bloud But never would a remedy absolutely efficacious be had therein were it not that the King who is the true Arbiter of honour and distributer of glories did not pour a strong influence of his spirit upon the Marshals of France those great Captains and all the brave men who wield a sword by which he lively and powerfully perswadeth the whole nobility that this opinion conceived of the valour of those who fight Duels is a mere illusion since it may be common to lackies and to the most abject conditions Besides there is need of a strong and speedy military justice to accord differences of men of war and to chastise so many petty insolencies which seem to arise from nought but to put affronts on men of honour Otherwise it is hard to perswade a sword-man to forbear revenge seeing himself provoked byoutrages which would make him to live dishonoured according to tho world in his profession and as for these slight souldiers of Cad mus whose fingers itch and who ground Duels upon the wind of a word to let the world know they are tyed to a sword It were very good to send them into armies and to recommend them to some prudenr Captain who may put them into some good occasion to make triall of their courage and to give information of them that either their cowardise may be punished or their valour approved It seems to me that these proceedings being well observed might be of power to stifle this fatall plague which hath caused so many mischiefs For we must not wholly take away point of honour from the nobility no more then from women Now as virtuous women account it not a point of honour to be faithfull to an Amorist but to a husband so it is nor fit that reall gentlemen should think themselves valiant by the practise of a crime but by the exercise of a virtue As the first invention of Duels grew out of an opinion of point of honour so must it dye by a true judgement of honour which proceedeth not so much from Doctours as Captaines When the Gladiatours were in vogue and that it was accounted a glorious thing to descend into the Amphitheatre to fight against men and beasts all the world was inflamed therewith as with fury and not so much as women but would be partakers This manner of massacres also bare sway sometimes in the times of Christianity untill the Emperour Honorius who buried them after so many eloquent tongues had to Princes and Magistrates represented the horrour of those so barbarous actions so we ought to hope that the King to whom God hath given the plenitude of so many and so admirable blessings will cultivate the Palm which he already hath planted by his victory over Duels and will cover under earth and forgetfulnesse this infamy of mankind I satisfie my self with giving this advice having treated on this subject in the second Tome of the Holy Court § 5. Naturall and Morall Remedies against this Passion IF you require remedies and instructions both Naturall and Morall against Hatred Know that the Philosophers who consider all according to the course of Nature teach us that some have rebated and blunted the points of this cold and maligne Passion one while by living with hot and moist viands another while by consideration of the joyes and prosperities which God hath given them in divers negotiations and accidents of affairs thinking it not teasonable to employ the time in hatred which was too short to enjoy the benignities of heaven Others have cured themselves by conversation with good company which is one of the sweetest charms of life Others by hope and the desire they had to derive favour from the self-same party who had offended them another while also by a courteous interpretation of words and actions which had raised the same hatred Lastly by the change of those whom they hated before seeing them rather to be raised in great innocency or fallen into deep miseries which made them derive from mercy that satisfaction they could not expect from revenge But if they from nature have begged some comfort for their passion and have not been frustrated of their attempt in the practise of the means How much better helps have we then they ever had since that besides those naturall remedies which are not alwayes certain we have the grace and example of Jesus Christ Will you efficaciously remedy Hatred Learn not Who loves himself overmuch hath no friend to love your self so passionately as you do For that is the cause that you make of your self a little Idoll and that the least word which seems to be let slip against you many times not of purpose nor with intention grieveth you as if by displeasing your Chymeras a Divinity were offended That is the cause that you have burning and enraged desires towards money and the frivolous honour of the world so that one cannot touch you on this side but he strikes the apple of your eye Learn as a wholesome instruction those words of the Prophet Aggeus You have hastned to go into Agg. 1. Festinatis unusquisque in domum suam propterea prohibiti sunt coeli ne darent rorem your own house with contempt of mine for which cause I have stayed the clouds in the heavens from distilling down their dew upon the earth So long as you love your self so much you shall never have love nor friends So long as you think upon nothing but to raise your house and fortune on the ruines of the houses and fortunes of others you shall be deprived of the dew of heaven which is that Consolation of the just which they find in charity Secondly make account to compose your self to