the light and beauty which he beheld that his heart not being able to contain it it struck forth into his face with a divine brightness what joy shall the blessed Souls receive from the sight of God himself when they shall behold him as he is face to face not in passage or a moment but for all eternity This joy by reason of their strict union their Souls shall communicate unto their happy Bodies Albert. Mag. in Comp. Theol. l. 7. c. 38. which from thenceforth shall be filled with glory and invested with a light seaven times brighter than that of the Sun as is noted by Albertus Magnus For although it be said in the Gospel that the Just shall shine as the Sun yet Isaias the Prophet sayes that the Sun in these dayes shall shine seaven times more than it now doth This light being the most beautiful and excellent of corporal qualities shall cloath the Just as with a garment of most exceeding lustre and glory What Emperor was ever clad in such a purple what humane Majesty ever cast forth beams of such splendour Joseph l. 19. c. 〈◊〉 Herod upon the day of his greatest magnificence could only cloath himself in a Robe of silver admirably wrought which did not shine of it self but by reflection of the Sun beams which then in his rising cast his raies upon it and yet this little glittering was sufficient to make the people salute him as a God What admiration shall it then cause to behold the glorious Body of a Saint not cloathed in Gold or Purple not adorned with Diamonds or Rubies but more resplendent than the Sun it self Put all the brightest Diamonds together all the fairest Rubies all the most beautiful Carbuncles let an Emperial Robe be embroidered with them all all this will be no more than as coals in respect of a glorious body which shall be all transparent bright and resplendent far more than if it were set with Diamonds O the basenese of worldly riches they all put together could not make a Garment so specious and beautiful If here we account it for a bravery to wear a Diamond Ring upon our fingers and women glory in some Carbuncle dangling at their breasts what shall it be to have our hands feet arid breasts themselves more glorious and resplendent than all the Jewels of the World The Garments which we wear here how rich soever are rather an affront and disgrace unto us than an ornament since they argue an imperfection and a necessity of our bodies which we are forced to supply with something of another mature Besides our cloathes were given as a mark of Adams fall in Paradise and we wear them as a penance enjoyned for his Sin And what fool so impudent and sottish as to bestow precious trimming upon a penitential Garment But such are not the Ornaments of the Saints in Heaven their lustre is their own not borrowed from their Garments not extrinsecal without them but within their very entrails each part of them being more transparent than Chrystal and brighter than the Sun It is recounted in the Apocalyps as a great wonder that a Woman was seen cloathed with the Sun and crowned with twelve Stars This indeed was far more glorious than any Ornament upon Earth where we hold it for a great bravery to be adorned with twelve rich Diamonds and a Carbuncle and what are those in comparison of the Sun and so many Stars Yet this is short of the Ornament of the Saints whose lustre is proper to themselves intrinsecally their own not taken and borrowed from something without them as was that of the Womans The State and Majesty with which this gift of splendor shall adorn the Saints shall be incomparably greater than that of the mightiest Kings It were a great Majesty in a Prince when he issues forth of his Palace by night to be attended by a thousand Pages each having a lighted Torch but were those Torches Stars it were nothing to the state and glory of a Saint in Heaven who carries with him a light equal to that of the Sun seaven times doubled and what greater glory than not to need the Sun which the whole World needs Where the Just is shall be no night for wheresoever he goes he carries the day along with him What greater authority can there be than to shine far brighter than the Sun carrying with him far greater Majesty than all the men of the Earth could be able to conferre upon him if they went accompanying him carrying lighted Torches in their hands St. Paul beholding the gift of Clarity in the humanity of Christ remained for some dayes without sense or motion And St. John onely beholding it in the face of our Saviour fell down as if dead his mortal eyes not being able to endure the lustre of so great a Majesty St. Peter because he saw something of it in the transfiguration of Christ was so transported with the glory of the place that he had a desire to have continued there for ever Neither was this much in Christ since the people of Israel were not able to suffer the beams which issued from the face of Moses though then in a frail and mortal body Caesar lib. 12. mir cap. 54. Caesarius writes of a great Doctor of the University of Paris who being ready to give up his ghost wondered how it could be possible that Almighty God could make his body composed of dust to shine like the Sun But our Lord being pleased to comfort and strengthen him in the belief of the Article of the Resurrection caused so great a splendor to issue forth of the feet of the sick person that his eyes not being able to suffer so great a splendor he was forced to hide them under his Bed-cloathes But much more is it that in bodies already dead this glory should appear The body of St. Margaret Daughter to the King of Hungary sent forth such beams of light that they seemed to be like those of Heaven The splendor also of other dead bodies of the Saints hath been such that mortal eyes were not able to behold them If then this Garment of light do beautifie those dead bodies without souls how shall it illustrate those beautiful and perfect bodies in Heaven who are alive and animated with their glorious spirits for all eternity St. John Damascen said that the light of this inferiour World was the honour and ornament of all things How shall then the immortal light of that eternal glory deck and adorn the Saints for it shall not onely make them shine with that bright candor we have already spoken of but with diversity of colours shall imbellish some particular parts more than others In the Crowns of Virgins it shall be most white in that of Martyrs red in that of Doctors of some particular brightness Neither shall those marks of glory be only in their heads or faces but in the rest of their members And therefore
undefiled superiour to all grief and pleasure that thou do nothing without a good end nothing feignedly or falsely and that thou regard not what another man does or has to doe Besides that all things which happen thou receive as sent from thence from whence thou thy self art derived Finally that thou attend death with a quiet and temperate minde This is from that great Philosopher CAP. X. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal THe least evil which we receive from the goods of this world is to deceive and frustrate our hopes and he comes well off whom they forsake onely with a mock For there are many who not onely fail of what they desire but meet with what they abhorre and in place of ease and content meet with trouble and vexation and instead of life finde death and that which they most affect turns often to their destruction Absolon being very beautiful gloried in nothing more than his hair but even those became the instrument of his death and those which he daily combed as if they had been threads of gold served as a halter to hang him upon an Oak To how many have riches which they loved as their life been an occasion of death This is the calamity of the goods of the earth which the Wise-man noted when he said Eccle. 5. Another dangerous evil I beheld under the Sun riches preserved for the destruction of their owner This is the general and incurable infirmity of riches that when they are possessed with affection they turn into the ruine of their possessors either in soul or body and oftentimes in both in so much as we are not to look upon temporal goods as vain and deceitful but as Parricides and our betrayers With much reason the two great Prophets Isaias and Ezechiel compare Egypt by which is signified the world and humane prosperity unto a reed which if you lean upon it breaks and the splinters wound your hands No less brittle than a reed are temporal goods but more dangerous Besides the other faults wherewith they may be charged a very great one is the hurts they doe to life it self for whose good they are desired and are commonly not onely hurtful unto the life eternal but prejudicial even unto the temporal How many for their desire to obtain them have lost the happiness of heaven and the quiet felicity of the earth enduring before death a life of death and by their cares griefs fears troubles labours and afflictions which are caused even by the greatest abundance and felicity before they enter into the hell of the other world suffer a hell in this And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps Apoc. 20. that Death and Hell were cast into a lake of fire because the life of sinners of whom he speaks according to the letter is a death and hell and he sayes that this Life and this Hell shall be cast into the other hell and he who places his felicity in the goods of the earth shall pass from one death unto another and from one hell unto another Let us look upon the condition whereunto Aman was brought by his abundance of temporal fortunes into so excessive a pride that because he was denied a respect which was no wayes due unto him he lived a life of death smothering in his breast a hell of rage madness and hatred nothing in this life as he himself confest giving him ease or content What condition more like unto death and hell than this for as in hell there is a privation of all joyes and delights so oftentimes it happens in the greatest felicities upon earth The same which Aman confessed Dionysius felt when he was King of Sicily to wit that he took no content at all in the greatest delights of his Kingdom Tull. in Tuscul q. Boet. l. de consol And therefore Boetius sayes that if we could take away the veil from those who sit in Thrones are clad in Purple and compassed about with Guards of Souldiers we should see the chains in which their Souls are enthralled conformable unto which is that of Plutarch that in name onely they are Princes but in every thing else Slaves A marvelous thing it is that a man compassed about with delights pastimes and pleasures should joy in nothing and in the middest of dancing drinking feasting and dainty fair should find a hell in his heart That in hell amongst so many torments sinners should not finde comfort is no marvail at all but that in this life in the middest of felicity and affluence of all delights he should finde no satisfaction is a great mystery A great mischief than is humane prosperity that amongst all its contents it affords no room for one true one But this is Divine providence that as the Saints who despised what was temporal had in their souls in the very middest of torments a heaven of joy and pleasure as St. Lawrence who in the middest of flames found a Paradice in his heart so the Sinner who neither esteems nor loves any thing besides those of the world should also in the middest of his regalo's and delights finde a life of hell and torments anticipating that whereunto after death he is to enter and be confined So great are the cares and griefs occasioned by the goods of the earth that they oppress those who most enjoy them and shut up the door to all mirth leaving them in a sad night of sorrow This is that which was represented unto the Prophet Zacharias Zach. 5. when before that the Devils came to fetch away the Vessel wherein the woman was enclosed to be carried into a strange Region in the Land of Sanaar there to dwell for ever the mouth of it was stopt up with a talent of Lead and she imprisoned in darkness and obscurity signifying thereby that before a worldling is snatcht away by the Devils to be carried into the mournful land of hell even in this life he is hood-winked and placed in so great a darkness as he sees not one beam of the light of truth so that no content or compleat joy can ever enter into his heart § 2. The reason why the goods of this life are troublesome and incommodious even to life it self is for the many dangers they draw along with them the obligations wherein they engage us the cares which they require the fears which they cause the affronts which they occasion the straights whereunto they put us the troubles which they bring along with them the disordinate desires which accompany them and finally the evil conscience which they commonly have who most esteem them With reason did Christ our Redeemer call riches thorns because they ensnare and wound us with danger losses unquietness and fears Wherefore Job said of the rich man Job 20. Greg. l. 15. Mor. c. 12. When he shall be filled he shall be straightned he shall burn and all manner of grief shall fall upon him The which St.
