assembly of Bishops while expecting his coming and suddenly he appeared not accompanied with any Guard or souldiers but with a small number of friends Eusebius who was there present saith in his History that never was any thing seen more admirable than the person of this Monarch at the meeting of this Councel For besides that he was of a most gallant stature and a singular presence he was delighted to hold it as it were enchased in rich attire The purple wherewith he then was clothed mingling the lustre thereof with the rays of precious stones which sparkled on his head made reflections of grace and majesty arise in the eyes of all the beholders He passed through the middle of the Assembly and all the Prelates rose up to do him reverence Then being come unto his place he stood upright expecting from the Bishops a sign given him to sit which being done and prayer ended he sat down upon a golden chair very low which was placed in the middle to the end he might be encompassed with so great a number of Saints as a Palm with a row of Cedars The others also being seated near him Eustatius selected out to open the Councel stood up and made an Oration whereof we find some pieces in Gregorie a Priest of Caesarea which import thus much We have very much obligation O sacred Majestie to Oration of Eustatius at â—he opening of the Councel render immortal thanks to the living God in that he hath made choice of your person to put the Empire of the world into your hands and that by your means destroying idolatrie he hath exalted the glorie of his Altars and established Christianitie in that tranquilitie which we presently enjoy It is an act from the right hand of the Omnipotent which we durst not hope for in our days if God had not made you to be born for the good of the universal world It is a prodigie to have seen you in a short time to calm so many tempests disperse so many smoaks of sacrifices to devils extirpate so many horrible superstitions and enlighten such cloudie darkness with the rays of the knowledge of the true God The world which was before polluted with ordures is purified the name of Saviour is known to Nations the most barbarous The Father is glorified the Son adored the Holy Ghost declared a Trinitie consubstantial that is to say one same Divinitie in three Persons is acknowledged by all the faithfull That is it O sacred Majestie which supporteth the greatness of your Empire with those three fingers of power wherewith it holdeth the mass of the earth poized as it were to serve as a basis As your felicitie is inseparably tyed to its honour so ought you to reverence defend and invincibly protect all that which concerneth the glorie thereof Behold a strange accident and which is to us more sensible than the persecution of Diocletian They go about to dis-member the Trinitie and thrust the knife of division into its throne One Arius who hath taken his name from furie a wolf bred among us in a sheeps skin a Priest of Alexandria an enemie of the doctrine of Apostles and Prophets hath proclaimed war against the Son of God endeavouring to deprive him of the essence honour and power which he holdeth equal from all eternitie with his heavenly Father This is it which hath assembled us here to condemn his errour and most humbly to beseech your Majestie that when you have heard the opinions of all these great men here present you will hold a steadie hand upon the preservation of Apostolical doctrine and command all those to be cut from our body who will persever in their damnable opinions to the end we may breath the Christian air in all liberty which the world beginneth already so sweetly to taste under the happiness of your reign Then was the time saith S. Hierom when the first trumpet began to sound against Arius After the good Bishop of Antioch had ended the Emperour beholding all the assembly with a very gracious aspect spake in Latin to retain the majesty of the Roman Empire and in a moderate tone those words which are couched in Eusebius the sense whereof we render Venerable Fathers I must needs affirm that I never Oâ—ation of Constantine desired any thing more passionately than to enjoy your sweet presences and infinitely am I bound to God that he hath accomplished my desires granting me a blessing that I prefer before all the happiness in the world which is to see you all here assembled and united in will for the glory of God and peace of the Church I pray you suffer not the storm to surprize us in the haven thereby to snatch from us the comfort which we already have in our hands and if God hath given us victorie against Tyrants let us not turn our arms against our selves to tear out our proper entrails It is most certain these domestick troubles are much more to be feared than all the hostilities in the world The sword of persecution can dissever nothing but members but these divisions tend to the subversion of souls which maketh them so much the more dangerous beyond common wars as the spirit is above the body God having afforded me so many victories and so many prosperities I proposed to my self there remained nothing from me to ask of him but an humble acknowledgement of his benefits and leisure to rejoyce with those whom I saw through his favour in repose sheltered under the good success of mine arms and the authority of my Laws It hath been a grief very sensible unto me to understand of those revolutions which have passed in our Citie of Alexandria and which have afterward dispersed themselves through the rest of Christendom I have done all that possibly I might in the beginning to stop them but seeing the evil increased with so much danger I have called you hither to apply the last remedy I beseech you O venerable Priests of the living God to preserve among your selves that concord which I think I may read in your countenances and not to suffer your selves to be deprived of the benefit of peace since the Divine providence hath selected you to establish it upon Altars by your prayers for all the rest of the world Cut off speedily the root of evil and sweetly pacifie these troubles of the Church you shall do a thing most acceptable to God and as for my self who am your fellow servant I shall hold me obliged as for a singular benefit The Interpreter explicated the Oration of the Emperour in the Greek tongue Then the propositions of Arius were read At the reading whereof the most part of the Bishops stopped their ears for horrour as afterward S. Athanasius observed From thence they proceeded to opinions where the disputation was enkindled on both sides Constantine afforded a singular attention to all that was said peaceably entertained sentences encouraged all the world sweetened acerbities
arms the Masters who had trained him up confessed he had dainty passages inimitable for any practice The Pagans who would blame him for diversity of Religion have never said ought else of him but that he was to good an Archer and over-fervent in hunting of wild beasts That notwithstanding set him in the estimation of warlike men and as he was singularly affable and liberal so was there nothing to be found in the world more charming than his nature Saint Ambrose having understood his spirit much affected him and endeavoured to joyn the most solid virtues to so many fair natural parts and above all perceiving that among so many Pagans and Arians who stretched out their snares on every side to surprize him it was necessary to prevent them he laid in his Royal soul deep foundations of faith and most chaste grounds of Religion to which Gratian shewed himself from the beginning much enclined There is also a letter found written in his proper stile and with his own hand where when he had heard the learned instructions of his Prelate he demands them in writing and because it is an excellent monument of his spirit and Religion I will here insert it The Emperour GRATIAN to Ambrose the Religious Bishop of God Omnipotent I Have a vehement desire to see my self united to you Apud Ambros in praefat I. de fide by corporal presence as I ever have you in my memorie and as I cohabit with you in the better part of my self which is the soul I beseech you most holy and Religious Bishop of the living God hasten unto me to teach me what I believe before I have sufficiently learned For it is not my purpose to argue upon matter of faith better loving to lodge God in my heart than conclude him in my words My desire onely is to open my soul at large to the Divinitie to receive its lights the Excellent faith and modestie of the Emperour more abundantly God will instruct me if it shall please him by your words since I confess and reverence his most Sacred Majestie well observing not to call Jesus Christ a creature or to measure him by the weakness which I acknowledge in mine own person but rather I avow our Saviour to be so great that our thoughts which are almost infinite can adde nothing thereunto For if the Divinitie of the Son could increase I would dilate my self in it for augmentation of his praises supposing I could not better gain the gracious favour of the Celestial Father than in glorifying the Son Eternal But as I fear no jealousie on Gods side so for my part I make no account to esteem my self so great an Oratour that thereby it may be in my power to adde any thing to the glory of the Divinitie by my words I acknowledge my self to be infirm and frail I praise God proportionably to my forces and not answerably to the measure of his greatness As for the rest I beseech you to afford me the Treatise of faith of which you heretofore gave me a tast adding thereunto the Disputation of the Holy Ghost in such sort that you prove his Divinitie by the Scripture and reason Hereupon I pray God dear Father and true servant of God whom I adore that he many years preserve you in safetie This Letter he that will consider it shall find to be full of much sense and verily Saint Ambrose was so ravished herewith that he confesseth never to have seen nor read at that time the like This good Emperour saith he wrote to him with his own hand as Abraham who himself prepared the dinner for Genes 18. his guests not giving commission thereof to his own servants He wrote holy words unto him as if he had an ear in Heaven and which is more remarkeable it was in a time when he was upon the point of a journey to resist Barbarians and therefore he purposely took the arms of faith from this great Bishop For observe this young eaglet from the second year of his Empire found business enough For Athanaricus King of the Goths entered into Thracia with a formidable Army and as Gratian amassed together all his Eastern troups to make head against him the Baâ—barians imagining with themselves that the Western Empire was unfurnished fell upon the Gauls whither the Emperour went with admirable expedition to succour them and it was at the time when he wrote this letter and most particularly recommended himself to Saint Ambrose taking the standard of faith from him to bear it in the front of his flourishing Legions This was not without Triumphant victory very notable success for by relation of Ammianus Marcellinus he bare himself most valiantly in this journey although very young undergoing toyls and ever appearing in the head of the army to encourage the souldiers by his presence which so enkindled them that they resolved to confront the enemy as soon as might be and defeated them at Strasbourg with so horrible a slaughter that of seventy thousand Barbarians threescore and five thousand covered the field with their massacred bodies leaving young Gratian to make a harvest in the chief field of Mars moistened with the palms of his own sweats but above all blessed by the prayers of great S. Ambrose As the Emperour returned from this conquest he received letters from the holy Prelate where among other things excusing himself that he had not accompanied him he saith It is not the want of affection Most Christian Emperour Affectionate words of S. Ambrose to the young Emperour for what title can I give you either more true or more glorious It is not I say the want of affection hath absented me from your person but modestie joyned to the decorum of my profession yet at your return I present my self before you if not with bodily steps at the least with the whole affections of my heart and all the vows wherewith I could charge the Altars and in this the dutie of a Bishop principally consisteth But it is mistaken to say that I came before you as if I had been separated from you having perpetually attended you in mind marching along with you in your thoughts heart and good favour which is the most noble presence I can desire I measured your journeys I went along with your Armie I was in your camp day and night with all my cogitations and with all my cares I stood centinel with my prayers and those of my Clergie at your Imperial Pavillion How much I was little in merit so much the more did I raise my self in diligence and assiduitie And rendering this dutie for you I did it for the whole Church herein do I use no flatterie for you love it not and well know it to be far from my nature and the place which I hold but God is a witness with us both how much you have comforted my heart by the sinceritie of your faith to whom he hath afforded such
all other consideration This good husband who had so much affection for his dear spouse suffers himself to be won by the ambition and easiness of his nature which bowed much to the wills of those who seemed to wish him well and by the lustre of the purple presented to him Maximianus would needs play the Tyrant aswell over loves as men and plotting marriages placeth his daughter in the conjugal bed of Constantius to plant him in the Throne of Caesars S. Helena of more worth than an Empire understanding Virtue of S. Helena the news bare this alteration with great constancy not complayning either of the chance force or disloyalty of Constantius but accounted it an honour that to refuse her no other cause was found but the good fortune of her husband She more feared than envied Scepters and was hidden in her little solitude as the mother of pearl under the waves breeding up her young Constantine in such sort as God should direct her Constantius touched with this admirable virtue lived in body with Theodora and in heart with his Helena He gave contentment in the East to a man Imperious and served the times to have his will another day But he was in the West in the better part of himself Besides when he was absolute and that he must needs divide the Empire with Galerius his Colleague he voluntarily resigned the rest of the world unto him to have France Spain and his I le of England where the moity of his heart remained It is a very hard matter long to restrain an honest Love of Constantius and S. Helena and lawful love It is said when Sicily was torn from Italy by an arm of the Sea which interposed it-self a-thwart palm-trees were found by the violence of waters rent asunder which in sign of love still bowed the one to the other as protesting against the element which had separated their loves The like happened to Constantius and Helena the torrent of ambitions and affairs of the world having parted their bodies could not hinder the inclinations of their hearts Constantius returned into Great Britain there to live and make his tomb for he in the end died in the Citie of York And as he being on his death-bed was asked which of his children he would have succeed him since besides Constantine he had three sons by Theodora at that time forgetting his second wife and her off-spring he answered aloud CONSTANTINUM PIUM I will have no other successour but the PIOUS CONSTANTINE which was approved by all the Army Thus God the Master of Scepters and Empires willing to reward the modestie of the virtuous Helena laid hold of her bloud to give it the Empire of the world in the end leaving the sons of Theodora to whom Maximian promised all the greatness of the world The third SECTION His Education and Qualitie A Great Oratour hath heretofore said speaking Gregor epist 6. l. 5. ad Childebertum Quantò caeteros homines regia dignitas antecellit tantò caeterarum gentium regna regni profectò vestri culmen excellit of Constantine that he appeared as much above Kings as Kings above all other men It is the Elogie which afterward S. Gregorie gave to our Kings Verily he was accomplished with a spirit and bodie in so high a degree of perfection that there needed no more but to see him to judge him worthy of an Empire Nature sometimes encloseth great souls in little bodies ill composed as fortune hath likewise placed Kings in Shepherds Cottages It is an unhappiness deserving some compassion when a great Captain is of so ill a presence as to be taken for one of his servants and be made to cleave wood and set the pot over the fire to prepare his own dinner as it heretofore happened to Philopaemen Constantine took no care for falling into such accidents Beautie of Constantine It seemed as Eumenius saith that nature from above had been dispatched as a brave harbinger to score out a lodging for this great soul and to give him a bodie suteable to the vigour of his spirit so well was it composed He was of a stature streight as a palm of an aspect such that the Oratours of that time called it divine of a port full of Majestie his eyes sparkled like two little stars and his speech was naturally pithie sweet and eloquent his bodie so able for militarie exercises that he amazed the strongest and so sound that he had no disease In these members so well proportioned reigned a vigorous spirit very capable of learning if the glorie of Arms had not wholly transported him into actions of his profession His father well enformed of his fair qualities caused him to come into the East where he took a tincture of good letters at the least so much as was needfull for a warlick Emperour and applied himself seriously to the exercise of Arms wherein he appeared with so much admiration that he was alreadie beheld with the same eye one would an Achilles or an Alexander were they alive again Diocletian who had not as yet forsaken the Empire would have him at his Court to work him from apprehension of Christianitie to which he might be alreadie much disposed and draw him to the hatred of our Religion It was a most dangerous school He was bred in the Court of Diocletian for this young Prince for education ordinarily createth manners and we are all as it were that which we have learned to be in our younger dayes Constantine notwithstanding gathered flowers in this garden-bed not taking the breath of the serpent which was hidden there-under He soon learned from Diocletian militarie virtue prudence to govern souldiers good husbandrie in revenews authoritie to become awfull but he took nothing either of his impietie or malice This Barbarous man in the beginning passionately loved him and would perpetually have him by his sides but when he saw that passing through Palestine and other parts of his Kingdom the young Constantine was more respected than himself so much his carriage especially compared to the harsh countenance of the Emperour had eminence in it he began to grow into suspicion and as it is said desired secretly to be rid of him But Constantine prevented the blow retiring under an honourable pretext to the Court of Galerius the associate of his father Constantius who most willingly left this son with him in pledge thereby to hold some good correspondence with him This Galerius was a creature of Diocletians who Constantine at Court of Galerius had heretofore declared him Caesar yet still retained such power over him that when he had displeased him he made him run on foot after his coach not deigning so much as to look upon him He in the beginning very courteously entertained the son of his faithfull friend affording him all manner of favours but in process of time he conceived a strong jealousie beholding in this young Mars more excellent parts than
have no other Gods but scepters no other Paradise than fruition of Empires His father Antiochus the Great had given him this lesson For he was an active Prince but more judicious than his son who never ceased to disturb his neighbour and covertly attempt the Kingdom of Aegypt by arms and subtilities until such time that the Romans clipped the wings of his ambition as well to stay the progression of his over-much power become formidable to the Empire as to punish him for the dangerous correspondences he held with Hannibal He was enforced by reason of some agreements and transactions of peace to send his son to Rome in hostage and that was this Antiochus we mention This young Prince who already had in his imagination He was delivered for an hostage to the Romaâ—â— designs of Empire mannaged this occasion and deriving his happiness out of the necessity of his fathers affairs learned therein all the extent of supream powers on earth and began to reflect on the Romans as gods of the whole world On the other side Scipio and all the other great Captains were forward to let the people behold this off-spring of the Asian Kings as a Lion enchained and finding him vain enough they spared not slight complements and court smokes but ever held in their own hands the highest point of authority and drew profit out of all affairs During his abode in Rome his father Antiochus the Prudence of the Romans Great overwhelmed under the burden of his ambition found the catastrophe of his pretensions in a tomb and his eldest son Seleveus succeeded him who had a short life and an unhappy reign At which time young Antiochus felt in himself a vehement itch of rule more powerfully than any of his Predecessours had done for soon understanding his brothers death who left him the kingdom of Asia and knowing Ambition of Antiochus his sister Cleopatra married to the King of Aegypt was a widow and the mother of onely one child of whom he hoped to be easily rid he ardently thirsted to joyn the two Empires and unite them under his power Now the Kingdom of Syria appertaining to this young Orphan the son of his sister he in the beginning entered thereinto with great modesty in the quality of a Tutour and Regent and not a King aforehand disposing the peoples minds by Attalus and Eumenes who did him good service in this pretension This wolf clothed in a lambs-skin thought to enter by the same ways into the Kingdom of Aegypt and wrote thus to his sister That it seemed the Gods had His craft thrown him among thorns at the time when Kings of his age walked not but on violets and roses That being absent out of the Kingdom he had received sad news of the death of his thrice-honoured father and immediately of the death of his well-beloved brother whose days he wished might have been lengthened with his own years But that nothing afflicted him so much as to see her a widow burdned with an infant whose hands were not so early fit to manage a scepter Behold therfore the cause why be now undertook the government of the Kingdom of Syria which was the possession of his Ancestours and whereunto she had right by the title of dower But otherwise though he were heavily surcharged with two Kingdoms he was no whit discouraged to share with her also in the cares of Aegypt since besides charitie towards his own the continual practice of affairs he had at Rome in the most knowing school of the world it had acquired him some dexteritie and experience in the sway of Kingdoms That he would make her reign in the affluence and pleasures of a flourishing Court and prostrate the whole world at her feet That she should onely be troubled to see their submission as the Gods behold earth from heaven and that he would be as faithfull a Regent as be hadever been a loving brother Cleopatra had been married to Ptolomeus Epiphanes and cast as a bait by the father to catch the Kingdom of Aegypt under hope conceived that having studied in his school she would beguil her husband and bring Nilus to Euphrates But she opening her eyes found Prudence of Cleopatra against the wiles of her brother her flesh was much nearer than the smock and ever upheld both her husband and son against her fathers plots She understood the heart of her brother to be desperately subtie and ambitious and seeing she could not possess Syria where he had strongly fortified himself she easily admitted this his imaginary title of Regency which she could no longer withhold But for so much as concerned Aegypt she made answer That she very humbly thanked him for the compassion he had of her widow-hood and that the Gods who afford the deepest roots to trees the most subject to winds would furnish her with sufficient courage to suffer so boisterous shocks As concerning the Kingdom of Syria his providence had prevented the good opinion she conceived of him being alreadie resolved to put the Regencie into his hands But as for Aegypt there was no necessitie be should rob himself in the freshnese of his youth of the pleasures so fairly acquired for him to undergo so many burden som charges in a forreign Countrey wherein he would not be honoured as were the Ptolemees That her people were somewhat jealous nor would confide in external power which might much discontent him in the sinceritie he pretended in the mannage of her affairs That she was assisted by a wise Councel with whose did she hoped to maintain her people in perfect peace and raise her son to the height of the happiness of his extraction and that it should ever be a singular comfort for her to be assured of the good affection be bare towards her estate and to correspond with him in an unfained intelligence Antiochus who found not his expectation in his sisters letters laid down the sheep-skin to put on the Lions and began to make open war by invading the Kingdom of Aegypt which was the cause Cleopatra instantly cast her self into the protection of the Romans although she nothing doubted but that her brother had thence sought support and credit But she on the other side knew they favoured justice and willingly undertook the causes of widows and orphans And verily the Senate of Rome either through the integritie Equity of the Senate of Rome to support widows of their manners or to ballance scepters which swayed under them and make none too great to the prejudice of their power inclined to the widows part and commanded Antiochus to retire out of Aegypt He who knew how to court men went about to gain Popilius Lenas deputed by the Senate to determine this affair requiring some delay to withdraw his forces leisurely of purpose to spend time for the renewing his plots A notable act of an Embassadour But the other a man resolute and not to be paid with words
their steps you shall have better successe See see Lots wife turned into a statue Gen. 19. 26. of salt who still cryeth out with an eternall voice over the burning ruines of Sodome and saith For having looked back on a voluptuous City yea on the flames of my punishment behold me changed into a pillar of salt that all posterity may know that Bodily Lusts Num. 25. 4. Tolle cunctos Principes populi suspende eos contra solem in patibulis quia exfornicati cum Moabitibus comederunt sacrificia Beelphegor are like unto salt water which well may irritate thirst but never can quench it See see likewise those Princes glutted with delights crucified right against the sunne which at their death reprocheth them with their crimes O voluptuous O carnall creature the time will come when those members which thou wouldest not crucifie by a holy mortification on the Crosse of Jesus Christ shall be crucified on the Crosse of the bad thief by the pains and torments which the Justice of God shall send thee and it shall be said Crucifie Crucifie him against the sunne that he dying may see him whom he hath despised that he may see the sun of Justice against which he hath spit that he in Idea may see the splendour of eternall delights which he hath left to ty himself to a dunghill that dying Jesus may reproch him Hîc ure hîc seca modò in â—ternum parâ—as with his sensualities his dissolutions and ingratitudes O God rather hair-shirts sackcloth ashes sacks thorns fasts austerities and sharp rasours then to fall into such ignominy §. 6. The Art of Joy and the means how to live contented in the world ONe of the best arts in the world is how well to rejoyce The art of Joy and the man who finds out the mystery of it doth more then if he had discovered the fountain-head of Nilus or the countreys which produce gold and diamonds I will give you a brief method of it to conclude the treatise of Delight and place your soul if you will take so much pains as to obey reason in the state of a most sincere tranquillity You must first of all imagine with your self that the earth whereon we live is not the region of joyes and what industry soever we may use we shall not any long time of our life be impenetrable to cares and Sadnesse which commonly grow from our condition It was a fansie in King Abenner to be desirous to Damascen breed up his sonne in continuall pleasure never suffering him to be touched with the least impression of so many discontents which occurre in the course of mans life For which purpose he caused him to be educated in a pallace which seemed to be consecrated to merriments and delights all which Art and nature could do to make a man contented was shut within this circuit and the Father permitted not any thing to be presented before his sons eyes which might have the power any way to displease him In the end this happy creature was troubled at his golden Cage and delicious prison He had a desire to behold the world and having before never seen about him but flourishing troups of youth endowed with strength garb and health enjoying full prosperity he at his going out of the pallace met first a begger then a leaper lastly a man all worn with age which sight instantly moved his heart touched with much compassion of the miseries of mans life Cares enter into us by the gates of the senses let them be never so well guarded and if we have not wherewithall to be contristated our own felicities displease us Upon which Symmachus hath very well observed that Symmath ep l. 1. Sic nati sumus ut sepius adversis fungamur bonae uniuscujusque rei tam brevis usus quam levis senius est We are born in the world much rather for sorrows then joyes pleasures which accost us stay not long with us they have wings to forsake us but to say truely sweetest things in the world are given us for a use as short as the sence thereof is feeble And that which the more is to be lamented is that wits the most subtile are ordinarily the least satisfied they are more greedy of the time to come more distasted with the present lesse forgetfull of evil past They burn themselves with their proper light and many times to avoid an honest captivity they frame themselves a thousand fetters It is no disgrace but the desire of many to be a beast a little to live the more in repose and to leave the tree of Knowledge to gather the fruit of life Now albeit we cannot arrive in the state of this present world to a fulnesse offelicity yet there are means somewhat to mannage our life and to lead it in innocent contentments To reach this happinesse it is necessary first of all to have a conscience very clean and free from remorses from crimes and from sins never well expiated For that is it which lighteth up Torches and which causeth furies and Tormentours in the midst of a heart troubled with spectres of its own wickednesse What joy hath a man who hath God his enemy and who feels the Divine Justice to shoot lightnings and shake thunder over his criminal head nay may we not say there 's not a moment of his life which is not steeped in the bitternesse of his thoughts There is not a Thunderclap which seemeth not to roar for him There is neither an anger in the heavens nor a menace on the Earth which seems not to conspire to his ruine If you have passed your life very innocently give thanks to God who is the Father of innocency and the source of Sanctity But it by mishap you are fallen into some very grievous Damian serm 30. Ascende tribunal mentis temeripsum portrahe ad judicium quaelljonis cogitatio accuset animus judicet poenitenâ— conscientia velut Carnifex feriat la chtymarum riâ—u vulnus crâ—mpat Sic per Martyrii si militudineÌ„ ad veram perveniÌ„es Martyrii dignitatem Nahum 3. 2. sinne following the Counsell of Cardinall Petrus Damianus Mount up to the Tribunall of your understanding lead your soul to judgement let your thoughts accuse you let your reason judge you let your conscience lift up the sword let it strike home let the bloud of teares be seen to stream from the wound and be you a Martyr of penance to become a witnesse of the mercies of God It is to mount very high to come to this first degree but we must yet passe to the second which is mortification of passions because a soul perpetually mastered by its appetites cannot freely breathe the air of the children of God It was in the confusion of stirres that the Prophet Nahum accumplished his Prophecy The voice of the whip the voice of the impetuosity of wheels of the neighing horse and the flaming chariot of the
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