a Exercise of patience noble exercise of patience which is to tolerate the defects and imperfections of your like beholding them not on the side where they do you wrong but on that where they have connexion with God and upon every offence you receive say This man is troublesome but he is the image of God He is violent but it is he must crown my patience He is vicious but he is my flesh and bloud Let us hate his vice but love the man although he deserve it not Let us love him in the heart of God since we cannot love him out of his own merit S. John kissed the hand of an Apostate and a Thief covered all over with bloud to oblige him by whom he was traiteroufly disobliged and I cannot shew the least token of amity towards one who hath spoken one cold word to me S. Katharine sucked away the matter and filth of the ulcer of an infamous slanderer who had detracted her with all manner of virulence after infinite many benefits and I cannot endure so much as to see one who hath displeased me as if Haec est porta per quam quis ingreditur in Sanctum sanctorum inaccessae pulchritudinis spectator dignus constituitur S. Max.
the virtue of temperance but for that it seemed he found himself better disposed in this frugality than in superfluities the tormentours of health Yet notwithstanding he is ever greatly reprehensible in that he so deifieth the contentments of nature and this kind of life free from bodily pain and minds unquiet that he makes a Sovereign God of it honouring and adoring it as a Divinity From this principle he derived conclusions which led to a life wholly replenished with easeful idlenese much prejudicial to civil society For he would not have a wise man intermeddle in state-affairs nor untertake designs for the good of Common-wealths for fear of troubling the repose of his mind and gave a most infamous advise to tast the pleasures of marriage without taking care for the education of children because it was painfull whereupon Arianus in Arian l. 4. c. 20. Epictetus reprocheth him that his father and mother would have smothered him in the cradle had they known such pestilent words should come from his lips He now-adayes is waited on by many who take other wayes than he did to arrive at the practise of his Maxims For they use their bodies to such effeminacie that they seem single in their kind and seed their minds what they can with tender thoughts free from any care or affair which may divert contentment so that they suffer themselves with all endeavour to be dissolved in an easie truantly life wholly to enjoy themselves 2. Now you who incline to this Sect by ill habits 1. Reason against this Maxim of riot Occupatio magna creata est omnibus hominibus jugum grave super filiis Adam Eccl. 40. Isle of amber felicitie of Epicurus Garcias taken in the great service you daily do your bodies I beseech you consider how far it is allenated both from reason and Christianity First see you not that to imagine here on earth a life without pain is to frame chymraes in your mind since the world is a soil as natural for thorns as barren of violets All the sons of Adam saith the Scripture have trouble enough to carrie their yoke Where find you this perpetual quiet of mind this freedom from bodily disturbances which you figure in your thoughts It is in my opinion not unlike the little Island of amber-grece whereof Garcias speaketh which was perceived by certain merchants who sayled along on the Ocean But they much labouring to take it in such proportion as they advanced towards it it recoyled back and when they thought to touch it it was lost in the waves I dare affirm you pursue an Island more imaginarie than that running with full speed after the false pleasures of Epicurus It is a fantasie that mocketh you and which amuzeth you on the surges of this life to make you perish seeing according to Clemens Alexandrinus sensuality is the Clemens Alex Paedag. l. 3. c. 7. ship wrack of spiritual life A man must not be born of a mother to escape worldly molestations since the Scripture which cannot lie teacheth us travell is as naturall for the children of women as flight for birds How could there Homo nascitur ad laboreth avis ad volatum Job 57. Reason of Simplicius be pleasures of bodie without pain since pleasures would never be pleasures if they had not been preceded by some incommodities It is a witty reason of the Philosopher Simplicius which was well considered by S. Bernard (a) (a) (a) S. Bern. tract de gratiâ lib. arbitrio Tolle famem panem non curabis Telle sitim limpidissâ—mum fontem quasi paludem respicies umbram non quaerit nisi aestuans solem non curat nisi algens Take away hunger saith he and there is no pleasure in viands take away thirst and the most chrystal fountains would be unto you but as marishes Hot things must be had to seek for coolness and cold to be delighted with heat If you take away evil and necessitie you take away the most active spur which sensualitie hath over nature The world which is so old the earth so fertile experience so knowing and histories so curious could not this day produce one sole man absolutely happie and content The great Genius of nature Plinie who searched into all the corners of the world to meet with a man such as Epicurus framed in his idaea assureth us that after a very long enquiry he found but one a Musician named (b) (b) (b) Plin. l. 7. c. 50. One soleman happie Xenophilus who was said to have arrived to the age of an hundred and five years free from