Third an immortal Death O Death how much less cruel art thou in taking away life than in forcing to live in so painful a manner Greg. Moral l. 9. c. 49. St. Gregory also sayes In hell there shall be unto the miserable a death without death and an end without end for their death shall ever live and their end shall ever begin Mortal sin is the greatest of all evils and consequently deserves the greatest of all punishments Because in ordinary death which takes away the use of the senses the rigour of it is not felt God ordained another kind of death in which the senses perpetually dying should perpetually feel the force of pain and should ever live in the agony of dying This David signitied when he said That death should feed on the damned for as the Flock pastures upon the grass but ends it not because it still grows green and fresh again so that death feeds upon sinners but consumes them not This death of the damned the holy Scripture calls the second death Because it succeeds the first and comprehends both that of soul and bodie And with much reason may it also be called a double death because death is then doubled when we die and feel the torment of dying which in the first death of the body we do not Even here amongst us if there should be a condition in which we might be sensible but of some part of that which death brings along with it it would be esteemed a greater evil than death it self Who doubts but if one after burial should find himself alive and sensible under the earth where he could speak with no body see nothing but darkness hear nothing but those who walked above him smell nothing but the rotten stink of their bodies cat nothing but his own flesh nor feel any thing but the earth which opprest him or the cold pavement of the Vault where he lay Who doubts not I say but that this estate were worse than to be wholly dead since life onely served to feel the pain of death For this reason the ingenious Romans when they would punish Sacriledge which is the greatest crime made use of interring the offenders alive as of the greatest punishment and therefore executed it upon their Vestal Virgins when they offended a gainst their chastity as upon Oppia and Minutia that being alive they might feel the pain and bitterness of dying And certainly Zeno the Emperour found this punishment so bitter that he devoured his own flesh by morsels What Sepulcher is more horrible than that of Hell what is eternally shut upon those who are in it whore the miserable damned remain not onely under earth but under fire having sense for nothing but to feel death darkness loathsomness pain and stink This is therefore a double death because to feel the pain of death is an evil double to that of dying Lib. 6. de Civit. ca. 12. Wherefore St. Austin said No death is greater or worse than where death dies not Besides this death of Hell may be called a double death in respect it contains both the death of sin ang the death of pain those unfortunate wretches standind condemned never to be freed from the death of sin and for ever to be tormented with the death of pain There is no greater death than that of the Soul which is sin in which the miserable are to continue whilest God is God with that infinite evil and that ugly deformity which sin draws along with it which is worse than to suffer that eternal fire which is but the punishment of it After sin what pain should there be greater than that of sin it self and for this reason in Hell in regard 't is the torment for sin it is a greater pain than death it self or the most horrible death of all Who trembles not with the onely memory that he is to die remembring that he is to cease to be that the feet whereon he walks are no more to bear him that his hands are no more to serve him nor his eyes to see Why then do we not rather tremble at the thought of Hell in respect of which the first death is no punishment but a reward a happiness and a joy there being no damned in Hell but would take that death which we here inflict for offences as an ease of his pains O how much does the Divine Justice exceed the humane since that which men give unto those whom they condemn for the greatest offences would be received by those whom God condemns as a great ease comfort and accomplishment of their desires who shall desire death and death shall flye from them for unto all their evils and miseries this as the greatest is adjoyned that neither They nor It shall shall ever die This circumstance of being eternal doth much augment the torments of Hell such being the condition of eternity as hath been already declared that it doth infinitely augment that whereunto it is annexed Let us suppose that one had but a Gnat that should sting his right hand and a Wasp at the left and that one foot should be pricked with a Thorn and the other with a Pin. If this onely were to last for ever it would be an intolerable torment What will it then be when hands feet arms head bread and entrails are to burn for all eternity The onely holding one finger in a Candle for the space of a quarter of an hour no body would be able to suffer it To be then plunged into the infernal flames for years eternal what understanding is there that is able I do not say to express in words but to frame a due conception of this torment That a torment is never to cease and that the tormented is to live for ever the onely thinking of it causes great horror What would it be to suffer it Sur. To. 7. die 14. April A certain man who had not much repentance or feeling it seems of his sins having expressed divers most heinous offences to the holy Virgin St. Lidwine the Saint replyed That she would do penance for them contenting her self that he should onely lye in his Bed one night in the same posture looking up towards Heaven without moving or turning himself all night The man very contented and joyful If my penance says he be no greater than this I shall soon have performed it But he was scarce laid down in his Bed when he had a mind to turn on one side it being a great trouble to him not to do it perswading himself that he never lay so uneasie his whole life before and said unto himself My Bed is a very good one and soft I am well in health what is wanting to me nothing else is wanting but onely to turn me from one side to the other But this what is it be quiet and sleep as thou art till morning Canst thou not then tell me what doth aile thee By this means he call'd
never in lite whilest he was in this body which rather dies than lives if perhaps he be not at the same time both in life and death joyntly that is in life which he lives untill that be ended and in death which he dies who is every moment deprived of some part of life For the same reason Quintilian said That we died every moment before the time of death was come And Seneca We erre when we look upon death as upon a thing to succeed since it hath both preceded and is also to follow for all what hath been before us is death And what imports it whether thou begin not at all or end since the effect of both is not to be Every day we die and every day we lose some part of life and in our very growth our life decreases and grows less and this very day wherein we live we divide with death Our lite in the book of wisdom is compared unto the passing of a shadow which as it may be said to be a kind of night so our life may be called a kind of death For as the shadow hath some part of light some of darkness so our life hath some part of death and some of life untill it come to end in a pure and solid death And since it is to end in a not being it is very little to be regarded especially compared with eternity which hath a being constant and for ever §. 2 All as hath been said which hath an end is little since it is to end in nothing Why therefore wilt thou lose much for that which is so little that which is true for what is false and a substance for a dream Hear what St. John Chrysostome sayes Hom. 20. ad Pop. If for having a pleasant dream onely for one night a man were to be tormented a hundred years when he were awake who would desire such a dream Far greater is the difference betwixt the truth of eternity and the dream of this life betwixt the eternal years of the ether world and the transitory ones of this Less is this life in respect of the eternal than an hours dream in respect of a hundred years awake less than a drop in respect of the whole sea Forbear then some small pleasure now that thou mayst not be deprived of all pleasures hereafter suffer rather some slight trouble at present than be tormented hereafter tor all eternity For as St. Augustine sayes better is a little bitterness in the throat than an eternal torment in the bowels All which passes in time Christ our Redeemer calls a very little A very little did he call the time of his passion and all those bitter pains which he suffered in it a very little that of the Martyrdome of his Apostles endured with so many sorts of torments a little a very little is all which in this life can be suffered in respect of eternal years Tract 10. in Jo. Although as St. Augustine sayes this little because we are yet in it appears great but when it shall be ended then we shall perceive how small and contemptible it is Let us place our selves in the end of life from that prospect we shall discern how small are all things which now seem great unto us Unto a most observant and religious Father of the Company of Jesus called Christopher Caro our Lord was pleased to give this lesson that he should often consider these two things O how much and O how little That is how much is eternity without end how little is the time of this life how much is God enjoyed for ever how little the contents of this earth which we are to leave behinde us how much it is to raign with Christ how little to serve our own appetite how much is eternal glory and how little to live long in this valley of tears Wherefore Eccksiasticus said The number of the dayes of