath stars A house composed of labyrinths yet cannot the Host hide himself in it A house whereinto the sun peepeth not and yet may even the very least atoms be seen A house wherein there are perpetual pleadings yet never any issue of process but with issue of life Finally a house which hath two faces altogether different the one called hell the other Paradise In a word this house whereof I speak is the conscience It is full of darkness for the thoughts Nullus molestior oculus cuique suo Bern. l. â—5 de confiderat of men are involved in such a cloud of obscuritie that neither the devils nor Angels themselves see any thing therein yet is it lightsom for ever the eye of proper conscience reflecteth thereon There is no door nor window for all is very close shut up yet do a thousand witnesses fix their eyes thereon for the conscience alone is called a thousand-witnesses It is composed of labyrinths for there are all flexibilities and subtil mazes in this labyrinth the host Putásne Deus è vicino ego sum non Deus de longe Hierem. 23. cannot hide himself for it is ever day-pierced by the eye of God before whom neither the abyss nor hell it self hath darkness enough to hide it The sun peepeth not in there for in effect its light which displayeth all the objects of the world before our eyes cannot discover the simplest of our thoughts yet may the very least atoms be seen for there is not any thing so subtil which can free it self from the eyes of God They perpetually plead there for every moment Aula Sathanae hortus deliciarum aureum reclinatorium Bernard de interiori domo Ambr. in illud rerela Domino viam tuam the conscience chalengeth us even upon the least sins and the issue of the process concludeth not but with the end of life because at that very hour the decisive sentence of our eternitie is given In fine this house hath two faces whereof the one is called hell to wit the evil conscience and the other Paradise that is the good and innocent which we cannot throughly settle in this great corruption of the heart of man but by a good confession Too much shade hurteth seeds which begin to Idem grow darkness duls them and the eye of the sun serves them as a father Assure your self the buds of virtue hold the same course there must be day to bring them into the light and he who will hide his life shall loose all the fruit he may hope thereof Bernard de interiori domo cap. 37. Confession is the price of our immortalitie the citie of refuge given us by God but if it be once ill managed it is not a confession but a double confusion for feigned miserie excludeth true mercie nor did ever presumption well accord with pitie Among the most especial exercises of devotion are confession communion meditation spiritual lection and the fruit we derive from the word of God Concerning the practise of confession we will onely speak with much brevitie thereof for at this present there are great store of books which teach this method Hear a true observation made by Saint August tract 12. in Joan. Augustine That the beginning of our good works is the accusation of our evil If you desire utterly to forsake the animal life to submit to the spiritual put in the fore-front a good general confession Gulielm Paris de Sacrament Poenitent l. 12. Matth. 17. Confession saith S. Ambrose is the price of our immortality It is the tribute of Heaven signified by the piece of coyn which S. Peter found in the mouth of a fish Necessity seems to require it for the reasons which General confession the beginning of spiritual life follow First how many sins are left by the way how many by culpable ignorance sometimes through fear and shame
absence so troublesom that to avoid it you must torture your body vilifie your spirit and yield your reputation up as a prey to slander You shall no sooner put the wedge into the block but it shall be done you shall have a soul victoriously elevated over passion which shall rejoyce amidst the tropheys thereof The one and twentieth SECTION Against sadness HAve you never represented to your self the poor Elias lying under the Juniper tree oppressed with melancholly and saying to God with an effectionate heart My God it is enough take Reg. 3. 19. my soul I am no better than my fore-fathers This passion often happeneth in persons who are entered into the list of a life more perfect Anxiety crosseth them sadness gnaweth them melancholy afflicteth Sadness the snare of Satan them and Satan willing ever to fish in a troubled water serves himself with this disturbance of mind to make them return back again to the false pleasures of the world What remdy what practice shall we confront this mischief with Let us use Davids harp to charm this dangerous devil of Saul You are sad say you It much concerneth you to sound your heart that you may know from whence this pensiveness proceeedeth and apply fit remedy thereunto Sometime sadness cometh from an indiscreet zeal when one will of his own accord undertake austerities neither ordered nor digested by counsel He cannot find good success yet is ashamed to go back again which is the cause he is tormented between the hammer and the anvile Sometime it proceedeth from a great immortification Causes of sadness Immortification of passions which at the enterance into a spiritual life he beginning to pick quarrels with them put themselves into the field assailing and turmoyling the mind As it is said a little fish called the wasp of the sea in the dog-days stingeth and disquieteth the repose of other fishes It is perhaps as yet in your soul neither day nor night winter nor summer cold nor heat but good and evil struggle who shall get the upper hand and this war troubleth you Sometime it proceedeth from a great tenderness of heart and a passionate love of ones self It seemeth to a little girle who weepeth in the nook of a chamber that the whole world is interessed in her sorrow and that every body should bemoan her Nothing is like to her unhappiness her burdens are Tears of self-flatterers of lead and all others are as light as feathers or if you weep not with her she becometh the more melancholy and if you do sorrow with her she taketh a higher tone to deplore her grievances There is many times much niceness in our sorrows and oftentimes our tears are nothing else but meer fopperies From this self-love proceedeth vanity and complacence which serve us with worm-wood to season our morsels withal The man who is over-much pleased with himself Self-love necessarily displeaseth many and to gain too great a friend within himself he purchaseth sundry enemies without himself All things cannot happen to his wish and as good successes inebriate him with contentments so evil torture and immoderate contristate him Briefly bad melancholly often riseth Jealous eye from a jealous and envious eye The good hap of another is a straw in his eye which ever will trouble him if charity bring not her helping hand Behold here a lamentable mischief All the perfections of another are ours when we love them in another and when we hate them they are thorns in our eyes which extreamly torment us Have we not pain Parùm alicui est si ipse sis foelix nisi alter fuerit infoelix Salvian de gubern Dei lib. 5. enough within our selves but we must plant crosses in the prosperity of others Sound your heart and see whether your sadness proceeds from one of these five sources or from many of them together Take away the cause by the favour of Gods grace by the help of your endeavour courage and resolution you shall have the effect and enjoy a peaceable soul like Heaven smiling in a bright serenity My sadness say you cometh not from this occasion Would to God it were so You were already sufficiently happy if all I have said were not of force to make you sad From whence cometh it then From the accidents which befal me on every side and if nothing happen to me I am unquiet with mine own self If you think to live wholly without sadness Sadness a plant of our own growing you must frame a new world for your self Sadness is a bitter plant which groweth in your garden you must know at one time or other what tast it hath To think wholly to free your self is to make your self a King in the cards and onely to brave it in paper like the ancient Philosophers who had their hands shorter than their tongues Our Saviour was contristated in the dolorous garden watered with bloudy sweats to teach us the perfection of a Christian is not in being sensible of sorrow but to moderate the same with resolution The best remedy is that which Jesus Christ hath Remedies shewed to us to wit Prayer It is a wonderful contentment to speak to God and to tell him your afflictions Behold you not in a garden-bed how those poor tulips are shut up with melancholy under the shadie coldness of the night And you may well say the Sun within his rays beareth the key to open them For so soon as he riseth and courteth them a little with that eye which exhilarateth total nature behold they unloose themselves dilate themselves and witness their joy for the arrival of this planet The like happeneth to your heart it sometimes long remaineth benummed and frozen for want of having recourse to prayer Learn a little to talk with God by jaculatory prayers Learn to complain your self to God and to seek the remedies of your wounds in his mercies and you will find a great lightening and alacrity The second to have a spiritual Father or a discreet and faithful friend to whom one may unburden his conscience with all confidence and security The cloud how dark or surchaged soever it be in that proportion it emptieth it self cleareth and the heart unburdening its calamities in the ear of another becometh more bright and lustrous Thirdly some spiritual Fathers advise a discipline to suppress interiour sadness by exteriour sorrow But this remedy is not for all sorts of men Saint Hier. ad Rusticum Hypoâ—ratis magis fomentis quà m nostris monitiâ— indiget Remedies of Hypocrates Not to play the Timon Hierom is a better Physitian who ordained for certain melancholy men rather to use the fomentations of Hypocrates than to afflict their bodies and distil their brains in other practices You must take very good heed you make not your self a Timâ—n and hate men and life entertaining your self in hypocondriack humours which throw a mind into the gulf of disturbance God
can ought avail me Ruffinus notwithstanding insisted protesting he would instantly perswade the Bishop what ever he pleased He failed not to find out the Bishop but the Saint gave him a very sharp reprehension advising him rather to dress his own wounds than intercede for others for he partly understood that he had a hand in this fatal counsel Ruffinus notwithstanding plyed it all he could and endeavoured to charm this man with fair words saying finally for conclusion he would immediately accompany the Emperour to the Church S Ambrose who was ever very serious answered If he come thither as a Tyrant I will stretch out my neek but if in quality of a Christian Emperour I am resolved to forbid him entrance Ruffinus well saw the Bishop was inflexible and went in haste to advise the Emperour not yet on this day to hazard his approach to the Church He found him on his way as a man distracted that had the arrow in his heart and hastened for remedy and he saying he had dealt with the Bishop It is no matter saith Theodosius let him do with me what he please but I am resolved to reconcile my self to the Church S. Ambrose advertised that Theodosius came went Aedicula jaculatoria out and expected him at the door of a little Cell seperated from the body of the Church where ordinarily salutations were made Then perceiving him environed with his Captains Come you oh Emperour saith he to force us No saith Theodosius I come in the quality of a most humble servant and beseech you that imitating the mercy of the Master whom you serve you would unloose my fetters otherwise my life will fail What penance replieth the holy man have you done for the expiation of so great a sin It is answereth Theodosius for you to appoint it and me to perform it Then was the time when to correct the precipitation of the Edict made against the Thessalonians he commanded him to suspend the execution of the sentence of death for the space of thirty days after which having brought him into the Church the faithfull Emperour prayed not standing on his feet nor kneeling but prostrated all along on the pavement which he watered with his tears tearing his Psal 118. Adhaesit pavimento anima mea vivisica me secundùm verbum tuum hair and pitifully pronouncing this versicle of David My soul is fastened to the pavement quicken me according to thy word When the time of Oblation was come he modestly lifted up himself having his eyes still bathed with tears and so went to present his offering then stayed within those rayls which seperated the Priests from the Laity attending in the same place to hear the rest of Mass Saint Ambrose asked him who set him there and whether he wanted any thing The Emperour answered He attended the holy Communion of which the sage Prelate being advertised he sent one of his chief Deacons which served at the Altar to let him understand that the Quire was the place of Priests and not of the Laicks that he instantly should go out to rank himself in his order adding the Purple might well make Emperours not Priests Theodosius obeyed and answered that what he had done was not on purpose but that such was the custom of the Church of Constantinople Yea it is also remarkable that returning afterward into the East and hearing Mass at Constantinople on a very solemn festival day after he had presented his offering he went out of the Quire whereat the Patriarch Nectarius amazed asked him why his Majesty retired in that manner He sighing answered I in the end have learned to my cost the difference between an Emperour and a Bishop To conclude I have found a Master of truth and to tell you mine opinion I do acknowledge amongst Bishops but one Ambrose worthy of that title Behold an incomparable authority which was as the rays of his great virtue and sanctity from whence distilled all that force and vigour which he had in treating with all men I imagine I hitherto have exposed the principal actions of S. Ambrose to the bright splendour of the day and so to have ordered them that all sorts of conditions may therein find matter of instruction It hath not been my intention to distend them by way of Annals but historical discourses proper to perswade virtue So likewise have I not been willing to charge this paper with other particular narrations which may be read in Paulinus Sozomen Ruffinus and which have exactly been sought out by Cardinal Baronius suitable to his purpose I conclude after I have told you that Paulinus his Secretary witnesseth he writing by him a little before his death saw a globe of fire which encompassed his head and in the end entered into his mouth making an admirable brightness reflect on his face which held him so rapt that whilest this vision continued it was impossible for him to write one word of those which Saint Ambrose dictated As for the rest having attained the threescore and Death of S. Ambrose fourth year of his age he was accounted as the Oracle of the world for they came from the utmost bounds of the earth to hear his wisdom as unto Solomon and after the death of Theodosius Stilicon who governed all held the presence of Saint Ambrose so necessary that he esteemed all the glory of the Roman Empire was tied to the life of this holy Prelate In effect when on the day of holy Saturday after his receiving the Communion he had sweetly rendered up his soul as Moses by the mouth of God a huge deluge of evils overflowed Italie which seemed not to be stayed but by the prayers of this Saint Let us I beseech you pass over his death in the manner of the Scripture which speaketh but one word of the end of so many great personages and let us never talk of death in a subject wholly replenished with immortality Oh what a life what a death to have born bees in his first birth on his lips and at his death globes of light in his mouth What a life to be framed from his tender age as a Samuel for the Tabernacle not knowing he was designed for the Tabernacle What a life to preserve himself in the corruption of the world in a most undefiled chastity as a fountain of fresh water in midst of the sea What a life to arrive to honour and dignities in flying them and to have enobled all his charges by the intefrity of his manners What a life not to have taught any virtue before he practised it and to become first learned in examples before he shewed himself eloquent in words What a life so to have governed a Church that it seemed a copy of Heaven and an eternal pattern of virtues What a life to have born on his shoulders the glory of Christendom and all the moveables of the house of God! What a life to have so many times trampled the head of
well observed this maxim that to Theodorus Anagnostes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 witness the zeal he bare to our Religion he caused the head of one of his officers to be cut off who having been bred in the Catholick Church became an Arian thinking by this means to be advanced into the good favour of his Master But this brave King My friend saith he since thou hast been disloyal to God I can never think thou wilt be faithful to thy Prince Thou shalt wash away the stain of thy treachery with thy bloud to teach posterity thou must not mingle the interests of God with the profane pretenses of thy fortunes He shewed himself very zealous to preserve peace in the Church in a most dangerous schism raised in his time For Pope Anastasius being deceased and they proceeding lawfully to the election of Symmachus there was a Senatour of an unquiet spirit who desirous to make a Pope at the devotion of the Emperour of Constantinople so to countenance his Extravagencies banded Altar against Altar and caused an Antipope to be chosen named Laurentius which rent both Senate and Clergy into great partialities But Theodorick very speedily quenched the fire and being well informed of the business seeing Symmachus was first elected and supported by the soundest part he mantained him with a strong hand against all the enterprises of adversaries who durst not in the end resist his authority Besides having published an Edict against the favourers of the Heruli who perplexed the Province of Genoa and Milan whither they were retired that fell out to be the cause of very many miseries and tears among the poor people who having no support so helpful unto them as the Bishops threw themselves into the arms of Epiphanes and Laurentius both great Saints and great Prelates the one of Pauta the other of Milan Epiphanes undertook to speak and said to the King Sir Should I here reckon up all the favours which you have received from God I might make you appear more sparing in your desires than he hath been in his liberalities since you have asked nothing of heaven which hath not ever surmounted your vows and hopes But not to speak at this time of so many prodigies is it not a very great wonder to see you do justice in the throne of your enemy and to behold us pleading the cause of your servants with such a confidence in a place which the terrour of arms had heretofore rendered so dreadful Sir it is the Saviour of the world who hath given into your hand this people which hath charged us with their requests Take good heed how you offend him by ill using the gift he hath afforded you Know how an invisible power hath led you by the hand into so many encounters and battels that the air rain and seasons have favoured your standards as if they had been to you engaged Now is the time you must acknowledge so many benefits by your piety not despising the tears of the afflicted which are the sacrifices of suppliants The examples of your Predecessours who have been cast out of the throne for their iniquity shew you cannot establish it but in your virtues Upon this consideration your Countrey prostrate at your feet most humbly beggeth you would be pleased to sweeten the rigour of your laws not onely by doing good to the innocent but by pardoning the culpable For very little would our clemency be if we did onely abstain to strike those who have given offence to none not considering mercy is not made for any but the miserable In revengeing your injuries you shall do like men of the earth and by pardoning share in glory with that great Monarch of heaven who daily maketh his sun to shine on criminal heads as well as the most innocent The King made a most courteous answer saying There was no reason that earthly powers should resist the prayers of Bishops who made heaven propitious and that he remitted to all in general the punishments of death ordained by laws but in so Vitia transmittit ad posteròs qui praesentibus culpis ignoscit much that the ulcer must be purged least by shewing himself too indulgent to vices he might make them pass into example for posterity the consideration of his state required the Authours of sedition should be removed to the end their presence might not foment the evil The reply was found very reasonable and letters of grace instantly dispatched by Urbicus who was one of the chiefest officers in the Court for expeditions He satisfied not himself with this favour but calling the good Bishop into his cabinet having highly commended him sent him among the Gauls to redeem the Italian prisoners there by reason the Burgundians in certain incursions had taken away very many and others over-whelmed with the miseries which proceed from civil wars were voluntarily stept aside The King gave commission to the Bishops to rally them to their troups liberally defraying the charges that were necessary There is also found one amongst his letters addressed Cassiodor l. 2. c. 2. 29. to Count Adela wherein he witnesseth that though he had a great desire to preserve his people in full peace and repose because the glory of a Prince consisteth in the tranquility of his subjects yet that he principally intended the Churches should enjoy this favour since in obliging them the mercies and blessings of God were drawn on his kingdom and pursuing this course he commanded Duke Ida to cause all the Ecclesiastical possessions to be restored which some had usurped in Languedoc after the death of Alarick Observe the good foundations of piety which he laid by the counsel of Boetius The second Maxim was to bend all his endeavours and imploy his best thoughts for the comfort of the people because there is not any way more powerful to gain the hearts of all the world than by sweetening the sharpness of the times present or the burdens of the passed We have seen said he by experience that those who are desirous to possess gold without the love of the people have been very unsafe that Kings differ not from other men but in being powerful to do good and that the common sort measure their greatness onely by their bounty that is it which heretofore made the Gods of Gentiles and which maintaineth Monarchies on the firm rock of constancy Theodorick imbraced this care most particularly Cassioder l. 4. ep 36. for he punctually enquired after the losses of his poor subjects and if he found any molested by the passage of some troups or other like he released them of taxes and ordinary subsidies as it may yet be seen in his letters and namely in one which he wrot to President Faustus wherein he commanded him to hold his hand in this business Because saith Lib. ◠Epis ◠he a body over-burdened sinketh to the ground and that it were better to despise a slight gain than to deprive himself