disquiet or sickness This is a Rodomontado of Greece which went about to make him brave it on paper But might we have penetrated into his heart and taken all the parts of his life asunder I am perswaded we might presently find somewhat for which he should be banished out of the imaginarie Palace of felicitie I can as soon believe Xenophilus came into the world free from original sin as imagine he went out of it exempt from any dolour It were as easie to sayl prosperously amidst the tempests of the Ocean having no other vessel but a tortoyse shell as to live in the world without suffering We are condemned to it before we are born and our tears teach us this decree before we issue from our mothers womb What remaineth sayes S. Bernard to finish the description Bern. l. 2. de consid c. 9. Quid enim calamitate vacat nascenti in peccato fragili corpore mente sterili cui infirmitas corporis fatuitâ—s cordis cumulatur traduce sortis mortis additione The whole world an enemy of curiositie of man and to make him a true picture of calamity since he entereth into the world by the gate of sin with a bodie frail a mind barren weakness of mortal Members and stupiditie of heart being given him as a portion of his birth and a necessitie of his condition The miserable Epicurus who was the first Authour of this lazie life and who sought by speculation and practise into all he could imagine bending all his thoughts and actions to this purpose found he satisfaction in this search Histories tell us this great father of the happie had a stone in his bladder which infinitly pained him and this being a time that knew not the operations now in use to deliver mortals from these vexations he carried his affliction to the grave dying with enraged dolour Upon this you shall observe that it seems God nature elements and men conspire to torment one who seeks with over-much curiosity and too seriously the contentments of his bodie and the ease of his mind 3. But that I may here produce a second reason Reason 2 although you were permitted to please your sensuality throughout the whole latitude of your desires and the capacitie thereof what should you elss do but serve a miserable bodie and tie your self all your life time to the
can any longer be a husband That she married him to live and to give life to others by love not to cut her own throat and her childrens through wickedness That a man who renounceth honour can no more pretend to nature To conclude that it is wealth which maketh men and that it was no dishonour to marrie a servant who is the favourite of a mightie King We came not into the world to be masters of fortune but to yield to its Empire What content can there be to walk up and down Towns and Cities like a beggers following a husband the object of the worlds laughter and reserve all is left of his miserable bodie to swords and flames So much were her ears beaten with such like discourses She yieldoth that through a most unspeakable cowardice she forsook her religion and husband to marry this servant who seemed noble enough since he had the golden fleece The King seeing she had yielded added for full accomplishment of inhumanity that Suenes should remain in his own house as a slave to his wise and servant Behold here the extremity of all worldly miseries Yield thy self up said one poor Suenes Admirable constancie sâ—est thou not that of so many palaces and such treasures there is not left for thee so much as a house covered with stubble of so many children none to call thee father Is it not time to forsake thy faith since she who slept by thy sides hath left thee Wert thou amongst the chains of Lestrigons and Tartars thou mightst breath a more wholesom air But to behold thy self a slave to thy servant in thine own house and to have perpetually before thee the infidelity of a disloyal wife for object how is it possible but to overthrow the most stable constancie in the world But Suenes assembling together all the forces of his heart said O faithless and perfidious discourses All is taken from me but they cannot take away Jesus Christ I follow him in libertie and bondage in prosperitie and adversitie in life and death whilest one small threed of life remains in my heart one silly spark of breath upon my lips I will combat against the gates of hell and all the laws of impietie O the power of the spirit of God! O divorce from flesh and bloud O spectacle worthy to be beheld by angels over the gates of heaven with admiration A man to die in so many indignities such punishments such deaths without dying without complaint growing wan or speaking any one word unworthy the lips of a Christian What is it to be a puissant but to brave all the powers of earth and hell What is it to be rich but to place all your treasures in the heart of God II. MAXIM Of the Essence of GOD. THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That it is fit to obey Nature all other Divinitie being most unknown That nothing is so known as God although not acknowledged through our ingratitude ACynick Philospher heretofore sought for a man with a candle at noon-day and now adays the wicked seek God in a clear and full light and when they have found him become blind by their own lights in that they see not him who is not to be known but in the quality of a Judge punishing their offences Out alas what is man without God Tertullian speaking of the countrey about the Euxine Tertul. advers Marcion l. 1. cap. 1. Excellent description of Tertullian