man when many are an hundred years and are reputed as a drep of water and as a grain of sand So sew are our years in the day of eternity Little will all time whatsoever appear to merit that which is eternal With reason did St. Bernard often inculcate unto his Monks that saying of St. Hierome No labour ought to appear hard no torments long by which is gained the glory of eternity Unto Jacob the seven years which he served Laban seemed short for the love he bare unto Rachel why should then the service of God for a small time seem long unto us consider whom thou servest and wherefore and mark whom Jacob served and for what Thou servest the true God and for eternal glory he served a deceitful Idolater for a frail and fading beauty Compare thy services with those of Jacob see if thou hast served God as he served Laban Gen. 31. see if thou canst say By day I was scorched with heat and by night benummed with cold sleep fled from mine eyes and in this manner I served thee twenty years It with such fidelity this Servant of God served a Pagan how oughtest thou to serve God himself If thou beest truly his servant all ought to seem little unto thee since thou servest so good a Master and for so great a reward Look how thou imployest thy years which being but few for the meriting of so great a thing as Eternity thou sufferest to pass thorow thy fingers without any profit at all Well saith St. Augustin Lib. 10. contra Faust c. 6. was the time of this life signified by the spinning of the Parcae or fatal Sisters who were feigned by the wife Ancients to spin out the thread of life Time past was that which was wound up and roled upon the spindle Time to come the Flax which remained to spin upon the Distaffe and the present that which passed betwixt the fingers for truely we know not to imploy our time in filling our hands with holy works but suffer it without reflecting to pass through our fingers in matters of no substance or profit But better did David declare this ill imployment of time when he said Psal 89. Our years did meditate or as another lection hath it Did exercis as the spiders because Spiders spin not wool or flax but the excrements of their own entrails consuming and dissembowelling themselves to weave a webb which they work with their feet of so sleight a substance that in a moment it is rent in pieces and so little profit that it serves for no other use than to catch flies The life of man is full of vain labours vexations of various thoughts plots suspitions fears and cares in which it is wholly exercised and imployed linking and weaving one care into another still troubling it self with more being scarcely freed from one employment when it entangles it self in another and all so ill ordered and composed as if they had been managed by feet instead of hands still adding labour unto labour and toyl unto toyl as
peeces and he above all remained distracted in his wits raging with despite and madness Let us now consider Antiochus in all his pomp and glory glittering in Gold and dazling the eyes of the beholders with the splendor of his Diamonds and precious Jewels mounted upon a stately Courser commanding over numerous Armies and making the very earth tremble under him Let us then behold him in his Bed pale and wan his strength and spirits spent his loathsome body flowing with worms and corruption forsaken by his own people by reason of his pestilential and poisonous stink which infected his whole Camp and finally dying mad and in a rage Who seeing such a death would with the felicity of his life who with the condition of his misery would desire his fortune See then wherein the goods of this life conclude And as the clear and sweet waters of Jordan end in the filthy mud of the dead Sea and are swallowed up in that noysome Bitumen so the greatest splendor of this life concludes in death and those loathsome diseases which usually accompany it Act. 12. Vide Josephum Behold in what a sink of filth ended the two Herods most potent Princes Ascalonita and Agrippa This who cloathed himself in Tissue and boasted a Majesty above humane dyed devoured by worms which whilst he yet lived fed upon his corrupted and apostumated flesh flowing with horrible filth and matter Neither came the other Ascalonita to finish his dayes more happily being consumed by lice that nasty vermin by little and little bereaving him both of his life and Kingdom 3 Reg. 20. King Achab Conqueror of the King of Syria and 32 other Princes dyed wounded by a chance-arrow which pierced his body and stained his Royal Charriot with his black gore which was after licked up by hungry Dogs as it he had been some savage beast 3 Reg. 22. Neither dyed his Son Joram a more fortunate death run through the heart with a sword his body left upon the field to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey wanting in his death seaven foot of earth to cover him who in life commanded a Kingdom Who could have known Caesar who had first seen him triumph over the Conquered world and then beheld him gasping for a little breath and weltring in his own bloud which flowed from three and twenty wounds opened by so many stabs Who could believe it were the same Cyrus he who subdued the Medes conquered the Assyrian and Chaldaean Empire he who amazed the world with thirty years success of continued Victories now taken prisoner and put to an ignominious death by the Command of a Woman Who could think it were the same Alexander Plut. in ejus vita who in so short time subjugated the Persians Indians and the best part of the known world and should after behold him conquered by a Calenture feeble exhausted in body dejected in spirit dried up and parched with thirst without taste in his mouth or content in his life his eyes sunk his nose sharp his tongue cleaving to his pallat not being able to pronounce one word What an amazement is it that the heat of a poor Fever should consume the mightiest power and fortune of the world and that the greatest of temporal and humane prosperities should be drowned by the overflowing of one irregular and inordinate humour How great a Monster is Humane Life since it consists of so disproportionable parts the uncertain felicity of our whose life ending in a most certain misery How prodigious were that Monster which should have one arm of a Man and the other of an Elephant one foot of a Horse and the other of a Bear Truly the parts of this life are not much more sutable Who would marry a woman though of a comely and well proportioned body who had the head of an ugly Dragon certainly although she had a great Dowry none would covet such a Bed-fellow Wherefore then do we wed our selves unto this life which although it seems to carry along with it much content and happiness yet is in effect no less a Monster since although the body appear unto us beautiful and pleasant yet the end of it is horrible and full of misery And therefore a Philosopher said well that the end of things was their head and as men were to be known and distinguished by their faces so things by their ends and therefore who will know what life is let him look upon the end And what end of life is not full of misery Let no man flatter himself with the vigour of his health with the abundance of his riches with the splendor of his authority with the greatness of his fortune for by how much he is more fortunate by so much shall he be more miserable since his whole life is to end in misery Wherefore Agesilaus hearing the King of Persia cried up for a most fortunate and happy Prince reprehended those who extolled him saying Have patience Plutar. in ejus vita for even King Priamus whose end was so lamentable was not unfortunate at the age of the King of Persia Giving us to understand that the most happy were not to be envied whilest they lived by reason of the uncertainty of that end whereunto they are subject How many as yet appear most happy whose death will shortly discover the infelicity of their lives Plutar. in Apoph Graecis Epaminondas when they asked him who was the greatest Captain Cabrias Iphicrates or himself Answered that whilest they lived no man could judge but that the last day of their lives would deliver the Sentence and give each one their due Let no man be deceived in beholding the prosperity of a rich man let him not measure his felicity by what he sees at present but by the end wherein he shall conclude not by the sumptuousness of his Palaces not by the multitude of his Servants not by the bravery of his Apparel not by the lustre of his Dignity but let him expect the end of that which he so much admires and he shall then perceive him at best to die in his Bed dejected dismayed and strugling with the pangs and anxieties of death and if so he comes off Well otherwise wise the daggers of his enemy the teeth of some wild beast or a tyle thrown upon his head by some violent wind may serve to make an end of him when he least thinks of it This reason tells us although we had no experience of it But we see it daily confirmed by the testimony of those who are already in the gates of death and no man can better judge of life than he who stands with his back towards it Mago Dionysius Carth. de noviss Art 5. a famous Captain amongst the Carthaginians and Brother to the great Hannibal being mortally wounded confessed this truth unto his Brother saying O how great a madness is it to glory in an Eminent Command The estate of the most