trouble those spirits which have an inclination to mildnesse they say that Joab was his kinsman his faithfull servant the best of his Captains the chief Commander that had followed him from his youth accompanied him through infinite dangers and upheld the Crown a thousand times shaking upon his head He never medled in the factions that were raised against the King he was alwayes the first that dissipated them by the vigour of his spirit resolution counsell of his Arms and of his Sword If he slew Abner it was in revenge of his Brother which the other had slain If he stabbed Amasa it was the chief Captain of the Rebell Absolon whom they would have put in his place for to lay then great faults of the State upon him If he spoke freely to David it was alwayes for his good and for his glory in the mean time at his Death he recommended him to be punished after that in effect he had pardoned him all his life But to all this I say that the last actions of so great a King are more worthy of honour then censure The punishment of Joab proceeded not from a Passion but from a Justice inspired by God which would satisfie the voyce of blood the which cryed still against the murders committed by this Captain Further also there was a secret of State as saith Theodoret which is that this Joab shewed himself against the re-election of Solomon and was ready to trouble the peace of the Realm And as concerning Shimei to whom he had sworn that he would not cause him to dye he kept his promise to him faithfully abstaining from doing him any evil while he lived although he was in absolute power for to hurt him but as his oath was personall he would not extend it upon his sonne and tye his hands contenting himself to recommend unto him that he should do justice according as his wisedome and discretion should direct him It is very fitting that we should think highly of this Prophet and that we should rather search out the reason of many of his actions from the secret inspiration of God then from the weaknesse of humane judgement He lived near upon three-score and twelve years reigned fourty and dyed a thousand and thirty two years before the birth of our Saviour leaving infinite treasures for the building of the Temple and eternall monuments of his devotion and understanding It was a speciall favour to him that the Saviour would be born of his bloud and that his birth was revealed to him so many dayes before it was known to the world He hath often set it down upon the title of his Psalmes and was in an extasie in this contemplation by the fore-taste of that his happinesse Men are accustomed to take their nobility and their names from their Ancestours that go before them But David drew it from a Son which is the Father of Glory and Authour of Eternity The industrious hands of men have taken pains in vain to carve him out a Tomb Death hath no power over him seeing that he is the Primogenitour of life All things are great in his person but the heighth of all his greatnesse is that he hath given us a Jesus SOLOMON SOlomon was he that ordered the holinesse of the Temple and yet he can hardly find place in the Holy Court The love which gave Solomons entry into the Realm full of troubles him the Crown by the means of his mother Bathsheba hath taken from him his innocency The Gentiles might have made him one of their Gods if Women had not made him lesse then a man His entrance into the Throne of his father was bloudy his Reign peaceable his Life variable and his End uncertain One may observe great weaknesses at the Court at his coming to the Crown confused designs desperate hopes a Prophet upright at the Court a woman full of invention an old Courtier overthrown and little brotherhood where there is dispute of Royalty David was upon the fading of his Age and his Throne looked at by his Children which expected the dissolution of their father He had taken the authority upon him to decide this question by his commands not willing to be ruled therein by nature nor to preferre him whom she had first brought into the world but him which should be appointed by God and best fitted thereto by his favours Bathsheba a subtil woman Bathsheba fitly insinuares her self and procures the Crown for her son Solomon that had carried him away by violence of a great affection kept her self in her possession and had more power over the mind of the King then all his other associates Amidst the kindnesses of an affectionate husband which is not willing to deny any thing to her whom he loves she drew this promise from David that he would take her sonne Solomon to be successour in his Estates This was a little miracle of Nature in his Infancy Solomons infancy pleasing and it seemed that all the Graces had strove together to make a work so curiously polisht His mother loved him with infinite tendernesse and his father could not look upon him without amazednesse He was married at the age of nineteen years and David before he departed from the world saw himself multiplied by his son in a second which was Roboam Aristotle hath observed well that children which are married so young do seldome bring forth great men and this observation was verified in Roboam who caused as many confusions in his life as he had made rejoycings at his birth This strengthened Solomon at the beginning in his own and his mothers pretences But Adonijah his brother which immediately followed Absolon was before him in the right of Eldership and promised himself to have a good part of the Empire The example of that unfortunate brother which had Adonijah competitor of the Crown and his faction expired his life in the despair of his fortune was not strong enough for to stay him which treading as it were in the same steps went on infallibly unto his last mischance David endured too long for him and it seems to him that the greatest kindnesses that a rich father could do for his sonne when he is come to die is to suffer himself to die He had sufficiently well knitted his party together binding himself closely to the chief Priest Abiathar and to Joab It seemed to him that having on his side the Altars and Arms he was invincible But in that burning desire that he had to reign he The fault of Adonijah in his Counsel of State committed very great faults which put an end to his life by an event very tragicall He did not sufficiently consider the power of his father who governed himself by the orders of them in the disposition of their Royalty and saw not that to undertake to succeed him without his good will was to desire to climb to the top of the house vvithout going up by the stairs His
it self in a bloudie tempest of three Ages in the contradiction of a thousand Sects From whence it proceedeth that the crueltie of Tyrants hath served for encouragement to the faithful and the bloud of Martyrs for seed to posterity Where can a Religion be found which with such innocency and purity of life such humility solidity sanctity and which is more with the arms of disgraces poverty despicable contempt austerity and torments hath changed the estate and face of the world hath planted the Cross in the capital Citie of the Empire above the thunder-bearing Eagles of the Emperours and the ashes of a poor fisherman massacred for this law above the Diadems of Kings What would the ancient Caesars say if they rose again from their graves to behold in Rome where all the Monarchies were established and incorporated where all the devils and furies were cantonnized as in their last and strongest fortress in Rome from whence came all the fulminating thunders and bloudy Edicts against Christians where the sword of persecution was sharpened to reap a harvest of heads where was a Pantheon the magazin Wonderful proceeding of all their false Deities to see there the state of the supream * * * Alii nec minùs Christiani a liter sentiunt Bishop of Christians to see there a Church erected to Peter the fisher-man much more magnificent than ever was the Pantheon Say human wisdom if the SAVIOUR of the world at the age of twelve years when he began publickly to testifie he was come to redeem the Kingdom of his Father from violent and unjust usurpers had asked counsel of you touching the proceedings which ought to be held in this business what had you advised him Had you not demanded of him where are your treasures Have you not inexhaustible riches to oppose an Empire which hath a hundred and fiftie millions of revenew No I pretend to have no other riches but poverty Have you some five hundred thousand men in pay for ten years to maintain one army on Nilus another on Euphrates one on Rhene another on the Ocean another within the entrails of the Romane Empire No I purpose not to levie for execution of this design but twelve poor men sea-faring men without strength without industrie arms or so much as a staff Have you a thousand brave Oratours men of great learning eminent eloquence who will endeavour by the charms of their flowing tongues to attract the people and dispose them to their wills No I have none but simple ignorant people ideots that go out to preach the Cross What would you have said thereupon O folly how do you think to come to honour by ignominie to riches by povertie to greatness by the infamious punishment of the Cross to immortalilitie by a bloudie death And yet behold it is done What say you Is there in all this process any thing that is human Must we search out other miracles for confirmation of faith Adde hereunto that the devils craftily counterfeited Sanctitie an irrefragable argument wisdom power force by deceitful violent and bruitish ways but never could they constantly feign humilitie patience purity sanctity Sects which have taken this dissembled mask have not been able long time to keep it they all have shivered and broken with pride presumption private and publick impurities with ordures of execrable sacriledges The spirit onely of Christianitie hath always appeared as a true spirit of piety humility patience charity continency chastity mansuetude contempt of the world virtues so noble so elate so heroick that the life alone of a Christian being with conformity directed fairly to the doctrine of our SAVIOUR is a perpetual miracle able to convert worlds All that which the great Philosophers of this Universe could not attain with the flight of their feathers the Christian toucheth with his hand he hath demonstrated more in his works than they have said in their books they have built Common-wealths on paper and our religion hath raised Monarchies of real virtues And if the wicked who stagger in their belief had addicted themselves to the exercise of good works never would infidelity have made prey upon their understandings but for that they suffered themselves to be transported with the overflow of pride presumption curiositie of toys vanities and carnal sensualities of the world God in just vengeance suffereth them to fall into a reprobate sense Oh lost soul which givest way to this faintness and remisness in thy religion consider a little attentively all that I have said hereupon And if truth content thee not thou mayest well hereafter expect the lot of Cain the absence from the face of God perpetually frightful anxiety terrours and menaces from heaven the indignation of the sovereign Judge the hatred of men the ill success of thy affairs extraordinary maladies desolation the life of a sad howling wolf a tragick death and detestation of thy posterity Even Atheists amongst the confusions of Paganism have seldom or never found assurance therein some have been sacrificed to flames as Diagoras others Diog. laert Paulus Diac. l. 15. eaten up with lice as Pherecydes others devoured by dogs as Lucian others thunder-shot in a hath and turned to ashes in the twinkling of an eye as Olympias others have suddenly lost human speech and have bellowed like bulls and in this roaring have yielded up their souls as Simon Thuvan a wicked pedant Polydor. l. 5. in the year 1201. others have burst in pieces in an infamous privie infecting the sinks and publick sewers with their souls much more stinking as did the wicked Arius others have lost their scepter and eyes as a King of the Bulgarians who was deprived and blinded by his own father Trebellius as soon as Sabel l. 6. Lun 85. he returned from a Monastery where he had retired himself with armed power to chastise the Atheism of his son We are not yet in an Age so caytife where brave and couragious Magistrates are wanting to bridle the impudency of those who would advance these detestable Maximes of impiety We have seen in fresh memory the Decree of that great and illustrious Parliament of Paris that condemned to the fire the Authours of such abominations which powerfully stayed the violent course of black and beastly impieties that dispread themselves under the mask of goodness which shewed an heroick zeal both of the glory of God and general integrity and maintenance of laws for which God hath reserved to them a crown of immortality This Decree hath been attended with favours from heaven which even in an instant hath sweetened notably these punishments and invited the blessings of all good men that have with thanksgiving lifted their hands to heaven We had seen a little before the ashes of some to flie in the wind perhaps into the eyes of those which Picus Mir. Ep. 1. Magna insania Evangelio non credere cujus vevitatem sanguis Martyrum clamat Apostolicae resonant voces prodigia
first practice and most ordinary to hear Mass for those who understand the words there spoken is to follow them with application of spirit and to accompany the silence of the Priest with some meditations or vocal prayers The second is to stay ones self upon the signification of all the parts of the Mass As at the Confiteor to represent to your self man banished from Paradise miserable suppliant confessing deploring his sin At the Introite the enflamed desires of all mankind expecting the Messias At the Hymn of Angels Glory be to God on high the Nativity At the Prayers thanksgiving for such a benefit At the Epistle the preaching of the Praecursour S. John At the Gospel truth preached by the Saviour of the world and so of the rest The third is to divide the Mass into certain parcels and behold a very considerable manner Represent to your self five great things in the mystery of the Mass from whence you ought to draw so many fruits These five things are representation praise Sacrifice instruction nourishment Representation because the Mass is a perfect image Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass Radicati superaedificati in ipso Col. 2. c. of the life and passion of our Saviour and therefore the first fruit you ought to gather from thence is daily to imprint more lively in your heart the actions and passions of the Son of God to conform your self thereunto Praise So many words as are in the Mass aim at this purpose to give praise unto God for this ineffable mystery of our redemption and to conform your self to this action you ought to bend all the endeavour of your heart to praise God whether it be by vocal or mental prayer Sacrifice It is a most singular act of Religion by which we reverence and adore God for the infinite glory of his souereign Being And the Mass is a Mass a Sacrifice true Sacrifice by eminency where the life and bloud of beasts is not offered but the life of a Saviour which is more worth than the life of all Angels and men Cedrenus recounteth that the Emperour Justinian Cedren in Compen hist Wonder of Justinian caused an Altar to be made in the Church of Saint Sophia wherein he used all sorts of mettal of precious stones of the richest materials which might be chosen out amongst all the magazins of nature to incorporate all the beauties of the world in onesole master-piece And verily this Sacrifice is the prime work of God in which he hath as it were locked up all that which is great or holy in all the mysteries of our Religion It was the custom daily to proportion the Sacrifices to the benefits of God When in the old law he gave the fat of the earth they offered the first-fruits to him But now that he hath granted to us the dew of Heaven so long expected his onely Son we must render to him his Son again which is done in the Sacrifice of the Mass And the fruit you should derive from this consideration is at the elevation of the host to offer Jesus Christ to God his Father by the ministery of the Priest and to offer it First for a supream and incomparable honour of the Divine Majesty Secondly for thanksgiving for all benefits received and to be received Thirdly to obtain protection direction and prosperity in all your works Besides offer up all your powers faculties functions actions in the union of the merits of Jesus Instruction Those who understand the words of Instruction 4. of Mass the Mass may draw goodly instructions from reading the Epistle the Gospel the Collects All in general teach us the virtues of honour and reverence towards the Divine Majesty seeing this Sacrifice is celebrated with so many holy sacred and profoundly dutiful ceremonies Of gratitude since God being once offered in the bloudy Sacrifice of the Cross will also be daily presented to God his Father in the title of gratitude And that ought to awaken in us the memory of observing every benefit of God with some remarkable act of devotion Of Charity towards our common Saviour and towards our neighbour since we see a life of God spent for our redemption and all faithful people Nourishment The eye liveth by light and colours Nourishment 5. the Bee by dew the Phenix by the most thin and subtile vapours and the soul of the faithful by the nourishment which it receiveth in the Blessed Sacrament which is purely spiritual This nourishment is not onely derived from the Sacramental Communion Spiritual Communion by the real presence of the body of our Saviour but also by the spiritual Communion which is made when in the Sacrifice of the Mass at the time of the Priest his communicating the same dispositions apprehensions and affections are entertained as if really and actually one did receive For this purpose it is fit to do three things First to excite anew in your self the acts of self-dislike and contrition for your wretchedness and imperfections The second to take spiritually the carbuncle of the Altar not with the pincers of the Seraphin but with acts of a most lively faith a most resolved hope and a charitie most ardent to open boldly the mouth of your heart and pray our Saviour to enter in as truly by the communication of his graces and favours which are the rays of this Sun as by the real imparting of his body and bloud he gives himself to those that communicate The third to conclude all your actions with a most hearty thanksgiving The fourteenth SECTION Practice of Meditation OF four worlds which are the Architype Intelligible Celestial and Elementary prayer imitateth the most perfect being a true image of the oeconomy of the holy Trinitie which according to the maxims of Divines cannot pray to any having no Superiour yet affordeth a model for all prayers For prayer as saith Tertullian is composed of reason words and spirit Of reason as we may interpret by the relation it hath to the Father of words as it is referred to the Word of spirit by the the direction it hath to the third Person Now this principally agreeth with meditation For it is that divine silence delicious ravishment of the soul which uniteth man to God and finite essence to Infinite It is that plenitude and that tear spoken of in Exodus according to an ancient translation Plenitude Exod. 22. 29. because it replenisheth the soul with the splendour of consolations and sources which distil from the Paradise of God Tear yea tear of myrrhe because it distilleth under the eyes of God as doth the tree which beareth myrrhe under the rays of the Sun It is a wonderful thing to behold this little shrub which doth not perpetually expect to be cut with iron that it may drop forth its pleasing liquor but the Sun reflecting on the branches thereof becomes as it were a mid-wife and maketh it bring forth what is sought
homo To stand always upon your guard I saiah 21. 8. Super speculam Domini ego stâ— good things are done in man which man doth not And min doth no good which God doth not Who thinks to resist temptations without his help is like him who hasteneth to the wars and stumbleth at the threshold of his own door And therefore an effectual means in this battel is to insist much on prayer especially at the first entrance of a temptation VI. When you have vanquished a temptation take very good heed you leave not your rank and wholly slacken your courage as if there were no more enemies to be opposed As distrust is the mother of safety so over-much security is the gate of peril If your enemy still roam up and down like a roaring lyon become you on the other side a watchful lyon in the centinels of the God of hosts VII Content not your self onely to be beaten To combate your enemy but assail your enemy When Satan lays a snare to entrap you make it an instrument of merit If he present a good work to you which glittereth in the world thereby to tempt you with pride make a good work of it and leave vanity referring all to the greater honour of God VIII When you are in combate fight with alacritie as if you already were certain of victory Turn away the eye of your consideration from what you suffer and hold it perpetually fixt upon the reward A great unhappiness which maketh many to fall What is the cause that many yield head-long into temptation is that they have their minds so stretched and bent upon the thought of pain they cannot abide to behold the reward which waiteth on them When the fourty Martyrs were in the frozen lake thirty nine of them looked back upon the future crown and one of them unhappily thought of nothing but his punishment All of them remained victorious except this wretched creature who soyling the glory of his patience came out of the pool to die presently after in his infidelity Do you not think that which comforted our Saviour on the Cross in that bottomless abyss of calumnies and dolours was a mirrour of glory where he saw all his sufferings in crowns Behold the course which is to beheld To stay a little on the present and rest in a strong apprehension of the future And ever to have these words of S. Paul in your heart A short moment of our tribulation worketh in us an 2 Cor. 4. Momentaneum leve tribulationis nostrae aeternum gloria pondus operatur in nobis eternal weight of glory Fight then with courage as if it were the last temptation which should assail you and be perswaded that herein is the extent of your predestination When you have overcome it govern your self like a man readily prest to enter again into the lists and make one victory the degree for another IX Though you be valiant brave not danger Not to tempt temptation tempt not temptation casting your self into the occasions thereof through presumption of heart He that much affecteth hazard in stead of finding glory therein shall trace out his own tomb X. A sovereign means to conquer temptations is seasonably to discover the countenances of them to open your heart freely to your Ghostly Father to declare your thoughts to know them well to consider their nature and to see their power they have over your soul It ordinarily happeneth what the good Epictetus saith It is not the thing that troubleth us it is our fantasie How many temptations A sovereign means would be vanquished by sleighting them if one took but a little leisure to laugh at them We make Elephants of flies and of little dwarfs who by stealth pinch us we frame Gyants We resemble young children who for fear of a vizard hide themselves with tears in their nurses bosomes but take away the mask and give them it to handle and they will make sport with it How many things seem terrible and impossible to us which we find ridiculous and easie to overcome if we never so little touch them with our finger In temptations of pusillanimity it is good to represent to your self these false Gyants as dwarfs But in that of lust you must not despise any thing rather lay hold of little threads as if they would become huge cables Both in the one and the other there is nothing to be done but to dash these little Babylonians against the stones Withstand beginnings and suffer not your enemies to fortifie themselves to your disadvantage XI The stone of offence and scandal to many Sweetness of victory of a temptation is that they lively present to their imagination the sweetness of sin and never consider the pleasure which is derived from the victory over sin As soon as man is plunged in the puddle thereof behold a blushing soul drenched in pensiveness melancholy and despair whom a loathsom pleasure which passeth away as a dream furnisheth from a dream with a heap of scorns sorrows and confusions But quite contrary that soul which hath resisted findeth herself content generous advanced satisfied with holy comforts which come from the Paradise of God Few men revolve this thought which Saint Cyprian much recommendeth Behold why the number of the damned is very great and yet notwithstanding doth it not seem to you very reasonable that man who a thousand times hath yielded to temptation should once in his life time tast the sweetness which is in the victory over a temptation to rejoyce for ever Many have been diverted from a great and manifest precipice by considering these words Well go to To yield to sin what will be the end thereof To purchase repentance at so dear a rate To render up a renown of so many years as a prey to a most unhappy moment of pleasure Where is the faith promised to God Let us at least seek out some place where he is not And where is he not So many stars so many Intelligences wherewith the world is replenished are so many eyes to behold thee Himself looketh into the bottom of thy conscience Ask leave of him if thou wilt sin But how ask and how obtain Exercise a little patience and this temptation will vanish away as a cloud Thou goest about to commit a sin the pardon whereof is very uncertain but it is doubtless through all eternity when thou hast committed it God himself cannot make it to be undone XII Think not you are the less acceptable to God when he suffereth you to be tempted yea with dishonest thoughts which to chaste souls are extreamly irksom Alas why If S. Paul that Cherubim scorched with celestial ardours who fixed his foot upon the front of the stars if we follow the opinion of S. Ambrose Theophylact and Oecumenius felt the stings of concupiscence in a flesh rapt to the third Heaven think you for having some good dispositions of well-doing you
which Names of land inebriate all shallow brains Nor through affectation to display a large list of titles and qualities The time hath been when men named lands at this day lands denominate men So many abject villages boroughs hamlets brave it in paper and set our memories on the rack to name one man who should rather be named and renowned for virtues which are the inheritance of men Our Ancestours who raised their titles upon noble actions were men of heaven but now when we so passionately seek to acquire names of the earth we well thereby declare we are men of the earth III. When one is arrived by virtue to some fortune and condition eminent not at an instant to turn Modesty in its exaltation Humility of Primistaus and Pope Benedict the 11. his brain as with a voluntary drunkenness and forget not only his poor parents but himself also affecting wry-mouths crabbed looks disdains ill countenances and much exteriour seeming to blot out the memory of his extraction The good Primislaus being come from the fortune of a peasant to the Sovereingty of Bohemia caused his country-cassock and high shoes to be kept in the Church and yearly represented to him to renew the memory of his bloud and thereby cherish his own humility Pope Benedict the eleventh the son of a silly peasant his mother being brought unto him in a rich and sumptuous habit with intention much to please him turned his eyes away and said he could not acknowledge this woman for his mother But she afterwards returning to him in her rustick attire he acknowledged her and yeilded all the duties of a good son Their hearts were deep in humility not of these petty spirits who are ashamed of their beginning and resemble those beasts which think they are well hidden if their heads be covered shewing the rest of their bodies IV. Neither to make your self Fierabras nor the Knight of the burning sword in matter of valour Those who most brave it in words are found very short in performance The world is full of Rodomonts Rodomonts who onely are transported with arrogant and sudden furies as Rabsaces in the Scripture but few are found truely valourous When Homer maketh his brave Captains march he gives them silence for guid Contrarywise he maketh cowards to babble and chatter like cranes The one pass along like great rivers letting their streams glide softly with silent majestie the other do nothing els but murmur like little brooks A sign of not being valiant at all is to strive to seem valiant V. To boast the beautie of bodie is to have a Vanitie of beautie great defect in the judgement which is the beautie of the soul It is verily a desperate vanitie when a Lady under the colour that some scribling Rimer hath given her the locks of Aurora the eyes of Venus the port of Juno the feet of Thetis makes her self the Queen of Antioch and glorifies her self many times with a beautie meerly imaginarie Queen Ridiculous pride of Queen Stratonica Stratonica wife of Seleucus had not one hair upon her head yet notwithstanding gave six hundred crowns to a Poet who had celebrated her in his verse and sung that her hair had the tincture of the Marigold I know not how this soothing flatterer meant it but this Queen became very proud which made her so much the more ridiculous Although this beautie were true it is but white and vermillion skin distended over a carkase which covereth many ordures It is a dung-hill blanched with snow an Idol of fools a flower of the field which hath as it were for horizon the instant of its birth We may Mirabar celerem fugitivâ â—tate ruillam Et dum nascuntur consenuisse rosas well give it the epitaph of the Rose Here lies the Rose in one day come From the first Blossom to a Tombe VI. A much more notorious solly it also is to boast and brave it in apparel which are plaisters of the scars of sin to wit nakedness borrowed feathers from all kind of birds unpunished thefts witnesses of our povertie which causeth us to beg the assistance of all creatures to cover our shame What an indignitie is it to be desireous to brave it above ones state qualitie or port and to arrive at this height ofttimes to bear the fat and marrow of the poor in the plaits of garments Nay these many rapines are not sufficient to entertain this enraged prodigalitie Debts must grow which cannot be discharged Silk Habits must be dragged at your heels and a Sergeant readie behind you to shew gold and hide miserie and sin to adorn a bodie as if it were a Temple of Aegypt with all possible splendour and to lodge within it the soul of a Rat. What infamie is it to behold in a banquet a Roman Lady called Lollia Paulina carrie about her in chains carcanets and pretious stones a Plin. l. 9. c. 35. Paulina bare about her a milion of gold million of gold and her father who had dispoiled all the Roman Provinces to cloath this onely daughter drink afterwards poyson overwhelmed in the despair of his own affairs Is not the chamlet coat of the greatest of all our Kings S. Lewis is it not of power to confound all Courtiers of both sexes who having nothing worthy of praise in them would dignifie themselves with apparel shewing they have like Peacocks a little head little brain beautifull feathers and a long tail VII Not to be proud for riches for they are a river which now this day pass along by your lodging and are no more yours than the river of Seyne Nor to look with a surley face in great fortunes and dignities for it is a vizard in a Comedie which must presently be pulled off Not to value your self Super eminence of person highly for a happie memorie for it is as it were the bellie of the soul many times filled with much windiness nor for wit for it is often but thin like the spiders web fit to catch flies and nothing else nor for the judgement for much to confide therein is a dangerous leprousie in the heart of man VIII To measure your self by your own rule Modestie to know your own abilitie not overmuch to presume of your own forces not to undertake a great burden and shrink under the weight of it To speak little of your self and of all that which is your own not to overprize nor deject your self to do good without speaking of it to obey the commandments of Superiours faithfully readily couragiously to moderate desires to love mediocritie in all things to have a sweet affable and respective conversation Megnanimity IX If you be truly humble you will necessarily have the acts of magnanimitie which are to undertake great things for the honour of God For there is not any thing so potent as the humble man who expecteth all his power from heaven To contemn the