sea saith It is a Region separated from the commerce of men as well by the providence of Nature as the reproach of its bruitishness It is peopled by most savage Nations which inhabit if we may say so a wandering cart that serves them for house a habitation which though perpetually in motion is less inconstant than their manners Their abode is uncertain their life wholly savage their luxury promiscuous and indifferent for all sorts of objects They make no scruple to serve in the flesh of their parents in a feast with beeff and mutton and think the death of such cursed who die when they no longer are fit to be eaten Sex softeneth not women in this countrey for they sear off their dugs being young and make a distaff serve for a launce being otherwise so fervent in battel that they had much rather fight than marry The Climate and elements are as rigid as their manners The day is never bright the sun never smileth nor is the skie any thing but a continued cloud The whole year is a winter and the wind ever North. Ice robs them of rivers and if they have liquor the fire affords it The mountains are still covered with ice and snow All is cold in this countrey but vice which ever burneth Yet I must tell you saith he there is not any thing amongst these wonders more prodigious than wicked Marcion For where shall we find a monster more odious or a man in nature more senseless than him who did not acknowledge the Divinitie and will have the causes and sublime reasons given him of the Essence of God which never were nor shall be for then there would be somewhat above God The Emperour Tiberius having conceived some Humano arbitratu divinitâ—s pensitatur nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Tertul. Apol. c. 5. Nec quicquam refert Deum neges an asseras Arno. l. 1. good opinion of Divinitie in the Person of our Saviour was willing to rank him in the number of other gods but it was not executed because it must pass by decree of the Senate and God who is all that which he is by nature regarded not the judgement of men to authorize his Divinitie You were as good deny God saith Arnobius as to make the truth of his Essence depend upon the weakness of humane reason 1. I ask of you whether there be any thing in the world more present with us and more familiarly known than our self our substance our life our being It seemeth say you it is the most certain of our knowledges Now if I shew the science we have of God is better known to us than our selves God is far stronger more undoubted and invincible than the knowledge we have of our self I necessarily convince the ignorance of the Divinitie is stupid ungratefull and punishable with all the rigours of eternal justice I pray tell me what so certain knowledge can you have of your self Have you it by the knowledge of History which is a reasonable knowledge by revelation which is extraordinary by prophesie which is mysterious by faith which is infallible I do not see you alledge any of these for confirmation of your own being You have no proofs say you more certain than your senses which you know notwithstanding to be bruitish deceivers and deceived in so many objects You hear your self speak you smell your self you touch your self and for that you affirm you are although you have not any knowledge of the better part of
bodies of his servants and Nilus overflowing with the bloud of his French himself surprized and taken by his enemies and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours out-cries infernal countenāces of Sarazens and all the images of death able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper notwithstanding though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion ever making use of reason he entered into the Barbarians pavillion not at all changing colour and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace he asked his pages for his book of prayers and taking it disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his oraisons in a profound tranquility of mind which I conceive to be very rare since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle to stay devotion which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Councel of Lyons and see how he laboured to depose the Emperour Frederick the second who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent but that they readily invade the goods of others when some religious pretext is offered them would have been very ambitious to be enstalled in his place whom they meant to despoil but the universal consent of great men judged this throne could not be worthily supplied but by this great King yet he notwithstanding declined it as a wise Pilot would a rock and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Sarazens than to mount to the Empire by such ways But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle may be observed in his valour never weakened by his great devotion for he was one of the most couragious Princes in a cold temperature with reason that was then under Heaven It was courage which taking him from the sweet tranquility of a life wholly religious caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment and delights to go to a land of Sarazens live in all incommodities imaginable to nature It was courage which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person not onely to the toyls of a desperate voyage but to the strokes also of most hazardous battels witness when at his arrival in Aegypt the coast