to conclude in a not being is already not much distant from it and so differing little from nothing ought not to be valued much more than if it were nothing But unto this necessity of ending is annexed that so notable circumstance of ending after so dreadful and terrible a manner as we have already seen I have therefore been so full in expressing of it that we may perceive by this so strange a manner of conclusion what our exorbitant malice in the abuse of the Creatures hath added unto their proper vanity for it is we who by our vices have made them of much less value than they are by their own nature so as in the condition they now stand they are much to be despised Natural delights are in themselves more pure and less hurtful than humane malice hath made them which hath rendred them more costly dangerous and difficult and therefore less pleasant for what is subject to care and danger must of necessity be mixed with trouble Honey loses its sweetness if mixed with Gall and the most generous Wine is corrupted with a little Vinegar by which may appear the errour of our appetites which striving to augment our pleasures hath lessened them and by adding inordinate relishes to what nature had simply and regularly provided hath rather invented new afflictions than contents Our gluttony is not pleased with savoury food but what we eat must be rare and costly it contents not it self with the bare taste of meat which is its proper object but seeks after smell and colour it is not Cooked if not disguised neither will that serve if not accommodated with several sorts of Spices Salt and Sugar seasons not what we eat but Musk and Amber Neither is our feeling content with the warmth of our Apparel but looks after colour fashion and expence and we are more sollicitous that it may appear neat and curious unto others than that it may decently cover and cherish our necessitated members taking occasion by the necessity of nature to nourish our vices Apparel serving rather the ambition and pride of our mindes than the nakedness of our bodies But it is not much that we content not our selves with the natural use of things since we are not pleased with nature it self but adulterate it with art not onely women but men dye their hair and counterfeit their faces and statures and the Creature to the injury of the Creatour presumes to form himself after another manner than God thought fit to make him In like manner riches are not measured out for humane necessity and conveniency but for pomp and arrogancy in the acquisition and use whereof we look not so much what suffices for life and the lawful pleasures of it as what serves for pride and ostentation wherein consuming our wealth and fortunes we lose the use of them and what was onely ordained as a remedy of our necessities by our abuse augment and make them greater Whereupon it commonly happens that rich men are most in want and great personages are more indebted and engaged than meaner people Honour and Fame are so adulterated that they are not onely desired as a reward of vertues but of vices All these abuses are the faults of the World which hath made humane life more troublesome and full of danger than it is by necessity and condition and therefore it was convenient that the World should end with trouble and confusion since the abuse of it hath been with so much shame and impudence and that it self also should be judged which hath sustained and fed the vanity and folly of man with things so base and despicable The ancient Philosophers placed vertue and the felicity of man in living according unto nature but what content and happiness can there be when all the pleasures of life are so sophisticated with art as they are wholly different from that which nature requires and what vertue can be expected from them who live according to so much malice But Christians who ought not onely to live conformable to nature but unto grace and the example of Christ make it apparent how just it is that the wicked should give an account of those things which they have used so contrary unto his divine pleasure §. 2. And so not onely those things which are spoken of in the precedent Chapter are to be of terrour and fear in the end of the World but more especially that strict account which God shall then exact from the whole Linage of man For as in the death of particular persons there is to be a particular judgement so in the death of the World a general Judgement is to pass upon all and as the most terrible thing of death is that particular reckoning so in the end of the World is that universal reckoning when God shall demand an account of his divine benefits and shall judge the abuses of them and all the sins of men making it to appear to the whole World how good and gracious he hath been towards them and how rebellious and ungrateful they have been towards him The manifestation of which truth will be of more terrour unto the wicked than all the plagues and prodigies of Earthquakes Inundations Tempests Locusts Pestilences Famines Warres Lightnings and Fire which have gone before Guigo Carth. in med Therefore Guigo Carthusianus said well that the most terrible thing of that day was the truth that should then appear against Sinners And without doubt neither those stupendious Thunders nor that furious roaring of the Sea nor any other wonder of those last times shall bring that confusion upon Sinners as to see the great reason which God had to be served and the none at all which they then had to displease him It was therefore most convenient that after the particular Judgement of each man apart there should be an universal Judgement of all together in which God should make appear the righteousness of his proceedings and give a general satisfaction of his justice even to the damned and Divils And because in the death of Man as St. Thomas notes all 3. p. 2. d. q. 59. art 5. what was his dies not for there remains his memory his Children his Works his Example his Body and many of those things in which he placed his affection it is therefore reason that all those should enter into that general Judgement with him that he may know that he is not onely to give an account of his life but of those things also which he leaves behind him The fame and memory of Man after death doth not oftentimes correspond unto the deserts of his life and it is just that this deceit should be taken off and that the vertuous whom the World made no account of should then be acknowledged for such and he who had fame and glory without merit should then change it into shame and confusion O how deceived shall the ambitious then find themselves who to the end they might leave
clearest wits the noblest souls and the most constant and sound judgements have the weakest bodies Finally in this matter of honour men have invented such lawes such punctilioes such impertinent formalities that if they were all truely and really mad they could not have done more absurdly For what is madness but to doe things without proportion order or reason which since the World does we must conclude it vain senseless and foolish Coming then to Riches which were invented for the ease and commodity of life humane malice hath made them such as they serve for our greater trouble and vexation For he that is rich will not onely be rich himself but must have all he hath so too He is not content with having a good Garment unless his walls be with curious Pictures rich Tapestries precious Cabinets and other rarities better clad than himself which serve not for warmth or use but onely for shew and appearance From whence it happens that he who hath most wealth hath most want because he not only needs for himself but for all which he possesseth so that he who hath a great house hath the same necessities that his house which are many for a great house requires much furniture and a large Family and so charges the Master with multitudes of Servants great quantities of Plate Hangings and other Ornaments superfluous to use and humane commodity in so much as none are more poor than the rich because they want not onely for themselves but for all that is theirs At least riches want not this incommodity that although they were invented for humane use and ease yet he that hath them in the greatest abundance hath the greatest cares troubles envies dangers and ever the greatest losses The same disorder and abuse happens in divers other particulars which at first were invented for a comfort and remedy of our wants but are now become a burthen and trouble unto us Our Garments which were for necessity are now worn for ornament and using them for other ends than they were designed they become our vexations A girdle or a shooe too much streightned afflicts the body and hinders us in divers actions bravery gold-chains and other needless ornaments burthen us Ambros l. 1. de Virgin Wherefore St. Ambrose saith A weighty Chain of gold about the neck or stumbling Chapines upon the feet serve as a punishment unto women as if they were some great offenders for in respect of the pain and weight with which they grieve those who wear them what matters it whether they be of gold or iron both equally oppress their necks and hinder their going The price and value of the gold eases nothing nay rather adds to their trouble in respect of the fear they live in lest they should loose them or that some should against their wills free them of their pain and trouble According to this it little imports whether the pain be inflicted by our own sentence as the women in this case pass it against themselves or by the award of others as against offenders Onely women are in this in the more miserable condition since others desire to be freed and eased of their fetters and imprisonment and they to the contrary desire still to be subject and tyed unto theirs This from St. Ambrose Our food also which is given by nature for the sustentation of our lives humane malice hath by the invention of new dainties and various wayes of Cookery to please the pallat made destructive both to the life and taste Those new infirmities and sharp griefs whereof the World is full being occasioned as the Physicians affirm by our disorderly diet and multiplicity of new devised dishes Hector Boetius in his second Book of the History of the Scots saith Our Ancestors knew not those several sorts of infirmities which we see in our age anciently scarce any fell sick but of the stone abundance of flegm or some other infirmity proceeding from cold or moisture They