side and gaineth by force of money many mercenaries who well discovered they had no other faith but that which their fortune would give them The fourteenth SECTION The Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son by the mediation of Indegondis THe war was yet like to continue very long had it not been that the Princess weary to behold these calamities that took beginning from an affront which she had endeavoured to dissemble with so much prudence besought her husband with great tenderness of tears to reconcile himself to his father He touched at that instant with a quite other spirit than he had hitherto felt prostrated himself before the Altar and protested before God that he abandoned all the justice of his cause for the onely considerations of piety and would rather die than prosecute those dissentions any further to the prejudice of charity He went out wholly changed upon this her motion and coming to his wife said unto her Madame behold me resolved to seek out the King my father since you so desire it But I must needs tell you that having forgotten my self in this resolution I cannot neglect you The unworthie usage which you have received at Court requireth you return not thither but in triumph Never will I admit that you undergo hazard by exposing you to the mercie of a woman which perhaps hath none either for you or me You know the affairs of France are at this time in so great confusion that you cannot hope there for any retrait to asswage your griefs We have here a Prince the Emperour Tyberius who is our allie in whose protection I advise you to put your self to pass into Africa and from thence to Constantinople if it happen that I be otherwise entreated than your hopes import At these words the poor Indegondis selt her self seized with a great trembling and wept bitterly not being able to answer one word The Prince seeing he had proceeded too far in afflicting her so faithfull heart sweetened his discourse and said Dear heart why do you trouble your self at my departure I hope the affairs will run in a way so prosperous that in two or three days we shall see one another at Court but that which I have spoken is said taking all accidents at the worst to provide the better for your safetie They had during their abode here a little son which yet hung at the breast the father taking it in his arms said Madame Behold a most precious pledge of our marriage which I recommend unto you Let God dispose of it as shall best please him but you must breed it up as a King The mother beholding the infant redoubled her sighs and the poor Hermingildus not knowing what would follow felt himself surprized with a heavy and stupid dolour which made him break off his discourse yet notwithstanding he failed not to treat with the Emperours Lieutenant to put all that which was most dear unto him into safeguard But when the fatal day of separation came these two hearts so united felt such violent convulsions of grief as if they then had foreseen the events which afterward succeeded and that this farewel should be their last Indegondis at her parting cried out Sir whatsoever happen loose not the treasure of your faith My good Mistress replied the Prince assure your self you have gained a disciple who shall never dishonour you be you merry I will expect you at Court Alas what is our life and the affairs of man That which is past is nothing the present a fantasie and the future an abyss where even those who stand on the brink see not anything These two great souls which it seemed were worthy to live an Age to manure their faithfull loves and possess Empires as perpetual inheritances of their merits go about to be divided for ever with a separation which would be judged hydeous and pitifull were it not that she hath brought forth a Kingdom to Religion Some time after that Indegondis was retired Levigildus understanding his son disposed himself to some composition conceived much joy thereat for he feared lest he might be enforced to give battel wherein he had perhaps found what a man may do thrust into despair So soon as he saw some overture of peace he dispatched his son Recaredus who was in the Army with him to gain his elder brother well knowing they were both of humours very consonant When the younger entred into Hermingildus camp and had espied him hestopped suddenly and cried out Oh my brother before I embrace I desire to know whether I come to a friend or an enemie But the good brother without making him any other answer set forward and most lovingly embraced him in the sight of the whole Army The other sighing Ah brother saith be most dear brother whither have the counsels of those transported you who desire the ruin of our house Behold your self here environed with armies and Legions and behold on the other part my father who besiegeth you with all his army Miserable that I am What shall I do but make between you both a wall of my body to hinder your designs Ah how brother are you upon the point to give my father battel Oh how unhappy would the Sun be which shineth over our heads if this day before the setting he should see his face defiled with the stains of our bloud Brother it is our Countrey against which you arm that stretcheth out to your obedience the same hands it lifted up to Altars for your safety Brother it is your father and mine against whom you march what honour can you get to tear out of his body by violēce a soul which he is ready to render up to nature to throw it out yet alive into the flaming ruins of his Kingdom Have you no other objects to give testimony of your valor I beseech you both by the Religion you have embraced and the bloud common to us both stay your arms or if you persist in your purpose kill me rather at your feet and take me as a victim to purge both the armies Behold the King who lovingly expecteth you and who reckoneth up the moments of my Embassage I bring you the word of full assurance upon my life and honour You must come instantly if you dare believe me for you cannot procrastinate nor retard this affair but you must slacken your own happiness These words were powerfull enough to transport a man who was already resolved Hermingildus having assured him of the good affection he had ever born both to the King his father and himself went to the Court Recaredus flieth with the desire he had to inform his father of the success of his Commission and being arrived he bare the news of the coming of his brother wherewith he was infinitely pleased The Prince followed quickly after and prostrated himself at the feet of the King his father saying Sir And my most dear father behold here your poor
there so ill intreated that he more hastily returned than came thither laden with confusion and in short time heard the discomfiture of his Armies and victory of the Jews whereupon he entered into so desperate sury that he resolved to retire hastily again to Jerusalem and to make of the whole Citie but one tomb But the hand of God had already designed his for Joseph Ben Gerion it happened being in his coach his horses frighted extraordinarily upon the meeting and roar of an Elephant gave him so boysterous a stroke that thrown on the ground he received a mortal wound the fire and venom whereof crept so far into his hurts that he seemed to burn alive like the damned feeling inexplicable dolours throughout all his body which became a nest of vermin and having his soul turmoyled with Specters and Furies that gave him no repose At which time the miserable Atheist coming to himself after a drunkenness of so many years spake these words JUSTUM EST SUBDITUM ESSE DEO ET MORTALEM NON PARIA DEO SENTIRE professing there was a Great God to whom we must submit and never with him contest when being in the bed of death he acknowledged impiety had been the original of al his evils and that should God restore him to his health he would fill Jerusalem with gifts and wonders even to the becoming a Jew and ever proclaim the glory of the Creatour But the gates of mercy were already shut up against this disloyal man who had no true repentance his hour was come which made him die all wasted with putrefaction insupportable to his Army who could not endure the stench troublesom to himself and execrable to the memory of all mankind The Prophets and holy Fathers mention him as a damned soul and the figure of Antichrist to teach the wicked out of the deportment of this man that there is not any one withdraws from God but flies from his mercy and falls into the hands of his justice which pursueth Libertines beyond the gates of hell III. MAXIM Of the Excellencie of the DIVINITIE THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That Great men are Gods on earth whose favours we should adore That all greatness is wretched before the Majesty of God who alone is to be adored THere is not any thing hath more perplexed Divers opinions of the Divinity the minds of men since the beginning of the world than the diverse opinions of the Deitie since the wisest when they had spent all their abilities upon this question found nothing more certain than uncertainty One would wonder why the knowledge of the true God being so important for man hath been so many Ages obscured and covered in a great abyss of darkness even from those who thought themselves the most clear-sighted in the knowledge of total Nature But who sees not it is an evident punishment for sin and a most just effect of Gods vengeance who hath permitted truth to be hidden from man because man would conceal himself from truth even in the shadow of death and nothing They vanished in their thoughts said Evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis obscuratum est insipiens cor eâ—rum Rom. 1. God in this life handleth the wicked as the damned the Apostle and their senseless hearts were obscured But that which herein is very considerable is that God hath ever handled wicked men like the damned for the unhappy souls condemned to hell have an idaea of the beatitude they have lost which serves for an executioner And infidels after shipwrack of faith and truth which they abandoned fail not still to retain an opinion of the excellency of the Divinity not knowing what it is nor why they should stick to it It was that wherein Plinie esteemed men more miserable than beasts For creatures not made for the knowledge and fruition of a God are troubled at nothing nor make any question thereupon contenting themselves peaceably to enjoy innocent favours of Nature but the curiosity man hath had through all Ages to be informed of the state of the Sovereign cause is a strong conviction of his infidelity He findeth himself obliged to seek into the knowledge of God which as saith Tertullian is the first vesture of the soul but this knowledge flieth him so long as he renounceth faith innocency and reason the prime pieces of the intellectual life From thence grew the great diversity of gods heaped Diversity of Gods Plin. l. 2. c. 7. one upon another by the Gentiles For poor humane nature overwhelmed partly by the greatness of this sovereign Essence partly also clouded by its own ignorance misery and sin being unable to understand a God most Onely and Simple with one sole touch of the soul hath made an impertinent dissection of it dividing it into as many parts as there are errours on the Altars of Gentiles whilest every one sought to adore that which most flattered his imagination or sensuality They who were more spiritual have deified virtues as Chastity Concord Intelligence Hope Honour Clemency and Faith Other more absurd have tied themselves to the worship of creatures as the Aegyptians Some who questionless were sottish have framed gods in humane shape some old others young and many perpetually infants They have made them male and female black white winged and deformed They made some to rise out of a wind others from the sea and divers from rocks They who were more fearfull and superstitious adored the feaver and tempests not for esteem of their worth but through horrour of their malignity They ware their gods shut up in rings and many times submitted to monsters denying themselves repose and repast to satisfie their superstition It is the misery which S. Augustine deplored in his Citie of God after Plinie the Historian and other Authours who handled this subject But such as amidst this great obscurity of Sects God of flatterers thought themselves more gentile and refined in conversation taking other ways and leaving old superstitions began to canonize Emperours Princes and the Great-ones of the earth saying There were no Divinities more visible and propitious than these seeing they daily became the distributours of glory and worldly fortunes The Athenians who vaunted to Remarkeable punishment of flattery Senec. Suasor 1. have the most subtile wits of the earth quickly suffered themselves to fall into such like flatteries whereof we have a very notable passage in Seneca who telleth us that Mark Anthonie being a Prince extreamly dissolute was instantly called god Bacchus by his flatterers and soon came to such shameless impudence as to suffer this title to be engraven upon his statues Behold the cause why entering into the Citie of Athens all the men of quality marching before him and desirous to be acceptable with him both through humour and affection of favour they failed not to introduce him with the title of Bacchus nay willing to over-value him above other people they added the hearty offer of
humane and politick without Heavens direction For so doing you will build upon quick-silver phantasms of greatness which will afford you illusions in this life to drench you in the other into eternal confusions When you have done all which justice and conscience Nec consilio prudenti nec remedio sagaci divinâ— providentiae fatalis dispositio subverti vel reformari potest Apul. Metamor 9. Heâ— fatis superi certasse minores Sil. Ital. l. 5. dictate leave successes to God and know there are strokes from Heaven that cannot be vanquished either by prudence of counsels or any humane remedies We are to be answerable unto God with our good desires not powers the petty gods of the earth can do nothing against the Decrees of Heaven Take these words of S. Paul not as ordinary but as Oracles of an immutable Veritie (a) (a) (a) Rom. 8. Prudentia carnis mors est prudentia autem spiritus vita pax Prudence of flesh is death but prudence of spirit is peace and life If you have good success in ought you do thank God and look on him saith (b) (b) (b) Bernard de consider l. 5. Tob. 6. 3. S. Bernard as an Omnipotent Will a virtue full of affection an eternal light a sovereign beatitude which replenisheth all here below with the abundance of his ever-honoured bounty But if in doing all you can you find main oppositions and irksom afflictions in the world say as the chast Sara did seeing her self injured by her servant O God I turn my face to the Ad. te Deus faciem mâ—am converto ad te oculos meos dirigo Peto Domine ut de vinculo improperii hujus absolvos me aut certe desuper terram cripias me c. place whence I expect my consolation I fix mine eyes on thee because thou settlest all my hopes I beseech thee deliver me from the fetters of this disgrace or deliver me out of this world Thy counsels are impenetrable to the weakness of my understanding but I am wel assured of one thing that he who faithfully serves thee shall never be deceived If his life be assaulted with afflictions it shall reap Crowns If it be exposed to the ardour of tribulations thou wilt stretch out an assisting hand If thou exercisest it under thy chastisements it shall be to make it find out the path of thy mercies The fifth EXAMPLE upon the fifth MAXIM Of the Providence of GOD over states and riches of the world EULOGIUS THe Divine Providence is a marvellous workman Drawn from the observation of Paul a Greek Authour which ruleth here below over the heads of mortals it laboureth in this great mass of mankind it takes men of earth to make them of gold and of those men of gold makes men of earth It commixeth slaves and Kings and causeth the one not thinking of it to spring from the other in the revolution of times as Plato said But we who know not all its secrets sometimes blame the works of it which should rather stir up our admiration than be subject to our censure One complaineth the wealth of the world is not well divided and that the wicked have ever the greatest share Men who oftentimes know not how to part with a finger breadth of land but by dis-joyning most intimate charities would make themselves distributers of the worlds fortunes as if they looked more narrowly into the world than he that made it I will here set down a memorable history drawn out of a rare Grecian Authour named Paulus who Paul Syllegus l. 3. c. 48. compiled many Narrations learned from the best of his Age. He recounteth how in the time of the Emperour Justin the elder about the year 528. after the birth of Christ there was in Thebais one named Eulogius a stone-cutter by his trade of poor means but very rich in virtue Which maketh us say Poverty resembles the Island of Ithaca as said Archesilas which Poverty the Isle of Ithaca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stob. serm 93. though rough and bushie failed not to breed the bravest men of Greece whom she made use of as a school for all the exercises of virtues This man who at that time had no other wealth on earth but his hands spared not to store up treasures of good works as pledges in Heaven He feared Virtues of a good poor man God was devout chaste sober abstinent courteous peacefull charitable and embraced eminent virtues in a mean fortune It is a strange thing that notwithstanding his labour which was hard enough he fasted most part of his time even to Sun-set and with the little money he got by the sweat of his brows relieved the poor He walked like Abraham before pilgrims he washed their feet and received them into his little house with all possible charity Then seeking out needy persons of his own Parish to give them some refection according to his abilitie he extended his compassion even to beasts not suffering any thing to escape his bounty One would have said seeing all this poor trades-man did he had been some rich Lord such abundance appeared in so low a poverty It happened that a holy Hermit called Daniel who Daniel the Hermit made a rash demand lived in great reputation for the excellent endowments of his soul passing along that way so journed in the poor cottage of Eulogius who received him like an Angel descended from Heaven He who was a most spiritual man looking very far into the Mason's life found therein such eminent perfection that he well perceived devotion many times lodged with little noise in a secular life and that God who is a great Master had servants every where This so enflamed him to the love of those virtues he observed in his hoste that returning to the Monastery he exercised great devotion as fasting three whole weeks together with intention to obtain an ample estate from God for Eulogius Fervour so transported this good man that he considered not that God who preserveth us to health loveth us not to curiosity and that the banquets he made for his greatest servants as Elias and S. Paul the Hermit when he for them opened the treasures of Heaven were onely bread and clear water of fountains Notwithstanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he without intermission importuned Heaven by his prayers complaining God who was most just gave riches in excess to so many sinners to puff up their pride and foment riot when the poor Mason who deserved rivers should stream nothing but gold for him was invaded by harsh poverty which tied up his hands from virtue But he persisting day and night to beg the fruit of his request heard a voice from Heaven which commanded him to lay aside so indiscreet a request saying If his Eulogius left his poverty he would forsake his conscience But he pertinaciously persevering in the pursuit of his desire through a goodness wholly blind answered He well knew