being all beset with Sarazens very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water where he was plunged up to the shoulders with his target about his neck and sword in hand as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army which encouraged by the example came to the land as the King had commanded The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the world that it were to bring light into day to go about to mention them If some say He is to be a pattern for Kings and Divers Ladies excellent in piety Lords Ladies who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex shall never want great lights and worthy instructions if they will consider those who being more near to our Age should make the more impression upon their manners If we speak of the endeavour of prayer look upon See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia who continuing days and nights in prayer all covered over with fackcloth affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband and for him gained battels If account be made of the chastity of maidens and sequestration from worldly conversation reflect on Beatrix du Bois who being one of the most beautifull creatures of her time and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her put her self upon so rough a pennance for others sin that she was fourty years without being seen or to have seen any man in the face If you speak of modesty let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon wife of Claudius first Duke of Guize who after the death of her husband was clothed in serge and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women to teach them the practise of alms If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous cast your eye upon Anne of Austria Queen of Poland who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every munday the very same day she yielded her soul up to God when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner and that death might close her eyes when she opened her hands to charity If the instruction of children be much esteemed fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungarie mother of eleven daughters and admire her in the midst of her little company as the old Hen-Nightingale giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues and so breeding these young creatures that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts If you delight in the government of a family which is one of the chiefest praises of married women take direction from Margaret Dutchess of Alencon who governed the whole family with so much wisdom that order which is the beauty of the world found there all its measures and that if the domestick servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries she caused hers to be known by their modestie If you desire austerities look with reverence on the hair-cloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon the Kings great Grand-mother and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay who during a widow-hood of three-score years was twenty of them without ever coming into bed If you praise chast widows who can pass without an Elogie Elizabeth widow of Charls the ninth who in a flourishing youth being much courted by all the great Monarchs of the world answered That having been the widow of a Charls of France she had concluded all worldly magnificencies and that nothing more remained for her but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical amongst religious women whom she had founded If constancy in the death of kinred have place let the lesson be hearkened unto which Magdalen wife of Gaston de Foix gave who having seen the death of a husband whom she loved above all the world and afterward of an onely son remaining the total support of her house made her courage to be as much admired among the dead as her love was esteemed among the living And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions and who can but think the choise becometh hard by
And if we must needs forsake this miserable body we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easie death This maketh us plainly see the generosity of our Saviour who being Master of life and death and having it in his power to chuse that manner of death which would be least hydeous being of it self full enough of horrour yet nevertheless to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father and to confound our delicacies he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious which was to be found among all the deaths of the whole world The Cross among the Gentiles was a punishment for slaves and the most desperate persons of the whole world The Cross amongst the Hebrews was accursed It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouthes did pronounce against their greatest enemies The death of a crucified man was the most continual languishing and tearing of a soul from the body with most excessive violence and agony And yet the Eternal Wisdom chose this kind of punishment and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter He should have died upon some Trophey and breathed out his last amongst flowers and left his soul in a moment and if he must needs have felt death to have had the least sense of it that might be But he would trie the rigour of all greatest sufferings he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour and having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life to make his death