lived well and their spare diet preserved their bodies from diseases and enlarged their lives for many years But now of late since we have forsaken our Country food and given our selves to the curious seeding of other Nations strange diseases have entred with strange dishes And in his ninth Book he saith that they knew not plagues nor sharp and violent Fevers so long as they preserved their ancient diet This separation and wandring of worldly things from their principal and chief end which is God causes such a distance betwixt them and reason that therefore they become a Monster and so St. John very fitly paints the World in the figure of this Monster with seaven heads of a beast and none of a man For if that man were monstrous which had no humane head but seaven of brutish creatures no less Monster is the World which wants the natural end and head which is God whom it ought to seek according to reason and not pursue those false and adulterate ends which are contrary to it The World wants the head of a man because it doth not order it self according to the end of reason and it retains the heads of beasts because it is guided by passion appetite and the like which are the ends of beasts If we shall then behold the great vanity of things together with the multitude of vices wherein men have involved them and daily make them worse to whom can this beast irritated with so many sharp goads as are our sins be tolerable What injustice is not committed what flattery not insinuated what cozenage not attempted And what revenge not executed Avarice disquiets all Luxury corrupts it and Ambition treads it under foot From what is said it follows that the things of this World represented unto us by St. John under the figure of those three fierce and cruel beasts are according to our disorderly manner of using them much prejudicial and hurtful both to our souls and bodies And if we should behold them as they lye hidden under that appearance of pleasure which they feign and counterfeit we should be affrighted as if we had seen Lions or Tygers which would tear us in pieces or Serpents which would sting and poison us And the like unto that which was done by the Servant of God Volcon would happen unto us Zon. To. 13. ex Othone This man was a holy Priest and very zealous and desirous to draw a certain rich man to the service of God He took his occasion by coming one day to dinner unto him and entring the house he said Sir what have we to eat The rich man replyed Trouble not your self you shall eat the best the Town affords The holy man went streight to the Kitchin accompanied with many others who followed him and calling the Cook commanded him to bring forth those dishes which were provided An admirable thing No sooner were they brought in and uncovered but the Capons Pheasants Peacocks and other dainties turned into Toads and Serpents
that his loathsome smel infected his whole Army and his body as hath been said flowed with lice and vermin Consider here the end of Majesty when the greatest power of the Earth cannot defend it self against so noisome and so contemptible an enemy In the same manner Feretrina Queen of the Barcaeans all the flesh of her body turned into maggots and grubbs that swarming every where at last consumed her Some have had serpents bred in their arms and thighs which have devoured their flesh even whilest they lived With reason then does man enter into the World with tears as divining the many miseries which he shall have time enough to suffer but not to lament and therefore begins to weep so early §. 2. Strange Pestilences Vide Pet. Bon. l. 3. Theatr. mundi WHat shall I say of those strange pestilential infirmities which have destroyed whole Cities Provinces Many Authors write that in Constantinople there happened so strange a Plague that those who were infected with it thought they were kill'd by their next neighbours and falling into this frenzie died raging with fear and imagination that they were murthered by their friends In the time of Heraclius there was so mortal a Pestilence in Romania that in a few dayes many thousands died and the greater part of those who were struck flung themselves into the River to asswage that excessive heat which like a fire burnt their entrails Thucidides a Greek Author writes that in his time there was such a corruption of the air that an infinite of people died and no remedy could be found to mitigate that disaster and which was most strange if any by good hap recovered they remained without memory at all of what was past in so much as the Fathers forgot their Sons and Husbands their Wives Marcus Aurelius an Author worthy of credit speaks of a Plague in his time so great in Italy that it was easier to number the quick than the dead The Souldiers of Avidius Cassius being in Seleucia a City within the Territories of Babylon entred into the Temple of Apollo and finding there a Coffer which they imagined might contain some treasure opened it from whence issued so pestilential and corrupted an air that it infected the whole Region of Babylon and from thence passed into Greece and so to Rome still corrupting the air as it went in so much as the third part of mankinde remained not alive The calamities of the times nearer ours have been no less For as our sins decrease not so the justice of God in punishing us slakes not A year after Francis King of France was married to Donna Leonora of Austria there raigned in Germany strange infirmity Those who were infected with it sweating forth a pestilential humour died within four and twenty hours It began in the West but passing afterwards into Germany it raged with such fury as if it meant to extirpate all mankinde for before any remedy could be found there died so many thousands of people that many Townes and Provinces remained desert Such was the putrifaction of the air that it left almost nothing alive and those few that remained in signe of pennance and to avert the wrath of God went signed with red Crosses They write that it was so violent in England that not onely men died but birds left their nests their eggs and young ones the wilde beasts quitted their Dennes and snakes and moles were seen to goe in companies and troopes not being able to endure the poyson enclosed in the bowells of the earth and many creatures were found in heapes dead under trees their bodies broken out into blanes and botches The yeare 1546. the last of May began in Stix a City of Provence a most mortal pestilence which lasted nine moneths in which died an infinite number of people of all ages in so much as the Church-yards were so full of dead bodies as there was no room left to bury others The greatest part of those who were infected the second day became frantick and flung themselves out of windowes or into wells others fell into a flux of blood at the nose which if they stanched they instantly died Married women became abortive or at four moneths end they and what they went with died whom they found covered over with spots something blewish on one side which seemed like blood sprinkled over their body The evil was so great that Fathers forsook their Children and Women their Husbands Riches did not preserve them from dying of hunger a pot of water being not sometimes to be had for money If they found by chance what to eat the fury of the sickness was such as they often died with the morsel in their mouths The contagion became so great that many took it by being onely looked upon and the ayr of the City was so corrupted by the grievous heat of this pestilential evil that wheresoever the steam of it came it raised great blisters mortal sores and carbuncles O how monstrous and horrible a thing it is to hear the relation of the Physician who was appointed for the cure and government of the sick This infirmity saith he was so sharp and perverse that neither Bleeding Purging Treacles nor other Cordials could stay it it kill'd and bore down all before it in so much as the onely remedy which the infected persons hoped for was death of which being certain so soon as they found themselves ill they began to make their Winding-sheets and there were ten thousand who wore them whilest they yet lived knowing certainly that the remedy and end of their evil was to die and in this manner stood expecting the departure of the soul and the fearful separation of the two so dear friends and companions which he affirms to have seen in many persons especially in one woman who calling him at her window to appoint something for her infirmity he saw sewing her Winding-sheet and not long after those who were appointed to interre the dead entring the house found her stretched out upon the floor her Winding-sheet not yet finished To all this is humane life subject Let those therefore who are in health and jollity fear what may befall them § 3. Notable Famines FAmine is no less a misery of mans life than Pestilence which not onely particular persons but whole Provinces have often suffered Such was that which afflicted the Romans when Alaricus that arch-Enemy of Mankind after the destruction of all Italy besieged Rome The Romans came to that poverty famine and want of all things that having nothing left of that which men commonly use to eat they began to feed on Horses Dogs Cats Rats Dormice and other vermin where they could lay hold on them and when those failed they eat one another A horrible condition of humane nature that when God suffers us to fall into those straights our necessity forces us to feed upon our own kind Nay Fathers spare not their Sons nor Women those whom they have