1. dist 41. Manifest reason the will of God could not be unjust and that praedestination proceeded besides the grace of God by most secret merits which were discovered to this divine eye that discerneth all the actions of men 4. Is there a soul so replenished with contradiction which averreth not That what God doth in a certain time he determined to do it in his eternity Now Faith teacheth us he in that time by him determined rendereth life eternal to the just for reward of their merit as himself pronounceth in S. Matthew (c) (c) (c) Matth. 25. Answer to objections And therefore it is necessary to confess God before all Ages was resolved to give the Crown of glory not indifferently but in consideration of good life and laudable virtues And for this it is to no purpose to say the end of our intentions goeth before the means whereby some infer God first decreed beatitude which is the end then considered good works which are the address to this end For I answer when the end possesseth the place of salary as this here doth the merit is always presupposed before the recompence And although the Master of a Tourneament wisheth the prize to one of his favourites yet his first intention is he shall deserve it by his valour God taketh the like inclinations in this great list of salvation he wisheth all the world palms but willeth it to them who well know how to make use of the helps of his grace Thus the most ancient and gravest Fathers of the The doctrine of the most ancient Fathers concerning praedestination Church thought this sentence they agreed on before the impostures of Pelagians in the golden Age of the Church through a most purified ray And to this purpose Tertullian said (d) (d) (d) Tertul. de resur carnis Deus de suo optimus de nostro justus God who is very good of his own was ever just of ours And S. Hilarie said most perspicuously (e) (e) (e) Hilar. in Psal 64. Non res indiscreti judicii electio est sed ex delectu meriti discretio est That Election was not an effect of judgement indiscreet but that from the choice of merit proceeded the distinction made for glorie S. Epiphanius expressed the like opinion That there was no exception of persons in the proceeding of God but that it passed according to the merit or demerit of every one Behold what we may gather from the soundest tradition of the Church (f) (f) (f) The second point of reasons That God is glorified in that he hath our works for praedestination to glory But if we now weigh the second Article whereon we insist which is the glory of God it is an easie matter to see this opinion which appropriateth a certain fatality of divine decrees without other knowledge of cause agreeth not with this immense bounty of God nor the sincere will he hath to save all the world It is not suitable to his justice nor to his promises or menaces he makes to virtues or vices besides it tormenteth minds weakens the zeal of souls and throweth liberty and despair into manners Why should not a miserable reprobate have cause The complaint a Reprobate may make hereupon to say Ah my Lord where are the bowels of goodness and mercy which all pens testifie all voices proclaim and laws establish Is it then of honey for others and of worm-wood for me How cometh it to pass without any knowledge of merit you drew this man from the great mass of corruption to make him a son of your adoption a coheir of your glory and have left me as a black victim marked with a character of Death What importeth it me that in this first choice you made you did not condemn me without knowledge of cause to think no good for me was to think ill enough for me Was I then able to row against the torrent of your power Could I intrude into your Paradise which you have fitly disposed like the Halcyons nest whereunto nothing can enter but its own bird You have built your Palace of a certain number of chosen pieces in such sort that the account thereof being made and proportions valued one small grain might not be added to encrease the number What could I do in this dreadfull exclusion but accuse your bounty and deplore my unhappiness Behold what a reprobate soul may object and Aug. de verbo Apost ser 11. Si posset loquipecus dicere Deo quare istum fecisti hominem me peculem Answer to objections Glossa in Danielem it were bootless to answer that a bruit beast might complain in this fashion that God had not made it a man or the like might be alledged for infants who die without Baptism For as concerning beasts nothing is taken from them rather much given when from nothing being and life is afforded them with contentments of nature and as for little infants they endure no evil and are no more disturbed to be deprived of the sight of God than was Nebuchadnezzar for the Scepter of Babylon when he in his infancy was bred among shepheards thinking himself the son of a Peasant and wholly ignorant of his Royal extraction But to say A man who dies at the age of discretion and is delivered over to eternal flames was condemned by God without any other fore-sight of his works is it not a cruelty not worthy of ought but Calvinism as if a father might be excusable in marrying one daughter richly and cutting the others throat to set her on a pyle He who would judge wisely must flie the very shadow of an opinion so damnable and all which may seem to favour it 6. Now as concerning the Doctrine which establisheth The fruits of Gods glory derived from our Maxim Praedestination upon grace and prevision of good works it seems to stretch far towards the point of Gods greatest glory It discovereth us his science in attributing unto him an infinite survey over all the actions of Adams children before all Ages by which it seasonably fore-saw all that was to be done by all particulars in so great a revolution of times It in an instant affordeth us this most innocent knowledge seeing we learn by the same way that the prescience which God hath of our works is no more the cause of our happiness than my memory of the fireing of Rome which happened under Nero or than mine eye of the whiteness of snow and fresh verdure of meadows by its simple aspects Nothing happeneth because God fore-saw Qui non est praescius omnium futurorum non est Deus Aug. de civit Dei l. 5. c. 9. it but God fore-saw it because it should so happen by motion of our free-will and not by the laws of necessity Moreover the Justice of the great Master is very eminent in this action for we do not say he works at random and seeks to make boast
of his power in the misery of mortals but with the Scripture that he separateth light from darkness with a diamond to wit a most strong and resplendent knowledge of the merit and demerit of men What sense is Notable passage Adamante diserevit lucem tenebras Eccles 16. 14. Secundum 70 there to make a power which takes its glory from ignorance and is potent in contempt of reason Is not this to make all terrible even to its own favours What sense is it to appoint a Judge to satisfie the whole world according to desert and to make him sign Decrees irrevocable in favour of some one before knowledge of all merit Cannot we make him potent unless we make him unjust Adde also that in the feeling we have of Praedestination Goodness of God the mercy of the most mild Father shineth with visible marks For we do not make him to damn him through a negligence of thoughts and coldness of affection which cannot be in a God so active or a heart so loving but we believe his goodness extendeth to Cain and Judas and would they have endeavoured they had the means to gain beatitude which never fails any man if he want not correspondence In the end we likewise acknowledge in this point Si voluisset Esau cacurrisset Dei adjutorio pervenisset Aug. ad Simp. l. 4. 2. the most prudent government of God who will have nothing idle in nature nor grace He could enlighten us without the Sun and afford us fruit without the earth but he will his creatures operate and that one unfold the rays of his substance another supply with the juice of its bosom In like manner he is pleased we make his grace to profit us to raise our riches out of his favours and derive our glory from his bounty He will give a title of merit to our happiness to advance the quality of his gifts He will crown in us what comes from himself as if it were wholly ours Why shall we shut up the eyes of his wisdom why tie up the hands of his liberality An Ancient said He more esteemed the judgement of certain men than their proper benefits God will we value both in him that we enjoy his bounty by favour and his judgement by merit The actions of the Sovereign Monarch are free from controul as his gifts from repentance I will leave you now to conclude what quiet we Third point Repose of Conscience may have in our consciences upon the matter of Praedestination I leave you to think whether a good soul have not cause to say O be the Divine Providence praised for evermore since it so worthily hath provided for me I cannot adore its counsels unless I love its goodness It sweeteneth my pains it comforteth my cares when it teacheth me my eternal happiness depends on him and me on him who loveth me tenderly and on me who cannot hate my self unless I derogate from my essence after I have failed in all virtues Courage then we roul not under this fatality which writeth laws on diamonds and ties us to inevitable necessities The fodder is not cast we have yet the mettal boyling apace in hand we may appear on the mould of virtue we may make our selves such by the grace of God as to put our salvation in assurance our life into repose and death into crowns I cannot fear God with a slavish fear since he is nought but goodness but I will ever dread my works since I am frailty it self Let us hereafter live in such sort as we would be judged Let us consecrate our life to innocency and banish all sin Let us undertake piety humility obedience alms and devotion towards the Blessed Virgin which are most assured marks of Praedestination Let us not presume of our own forces nor despair likewise of Gods mercy If we stand upright let us still fear the declining of nature which easily bendeth to evil and if we stoop let us quickly raise our selves again making all avail to our salvation yea our proper falls We have a great Advocate in Heaven who openeth as many mouthes for us as we have inflicted wounds on his body We have inflicted them through cruelty and they will receive us through mercy serving us towards Heaven for a chariot of triumph as they were to us on earth a mirrour in life and a sepulcher in death The sixth EXAMPLE upon the sixth Drawn out of Simeon of Constantinoplâ— MAXIM Of the secret Power of Praedestination PROCOPIUS PRaedestination is an admirable secret wherein Marvellous secret of Praedestination experience teacheth us there is nothing which the happy ought not to fear nor any thing the miserable may not hope Stars fall from the firmament to be changed into dung-hills and dung-hills of the earth mount to Heaven to be metamorphosed into stars The graces of God insinuate themselves by secret ways and the impressions of the will are extreamly nice all that past is a dream and the future a cloud where thunders murmur in the dark We tremble when we read in the History of holy Historia Patrum orientis Raderus Fathers that an Hermit grown white in the austerities of Religion understanding a notable thief had gained Heaven by a sigh he cast forth in the instant of his death was much displeased and presently became nought because God was good blaming his mercy to trie his justice For one sole censure made him loose forty years of penance and drew his foot out of Paradise to deliver his soul to hell I purpose here consequently to produce a singular conversion that you may admire and fear the secret ways of God Simeon of Constantinople is the Authour of it who enlarged it with many words but I will abbreviate it into good proportion which shall render it no whit the less effectual The Emperour Diocletian having pacified Aegypt sojourned sometime in Antioch of purpose to destroy Actor 12. the name of Jesus Christ in the same place where the faithfull began to be called Christians Theodosia a Procopius presented to Dioclesian great Ladie came to him bringing her son along with her named Neanias in very good equipage with purpose to prefer him in Court and satisfie her ambition To make her self the more acceptable she freely protested her deceased husband died a Christian that she had often attempted to work him to forsake this superstition adverse to Gods and men and that being unable to prevail upon his inveterate obstinacy she had manured this young plant speaking of her son carefully training him in the service of the gods and Prince with infinite detestation against Christianitie Diocletian who was much delighted with such accidents loudly praised the Ladie and casting his eye on Neanias he found him of handsom shape good presence understanding and valiant whereof he conceived great hope he might prove hereafter a principal instrument of his desires That which also pleased him the more
river Miser qui porcum esurit defecit in saginam Chrysol serm de prodigo Plato 9. de Rep. such an one there is who hath sold himself for the life of a hog who will never have his fill of hogs draft as S. Peter Chrysologus said of the prodigal child Men covetous of bodily riches would willingly make themselves horns and claws of iron to speak with the wise Plato of purpose to take and defend the one his wealth the other his loathsome pleasures Many times iron gates must be broken to purchase a fruition Inorditate love of health which draweth along with it a thousand disturbances Behold how a man who is excessively enamoured of his own health becomes suppliant and servile to his bodie He fears his proper dyet all kind of airs are dreadful to him nor can he take but with distrust those very comforts which afford him life He makes of his stomach a soyl of drugs he perpetually consulteth with his Physicians he tells his infirmities to all the world he seeks out extraordinarie cures as he often hath imaginarie diseases he lives in an afflicting equality would many times rather transgress Gods ten commandments than fail in one of Hypocrates aphorisms I leave you to think what death were not much sweeter than health so religiously preserved See now on the other side a worldly woman who Slavery of women Cultus magna cura magna virtulis iâ—ria Cato Censorius feeleth her beautie that short tyrannie already in the wain and yet would cherish it in the opinion of men who heretofore adored it or of such likewise who may be taken in the same snare What doth not this silly creature to make her self to be esteemed fair What time wasteth she not to seem slender to wash paint to divide the white well to mingle the red to powder her hair to make her self ey-browes to preserve the whiteness of her teeth to set a vermillion tincture on her lips little patches like flies on her cheeks choose stuffs and think of new fashions What torture inflicteth she not on her bodie with those iron stayes and whale-bones How many turns maketh she dayly before a looking-glass What perplexities of mind what apprehensions least her defects may appear And what discontent when after such torments so miserably ended she sees her self despised by men before she becomes the food of worms What Captain of a Galley was ever so cruel to fettered slaves as vanity and love of the body are to the soul Pursue the track of all other pleasures and you shall find them painful and dolorous and in the end you will be enforced to say there is no worse bondage than that which is afforded to wretched flesh The Prophet Scribe ei super huxum Isai 30. 8. Observation upon Esay Flower of box Esay speaking of punishments due to sinners worldlings saith they are written on box whereupon we may say with S. Hierom it is to shew the lasting of it since characters graven on such kind of wood cannot so easily be taken off But I here consider a secret which teacheth me box bears no fruit onely satisfied to produce a flower which otherwise making a goodly shew killeth bees that suck it The Prophet in this figure presented to us a lively image of pleasure which surprizeth the eyes by a vain illusion whilest it conveieth poison into the heart Rest then assured you shal never meet with solid contentment of mind but by the wayes the Saviour of the world shewed us on earth to transfer us to Heaven The just are here below as Life of the Just little halcyons on the trembling of waters or nightingales on thorns They find their joys amongst holy tears and their delights in austerities of life There is nothing so Sovereign as early to accustom to depend little on your body and quickly to forsake a thousand things by election which you shall be enforced to abandon of necessitie When a manner of virtuous life is chosen and which hath some austerity in it custom makes it sweet grace fortifieth it perseverance nourisheth it and glorie crowns it How many worldlings dayly putrifie in a miserable condition who have from their tender age yielded all submission to their flesh and how many delicate bodies in monasteries have we seen which the whole world condemned to the beer from their entering into religion to go out of hair-cloth ashes fasts as a Phoenix from her tomb A life without crosses is a dead sea which breedeth nought but stench and sterility but austerity is like the Aegyptian thorn which had an excellent grace in crowns We are called to Christianity to bear a God crucified Glorificate portate Deum in corpote vestro on our flesh and as it were impressed with the Characters of Divine love Let us carefully preserve our selves from prostituting members to sensuality made to be the Temple of the living God and the ornament of Paradise Holy Job was in state so lamentable that those who beheld him could scarcely tell whether it were a man reduced into a dunghil or a dunghil into the shape of a man Notwithstanding in the midst of these smarting dolours which over-ran all his body and the afflictions which assailed his mind he received so unspeakable comforts from God that himself confesseth to have nothing so strange in his own person as his proper torments Behold the reason why he exalted Mirabiliter me crucias Job 10. himself on his dunghil as upon a throne of virtue he adorned himself with his wounds as with a royal purple he took the Scepter in hand over all effeminacies of body and pronounced Oracles unto us which to all Ages shew that there is neither evil nor affliction wherein God maketh not his miracles of our pains and his glorie of our rewards The thirteenth EXAMPLE upon the thirteenth MAXIM The Miserable event of Lust AMMON the Son of DAVID IT is not one of the least miseries of the greatest of all evils I mean sin that the ill example which often accompanieth it doth likewise survive it It is to say truly a most bitter fruit of this direful tree or rather a scien which it in growing produceth and which being fed from it's sap stands upright after the fall of it Nor is it strange that when once the mercy of God onely able for this great work hath stifled the monster sin in the soul of parents yet fails it not though wholly dead to infect their families and poison their posteritie with the stench of it's ordure David that great Prince that King according to Gods heart had lost the affections and sweet indulgencies of it by an adultery and an homicide He afterward weepeth he humbly prayeth he lowdly cries and God who is willing to be moved turneth his eyes from his crimes and that he may no more hereafter see them applies the sponge to cleanse them yet behold long after Ammon one
rebellion of Core Dathan and Abiram this earth which is the foundation and basis of the universe changed its nature shook with frightful tremblings opened its wide and gaping bosom to swallow these disastrous creatures Where shall we lodge this sin On the waters Behold the waters could not endure one sole disobedience of Jonas All the air is on fire all the winds in blusters all the sea in rage and fury whilest it is under the weight of this poor sinner He must be cast into the belly of a whale although unable to digest shevomit him up God himself Laboravi sustinens Job 1. God Omnipotent in whose hands all this great world is but a drop of dew complains he cannot endure sin Where shall we place it then but in the pit of hell But if at least this pain had some end And see you not sin hath neither end nor limits in its eternity Alas he who would understand this who would Ducunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descendunt Job 21. 13. open his eyes to behold what I am about to say and what I conceal had rather put himself into the arms of hell being in innocency than among imaginary felicities in crime and sin If you know it not O Christians it is an infinite evil because it striketh at the head of an infinite divinity and it is an horrible thing to think on for that as much as is possible it annihilateth God and the whole fountain of essences felicities and mercies Do you not consider a transgression Enormity of a sinner increaseth according as the person interessed is of great and eminent quality It is one thing to offend a peasant another thing a Merchant another thing a Judge another a King But he who offends all Kings and all Judges of the earth or should thrust a knife into the throat of a million of men would he not seem very criminal Nay were all the greatness grace and majesty of a hundred thousand worlds poured and quintessenced in one body what would it be in comparison of God but one grain of sand And then to invade God in his will to infringe and annul the Divinity O abyss of confusion To say unto God Omnipotent all good and all holy You will give me a law and I will play the unbridled colt I will take it of my self I will admit no Law-maker you created me for your Irritam quis faciens legem Mosi sine ulla miseratione moritur quanto magis putatis deteriora mereri supplicia qui Filium Dei conculcaverit sanguinem Testamenti pollutâ—m dunerit Heb. 10 self and I will live for my self and be the sovereign good of my self you created a world for my use and I will people it with monsters which shall be my sins You redeemed and reconciled me by the bloud of your Son and I will contemn and trample it under-foot I should not presume to use these words had not S. Paul prevented me You will be a Judge to chastise me and I make as much account of all your thunder-stroaks as of broken rushes To despise God as a Law-maker as a Creatour as a Father as a Redeemer as a Judge as God as all and then say God did you wrong in making a hell 5. Behold there his justice purged now see its effect in the quality and condition of pains of the damned What is Hell It is called Silence to shew we cannot speak of it but by silence All is said of hell is less than hell The holy history of Aegyptian Quality and condition of the pains of the damned Anchorites written by Palladius recounteth an accident very prodigious happened to the great Macharius which is that one day this admirable man Strange narration of Palladius commonly called the God of Monks for his speech was an oracle and his life a perpetual miracle this excellent man I say travelling through the hideous and savage desarts of Aegypt alwaies fixed and bent both with eye heart upon the contemplation of a future life met with the head of a dead man by the way and ere he was aware set a palmers staff which he had in his hand upright upon it and behold at the same instant as it happened in other occasions he heard to come from the head of this dead man a sad and frightful voice able to have astonished the most couragious But the holy Saint being wholly made for these apparitions of spirits and armed to the proof against all illusions of Sathan stood still and asked Whose art thou It answered I am the head of one damned He replied What threw thee head-long into this wretched miserie Two things said the dead misbelief and vice Then being demanded concerning the torments he endured he replied The soul makes hell the soul suffers hell and the soul cannot well comprehend what hell is What have you on the earth more odious than horrible darkness and not to speak of our coals nor of any of the rest of our greatest calamities behold our greatest ease The unhappy spirit cutting off his words held his peace and the holy man lifting the head up from the ground took it in his hand then deeply sighing with fobs of lively and penetrating grief he said O what ease O what ease what eternal darkness blind world prostituted world desperate world oh wouldest thou know wouldest thou know but thine unhappiness hath put a scarf before thine eyes I would here conclude this discourse and substitute in my place this blessed old man the eye and honour of these desarts holding this dead mans head between his hands I would intreat him to ask of it again what have availed the damned their honours reputation riches riots pleasures delights those wretched lime-twigs which entangled the wings of the soul and plunged it into an abyss of infelicities I would intreat it to tell us what a monster mortal sin is since to punish it such dreadful dungeons must be built such racks and tortures It would tell this with a voice of thunder accompanied with flouds of tears and you would be appalled tremble and weep at it with all the just who never think of hell but with terrour and tears O bruitish and sensual men who live in a continual Definition of hell contempt of Gods anger Ask the great Tertullian what hell is And he will answer hell is a treasury of fire enkindled by the breath of God for punishment of the damned hell is an ugly and deep sink Arcani ignis subterrâ—nâ—â— ad panam thesaurâ— Abstrusa in visceribâ— terrae profunditâ—â— c. Tertul. deanimâ— and a sewer wherein all the ordures of Ages are thrown Ask of Hugo of S. Victor (a) (a) (a) Profundum sine fundo whi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali Hugo victorius l. de anima what hell is and he wil reply a bottom without bottom which shutteth the
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