compleat he would spare none of those infinite dolours The devout Simon of Cassia asketh our Saviour going toward Mount Calvarie saying O Lord whither go you with the extream weight of this dry and barren piece of wood Whither do you carry it and why Where do you mean to set it Upon mount Calvary That place is most wild stony how will you plant it Who shall water it Jesus answers I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood which must conquer him who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood I carry it to mount Calvarie to plant it by my death and water it with my bloud This wood which I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of all the world and to draw all after me And then O faithfull soul wilt not thou suffer some confusion at thine own delicacies to be so fearfull of death by an ordinary disease in a doun-bed amongst such necessary services such favourable helps consolations and kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition We bemoan and complain our selves of heat cold distaste of disquiet of grief Let us allow some of this to Nature yet must it be confest that we lament our selves very much because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified Let us die as it shall please the Divine Providence If death come when we are old it is a haven If in youth it is a direct benefit antedated If by sickness it is the nature of our bodies If by external violence it is yet always the decree of Heaven It is no matter how many deaths there are we are sure there can be but one for us 2. Consider further the second condition of a good death which consists in the forsaking of all creatures and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death Ferrara a great Divine who hath written a book of the hidden Word toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour 1. His apparrel leaving himself naked 2. The marks of his dignitie 3. The Colledge of his Apostles 4. The sweetness of all comfort 5. His own proper will 6. The authority of virtues 7. The power of Angels 8. The perfect joys of his soul 9. The proper clarity of his body 10. The honors due to him 11. His own skin 12. All his bloud Now do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things how bitter it was First the abandoning of nearest and most faithfull friends is able to afflict any heart Behold him forsaken by all his so well-beloved Disciples of whom he had made choice amongst all mortal men to be the depositaries of his doctrine of his life of his bloud If Judas be at the mystery of his Passion it is to betray him If S. Peter be there assisting it is to deny him If his sorrowfull mother stand at the foot of the Cross it is to increase the grief of her Son and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners to crucifie him again by the hands of Love The couragious Mother to triumph over her self by a magnanimous constancy was present at the execution of her dear Son She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds to engrave them deep in her heart She opened her soul wide to receive that sharp piercing sword with which she was threatened by that venerable old Simeon at her Purification And Jesus who saw her so afflicted for his sake felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross and the heart of his dear Mother We know it by experience that when we love one tenderly his afflictions and disgraces will trouble us more than our own because he living in us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Jesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a Throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his Passion became like a scaffold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entered to be tormented and crucified upon the cross of love which was the Cross of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from Heaven to accomplish the business of all Ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and in this so precious shipwrack there remained one onely inestimable pearl which was his divine Mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hand of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Jesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered it to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively and in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the
for us we shall soon see one another and re-enter into the possession of those whose absence we a while lament It is not absence say you which most afflicteth me but to see my self destitute of a support which I expected that is it vexeth me Enter into thy heart lay thy hand on thy thoughts and they will teach thee that all thy unhappinesse cometh from being still too much tied to honours ambitions and worldly commodities I would divert thee as much as I might possibly from despair but I at this present find that the remedy of thy evils will never be but in a holy Despair of all the frivolous fair semblances of the world O how wisely said Vegetius That Despair is in many a necessity of virtue But more wisely S. John Climachus Veg. l 4. c. 5. Necessitas quaedam virtutis est desperatio Clym gr 3. peregrinatio vera est omnium protsus rerum desperatio who defining the life of a perfect Christian which he calleth the Pilgrimage did let these words fall True and perfect Religion is a generall Despair of all things O what a happy science is it to know how to Despair of all to put all our hope in God alone