his Body cast forth a most fragrant perfume If this be in corruptible flesh what shall be in the immortal Bodies of the Saints The taste also in that blessed Country shall not want the delight of its proper object For although the Saints shall not there feed which were to necessitate that happy state unto something besides it self yet the tongue and pallat shall be satiated with most pleasant and savoury relishes so as with great decency and cleanliness they shall have the delight of meat without the trouble of eating by reason of the great delicacy of this Celestial taste The glory of the Saints is often signified in holy Scripture under the names of a Supper Banquet Manna Aug. lib. de spiritu vita Laur. Justin de Dis Mon. ca. 23. St. Austin sayes it cannot be explicated how great shall be the delight and sweetness of the taste which shall eternally be found in Heaven And St. Laurentius Justinianus affirms that an admirable sweetness of all that can be delightful to the taste shall satisfie the pallat with a most agreeable satiety If Esau sold his Birthright for a dish of Lentil pottage well may we mortifie our taste here upon earth that we may enjoy that perfect and incomparable one in Heaven The touch also shall there receive a most delightful entertainment All they tread upon shall seem unto the Just to be flowers and the whole disposition of their Bodies shall be ordered with a most sweet and exquisite temperature For as the greatest penances of the Saints were exercised in this sense by the afflictions endured in their Bodies so it is reason that this sense should then receive a particular reward And as the torments of the damned in hell are most expressed in that sense so the Bodies of the Blessed in Heaven are in that sense to receive a special joy and refreshment And as the heat of that infernal fire without light is to penetrate even to the entrals of those miserable persons so the candor and brightness of the celestial light is to penetrate the bodies of the Blessed and fill them with an incomparable delight and sweetness All then what we are to do is to live in that true and perfect life all is to be joy in that eternal happiness Therefore as St. Anselme sayes Ansel de Simil. c. 59. the eyes nose mouth hands even to the bowels and marrow of the bones and all and every part of the body in general and particular shall be sensible of a most admirable pleasure and content Joan. de Tamba Trac de Deliciis sensibilibus Paradisi Et Nich. de Nise de quat Noviss 3. Myst 4. Consi The Humanity of Christ our Redeemer is to be the principal and chief joy of all the Senses and therefore John Tambescensis and Nicholas of Nise say that as the intellectual knowledge of the Divinity of Christ is the joy and essential reward of the Soul so the sensitive knowledge of the Humanity of Christ is the chief good and essential joy of the Senses and the utmost end and felicity whereunto they can aspire This it seems was meant by our Saviour in St. John when speaking unto the Father he said This is life eternal that is essential blessedness as Nicholas de Nise interprets it that they know thee the only true God in which is included the essential glory of the Soul and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ in which is noted the essential blessedness of the Senses in so much as onely in the Humanity of our Saviour the appetite of the Senses shall be so perfectly satisfied as they shall have no more to desire but in it shall receive all joy pleasure and fulness of delight for the eyes shall be the sight of him who is above all beauty for the ears one onely word of his shall sound more sweetly than all the harmonious musick of the Celestial spirits for the smell the fragrancy that shall issue from his most holy Body shall exceed the perfume of spices for the taste and touch to kiss his feet and sacred wounds shall be beyond all sweetness It is much also to be noted that the blessed Souls shall be crowned with some particular joyes which the very Angels are not capable of For first it is they onely who are to enjoy the Crowns of Doctors Virgins and Martyrs since no Angel can have the glory to have shed his blood and died for Christ neither to have overcome the flesh and by combats and wrastlings subjected it unto reason Wherefore Saint Bernard said The chastity of men was more glorious than that of Angels Secondly men shall have the glory of their bodies and joy of their senses which the Angels cannot For as they want the enemy of the Spirit which is the Flesh so they must want the glory of the victory Neither shall they have this great joy of mankind in being redeemed by Christ from sin and as many damnations into hell as they have committed mortal sins and to see themselves now freed and secure from that horrid evil and so many enemies of the Soul which they never had which must needs produce a most unspeakable joy Cap. VI. The excellency and perfection of the Bodies of the Saints in the life eternal WE will not forbear also to consider what man shall be when he is eternal when being raised again at the great day he shall enter Soul and Body into Heaven Let us run over if you please all those kinds of goods which expect us in that Land of promise When God promised Abraham the Country of Palestine he commanded him to look upon it and travel and compass it from side to side Gen. 13. Lift up thine eyes saith the Lord and from the place where thou standest look towards the North and towards the South and towards the East and towards the West All the land which thou seest I will give unto thee and thy seed for ever And immediately after Arise and walk the land in length and breadth for I will certainly give it thee We may take these words as spoken unto our selves since they seem to promise us the Kingdom of Heaven for no man shall enter into that which he docs not desire and no man can desire that as he ought to do which he has not walked over in his consideration for that which is not known is hardly desired And therefore we ought often to contemplate the greatness of this Land the length of its eternity and the breadth and largeness of its felicity which is so far extended that it fills not onely the Soul but the Body with happiness and glory that glory of the Soul redounding unto the Body and perfecting it with those four most excellent gifts and replenishing it with all felicity which can be imagined or desired If Moses seeing an Angel in a corporal figure onely upon the back part and but in passage received so great a glory from
Cardinal Bellarmine sayes Bellar. conc de Beat. p. 2. that the bodies of St. John Baptist and St. Paul shall shine with a most incredible beauty having their necks as it were adorned with collars of gold What sight more glorious than to behold so many Saints like so many Suns to shine with so incomparable lustre and beauty What light then will that of Heaven be proceeding from so many lights or to speak more properly from so many Suns By how much the number of Torches is greater by so much is also greater the light they produce altogether How great then shall the clarity or that holy City be where many Suns do inhabit And if by the sight of every one in particular their joy shall be more augmented by the sight of a number without number what measure can that joy have which results from so beautiful a spectacle § 2. As all the bodies of Saints are to be wholly filled with light so they are to enjoy the priviledges of light which amongst all material qualities is enobled with this prerogative that it hath no contrary and is therefore impassible And so the glorious bodies of the Saints having nothing that may oppose them are also freed from sufferance Besides nothing is more swift than light and therefore those bodies who have the greatest share of light are also the most swift in motion whereupon there is no Element so nimble and active as fire no nature so swift as that of the Sun and Stars and light it self is so quick that in an instant it illuminates the whole Sphere of its activity In like manner the glorious bodies of the Saints as they are to enjoy more light so they are to move with more speed and agility than the very Stars themselves The light is also so subtle and pure that it stops not in its passage although it meets with some bodies solid and massie The whole Sphere and body of the Air hinders not the. Sun from enlightning us below and Chrystal Diamonds Glass and other heavy bodies are penetrated by light But far greater shall be the subtility and purity of the blessed bodies unto whose passage nothing how gross or opake soever shall be an obstacle For this reason the Saints in holy Scripture are often called by the name of Light and particularly it is said that the wayes of the Just are like a shining light at midday For as the light because impassible makes his way through dirty and unclean places without defiling its purity passes with speed and penetrates other bodies that stand in its way So the Saints endowed with the light which they receive from this gift of Clarity cannot suffer from any thing having an agility to move with speed from place to place and a subtlety to penetrate wheresoever they please The goods resulting from these privileges and endowments of the glorious bodies are more in number than all the evills of this mortal life The onely gift of impassibility frees us from all those miseries which our bodies now suffer the cold of Winter the heat of Summer infirmities griefs tears and the necessity of eating which one necessity includes infinite others Let us but consider what cares and troubles men undergoe onely to sustain their lives The Labourer spends his dayes in plowing sowing and reaping The Shepheard suffers cold and heat in watching of his flock The Servant in obeying anothers will and command The Rich man in cares and fears in preserving what he possesses What dangers are past in all estates onely to be sure to eat from all which the gift of impassibility exempts the Just The care of cloathing troubles us also little less than that of feeding and that of preserving our health much more For as our necessities are doubly encreased by sickness so are our cares from all which he who is impassible is free and not onely from the griefs and pains of this life but if he should enter into hell it would not burn one