world the benefits that God hath conferred upon their families is it not most fitting that we endeavour to acknowledge in some manner the liberality of the Divine Majesty This act consisteth in three things First in the Memory which represents to the Understanding the benefit received and this Understanding considers the hand that gives them and to whom and how and wherefore and by what ways and in what measure Thereupon an affectionate acknowledgement is framed in the Will which not able to continue idle spreads it self into outward acts to witness the fervour of its affection To practise this well it is requisite to make a catalogue of the benefits of God which are contained in three kinds of goodness and mercy The first is that whereby he drew this great Universe out of the Chaos and darkness of nothing to the light of being and life for our sakes creating a world of such greatness beauty profit measure order vicissitude continuance and preserving it as it wereby the continual breathing of his spirit affording to every thing its rank form propriety appetite inclination scituation limits and accomplishment But above all making man as a little miracle of Nature with the adornments of so many pieces so well set to bear in his aspect the beams of his own Majestie The second bounty is that whereby he hath decreed to raise in man all that is natural to a supernatural estate The third that whereby he hath raised the nature of man being fallen into sin into miserie into the shadow of death to innocence bliss light and eternal life This is the incomprehensible mystery of the Incarnation of the Word which comprehends six other benefits that is the benefit of the doctrine and wisdom of Heaven conferred on us the benefit of our Saviors good examples the benefit of Redemption the benefit of Adoption into the number of Gods children the benefit of the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ the benefit of the blessed Eucharist Besides those benefits which are in the generality of Christianity we are to represent in all humility often to our selves the particular favours received from God in our birth nourishment education instruction in gifts of soul and body in means and conveniences in friends allies kinred in vocation estate and profession of life in continued protection in deliverance out of so many dangers in vicissitude of adversities and prospeâ—ity in guidance through the degrees of age wherein every one in his own particular may acknowledge infinite passages of the Divine Providence All this pouring it self upon the soul with consideration of the circumstances of each benefit at last draws from the Will this act of acknowledgement which maketh it to say with the Prophet David Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me bitherto 2 Sam 7. 18. The seventh SECTION A Pattern of Thanksgiving HEreupon you shall give thanks for all benefits in general and particularly for those you have received at present which at that time you are to set before you that may season this action with some new relish The Church furnisheth us with an excellent form of Thanksgiving to God in the hymn Te Deum or else say with the blessed spirits O God power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and blessing be unto thee for ever and ever O God glory be to thee on high and on earth peace good will towards men I bless thee I worship thee I give thanks to thee for thy great glory and thy benefits O Lord God heavenly King God the Father Almighty and thou also O Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour onely Son of the Heavenly Father perfect God and perfect man Thou that takest away the sins of the world and sittest at the right hand of God the Father And thou O Holy Gbost consubstantial with the Father and the Son most blessed Trinitie receive my prayers in giving thanks The eighth SECTION Of Offering or Oblation The third Act of Devotion REligion and Sacrifice had their beginning in the worlds infancy and ever since have been linked together by an indissoluble tie God who giveth all will have us give to him meaning we should take out of his store that which our Nothing cannot afford Observe here a thing remarkeable That as in the Law of Moses there were three kinds of Sacrifice that is Immolations Libations and Victims Immolations which were made of the fruits of the earth Libations of liquours as oyl and wine Victims of living creatures so likewise God requires that we give him our actions for fruits our affections for liquours and our selves for victims This is done by the act of Oblation or Offering which is a way of sacrifice by which we offer our selves and all that belongeth to us at the Altar of the Divine Majesty To perform this act well we must have first a pure apprehension of the power and dominion which God hath over us secondly an intimate knowledge of our own dependence upon him considering that we not onely have received being and all things annexed to being from his goodness but that we are also sustained perpetually by his hand as a stone in the air and that if he should let go never so little we should be dissolved into that Nothing out of which we are extracted From thence will arise an act of Justice in the will ready to give to God that which is his and as the Holocaust where the hoast was quite consumed in honour to the Divine Majestie was heretofore the noblest of all Sacrifices so will we imitate this excellent act of Religion by consecrating not onely our actions and affections but all that we are unto God wishing to be dissolved and annihilated for his sake if it might be for the glory of his Divine Majestie But if this annihilation cannot be real we must at the least form it to our mind in an extraordinary manner acquiring to our selves as much as is possible twelve dis-engagements wherein the perfection of the Holocaust consisteth The first is a divesting our selves of all affection to temporal things so that we no longer love any thing but for God of God and to God The second a dis-entangling from our own interest in all our actions The third an absolute mortifying of sensuality The fourth a separation from friendships sensual tural and acquired that they have no longer hold on our heart to the prejudice of virtue The fifth a banishing of worldly imaginations in such a manner that the meer representation of them may beget aversion and horrour in us The sixth a discharge from worldly cares not necessary to salvation The seventh a deliverance from bitterness of heart and discontents which ordinarily arise from eâ—cessive love to creatures The eighth a valiant flight from all kind of vanity of spirit The ninth a contempt of sensible consolations when God would have us to be weaned from them The tenth a renouncing of scruples of mind
As soon as you have received the Sacrament say this prayer of S. Bernard in his Meditations upon the Passion O Heavenly Father look down from thy Sanctuary from the Throne of thy glory upon the blessed sacrifice which our High Priest Jesus thy most innocent and sacred Son doth offer unto thee for the sins of his Brethren Pardon the multitude of our offences and have compassion upon our miseries Hearken to the voice of the bloud of that immaculate Lamb which crieth out to thee and he himself standeth before thee at the right hand of thy Majestie crowned with honour and glory Behold O Lord the face of thy Messias who hath been obedient to thee even unto death and put not his blessed wounds out of thy sight nor the satisfaction he made for our sins out of thy rememberance O let every tongue praise and bless thee in commemoration of thy infinite goodness who didst deliver thy onely Son over to death upon Earth to make him our most prevalent Advocate in Heaven For Petition Immediately after you have recited the Lords Prayer say these words of the aforesaid Liturgie O God be mindfull of all Pastours and faithfull people dwelling in all parts of the habitable world in the union of the Catholick Faith and preserve them in thy holy peace O God bless our most gracious King and his whole Kingdom hear the prayers which we offer up at thy Altar O God remember all those that travel by sea or land and are exposed to so many dreadfull dangers Remember the many poor prisoners and exiles who groan under the miseries of the world O God remember the sick and all such as are in any discomfort of mind Remember the many poor souls opprest with bitterness who implore thy succour Remember also the conversion of so many Hereticks Infidels and sinners whom thou hast created after thine own image O God remember our Friends and Benefactours Accept this sacrifice for us sinners and let us all feel the effects of thy Mercy drive away scandal war and heresie and grant us thy peace and love And at the end of the Communion O God pour down thy graces upon us direct our steps in thy ways strengthen us in thy fear confirm us in thy love and give us at last the inheritance of thy children It is very expedient also to have our devotions ordered for every day of the week The seventeenth SECTION Devotion ordered for the days of the Week WE may derive an excellent practise of Devotion for every day of the Week from the Hymn of S. Ambrose used by the Church For therein we learn to give God thanks for every work of the Creation and to make the greater world correspond with the lesser Sunday which is the day wherein the light was created we should render thanks to God for having produced this temporal light which is the smile of Heaven and joy of the world spreading it like cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth and lighting it as a torch by which we might behold his works Then penetrating further we will give him thanks for having afforded us his Son called by the Fathers The Day-bringer to communicate unto us the great light of faith which is as saith S. Bernard a Copy of Eternity we will humbly beseech him that this light may never be eclipsed in our understandings but may replenish us every day more and more with the knowledge of his blessed will And for this purpose we must hear the word of God and be present at Divine Service with all fervour and purity Take great heed that you stain not this day which God hath set apart for himself with any disorder nor give the first fruits of the week to Dagon which you should offer up at the feet of the Ark of the Covenant Munday which is the day wherein the Firmanent was created to separate the celestial waters from the inferiour and terrestrial we will represent unto our selves that God hath given us Reason as a Firmament to separate divine cogitations from animal and we will pray unto him to mortifie anger and concupiscence in us and to grant us absolute sway over all passions which resist the eternal Law Thesday the day wherein the waters which before covered the whole element of Earth were ranked in their place and the earth appeared to become the dwelling nurse and grave of man we will figure unto our selves the great work of the justification of the world done by the Incarnate Word who took away a great heap of obstacâ—es as well of ignorance as of sin that covered the face of the whole world and made a Church which like a holy Land appears laden with fruit and beauties to raise us up in Faith and to bury us in the hope of the Resurrection We will beseech him to take away all hinderances to our soul so many ignorances sins imperfections fears sorrows cares which detain it as in an abyss and to replenish us with the fruits of justice Wednesday wherein the Sun Moon and Stars were created we will propose unto our selves for object the Beauty and Excellency of the Church of God adorned with the presence of the Saviour of the world as with a Sun and with so many Saints as with Stars of the Firmament and we will humbly beseech God to embellish our soul with light and virtue suitable to its condition Especially to give us the six qualities of the Sun Greatness Beauty Measure Feâ—vour Readiness and Fruitfulness Greatness in the elevation of our mind above all created things and in a capacity of heart which can never be filled with any thing but God Beauty in gifts of grace Measure to limit our passions Fervour in the exercise of charity Readiness in the obedience we ow to his Law Fruitfulness in bringing forth good works Toursday the day wherein God as S. Ambrose saith drew the birds and fishes out of the waters the birds to flie in the air and the fishes to dwell in this lower Element We will imagine the great separation which shall be made at the day of Gods judgement when so vast a number of men extracted from one and the same mass some shall be raised on high to people Heaven and enjoy the sight of God others shall be made a prey to hell and everlasting torments And in this great abyss and horrour of thought we will beseech God to hold us in the number of his elect and to be pleased to mark out our predestination in our good and commendable actions Friday wherein the other creatures were brought forth and man created who was then appointed to them for a King and Governour we will set before us the greatness excellency and beauty of this Man in the Talents which God hath given him as well of grace as of nature How much it cost to make him the hands of the Creatour being employed in his production Hands saith S. Basil which were to him as a
fall no lower but may contemplate all above him and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble Is a man tempted with pride The consideration of Ashes will humble him Is he burned with wanton love which is a direct fire But fire cannot consume Ashes Is he persecuted with covetousness Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloud-Suckers cast their Gorges Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities 3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death we should there find the streams of life All the world together is of no estimation to him that rightly knows the true value of a just mans death It would be necessary that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napel which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Deaths head And if the other Tulips do please their senses that will instruct their reason Before our last death we should die many other deaths by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin We should resemble those creatures sacred to the Aegyptians called Cynocephales which died piece-meal and were buried long before their death So should we burie all our concupiscences before we go to the grave and strive to live so that when death comes he should find very little business with us Aspiration O Father of all Essences who givest beginning to all things and art without end This day I take Ashes upon my head thereby professing before thee my being nothing and to do thee homage for that which I am and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties Alas O Lord my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousness arise from this caitiffe dust which I am so little do I yet learn how to live and so late do I know how to die O God of my life and death I most humbly beseech thee so to govern the first in me and so to sweeten the last for me that if I live I may live onely for thee and if I must die that I may enter into everlasting bliss by dying in thy blessed love and favour The Gospel for Ashwednesday S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocritical Fasting WHen you fast be not as the hypocrites sad for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Amen I say to you that they have received their reward But thou when thou doest fast anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast but to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret will repay thee Heap not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust and moth do corrupt and where thieves dig through and steal But heap up to your selves treasures in heaven where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not dig through nor steal For where thy treasure is there is thy heart also Moralities 1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise who fasts and afflicts his body to draw the praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger who starves himself that he may swell and burst with vain glory He stands for a spectacle to others being the murderer of himself and by sowing vanity reaps nothing but wind Our intentions must be wholly directed to God and our examples for our neighbour The Father of all virtues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions such lies are abominations in his sight and Tertullian saith they are as many adulteries 2. It imports us much to begin Lent well entering into those lists in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictness have been glorious before God and honourable before men The difficulty of it is apprehended onely by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchen-stuffe It is no more burdensom to a couragious spirit than feathers are to a bird The chearfulness which a man brings to a good action in the beginning does half the work Let us wash our faces by confession Let us perfume our Head who is Jesus Christ by alms-deeds Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience when it is accompanied with pureness and charity but it breeds great thirst when it is not nourished with devotion and watered with mercy 3. What great pain is taken to get treasure what care to preserve it what fear to loose it and what sorrow when it is lost Alas is there need of so great covetousness in life to encounter with such extream nakedness in death We have not the souls of Giants nor the body of a Whale If God will have me poor must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth that I may become rich To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures To rust to moths and thieves were it not better we should in our infirmities depend onely on God Almighty and comfort our poverty in him who is onely rich and so carrie our souls to heaven where Jesus on the day of his Ascension did place our Sovereign good Onely Serpents and covetous men desire to sleep among treasures as Saint Clement saith But the greatest riches of the world is poverty free from Covetousness Aspiration I Seek thee O invisible God within the Abyss of thy brightness and I see thee through the vail of thy creatures Wilt thou always be hidden from me Shall I never see thy face which with a glimpse of thy splendour canst make Paradise I work in secret but I know thou art able to reward me in the light A man can lose nothing by serving thee and yet nothing is valuable to thy service for the pain it self is a sufficient recompence Thou art the food of my fastings and the cure of my infirmities What have I to do with Moles to dig the earth like them and there to hide treasures Is it not time to close the earth when thou doest open heaven and to carrie my heart where thou art since all my riches is in thee Doth not he deserve to be everlastingly poor who cannot be content with a God so rich as thou art The Gospel for the first Thursday in Lent S. Matthew 18. of the Centurions words O Lord I am not worthy ANd when he was entered into Capharnaum there came to him a Centurion beseeching him and saying Lord my boy lieth at home sick of the palsie and is sore tormented And Jesus saith to him I will come and cure him And the Centurion making answer said Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof but onely say the word and my boy shall be healed For I also am a man subject to Authority having under me
things not impossible That which is very hard to flesh and bloud become easie by the help of grace and reason Our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ being the Father of all harmony can and doth reconcile all contrarieties at his will and pleasure 2. If revenge seem sweet the gaining of it is most bitter But there is nothing in the world more profitable than to pardon an enemy by imitation of our Saviour For it is then that our conscience can assure us to be the children of God and inheritours of his glory We must not fear to be despised for esteeming virtue for such contempt can onely proceed from those who know not the true value of that glory which belongs to the just There is no better way to revenge than leave it to God who always doth his own business When David wept for Saul who was his enemy his Clemency did insensibly make degrees by which he mounted up to the throne of Judah A good work which comes from the spirit of vanity is like an emptied Mine good for nothing God who is invisible would have our aspects turned always toward him and blind toward the world Alms given by the sound of a Trumpet makes a great noise on earth but reaps little fruit in Heaven The flie of vanity is a mischievous thing which destroys all the perfumes of Charity What need we any spectatours of our good works every place is full where God is and where he is not there onely is Solitude Aspirations O God of all holy affections when shall I love all which thou lovest and have in horrour all that displeaseth thy divine Majesty If I cannot love in some person his defects and sins I will love in him thine Image and in that will I acknowledge thy mercies If he be a piece of broken glass in that little piece there will shine some lines of a God-Creatour and of a God-Redeemer If thou hast chosen him to exercise my patience why should I make him the object of my revenge since he gives me trouble to gain me a Crown He is a hammer to pollish and make me bright I will not hurt him but reverence the arm that strikes me I resign all vengeance into thy hands since it is a Right reserved for thy Almighty power And certainly the best revenge I can take is to gratifie my enemy Give unto me O most mercifull Prince the grace to suffer and let the sacrifice of my sufferings mount up to thy propitiatory Throne The Gospel for the first Saturday in Lent S. Matth. 6. Of the Apostles danger at Sea and relief by our SAVIOUR ANd when he had dismissed them he went into the mountain to pray and when it was late the boat was in the midst of the Sea and himself alone on the land And seeing them labouring in rowing for the wind was against them and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh to them walking upon the sea and he would have passed by them But they seeing him walking upon the sea thought it was a ghost and cried out for all saw him and were troubled And immediately he talked with them and said to them Have confidence it is I fear ye not And he went up to them into the ship and the wind ceased and they were far more astonied within themselves for they understood not concerning the loaves for their heart was blinded And when they had passed over they came into the land of Genesareth and set to the shore And when they were gone out of the boat incontinent they knew him and running through that whole Countrey they began to carry about in couches those that were ill at ease where they heard he was And whither soever he entered into towns or into villages or cities they laid the sick in the streets and besought him that they might touch but the hem of his garment and as many as touched him were made whole Moralities 1. WHat a painfull thing it is to row when Jesus is not in the boat all our travel is just nothing without Gods favour A little blast of wind is worth more than an hundred strokes of oars What troublesom businesses there are how many intricate families do labour much and yet advance nothing because God withdraws himself from their iniquities if he do not build the workman destroyes what he is building But all falls out right to those that embark themselves with Jesus They may pass to the Indies in a basket when others shall miscarry in a good ship well furnished 2. But how comes it about that the ship of the poor Apostles is beaten so furiously by the winds and tempests There are many ships with silver beaks with fine linnen sails and silken tackles upon which the sea seems to smile Do the waters reserve their choller onely to vent it upon that ship which carries just persons This is the course of mans life The brave and happy men of this world enjoy their wishes but their ship doth perish in the harbour as it is sporting whereas God by his infinite providence gives tempests to his elect that he may work a miraculous calm by his Almighty power Dangers are witnesses of their floting and Combats are causes of their merit Never think any man happy in his wickedness for he is just like a fish that playes with the bait when the hook sticks fast in his throat We must wait and attend for help from Heaven patiently without being tired even till the fourth which is the last watch of the night All which proceeds from the hand of God comes ever in fit time and that man is a great gainer by his patient attendance who thereby gets nothing but perseverance 3. They know Jesus very ill that take him for a Phantome or an illusion and crie out for fear of his presence which should make them most rejoyce So do those souls which are little acquainted with God who live in blindness and make much of their own darkness Let us learn to discern God from the illusions of the world The tempest ceaseth when he doth approach and the quietness of our heart is a sure mark of his presence which fills the soul with splendour and makes it a delicious garden He makes all good wheresoever he comes and the steps which his feet leave are the bounties of his heart To touch the Hem of his Garment cures all that are sick to teach us that the forms which cover the blessed Sacrament are the fringes of his holy humanity which cures our sins Aspiration O Lord my soul is in night and darkness and I feel that thou art far from me What billows of disquiet rise within my heart what idle thoughts which have been too much considered Alas most redoubted Lord and Father of mercy canst thou behold from firm land this poor vessel which labours so extreamly being deprived of thy most amiable presence I row strongly but can advance nothing except thou come into my soul