do you call breed them well Behold another vice Some offend through negligence others with too much indulgence You term well-breeding the child to cramme him up to the throat and let him have all he asketh Senseless creature see you not first you do a great injury to God He hath trusted a child in your hand to be bred like a man and you have made a lump of flesh of it a bears whelp and think there is nothing to be done but to lick it that it may grow Secondly it is a base thing to say the Sovereign Creatour having made you a Father Master Directour and Governour over this infant you should forget the character God hath engraven on your face and make your self a slave of a gluttenous belly and an irregular concupiscence Besides you put spurs to his vices to make him run headlong into the precipice you nooze haulters to strangle him you light torches to consume him For what good can be hoped nay what evil not expected from a child bred up in pride and effeminacy Hear Disentienda sunt deliciae quarum mollitie fluxu fidei virtus effeminari solet Tertul. de cultu foemin Tertullian speak Take away the curiosities and superfluities It is not the life of a Christian He hath renounced faith who breedeth his children in riot Is it not a goodly thing to see Hercules spin silk with those hands which were made to vanquish monsters Know God hath put us into the world to hew monsters more pernicious than hydraes or Cerberus and not to make coronets of roses You cannot breed your children in voluptuousness and not thereby render their souls soft and effeminate which quite extinguisheth the flame of a generous spirit and yet you complain that coming to the degrees of maturity they are fit for nothing but to live lazily and pick quarrels But it is no whit to be wondered at It is the tincture you gave them from their most tender years You have made them al their life time to dance to the tune of their own proper wills light fond and childish and now you would put the bridle over their necks and make them lead a serious life Know you not what happened to the horses of the Sybarites an effeminate kind of people who were so intoxicated and addicted to dances and balls that not so much as their horses but learnt to dance In the mean time their enemies awakened them and so closely pursued them that they were enforced to take arms for the defence of their lives They drew into the field a brave squadron of Cavalry the flower and strength of the Citie but a fidler seeing them approch mounted on these dancing horses promised their Adversaries to deliver them into their hands whilest they were dancing And instantly he began to strike up his violin and the horses to bestir themselves in dancing to break all their ranks and put the Army into disorder which shame fully made them become a prey to their enemies Behold O indulgent parents what happeneth to your children You have always bred them in sottishness sports and liberty the fatal plagues of youth when they must come to combate to undertake some brave affair some thing important for the good of their Countrey for the honour of your house for the advancement of themselves they stand eclipsed Nay perhaps it might be tollerable to behold them benummed stupified in worldly affairs but they are deaf blind and dumb in matters concerning God so that whilest you seek to make great and powerfull Lords of them you ere aware have drawn the malediction Genes 3. 14. Supra pectus tuum ventrem tuum gradieris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 70. Interpr of the serpent upon them and made them creep on their bellies as much as to say according to the interpretation of some Fathers to spend their thoughts study and affection upon the care and education of the body to the prejudice of the soul Yet you would have those creatures to be instructed in the law of God How can it be Do you not well know that Moses seeing the Israelites dance with full Exod. 32. Sciebat Dei sermonem non posse audire temulentos bellies about the golden calf brake the tables of the Law If you demand the reason S. Hierom will tell you he knew the Law of God was not for sporters dancers and drunkards and that in the Kingdom of intemperance an eclipse ensues not onely of the Divine law but of nature also I come to the second point which is instruction so much recommended in Scripture If you have Filii tibi sunt erudi illos cura illos à pueritiâ illorum Prov. 7. children saith the Wiseman instruct them and take great care of them from their childhood You must think your children be as Temples of God recommended unto you from the hand of God himself It is an intollerable thing to have good cooks good lacheys good grooms good horse-boys to serve the belly and stable and a father who sends his son to school many times ignorant whether the Master be black or white good or bad mild or harsh religious or wicked If kine or hogs are to be driven into the fields one is sought out who knows the business but to trayn up a child of a good family an idle fellow many times is trusted who hath in him no talent at all but malice and ignorance Fathers and Mothers fear you not God will say unto you My house is forsaken I freed it from evil spirits I withdrew it from the power of devils I purged decked and adorned it I put it into your protection I consigned it into your hands what have you done with it Why have you polluted it and why suffer you it still to lie drenched in ordure You have put the lamb into the wolfs keeping you have given the victim to the slaughter-man you are the cause of his unhappiness you have twisted the coard of his ruine so soon almost as the web of his life Fathers and mothers do well if they become as great Saints as are the Hermits of the desert but if they neglect their child they render themselves guiltie before God of one of the greatest injustices in the world The Scripture in praising the great Patriarch Noe Noë vir justus perfectus in generationibus suis doth not onely say he was a good man in his own person but in his whole race so far as his power extended As much honour and glory as it is to leave a good Citizen to the Common-wealth so much dishonour and infamy it is to afford it ungracious wretches to trouble its repose dis-unite peace and embroyl affairs They are such of whom the Scripture speaketh They shall be nayls in your eyes and launces in Erunt vobis clavi in oculis lâ—nceae in lateribus adversabuntur vobis in terrâ— habitationis vestrae Num. 31. your sides
in all things to bear the seeming scepter Then seeing him dayly become more weak than himself to secure this state upon his own sons he makes the eldest to wit Phaselus Governour of Jerusalem and giveth to Herod his Unhappy Politician youngest the Tetratchie of Galilee Some time after having sucked down all the wind which his ambition presented to him and not knowing what more to do he drank a cup of poyson which in a banquet was offered to him by the slie cunning of Malicus his enemie Behold the current of humane things These Spirits enragedly mad after greatness which they pursue with all manner of toyl and sinister practises are as those little bubbles that rise on the water in time of a tempest they encrease and crack in a moment Antipater being dead his two sons Phaselus and Beginning of Herod Herod divide the succession each one holdeth firmly his share and striveth to possess the heart of Hircanus making him always personate his own part Herod as soon as he was in office even in the life of his father being as yet but fifteen years of age well discovered what he would be by his natural inclinations which proceeded from him as flashing streaks from a cloud to be instantly turned into lightening He had a malign spirit craftie ambitious even to furie and whose fingers perpetually itched after bloud and slaughter And verily he defiled his tender years and first beginning of principalitie with effusion of humane bloud falling not onely upon one called Ezechias reputed a Pirat but he also cut in pieces with him many Jews without either warrant or knowledge of the cause which involved many innocents in this ruin The mothers of those people massacred by young Herod went out of the Temple disconsolate with their hair disheveled requiring justice of Hircanus who was no other than a meer idol of principalitie Notwithstanding much importuned by the cries and lamentations of these weeping women and incited by the Peers of his Kingdom he ordained that Herod should appear before a tribunal of justice In this action the young man sufficiently shewed the boldness of his spirit and fierceness of his courage The other who were accused came to this Parliament of Judea altogether in mourning habit he thither went as to a feast or a Theater waited on with a flourishing retinue clothed in scarlet frisled perfumed and besides with the recommendations of the Romans who sent nothing but armed words commanding the Judges to pardon without any other process He then being but fifteen years old so amazed the Judges and Advocates with his very fashion and countenance that of all those who were prepared for long pleadings against him there was not one to be found that had the heart to mutter in his presence One of the Judges called Sameas an honest man more hardie than Liberty of a judge the rest cried out aloud to King Hircanus there present Sir I wonder not this young Lord commeth in such equipage to this barr every one doth what he can for his own safeguard But I admire that you and your Councel suffer him thus to proceed as if he came hither not to be adjudged but to murther the Judges you presently through favour will enfranchise him but he one day by Justice will assail yours And verily of the whole Senat no one escaped whom Herod being come to the full mannage of the Kingdom put not to death except him who delivered his opinion with such libertie It is reported of Sameas that when afterward there was question moved to receive Herod for King the rest constantly opposing it he freely said he gave his voice to Herod and some amazed thereat Let it not seem strange unto you saith he God in his indignation Grave speech will give unto you a bad King and a worse he cannot find than Herod He is the scourge you stand in need of to chastice your infidelitie Hircanus then seeing the Judges animated by Sameas more inclining to the ballance of justice than mercy caused him secretly to be shifted away For he embosomed him with love and so hatched the serpents egge in his breast Herod nothing inferiour to his father in policie pursuing his plots and examples inseparably united himself to the Romans gayning them with all manner of services and entertaining Hircanus to serve his turns as a shadow with all manner of complacence and flatterie The Kingdom of Judea seemed as yet not to behold him but at distance his brother Phaselus as the eldest held the best part Aristobulus whom you have seen led in fetters to Rome had also two sons the eldest of which was called Alexander father of this chaste Mariamne whose patience we decipher The other was Antigonus with whom Herod had much occasion Or both he discharged himself in Great revolution in the Kingdom of Judea process of time For the unfortunate Alexander successour to the unhappiness of his father Aristobulus putting himself into the field with such troops as he could amass together in the disaster of his fortune was in favour of Herod oppressed by the Romans Antigonus having escaped out of captivitie wherein he was held at Rome with Aristobulus his father gave Herod matter enough to work on For putting himself into the Parthians power he wrought so much with promises and hopes that they undertook to establish him in his Royal throne And thereupon they arm both by sea and land and handle the matter so by force and policie that they stir up Hircanus and Phaselus Herod with much difficultie saved himself and though he had a courage of steel was so astonished with this surprise that it was a great chance he had not ended his life upon his own sword Hircanus unworthily used by the commandment of his nephew Antigonus had both his ears cut off and thereby made for ever uncapable of the High-priestood Phaselus the brother of Herod enraged with the turn of fortune voluntarily knocked out his own brains against the side of a rock Herod who always cleaved to the fortune of the Romans as ivy to a wall seeing his affairs reduced to an extremitie imploreth their assistance representeth the outrages of Antigonus the hostilitie of the Parthians signifieth the services of his father Antipater promiseth on his part all the world and so handleth the matter that beyond his expectation he is declared King and at that instant Antigonus enemie of the people of Rome as a fugitive and ally of the Parthians Herod pursueth him with might and main ayded by the Roman forces The miserable Antigonus after a very long resistance was imprisoned becoming the very first of Kings who by commandment of Mark Anthony was executed with a punishment most unfit for his qualitie and condition and among the Romans not usual leaving his head upon a scaffold in the Citie of Antioch for no other cause but for the defence of the inheritance of his Ancestours But Strabo saith Mark
monsters and hydeous sights He tried all sorrs of festival entertainments dancings and delights to divert this ill but it still augmented in such sort that he was enforced to abandon all the affairs of his Kingdom though he had been very eager and ardent in this employment and became in the beginning thereof doltish and dull not knowing what he did For often in the time of dinner he spake to his servants and commanded them to call the Queen as if she had been yet living they slipped aside without making answer and the whole Court was drenched in terrour and silence In the end not being able any longer to endure the walls of his Palace as if they had upbraided him with his cruelty he ran into the forrests like a mad man where he got a strange maladie of the mind and so horrible a frenzie that the Physitians were to seek saying freely it was a blow from Heaven God who yet reserved him for greater calamities would not at that time take away his life The wicked mother Alexandra who so outragiously had complained of her daughter upon the scaffold instantly died tasting the bitterness of death and loosing her glory Last of all followeth a plague which took away even many of Herod's Counsellers and all that was nothing but the scourge of Heaven in avengement of this death so deplorable and never sufficiently lamented Mariamne of her chaste wedlock left two sons to The sons of Mariamne bred at Rome Herod Alexander and Aristobulus who were very young able to suffer much in time to come but as then incapable of feeling their own miseries Herod to take from them the sense of this cruel tragedy and to raise them likewise by the degrees of good education to the glory of his scepter happily puts them aside and sends them to Rome to be bred in the Court of Augustus Caesar held at that time the Academie of Kings and prime school of the world Some years being passed he had a desire to make a voyage into Italie to salute Caesar and by that opportunity see his children whom he found excellently trained and so accomplished that he purposed with the good leave of Caesar to carry them back into Judea which he did These young Princes returning into Jerusalem with Herod ravished all the people with admiration They were of a gallant presence straight active quick-spirited couragious in the exercise of arms well-spoken affable as lovely as the person of the Father was odious Men looked on them as one would upon the two stars of Castor and Pollux after a storm they replenished all with alacrity and seemed already to win all hearts to approve their titles to the Crown Those notwithstanding who retained the memory of the usage of poor Mariamne their mother could not abstain from tears Pheroras brother of Herod and Salome his sister Calumnie is plotted against them who both had dipped their fingers in the bloud of the innocent Queen entered into affrightments and apprehensions unspeakable seeing the bloud they had shed should one day sway over their heads Wherefore they began silently to calumniate them and caused by trusty instruments many bruits to pass into the ears of Herod which intimated That the Princes his sons in consideration of their mothers wrong had a great aversion from the father and that they never seriously would affect him Herod who as yet in the heat of his affection and could never be satisfied with beholding them gave no credit to this calumny But rather seeing them now upon the confines of maturity sought to match them highly plotting for Alexander the daughter of Archelaus King of Cappadocia named Glaphyra which was assented unto and for Aristobulus he caused him to marry the daughter of Salome his cozen germain so plaistering over the domestick enmities which ever after found many factions Alexander and Aristobulus conversed together with great freedom and uttered whatsoever they had upon their hearts speaking of the death of their mother in such manner that they shewed a great resentment thereof Pheroras and Salome close-biting and watchfull ceased not to provoke them to speech and whatsoever they said either through vanity or sleight disposition to anger or in the liberty of secrecy was instantly by a third person related to the ears of Herod The subtile Salome holding still a power upon her married daughter who was a simple creature put her upon the rack to tell her all that her husband and her brother in law had spoken in the privacy of their mutual conversation She then recounted the words these poor Princes had through simplicity and bravery spoken to wit that Aristobulus vaunted himself The Kingdom belonged to the children of Mariamne as to the line of the true Queen as for Herods other sons who were spread abroad in very great number for he had nine or ten wives that he might make Registers of them in some petty Towns and that they should do well to learn to write and read She added that Alexander said in boasting he was a better man than his father notwithstanding that conversing with him and seeing him of a jealous humour he restrained himself as in a scabbard and durst not discover himself for fear he should give him some suspition of his power That hunting or walking with Herod he did as it were bow and contract himself together that he might not appear taller than his father that if he were to shoot in a bow he purposely made himself unskilfull thereby to take all occasion of envie from him It was a notable act of wisdom to do it but a great folly of youth to breath out many words as innocently spoken as treacherously interpreted and above all an infinite simplicity to commit their secrets to a woman whose heart is as fit to keep what it ought to conceal as a sive to hold water When Pheroras and Salome had a long time filled the ears of Herod with these trifling reports seeing the suspition began to take footing in his mind and that the affection of a father cooled towards his children they struck the iron while it was hot and wished him seriously to take heed of his sons for they spake big and had boldly said That all those who were embrewed in their mothers bloud should not carry the punishment into the other world for verily as they were vexed upon the remembrance of the dead such like words had escaped them Herod was much amazed at this liberty and thought he must repress their boldness by some counterpoize What doth he To humble the hearts of these Princes The young Antipater son of Herod exalted he selecteth among his children one called Antipater his son by Doris nothing noble and who had shamefully been hunted out of the Court he putteth this his son in the turning of a hand upon the top of the wheel not that he had a purpose to raise him but to use him to counterballance the children of Mariamne reputing him
nature They alledge unto me for all reason that I may hope for a good fortune and that it was sufficient even in my fathers judgement If imaginary hopes are of power to dispossess true and lawfull heirs what may we hereafter expect to be solid in the world As for my own part I have nothing to do with such fantasies as they form to themselves I desire not great fortunes but content my self with that mediocrity my birth hath allotted me A little wealth shall suffice to put me in safeguard against the accidents of a necessitous life and sweetly to manure the sciences my father left me as a portion Hereupon Madame I most humbly beseech your Majestie will be pleased to be informed of this I affirm and if you find it as it is true to do me justice which I must seek in your Court it being banished from all the world beside She spake these words with so much grace that all those there present were ravished therewith persecuted beauty never wanting compassion throughout the world Every one wished her well each one became her Advocate yet some were pleased to importune her with many curious questions in this affair to put her upon replies and make her exercise the vivacity of her excellent wit wherein most happily she gave satisfaction Theodosius beheld all this with affectionate tenderness The eye and tongue of this creature mutually divided his heart at one and the same instant love surprized him by the eyes and ears Pulcheria without making any other proposition promiseth all favour to the suppliant and having dismissed her goeth to visit her brother who had the arrow of chaste love deeply fixed in his heart Resolutely he saith to his good sister that never would he have other wife than Athenais They were now upon the point to proceed in the marriage but it was found she was uncapable of that Sacrament being not as yet baptized Her Paynim father had bred her in Paganism better she knew the Theogonie of Hesiodus than the Genealogie of Jesus Christ better Homers I liads than the Books of the Gospels better the Apothegms of Pythagoras than the Commandments of God All the Court which had been rapt in a dmiration with her pleading was much troubled to see so fair a soul drencht in infidelity some seriously treated with her about her conversion Atticus the Patriarch of Constantinople employed himself therein to the utmost of his power Paulinus a great favourite of Theodosius who was now upon some terms of jealousie with him by occasion of a late accident made himself as it were a prime agent in this business seeing his Master affected it so ardently And being well read in Divine and humane learning beyond the profession of a sword-man and most eloquent to explicate himself he marvellously by his conference advanced the conversion of Athenais In the beginning she was Her conversion obstinate in Pagan doctrine and fortified herself upon all propositions with Homers Iliads which she alledged as her Gospel and when the great indecencies were opened to her which this Poet attributeth to these heathen gods she sheltered herself with subtilities as a hedge-hog with his quills evading by oblique interpretations drawn from the allegorical sense so that much ado there was to disarm her In the end God who would have her to be his unsealeth her eyes and makes her behold as in the glass of a bright mirrour on the one side the impertinences of idolatry and on the other the greatness majesty verity solidity of our faith As soon as the first reflection began to fall directly upon her understanding behold all the wild fancies of her opinions were scattered to give place to the truth Never any soul more savourly tasted its conversion never any creature more affectionately resented the benefit of calling to Christianitie She bathed herself in the knowledge of our mysteries as in a sea of delights and in short time became so skilfull in the law that she wrote in Homers verses the principal acts of Jesus Christ and even as Mary Magdalene with the same hayr wherewith she had weaved nets for wanton love made a towel to wipe the feet of our Saviour so the devout Athenais consecrateth from henceforth all the graces of her wit and learning which she had mis-used in vanities to the tropheys of Jesus She was baptized at Constantinople with joy and incredible magnificence named Eudoxia at the holy Font of Baptism confirmed in Christianity nourished with holy Sacraments wherein she was entertained with most sensible devotion The ceremonies ended Pulcheria caused her to be called saying Eudoxia my Sister it is now time you forget the house of your father and that you withdraw the suit against your brothers God who hath granted you the life of the soul and lights of faith hath magnificently provided for the ornament of your person for he hath chosen you to be the lawfull wife of the Emperour Theodosius our most honoured Lord and brother All is agreed on and such is his resolution nothing more remaineth but your consent The holy maid astonished at such words covered her fore-head with the vermillion of shamefac'dness and prostrating herself at the feet of Pulcheria besought her to entertain her onely in her Palace with her maids in the quality of a servant to wash the feet of others as Abigail spake But the more she shewed humility the more she seemed recommendable and Theodosius to whom virtue served as a powerfull motive was after her conversion much more enflamed to love her She must yield herself to the will of God Behold her wife of the Emperour the marriage was solemnized on the 7. of June in the year 421. with all pomp correspondent to the majesty of so great an Emperour and the joy of such a marriage Her brothers understanding the good fortune their sister had afflicted as they were with their own conscience fled like wild men no man pursuing them But the good Queen consecrating the first acts of her Christianity to forgetfulness of injuries caused them to return and obtained of the Emperour for the one the government of Sclavonia and for the other a most honourable place in Court God knows the good women who with so much charity had assisted her were not forgotten Nothing was changed in her but sect and condition all the virtues of humility modesty and affability remained with her and how much the higher she was raised so much the more she undervalued herself as if she had fore-seen the storm which should afterward assail her Hither it is I call all noble and great men who Sanctity of Theodosius his Court. flatter their sensuality by a false imagination of impossibility in the way of perfection while they abide in Courts and greatness in company and affairs The Court of young Theodosius was at that time the prime Court of the world that of the Roman Emperour was fallen into eclipse Thither was the confluence of all
was your enemie you were his but he never yours For hostilitie comes from an usurper and defence from a lawfull Prince You do well to justifie your self upon this attempt but there is not a man will believe your justifications Who sees not you hated his life whose burial you hinder Paulinus addeth that for conclusion he dealt with him as one excommunicate and seriously adviseth him to expiate the bloud he had shed by a sharp penance This liberty of our admirable Prelate amazed all the Councel and Maximus who never thought that a Priest in the heart of his State in the midst of his Legions in the presence of his Court could have the courage to tell him that which he would never endure to hear in his Cabinet commanded him speedily to depart from the Court All those who were friends of the holy man advised him to be watchfull upon the ambushes and treason of Maximus who found himself much galled but he full of confidence in God put himself on the way and wished Valentinian to treat no otherwise with Maximus but as with a covert enemy which did afterward appear most true But Justina the Empress thinking S. Ambrose had been over-violent sent upon a third Embassage Domnin one of her Counsellours who desirous to smooth the affairs with servile sweetness thrust them upon despair of remedie The fourteenth SECTION The persecution of S. Ambrose raised by the Empress Justina WE may well say there is some Furie which bewitcheth the spirits of men in these lamentable innovations of pretended Religions since we behold effects to arise which pass into humane passions not by an ordinary way Scarcely could Justina the Empress freely breath air being as she thought delivered from the sword of Maximus which hung over her head tyed to a silken threed when forthwith she despoiled her self furiously to persecute the authour of her liberty O God what a dangerous beast is the spirit of a woman when it is unfurnished of reason and armed with power It is able to create as many monsters in essence as fantasie can form in painting Momus desired the savage bull should have eyes over his horns and not borns over his eyes but Justina at that time had brazen horns to goar a Prelate having eyes neither above nor beneath to consider whom she struck Authority served as a Sergeant to her passion and the sword of Monarchs was employed to satisfie the desperate humours of a woman surprized with errour and inebriated with vengeance Saint Ambrose like a sun darted rays on her and she as the Atlantes who draw their bowe against this bright star the heart of the world shot back again arrows of obloquie As women well instructed and zealous in matter Herod lib. 4. Solem orientem execrantur of Religion are powerfull to advance the Christian cause so when they once have sucked in any pestilent doctrine they are caprichious to preserve their own chymeraes The mistresses of Solomon after they had caused their beauties to be adored made their idols to be worshipped so Justina when she had gained credit as the mother of the Emperour and Regent in his minority endeavoured to countenance the Arian Sect wherein she was passionate that the sword Sect of Ariant of division might pass through the sides of her own son into the heart of the Empire The Arians had in the Eastern parts been ill intreated under the Empire of Theodosius and many of them were fled to Milan under the conduct of a false Bishop a Scythian by Nation and named Auxentius as their head but who for the hatred the people of Milan bore to this name of Auxentius caused himself to be called Mercurinus He was a crafty and confident man who having insinuated himself into the opinion of the Empress failed not to procure by all possible means the advancement of his Sect and did among other things very impudently demand a Church in the Citie of Milan for the exercise of Arianism Justina who in her own hands held the soul of Justina an Arian demandeth a Church in Milan her son Valentinian as a soft piece of wax gave it such figure as best pleased her and being very cunning there was not any thing so unreasonable which she did not ever colour with some fair pretext to dazle the eyes of a child She declared unto him that the place she possessed near his persō wel deserved to have a Church in Milan wherein she might serve God according to the Religion which she had professed from her younger days and that it was the good of his State peacefully to entertain every one in the Religion he should chose since it was the proceeding of his father Valentinian which she by experience knew had well succeeded with him To this she added the blandishments of a mother which ever have much power over a young spirit so that the Emperour perswaded by this Syren sent to seek S. Ambrose and declared unto him that for the good of his State and peace of his people it was in agitation to accommodate his thrice-honoured mother and those of her Sect with a Church in Milan At this word S. Ambrose roared like a Lion which made it appear he never would yield to the execution of such requests The people of Milan who honoured their Prelate as the lively image of the worlds Saviour when they once perceived that Valentinian had suddenly called him and that some ill affair was in hand they left their houses and came thundering from all parts to the Palace whereat Justina was somewhat astonished fearing there was some plot in it and so instantly commanded the Captain of the Guard to go out and disperse the rude multitude which he did and presenting himself with the most resolute souldiers he found no armed hands to resist him but huge troups of people which stretched out their necks and cried aloud They would die for the defence of their faith and Pastour These out-cries proceeding as from men affrighted terrified the young Emperour and seeing the Captain of his Guards could use no other remedie he besought S. Ambrose to shew himself to the people to mollifie them and promise that for the business now treated which was to allow a Church to the Hereticks never had those conclusions been decreed nor would he ever permit them S. Ambrose appeared and as soon as he began to open his mouth the people were appeased as if they had been charmed with his words whereupon the Empress grew very jealous seeing with the arms of sanctity doctrine and eloquence he predominated over this multitude as the winds over the waves of the sea A while after to lessen the great reputation of S. Ambrose Strange conference pretended by the Empress she determined to oppose her Auxentius against him in a publick reputation and though she in her own conscience wel understood that he in knowledge was much inferiour to S. Ambrose notwithstanding she reputed him impudent