hair of him The Prerogative also of the gift of agility is most great which easily appears by the troubles and inconveniences of a long journey which howsoever we are accommodated is not performed without much weariness and oftentimes with danger both of health and life A King though he pass in a Coach or Litter after the most easie and commodious way of travelling must pass over rocks hills and rivers and spend much time but with the gift of agility a Saint in the twinkling of an eye will place himself where he pleases and pass millions of leagues with as much ease and in as short a time as a furlong We admire the Story of St. Anthony of Padua who in one day passed from Italy into Portugal to free his Father condemned wrongfully to death and at that of St. Ignatius Patriarch of the Society of Jesus who in a short time transported himself from Rome to Colen and from thence to Rome without being missed less than in two hours space If to the mortal bodies of his Servants God communicates such gifts what shall he do to the glorified bodies of his Saints What an excellency of nature were it to be able in one day to visit all the great Kingdoms of the Earth and see what passed amongst them in an hour to goe to Rome the chief City of the World from thence to pass to Constantinople the head of the Eastern Empire In another hour to the Great Cair and consider there the immense multitude of the Inhabitants In another hour goe to Goa the Court of the East-Indies and behold the Riches thereof in another to Pequin the Seat of the Kings of China and contemplate the vast extent of that prodigious City in another to Meaco the Court of Japonia in another to Manila the head City of the Philippin Islands in another to Ternate in the Maluca's in another to Lima in Peru in another to Mexico in New Spain in another to Lisboa and Madrid in another to London and Paris the principal Seats of Christendom marking at ease what passed in the Courts of those great Monarchs If this were a great priviledge what shall that be of those glorious bodies who in a short space can traverse all the Heavens visit the Earth return unto the Sun and Firmament and there observe what is above the Starrs in the Empyrial Heaven Greg. li. 3. Dial. 36. St. Gregory writes in his Dialogues that a Souldier assaulting a holy personage and having his naked sword lifted up and ready to give the blow the man cried out to his Patron St. John for help who instantly withheld the Souldiers hand that he could not move it How soon did St. John hear him in Heaven who invoked him upon Earth with what speed did he descend to assist him with-holding and drying up the arm of the wicked Souldier the bodies of the Saints are to move hereafter with no less speed than their spirits do now the weight of their bodies shall
by birth by divine inspiration became a Cistercian Monk He entred upon this course of life and continued with such great courage that he stuck not to challenge the Devil and bid him defiance The Enemy made his Cell the field of battail Here he assaulted him first with whips then upon a certain occasion gave him such blows that the blood burst out at his mouth and nose At the noise the Monks came in and finding him half dead they carried him to his Bed where he lay for the space of three dayes without giving any signes of life In which time in the company of an Angel he descended into a very obscure place where he saw a Man seated in a Chair of fire and certain Women very beautiful thrusting into his mouth burning torches drawing them out at other parts of his body which had been the instruments of his sins The Monk being astonished at this spectacle the Angel told him This miserable wretch was a very powerful man in the world and much given to Women and for this reason the Devils in shape of Women do torment him as thou seest Pasing a little farther he beheld another whom the infernal spirits were fleaing alive and having rubbed all his body over with salt they put him to roast upon a Gridiron This man said the Angel was a great Lord so cruel to his Vassals as the Devils are now to him A little farther they met with other persons of divers states and conditions which were tormented with several kinds of torments Many Religious both men and women whose lives had been contrary to their profession Talkers Censurers of other mens lives Slaves to their bellies defiled with lust and other such like vices To these the Ministers of vengeance in shape of most ugly fellows gave many blows in such sort that they dashed out their brains and made their eyes flye out of their heads because in their works they were blind and without judgement a chastisement Prov. 19. which the Wise-man appoints for such like persons Afterwards he lifted up his eyes and beheld one fastned to a horrible Wheel turning in such a dreadful manner that the Monk here was almost besides himself That thou seest is terrible said the Angel but far more terrible will be what thou shalt now see At the instant the Wheel began to run from alost down to the most profound depths with such horrid joggs and with such noise as if all the World Earth Heaven and all were breaking in pieces At this so sudden and direful accident all the Prisoners and Goalers of Hell brake out into great cries cursing and damning him that came in the Wheel This man said the Angel is Judas the Apostle who betrayed his Master and as long as he shall raign in glory which shall be world without end so long shall this miserable wretch lye thus tormented With these Representations God hath given us to understand the proportion his Justice observes in his chastisements to make us form some lively apprehension of the greatness of those pains they being indeed far greater than what ever we can conceive by all the rigour imaginable exhibited to the senses And in regard what enters by the senses prevails more with us for this reason he represents unto us the torments of the soul sutably to those so horrible to our senses as is to dash out the brains and make the brains flye out of the head For though it be true that this effect is not wrought indeed yet the torments inflicted upon the damned Souls are without companion greater then it would be for a man in this life to be so beaten about the head till his brains and eyes flew out Let us therefore fear the Divine justice and let us understand that in those parts of the body we offend God Almighty with greater delight we shall be sure to be punished with greater torment And here may be given this further instruction that as these and many such like stories related for more variety of discourse in this Treatise oblige us not to a full and absolute belief of them so they desire the favour of so much credit at least as is allowed to Livy Justine or other Chronicle-writers especially the Recorders of these being such as are no less grave and wise and acknowledge moreover a greater obligation of conscience not to wrong the World with lies or empty relations taken up upon the account of frivolous reports especially in matters of such concernment And as we think it not amiss to make use as occasion serves of profane Examples and Authorities in confirmation of what we usually either speak or write so without all doubt the same use of Sacred and Ecclesiastical occurrences may be no less available in such matters as these CAP. XII The fruit which may be drawn front the consideration of Eternal Evils ALl which hath been said of the pains in Hell is far short of that which really they are There is great difference betwixt the knowledge we have by relation and that which we learn by experience The Machabees knew that the Temple of the Lord was already prophaned deserted and destroyed They had heard of it and lamented it but when they saw with their eyes the Sanctuary lye desolate the Altar prophaned and the Gates burnt there was then no measure in their tears They tore their garments cast ashes upon their heads threw themselves upon the ground and their complaints ascended as high as Heaven If then the relation and discourse of the pains of Hell makes us tremble what shall be the sight and experience This notwithstanding the consideration of what hath been said may help us to form some conception of the terrour and horrour of that place of eternal sorrow Let us as St. Bernard sayes descend into Hell whilest we live that we may not descend thither when we are dead Let us draw some fruit from thence during our lives from whence nothing but torment is to be had after death The principal fruits which may be drawn from that consideration are these In the first place an ardent love and sincere gratitude towards our Creator that having so often deserved Hell he hath not yet suffered us to fall into it How many be there now in Hell who for their first mortal sin and onely for that one have been sent thither and we notwithstanding the innumerable sins which we have committed are yet spared What did God find in us that he should use a mercy towards us for so many sins which he did not afford to others for so few Why are we not then more grateful for so many benefits which we have no wayes deserved How grateful would a damned person be if God should free him from those flames wherein he is tormented and place him in the same condition we now are What a life would he lead what penance would he undergoe what austerity would not appear a pleasure unto him and how grateful