I eat drink sleep when I do business when I am both in conversation and solitude Whither shall this poor soul go which thou hast thrown into a body so frail in a world so corrupt and amongst the assaults of so many pernicious enemies Open O Lord thine eyes for my guidance and compassionate my infirmities without thee I can do nothing and in thee I can do all that I ought Give me O Lord a piercing eye to see my danger and the wings of an Eagle to flie from it or the heart of a Lion to fight valiantly that I may never be wanting in my duty and fidelity to thee I ow all that I am or have to thy gracious favour and I will hope for my salvation not by any proportion of my own virtues which are weak and slender but by thy boundless liberalities which onely do crown all our good works The Gospel upon Munday the first week of Lent out of Saint Matthew 25. Of the Judgement-Day ANd when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty and all the Angels with him then shall be sit upon the seat of his Majesty And all Nations shall be gathered together before him and he shall separate them one from another as the Pastour separateth the sheep from the goats And shall set the sheep at his right hand but the goats at his left Then shall the King say to them that shall be at his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father possess you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world For I was hungred and you gave me to eat I was athirst and you gave me to drink I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you covered me sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me Then shall the just answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred and fed thee athirst and gave thee drink and when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and covered thee or when did we see thee sick or in prison and came to thee And the King answering shall say to them Amen I say to you as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me Then shall he say to them also that shall be at his left hand Get you away from me you cursed into fire everlasting which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungred and you gave me not to eat I was athirst and you gave me not to drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and you covered me not sick and in prison and you did not visit me Then they also shall answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee Then shall he answer them saying Amen I say to you as long as you did it not to one of these lesser neither did you it to me And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Moralities 1. BEhold here a Gospel of great terrour where our spirit like the Dove of Noah is placed upon the great deluge of Gods wrath and knows not where to find footing Every thing is most dreadfull But what can be more terrible than the certainty of Gods judgement joyned with the great uncertainty of the hour of our death It is an unchangeable decree that we must all be presented before the high Tribunal of the living God to render a just account of all which our soul hath done while it was joyned with our body as we are taught by S. Paul We must make an account of our time spent of our thoughts words actions of that we have done and that we have omitted of life death and of the bloud of Jesus Christ and thereupon receive a judgement of everlasting life or death All men know that this must certainly be done but no man knows the hour or moment when it shall be So many clocks strike about us every day and yet none can let us know the hour of our death 2. O how great is the solitude of a Soul in her separation from so many great enticements of the world wherein many men live and in an instant to see nothing but the good or ill we have done on either side us what an astonishment will it be for a man suddenly to see all the actions of his life as upon a piece of Tapistree spred befor his eyes where his sins will appear like so many thorns so many serpents so many venemous beasts Where will then be that cozening vail of reputation and reason of state which as yet cover so many wicked actions The soul shall in that day of God be shewed naked to all the world and her own eyes will most vex her by witnessing so plainly what she hath done 3. O what a parting water is Gods judgement which in a moment shall separate the mettals so different O what a division will then be made of some men which now live upon earth Some shall be made clear and bright like the stars of heaven others like coals burning in hell O what a dreadfull change will it be to a damned soul at her separation from this life to live onely in the company of devils in that piercing sense of torments and eternal punishment It is a very troublesom thing to be tied with silken strings in a bed of Roses for the space of eight days together What may we think of a damned soul which must dwell in a bed of flames so long as there shall be a God 4. Make use of the time given you to work your salvation and live such a life as may end with a happy death and so obtain that favourable judgement which shall say Come O thou soul blessed of God my Father possess the kingdom which is prepared for thee from the beginning of the world There is no better means to avoid the rigour of Gods judgements than to fear them continually Imitate the tree mentioned in an Emblem which being designed to make a ship and finding it self wind-shaken as it grew upon the land said What will become of me in the sea If we be already moved in this world by the bare consideration of the punishment due to sin think what it will be in that vast sea and dreadfull Abyss of Gods judgements Aspirations O King of dreadfull Majesty who doest justly damn and undeservedly save souls save me O Fountain of Mercy Remember thy self sweet Jesus that I was the cause of that great journey which thou tookest from God to man and do not destroy me in that dreadfull day which must decide the Question of my life or death for all eternity Take care of my last end since thou art the cause of my beginning and the onely cause of all that I am O Father of bounties wouldest thou stop a mouth
silver whereof I shall never have use and still be vexed with care how to preserve it O most mercifull Lord suffer me not to be taught by hell fire that which I may have neglected to learn out of thy Gospel I most heartily renounce all luxury and pomp of the world and this carnal life which would always busie it self about my body If thou be pleased to make me rich I will be so for the poor and if thou make me poor I will make my self rich in thee who art the true riches of all thine elect The Gospel upon Friday the second week in Lent S. Matth. 21. Of the Master of a Vineyard whose son was killed by his Farmers ANother Parable hear ye A man there was an housholder who planted a Vineyard and made a hedge round about it and digged in it a press and builded a tower and let it out to husbandmen and went forth into a strange Countrey And when the time of fruits drew nigh he sent his servants to the husbandmen to receive the fruits thereof And the husbandmen apprehending his servants one they beat another they killed and another they stoned Again he sent other servants more than the former and they did to them likewise And last of all he sent to them his Son saying They will reverence my Son But the husbandmen seeing the Son said within themselves This is the heir come let us kill him and we shall have his inheritance And apprehending him they cast him forth out of the Vineyard and killed him When therefore the Lord of the Vineyard shall come what will be do to those husbandmen They say to him The naughty men he will bring to nought and his Vineyard be will let out to other husbandmen that shall render him the fruit of their seasons Jesus saith to them Have you never read in the Scriptures The stone which the builders rejected the same is made into the head of the corner By our Lord was this done and it is marvellous in our eyes Therefore I say to you That the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and shall be given to a Nation yielding the fruits thereof And he that falleth upon this stone shall be broken and on whom it falleth it shall all to bruise him And when the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they knew that he spake of them And seeking to lay hands upon him they feared the multitudes because they held him as a Prophet Moralities WE have reason to fear all that is in us yea even the gifts of God All his favours are so many chains If they bind us not to do our duty they will bind us to the punishment due for that neglect Our soul is given us by God as a thing borrowed from Heaven we must not be too prodigal of it We must dig up ill roots as we do in land cultivated The time will come that we must render up the fruits and shall we then present thorns Examine every day how you profit and what you do draw every day a line but draw it toward eternity What can you hide from God who knows all What can you repay to God who gives all and how can you requite Jesus who hath given himself 2. How many messengers doth God send to our hearts without intermission and how many inspiratiosn which we reject So many Sermons which we do not observe and so many examples which we neglect Jesus comes in person by the Sacrament of the Altar and we drive him from us to crucifie him when we place the Devil and Mortal sin in his room What other thing can we expect for reward of all these violences but a most fearfull destruction if ye do not prevent the sword of justice by walking in the paths of Mercy Our vanities which at first are like small threeds by the contempt of Gods grace come to be great cables of sin He that defers his repentance is in danger to lose it and will be kept out of the Ark with the croaking Raven since he hath neglected the mourning of the sorrowfull Dove 3. It is a most horrible thing to see a soul left to it self after it hath so many times forsaken the inspirations of God It becomes a desolate vineyard without inclosure The wild Boar enters into it and all unclean and ravenous creatures do there sport and leap without controle God hangs clouds over it but will let no drop of water fall upon it The Sun never looks upon it with a loving eye all there is barren venemous and near to hell Therefore above all things we must fear to be forsaken of God Mercy provoked changes it self into severe Justice All creatures will serve as Gods instruments to punish a fugitive soul which flies from him by her ingratitude when he draws her to him by the sweetness of his benefits Aspiration ALas O great Father of the worlds family I am confounded to see thy vineyard so ill ordered made so barren and spoiled My passions domineer like wild beasts and devours the fruits due to thy bounty I am heartily sorry I have so little esteemed thy graces and to have preferred all that which makes me contemptible before thee I do this day renounce all the abuses of my soul I will grow and prosper under thy blessings I will flourish under thy aspect and fructifie under thy protection Command onely thy graces and sweet dews of Heaven which are as paps of thy favours to rain upon me and water this rotten trunk of my heart Speak to that eye of love that beautifull eye of Jesus that it will shine upon me but once with that ray which doth make souls happy for ever The Gospel upon Saturday the second week in Lent S. Luke 15. Of the prodigal Child ANd he said A certain man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father Father give me the portion of substance that belongeth to me and he divided unto them the substance And not many days after the youngest son gathering all his things together went from home into a far Countrey and there he wasted his substance living riotously And after he had spent all there fell a sore famine in that Countrey and he began to be in need and he went and cleaved to one of the Citizens of that Countrey and he sent him into his Farm to feed swine And he would fain have filled his belly of the husks that the swine did eat and no body gave unto him And returning to himself he said How many of my fathers hirelings have abundance of bread and I here perish for famine I will arise and will go to my father and say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee I am not now worthy to be called thy son make me as one of thy hirelings And rising up he came to his father and when he was yet far off his father saw him and was moved with mercy and
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
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
eyes and saw not ears and heard not senses and felt not she was not where she was for she was wholly where her Master was although she knew not where he was She knew no other art but that of love she had unlearnt to fear to hope to rejoyce to be sad all in her turned to love by reason of him whom she loved above all The Angels who descended from heaven to comfort her were to her troublesome nor could she endure them she stood upright near the sepulchre where in the place of death she found her heaven Now as in efficacious plyantnesses are flowers of Liberality love which never bring forth any fruit so it takes a second quality which is to be liberall and much obliging For this cause the hands of the bridegroome according to the Canticles are all of gold and round to shew there is not any thing crooked or rough to stay Cant. 5. 14 Manus ejus tornatiles aureae plenae Hyacinthis alia versio Globi aurei pleni mari his gifts besides they are all filled with pretious stones to figure his benefits unto us Jacinths and Diamonds which he scattereth and bestoweth as liberally as the sand of the sea The Hebrew saith that the same hands are vessels of gold replenished with the sea because love is an Ocean of liberalities which is never exhausted There remains nothing but to be patient which it Patience Pennas habet non pondus Ailredus doth with so much grace that one may say its yoke hath wings not weight The heart of it oft-times is invironed with thorns and it sweareth they are roses It swims in a sea of worm-wood and faith it is sweet water It is covered all over with wounds and protesteth they are Pearls and Rubies It is overwhelmed with affairs and maintains they are recreations It is surcharged with maladies and they are sports with calumnies and they are blessings with death and that is life These three qualities cause twelve very notable effects Twelve effects of love in love which are To love God above all and in comparison of him to despise all To account ones self unhappy if but a very moment diverted from his sweet Ideas To do all that may be and to endure all things impossible to come near him To embellish and adorn our soul to please him To be alwayes corporally present with him as in the Sacrament or spiritually as in prayer To love all which is for him and to hate all which is not for him To desire that he may be declared confessed praised and adored by all the world To entertein all the most sublime thoughts that is possible of his dear person To passe over with sweetnesse all the acerbities suffered in his service To accommodate ones self to all his motions and to receive both sad and joyfull things with his countenance To languish perpetually with the desires to behold him face to face and lastly To serve him without anxiety or expectation of reward These things being so sublime we must not presume to arrive thither at the first dash It is very fit to file and continually to polish our soul by long services and goodly actions to arrive in the end at the happy accomplishment of love For this cause there are reckoned certain degrees by which the soul is led to the pallace of this triumphant Monarch There is a love as yet but young which doth onely begin and hath five degrees within the compasse whereof it dilates it self to passe to a much greater perfection It beginneth first by the taste of the word of God and the sweetnesse it feels by the reading of good books which is a sign that a soul already hath an arrow of true love in the heart This taste maketh a man take good resolutions for the amendment of his manners and order of his life this resolution is followed by a happy penance which bewaileth all the imperfections of the life past with a bitter distaste and a fit satisfaction By this way we proceed to the love of a neighbour and a beginning is made by a tender compassion of his afflictions and a rejoycing at his prosperities Lastly or addicts himself much to many very laudable good works and to the holy exercises of mercy Behold here a most sincere condition and to be wished in many men of honour who may therein persist with great constancy The second order comprehendeth those which are Three orders of true lovers of the World yet more strong and it conteineth five other degrees First they are very assiduous in prayer wherein they are much enlightned with the knowledge of verities and celestiall maximes Secondly they obtain an excellent purity of conscience which they cleanse and polish by an enquiry into their interiour holily curious and perfectly disposed Thirdly they feel the exteriour man much weakned by a generous mortification wherewith concupiscence is quailed Fourthly followeth the vigour of the inward man who finds him self happily enabled to all the functions of the spirit with a certain facility which becometh as it were naturall to him Fifthly appeareth a great observance of the law of God which maketh him apprehend the least atomes of sin through a notable fidelity with which he desires to serve his master In this rank are many good religious who lead a life most accomplished in devotion and in the continuall mortification of senses Lastly in the third order of perfect lovers are the great effects of perfect charity as is not to have any humane and naturall considerations in all ones actions but to tread under foot all respect of flesh and bloud to defend truth Not to stick to earth by any root but to account all things worse then a dunghill to gain Jesus Christ to run before the Crosse and to bear the greatest adversities with a generous patience to love ones enemies to do good to persecutours and in conclusion freely to expose ones life for the salvation of a neighbour To say truly they had need to be persons most heroick to go so far and there is no doubt but this is the full accomplishment of love Notwithstanding nine degrees also are added of Seraphick love which concern Contemplatives which are Nine degrees of Seraphicall love for the contemplative The solitude of a heart throughly purified from all the forms of Creatures Silence in a sublime tranquillity of passions Suspension which is a mean degree between Angell and man Inseparability which adhereth to its welbeloved for an eternity not admitting the least disunion Insatiability which never is satiated with love Indefatigability which endureth all labours without wearinesse Languour which causeth the soul to dissolve and melt on the heart of its beloved Extasie which causeth a destitution of the vegetative and sensitive soul totally to actuate the intellectuall Deiformity which is a degree approching near to beatifick love Then is there made in the soul a deluge of mysterious and adorable