that spirit which made you reign in our hearts as well as in our Provinces distinguish flatterers from true friends hearken to those whose loyaltie you have known in the success of so many prosperities Remember your self that you were made to reign over man not as a man but as the law to bear your subjects in your bosom and not trample them under-foot to teach by example and not constrain by force to be a father of Citizens and not a Master of slaves Remember your self Kings are given by heaven for the use of people and that they ought not to have so much regard to the extent of their power as not to consider the measure of their obligations Handle the matter so that the greatness of your Majestie may appear in its goodness and that this word which you heretofore had in your mouth may stick eternally in your heart when you said A good Prince ought not to fear any thing so much as to be too much feared This Oration greatly enkindled minds and King Theodorick was so much amazed at this libertie that he seemed not wel setled in his countenance he onely said in few words he would give all satisfaction to the Senate when time had cleared this business whereof he would inform himself that it might be treated at the next Session Trigilla Congiastus and Cyprianus the principal of the faction of the Goths seeing themselves touched to the quick resolved the time was now come wherein either they must be lost or Boetius undone so that after this assembly they ceased not to besiege the soul of the King who was become jealous melancholy and timorous with a thousand objects of distrust upon the practices of Boetius assuring him the conspiracie was wholly contrived and plotted at Constantinople by Pope John and his Complices at Rome by Boetius Paulinus and Albinus who had marvellous correspondencies Not content with this they gained some mercenarie people they practised with false witnesses they counterfeited letters forged and sealed in the name of Boetius and said all that which their passion suggested This is it which gave the most dangerous assault upon the mind of the Prince for he having read their papers and heard some depositions which they gave him notice of would have no further information to be resolved but speedily assembling the Senate entred with his papers in hand shewing in his countenance the trouble of his thoughts and spake in these terms This last Oration which Boetius made in this place was the Trumpet of a conspiracie plotted against my State I wonder not a whit that he made it his task to disgrace our government with so great ornament of eloquence to transport your minds into rebellion but I marvel much how he would promise himself to draw to his partie complices from a bodie so innocent as yours All my officers displease him as an enemie of the good offices are done me and all the favours which I allot to the merit of mine are so many crimes in mine own person with this man who draweth poison from all that which serveth others for nourishment He whom the Prince raiseth serves as an object for his envy and it hath ever been an injurie to appoint him a companion in his honours He deploreth the miseries of the publick as if he were father thereof and it seemeth to him all is lost which justice putteth into any other hands than his own Had the Gepides and Bulgarians forraged over all Italy be could not frame any other complaints than be doth of the State of our Kingdom where thanks be to God there is nothing so grievous but it may seem a silver Age if we compare it to the Empire of those who have gone before us Besides our good subjects esteem not themselves so unhappie under me but that they think my preservation is the source of their felicities But needs must he have pretext of pietie to colour his design and to take upon him a title of protectour of the people to make himself usurper of mine Empire Verily would ambition be satisfied I have performed for this man all that which may be done to such as are the most greedie of honour raising him to all eminent charges and given even to his children almost in their infancie dignities which have been reputed in this Common-wealth as prodigies But in doing this I sought bottom in an abyss where it was not to be found I have suffered all these extravagancies so long as I could possible ever thinking to complain of him was to draw convulsions upon mine own proper entrails But since forgetting all respect of dutie he cannot be unmindfull of his own nature which is to do evil to those who wish him well I demand of you in the qualitie of a King that justice which you would afford to the meanest of my Kingdom I have not his eloquence to amplifie Impostures but I enjoy some strength of understanding to judge of a truth Behold here most loyal subjects those who will depose the conspiracie he hath plotted against my State Behold here letters signed with his own hand which were dispatched to the Emperour Justine to call him to my ruin You may judge hereupon and ordain what shall be reasonable is being not my intention to pretend here any other satisfaction than what the laws afford me As soon as he had spoken this he caused his witnesses to come in who were one Basilicus Opilion Gaudentius men of lost conscience and reputation Theodorick notwithstanding caused them to be openly heard and without exception against the innocent Then he began to produce that goodly letter addressed to the Emperour of the East which was wholy counterfeited by the damnable impostures of one named Cyprian The poor Boetius found himself at the instant like the just Naboth in the midst of these perverse creatures and what industrie soever he used for the declaration of his innocency it was oppressed by a powerfull faction which transported minds either through corruption or weakness to the ruine of virtue The King pressed the Senatours to deliver their opinion thereupon they who were desirous not to appear suspected confidently cast the stone against the accused and thought his condemnation would be their freedom others who were enemies bare themselves in it with much animositie there remained some few feeble souls who followed the course of violence so that banishment was decreed against Boetius according to the intention of Theodorick Verily if there be any thing worthy of commiseration in the world it is to behold offenders sit as Judges upon the bloud of an innocent and to consider that afflicting a man with all extremitie they also deprive him of the pretious jewel of reputation which maketh us live in the estimation of honest men a pleasing and spiritual life as do many great-ones in the memorie of all ages The wise Boetius after he had wasted himself with love and travel for his Countrie is taken out
affairs of Christianitie in this flourishing Monarchy with prowesses and successes incomparable so likewise are we tied to her in an immortal obligation to have cast the first seeds of piety into the Court of our Kings that it might with the more authoritie enter into the souls of all their subjects The good Princess like to a pearl which cometh from the salt sea beheld her self involved almost from her birth in great acerbities and horrible confusions from whence she arose with so much lustre as she made of adversities the steps to the temple of glory She was daughter of Chilperick who contending for the scepter against Gombaut his elder brother King of Burgundy with more temeritie than reason sunk down to the ground and was forsaken by the people whom he had excited against this his brother who verily was a bad King But God who giveth Sovereigns leave to reign favouring a just cause even in the person of an evill man gave victorie to the elder He most truly made use of his fortune for having surprized his younger brother at the siege of a City he caused him to loose his head on a scaffold and not content with this murther extended his vengeance against the wife of the deceased by an act most unworthy For causing a stone to be tied to her neck she was thrown into the river and it was a great chance he had not inflicted the like upon two other virgins the lamentable remainders of this unfortunate marriage But beholding them as yet so young and innocent he thought their life could not be prejudicial to his estate and their death might be ignominious to his reputation Behold the reason why he contented himself to shut the one of them up in a Monastery and retained the other which was our Clotilda with himself that she might be bred in his Court. The holy maid entereth into the Palace of her Uncle as a sheep into a Lions den having no reason to repose much assurance in a man who still had the bloud of her father and mother in his hands Notwithstanding great is the power of virtue when it is enchaced in beautie For this cruel Basilisk who had an eye of bloud and poyson no sooner considered the praise-worthy parts of this Princess but that feeling himself dazeled with her aspect and his heart softened with the innocency of this poor orphan he instantly took compassion upon her who never inclined to it before He began to behold her with a pleasing countenance to endear her to wish and promise her much good But the good creature who could not think after so strange an affliction she was any more to pretend to greatness and pleasures of the world threw her self between the arms of the Cross that there she might find those of God and though in publick she stifeled the resentments of her sorrow with a discreet patience not resisting the storm nor striking her head against the rocks yet in the secrecy of her retirement she daily dissolved her self into tears and found no comfort but in the wounds of the worlds Saviour My God said she to him I adore your holy providence which drencheth me with gall and wormwood in an age wherein maidens of my qualitie accustom not to walk but on roses perhaps you know my pride hath need of such a counterpoise and you in all equitie have done that which your wisdom thought good Behold I have my eyes still all moistened with the bloud of my father and the bodie of my poor mother which being covered with so many waves cannot have over it one silly tear from the eyes of her daughter which fail not every night to pour forth streaming rivers My God Your name be blessed eternally I require nought else of you but the participation of your sufferings It is no reason I here should live without some light hurt seeing you wounded on all sides for my example Some have been pleased to wish me I should receive and take contentments in the hope of a better fortune where would they have me gather those pleasures I am yet upon the weeping shores of the river of Babylon I fix all my consolations and songs at the feet of your Cross promising to desire nothing more in the world but the performance of your holy will There is I know not what kind of charm in holy sadness which cannot be sufficiently expressed but such it is that a soul contristated for God when it is fallen into abysses wherein all the world reputes it lost findeth in the bottom of its heart lights and sweetnesses so great that there is not any comfort in the world to be compared with them Clotilda was already come to these terms and if for obedience she had not learned to leave God for God she had been softened with those tears by suffering her self voluntarily to slide into a lazy sorrow but considering that whilest she was in the house of this uncle an Arian heretick she was bound by God to instruct with her example all those who were to be spectatours of her actions she set her hand couragiously to the work and shewed her self so able of judgement in her carriage and so regular in all her deportments that her life became a picture of virtue which spake to all the world Although she were derived from the bloud of Kings she shewed to have no other nobility but that which springs from worthy Actions As her face was free from adulterate beauty so her soul was exempt from those affected authorities and disdains which ordinarily grow with great fortunes Her aspects were simple and dove-like her words discreet her actions sober her gestures measured her carriage honest her access affable her conversation full of sweetness and profit She was a virgin in mind and body living in marvellous purity of affections and amities which she fomented by the virtue of humility which the Ancients esteemed to be as the wall of the garden of charity God oftentimes suffering impurity of body to chastise the rebellion of the soul She was so humble of heart that she accounted her self as the meanest servant of the house not scorning at all to apply her self to inferiour offices which she notwithstanding performed with so much majesty that even in spinning with a distaff she seemed a Queen She was marvellously wise in her counsels prompt and agil in execution moderate in all good successes constant in bad ever equal to her self She spake little never slandered envied none did good to all the world not pretending her own interests expecting from God alone the character of her merit and the recompence of her charities She had no worldly thing in her person and as little regarded her attyres as the dust of the earth She knew almost but one street in the City where she dwelt which was the same that lead to the Church Sports and feasts were punishments to her and she was seldom found in the company of men unless it were
so many charities since the doors of Churches from whence we expect good are kissed Clotilda was much pleased with this reply and well saw this man belyed his habit by his discourse and garb She therefore importuned to tell who he was and from whence it proceeded that he was reduced to such misery as to beg his bread Madam saith Aurelianus since your Greatness presseth me thus far you shall know I am born of a good place and that it which hath brought me to this state is nothing els but the love of a Lady whom I court not for my self but for one of the greatest Princes under Heaven The maid was very curious to know who this Prince was as also the Lady sought unto with so much pains Aurelianus seeing it was now time to speak to the purpose said The Lady is three steps from me for indeed it is your self At which she began to blush again and to shew some disturbance of mind but quoth he Madam trouble not your self since I am in a place where I with confidence may speak unto you your Excellency shall know I am sent by Clodovaeus King of France my Master who is the best Prince and the most valiant Monarch in the whole world The fame of your most precious and eminent qualities coming to his ear he desireth to marry you and hath dispatched me to give you notice thereof and require your consent I could have entered into the Court with some very solemn Embassage but the difficulties the King your uncle enforceth upon you made me resolve to take this attyre to speak to you with the more freedom You may well assure your self this marriage shall make you the prime Queen of the West and the most happy in the world and to approve the authority of my commission behold the ring of the King my Master which I present unto you There is not any woman so holy who is not capable of much delight upon praises afforded her and who doth not willingly open her eyes to greatness Clotilda was not so insensible as not to be touched to the quick with such an Embassage howsoever she shewed in this surprisal she had within her a heart very faithful to God for most freely refusing the ring and interrupting the Embassadour Speak no more Syr said she I know your Prince is a Pagan and I a Christian God forbid that I ever marry an Infidel were he the Monarch of the world Madam replieth the Gentleman frame to your self no difficulties upon the difference of Religions my Prince is not so tied to his Sect as not to forsake it for your love But what means will there be said Clotilda to gain my uncle I do not think he hath any purpose to marry me The Embassadour answereth If you give me your consent we will find opportunity to bear you from hence Not so replyed the prudent maid it is a course I will never admit Ah why Madam saith Aurelianus should you do it who would condemn your discretion Is it a sin in your Religion to flie from the den of a furious wretch to resign your self into the hands of a King We know how he used your father and mother and how he also treateth you at this time At this word the Lady poured forth some tears and said Do by Embassadours all that possibly you can and assure the King your Master that I hold my self much honoured by the choise he maketh of me and that he cannot be so soon for God as I for him at least in heart and body when the King my uncle shall give me leave Upon these conditions I take your ring which I very charily will keep All this passed very happily in a Court of the Palace where she ordinarily spake to the poor interrogating them of their necessities and none perceived there was any other business but the care of the poor her confident friend onely excepted who had a share in the secrets of Clotilda The third SECTION The Embassage to the King of Burgundy for the marriage of Clotilda AUrelianus touched Heaven with his finger that he had so successefully thrived in his commission and forgot not parcel-meal to relate to the King his Master all the particulars of his voyage entertaining him above all with a curious discourse made upon the admirable beauty and singular prudence of Clotilda Clodovaeus burnt with impatience and would presently have taken the King of Burgundy by the beard to make him let go his hold but wisdom adviseth him he must observe therein requisite formalities and that it was fit to send his Embassadours to Gombaut to require of him his neece in marriage which he speedily did appointing thereunto his faithful Aurelianus to whom he allotted a flourishing company of Nobility which caused such apprehensions to arise in the mind of the Burgundian that he slept not upon it either night or day From whence proceedeth it said he to himself that Clodovaeus knoweth my neece since I have hitherto kept her so close that she hath seen nothing but the wals of the Church and my Palace Is there some eel under a rock Would he have my estate This French man is too harsh I would neither have him for a son in law nor a neighbour Besides this maid who hath seemed hitherto as a lamb in my house being at my dispose when she behold her self Queen of France and have swords at her command who can tell whether she will not shew me her teeth and revenge on me the bloud of her father and mother I must rather keep her immured within ten iron gates that she may not escape my power Behold a great act of State which I must cunningly play This man environed with such thoughts receaved the Embassadours of France very sleightly and having promised with all speed to give them answer he was wary enough not to discover all the thoughts he had thereupon but taking the most pleasing pretext answered that he honoured the King Clodovaeus as one of the most valiant Princes of that Age and should ever account the service done him as one of the greatest favours he could receive from Heaven but as for this alliance which he sought it was a matter he could not thinke on First because his neece had never raised her ambition so high as to pretend marriage with so great a King having nothing in her person so eminent as might deserve such a husband and although there were some equality on this side yet was there on the other part an assential impediment which was diversity of Religions it being a thing unheard of for a Christian maid to marry a Pagan nor could he permit it without betraying the salvation of his nlece and disgracing himself through the whole world Aurelianus who well knew where it itched with him replyed in few words That for the qualities of his neece he should not trouble himself that the woman best beloved was ever best conditioned that it was
spared to use many love-dalliances but the affection she bare to this good Queen was so great that it razed out of his heart all other love as the ray of the sun scattereth the shadows and phantasms of the night The holy Lady perceiving the spirit of her husband already moved in hers and that there was no need of power but example so composed her manners in her marriage that she made her self a perfect model of perfections requisite for this estate Royal Crowns loose their lustre on heads without brains and brows without Majesty But this Lady made it presently appear that although her birth had not made her worthy of a Crown nor her good fortune had afforded it her merit alone had been of power to make her wear the best diadem in the world She practised in the Court of a Pagan King a strong vigorous devotion which was not puffed up with outward shews and vapours but wholy replenished with wisdom For she had a fear of God so chast that she apprehended the least shadows of sin as death a love so tender that her heart was as a flaming lamp which perpetually burned before the Sanctuary of the living God Her faith had a bosom as large as that of Eternity her hope was a bow in Heaven all furnished with emeralds which never lost its force and her piety an eternal source of blessings She had made a little Oratory as Judith in the royal Palace where she attended as much as time would permit to prayers and mortifications of flesh abiding therein as in a fortunate Island which made the sweetness of her immortal perfumes to mount up to heaven Yet did she mannage all her actions with singular discretion that she might not seem too austere in the eyes of her Court for fear weak souls might be diverted from Christianity by observing in her carriage perfections transcendent above ordinary capacities But all that which most passed in a common life was done by her and her maids with much purity fervour majesty and constancy It was an Angelical spectacle to see her present at Mass and dispose her self to receive the blessed Sacrament which she very often frequented to draw grace and strength from its source She honoured Priests as Messengers descended from Heaven as well to discharge her conscience as to hold her Religion in much estimation among Pagans The zeal of the houses of God which are Churches enflamed her with so much fervour that she had no delights more precious than either to cause new to be raised or to adorn those which had been erected so far as to make them receive radiance from the works of her royal hands Her charity towards the poor was a sea which never dryed up and her heart so large that all the hearts of the miserable breathed in hers She composed and decked herself dayly before the eyes of God putting on all virtues as it were by nature and rich attire of Ladyes for necessity But the King her husband she honoured as if she had seen the Saviour of the world walking upon the earth and not staying alone on the body she penetrated even to the center of this infidel soul which she beheld with eyes of unspeakable compassion She most particularly endeavoured to observe all his humours and follow the motions of his heart as certain flowers wait on the sun All that which Clodovaeus affected took presently an honourable place in the soul of Clotilda if he delighted in arms in dogs in horses she for his sake praysed arms dogs and horses regarding even the objects of the honest pleasures of her husband as her best entertainments Her conversation was full of charms and attractives which ever carryed profit along with them Sometimes she sweetened the warlick humours of her husband with harmony of reason sometimes she comforted him upon occasion of troubles which might happen in the world sometime she withheld very soberly and with prudent modesty his spirit which took too much liberty sometime she repeated unto him certain precepts of wisdom and practices of the lives of Saints and worthy personages that he might love our Religion sometime she pleased him with an eloquent tongue and an entertainment so delicate that nothing might be said more accomplished She was magnificent and liberal towards her household servants most exactly taking notice of the faithful services they yielded to her husband and kept her house so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it seemed as it were a little Temple of peace Slander uncleaness idleness impudence were from thence eternally banished virtues industry and arts found there a mansion and the miseries of the world a safe Sanctuary For she embraced all pious affairs of the Realm and governed them with so much equality of spirit that she resembled Angels who move the Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation May we not very well say this divine woman was selected out by God to a set golden face on an entire Monarchy by the rays of her piety The fifth SECTION The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her husband THe holy Queen brought forth a King and a great Monarch to Jesus Christ bearing perpetually his Court and the whole Kingdom in the entrails of her charity She had her Centinels day and night before the Altars who ceased not to implore the assistance for Heaven of the salvation of her husband and she her self often in deep silence of darkness caused her weeping eye to speak to God and adressed many vows to all the elect for the conversion of this unbelieving soul She very well considered that that which oftentimes slackeneth these wavering spirits in their endeavour to find the way of eternal life is certain interests of flesh and bloud certain impediments of temporal affairs some inordinate passion which tortureth and tyrannizeth over the mind Behold the cause why she took great care to sweeten the dispositions of her husband calm his passions and through a certain moral goodness facilitate unto him the way of the mysteries of our faith This being done she took her opportunity with the more effect and found the King dayly disposed better and better for these impressions He alreadie had the arrow very deep in his heart and began to ask questions proposing conditions which shewed he would one day render himself He said to Clotilda Madam I should not be so far alienated from your Religion were it not that I saw therein matters very strange which you would have me believe by power and authotity not giving any other reason thereof You would have me believe that three are but one in your Trinity that I adore a Crucified man and that I crucifie my self in an enforced and ceremonious life wherein I was never bred My dearest had I your good inclinations all would be easie to me but you know that all my life time I have been trayned up in arms If I should to morrow receive
content the King my father and yours who requireth from you no other satisfaction The good Prince answered Ab Brother What have you said you lately perswaded me to an act of pietie at the peril of my life think not now to induce me to an impietie although it should concern all the lives and Kingdoms of the world Behold here the time for you to reign and for me to die I willingly die for the honour I ow to my Religion for which I gladly would suffer death a thousand times if it were possible I neither accuse you nor my father whom I more compassionate than my self and counsel you to render him all the duties of pietie in the decrepitness of age whereinto he is entered As for our step-mother I pray you rather to endure her nature than revenge my death It is the work of God to take knowledge of injuries and for us to bear them When my soul shall leave this miserable bodie it shall ceaselesly pray for you and I hope most dear brother you in the end will renounce this poor libertie which entertaineth you in the sect of the Arians and if dying men use to divine I foretel that being converted to the faith you shall lay foundations of Catholick Religion in all this Kingdom which I am about to moisten with my bloud Recaredus used all the intreaties he could devise never being able to shake the constancy of his brother which much offended King Levigildus and transported him into resolutions very bloudy Notwithstanding those who might yet speak unto him with some liberty counselled him to precipitate nothing in an affair of so great consequence saying there was no apparence that Hermingildus had undertaken any plot against the life and State of his father since he came so freely to present himself upon his bare word that those who find themselves guilty use not to come to burn themselves as butter-flies at the candle That his countenance at this interview was too sweet his speech too proper his deportments too candide to cover so black a mischief and as for change of Sect it was no wonder if the King having given him a Catholick wife he had taken that Religion with its love that it was a complement of a lover which age would bend experience sweeten and prudence in the end deface that he had at that time more need of a Doctour than an executioner since the apprehensions of God were distilled in the heart by the help of tongues not the dint of swords The seventeenth SECTION The death of Hermingildus THe faction of Goizintha transported beyond all considerations ceased not to sound in the ears of the King that Hermingildus was not an offender whose power was to be neglected That his crime was not such as might promise him impunity that the laws of the Countrey had never tolerated such practises that he had violated right both divine and humane becoming a fugitive from his Countrey an Apostata in his religion arebel to the power of his father in such sort that to render his wound incurable he had changed all lenitives into poison That he had levied arms against his Sovereign without regard of his age his name the majesty of the Kingdom and the voice of nature and that there was nothing but the despair of his affairs which had taken them out of his hands That he held correspondence with the enemies of the State to whom he was become an assistant and a companion and now to make himself as impudent to defend a crime as bold to execute it had cast all the fault of his conspiracies upon the Queen his mother-in-law and the marriage of his father shewing himself so insolent in his misery that there was nothing to be expected but tyranny from his prosperity that it was to be extreamly arrogant even to stupidity to seek to retain a chymaera of piety contrary to the will of his father and that never would he be so constant in his superstition if he had not leagued all the interests of his fortune with the Catholicks enemies of the Kingdom That if order were not taken therein they should be hereafter deprived of the power to deliberate on it when they had given him all the means to execute it The credulity of the unfortunate father was so strongly assaulted by these discourses that he resolved to go beyond himself so that on a night which was Easter Eye he dispatched a messenger to the prison with an executioner to let him know he was speedily to make his resolution to choose either life and scepter by returning to the Religion of the Arians or death by persisting in the Catholick That he had a sword and a Crown before his eyes the one for glory the other for punishment the choice of either was referred to himself Hermingildus made answer he had already sufficiently manifested his determination upon this Article that he would rather die a thousand deaths than ever separate himself from the Religion which he had embraced with all reason and full consideration The Commissary replied The King your Father hath given me in charge that in case of refusal I should proceed to execution of the sentence decreed against you What saith Hermingildus He hath condemned you by express sentence saith the other to have your head cut off in this same prison where you are Whereupon the holy man fell on his knees to the earth and said My God my Lord I yield you immortal thanks that having given me by the means of my father a frail brittle and miserable life common unto me with flies and ants you now afford me on this day by these sentences a life noble happie glorious to all eternitie Then rising up again he requested the Commissary he would by his good favour suffer a Catholick Priest to come to him to hear his Confession and dispose him to death He answered It was expresly forbidden by the King his father but if he would admit an Arian Bishop he should have one at his pleasure No saith he for I have detested yea and do still abhor Arianism even to the death and since my father denieth me a favour which ordinarily is granted to the guiltie I will die having no other witness but mine own conscience Which having said he kneeled down again and made his confession to God praying very long for his father his step-mother all his enemies and pronouncing also at his death the name of his dear Indegondis to whom he professed himself bound with incomparable obligations Then afterward having recommended his soul to God under the protection of the most holy Virgin his good Angel and all the Saints he stretched out his neck to the executioner which was cut off with one blow of an ax So many stars as at that instant shined in Heaven in the dead silence of the night were so many eyes open over the bloudy sacrifice of this most innocent Prince from whom a wretched father took