Let us take away those deceitfull and treacherous props which besiege our credulous minds and cease not to enter into our heart by heaps Let us bid adieu to all the charming promises of a barren and lying world and turning our eyes towards this celestiall Jerusalem our true countrey let us sing with the Prophet All the greatest comfort I have in this miserable life is that I often lift Levavi oculos meos in montes unde veniet auxilium mihi Auxilium meum à Domino qui fecit coelum terram Psal 120. up mine eyes to the mountains and towards heaven to see if any necessary succour comes to me from any place From whence can I hope more help or consolation then from the great God omnipotent who of nothing created this Vniverse and hath for my sake made an infinity of so many goodly creatures Should I see armed squadrons of thunders and lightnings to fall on me I would have a spirit as confident as if there were no danger Were I Si consistant adversùm me castra non timebit cor meum Psal 263. c. to passe through the horrours of death being in thy company I would fear no danger Moreover I hold it for a singular favour and it shall be no small comfort to me when thou takest pain lovingly to chastise me for my misdeeds and to favour me with thy visits Happy he who hath raised his gain from his losses his assurance out of his uncertainties his strength out of his infirmities his hopes out of his proper Despairs and who hopes not any thing but what is promised by God nor is contented but with God who satisfieth all desires and crowneth all felicities The ninth Treatise Of FEAR § 1. The Definition the Description the Causes and Effects thereof FEar is the daughter of self-love and opinion a Passion truly horrid which causeth The nature of Fear and the bad effects of it all things to be feared yea those which are not as yet in being and by making all to be feared hath nothing so terrible as it self It falleth on a poor heart on a miserable man as would a tempest not fore-seen or like a ravenous beast practised in slaughter and confiscateth a body which it suddenly interdicteth the functions of nature and the use of forces It doth at first that with us which the Sparrow-hawk doth with the Quail It laies hold on the heart which is the fountain of heat and source of life it seizeth on it it gripes it it tortureth it in such sort that all the members of the body extremely afflicted with the accident befaln their poor Prince send him some small tributes of bloud and heat to comfort him in his sufferings whereby the body becomes much weakned The vermillion of cheeks instantly fadeth and palenesse spreads over all the face destitute of the bloud wherewith it was formerly coloured the hair hard strained at the root with cold stares and stands on end the flames which sweetly blaze in the eyes fall into eclipse the voyce is interrupted words are imperfectly spoken all the organs and bands are loosened and untyed quaking spreads it self over all especially the knees which are the Basis of this building of Nature and over the hands which are frontier-places most distant from the direction of the Prince who is then toiled with the confusion of his state This evill passion is not content to seize on our body but it flieth to the superior region of our soul to cause disorder robbing us almost in a moment of memory understanding judgement will courage and rendring us benumm'd dull and stupid in our actions This notwithstanding is not to be understood but of an inordinate fear And that we may see day-light through this dark passion to know it in all The sorts of Fear Clavus animae fluctuantis Amb. de Paradis Tertul. de cultufoemin O necessarius timor qui tim et arte non casu voluntate non necessitate religione non culpa S. Zeno. the parts thereof I say first in generall that there are two sorts of Fear Morall and Naturall Morall which comprehending filiall and servile is not properly a Passion but a Virtue which S. Barnaby according to the report of Clemens Alexandrinus called the Coadjutrix of Faith S. Ambrose the rudder of the soul And Tertullian the foundation of Salvation Of this very same it was S. Zeno spake so eloquently O necessary fear which art to be procured by care and study and not to be met by chance voluntarily not out of necessity and rather by overmuch piety and tendernesse then by the occasion of sin which brings a guilty soul vexation enough Naturall fear is properly an apprehension of a near approaching evil framed in the soul whether it be reall or seeming to which one cannot easily make resistance It is divided into six parts according to the Doctrine of S. John Damascen to wit Pusillanimity Bashfulnesse Six sorts of naturall Fear Shame Amazement Stupidity and Agony Pusillanimity feareth a labour burthensome and offensive to nature Bashfulnesse flyeth a foul act not yet committed Shame dreadeth disgrace which ordinarily followeth the sinne when it is committed Amazement which we otherwise call admiration is caused by an object we have of some evill which is great new and not expected the progressions and events whereof we cannot fore-see Stupidity proceedeth from a great superabundance of fear which oppresseth all the faculties of the soul And Agony is the last degree which totally swalloweth up the spirit in the extreme nearnesse of great evils and greatly remedilesse Forasmuch as concerneth the causes of this passion The causes of fear if we will reason upon it we shall find that the chief and most