from equals lasteth long by the counterpoise of power evenly balanced and wasteth wretched hearts in the search after a cursed revenge which drowneth pleasure in great acerbities and many times life in bloud We must instantly labour for reconciliation by a just satisfaction of the offended party or stand upon our guard that the enemy may not prevail The hatred of inferiours towards great ones whilst it is spread amongst the confusions of the multitude oft-times long remaineth under silence shut up as the impetuous current of a River kept in by a trench but so soon as it hath liberty it with so much fury overfloweth that it turneth men into Tygers and Leopards So we see in Histories many miserable Princes overwhelmed with the hatred of the people with a thousand inventions of cruelties which force compassion from the most obdurate All books are filled with these disastrous events but I do not think we can behold a more tragicall spectacle of popular hatred then that which is represented by Nicetas in the person of Andronicus Emperour of Horrible example of the hatred of the multitude Constantinople He entred into the Empire like a Fox by tyrannicall usurpation and covered his crimes with a dumb shew of a sophisticate devotion at which time God the avenger of iniquities was pleased to chastise him with an iron rod and to make him as an example of his justice to all posterity He fell alive into the hands of his enemy who having loaden him with injuries and contumelies abandoned him to the people for the punishment of his perfidiousnesse From that time he was entertained with all the despites which Hatred and the liberty of doing all permitted his enemies For he had buffets redoubled one upon another given him with implacable violence his hair was torn off his beard was pulled away his teeth were knocked out and not so much as women but ran upon his wretched body to torture and torment it whilest he replyed not a word Some dayes after his eyes being digged out and his face disfigured with blows they set him on an old botchy Cammel without ought else to cover him then an old shirt to lead him through publick places in the manner of a triumph This spectacle so full of horrour nothing at all mollified the peoples hearts but desperate men were to be seen to rush upon him on every side as thick as in Autumne swarms of flies fleshed with some carrion some covered him all over with dirt and filth others squeezed spunges filled with ordure on his face others gave him blows with clubs upon the head others pricked him with Auls and Bodkins and divers threw stones at him calling him at every stroke Mad Dog And there was a wicked woman of the dregs of the vulgar who threw a pail of scalding hot water upon his head that his skin pild off Lastly they hastned to hang him on a gibbet by the feet exposing him to a shamefull nakednesse in sight of all the world and they tormented him to the last instant of death at which time he received the favourable blow from a hand which thrust a sword through his mouth into his bowels without other complaint then to beseech God to have mercy on him Behold the most bloudy effects of this cruell Passion But we may say if this of the people resemble torrents that of great and powerfull ones is not unlike thunders and lightnings Many Monarchs may be compared to the mountain Mountain of Vesuvius Julius Recupitus Vesuvius near Naples which as it is written is so fertill that it yieldeth unto those who manure it a million of gold in revenue but when it comes to cast forth its all-enflamed entrails it oft-times makes as much a havock in one day alone as it brings profit in a whole Age. How many persons meet we in ancient and modern History raised to flourishing estate and enriched with the spoils of the Universe who in a moment of misfortune have lost the honours and wealth which in so many years of favours they had with full hand amassed together in their houses But most especially imperious women are ardent Hatred of women and exorbitant in their revenges when a great power combineth with Passion to replenish all with disasters Hatred shewed it self fierce and insolent in Eudoxia against S. John Chrysostome furious in Justina against S. Ambrose bitter in Theodora against Narses bloudy in Fredegonda against Pretexatus Archbishop of Roan whom she caused to be murthered at the Altar And when this Hatred is enkindled with the flame of love it self and that they in their dispose have the arms of their Amorists and servants for execution of their purposes they cause cruelties which would make the History of Man-haters and Lestrygons to blush It is good for prevention of this kind of Hatred to Means to eschue and prevent the Hatred of powerfull men have little occasion to entermeddle with such kind of people nor too eagerly to pursue the favour of great ones nor the pompous glories of worldly fortunes since its felicities like as if they were crimes never scape scot-free You must not enter too farre into the intrication of affairs and persons keep your self from slanders and mischievous strokes of the Tongue ill offices and treasons of such as have no soul to make your self recommendable by Piety Justice Liberality Moderation Sweetnesse and so many other virtues which having adorned you in prosperity raise a lustre and consolation in the bottome of adversity To this also you must adde powerfull friends who enlighten with the ray of truth that darknesse which envie ceaseth â—ot to spread over lives the most innocent and which permit not virtue to be ever oppressed by Iniquity As for such as are in charges offices dignities and commands wherein in reason alteration may be expected if they see themselves to be persecuted by publick hatred it is best for them to change their condition to find repose and especially when there are powers which will hate out of humour or levity and who shutting up all passages to Reason do onely open an ear to slander I ask whether in such a case God hath not consecrated a sanctuary for evil fortune in the pitty of a neighbour The Divine Providence never permitted that one sole man should be King of the whole world He who is persecuted in one Province passeth to another and often finds friends who wipe away his tears and gild his fetters Whilest Hatred swayeth in the Consistory of Cruelty to draw down lightnings and dart thunders on his head Joseph sold by his brethren found innumerable favours in Egypt David pursued on all sides by the envy of Saul like a wild Beast met with refuge and employment under Abimelech S. Athanasius sanctified the places of his banishment by the sanctity of his virtues S. Hillary pulled out of his Bishoprick lighted in Phrygia upon a silent repose which gave him leave to write his learned
the river of Silias wherein all sinks to the bottome and nothing floateth all passeth with them into the bottom of the soul nought stayes in the superficies which is the cause that the heart replenished with cares and apprehensions dischargeth it self what it may by the tongue Besides the materiall cause of Despair which is observed in Melancholy we find others efficient which ordinarily fasten upon great strong passions of Love of Ambition and of Avarice All histories are full of miserable people who having settled their affections upon objects whence they could not with reason expect any satisfaction after an infinite number of languors toils and pursuits have buried their love in Despair and drowned their ardour in the blood of their wounds Some have hanged themselves at the gate of their Mistresses others have thrown themselves headlong down into ruines others have been exposed to salvage beasts rather chusing to suffer the fury of tygers and lions then the rage of Love without fruition The Poet Virgil did her wrong to put Dido Queen Dido profâ—â—â— in alieno â—â—lo â—bi nuâ—â—ias regis 〈◊〉 optasâ—â— lebueratne tamen secundas experiretur maluitè contrario uri quà m nubere Tertul. in exhort ad castitatem of Carthage into the number of the Unhappy saying she sacrificed her self to the sword and flames out of a Despair conceived to see her self deprived of her Trojan Tertullian justified the Ashes of his Countrey-woman assuring us she was one of the most chaste Ladies in the world and did more in the matter of Chastity then S. Paul prescribeth For the Apostle having said That it is better to marry then to burn she rather chose to burn then to marry making her own funerall alive and rather entring upon the flaming pyle then to comply with the passion of a King who sought her in marriage after the death of her husband whom she had singularly loved The passion of Ambition is no lesse violent in proud and arrogant spirits who having been long born as on the wings of glory and seeing themselves on a sudden so unfortunate as to be trampled under foot by those who adored them cannot digest the change of their fortune anticipating that by violence which they ought rather to expect from mercy Such was Achitophel accounted to be one of the greatest States-men of 1 Reg. 17. 23 his time whose counsels were esteemed as of a Deitie when seeing himself faln from the great authority he had acquired after he had set the affairs of his house in order he took a halter with which he hanged himself And it is thought Pilate followed the like course Tantis irrogante Caio angâ—â—ibus coarctatus est ut se suâ transverberans manu malorum compendium mortis celeritate quaesierit Paul Oros l. 7. c. 4. when he saw himself to be discountenanced after the death of his master Tiberius and banished by Caius Caligula the successour to the Empire This calamity seemed unto him so intolerable that he sought to shorten his miseries by hastening his death which he gave himself by his own hand Yet Eusebius who seems to be the chief authour of this narration and who is followed by Paulus Orosius and others doth not assure it as a thing undoubtedly true but as a popular rumour For my part I think it not amisse to believe Pilatus jam tunc pro sua conscientia Christian Tertul. in Apoleg Tertullian who conceiveth that after the death of our Saviour Pilate was a Christian in his conscience when he in writing expressed to the Emperour Tiberius the things which occurred in the person of our Saviour with so much honour for our Religion that from that time the Emperour resolved to put Jesus Christ into the number of the Gods But if the opinion of this Author Yes that it might very well as many examples testifie were true It could not be credible that a man who had a tincture of Christianity should have ended his life by so furious a Despair Avarice in this point will nothing at all give place to Ambition for there are many to be found who seeing themselves unexpectedly deprived of treasures which they kept as the Griphons of Scythia would no longer behold the Sun after the Sun had seen the Gold which they hid in the bowels of the earth Witnesse that covetous man of the Greek Anthology who strangled himself with the same halter wherewith another man had determined to hang himself who by chance having found this caitiffs treasure was diverted from it This may very well teach us that it is very dangerous passionately to affect the objects of the world because as saith S. Gregory one cannot without immeasurable grief lose all that which with unlimitted love is possessed The evil spirit who soundeth each ones inclinations and discovereth their dispositions powerfully intermedleth in them and layeth snares for men in all the things wherein he observeth them to be with the most fervour busied To these occasions of Despair fear of pain and shame is added which is very ordinary and is the cause that many hasten their end before they fall into the hands of their enemies or are laid hold on by Justice which is as much as if one should die not to dye This was very common among Pagans who esteemed that a glory which we hold the worst of crimes and the like opinion crept very farre into the minds of the Hebrews who thought themselves to be sacred persons and imagined they did an act generous and profitable to the glory of God to kill themselves before the hands of Infidels were bathed in their bloud This is the cause if we believe the ordinary Glosse of the first Book of Kings and Glossa in 1 Reg. 31. Dicunt Hebraei aliqui etiam Christiani quod interficere seipsum inâ—uitu Divini honoris nè vituperium exerceatur in proprio corpore redundans in Dei vituperium sicut timebar Saul non esse illicitum the antient Interpreters of this Nation that we cannot conclude the damnation of Saul by an infallible demonstration for having strucken himself seeing that according to their opinion he was not sufficiently illuminated by the lights of the antient Law that it was a Mortall sin to hasten his death to save the honour of his Religion and to deliver himself from the scorn of Infidels Nay they assure us that he in this occasion ordered himself as a treasure of God refusing to deliver up unto enemies a Head honoured with sacred Unction to be alive defiled by their profane hands They add that he had before him the example of Samson who was admired by all his own Nation for being over-whelmed with the Philistims under the ruines of a house And that after him Razias esteemed a Saint Macch. 1. 12 and a courageous man gave himself the stroke of death and threw his bowels all bloudy from the top of a turret on the heads of his enemies But
A Detestation of Envie VVIll we not then enter into the joy of God by participation of the joyes and prosperities of men whence we shall take a holy and magnificent possession Multis abundat virturibus quialienas amat Plin. Jun. in epist ad Cornel. in the quiet we shall find in our hearts perswading our selves that that saying is most true That he who loveth virtues in another hath them abundantly in himself There is not any way more short or honourable to felicity then to arrive thither by a contentment taken in the happinesse of our likes In wishing their hurt we resemble the Thunderbolt which to strike a rock breaks the cloud that bred it we ruine our selves by our proper labours and profit not but by the Justice of our punishment But by loving in another that which others envie we shall become absolutely rich and totally powerfull in the kingdome of perfect love Let us not satisfie our selves with not envying any and to take pleasure in the good successe of good men but let us have an eye of affections a liberall hand and a heart wide open to the exercise of charity alwayes remembring two rare documents given by two great Apostles S. Peter and S. Bartholomew The first teacheth us that the virginity of the soul consisteth in brotherly love Rendring saith he your souls chaste in the obedience of charity in the brotherly 1 Pet. 1. love which you ought mutually to preserve The other hath in S. Denis left us in writing this royall sentence Dion c. 1. de Myst Theo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which saith Love is the greatest and least Theology because all is abbreviated in this great word Who is it then would enter into the Hell of Jealousie to rob himself of all the joyes of chaste marriage and to live like Ixion on the wheel of an eternall torment Were it not much better to tear away this frantick love this troublesome curiosity this easinesse to believe tales this rashnesse of judgement and all that which fomenteth passion then to raise matter of Laughter of Comedies and Tragedies to defile your conscience betray your bed dishonour your children and ruine your house Thou envious and jealous creature what dost thou answer to this eye of our celestiall Father which causeth by seeing Essence and Grace and by being seen produceth heaven What dost thou answer to this eye of Jesus waking sparkling and weeping for thee Wilt thou yet have an eye of the Basilisk to scorch plants break stones and kill men Ah thou pusillanimous thing to be envious against thy neighbour for a good which thou hast not and which thou with excessive passion desirest Thou dost envie profit thou enviest credit honour riches and the talent of nature and all which thy jealous heart beholdeth Thou wilt not saist thou bereave others but dost onely complain of the want thou findest in thy self And how knowest thou whether these blessings thou seekest for with desires as ardent as fire would not be great evils unto thee How knowest thou whether in prosperity and abundance thou mightest not lose thy self with ingratitude forgetfulnesse of God arrogance and sinne How knowest thou whether the Saviour of the world hath not expresly deprived thee of these temporall favours to assure thy predestination Cease to envie that which God will not give thee Ah! Thou on the other side to be perpetually arguing with God about the prosperity of sinners and out of petty infidelities to waver in the belief of his holy Providence Ignorant of celestiall blessings and stupid admirer of the bread of dags who seest not that all these favours are rough obligations and rich punishments which will rather increase the misery of the wicked then lessen their pain God promiseth thee a Kingdome if thou be faithfull and thou longest for the dishes which sinners feed on at the table of the world even tearing one another with a thousand torments and as many disturbancies And thou on the other side wicked as thou art not onely to envie the good of thy neighbour but to desire and work his hurt with impatient madnesse one while biting his reputation another while hindering his good one while deliberately wishing his death another while having direfull enterprises upon his life what canst thou expect from this infernall passion but an eternall damnation Wouldest thou know whom thou art like Behold I pray in histories the mount Etna which rends and throweth forth its all-inflamed entrails as if it would scorch and consume the flowers which in the mean time flourish upon its top Thou ceasest not to cry out to storm to thunder against this man Thou castest forth fire and flames from thy throat with which it seems thou art resolved to vomit up thy heart infected with poyson What gettest thou with this brutish fury This man whom thou wouldest swallow alive by the permission of God shall flourish over thy head Let us go let us go to seek in Judea for the cruell Joseph triumphant mangers the enraged envie or his brothers brothers of Joseph and let us shew them the innocent not any longer groaning under the weight of fetters but born on the wings of glory and mounted upon the chariot of Pharaoh in a habit full of Majesty and in a pomp which dazleth the eyes of those who have now no other word in their mouthes but Abrech Abrech which was an acclamation of joy by which the people acknowledged him as the Father and Protectour of all Egypt Abrech Abrech O wretches know you this man This is he of whom you said Behold our Lord come let us kill Gen. 37. 9. him Look well upon him this is he whom you inhumanely did despoil of his garments to embrew them in the bloud of beasts and represent them to your deplorable Father to give him the stroke of death Acknowledge your own bloud this is he whom you threw into the bottome of an old Cistern and banqueted over his head Detest your fury This is he whom you did sell to the Amalekites Behold what your envie hath brought him to Bend your knee with all the people who adore him and say O caitif Envie the Hang-man of the envious mayst thou never find any habitation but in hell whence thou first camest to trouble the peace of men Heavenly Father I beseech thee by that Eye which createth heaven and thou world Incarnate by that Eie which hath wept so many tears of compassion and love over us banish this fury from our hearts and make thy holy charities there to flourish which shall by us for ever be as much adored as they have been to mankind profitable who hath no subsistence but in thy mercies The fourteenth Treatise of MILDNESSE and COMPASSION § 1. The great Miseries of Manmake Compassion necessary in the world HEaven is replenished with Sanctities and Felicities with sanctities without blemishes with Felicities without disasters and hell is filled with ordures and miseries
many remedilesse calamities and that this onely sonne disdaineth not to become its ransome delivered himself for it to torments so enormous and confusions so hideous The earth saith S. Augustine expecteth light and rain from heaven and we from a Messias expect truth and mercy He came after so long expectations and hath replenished the earth with his knowledge and the effects of his benignity What shall we now admire in the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation If we cast our eyes on the heavenly Father we there see a work of the power of his arm wherein he seems to have exhausted all his strength The heavens and the starres saith Saint Gregory Nyssen were but the works of the fingers of this divine Majesty But in the Incarnation he proccedeth with all the extent of his might with all the engines of his power and all the miracles of his Greatnesse It is a Maxime among Politicians that a man to appear very great should not waste all his force at an instant but still to reserve to himself somewhat to do wherein he may make his ability to be seen as it were by degrees by daily surpassing himself From whence it came that Seneca said to Nero Plutarch de Ira. who had caused a certain Pavillion infinitely precious to be made that he therein had shewed his weaknesse for if it should chance to perish he could not recover it and were it preserved it would be an everlasting reproch to him to have done to the uttermost of his power Behold the proceedings of humane prudence But our celestiall Father setting aside all other considerations and forgetting his greatnesse to be mindfull of his mercy did a work in our behalf which hath so limited his power that we may truly say that God cannot in the world in all Eternity make any thing greater then a Man-God And if we on the other part do reflect on the holy Ghost it seems that this third person which in the sphere of the Trinity had a mysterious barrennesse springing from the incomparability of a new production in the divine emanations would make recompense in this mystery pouring out at once heats lights and beauties in the blessed Virgin there to form the body of Jesus Christ and to raise his holy Humanity to the union of the Word Increate But what piece meriteth more admiration then to see the person of a God-man then to see a Jesus Christ who in himself uniteth Divine and Humane Nature who carries in himself the last lines of the love and power of his Father who beareth the consummation of all his designes for the government of man who includeth all possible communications to an inferiour nature in one inimitable communication who makes himself the source of Grace and Glory in Angelicall and humane nature as he is the source of life and love in the Trinity O what a goodly spectacle is it To behold how he blesseth by his presence how he replenisheth by his greatnesse how he governeth by his power how he sanctifieth by his influences both heaven and Earth If we yet doubt of his love and fatherly goodnesse let us look on his hands and we shall see that he hath written our name with his nails Let us see his heart which was opened for us by that lance which at the latter end of his dayes digg'd from out his entrails the remainder of his life and we shall observe how we therein live how we therein breathe and how we therein honourably burn as in a great fornace common to all intelligible Nature If you would know what you have cost and happily do not believe your Creatour Quà m preâ—iosus siâ— si factori forte non credâ—s interroga redemâ—torem Euseb Gal. Homil. 2. de Symbol ask your Redeemer and he will tell you Let us also behold the effects which have succeeded from the alliance of the Divine nature with the Humane and let us reverence the divine Goodnesse which hath raised up all the great Masse of men in a supernaturall Being to innocency to felicity to light and to life eternall Who was more destitute then Man more brutish and more ignorant in so great a night and in so horrible confusions of Idolatry and Jesus by his Incarnation hath revealed unto us the secrets and wisdome of heaven Who was more unfurnished of wise direction and he affordeth us his examples Who was more forlorn he adopteth us for his children Who was more needy and he gives us the treasure of his merits Who was more hungry and he nourisheth us with his flesh and bloud Who was more unhappy and he divideth his Beatitude among us If after so many benefits we remain still faithlesse to his fidelity he expecteth us with a singular long forbearance if we delay he stirreth us up if we fly he followeth us if we return he stretcheth forth his arm He washeth us in his bloud He regenerateth us in his love He makes it his trophey to have conquered us as if he entred afresh into the possession of an Empire causeth our proper sinnes to contribute to our glory If we endure somewhat for him he endureth with us he weepeth over us he prepareth eternall sources of consolations and as it is said that there is a certain fish which sweetens the water of the salt sea in its mouth so Jesus mingleth all our acerbities in the inexplicable Fasten apud Maiolum sweetnesses of his benignity And yet thou O Man wilt in presence of this Modell The source of charity still remain a little Tiger as irreconcileable to amities as streight-handed to works of liberality Believe me among all the Ensignes of Greatnesse which thou canst have there is not any more sensible then the charitable communication of one man to another by waies of liberality and alms which God receiveth in the nature Plin l. 2. c. 7 Deus est mortali benefacere mortalem haec ad aeternam gloriam via of victimes It is a Divinity for one man by his benefits to oblige another and this is properly the way of eternall glory Who are they in your opinion that first of all deserved the title of Cardinall which is now-a-dayes accounted among the great dignities of the Church Do From whence the Title of Cardinals cometh you think that nobility of extraction favour of great ones Eminency of wisdome prudence in the government of Empires gave these Titles to the primitive Church I say all these qualities are very considerable Fabianus Vide Concil Rom. sub Sylvestro Lacerdam adversar c. 35. Cardinales á Cardinibus seu vicis Rome yet neverthelesse it is true that the first fourteen Cardinals who were called by this name were fourteen personages of honour and merit who under Pope Sylvester were ranged in as many streets of the City of Rome to take care of the poor So true it is that they who begat us to Christianity placed the magnificence of men not