of sundry mutations But God being from all eternity a most pure Act as he hath not any thing but himself can have no difference with himself He hath nothing Non sui aliquia optimum hibet unun optimum totâ—â— S. Bernard l 5. de consider in himself better than himself He hath no part eminent one above another For he is without parts and all that agreeth to him under this title I am what I am 5. If you are not yet satisfied enough concerning the greatness of this sovereign Being and demand something more particular the Word will tell you in S. John what he learned in the bosom of his Father God is spirit All substance in the world or Deus spiritus est Joan. 4. Beauty of spirit above the world is spirit or body but as the body is base and abject so beauty strength power abideth in the power and jurisdiction of spirit It is the spirit which doeth all which animateth which acteth which quickeneth which governeth all the instruments of nature which worketh great miracles in little bodies and hath nothing so admirable as it self The better part in us is spirit and God is nothing Totus spiritus ennoia totus ratio totus lumen Iren. l. 2. c. 16. but spirit all spirit all intelligence all reason all light said S. Irenaeus But what spirit but God the Father and Creatour of spirits who is as much exalted above the highest Intelligences as spirits are above bodies Our spirits resemble the fire of this inferiour region a gross and material fire which cannot here live unless you put it to wood cole grease or such like But the spirit of God is like the fire near to the celestial globes which Philosophers hold to be tenfold more subtile than air and not to stand in need of any nourishment in its sphere but from its self If we consider the four perfections which give us Perfections of God Magnitudinis ejus non est futis Psal 145. Excesâ—uâ— iâ—mensus Baruc. 4. Intra omnia sed non inclusus extra omnia sed non exclusus Isodor de summo bono c. 2. a full Idaea of the divine Essence to wit infinity immensity immutability eternity this great Spirit possesseth them by title of essence Strive not to comprehend him for he is infinite Infinite not in a certain manner not by comparison of one thing with another not in possibility but absolutely actually infinite as an ample and most glorious treasure of all essences and perfections Assign him no limits for he is immeasurable extended through all measures without measure not by a local extent but an indivisibility of presence He is high and immense He is in the whole universe without confinement He is out of all the universe without any exclusion from it Represent him not to your self under many forms if you desire to figure him in his Nature for he is immutable Enquire not of his age for it exceedeth Non peragitur in to bodiernus dies tamen peragitur quia in co sunt ists omnia August 1. Confess c. 6. eternity such as you may imagine it The present day passeth not with him and yet he is in it since all things are in him But if we regard the three excellencies which in your opinion more concern divine manners to wit Wisdom Goodness and Sanctity I not onely affirm he is wise but I say he is the abyss which swalloweth all wisdoms I do not onely say he is good but the Sanctimonia magnificentis in sanctifiratione ejus Psal 95. 6. source of goodness nature bounty a source never emptied but into it self which continually streameth out of it self I do not onely say he is holy but the root the object the example form of all sanctities Finally if we behold the eminencies which illustrate him in repsect of the eye he hath over exteriour things as are power jurisdiction providence justice and mercy this Spirit is so powerful that he can all but impotency so predominate that there is not any thing from heaven to hell which boweth not under his Laws so provident that he hath a care of the least butterfly in the ayr as well as of the highest Cherubin of the Empyreal Heaven so just that his ballance propendeth neither to one side nor other so merciful that he pardoneth all O great God! Great Spirit How terrible art thou to our understandings and how amiable to our wils Thou commandest by words thou ordainest by reason thou accomplishest by virtue all which is and giving birth to all things onely reservest to thy self Eternity Let it not then be strange if strucken with those rays which dazeled the eyes of Seraphins we yield to thy greatness and rather choose to enter by love into thy knowledge than by knowledge into thy love 6. Let us also in conclusion reflect on this munificent Spirit who replenisheth all the world with his bounty spreading it over all creatures with incomparable sweetness Do you not think you behold the An excellent similitude of God with the Ocean great OceaÌ„ which incessantly furnisheth the air with vapours and waters for all the earth dividing himself to so many objects yet perpetually entire in his greatness and ever regular in the measure of his eternal passages He is singular in essence but very divers in his titles and effects and making his circuit round about the world every one gives him names after his own manner Some call him Indian others Persian some Arabick some Aethiopian and some Britanick others surname him with epithets quite different every one deviseth what he list and in the mean time he ceaseth not perpetually to pass on his way and not content to encompass the whole earth as with a girdle he cleaveth the mountains of Calpe from Arbyla those famous pillers of Hercules to enter thereinto and bedew the world with his pleasing streams He runs a long way he makes a great circuit he advanceth delivious Islands in the midst of his bosom one while he swelleth upon one side presently retireth back from another He is angry he is pacified He bears and swalâ—oweth vessels He engulphs earth he killeth flames he sometimes by long wandering passages goeth under the world and purifying his waters distilled through those large sources maketh fountains and rivers to moisten mortals And that nothing may be wanting to his greatness he mounts up to heaven there to beget clouds and entertain store-houses of waters as in Cobweb lawn to give afterward the spirit of life to trees to plants and all the productions of nature Oh how admirable is he Yet is all this but a silly drop of dew in coÌ„parison of the divine Essence God who is all in all things being not able to be sufficiently known by us in the simplicity of his Essence is called by many names signified by an infinite number of figures represented in divers attributes and
her for love which she cannot have by nature It is a shadow of the goodness of God who ceaseth not to provide for our necessities to love us as his children Hosea 11. Et ego quasi nutritius Ephraim portabam eos in brachiis meis nescierunt quod curarem eos In funiculis Adam traham eos in vinculi◠charitatis Exod. 2. to defend us as the apple of his eye I was said he by his Prophet as the foster-father of my people I bare them all between my arms they never vouchsafing to open their eyes to my protection Yet will I draw them to me by the hands of Adam which are the chains of my charity Behold in Exodus the little Moses who floateth on Nilus in a cradle of reeds the mother for fear of the rigour of men abandoneth him to death the sister followeth him with her eyes to see what will become of him but her weakness could do nothing to warrant him from danger God in the mean space becomes the Pilot of this little bark he conducteth it without sails without rudder without oars he bears it upon the waves he makes it arrive at a good haven He draweth out this infant who was as a victim exposed to make of him a God of Pharaoh one day to drown in the red sea the posterity of those who would have drenched him in Nilus 8 Adde to this immenss goodness justice an inseparable His Justice virtue of the Divinity which seems to oblige God to preserve and direct what he created But it is to judge most abjectly of this divine understanding to say as did Averroes he abused his magnificence and soyled his dignity if he busied himself in the mannage of so many trifles S. Ambrose judged better when he said If God wrong himself in the government Amb. l. 1. offic c. 13. Si injuria est regere multò major injuria fecisse cum aliquid non fecisse nulla sit injustitia non curare quod feceris summa inclementia of the world did he not himself a greater injury in creating it For to do or not to do what one is not obliged unto hath no injustice in it but to abandon a creature after it is produced is a stain of inhumanity And if we regard the justice which appertaineth to the government of men what malignity and prostitution of mind were it to think souls the most caitive having some spark of justice yet God who must be sovereign perfection would suffer the world to be exposed to fortune or delivered over to tyrāny as a prey and a booty without any care of it or inquiry into injustices There is not any Age which could not furnish out a million of proofs against these mischievous beliefs if we would open our eyes to consider them but our distrusts and pusillanimities blind us and alienate us from knowledge of those truths which God reserveth for the most purified souls 9 To conclude the last colume which should settle His Power our faith in the verity of divine government is the magistral power God exerciseth over all the world which he ruleth tempereth and directeth with one sole thought much otherwise than did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. de mundo heretofore those practick wits who vanted to animate statues because they by certain engines gave them motion Wretched and blind that we are ever bowed down to the earth perpetualy divested of those great lights of Saints We measure God by the ell of men we cloth him after our fashion and we hold impossible to the Divinity what our understanding cannot comprehend Shall we never say with the Prophet Jeremiah O most strong O onely great and Hier. 32 19. Fortissime magne potens Domine excercituum nomen tibi magnus consilio incomprehensibilis cogitatu cujus oculi aperti sunt super omnes vias filiorum Adam onely potent The God of bosts is thy name Thou art great in thy counsels incomprehensible in thy cogitations and thy eyes are upon all the waies of the children of Adam We daily see upon men who are but worms of the earth so many tokens of Gods power A King speaketh and a hundred thousand swords hasten out of scabbards at the sound of one syllable A master of a family builds and at one silly beck behold so many artificers so many mules and horses some draw materials out of the bottom of quarries others carry them in waggons some make morter and cement others hew stones some raise them aloft others lay them some play the carpenters and others polish marbles There are some who work in iron and others in brass all is done to the liking of one man who is possessed of a little money Do you never consider God as a great King in an army as a great father of a family in a house who by his sovereign power governs all he created not with a toilsome care but an incomparable facility He gave in the begining of the creation an instinct to all Guil. Par. de vnivers 1. p. par 3. c. 14. Nascitur aranea cum lege libro lucern◠living creatures and there is not any so little a spider which comming into the world bringeth not its rules its book its light it is presently instructed in all it should do God speaketh interiourly to all creatures in a double language with a powerfull impression a secret commandement he gives a signal into the world and every one doth his office every one laboureth regularly as in a ship and all things Deus ipse universa sinu perfectae magnitudinis potestatis includit intentus sempe operi suo vadens per omnia movens cuncta vivificans universa Tertul. l. de Trin. c. 2. agree to this great harmony of heaven The little Nightingal in the forrests makes an Organ of her throat sometimes breaking her notes into warbles sometime stretching them out at length The Swallow is busie in her masonrie the Bee toileth all the day in her innocent thefts the Spider furnisheth out the long train of her webs and makes more curious works with her feet than the most skilfull women can weave with their hands Fishes play their parts under the water beasts of service labour in their duty small grains of seed though dead and rotten give life to great trees which advance to the clouds There is nothing idle in all nature nothing disobedient but men and divels who employ their liberty to resist him whose power is as just as it is eternal 10 Let us then concluding this discourse adore the divine Providence which holdeth the helm of the universe Let us behold it as a watch-tower furnished with a thousand fires that abundantly enlighten this Ocean whereon we sail Let us behold it as a burning pillar in the wilderness of this life Let us behold it as our pole-star and never loose sight of it It is our support our sweetness our
not be possible to God he being Omnipotent Immense Infinite How according to the confession of ancient Philosophers can he replenish all the world with his Divnity and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery in a quite other fashion than the Spirit of God is with the world I admit it For the union of it is truely personal But must it not be confessed the Word in this divine Essence as under title of efficient cause it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world and as under title of final cause it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures so under title of substantial bound it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions Is it not a shamefull thing that man will estimate and set a value upon the Divine Essence If God please not man he shall not be God Should we say man is incapable of this communication And how is it that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God to the prejudice of his own exaltation since it is found as soon in the union of the Word as in the possession of Essence See we not in nature that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth and incorporated with them do create Meteors in the air not any one making resistance to his exaltation What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said This union of God with man might be very fit and Plutarch also Plutarch in Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the communication of the Creatour with the creature pronounced these words That God was not a lover of birds nor other living creatures but a lover of men and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves and delights But this would seem to abase the Divinity Hear what Volusianus said I wonder that he to whom this whole Volusianus Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latetâ— cui parva putatur universilas c. universe is so small can be shut up within the bodie of a little child having a mouth open to crie as others What uncomeliness is there if God be united to a little body Have not Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est and Seneca (b) (b) (b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit Deus à se non decessit August said That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies and that it was a slavery in Great-ones to be unable to be little I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature From whence proceedeth this amazement but from the baseness of our thoughts If we said God being made man ceased to be God and were despoiled of his Empire Greatness Essence there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy not leaving himself when we say humane nature is received into the Word as a small source into a huge river and not loosing its Essence is fixed upon the personality of the Word it self is it not to honour the power majesty and wisdom of God 5. In what were the Divinity abased Can it be in doing a work so noble so singular so divine that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels through times and eternity What is more specious and more sweet than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature to wit of God and man verily say I one composed of an unheard-of composition to render the majesty of his father palbable and visible to the hands and eyes of mortals What dignity to behold in the world a Man-God become a part of the world to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity who proposed this person as the end of his communications the bound of his power the first-born of all creatures who held all Ages in breath for him all hearts in desires all minds in expectation all creatures in prophesies The Book of God hath written me In copite libri scriptum est de me Psal 39. 8. in the beginning of its first page said the Word with the Psalmist All creatures of this great universe all predictions and conceptions of these two great books the world and the Bible tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent sensitive and vegetative All creatures were but leaves and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth The fruit of earth sublime Isaiah 4. 20. We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard Religiose dicendum reverentér audiendum est quis propter hunc hominon gloris honâ—re coronandum Deus omnis creavit Rupert l. 13. de glor Trinit proces Spi. Sancti with reverence It is for this incomparable man that God created the world and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory which covereth his head What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp to praise and declare unto men the Name of God to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort and every one of them to honour this first Essence by so many distinct perfections notwithstanding all to confess their ability cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate which passing through all the spheres of nature grace and glory enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father he manifesteth them to men and making himself an adoring God a loving God an honouring God he adoreth he loveth he honoureth God so much as he is adorable amiable and honourable through all Ages for evermore Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge and love of the Word revealed Let us adore this great sign this eternal character of the living God for whom all signs are Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life wherein we afford him not three things due to him by titles so lawfull Homage Love Imitation Homage by adoring him and offering him some small service directed according to times in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him by an entire comformity of our wils to his Love
eternal seed of so many sundry books as were hitherto published and which will encrease to the consummation of the world And although the most able Philosophers had they been persecuted by Tyrants would not willingly have lost a tooth for defence of their Maxims yet the wisdom of our Saviour is such that having possessed the heart and hands of those who profess it causeth them to pour out all the bloud of their veins and to use so much courage for preservation thereof as it afforded them lights in its establishment 5. From thence consider it is his absolute power over His power Data est mihi â—â—nis potestas in coelo in terrd Matth. 28. 18. all things and note if you please that it is manifested principally in three Articles First the facility of prodigies and miracles which appeared in Jesus Christ For this large house of nature which we call the world had no other motion but from his will and he therein commanded so universally that he seemed to hold the Heavens and elements under hire to be instruments of his wonders He lighted new stars at his birth he eclipsed the ancient Sun at his death he walked on waters as on marble pavements he caused the earth to cast up the dead four days after We find many of Pharaoh's Magicians have done false miracles but it was saith Saint Augustine by speedily applying active natural things to passive We find Saints have done true miracles but in the quality of Ministers It onely appertaineth to Jesus Christ to do them with an original power which hath its source in his bosom with an absolute command which receiveth not any modification in all nature with a simple will which needeth no other instruments It onely belongeth to him to do them for the full mannage of the worlds government and to transmit them into the person of Saints to the consummation of Ages In the second place I say this power marvellously shineth in the great Empire of the Church which his Heavenly Father hath put into his hands to build it raise it cement it with his bloud illuminate it with his lights nourish it with his substance to make laws in it establish Sacraments eternize sacrifices create Pastours and Priests and invisibly to rule in it by a visible head a power not to be shaken even unto the gates of hell to exercise a jurisdiction over souls to bind them to unloose them pardon sins change hearts ordain their predestination according to his will Finally this great power appears in that he first of all opened Paradise his soul being exalted from the first day of his creation to the vision of Gods Essence and afterward passing through all the Heavens to place himself at the right hand of his Father and put his Elect into the possession of the Kingdom he had purchased by his bloud Have not we cause to crie out thereupon and say O happy he Beatus quem elegisti assumpsisli habitabit in atriis tuis replebitur in bonis domus tuae â—ancium est templum tuum mirabile in aequitate Psal 64. Temple of Justinian whom you have chosen to raise him to the Hypostatical union He shall dwell in the Palace of the Divinity and we shall be filled with the blessings of thy house Thy Temple which is his sacred Hamanitie is infinitely holy It is said Justinian having finished the magnificent Church of S. Sophie which he built with so much industry and charge such numbers and such a general contribution of endeavour of riches and power of the whole Empire placed therein a statue of Solomon who seemed to be astonished and to hide himself through shame and confusion to see his Temple surpassed by that of the Emperour It was a vanity of a worldly Prince But we in verity would we represent what passeth here should paint both Moses and all the Prophets absorpt in a profound reverence in the consideration of the Temple of the Church and the wonders of Jesus Christ 6. Let us for conclusion of this discourse adore that which we cannot sufficiently comprehend and endeavour to bear an incomparable love to the Person of our Saviour for the excellencies we have expressed But if you require the practise of this I say Practise of the love of Jesus reduced to 3. heads 1. To adhere Conglutinata est anima 〈◊〉 cum ed. Gen. 34. 3. it is reduced to three heads which are to adhere to serve and suffer The first note of faithfull affection appears in a strong adherence to the thing beloved so as the Scripture speaking of love says it causeth one soul to clasp unto another If you begin heartily to love Jesus Christ you will find you shall think upon him almost insensibly every moment and as saith S. Gregorie every time you fetch your breath there will come a pleasing idea of God to fill your soul with splendours and affection You will feel a distast and unsavouriness of heart against all earthly things so that it will seem to you that the most pleasing objects of the world are mingled with gall and wormwood You will seek for your Jesus in all creatures you wil languish after him all which beareth his name Numquid quem diligit anima mea vidistis Cantic and memory will be delightsome to you you will speak of him in all companies you will have an earnest desire to see him honoured esteemed acknowledged by all the world And if you perceive any contempt of his Person which is so estimable you will think the apple of your eye is touched Your solitude will Suspiret ac â—eties se a summo bono anima nostra sentiaâ— recessisse quoties se ab illo intuitu deprehenderit separatim fornicationem judicans vel momentaneum a Christi contemplatione discessum be in Jesus your discourse of Jesus Jesus will be in your watchings and in your sleep in your affairs in your recreations and you will account it a kind of infidelity to loose sight of him but an hour Love is a great secret very well understood by Abbot Moses in Cassianus Let our soul saith he sigh and think it self sequestred from the sovereign goodness so soon as it looseth never so little sight of the divine presence accounting it a spiritual fornication to be separated one sole moment from beholding Jesus For the second degree as it is not enough in Siquis diligit me sermonem meum servabit Ioan. 14. worldly amities to have affections languors and curious lip-complements but you must necessarily come to some good effects and considerable offices which are the marks and cement of true affection so you must not think the love of Jesus consisteth in slight affectations of idle devotion He must serve who will love his will must be wedded his command entertained and executed his liveries put on and we wholly transformed into him by imitation of his examples S. Augustine to confound the weakness
river which the other unwillingly did seeing the peril whereinto they hastened to fall They went there remaining not above six-score of five or six hundred men and having been five days on the river they landed at adventure rather constrained by night than invited by the commodiousness of place The next day they descried a squadron of about two hundred Aethiopians who came towards them which made them prepare for defence but troubled at their arms they shewing themselves peacefull enough the other by gesture and signs discovered their infinite miscries These people wholly practised in tricks of deceit and who would make benefit of this occasion let them with much ado understand they might pass along to the Kings Palace where they should be very well entertained which they attempted but approching to the Citie in arms the King of these Barbarians timorous and wicked forbade them enterance and confined them to a little wood where they remained certain days passing the time in a poor traffick of knives and trifles which they bartered for bread But this treacherous Prince who meant to catch them in the snare seeing they had some commodities sent word to Sosa he must excuse him that he denied enterance into the Citie and that two causes had put him from it The first whereof was the dearth of victual among his people and the other the fear his subjects had of the Portingales arms they never as yet being accustomed thereto But if they would deliver their weapons they should be received into his citie and his people consigned to the next towns to be well entertained This condition seemed somewhat harsh but necessity digested all They agreed with one consent to satisfie the King Eleonora onely excepted who never would consent to betray their defences in a place where they had so much need of them Behold them disarmed and separated some dispersed into several villages here and there Sosa with his wife his children and about twenty other brought to the regal Citie Scarcely was he arrived but all his company were robbed beaten with bastonadoes and used that very night like dogs whilest himself had little better entertainment For this Prince of savages took all his gold and jewels from him and drave him away as a Pyrate leaving him onely life and his poor garments As they went out of this calamity deploring their misery behold another troup of Cafres armed with javelins who set upon them and let them know they must leave their apparel if they meant not to forsake their skins They were so confoūded they neither had strength nor courage to defend themselves behold the cause why they yielded what was demanded as sheep their fleece There was none but Eleonora who preferring death before nakedness stood a long time disputing about a poor smock with these savages but in the end violence bereaved her of that which modesty sought by all means to keep The chast and honourable Lady seeing her self naked in the sight of her domesticks who cast down their eyes at the indignity of such a spectacle presently buried her self in sand up to the middle covering the rest of her body with her dissheveled hair and every moment having these words in her mouth Where is my husband then turning towards the Pilot and some of her Officers there present she said to them with a setled countenance My good friends you have hitherto afforded to my husband your Captain and to me your Mistress all the dutie may be expected from your fidelitie It is time you leave this bodie which hath alreadie paid to the earth the moitie of its tribute Go think upon saving your lives and pray for my poor soul But if any one of you return to our native Countrey be may recount to those who shall please to remember the unfortunate Eleonora to what my sins have reduced me Having spoken these words she stood immoveable in a deep silence some space of time then lifting her eyes to Heaven added My God behold the state wherein I came from my mothers womb and the condition whereunto I must quickly return on earth one part of me being already as among the dead My God I kiss and adore the rods of thy justice which so roughly though justly have chastised me Take between thy arms the soul of my most honoured husband if he be dead Take the souls of my poor children which are by my sides Take mine now on my lips and which I yield to thee as to my Lord and Father There is no place far distant from thee nor any succour impossible to thy power As she spake this Sosa her husband came having escaped out of the hands of these thieves who had robbed him and finding his wife in this state he stood by her not able to utter a word The Lady likewise spake onely with her eys which she sweetly fix'd upon him to give comfort in the violence of the insupportable afflictions But he feeling his heart wholly drenched in bitterness hastened into a wood of purpose to meet with some prey at least to feed his little childrē which were as yet by their mothers side Thence he ere long returned and found one of them already dead to which with his own hands he gave burial immediately after he went again into the forrest to hunt as he had accustomed finding no other comfort His heart was perpetually in Eleonora's where he survived more than in his own body coming to behold her once again or his last he perceived she was already deceased with his other child who died near her there being onely left two poor maids who bewailed their Lady and made the wilderness resound with their sad complaints He commanded them to retire a little aside then taking Eleonora by the hand he kissed it standing a long time with his lips fixed unto it nothing to be heard but some broken sighs That done with the help of the maids he buried her near his two children without any complaint or utterance of one word In a short space after he returned into the thickest of the forrest where it was thought he was devoured So joyning his soul at least to hers who had tied her heart to his in death with examples of her constancie THE THIRD PART OF MAXIMS Of the HOLY COURT THE DESIGN HAving in this Second Part deduced the principal Maxims which concern the direction of this present Life we enter into the other there to behold the power of death over mortal things and the immortalitie of our souls in the general dissolution of bodies We consider them in the several ways they take in their passage and then see them re-united to their bodies as in the Resurrection It is under thy eyes Eternal Wisdom and by thy favour we enter into these great labyrinths of thy Eternities therein hoping thy direction as we intend thy glorie THE THIRD PART Touching the State of the other World XV. MAXIM Of DEATH THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY
souldiers and I say to this go and he goeth and to another come and he cometh and to my servant do this and he doth it And Jesus hearing this marvelled and said to them that followed him Amen I say to you I have not found so great faith in Israel And I say to you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exteriour darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth And Jesus said to the Centurion Go and as thou hast believed be it done to thee And the boy was healed in the same hour Moralities 1. OUr whole Salvation consists in two principles The one is in our being sensible of God and the other in moving toward him the first proceeds from faith the other comes of charity and other virtues O what a happy thing it is to follow the examples of this good Centurion by having such elevated thoughts of the Divinity and to know nothing of God but what he is To behold our heavenly Father within this great family of the world who effects all things by his single word Creates by his power governs by his councel and orders by his goodness this great universality of all things The most insensible creatures have ears to hear him Feavers and tempests are part of that running camp which marcheth under his Standard They advance and retire themselves under the shadow of his command he onely hath power to give measures to the Heaven bounds to the Sea to joyn the East and West together in an instant and to be in all places where his pleasure is understood 2. O how goodly a thing it is to go unto him like this great Captain To go said I Nay rather to flie as he doth by the two wings of Charity and Humility His charity made him have a tender care of his poor servant and to esteem his health more dear than great men do the rarest pieces in their Cabinets He doth not trust his servants but takes the charge upon himself making himself by the power of love a servant to him who by birth was made subject to his command What can be said of so many Masters and Mistresses now adays who live always slaves to their passions having no care at all of the Salvation health or necessities of their servants as if they were nothing else but the very scum of the world They make great use of their labours and service which is just but neglect their bodies and kill their souls by the infection of their wicked examples Mark the humility of this souldier who doth not think his house worthy to be enlightened by one sole glimpse of our blessed Saviours presence By the words of Saint Augustine we may say he made himself worthy by believing and declaring himself so unworthy yea worthy that our Saviour should enter not onely into his house but into his very soul And upon the matter he could not have spoken with such faith and humility if he had not first enclosed in his heart him whom he durst not receive into his house 3. The Gentiles come near unto God and the Jews go from him to teach us that ordinarily the most obliged persons are most ungratefull and disesteem their benefactours for no other reason but because they receive benefits daily from them If you speak courteously to them they answer churlishly and in the same proportion wherein you are good you make them wicked therefore we must be carefull that we be not so toward God Many are distasted with devotion as the Israelites were with Manna All which is good doth displease them because it is ordinary And you shall find some who like naughty grounds cast up thorns where roses are planted But we have great reason to fear that nothing but hell fire is capable to punish those who despise the graces of God and esteem that which comes from him as a thing of no value Aspirations O Almighty Lord who doest govern all things in the family of this world and doest bind all insensible creatures by the bare sound of thy voice in a chain of everlasting obedience Must I onely be still rebellious against thy will Feavers and Palsies have their ears for thee and yet my unruly spirit is not obedient Alas alas this family of my heart is ill governed It hath violent passions my thoughts are wandering and my reason is ill obeyed Shall it never be like the house of this good Centurion where every thing went by measure because he measured himself by thy commandments O Lord I will come resolutely by a profound humility and an inward feeling of my self since I am so contemptible before thine eyes I will come with Charity toward these of my houshold and toward all that shall need me O God of my heart I beseech thee let nothing from henceforth move in me but onely to advance my coming toward thee who art the beginning of all motions and the onely repose of all things which move The Gospel for the first Friday in Lent S. Matth. 5. Wherein we are directed to pray for our Enemies YOu have heard that it was said thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemie But I say to you Love your enemies do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and abuse you that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven who maketh his Sun to rise upon good and bad and raineth upon just and unjust For if you love them that love you what reward shall you have Do not also the Publicans this And if you salute your brethren onely what do you more Do not also the heathen this Be you perfect therefore as also your heavenly Father is perfect Moralities 1. A Man that loves nothing but according to his natural inclination loves onely like a beast or an infidel The best sort of love is that which is commanded by God and is derived from judgement conducted by reason and perfected by Charity Me thinks it should be harder for a good Christian to hate than love his enemy Hate makes him our equal whereas love placeth us quite above him By hating a mans enemy he breaks the laws of God he fights against the Incarnation of Christ which was acted to unite all things in the bands of love he gives the lie to the most blessed Eucharist whose nature is to make the hearts of all Christians the lame he lives like another Cain in the world always disquieted by seeking revenge and it is a very death to him to hear another mans prosperity Whereas to love an enemy doth not bind us to love the injury he hath done us for we must not consider him as a malefactour but as a man of our own nature as he is the Image of God and as he is a Christian God doth onely command perfect