sufficiently in the favour of the King endeavoured to destroy him in that occasion He would not suddenly forsake the Court as one scar'd but assuring himself of Gods protection he presented himself to the Captain of the Guard praying him to make some surcease upon that rigorous Edict and not to dip his hands in bloud by the death of so many men but to permit him onely to present himself to the King and he hoped to give him all content In this he shewed himself very prudent there being nothing better in troublesome affairs and very sudden then to bring some retardment whilst the spirit may give it self leasure to come to it self again and to find expediments to get out of an ill way He spake to the King expressing much compassion even for them that bore him envy and desired some delay which was very reasonable to resolve so crabbed a Question Now when he saw well that it passed the capacity of any created spirit he had recourse to the Creatour by most humble and most fervent prayers which he recommended also to his dear companions that all conspiring to the same design they might the more easily obtain the mercy and the illumination of God in so great and so profound a secret It is thus that good men proceed in all businesses of importance distrusting all their own managery if it be not directed from on high Their prayers redoubled day and night one upon the other forced heaven with a pious violence and the Dream with its Interpretation was revealed to Daniel in the midst of his most ardent Devotions He felt his spirit touched with a glimpse of the first light and saw as in a mirrour all that had passed in Nebuchadonozor's mind with such a certainty as permitted him not to doubt of it Then he was not like Archimedes who having found some secret of the Mathematicks as he was in a Bath leapt out all naked by a strange transport crying through the streets I have found it I have found it This is ordinary to spirits that have nothing in their head but vanity but holy Daniel cryes out thereon Let the name of God be blessed for ever for to him belongeth wisdome and strength It is he that distributeth wisdome to the true Sages and that bestows knowledge on those that range themselves under his Discipline It is he that reveals things hidden in the most deep abysses and knows that which is buried in the most thick darknesse and light dwells perpetually with him I praise thee and I confesse thee from the bottome of my heart the God of my fathers that hast given this strength of spirit and this understanding to penetrate the Kings secret He spake many such like words and rising from his prayer he went to seek the Captain of the Guard whom he besought to save the Sages of Babylon and to cause no more to die because he had found out the secret that was searched after by the Prince which the other received with much joy and failed not immediately to carry news of it to the King who caused Daniel to be called of whom he demanded the performance of his promise Then the Prophet using a great prudence and a singular modesty excused all the Sages of Chaldea that could not find out the Kings secret thoughts and vanted not himself to know them by his own sufficiency but by the inspiration of the God whom he adored In which he expressed a great wisdome and a generous humility not giving any praise to himself but transferring all the glory to the living God that he might work in the King an high esteem of the true Religion S. Gregory saith That those that seek their own glory in the Commission they have from God are like those that espousing in quality of proxies a wife by order of their Master would play the Husbands not contenting themselves to be simple Commissioners Daniel abhorred such proceedings because he was a Starre that would shew his Sun and would not be seen himself but by his favour He made then a large discourse to the King his master and told him his Dream which was touching that famous Statue that had an head of Gold a breast and arms of Silver a belly and thighs of Copper legs of Iron and feet partly of Iron and partly of Earth and added that whilst the King beheld it in his Dream he saw a little stone come from a great mountain that strook the feet of the Statue and tumbled it down immediately scattering the Gold the Silver the Copper the Iron and the Earth as small chaffe dissipated by a whirlewind and that that little Stone changed it self in an justant into a huge Mountain and filled the whole earth After he had so subtilly touched the Vision of the Prince making him remember all that his imagination had framed he descended to the particularities of the Interpretation and said That he was the Golden Head of that Statue God having made him a King of kings and having given him Strength Rule and Glory with a Power over the Earth inhabited by men over the birds of the air and the beasts of the field Then he advertised that after him should come a Kingdome lesse then his that should be as Silver in comparison of Gold And after that second should arise a third resembling Brasse that should command over the whole earth And after that a fourth which as Iron should subdue and break in pieces all that it should meet with And as for that that he had seen the Feet of the Statue composed of Iron and Clay it meant that there should be a great inequality and disproportion in that last Empire by reason of the mixture of very differing parts that could not be fitted well together In fine that God would raise up a Kingdome of Heaven signified by that little Stone that should crush the other Kingdomes and should remain stable to all Eternity The King was so transported with Daniel's discourse that he rose suddenly from his Throne and bending with his face to the earth worshipped him commanding that Sacrifices and Incense should be offered to him and publishing highly that his God was the God of gods and the Lord of kings to whom alone it belonged to reveal Mysteries since he could penetrate into such a secret Wisdome was never upon so high a Throne as to see the proudest of Monarchs at her feet Yet Daniel well knew how to moderate the transports of his spirit and by shewing him the nothing of the creature to draw him to the worship and honour of the Creatour which was the master of Knowledge and source of all pure Light These are the wonders of the Sovereign Monarch to consider that a young man that came to that Court as a slave should find there suddenly in the esteem of his Prince the quality of a God he was shut up continually in his chamber and his spirit walked through the whole Universe he was a
the day of its own brightness to consider how Providence guarding her dear Pool as the apple of her eye did reserve him for a time which made him the true Peace-maker of that nation For this effect it came to pass that Henry the Eighth The Estate of England having reigned eighteen years in schism leading a life profuse in luxury ravenous in avarice impious in Sacriledge cruel in massacres covered over with ordures bloud and Infamy did fall sick of a languishing disease which gave him the leisure to have some thoughts on the other world It is true that the affrighting images of his Crimes The death of Henry the Eighth and the shades of the dead which seemed to besiege his bed and perpetually to trouble his repose did bring many pangs and remorses to him Insomuch that having called some Bishops to his assistance he testified a desire to reconcile himself unto the Church and sought after the means thereof But they who before were terrified with the fury of his actions which were more than barbarous fearing that he spoke not that but onely to sound them and that he would not seal to their Counsels which they should suggest unto him peradventure with the effusion of their bloud did gently advise him without shewing him the indeavours and the effects of true repentance and without declaring to him the satisfactions which he ought to God and to his Neighbours for the enormities of so many Crimes He was content to erect the Church of the Cardeleirs and commanded that Mass should there be publickly celebrated which was performed to the great joy of the Catholicks which yet remained in that horrible Havock To this Church he annexed an Hospital and some other appurtenances and left for all a thousand Crowns of yearly Revenue As he perceived that his life began to abandon him he demanded the Communion which he received making a show as if he would rise himself but the Bishop told him that his weakness did excuse him from that Ceremony he made answer That if he should prostrate himself on the Earth to receive so Divine a Majesty he should not humble himself according to his duty He by his Will ordained that his Son Edward who was born of Jane Seimer should succeed him and in the case of death that Marie the Daughter of Queen Katharine should be the inheritress of the Crown and if that she should fail that his Daughter Elizabeth although a Bastard should fill her place and possess the Kingdom On the approches of death he called for wine and those who were next unto his bed did conceive that he oftentimes did repeat the word Monks and that he said as in despair I have lost all This is that which most truly can be affirmed of him for it is a very bad sign to behold a man to die in the honour of his Royal dignity and by a peaceable death who had torn in pieces JESUS CHRIST who had divided the Church into schisms who of the six Queens that he espoused had killed four of them who had massacred two Cardinals three Archbishops eighteen Bishops twelve great Earls Priests and Religious Men without number and of his people without end who had robbed all the Churches of his Kingdom destroyed the Divine worship oppressed a million of innocents and in one word who had assasinated mercy it self Howsoever he wanted not flatterers who presumed to say and write that his wisdom had given a good order to his affairs and that he happily departed this world not considering what S. dustine doth affirm That all the penitencies of those who have lived in great disorders and who onely do convert themselves at the end of their life being pressed to it by the extreamity of their disease ought to be extreamly suspected because they do not forsake their sins but their sins do forsake them It was observed indeed that at his death this King did testifie a repentance of his savage and inordinate life but we cannot observe the great and exemplary satisfactions which were due to the expiation of so many abominable sins King Antiochus made submissions of another nature and ordered notable restitutions to recompense the dammages which he had caused to the people of the Jews nevertheless he was rejected of God by reason of his bloudy life and the Gates of the Temple of mercy were shut against him for all eternity The foundation of a small Hospital which Henry caused at his death was not sufficient to recompense the injuries of so many Churches which he had pillaged nor of so much goods of his Subjects as he had forced from them seeing we know by the words of the wise man That to make a benefit Eccles 34. of the substance of the poor is to sacrifice a Son before the eyes of his Father He had by his Testament ordained many tutors to The Reign of Edward His Uncle Seimer spoileth all his Son who were able to have made as many Tyrants but Seimer Uncle by the mothers side to the deceased King gaining the favour of the principal of the Lords of the realm whom he had corrupted with mony and great presents did cause himself to be proclaimed Protector and Regent He took a great possession on little Edward the Son of Henry heir to the Crown whom he brought up in schism and Heresie against the intentions of his Father This furious man immediately began his Regency with so much insolence that he almost made the reign of Henry the Eight to be forgotten he fomented the poison which he had conceived under him he did use the Catholicks most unworthily and did cut off the head of his own Brother by a jealousy of women But as he had made himself insupportable so it came to pass that the affairs of war which he had enterprized against the French did fall out unfortunately for him Dudley one of the chiefest of the Lords drawing a party to him did accuse him of Treason and caused his head to be cut off on the same Scaffold where before he had taken off the head of his own Brother This death was followed with great fears and horrible commotions for the Regency which presently after was extinguished by the death of the young King Edward This poor Prince was rather plucked with pincers The Qualities and death of King Edward from his mothers womb than born and he could not come into the world without giving death to her who conceived him He was said to have none of the comeliest bodies He spake seven languages at fifteen years of age and in his discourse did testifie a rare knowledge of all those sciences which were most worthy of a King It seemeth that death did advance it self to ravish his spirit from his body which did awake too early and was too foreward for his age for he died in his sixteen year having not had the time throughly to understand himself and to see by what course
he particularly recommended to all holy minds who breathed after the restoring of the ancient Religion In the second place he entered into the heart and possessed himself with the inclinations of Queen Marie whom he found throughly disposed and animated by a generous spur for the glory of God and the felicity of her Kingdom which kept her alwayes exercised on that high thought and comprehended in it the safety of all that Nation In the last he more and more encouraged all the Catholicks by the desires of their repose of conscience and by the liberty of their functions in the exercise of spiritual things In the third place he treated with those who were in an errour with the Spirit of Compassion of Sweetness and of Bounty complying with them in what he could in civil affairs and endeavouring to take from them the apprehension which they had conceived to themselves that the Change of Religion would ruin their fortunes and the establishment of their houses He caused a report to be spread by many remarkeable and grave Personages that he came not to take away their temporal goods but to give them spiritual blessings And as concerning the Goods of the Church which many Great men had usurped in that general Confusion of Affairs he said he would compose it in the best way that Love and Candor could prescribe him Fourthly He did wisely fore-see that with sweetness he should also bring in Authority which might ruin the resistences of those men if any should appear to oppose so saving a work On which he had recourse to the greatest Potentates in Europe whom he secretly affected to this Enterprize He had been before employed on the Peace between Francis the First and Charls the Fifth He did apprehend and attract the spirits of them both with wonderfull dexterity for having dived into the heart of the Emperour and finding the seeds of the Design which afterwards did discover themselves having been dismissed of the Empire and embraced a solitary life he wrought upon him with the recital of his great actions and the Conquests he had obtained and told him That all those strong agitations of his spirit were but as so many lines which ought to tend to the center of Rest that he ought not to weary and torment his good fortune That it was a great gift of God to confine his thoughts on true glory without attending the tide of the Affairs of the world That it was the duty of an Emperour to endeavour the Peace of Christendom and an incomparable honour to accomplish it He touched his heart so directly with these Demonstrations that he opened it and the Emperour declared to him That he had a great desire to that divine Peace and would embrace all reasonable Conditions that should conduce unto it After that he had effected this he made no delay to address himself to the Most Christian King and knowing that he was puissantly generous he wrought upon him by the glory of the great Wars he had sustained and the immortal actions of valour which he produced that by his invincible courage he had at the last wearied the most puissant Potentate in Europe who had him in admiration and desired nothing more than to hold a fair correspondence with him That a fair Peace should be an inestimable benefit to them both which should give rest unto their Consciences and pull down a blessing from on high upon their persons and be a great comfort to their Subjects who were overcharged with the continuation of the war In the end he did demonstrate to him how extraordâ—narily he was beloved of his people who did attend this Effect of his goodness by which he should crown his Valour with all happiness and abundance in his Kingdom The King took fire at this Discourse and the Cardinal most vigorously did blow it up and did remonstrate That two so great Monarchs who were made for Heaven ought not so greedily to hold unto their interests on earth and that they had nothing now to wish but to part their affairs and to save their honour And this indeed they afterwards performed restoring willingly on both sides all that they had conquered since the ordinance of Reconciliation made by Paul the third who some years before did transport himself to Marseilles although he was of a very great age to pacifie the Affairs of Christendom This Accord being so happily atchieved by Cardinal Pool he gained by it the approbation and applause of all Princes who favoured the Catholick cause He observed that the Emperour had his son Philip to marry and that there was nothing more expedient for the advancement of Religion than to allie him to Queen Marie He carried this affair with such secresie and dexterity that the King of Spain was in England and the Marriage published before the plot was discovered By the counsel of Charls Cardinal Pool did deferre his entery into the Realm until the Marriage was concluded and then he entered with all assurances The King himself came to meet him and Queen Marie with all her people received him with extasies of joy He incontinently did draw unto him the affection of all the principal Lords and not long after he counselled the King and Queen to call an Assembly of the most remarkable persons in the Kingdom to whom he spake thus in presence of their Majesties MADAM SInce it hath pleased God after the Confusions of the His speech to the States late times to shine upon us with his eyes of Mercie and at last to place upon the Throne the true and faithfull Inheritress of the Crown who is so worthily espoused to one of the greatest Princes in all Christendom we have a great subject to satisfie our Discontents and advance our hopes This Realm at this day doth imitate the Creation of the world coming forth from its Chaos and dark Abyss to receive the favourable influences of the light The day which by all good men hath been so passionately desired so suspected by the wicked so unlookt for by the incredulous and so attended by the afflicted is at length arrived to destroy our death and to make us new born in the life of the children of God Behold the true Religion which entereth with triumph into all the Cities of this Kingdom from which Impietie and Furie had dispossessed her she holds out her arms unto you adorned with the Palms and the Crowns with which your Ancestours have honoured her she demands again the place which from the first conversion until the furie of these later times she hold with so much honour and satisfaction Will you yet banish her Will you yet continue to persecute her Can you endure that she should present before God her torn and her bloudie Robe and complain again of the outrages of her children My Brethren There is neither life nor salvation but in this Faith which shineth and speaketh in S. Peters Chair It is that which God hath given us