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
in your sins They said therefore to him Who art thou Jesus said to them The beginning who also speak to you Many things I have to speak and judge of you but he that sent me is true and what I have heard of him these things I speak in the world And they knew not that he said to them that his Father was God Jesus therefore said to them When you shall have exalted the Son of man then you shall know that I am he and of my self I do nothing but as the Father hath taught me these things I speak and he that sent me is with me and he hath not left me alone because the things that please him I do alwayes Moralities 1. ONe of the greatest misfortunes of our life is that we never sufficiently know our own good till we lose it We flie from that we should seek we seek that we should avoid and never begin to bewail our losses but when they are not to be recovered Those Jews possessed an inestimable treasure by the presence and conversation of the Son of God But they set light by it and so at last they lamented amongst eternal flames what they would not see in so clear a light Let us take heed of despising holy things and avoid hardness of heart which is a gulf of unavoidable mischiefs 2. It is a strange thing that God is so near us and yet we so far from him That which hinders us from finding him is because he is above and we below We are too much for the world too fast nailed to the earth too much bound to our superfluous businesses and cares of this life and too much subject to our own appetites He must not be slave to his body that pretends to receive good from God who is a Spirit He must not embark himself deeply into worldly matters who desires the society of Angels He must pass from his sense to his reason from reason to grace from grace to glory If you desire to find God search for him as the three Kings did in the manger in his humility Look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the temple in his piety Seek him as the Maries did in his Sepulcher by the meditation of death But stay not there save onely to make a passage to life 3. When you have lifted me up to the Cross saith our Saviour you shall know that I am the true Son of God And indeed it is a great wonder that the infinite power of that Divinity would manifest it self in the infirmity of the Cross It was onely for God to perform this great design ascend up to his throne of glory by the basest disgraces of the world The good thief saw no other title or sign of his kingdom but onely his body covered over with bloud and oppressed with dolours He learned by that book of the Cross all the glory of Paradise he apprehended that none but God could endure with such patience so great torments If you will be children of God you must make it appear by participation of his cross and by suffering tribulation By that Sun our Eagle tries his young ones he who cannot abide that shining ray sprinkled with bloud shall never attain to beatitude It is not comely to see a head crowned with thorns sit in a rotten chair of delicacies Aspirations O Blessed Saviour who dost lift up all the earth with three fingers of thy power raise up a little this painfull mass of my body which weighs down it self so heavily Give me the wings of an Eagle to flie after thee for I am constantly resolved to follow thee whithersoever thou goest for though it should be within the shadow of death what can I fear being in the arms of life I am not of my self nor of the world which is so great a deceiver Since I am thine by so many titles which bind me to adoration I will be so in life in death in time and for all eternity I will take part of thy sufferings since they are the scarfs of our Christian warfare Tribulation is a most excellent engine the more a man is kept under the higher he mounts He descends by perfect humility that he may ascend to thee by the steps of glory The Gospel for Tuesday the second week in Lent S. Matthew 23. Jesus said The Pharisees sit in Moses 〈◊〉 believe therefore what they say THen Jesus spake to the multitudes and to his Disciples saying Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes Pharisees All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe ye and do ye but according to their works do ye not for they say and do not for they bind heavy burdens and importable and put them upon mens shoulders but with a finger of their own they will not move them But they do all their works for to be seen of men for they make broad their Phylacteries and enlarge their fringes And they love the first places at suppers and the first chairs in the Synagogues and salutations in the market-place and to be called of men Rabbi But be not you called Rabbi for one is your Master and all you are brethren And call none father to your self upon earth for one is your Father he that is in Heaven neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master Christ he that is the greater of you shall be your servitour And he that exalteth himself shall be humble and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted Moralities 1. IT is a very dangerous errour to think that our Saviour in this Gospel had a purpose to introduce an Anarchy and to make all men equal He sheweth in many places that he would have Kings Princes Magistrates Fathers and Doctours But he would not have men to come to honours by a vain ambition nor others to honour them but onely as they have dependency upon the power of God Almighty Let every soul saith the Apostle be subject to higher Powers for there is no power but it cometh from God He gives us superiours not for us to judge but to obey them If a man cannot approve their manners he must at least reverence the character of their authority They should be good Christians for themselves but they are superiours for us He that resisteth their power doth resist God who ordained them And all the great evils happening by heresies and rebellions proceed from no other fountain but from contempt of powers established by the decree of heaven A man may pretend zeal but there is no better sacrifice than that of obedience If great persons abuse their offices God will find it out and as their dignities are great so their punishment shall be answerable 2. One of the greatest disorders of this life is that we go for the most part outwardly to please the world and are little careful of a good inward application of our selves to please God In stead of taking the way of Gods image
running to him fell upon his neck and kissed him And his son said to him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee I am not now worthy to be called thy son And the father said to his servants Quickly bring forth the first stole and do it on him and put a ring upon his hand and shoes upon his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and make merry because this my son was dead and is revived was lost and is found And they began to make merry But his elder son was in the field and when he came and drew nigh to the house he heard musick and dancing And he called one of the servants and asked what these things should be And he said to him Thy brother is come and thy father hath killed the fatted calf because he hath received him safe But he had indignation and would not go in His father therefore going forth began to desire him But he answering said to his father Behold so many years do I serve thee and I never transgressed thy commandment and thou didst never give me a Kid to make merry with my friends But after that thy son this that hath devoured his substance with whores is come thou hast killed for him the fatted calf But he said to him Son thou art always with me and all my things are thine But it behoved us to make merry and be glad because this thy brother was dead and is revived was lost and is found Moralities 1. THis parable is a true table expressing the excursions of a prodigal soul and her return to the mercy of God by the way of repentance Note that the first step which she trode toward her own destruction as Cain did was her departing from God not by changing of place but of heart It departed from the chiefest light which made it fall into an eclipse of reason and so into profound darkness She diverted her self from the greatest bounty which made her encline toward all wickedness being strayed from her sovereign being which made her become just nothing 2. She continued in sin as in a Countrey which was just nothing where she was vexed on all sides with disquiet with cares with fears and discontents All sins toss their followers as the ball is tossed at Baloon Vanity sends them to pride pride to violence violence to avarice avarice to ambition ambition to pomp and riot pomp to gluttony gluttony to luxury luxury to idleness idleness to contempt and poverty and that poverty brings them to all worldly misery For all mischiefs follow a wicked soul which departing from God thinks to find a better condition 3. Affliction opens the eyes of man and makes him come to himself that he may the better return to God There is no journey so far as when a man departs from himself not by place but by manners A sea of Licentiousness interposeth it self between his soul and innocence to divorce her from the way of goodness But Gods grace is a burning wind which dries it up and having brought man to himself takes him by the hand and leads him even to God 4. O what a happy thing it is to consider the effects of Gods mercy in the entertainment of the good father to his prodigal son The one had lost all which he had of a good son but the other had not lost what belonged to a good father The son had yet said nothing when fatherly affection pleaded for him in the heart of his father who felt the dolours of a spiritual labour and his entrails were moved to give a second birth to his son Though he were old yet he went the pace of a young man Charity gives him wings to flie to the embracements of his lost child He is most joyfull of that comes with him even of his very poverty This without doubt should give us a marvellous confidence in Gods mercy when we seek it with hearty repentance It is a sea of bounty which washeth away all that is amiss Since he hath changed the name of master into that of father he will rather command by love than reign by a predominant power No man ought to despair of pardon except he who can be as fully wicked as God is good none is so mercifull as God none is so good a father as he for when you may have lost your part of all his virtues you can never while you live lose the possibility of his mercy He will receive you between his arms without any other reason but your return by repentance 5. The same Parable is also a true glass shewing the life of those young unthrifts who think they are born onely for sport for their bellies and for pleasure They imagine their fathers keep for them the golden mines of Peru and their life being without government their expences are without measure Some of them run through the world they wander into all places but never enter into consideration of themselves They return from forrain parts loden with debts and bring home nothing but some new fantastical fashions cringes and corantoes There are many of them in whom pride and misery continue inseparable after they have lost their money and their brains Their fathers are causes of their faults by gathering so much wealth for those who know not how to use it Yet if they have the true repentance of the prodigal child he must not deny them pardon But mercy must not be had of those who ask it by strong hand or seek it by a counterfeit sorrow Aspirations IT is an accursed wandring to travel into the countrey of nothing where pleasure drops down as water from a storm the miserable consequences whereof have leaden feet which never remove from the heart Good God what a countrey is that where the earth is made of quick-silver which steals it self from under our feet when we think to tread upon it What a countrey is that where if a man gather one bud of roses he must be forced to eat a thousand thorns and be companion with the most nasty filthy beasts in their stinking ordures and be glad to eat of their loathsom draffe for want of other meat Alas I have surfetted and such a misery as this is necessary to make me remember the happiness which I possessed in thy house O mercifull Father behold my prodigal soul which returns to thee and will have no other advocate but thy goodness which as yet pleads for me within thy heart I have consumed all which I had but I could not consume thy mercy For that is as an Abyss which surpasseth that of my sins and Miseries Receive me as a mercenary servant if I may not obtain the name of a son Why shouldst not thou receive that which is thine since the wicked spirits have taken that which was not theirs Either shew me mercy or else shew me a heart more fatherly than thine and if neither earth nor heaven can
ground Saint John Climacus saith fire is no more contrary to water than rash judgement is to the state of repentance It is a certain sign that we do not see our own sins when we seek curiously after the least defects of our neighbour If we would but once enter into our selves we should be so busie to lament our own lives that we should not have time to censure those of others Aspirations O Judge most redoubtable who dost plant thy Throne within the heart of man who judgest the greatest Monarchs without leaving them power to appeal Thy judgements are secret and impenetrable That which shines to our eyes like a Diamond is like a contemptible worm in thy ballance That which we value as a Star thou judgest to be a coal We have just so much greatness virtue and happiness as we have by enterance into thy heart And he whom thou esteemest needs not the judgement of mortal man No innocent is justified nor guilty person condemned without thee and therefore I will from henceforth judge onely according to thee I will lay down all my affections and take thine so far as I shall be able and I will account nothing great but what shall be so in thy esteem The Gospel upon Wednesday the fourth week in Lent S. John 9. Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle ANd Jesus passing by saw a blind man from his nativitie and his Disciples asked him Rabbi Who hath sinned this man or his parents that he should be born blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the vvorks of God may be manifested in him I must vvork the vvorks of him that sent me whiles it is day the night cometh vvhen no man can vvork As long as I am in the vvorld I am the light of the vvorld When he had said these things he spit on the ground and made clay of the spittle and spred the clay upon his eyes and said to him Go wash in the Pool of Silo which is interpreted sent He vvent therefore and vvashed and he came seeing Therefore the neighbours and they vvhich had seen him before that he vvas a beggar said Is not this he that sate and begged Others said that this is he But others no not so but he is like him But he said that I am he They said therefore to him How vvere thine eyes opened He answered that man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said to me Go to the Pool of Silo and vvash and I vvent and vvashed and saw And they said to him Where is he He saith I know not They bring him that had been blind to the Pharisees And it vvas the Sabbath vvhen Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes Again therefore the Pharisees asked him how he saw But he said to them he put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and I see Certain therefore of the Pharisees said This man is not of God that keepeth not the Sabbath But others said How can a man that is a sinner do these signs And there vvas a schism among them They say therefore to the blind again Thou vvhat sayest thou of him that opened thine eyes And he said that he is a Prophet The Jews therefore did not believe of him that he had been blind and saw until they called the Parents of him that saw and asked them saying Is this your son vvhom you say that he vvas born blind how then doth he now see His parents answered them and said We know that this is our son and that he was born blind but how be now seeth vve know not or vvho hath opened his eyes vveknow not ask himself he is of age let himself speak of himself These things his parents said because they feared the Jews For the Jews had now conspired that if any man should confess him to be Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Therefore did his parents say that he is of age ask himself They therefore again called the man that had been blind and said to him Give glorie to God vve know that this man is a sinner He therefore said to them Whether he be a sinner I know not one thing I know that vvhereas I was blind now I see They said therefore to him What did he to thee How did he open thine eyes He answered them I have now told you and you have heard vvhy vvill you hear it again vvill you also become his Disciples They reviled him therefore and said be thou his Disciple but vve are the Disciples of Moses vve know that to Moses God did speak but this man vve know not vvhence he is The man answered and said to them For in this it is marvellous that you know not vvhence he is and he hath opened mine eyes And vve know that sinners God doth not hear But if a man be a server of God and do the vvill of him him he heareth From the beginning of the vvorld it hath not been heard that any man hath opened the eyes of one born blind unless this man vvere of God he could not do any thing They answered and said to him Thou vvast vvholly born in sins and dost thou teach us And they did cast him forth Jesus heard that they cast him forth and vvhen he had found him he said to him Dost thou believe in the Son of God He answered and said Who is he Lord that I may believe in him And Jesus said to him Both thou hast seen him and he that talketh vvith thee he it is But he said I believe Lord and falling down he adored him Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all brightness who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles as the Sun doth with the hours of the day gives eyes to a blind man and doth it by clay and spittle to teach us that none hath power to do works above nature but he that was the Authour of it On the other side a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest sight and being restored to light he renders again the same to the first fountain from whence it came He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth and of a poor beggar becomes a confessour and after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities We should in imitation of him love the light by adoring the fountain of it and behave our selves as witnesses and defenders of the truth 2. God is a light and by his light draws all unto him he makes a break of day by his grace in this life which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity But many lose themselves in this world some for want of light some by a false light and some by having too much light 3. Those lose themselves for want of light who are not at all instructed in the faith and maxims of Christian Religion and those instead of
the eternall and unquenchable fornace of all chaste affections He hath all his desires limited and replenished since as he sees nothing out of himself so he cannot desire any thing out of himself If you imagine the sea saith S. Augustine Mare co gitas non est hoc Deus omnia quae sunt in terra homines animalia non est hoc Deus Augin Psal 85. it is not God If you imagine the earth with so many rivers which moisten it so many herbs and flowers which enamel it so many trees which cover it so many living creatures which furnish it so many men which inhabite and cultivate it it is not God If you in your thoughts figure the air with all its birds so different in shape so various in plumage so diversified in their notes it is not God If you go up to those Chrystaline and Azure vaults where the Sunne and Moon and so many Starres perform their career with such measure it is not God If you behold in heaven innumerable legions of Angels Spirits of fire and light resplendent before the face of God as lamps of balsamum lighted before the propitiatory it is not God but God is he who comprehendeth all that who bounds it and incomparably surpasseth it All things say Divines are in God by way of eminency as in the Exemplar Cause which mouldeth them as in the Efficient Cause which produceth them as in the Finall Cause which determines them but they are in a manner so elate and exalted that those same which in themselves are inanimate in God are spirit and life All the Creatures we have seen produced in the revolution of so many Ages are as Actours which God Quod factum est in ipso vita erat Joh. 1. who is the great Master of the Comedy which is acted in this world kept hidden behinde the hangings in his Idea's more lively and more lustrous then they be on the stage The World strikes the hour of their Entrances and Exits of their life and death but the great Clock of God in his Eternity hath at one instant strucken all their hours Nothing to him is unexpected nothing unknown nothing new All that which tieth the desires of the most curious all that which suspendeth the admiration of the sagest all which enflameth the hearts of the most passionate Lands and Seas Magazines of Nature Thrones Theatres Arms and Empires all are but a silly drop of dew before the face of God Then how can God but live contented within himself Ecce gentes quasi stilla fitulae quasi momentum staterae reputatae sunt ecce insulae quasi pulvis exiguus Libanus non sufficiet ac ad succedendum Isa 4. 16. since the smallest streams of the fountain which springs from his bosome may suffice a million of worlds O ungratefull and faithlesse soul the same Paradise which God hath for himself he hath prepared for thee he will thou beholdest thy self that thou contemplatest thy self that thou reposest thy self in his heart yet thou flutterest up and down like a silly butterfly among so many creatures so many objects so many desires perpetually hungry ever distant from thy good ever a traitour to thy repose and glory Beggarly soul which beggest every where Miserable soul which in every place findest want in abundance Ignominious soul upon whose front all loves have stamped dishonour when wilt thou rally together all thy desires into one period When wilt thou begin to live the life of God to be satisfied with Gods contentment and to be happy with Gods felicity § 5. That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ THe second Reason that I draw from the second 2. Reason of the onely desire which Jesus had in seeking the glory of his heavenly Father Model which is the Word Incarnate the Rule and Example of all our actions is that Jesus Christ had no other desire on earth but to suffer to be dissolved and to annihilate himself for the glory of his heavenly Father by subjecting rebellious powers to his Sceptre and by gaining souls of which he infinitely was desirous even to the last moment of his life The Plato lib. de ordine universi apud Viennam Philosopher Plato in the Book of the order of the Universe writeth that all the Elements naturally desired to evaporate themselves in the Celestiall Region as it were therein to obtain a more noble and more eminent state of consistence Now the deaf and dumb desire which things inanimate have to be transformed into a nature more delicate is most apparent in the sacred Humanity of the Son of God which although it alwayes remained within the limits of its Essence it notwithstanding had an ineffable sympathy with the Divinity being totally plunged therein as iron in burning coals It in all and through all followed its motions will and ordinances as true dials wait on the Sun nor had it any desire more ordinary then to make a profusion of it self in all it had created Theology teacheth us that albeit the will of God were necessitated in certain actions as in the production of the love which sprang from the sight of God notwithstanding in others it was altogether free able to do and not to do such or such a thing according to his good pleasure as at such or such a time to go or not to go into Jury Able of two good things which were presented to chuse the one or leave the other as to do miracles rather in Jury then in Sidon Able also Nonvolebat in Judaeam ambulare Job 7. 1. to do the things ordained him by his heavenly Father out of motives and reasons such as his wisdome thought best to chuse In all those liberties never pretended he ought but the Glory and Service of his Father Good God what sublimate is made in the limbeck of Love what evaporations and what separations of things even indivisible are made in the five great annihilations which Theology contemplateth in the person of Jesus Christ First the inseparable Word of God seemeth to make a divorce but a divorce of obedience and to separate it self but with a separation alwayes adherent by the condition of a forreign nature transplanted into Radius ex sole portio de summa de spiritu spiritus de Deo Deus Tertul Apol 2. Greg. l. 28 mor. cap. 2. the Divinity Secondly he by a new miracle permitteth that this Humane nature tied to the Divine nature be separated from its subsistence its last determination and substantiall accomplishments Thirdly that Glory be separated from the estate and condition of Glory yielding his glorious soul up as a prey to sadnesse Fourthly he separateth himself not onely from the signs and conditions of a Messias but almost from the resemblance of a man being become us a worm Lastly he draws himself into the interiour of his Quasi ignis effulgens thus ardens in igne soul
which ordinary people daily draw in without any difference but would create another more pure and delicate for their own use God all good and all bounteous doth quite contrary For all that which is greatest most rare and most to be wished is beatitude which boundeth the desires of all the world and he hath shared it with us not dividing it sith he will that every one of us possesse it without division as he enjoyeth himself without distinction of felicity between persons O what a shame is it that a soul created for the delight of God beggeth its contentment from an ape from a parrot from some sauce from a dance or other thing more contemptible The blessing of God hath three things observed by Three considerable qualities in the blessings of God S. Thomas which marvelously recommend it to wit that it is most generall most intimate and most durable If we found rhe like qualities in the pleasures of the flesh I should think they were wise who provided themselves of them but if there be nothing lesse in them then all that which a well-rectified soul may desire why pursue we them to enflame our thirst and provoke our appetites as for what concerneth Generality the benefits of sense have this want they never generally delight sith the train of the Peacock Aurum tuum pax est praedia tua pax Deus tuus pax quicquid hic desideras pax tibi ent quia hoc aurum quod tibi est non potest esse argentum quod vinum est non potest esse panis quod tibi â—ux est non potest esse potus Deus tuus torum erit tibi Aug. in Psal 36. serm 1. which pleaseth the eye with its diversified paintings contents not the taste at all and that which pleaseth the taste doth not necessarily please either the touching or smelling Otherwise doth gold recreate and otherwise delight every creature hath its property and nature which limitteth the virtue thereof within a certain circumference God is the object which gathereth together all delights as he uniteth all blessings O man thou callest here under the little of Contentment all that pleaseth thee Thy gold is thy contentment and thy Farm thy contentment and thy life thy contentment but God is a contentment which includeth all other pleasures among these objects which charm thy senses that which is silver cannot be gold and that which is wine cannot become bread and that which is light cannot serve thee for drink but thy God is that alone which conteineth the models of all pleasures to be imagined Secondly if we regard the manner of delighting all pleasures of sense passe but to the outward skin and if they come to penetrate farther they beat down our senses which are not long able to bear an object so violent although it be gustfull and pleasing Our soul alone as it is in its nature is not mingled with that matter which tyeth things corporall It hath a capacity almost infinite of not being weary of its object and God who is a spirit-Creatour pierceth in into the bottome and overfloweth it with eternall felicities For as for the third consideration we see all sensuall delectations passe along like a torrent which runs through a vally but the blessings of God ever flow with an affluence which never dryeth and therefore Hugh of S. Victor very well compared the favours of heaven to Hugo l. 1. Miscellane orum tit 3. Ad oleum mundi vasa deficiunt oleum mundi in vasis deficit a miraculous oyl which the Prophet Elizeus obtained by his prayer for the good widow for as ordinarily oyl daily decreased in the vessels wherein it was put this quite contrary so multiplyed through the blessing of the Saint that the woman was enforced to say she had no more vessels to put it in And how many see we in the world who keep a wicked slight pleasure as a drop of corrupt oyl which comes to nothing and fadeth away as if it be not spent whereas the consolations of heaven do sometimes so fruitfully overflow upon faithfull souls that they confesse they have not a heart large enough to contein them O soul really penurious worthy of all the poverties on earth whom the riches of heaven cannot suffice what hast thou to do with those standing puddles of Egypt which do onely enflame thirst in thy veins wilt thou never seek for thy refreshment in the Cisterns of Bethlehem § 4. The Paradise and joyes of our Lord when he was on earth LEt us in the second instance behold what joyes Our Lord passed all his life in contentments which were necessarily due to him to give us an example to wean our selves from them Hic est filius meus dilectus in quo mihi bene complacui Mat. 17. 5. and what pleasures the incarnate word made choise of in this life since it must serve us for a modell Verily were there a man in the world worthy to live in perpetuall delight it was he in whom the heavenly Father had chosen to place his heart his joyes and contentments It is he who is called by Saint Augustine the summary of all power the Treasury of virtues the flower and quintessence of contentments the sweetnesse of delights and the perpetuall banquet of Angels As supremely potent he might afford himself all the pleasures of Monarchs as correspondently virtuous he might sanctifie them in his own person As being in possession of the most pure delight in such sort that the onely aspect of his face served for a delicious Totius potestatis summa thesaurus virtutuâ—â— flos delectationum amoenitas deliciarum convivium Angelorum Aug. hom in Exurgens Maria feast to all the blessed souls he seemed to be inseparable from joy He notwithstanding would take so poor a part in the comfort of the world that he who will consider and behold the whole Table of his life from the time of his birth to his death shall find he chose the life of a Halcyon who liveth among thorns whereof her nest is made and on the trembling agitation of waters which serve it for a moving chariot The life of Jesus Christ was a thorny life among a thousand difficulties which invironed it on all sides a life tossed with a thousand afflictions which afforded him no rest a life like unto a piece of Tapestry wrought with threads of gold wherein there was nothing but thickets of bryers and brambles Good God! if we be threatned by some evil we try all manner of helps we offer vows to all the saints and make heaven and earth to conspire if we can to free us from it we beseech God to do miracles in our behalf that we may suffer nothing and he doth a perpetuall one in himself to endure all which a supreme cruelty could invent and an equall patience suffer He permitted sadnesse to settle on him even in the bosome of Beatitude as if a King should
habit of penance with which he was put into the hands of the Guard and a few dayes after led along in Lotharius his train All Histories mourn in the horrour of this narration and there is not any who in his thoughts condemns not the Authours of this attempt But this good King being re established by the endeavour of his best Subjects did never pursue his injuries witnessing in all occasions an extream facility to be reconciled to his children and when afterward he was upon the point of death he rallyed together all he had of life spirits and strength to forgive them asked of God that he would not take vengeance upon their crimes This was to fulfil the whole law and to do at the Court all that which the most perfectly religious can perform in a Cloister 18. I will yet tell you for a conclusion that there are certain industries which they who are near great ones may use to appease their Anger and to divert the pernicious effects by some delay which is the best Counsellour Argentre this furious passion can have This is to be seen in the course that Bavalon took Addresse of Bavalon to appease that anger of the Duke of Brittaign with the Duke of Brittaigne The Prince being offended with the Count of Clisson Constable of France resolved to take him in a snare and undo him To compasse this enterprise he made a great feast whereto he invited all the principall Lords of Brittaigne courting Clisson with incomparable courtesie After all he let him see his Castle of Lermine where leading him from story to story and from chamber to chamber he brought him to the chief Turret praying him to consider the fortifications to reform the defects whilst he spake a word to Seigneur Laval brother in law to Clisson He no sooner entred in but he saw himself arrested by the Guard and put into irons with commandment given to Mounsieur Bavalon Captain of the Castle to throw him the next night in a sack into the water Bavalon who perceived his Master was very quick and thought that night might give him better counsel resolved to do nothing In the mean time solitude and darknesse having recollected the Dukes spirits together which had all day been scattered by the tempest of passion he found his heart infinitely ballanced between the satisfaction of revenge and the apprehension of inevitable dangers which would wait on it imagining the shadow of the Constable already drowned as he thought would draw fire bloud and havock upon his desolated Countrey The hideous visions which already pitched battell in his distempered brain the displayed Ensignes and Armies heaped together from all parts drew deep sighs from him which were observed by the gentlemen of his chamber Bavalon about break of day comes into his chamber and being asked concerning the secret execution of his command he answered It is done loth to open any more untill he could clearly look into his masters mind The Duke upon this word beginneth his sobbs again with beating his hands which testified great despair in him But he insisting and many times demanding whether Clisson were drowned The Captain replyed He was and that he about mid-night had buried the body fearing it might be discovered Then began the Prince afresh to curse and to abhorre his own anger which had transported him to this out-rage and said Would to God Bavalon I had believed thee when thou didst counsel me to do nothing or that thou hadst not believed me when I so passionately commanded thee His trusty servant seeing he spake in good earnest and that it was time to declare himself assured him Clisson was alive and that he had deferred his commandment out of this consideration that if he persisted in the same mind he should alwayes have means enough to execute him The Duke rapt with this prudence embraced him and gave him a thousand florins for finding out so excellent a remedy for his Passion Observations upon ENVY Which draweth along with it Iealousie Hatred and Sadnesse WE enter into black and Saturnian Passions which are Envie Jealousie Fear Sadnesse and Despair wherein we shall observe a venemous malignity which replenisheth the heart with plagues the life with furies and the world with Tragedies I will begin this order with two Court-Monks who in their time made a great noyse one of which being born for cruelty and bred in massacres his life was a continuall crime and his memory a perpetually execration But the other profiting by the experience of his evils Lamentable envy and enmity of Ebroin against S. Leger opened himself a way unto glory and drew upon him the blessings of posterity Under the reign of Clotharius the third Ebroin governed the State in the quality of the Major of the Palace who was of a spirit ambitious cruell and subtle valuing nothing above his own ends and placing conscience under all things in the world He entred into this charge like a Fox and swayed therein like a Lion doing nought else but roar against some and devour others there being no power able enough to bend his pride as if there were not riches enough in all the world to satisfie his avarice God who often-times suffereth not things violent to be long-lasting gave an end to his tyranny by the death of his Master whose reign was short and life most obscure He left two sons the eldest of which bare the name of Childeric and the youngest was called Thierry Ebroin seeing himself like creeping Ivie which seeks a pillar for support not to stand fair in Childerics mind whether this Prince were too clear sighted to discover his jugglings or whether under the reign of his Father he had otherwise used him then his condition deserved it made him arrogantly to adhere to Thierries faction thinking he had power and credit enough to make an alteration both in nature and State-affairs He then raiseth a controversie in a matter which was sufficiently decided by birth and assembleth the Estates to deliberate upon it where there were so many creatures whom he accounted to be obliged to follow his liking that the palm of so doubtfull a battell seemed to him already absolutely gained There was then in France one Leger a man of great birth of an excellent spirit of an eminent virtue accompanied with grace of body and other parts which made him fit for the Court. His Uncle who was a great Prelate had very nobly bred him giving him admittance into the Palace and his affairs but the sweetnesse of his nature not born for much trouble made him addict himself to the Church and become a religious man but was afterward taken out of his Monastery to be Bishop of Autun His degree and merit then obliged him to be present at this Assembly where it was treated of making a new King and seeing Ebroin insolently supported the younger to the prejudice of Nature and the laws of the Kingdome he undertook to
all the miserable betook themselves unto him unto the number of 400. men which entrenched themselves in a fortresse going forth every day for to rob to maintain themselves thereby In the midst of all these misfortunes the good Prince kept alwayes in his heart a true love of his countrey and knowing that the Philistims had laid siege before Keilah he failed not to go to help it and to deliver it although this ungratefull city was intened to deliver him to Saul if he had enclosed himself therein the which he would not do having consulted with the Oracle of God but retired himself to the desert of Ziph whither Jonathan that The visit of Jonathan secret and and very profitable to David burned with a great desire to see him came to find him secretly and they were for some time together with unspeakable expansions of heart This good friend comforted him and assured him that he should be King after his father and for himself he would be content to be his second which sufficiently witnessed the wonderfull modesty of this Prince and the incomparable love that he bore to David But the Ziphims men for the time that would provide for their own safety sent their deputies to Saul to advertise him that David was retired into their quarters and if it pleased him to follow him they would deliver him into his hands At the which Saul was exceeding joyful and entred the chase to entrap him compassing him on every side and hunting him like a poor deer chased by men and dogs with great out cries The danger was very manifest and David in great hazard to be taken had it not been for a happy message it may be procured by Jonathan that advertised Saul that the Philistims had taken the field and made great waste upon his lands at which he returned to bring remedy thereto deferring his former design till another occasion In the mean while David ran from desert to desert The rudenesse of Nabal towards David with his troops and was hardly able to live which made him have recourse to Nabal a rich man and that had great means entreating him for some courtesie for to maintain his people which had used him with very great respect defending his house his flocks and all his family against the spoilings of robbers This Nabal that was clownish and covetous answered the deputies of David that he knew not the son of Jesse but that he was not ignorant that there were evil servants enough which were fled from their masters and that he was not in case to take the bread from his hired servants for to give it to high-way men This word being told to David incensed him so much that he was going to set upon his house for to rob and sack it But Abagail the The wisdome of Abigail his wife wife of Nabal better behaved and wiser without busying her self to discourse with her husband that was a fool and drunk caused presently mules to be loaden with provision necessary for the men of war and went to meet David to whom she spake with so great wisdome comelinesse and humility that she turned away the tempest and stayed the swords already drawn out of the scabbards for to make a great slaughter in her house David admiring the wisdom and goodnesse of this spirit of the woman married her after the death of her husband It is so true that a good deed bestowed on a high A good deed done to a great one afflicted is of much value person in time of his affliction and when he hath most leasure to consider it is a seed-sowing which in its time brings forth and bears fruits of blessednesse After that Saul had driven back the Philistims he returns to the pursuit of David accompanied with three thousand men with a purpose to take him although he should hide himself under ground or should fly through the air And indeed he crept up rocks unaccessible David furiously pursued by Saul which were not frequented by any but by wild goats and as he passed that way he entred into a cave for some naturall necessity where David was hid with a small number of his faithfullest servants which failed not to tell him that this was the hand of God which had this day delivered his deadly enemy into his hands and that he should not now lose time but to cut him off quickly whilst that he gave him so fair play and this would be the means to end all those bitternesses wherewith his life was filled by the rage of this barbarous Persecutour This was a strong temptation to a man so violently His generousnesse in pardoning his enemy very admirable persecuted and whose life was sought by so many outrages Neverthelesse David stopping all those motions of revenge resolved in his heart by a strong inspiration of God never to lay his hands upon him which was consecrated King and contenting himself with cutting off the skirts of his coat he went out of the cave after Saul and crying with a loud voice he worshipped him prostrate on the earth holding in his hand the piece of his casock and saying to him Behold my Lord my Father and my King the innocence of my hands and do not believe them any more which filled you with suspicions of poor David you cannot be ignorant at this time that God hath put you into my power and that I could have handled you ill by taking away your life have saved mine own But God hath kept me by his holy grace from this thought and hath preserved you from all evil I never yet had any intent to hurt your Majesty having alwayes reverenced and served it as your most humble servant and subject whiles that you cease not to pesecute me and to torment my poor life with a thousand afflictions Alas my Lord what is it that you desire Against whom are you come forth with so great furniture of Arms and Horses against a poor dead Dog a miserable little beast I beseech the living God to judge between us two and to make you to know the goodnesse of my cause One may avouch that great and glorious actions The greatnesse and benefit of clemency of Clemency do never hurt Princes but that often they do place or keep the Crown upon their heads God and Men concurring to favour that goodnesse that approches so near to the highest Saul was so amazed with this action that he ran to him and embraced him weeping and said to him This is a sure sign O David which I acknowledge at the present and whereby I know for certain that you must reign after me so great a goodnesse not being able to be rewarded but by an Empire I do pray and conjure you onely to have pity on my poor children after my death and not to revenge your injuries upon them hereupon he swore to him to deal with him afterwards peaceably But as this spirit was unequall
experience might have made him vveigh vvhat the jealousie of an old man may do vvho desires the more honour and life the nearer he sees them to their setting His reason might have taught him to judge vvhat the artifices vvere of a vvoman beloved hovv imperious over a husband He thought of nothing but climbing vvithout endeavouring to take avvay the hinderances which he had about his feet Other wayes also he contented himself to have the favour of some without seeking that of others which it may be had no great desire to set him forward but were of a reall power to hinder him There are some which hold themselves offended because they are not intreated and which endeavour to hinder a businesse without having any other reason but that they were not employed in it Adonijah contented himself to have Abiathar and Joab for him but he considered not that Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest and Benaiah the Captain whom he contemned were mighty and able to trouble his pretensions Further for fear lest he should fail in the businesse he made too much haste of it taking into his company souldiers and a guard in imitation of Absolon And when as he should have kept himself retired and recollected within himself he opened himself too much and published his designs which were like to those pearls that instead of a good substance had nothing but an outward rind He made a great feast to which he invited all his brethren without speaking of Solomon he called Abiathar and Joab without making mention of Nathan and Zadok The one made great chear and created a King amongst their pots and glasses whilst that Nathan and Zadok vented all their secrets and countremined all their designs Amongst these excessive joyes of Adonijah Nathan Nathan and Bathsheba's advice plotted together with Bathsheba declared to her the news of the pretensions of the imaginary King exhorted her strongly to oppose him and shewed her the means thereto They take their counsels together with a resolution to make the proceedings of Adonijah to sound aloud in the ears of David It is agreed that Bathsheba should enter into the chamber of the King first and that Nathan without understanding any thing of their conference should wind in as it were upon a sudden and as it were to strike up the businesse when as she already had well proceeded in the discourse All this was artificially executed Bathsheba with many honied words causeth David to remember his promise represented to him the enterprise of his sonne Adonijah and sets forth before him the pitifull handling that she with her dear son must expect in case that the design of the Rebel should take effect Nathan an eloquent speaker comes in as if he were amazed and without shewing that he bore any affection to any party he laid chief hold on the authority and pleasure of the King which he comes to understand as the true oracle of the Realm to conform himself thereto and without falling into passion against Adonijah he caused him to send his secret intelligences and carriages avouching that if he had undertaken that without communicating it to him he makes his proceedings very strange This was to interest David in the businesse in such a manner as he failed not presently to command Nathan and Zadok to set Solomon upon his mule to cause his guard and his old Regiments to accompany him unto Gibeon and there without any delay to consecrate him King and to give the people to understand that he had chosen him for his lawfull successour All this was executed with vigorousnesse incredible Solomon is declared King when as a woman so ardent had taken it in hand And while Adonijah was yet drinking with his confidents the trumpet sounded through the town with great outcryes of joy and unspeakable clapping of hands He had thought that all this had been done for him but Jonathan the son of the high Priest Abiathar put them all beside this belief and told them with lamentation together for their overthrow what that was which was done and that Solomon was coming presently to be consecrated All their hearts failed upon the news of this chance and they separated themselves as much as they could from each other to take away the suspicion of a conspiracy which was but too manifest Solomon is brought back to the Palace with strong acclamations and all the officers and servants entring into the chamber of David gave him a thousand benedictions for the choice that he had made wishing to the new King all the greatnesse and all the prosperity of his father Adonijah saw well that he was gone too farre and fearing lest Solomon might make the first triall of his power at the cost of his life he fled unto the ordinary refuge taking hold of the horns of the Altar and entreating Solomon for his life who gave it him upon such condition that he should keep himself within his duty and would not spot a day so glorious for him by shedding the bloud of his miserable brother Joab and Abiathar dissembling their intelligence with Adonijah ran to worship as well as others him whom willingly they would have devoured seeing that their safety consisted at that time in hiding their intention But after that David had his eyes closed up and The death of David and the bloudy engrance of Solomon that Solomon saw himself confirmed by the generall consentment of all orders those waves of the Court which as yet had made but little frizlings began to raise a great tempest Adonijah after he had lost a Kingdome endeavoured Adonijah desired the Shunamite which completed his misfortune to get a woman and goes directly to Bathsheba the Queen-mother to uphold his request She was not unwilling to see him fearing that he had still retained some bitternesse in his heart upon the things that had passed behold wherefore she presently asked him whether he came as a friend to which he answered that all was quiet but that he had one request to make to her knowing well the credit in which she was with the King her son The Queen having shewed him a good countenance and a free willingnesse to serve him he opens the matter to her and saith That she was not ignorant that the Kingdome did appertain to him by the right of Eldership but seeing that God had otherwise disposed of it that he did willingly acquiesce and desired nothing of the King but that it would please his Majesty to give him Abishag in marriage that maid which served David his father in his old age It is clear that this Prince was good and of an easie nature that could content himself with so small a thing and his request was not uncivil seeing that she was but a servant and never the wife of his father which had no other commerce with her then to receive the service and assistance necessary for his health Bathsheba was very glad that
terminate their Law-suits by his Verdict His principal care was to commit Justice unto innocent hands but the horrour of his thoughts was perpetually against the unjust and against the violent thinking that his Authority and his Arms could have no better employment then in the destruction of tyrants But on the contrary he had goodnesses of heart inexhaustible for honest men and a wonderful care of the quiet and commodity of his people his access was easie his words gracious his caresses full of attractions his command sweet his answers judicious his orders so just that they seemed all consorted in heaven He denyed with sweetnesse and gave with measure although his hands were seas of Liberality and Magnificence that were never dry He had all his life time the possession of his soul by a singular moderation that retained his mouth his tongue and his anger but it could not pluck back Love by the wings which caused some spots to be seen in this Sun although they were afterward washed away again by a strong Repentance That which was most resplendent in all the parts of his life was an high generosity that never forsook his heart and that found exercise continually in all his actions He contented not himself with middle Virtues but he carried them all even up to the altitude of their Glory He had a spirit incessantly bent to great designs and a soul alwayes filled with a strong confidence which he had seated totally in God of whom he thought himself to be beloved He never was kept back by any obstacles from generous enterprises he exposed himself to all dangers even to the most terrible for the glory of his sovereign Master Prosperity had no charms upon him and adversity found not any darts that were able to abate his resolution All these virtues marched in him under the conduct of a great Reason and failed not to be followed with an happinesse that had no equal but his Prudence God having ennobled him with so eminent qualities ceased not to furnish him with Objects to put them in practise as well by the condition of his Birth as by the divers occurrences of Affairs It seems that Providence made him be born on purpose at Ingeheim upon the river of Rhine and on the Borders of France and Germany as the man that should unite those two Estates under one Sceptre He found a Monarchy at his birth which his Grandfather touched upon and which his father openly possessed that had much need of being settled by his power and husbanded by his cares He enterprised for this purpose divers warres but he never waged any one that he was not led to by strong reasons of Piety and Justice His first Arms were employed against the Saxons who were at that time Infidels and Pagans and who besides rebelled against the lawfull Power that ruled them One may say truly that that Nation was the Hydra of our Hercules whose heads continually weâ—e born again and whose bloud so often shed was but the seed of a new Warre even to infinite Never did the Arms of the Romans dare to attempt any thing upon this people which they desired rather not to know then fight with Their Standards had never resolution enough to see that which Charlemagne had power enough to beat They were warlike even to a wonder and obstinate even to all extremity The businesse was not onely to conquer the Lands and to gain the men but to overcome their Superstition and to disarm the furies of despair This is that which our Charles performed in nine Warres as cruel as possible and in the space of three and thirty years so much Constancy had he against stubbornnesse and so much Power against madnesse He defeated them in many battels he subdued their cities and took their principall fortresses he demolished the Altars of the pernicious Irminsul so many times besprinkled with humane bloud he plucked all the other Idols also out of their demolished Temples and at last constrained the brave Vitiguinde their King to yield to the happinesse of France which made him find the kingdome of God in Baptisme by the losse of that of the Barbarians But it is true that this magnificent Conquerour found not any where a Theatre of his deeds more famous then that of Italy whither the Church groaning under the chains of the Lombards called for him incessantly Above all Pope Adrian the first whom Charlemagne loved afterwards as his brother conjured him to help him speedily and to recover the Patrimony of Jesus out of the hands of so many unjust usurpers He transported over into Italy with an Eagles wings and a lions strength marching upon his fathers steps that exhaled yet the odour of his generous piety He took at first the city of Verona then that of Pavia after a long tedious siege and appeared victorious with an Army of fire in the champains of his enemies Didiâ—â— King of the Lombards that was more ready to do an injury to a disarmed power then to ward the blows of an adversary was seen conquered and taken prisoner rendering the Church her liberty by his captivity It was a sight fill'd with Magnificence and Piety to see him arrive at Rome where the heavens seemed to be all in Blessings over his head and the earth all in respect under his feet He would have marched with a little noise and prevented the Pope not desiring to make his entrance with great pomp But Adrian that watched over his march perceived it and sent out very farre to meet him abundance of the Nobility and Officers for a Convoy and when he was near enough to Rome the Souldiery with all the Citizens appeared in Anns but that which was most delightfull was a Procession of little Children well chosen out that carried boughs and sang Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini Blessed be he that comes in the name of God The Pope desiring to honour the lively image of the saviour by some kind of honours that had been heretofore rendred to the originall When the King saw the Crosses of the Senatours and that came also out to meet him he alighted off his horse and walked afoot as farre as S. Peters Church where the holy Father was at the door to receive him with his Cardinalls and all his Chair Charlemagne by a Ceremonious devotion and great respect that he bare to S. Peter and his successour would kisse every stair of the ascent of the Portall before he would close with Adrian that received and embraced him with extasies of joyes and the King kissed his hand amongst a thousand acclamations of cheerfulnesse and happinesse which the people ceased not to redouble They went both of them into the Church to render thanks for the favours that God had done them on that great day which was an holy Saturday and which gave not place for that time to the triumphs of the Resurrection The Feasts of the Passeover were spent amidst powerfull Devotions pretty
and shakes even the strongest The Altars overturn'd upon the bleeding Priests the children strangled in the bosome of their sighing Mothers the flames that without distinction devoured the sacred and profane the Houses that seemed now but dens of Beasts presented to the world an hideous spectacle that gave more desire to dye then courage to live Amidst these desolations was found a gallant old man named Matathias the father of many sonnes all men of valour who went our of Jerusalem to retire himself in the City of Modin There he assembled all those of his family who were followed of whatsoever remained yet of most courageous to oppose themselves against the fury of the Tyrant and to retein the remnants of the true Piety As soon as the infidels had heard that a little handfull of men assaid to subtract themselves from their puissance and refused to make open profession of the Religion of the Pagans they failed not hastily to send unto them a Lieutenant of the Kings that summoned Matathias to render up himself with all his men and to offer Incense to the Idols But this virtuous man assembling his sons and his allies said thus unto them It would be to be too much in love with Life to be willing to spare and keep it in the losse of the true Religion I am sorry that I ever entred into the world when I consider the time to which God hath reserv'd my age to see the disasters of my people and the desolation of holy Jerusalem abandoned to the pillage of rapinous hands and to the prophanation of the impious Her Temple hath been handled as the object of all reproches and those Vessels of Glory that served for the Ministery of the Living God hath been taken away by violence We have seen her streets covered with dead bodies and the little children having their throats cut upon the Carcases of their Fathers And what Nation hath not possessed our heritages and is not inriched with our spoils The holinesse of the Temple hath not stayed sacrilegious hands and so many slaves of that proud City have not been able to preserve themselves from flames After this what interest can we have in life unlesse it be to revenge the quarrell of God I am promised all the honours and all the goods that I can reasonably hope for If I will obey the King Antiochus and range my self on the party of those that have so basely betraied their faith But God forbid that I should ever fall into such a prostitution of Judgment or of courage When all those of my nation shall have conspired to forsake their Law to obey the time and to accommodate themselves to the Prince's will I can answer for my self and for my children and for my brothers assuring my self of their Generosity that they will never do any thing that is base Let all those that shall have a zeal to the true Religion joyn themselves to us and know that amongst so many miseries there is nothing better then to mark with their blood the way of Safety and of Glory to give example to Posterity In the mean time the Kings Commissioners pressed every one to declare himself and to sacrifice whereupon a man of the people of the Jewes whether he was frighted by the terrour of the punishments or allured by the promise of rewards stepped forth to sacrifice upon an Altar set up in publick and dedicated to the false Deities But Matathias having looked steddily upon him felt his heart enflamed with a violent heat of the zeal that possessed him and running to that Apostate killed him with his own hand and laid him dead upon the Altar making him serve for an offering in the place to which he came to be a Priest He added to him also that Lieutenant of the King that commanded them to offer those sacrifices of abominations and declared open warre to all the Infidels that would constrain them to forsake their Law It is a wonderfull thing to consider the power of a man in zeal that contemns his life and is ambitious of death This holy old man began an army with five sons that he had and a few kinsmen He quitted the City of Modin where he could not be the stronger to entrench himself upon a mountain whither those that were zealous for the defence of the antient piety arrived from all sides with their wives their children and their flocks all resolved to live or to dye with the Illustrious Maccabeans Matathias seeing his army every day increase did brave exploits of warre so that he was not contented to beat back the Infidels but assaulted them even in their trenches and chased them away which gave him all liberty to demolish the prophane Altars that they had erected in many places to cause Circumcision to be administred to little Infants and to recover the sacred books out of the hand of the enemyes In fine this valorous Captain after many Combats seeing his last day approch made a long oration to his children enflaming them to the zeal of their Religion against the Tyranny of King Antiochus and after he had given them Judas Maccabeus for their Chief and Simeon for their Counsell blessed them and shut up his life by a most glorious end Judas that had been a good Souldier under his Father became a great Commander amongst his brethren and continued the design that had been traced out unto him by the virtue of their Ancestours employing all his power to raise again the Trophies of the God of Hosts that had been thrown down by the fury of the Infidels I find that this great Cavalier founded his whole life upon Conscience and Honour which he alwayes esteemed above all that is precious in Nature and recommendable to Grace He believed even in perfection a God Sovereignly Almighty that hath an eye always open upon the actions of men that is the distributour of Glory and the Revenger of Iniquities and held firmly that he was to be acknowledged and adored by the worship and the Ceremonies ordained in the law of his Fathers and therefore embraced with an Incomparable ardour the true Religion using his uttermost endeavour to practice defend and maintain it to the prejudice of goods life honour and of all that is esteemed dearest in the world He yielded himself to be totally conducted by Providence which he held to preside in all Battels so that he measured not victories by the multitude of souldiers by arms by fortresses by ammunitions of warre but assured himself that there was a secret Providence from above that made all the happinesse and misery of men From thence it came that he had a wonderfull confidence in the Divine Protection believing himself to be beloved of God whom he loved reciprocally more by sincerity of affection then by exteriour Pomp He never went to fight but he fore-armed himself with strong and ardent prayers he never undertook to give battell but he exhorted his men to implore