had redeemed her brother from the power of death The faithfull Mary who had shed tears gave what she had most precious and observes no measure in the worth because Jesus cannot be valued Cleopatra's pearl estimated to be worth two hundred thousand crowns which she made her friend swallow at a Banquet this holy woman thought too base She melts her heart in a sacred Limbeck of love and distils it out by her eyes And Jesus makes so great account of her waters and perfumes that he would suffer no body to wash his feet when he instituted the blessed Sacrament as not being willing to deface the sacred characters of his sacred Lover 3. Judas murmures and covers his villanous passion of Avarice under the colour of Charity and Mercy toward the poor And just so do many cover their vices with a specious shew of virtue The proud man would be thought Magnanimous the prodigal would pass for liberal the covetous for a good husband the brain-sick rash man would be reputed couragious the glutton a hospitable good fellow Sloth puts on the face of quietness timorousness of wisdom impudence of boldness insolence of liberty and over-confident or sawcy prating would be taken for eloquence Many men for their own particular interests borrow some colours of the publick good and very many actions both unjust and unreasonable take upon them a semblance of piety S. Irenaeus saith that many give water coloured with sleckt whitelime or plaster in stead of milk * * * A Farse is a French Jig wherein the faces of all the actours aâ—e whited over with meal And all their life is but a Farse where Blackamores are whited over with meal Poor truth suffers much more amongst these cozenages But you must take notice that in the end wicked and dissembling Judas did burst and shew his damned soul stark naked Yet some think fairly to cover foul intentions who must needs know well that hypocrisie hath no vail to cozen death Aspirations I See no Altars in all the world more amiable than the feet of our Saviour I will go by his steps to find his feet and by the excellencies of the best of men I will go find out the God of gods Those feet are admirable and S. John hath well described them to be made of mettal burning in a furnace they are feet of mettal by their constancy and feet of fire by the enflamed affections of their Master Let Judas murmure at it what he will but if I had a sea of sweet odours and odoriferous perfumes I would empty them all upon an object so worthy of love Give O mine eyes Give at least tears to this precious Holocaust which goes to sacrifice it self for satisfaction of your libidinous concupiscences Wash it with your waters before it wash you with its bloud O my soul seek not after excrements of thy head to drie it Thy hairs are thy thoughts which must onely think of him who thought so kindly and passionately of thee on the day of his Eternity The Gospel upon Maunday Thursday S. John the 13. Of our Saviours washing the feet of his Apostles ANd before the festival day of the Pasche Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to his Father whereas he had loved his that were in the world unto the end he loved them And when supper was done whereas the devil now had put into the heart of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him knowing that the Father gave him all things into his hands and that he came from God and goeth to God be riseth from supper and layeth aside his garments and having taken a towel girded himself After that he put water into a bason and began to wash the feet of the Disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded He cometh therefore to Simon Peter and Peter saith to him Lord dost thou wash my feet Jesus answered and said to him That which I do thou knowest not now hereafter thou shalt know Peter saith to him Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever Jesus answered him if I wash thee not thou shalt not have part with me Simon Peter saith to him Lord not onely my feet but also hands and head Jesus saith to him He that is washed needeth not but to wash his feet but is clean wholly and you are clean but not all for he knew who he was that would betray him therefore he said You are not clean all Therefore after he had washed their feet and taken his garments being set down again he said to them Know you what I have done to you You call me Master and Lord and you say well for I am so If then I have washed your feet Lord and Master you also ought to wash one anothers feet For I have given you an example that as I have done to you so do you also Moralities 1. JEsus loves his servants for an end and till the full accomplishment of that end The world loves his creatures with a love which tends to concupiscence but that is not the end for which they were made or should be loved There is a very great difference between them for the love of worldly men plays the tyrant in the world snatching and turning all things from the true scope and intention for which they were made by God diverting them to profane uses by turbulent and forcible ways The world pleaseth it self to set up Idols every where to make it self adored in them as chief Sovereign It makes use of the Sun to light his crimes of the fatness of the earth to fatten his pleasures of apparrel for his luxury of all mettals to kindle Avarice and of the purest beauties to serve sensuality And if by chance it love any creature with a well-wishing love and as it ought to be loved that is not permanent The wind is not more inconstant nor a calm at Sea more unfaithfull than worldly friendship For sometimes it begins with Fire and ends in Ice It is made as between a pot and a glass and is broken sooner than a glass The ancient Almans tried their children in the Rbine but true friendship is tried in a sea of Tribulation It is onely Jesus the preserver and restorer of all things who loves us from Eternity to Eternity We must follow the sacred steps of his examples to reduce our selves to our first beginning and to bring our selves to the final point of our happiness 2. The water at first was a mild element which served the Majesty of God as a floting chariot since as the Scripture saith his Spirit was carried upon the waters from whence he drew the seeds which produced all the world But after man had sinned like a Supream Judge he made use of the gentlest things to be the instruments of our punishments The water which carried the Divine Mercies was chosen at the deluge to drown all mankind Now at this
time Jesus sanctified it by his sacred touch He took the Bason which being in his hands became greater and more full of Majesty than all the Ocean Our spots which eternity could not wash clean are taken away at Baptism by one onely drop of water sanctified by his blessing He prevents the bath of his bloud by the bath of an element which he doth expresly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament to teach us what purity of life of heart of faith of intentions and affections we must bring to the holy Eucharist It is necessary to chase away all strange gods which are sins and passions before we receive the God of Israel we must wash our selves in the waters of repentance and change our attire by a new conversation Is it too much for us to give flesh for flesh the body of a miserable man for that of Jesus Christ The consideration of our sins should bring up the bloud of blushing into our cheeks since they were the onely cause why he shed his most precious bloud upon the Cross for us Alas the Heavens are not pure before his most pure Spirit which purifies all nature Then how can we go to him with so many voluntary stains and deformities Is it not to cast flowers upon a dung-hill and to drive Swine to a clear fountain when we will go to Jesus the Authour of innocency carrying with us the steps and spots of our hanious sins 3. Jesus would not onely take upon himself the form of man but also of a base servant as S. Paul saith It was the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies which made David say That Moah should be the Bason of his hope expressing thereby that he would humble the Moabites so low that they should serve onely to bring water to wash unclean houses Alas who would have said that the Messias was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite What force hath conquered him what arms have brought him under but onely love How can we then become proud and burn incense to that Idol called Point of honour when we see how our God humbled himself in this action Observe with what preparation the Evangelist said that his Heavenly Father had put all into his hands that he came from God and went to God yet in stead of taking the worlds Scepter he takes a Bason and humbles himself to the most servile offices And if the waters of this Bason cannot burst in us the foul impostume of vanity we must expect no other remedy but the eternal flames of hell fire Aspirations OKing of Lovers and Master of all holy Loves Thou lovest for an end and till the accomplishment of that end It appertains onely to thee to teach the Art of loving well since thou hast practised it so admirably Thou art none of those delicate friends who onely make love to beauties to gold and silk thou lovest our very poverty and our miseries because they serve for objects of thy charity Let proud Michol laugh while she list to see my dear David made as a water-bearer I honour him as much in that posture as I would sitting upon the throne of all the world I look upon him holding this Bason as upon him that holds the vast seas in his hands O my merciful Jesus I beseech thee wash wash again and make clean my most sinfull soul Be it as black as hell being in thy hands it may become more white than that Dove with silver wings of which the Prophet speaks I go I run to the fountain I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters I desire affectionately to humble my self but I know not where to find so low a place as thine when thou thus wast humbled before Judas to wash his traiterours feet Upon the Garden of Mount Olivet Moralities 1. JEsus enters into a Garden to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man The first Adam stole the fruit and the second is ordained to make satisfaction It is a strange thing that he chose the places of our delights for suffering his pains and never lookt upon our most dainty sweets but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows Gardens are made for recreations but our Saviour finds there onely desolation The Olives which are tokens of peace denounce war unto him The plants there do groan the flowers are but flowers of death and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and bloud He that shall study well this Garden must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips to make his heart become another manner of Garden where Jesus should be planted as the onely Tree of Life which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice 2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great Combats which began with sweat and bloud but ended with the loss of his life There were three marvellous Agonies of God and Death of Joy and Sorrow of the Soul and Flesh of Jesus God and Death were two incomparable things since God is the first and the most universal of all lives who banisheth from him all the operations of death and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our redemption The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights whereunto nothing which displeased could have access and yet Jesus suffered sorrow to give him a mortal blow even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity He afflicted himself for us because we knew not what it was to afflict our selves for him and he descended by our steps to the very anguishes of death to make us rise by his death to the greatest joyes of life To be short there was a great duel between the affectionate love and the virginal flesh of Jesus His soul did naturally love a body which was so obedient and his body followed wholly the inclinations of his soul There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties that their separation must needs be most dolorous Yet Jesus would have it so and signed the decree by sweating bloud And as if it had been too little to weep for our sins with two eyes he suffered as many eyes as he had veins to be made in his body to shed for us tears of his own bloud 3. Observe here how this soul of Jesus amongst those great anguishes continued always constant like the Needle of a Sea-compass in a storm He prays he exhorts he orders he reproves and he encourages he is like the Heavens which amongst so many motions and agitations lose no part of their measure or proportion Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his Heavenly Father he tears himself from himself to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death amongst all his inclinations to life to teach us that principal lesson of Christianity which is to desire onely what God will
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms of me Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And he said to them That so it is written and so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day and penance to be preached in his Name and remission of sins unto all Nations Moralities 1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us when he is in the midst of our heart he watches over us and stretches out his divine hands for our protection Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence before his eyes and in his bosom An ancient Tradition doth observe that after our Lords Ascension the Apostles did never eat together but they left the first napkin for their good Master conceiving that according to his promise he was always with them Let us accustom our selves to this exercise of Gods presence It is a happy necessity to make us do well to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present If respect make him formidable love will teach us that he is the Father of all sweetness There can be no greater comfort in this world than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast 2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls and appeared suddenly as Spirits do S. Paul also saith in the second to the Corinthians that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh that is to say by the passions of a mortal body as S. Epiphanius doth expound it We must make little use of our bodies to converse with our Jesus who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit We must raise our selves above our senses when we go to the Father of light and the Creatour of sense He teaches us the life of Spirits and the commerce of Angels and makes assayes of our immortality by a body now immortal Why are we so tied to our sense and glued to the earth Must we suffer our selves to enter into a kingdom of death when we are told of the resurrection of him who is the Authour of all lives 3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits and immortal conversation suffers his feet and hands to be touched to prove in him the reality of a true body He eats in presence of his Apostles though he was not in more estate to digest meat than the Sun is to digest vapours He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth And yet he took them to confirm our belief and to make us familiar with him It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves and condescend to their inferiours So David being anointed King and inspired as a Prophet doth not shew his person terrible in the height of his great glory but still retained the mildness of a shepheard So Jesus the true Son of David by his condescending to us hath consecrated a certain degree whereby we may ascend to Heaven Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiours but are always so full of our selves since our Lord sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated by doing good works and giving liberal alms Let it appear by our feet that they follow the paths of the most holy persons Let it be seen by our nourishment which should be most of honey that is of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer And if we seem to refuse fish let us at least remain in the element of piety as fish is in water Aspirations THy love is most tender and thy cares most generous O mild Saviour Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness Thou returnest to thy children as a Nightingale to her little nest Thou dost comfort them with thy visits and makest them familiar with thy glorious life Thou eatest of a honey-comb by just right having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmercifull Cross It is thus that our sorrows should be turned into sweets Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles for I know well that thou onely canst pacifie and give them remedy I will govern my self toward thee as to the fire too much near familiarity will burn us and the want of it will let us freeze I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament I know that many there do chew but few receive thee worthily Make me O Lord I beseech thee capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory The Gospel upon Low-Sunday S. John the 20. THerefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight days again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Jesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a general peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darkness to enjoy an eternal light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifieth the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master
He pacifieth Heaven by sweetening the sharpness of his Heavenly Father quenching by his wounds the fire which was kindled of his just anger Every thing smileth upon this great Peace-maker Nature leaveth her mourning and putteth on robes of chearfulness to congratulate with him his great and admirable conquests It is in him that the Heavenly Father by a singular delight hath poured out the fullness of all Graces to make us an eternal dwelling and to reconcile all in him and by him pacifying by his bloud from the Cross all that is upon earth and in Heaven This is our Joshua of whom the Scripture speaketh that he clears all differences and appeaseth all battels No stroke of any hammer or other iron was heard at the building of Solomon's Temple and behold the Church which is the Temple of the living God doth edifie souls with a marvellous tranquilitie 2. The Sun is not so well set forth by his beams as our Saviour is magnificently adorned with his wounds Those are the characters which he hath engraved upon his flesh alter a hundred ingenious fashions The Ladies count their pearls and diamonds but our Saviour keeps his wounds in the highest attire of his Magnificences It is from thence that the beauty of his body taketh a new state of glory and our faith in the resurrection is confirmed that the good fill themselves with hope miscreants with terrour and Martyrs find wherewith to enflame their courage These divine wounds open themselves as so many mouthes to plead our cause before the Celestial Father Our Saviour Jesus never spake better for us than by the voice of his precious Bloud Great inquiry hath been made for those mountains of myrrh and frankincense which Solomon promiseth in the Canticles but now we have found them in the wounds of Jesus It is from thence that there cometh forth a million of sanctified exhalations of sweetness of peace and propitiation as from an eternal Sanctuary A man may say they are like the Carbuncle which melteth the wax upon which it is imprinted for they melt our hearts by a most profitable impression At this sight the Eternal Father calms his countenance and the sword of his Justice returneth into the sheath Shall not we be worthy of all miseries if we do not arm these wounds against us which are so effectual in our behalf And if this bloud of our Abel after it hath reconciled his cruel executioners should find just matter to condemn us for our ingratitudes John the Second King of Portugal had made a sacred vow never to refuse any thing which should be asked of him in the virtue of our Saviour's wounds which made him give all his silver vessel to a poor gentleman that had found out the word And why should not we give our selves to God who both buyeth and requireth us by the wounds of Jesus 3. Jesus inspireth the sacred breath of his mouth upon the Apostles as upon the first fruits of Christianity to repair the first breath and respiration of lives which the Authour of our race did so miserably lose If we can obtain a part of this we shall be like the wheels of Ezechiels mysterious chariot which are filled with the spirit of life That great Divine called Matthias Vienna said That light was the substance of colours and the spirit of Jesus is the same of all our virtues If we live of his flesh there is great reason we should be animated by his Spirit Happy a thousand times are they who are possessed with the the Spirit of Jesus which is to their spirit as the apple of the eye S. Thomas was deprived of this amorous communication by reason of his incredulitie He would see with his eyes and feel with his hands that which should rather be comprehended by faith which is an eye blessedly blind which knoweth all within its own blindness and is also a hand which remaining on earth goeth to find God in Heaven Aspirations GReat Peace-maker of the world who by the effusion of thy precious bloud hast pacified the wars of fourty ages which went before thy death This word of peace hath cost thee many battels many sweats and labours to cement this agreement of Heaven and earth of sence and reason of God and man Behold thou art at this present like the Dove of Noah's Ark thou hast escaped a great deluge of passions and many torrents of dolours thrown head-long one upon another Thou bringest us the green Olive branch to be the mark of thy eternal alliances What Shall my soul be so audacious and disordered as to talk to thee of war when thou speakest to her of peace To offer thee a weapon when thou offerest her the Articles of her reconciliation signed with thy precious bloud Oh what earth could open wide enough her bosom to swallow me if I should live like a little Abiram with a hand armed against Heaven which pours out for me nothing but flowers and roses Reign O my sweet Saviour within all the conquered powers of my soul and within my heart as a conquest which thou hast gotten by so many titles I will swear upon thy wounds which after they have been the monuments of thy fidelity shall be the adored Altars of my vows and sacrifices I will promise thereupon an inviolable fidelity to thy service I will live no more but for thee since thou hast killed my death in thy life and makest my life flourish within thy triumphant Resurrection FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the first three TOMES of the HOLY COURT A Aâ—dâ—rites Fol 38 Abdâ—lâ—â—in 7 Abraham the Hermit 86 Abstinence defined 468 The Aâ—â—rons of men must be directed to one assured Butt 67 Apprehension of Affronts 47 Retreat into the Conscience in Affronts is a good remedy against them 58 Aglae a noble Dame 379 She is a worldly Widow ibid. She is in love ibid. Her admirable Conversion 380 Her devotion in enquiry after Martyrs ibid. Her speech to Boniface her Steward ibid. Agrippa Grand-child of Herod 3â—2 His flatterie ibid. Alexander son of Mariamne imprisoned 130 Alms the works of God 9 Ambition an itch 56 It is a forreign vice ibid. It is the life of a slave 57 The Ambitious are miserable ibid. Extream disaster of an Ambitions man ib. Ambitious men travel for Rachel and find 〈◊〉 58 Ambition was the God of Antiochus 347 Sr. Ambrose 175 His Calling ib. His Election 176 His rare endowments 179 His government ib. He cherisheth the Religious 181 He took away superstitions and excesses ib. His puritie of invention ib. His Oration against Symmachus 184 He refuteth Symmachus his strongest arguments ib. His answer concerning the dearth 186 His greatness in the Conversion of Sr. Augustine 188 He speaketh unto the two souls of his Pupils 211 His brave speech to Theodorick 214 The majestie of Sr. Ambrose 205 His prudence and charitie 209 He is persecuted by Justice 206 Resolution of Sr.