an ox for the space of seven years this had been enough to have made him been declared an Impostour and been banished from the Court Neverthelesse it is a strange thing that Nebuchadonozor makes no reply thereto but hears patiently the counsel that he gives him to expiate his sinnes by Alms and by good Works He was seized with a great fear of God with an affright that took from his mouth all manner of reply to think by what means he might appease the menaces of heaven But we must averre that this great King had something in him very wild and a spirit that had no more subsistence then the clouds and winds He passed often from one extremity of the passions to the other without lighting upon the middle and sometimes he appeared humbled to the abysse and sometimes also clave to the air and clouds and planted his Throne by extravagant imaginations even above the stars This Dream of the Tree kept him in his wits a pretty while but scarce were twelve moneths expired but being one day in his Palace he entred into a mad vanity about the city of Babylon which he said he had builded by the strength of his wit and of his arm and for the high magnificences of his glory The word was yet in his mouth when the anger of God fell upon his head as a sudden flash of lightning and he was changed into a beast not that he lost his humane soul nor the ordinary figure of his body but he entred into so violent and so extraordinary a frenzy that he perswaded himself that he was an ox and instantly forsook his Palace and his Throne ran up and down the fields and fed on grasse with the beasts and although endeavour was used to cure him by all sorts of remedies yet experience shewed that this evill was a wound from heaven for which no case was to be found He became so mad that they were fain to bind and chain him and yet he brake his chains and tore his clothes and exposed himself all naked to the rain to the winds and to all the rigours that the seasons brought His hair increased horribly and his nails so crooked that they would make one believe that he was some bird of rapine All the Court was in mourning and sadnesse for this so terrible an accident and although his burnt bloud and his violent passions had much contributed to his malady yet so was it that the blindest saw that there was in it a manifest punishment of God Evilmerodach his son took the government of the Empire in quality of Regent during the indisposition of the King his father and although he appeared to be much moved at that change yet there was more shew in it then reality But in fine this miserable frantick having passed seven years in a pitifull condition came again to his right senses and the first thing that he did was to lift up his eyes to heaven to blesse God to acknowledge that his might was without limits that his kingdome was an everlasting kingdome that all men of the habitable earth were but nothing before him that he disposed of all as well amongst the heavenly virtues as amongst the creatures of this lower world that nothing could resist his power without experimenting his Justice His good Subjects touched with a great compassion sought him out again and re-placed him upon his Throne where he reign'd with a great modesty and lived in the knowledge of the true God as so farre as to work out his own salvation as S. Augustine assures us together with other Fathers of the Church So every thing was restored to him with more splendour and Majesty then before his accident bringing no diminution to his Authority This gave incomparable joyes to holy Daniel who amidst all the Grandeurs of the Court wished for nothing but the conversion of his Master Evilmerodach that had taken some liking to the Regency was not contented at this change but expressed so much despight at it that the King his father distrusting him kept him in prison which was very bitter unto him seeing himself descended from the Throne in a moment to the condition of a captive It is held that Nebuchadonozor reigned after his re-establishment the space of six or seven years and that the successour of his Empire was this Evilmerodach his prisoner who remained a long time in the languor of his captivity He found in that prison Jehojakim King of the Jews and as men in misery have a kind of obligation to love the like he looked upon him with a good eye and recreated himself often with him having no other company at all The memory of this friendship accompanied him to the Throne and he caused his companion to be delivered out of prison using him honourably and giving him even Offices of importance in his Court The new King passing from one extremity to another in such a sudden behaved himself but ill for it is said that he caused the body of his father to be torn in pieces for fear he should return again from the gates of death to resume his Sceptre and that he reigned with much insolence taking a pride to trample under-foot all that his predecessours had exalted And therefore that eclipse that Daniel was in at Court as it appears from the sacred Text might have happened at this time since that the Jews were retir'd and had little credit in the kingdome This holy Prophet seeing himself discharged of the businesses of the Court and ranged in a solitude was in his element and recollected all his thoughts to give to his heart the joyes of God which good souls find in a retirement It was then that he entred farther into the commerce of the intelligences that he was visited by Angels with more favour that he learn'd the secret of Empires and saw all the glory of the world at his feet yet he could not belie his good heart nor avoid but that the contempt of the true Religion and the affliction of his poor people that suffered much in this alteration was very sensible to him Evilmerodach was never the happier for leaving the pathes of Piety which his father had trod out for him for after a short and wicked Reign he was suppressed by his brother-in-law Neriglossor who having a child by his wife named Belshazzar the grandchild of the great Nebuchadonozor put him forward to succed in the Empire In the mean while the father governed the kingdome in quality of a Regent and when Belshazzar was of age he remitted all the power into his hands which he used moderately during his fathers life but as soon as he was dead he laid aside his vizard and grew dissolute in the quantity of excesses and of debauches shamefull to a Prince of his extraction The heighth of his fatall pleasures was in the most sumptuous banquet that he made to which he invited a thousand persons of the best quality in his kingdome
the Kings house a famous officer an Ethiopian by Nation and a man of heart who hearing of the cruelty that was used against the Prophet took pity on him and said boldly to the King What Sir can your Majesty well approve of the rigours that poor Jeremy is made to suffer for doing the function of a Prophet It well appears that his enemies would have his skin for they have let him down with ropes into a deep dungeon where it is almost impossible to breathe There is danger if this good man dyes by this ill usage that you are guilty of his death and that this may draw some wrath of God upon your Majesty He spake this with so good an accent that the King was moved and gave him charge to take thirty souldiers and to draw him thence which he did quickly casting down to him old linnen raggs to put under him that he might not be galled by the cords when they should make him ascend out of the bottome of that hideous prison When he was plucked up again the King had another time the curiosity to see him not in his Palace but in some secret place of the Temple where Jeremy spake to him with much fervency and tendernesse telling him that the onely means to save his person his house and all the City was to render up himself to Nabuchodonosor and that if he refused to do it he and all his would be destroyed The King answered that he was afraid to commit himself to the King of Babylon lest he should deliver him to his rebellious subjects that had fallen from him to the enemy Jeremy replyed That he need not fear any such thing and affectionately beseech'd him to have pity on his own soul on his wife and on his children for otherwise there would happen a great misery This poor Prince feared to attempt this against the opinion of those that governed him and to scatter them by this means from his party Nay he was afraid even to be seen with Jeremy and recommended to him very much to keep secret that discourse and to tell no body that he had spoken to him about State affairs He was sent back to Prison that he might not make the seditious mutiny and all that he could obtein was not to be plunged again in that pit from whence he had been delivered In the mean while Nabuchodonosor after a long siege carryed the city of Jerusalem which was taken about mid-night the enemies being entred by a breach that no body perceived Zedekiah much amazed betakes himself to flight with his wife and children and a few men of war about him taking his way through night darknesse affrights fear and a thousand images of death The Chaldeans had notice of his retreat and caught him on the plains of Jericho where he was immediately forsaken of his men and left with his wives and little children that sent out pitifull cryes through the apprehension of servitude and death He was carried away from thence to Riblah where Nabuchodonosor was expecting the issue of that siege This unfortunate Prince was constrained to present himself before the frightfull countenance of a barbarous King puffed up with his victories and prosperities who loaded him with reproaches and confusions upbraiding him with his rebellion his ingratitude and unfaithfulnesse he would willingly have been ten foot under ground before he suffered such indignities thinking himself sufficiently punished by having lost his crown and liberty But this cruell Conquerour would give other satisfactions to his revenge for after he had a long time digested his gall and thought on the means that he would use to punish him he causes his children to come before him and commands the Hangmen to murther them in the fathers sight These poor little ones seeing the glittering sword now ready to be plunged in their bloud cryed out for mercy and called pitifully upon the sad name of their father that had no other power but to suffer his calamity The sword passes throught the bodies of his children to find his heart who dyed as many deaths as nature had given him gages of his marriage He expected that the sword stained with the bloud of his dear progeny should have ended his life and griefs but this inhumane Tyrant having left him as much light as was needfull to illuminate his misery after that he had filled himself with this lamentable spectacle caused his eyes to be plucked out by an execrable cruelty and having commanded him to be put in great and heavie chains caused him to be carried into Babylon where he ended his miserable life and in his Person ended the Kingdome of Judea that had subsisted since Saul four hundred and fourscore years Nabuchodonosor having heard the narration that was made of Jeremy and the good counsell that he had given to his King esteemed him highly and gave charge to Nebuzaradan the Generall of his Army to give him content whether he had a mind to go to Babylon or whether he would stay in his own countrey But to shew he sought not the splendour of greatnesses he chose to make his abode amidst poor Labourers and Vine-dresses that were left after the sacking of the City the better sort being transported into Babylon He was recommended to Gedaliah who was settled Governour of those miserable Reliques of the people by Nebuzaradan but when this Gedaliah was murthered seven moneths after his creation Johanan that was one of the principall men counselled the Jews to quit that miserable land and to follow him into Egypt Jeremy opposed it and foretold misery to all those that should go thither but instead of believing him they dragged him along by force either to afflict him or to prevail over his Prophecyes He failed not to prophesy the desolation of Egypt that was to bend under the arms of Nabuchodonosor whereat his countreymen found themselves incensed and fearing lest he should draw some envy on them stoned him in a sedition The Egyptians hearing talk of the life and predictions of this great personage made account of him and set him up a Tomb where God to honour his servant did great miracles chasing away by his ashes the Crocodiles and serpents Alexander that flourished two hundred years after him admiring those wonders caused his reliques to be transported into Alexandria where he caused a magnificent Sepulchre to be erected for him as the Alexandrian Chronicle reports Behold how virtue persecuted in its own house finds a prop with strangers and even veneration amongst the Infidels God using all sorts of instruments to honour the merits of those that have rendered him proofs of a perfect faithfulnesse S. JOHN Baptist S. PAUL St. IOHN BAPTIST St. PAVL APOSTLE WHat makes an Hermit at the Court a Solitary man in a Tumult a Sacred amongst Prophane a Saint in the house of Herod He was far more secure amongst Wolves amongst Foxes and Tygers then amongst those wicked Courtiers He was more contented with his little
dinner of Locusts and wild Honey retired in his Cabben then at the fight of the pomps and pleasures of the King of Galilee But God that is the Master of Kings and the Directour of Hermites hath thus disposed of him and willed that he should dye at Court after he had so long a time lived in the wildernesse It is not certainly known what occasion drove him to it whether he went thither by zeal or whether he was sent for by design or whether he was forced by violence Some think that the miseries of his countrey afflicted under the government of a dissolute Prince affecting him with a great Compassion He went out of the desert of his own accord to admonish the king of his duty Since that all those that came neer him and that were obliged to speak to him were mute partly by a servitude fatall to all those that are tyed to the hopes of the world and partly also being seized with fear by reason of the power and cruelty of a womans spirit that possessed Herod Others as Josephus have written that the Prince hearing every day of the great concourse of all sorts of people that went to the wildernesse to see Saint John was afraid lest under colour of piety this might make some change of State Tyrants love not men endowed with an extraordinary virtue and that have not learnt the trade of flattering their voyce is the Cock that frights those cruell Lyons their life is a flash of Lightning that dazles their Eyes their actions are as many Convictions of their Iniquity And therefore this Authour saith that without other form of processe Herod caused him to be apprehended to prevent him and break off those assemblies that were made about him Yet it is probable and more consonant to the Scripture which assures us that this Prince bare some respect to John and heard him and did many things according to his advice that he proceeded not against him at first with so much violence But the cunning Fox as he was according to the judgement that the Eternall Truth made of him seeing that Saint John was in an high esteem for holinesse and in great credit amongst the people strived to winne him and to draw him to him to make himself be reputed for a good Prince that cherished honest men and to maintain by this means his authority that was already rottering and little rooted in the true Maximes of a good Government It was thus that Dionysius the Tyrant made use of the Philosophers not for any affection that he bare them but to appropriate them to the bad intentions that he had in State and to give them some colour by the expresse or interpreted approbation of those personages that were in reputation for their wisdome But Herod did ill choose his man this was not a Court-flatterer a Tool for all Trades a Shoe for all Feet but a stiffe and austere man to whom a whole World would not have given the least temptation to do any thing against his conscience It would be a superfluous thing to enlarge ones self at length upon the rare qualities of Saint John who having been many times highly commended by the Creatour of Virtues and the Distributour of true praises who hath preferred him above the greatest of the world seems to have dryed up by his abundance the Elogies of the most eloquent Let us content our selves to say that there are abundance of excellencies in him enough to make all chaires speak and all pens write even to the end of the world He was born of the blood of Aaron the brother of Moses the first ornament of the Priesthood and the great Conductour of the People He came out of a barren Womb which he rendered fruitfull above all fecundities of the earth His birth was declared miraculously by the voyce of an Archangell He was sanctified almost as soon as conceived and virtue appropriated him to her self before that nature had brought him to the Light He was a worshipper of the word when he was yet in the bowels of his mother and received the first rayes of the everlasting day before that his eye was open to the brightnesse of the Sun Reason was advanced to him by a wonder altogether extraordinary He hath had this honour to know first after the Virgin Mary the news of that high mystery of the Incarnation and of the Redemption of the world Of all the Nativities of so many children of Adam the Church celebrates none but that of John who hath this common with our Saviour and his most holy Mother who by a speciall priviledge honoured his birth by her actuall presence So that he saw his first day under the aspect of the Mother of the Universe His name was given him by an Archangell a name of grace and favour that shewed he was placed in the ranke of the dearest delights of Heaven and the tongue of his dumb Father tyed by an heavenly virtue was loosed by its power that it might pronounce that fair name He was exempted from grievous sins and as many Divines hold even from veniall He consecrated his retirement in the Desert almost as soon as he entered into the world Farthermore he was a Prophet and more then a Prophet a Virgin a Doctour a forerunner of the Son of God the Trumpet of Repentance the Authour of a Baptisme that ushered in that which regenerates us all whereof Jesus was pleased to receive the sprinckling In fine he was the Horizon of the Gospel and the Law and the first that shewed with the finger the Lamb of God and the Kingdome of Heaven But let us make no reckoning of what I have alleaged but let us say onely that which the word hath said of him That he was not a Reed to bow at every wind nor a man that could be allured by the delicacies of the Court He spake there as a Prophet he conversed there as an Angell and at last dyed there as a Martyr The time furnished him with an occasion about which he could not speak without making much noyse and he could not hold his peace without betraying his Conscience That Herod Antipas which we are to speak of here was the sonne of the great Herod the Murtherer of the Innocents and of a Samaritan woman who after the death of his Father forasmuch as the Legitimate issue of Mariamne had been unworthily murthered to make way for unjust heirs had for his part of the Kingdome of Judea Galilee which he held in quality of a Tetrarch He was a Prince of a small courage addicted to his pleasures lascivious and loose that endeavoured to preserve himself by poor shifts having nothing stout nor warlike in his person He had a brother named Philip which held another parcell of that Kingdome of Judea dismembred and little enough considerable the Romans having possessed themselves of the best part of it after they had deposed Archelaus that had reigned as Successour of his
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
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
strange boldnesse 73 The example of our Saviour ought to encourage us against Fear 74 Resolutions against Fear 75 We must Fear nothing in the world to the prejudice of our souls 81 Fidelity and its excellency 14 The mervellous effects of fire 86 Rebellion of the Flesh 16 What true Fortitude is and the parts thereof 74 Qualities of a good Friend 8 Great men are not ordinarily the best Friends ib. The choise of a Friend ib. A man must not adhere too much to himselfe to be a good friend ib. Friends ought to advise and correct 14 Who loves himself too much hath no Friend 37 G THe affectionate Letter of the Lord Bishop of Geneva 11 The disaster of Gilimer and his captivity 162 A great industry to Give well 13 There is none but God which is for it self 1 When we distrust our selves we must have recourse to God 18 An excellent reason of S. Augustine to shew the inclination we have to God 23 An objection about the invisibility of God ib. God rendreth himself infinitely amiable in totall nature ib. The Sun the Image of God ib. The commerce of man with God 24 The means to acquire the love of God 27 The practise of the Love of God ib. How we may learn to love God above the love of the world ib. We must learn to love God himself and by the character of his substance which is Jesus ib. Onely sinne hated by God 34 God in his Essence accordeth the diversitie of all Essences 46 The sympathies and antipathies which God hath wisely impressed on Essences and in union ibid. God for the punishment of nicenesse will suffer that which man most â—ears to fall upon him ibid. Three considerable qualities in the blessing of God 50 God is busied about this world as his stoue of burthen 59 God is not capable of hope since he possesseth all 63 God is independent of all creatures and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinitie of his perfection ibid. God hath no need of our conversion to increase his glory 64 God supporteth all good hopes by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence ibid. We must place our hopes in God by the example of the holy humanity of Jesus Christ ibid. God when he pleaseth taketh away all the obstacles which oppose despair 68 The wonders which God maketh to appear in the old Testament by the help of his creatures ib. God indifferently treateth elect souls as reprobate during life without shewing that he despaireth of their salvation ib. God never faileth with necessary succours and sufficient grace to lave us ibid. It is the providence of God which doth preserve us and instruct us to drive away all fear 73 The picture of the tranquility of God 88 God to speak properly hath no anger ib. Three sorts of thunderbolts which figure unto us how God doth proceed with the chastisements of men ib. God doth all by seeing and by being seen 95 The differences of our knowledges from those of God 96 A great example of the weaknesse of mans spirit when God leaves it 148 Godfrey Duke of Bovillon a most resolute and fortunate Generall 207 The excellency of Goodnesse 136 Grace by the contemplation of divine things is a remedy for our temptations 50 The great and magnanimous goodnesse of Lewis the twelfth 120 Great things were made for the lesser 131 An excellent observation of S. Gregory 80 H THe direfull example of Haman against the inraged who are at a little offended 91 Hamans malice against Mordecai 193 Haman is condemned to be hanged and the Jews preserved 195 Hatred a hideous Comet 32 Its nature properties and degrees ibid. It is called Antipathy ibid. Hatred cometh out of Love 33 Melancholy hatred by Grecians is called Man-hatred ibid. Simplicity of divine Essence exempt from Antinathy or hatred ibid. Hatred of humour and how it is to be handled ib. Reasonable hatred and its illusion 35 Hatred of Interests which begets suits and Duels 36 A notable example of appeasing Hatred 37 The utility of Hatred ibid. How Hatred is to be diverted 38 Means to eschew and prevent the Hatred of powerfull men 39 A comparison of a ship and the heart of man 42 The sons of Heli behave themselves very disorderly to the great dishonour of his gray hairs 235 His connivence or at the most gentle reproof no whit doth better them ib. God punisheth Heli for the sins of his sons ib. He dieth ibid. Henry Eight grown more hardened against Cardinall Pool 314 The death of Henry the Eighth 315 Herodias slept not one good sleep with Herod so long as S. John Baptist was alive 269 Her daughter beggeth the head of S. John Baptist which is granted unto her ibid. The history of Hester 187 Hester the neece of Mordecai ibid. She is married to Ahasuerus King of Persia and declared Queen 188 Her excellent virtues and endowments 189 She is acquainted with the plot of Haman for the utter destruction of the Jews 191 Her prayer to God ib. She presenteth her self to Ahasuerus 192 She inviteth Ahasuerus and Haman to a Banquet ib. She relates to the King the plot of Haman against her self and her people 194 Hierom his great affâ—ction to S. Paul 11 Hierusalem is besieged by Lysias and brought to great extremity 203 Holophernes angry at the great preparation made by the Jews for their defence 182 Holophernes ravished at the speech of Judith 184 Holophernes his army defeated 186 The Image and Nature of Hope 61 The good husbanding of Hope 62 We must adapt our selves to our Hopes ibid. We must ground our Hopes well ibid. Powerfull friends may serve for a suport for Hope ibid. We must not too soon reject nor too late put forward in pursuit of our Hopes 63 The Hopes of the world are very deceitfull and have no solitude 64 Three sorts of Hope ib. One may reasonably fly that which is in any wise hurtfull 46 Hypatius his speech 161 I I Conoclasts or Image-breakers an heresie sprung up even in Rome it self 174 Jealousie is a degree of the envious 91 The seed of Jealousie 92 Jealousie for honours and dignities ibid. Learned men subject to jealousie ibid. Jealousie in marriages holdeth the first place in the Envious ibid. Jealousie defined according to S. Thomas ibid. Out of what Jealousie is framed ibid. Description of Jealousie 93 Jealousie compared to the Abysse ibid. Jealousie maketh havock in the heart ibid. Advice to women concerning jealousie ib. The bloudy effects of the Jealousie of Saul 141 Joab his Jealousie over Abner 145 Jeremiah a man of sorrow 263 His sanctity ibid. Jeasabel threatneth to take away Elijahs life 250 Jesabel thrown out of a window dieth miserably 253 The love of Jesus towards his heavenly Father 28 For what reasons Jesus prayed on earth 64 The excesse of the contrition and dolours of our Lord Jesus 69 Jesus Christ acquired â—s boldnesse by his fear 79 Three powerfull succours of our
Saviour Jesus Christ to animate our constancy 80 The power of the name of Jesus ibid. The admirable effects of the Crosse of Jesus ibid. To know whether our Lord Jesus was subject to Anger 88 The eye of Jesus watching sparkling and weeping 96 Impatient men o◠divers qualities 54 The picture of Impudence 83 Divers spirits subject to impudencie ibid. The miserable end of an unhappy Impudent man 86 It is a hard thing not to feel some Incommodities life being so full of them 46 The kingdome of Inconstancy 24 Three sorts of Envious Indignation 93 The plot of Ingobergua to cure her husbands passion of love succeeded ill out of too much affectation 107 John Baptist apprehended 267 His rare qualities ibid. He is beheaded 269 Joab and Abner do strive for the government of Judah 144 Joab and Abner combat ib. Joab in his fault upon necessity is tolerated by David ib. Joabs insolency 149 The death of Joab 153 The courage and resolution of Joachim who executed the office both of a Priest and Captain 181 The good offices of Jonathan 141 Josiah slain 263 Joseph the son of a shepheard 219 His divine qualities 220 His brethren sell him ibid. Mervellous constancy of Joseph amidst those great temptations of the Court and of his Mistresse 221 He is accused for attempting to ravish that honour which he preserved ib. He is imprisoned ib. He is taken out of the prison and doth interpret Pharaohs dream 222 He is promoted to high preferment by Pharaoh ibid. Josephs deportment in Court a pattern for all Courtiers ibid. His singular piety and modesty 223 His fidelity to his Prince ibid. His demeanour in his government 224 His brethren came down to Egypt for food and their intertainment 225 He meeteth with his aged Father and apointeth him a place to live in 226 Josua his education 196 His familiarity with Moses ibid. He is made Generall of the Army of the Israelites ibid. His death 177 Three sorts of Joy 48 The art of Joy 51 The Israelites murmure against Moses 231 232 They have war with the Amalekites and worst them 233 The Israelites disrelish Samuel 236 A great famine in Israel which was caused by a very great drought 249 Judas Macchabeus the sonne of Mattathias made Generall over the Army of the Hebrews against the tyrannie of Antiochus 198 His piety for restoring the Temple ib. Particular favours which he received from God ib. He maketh peace with the Romans 199 He defeated nine Generals of Antiochus in pitched battell 200 Isaiah his vision 260 His eloquence as his birth is elevated ib. He is sawed alive 262 The kingdome of Judah divided by the ambition of favourites 144 The rare endowments of Judith 181 Her prayer to God 183 Her speech to Holophernes being brought before him 184 Her courteous entertainment ibid. Judith being conducted by Vagoa to Holophernes Pavillion in his sleep cut off his head 185 She returneth to the Bethulians with the head of Holophernes ibid. Her entertainment by the Citizens of Bethulia ibid. Her counsell to the people ibid. An excellent observation of Julian 58 Acts of Justice in punishment and reward  Justine who was born a Cow-heard mounted to the throne of the Emperours of Constantinople 158 The fidelity and goodnesse of Justinian ibid. His greatnesse 159 His nature and manners ibid. His manner of life was austere ib. Some abuse the belief of men in reporting that he could neither reade nor write mistaking Justinian for his uncle Justin ibid. His great love to learning but chiefly Law and Divinity ibid. A great conspiracy against him 160 A speech concerning the mutiny against him ibid. Justinian kept prisoner in his palace and Hypatius is proclaimed Emperour ibid. The stoutest men assail Justinian in his Palace 161 The sedition against Justinian is appeased ibid. The reflux of the affairs of Justinian 164 The defects of Justinian 168 Justinian in the latter end of his age fell into two great errours 169 K THe words of the Wise man directed to the Kings of the times Wisd 6. 131 Kings ought to professe the outward worship and service of God for the performance of his duty and the example of his people 133 Knowledge of ones self 18 Knowledge ought to be moderate 153 L THe prodigious victory which in the end Lotharius gained over himself after a great storm of the passion of love in becomming Religious 113 The cruell handling of Pope Leo. 175 Strange desire of Lewis the eleventh 113 Generous act of Lewis the eleventh 120 An excellent observation of Libanius 81 All happinesse included in Love 1 God the Father of Unions doth draw all to unitie by Love ibid. The sect of Philosophers of the indifferency of Love ibid. The first reason against the indifferency of Love is that thereby he maketh himself as chief end and the God of himself ibid. The second reason is drawn from the communication of creatures 2 A third real on against the indifferency of Love is drawn from the tenderness of great hearts ibid. Wherefore great hearts are most loving 3 Love is the soul of the universe ibid. Love is the superintendent of the great fornace of the world ibi The nature of Love ibid. The definition of Love with its division 4 The steps and progression of Love ibid. The causes of Love ibid. The means to make ones self to be worthily loved ibid. Notable effects of Love in three worlds ibid. Love includeth all blessings 5 There are miserable Lovers in the world ibid. Who loveth too much loveth too little 6 A notable comparison of S. Basil touching Love 9 Love is a strange malady 14 Disasters of evill Love 15 Division of Love ibid Love of humour ibid. Interiour causes of Love 16 The secret attractives of Love ibid. Modification of their opinion who place Love in transportation ib. The senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against Love 17 The miserable estate of one passionately in Love ib. The diversities of Love ib. Evill Angels intermeddle in the great tempests of Love 18 Cruelty of Love on the persons of Lovers ibid. Love is sometime the punishment of pride ib. Advices and remedies against Love in its full 19 The medall of Love hath two faces ib. An excellent conceit of Solomon concerning Love ibid. Disasters of Love in each age and condition 20 Advice to all sorts of persons concerning Love ibid. Diversitie of the maladies of Love and their cures 21 Remedies for the affection of Love which come against our wills ibid. Admirable example of the combate of Saints against Love ib. Separation the first remedie against Love 22 The counsell and assiduity of a good directour is an excellent antidote against Love ibid. The conversation of God with man by the mystery of the incarnation in the consummation of Love 24 The Eucharist the last degree of Love ibid. The Love of Saints towards Jesus ibid. The growth of Love like to pearls 25 The Empire and eminencies of