therefore intend in this place to say something of the malice of it the rather because it conduces much to the knowledge of those differences which are betwixt things temporal and things eternal Whereof the most notable is that as temporal goods are of that nature that he who loves and seeks them with sollicitude most commonly falls into that horrible evil of sin So he who loves and sets his heart on things eternal secures himself against it Besides having treated of the eternal pains of hell that we may not wonder at the severity of the Divine Justice it was necessary that we should say something of the horrible and grievous malice of sin for which so infinite a punishment is inflicted Many admire that a sin committed in an instant should deserve the eternal punishment of so terrible and cruel torments But this proceeds from their ignorance because they know not the malice of a mortal sin St. Austin whose deep understanding was enlightned by an especial grace wondered rather that there were not two Hells and that a new one was not created for that Christian who durst offend his God after he was incarnated for his redemption And Divines generally affirm that the chastisement of sin in hell is much less than it deserves Who will not then admire this Monster of mischief that being but one evil draws after it so many and that one sin should deserve so many punishments and yet have a malice capable of more A terrible case that for a sin which past onely in thought which none knew but God and he who committed it and perhaps not he neither as being uncertain and doubtful of his own consent and which endured no longer than an instant should yet be punished with so real and eternal pains The reason is That such is the intension of malice in sin that it is equivalent to the extension of an infinite evil The punishment and the sin are like the shadow and the body The sin is the body and the solid evil The punishment but as the shadow And in the reason of a true and real evil the sin as far exceeds the punishment of hell fire as a man exceeds his shadow For as that is truly and really a man and this but a man in appearance so sin is truly an evil the pain onely appears so but is in truth a good being an act of justice caused by God who can cause no evil Hence you may trace the malignity of a sin in comparison whereof the pains of hell although so terrible are not evils but their shadow and may also learn that the commission of a mortal sin is asmuch to be feared above the pains of eternity as a real sword before its shadow The sword kills the shadow at most can but fright So a mortal sin is that which takes away the life of the Soul the pains can onely fear us but without sin the torments of hell are not of power to kill or hurt us See then what a fool thou art if to avoid some temporal evil thou presumest to commit a mortal sin which is as great a folly as to stye from the shadow of a sword and run thy selt upon the point It is true that sin is really an evil and the eternal fire of Hell in comparison of it but a shadow but by this shadow we may judge the greatness of the substance and by the terribleness of the punishment the grievousness of the sin For as by the shadow we know the bulk of the body although we see it not so by the pains of Hell we conjecture the malice and enormity of sin which appears not What would we say of a body which the Sun being at midday and in his height should cast a shadow of an infinite extension This could not be unless the height of that body should rise unto the Sphear of the Sun and being placed opposite unto it should thence produce so vast a shadow In this manner sin causeth a pain of infinite extension because the intension of its malice reaches so high as to oppose it self unto God who being the chief good sin must needs become the chief evil I speak of mortal sin If we therefore tremble at the thought of Hell we may shake at that of sin Who is not amazed that God should behold a creature of his own burning in flames and should there leave him without compassion for all eternity But this is not caused by want of goodness in God but by excess of malice in sin not because the mercy of God hath limits but because the wickedness of man hath none So hainous then is the offence of a mortal sin that eternal flames cannot purge it nor torments give a greater satisfaction than what is due unto the Di-Justice This is that which the Lord said by Oseas Osee 12. Ephraim provoked me to wrath in his bitternesses That is us St. Jerome interprets it with his wickedness he made me bitter and rigorous who of my self was sweet and merciful Such is the grievousness of sin that it makes the sweetness bounty and divine pity of God not to companionate that Soul which is in the bitterness of Hell § 2. Sin is then an infinite offence against God Let it not therefore appear much unto him who knows the ineffable greatness and perfection of the Divine essence that though committed in an instant it should deserve an eternity of punishment For by how much greater is the Majesty of God which is despised by so much greater is the injury offered him and therefore as the Majesty of God which is despised by sin is infinite so the despite of it must contain in it self a certain kinde of infinity By how much greater is the reverence due to a person by so much greater is the disrespect and affront offered him And as to God there is due an infinite reverence so the injurie done him is of an inexplicable malice which with no good works of a pure creature how many and great soever can be expiated Less de perfec divi li. 13. cap. 16. nu 187. So great saith a grave Doctor is the malignity of a mortal sin that being put in the ballance of Divine Justice it would out-waigh all the good works of all the Saints although they were a thousand times more and greater than they are Which consideration although most fearful yet it ought not to seem incredible because the good works with which God is honoured by his Saints although considered in themselves they are of great value and by his grace worthy of eternal life yet in respect of God unto whom they add nothing and who is nothing better by them they are not valuable Unto whose divine goodness not onely they but infinitely more and greater are but a debt But for God to be despised by his Creature who by infinite titles is obliged to serve him and who ought to bear him if he could an infinite love and
Crucifix Neither are the Elements left free from such representations Alfonso the first Portugal beheld in the air an Escucheon with the five wounds And the Emperour Constantine the principal Instrument of the Passion the Cross which hath also divers other times appeared But what more gratious and loving demonstration of the memorie which he desires we should still preserve of his torments then the wounds which he hath imprinted upon the persons of many of his servants Blos li. 15. c. 3. Tritem in Crim. ad an 1500. Surius 14. Aprilis Mosc in vita S. Clarae For besides St. Francis who was marked with the most evident signes of his favour the like were received by St. Gertrude and St. Lucia of Ferrara And what more express memorial of the passion of our Redeemer then the heart of St. Clara of Monte Falco in which was found the Image of Christ crucified the Pillar Whip Lance and other instruments of the Passion We should never make an end if we should recount all those several wayes by which Christ our Saviour hath represented unto us his death and passion to the end we should ever have it present and fixt in our memorie But above all the most blessed Sacrament in which divine mystery the lively representation of his death is as often repeated as his holy body is consecrated in the whole world was a great demonstration of his infinite love towards mankind Wherein he gives us to understand that he desires not onely once but a million of times to die for us and that though he cannot now return again to be crucified by reason of the impassibility of his glorifyed body yet his divine charity hath found a way after an unbloody and impassible manner to repeat the Sacrifice of the Cross and the fruit of our redemption How great a gratitude do we owe our Saviour for so infinite an expression of his good will towards us and how can we be grateful it forgetful of so profitable and advantageous a benefit Let not then his Passion depart from our thoughts but let us rather depart from our pleasures and despise all humane felicity since we behold the Lord of the world in such humility Moreover this most blessed Sacrament is not onely a Memorial of the Passion of Jesus Christ but of the Incarnation and wonderful works of God and not onely brings into our memory what Christ did when he suffered for us but what the Eternal Word did when he became flesh for us that immense God unto whom the whole Globe of the Earth serves but as a footstool descending from Heaven and so far lessening himself as to cover that infinite Majesty under the form of a Servant of which this Divine Sacrament is a most excellent and lively representation For in it also the God of Heaven being already incarnate and made man descends from Heaven and vails himself under the accidents of a little bread and wine and there is as it were annihilated for us and become nothing Besides as in the Eucharist we receive Christ crucified so in it also we receive the Word incarnate insomuch as these two great wonders of God the Passion and Incarnation are not onely represented but as it were multiplied unto us in this blessed Sacrament which was a high thought of God and according to what he said by his Prophet David Psal 39. Thou hast made thy wonders many O Lord And there is none who is like unto thee in thy cogitations Here God made his wonders that is his Passion and Incarnation many repeating and as it were multiplying them in this blessed Sacrament Which was a most high thought of him who is the supreme Wisdom nor could it enter into any understanding but that of the Divinity that that which was so extraordinary and so far above the reach of all created capacities as the Son of God to be sacrificed and the eternal Word to descend from Heaven and be made man should become so ordinary and familiar as we daily see it in the use of this Divine Mysterie But God did not onely here make his wonders many but made them great as the same David cries out How magnified are thy works O Lord Psal 91. Thy cogitations are most profound For although the works of the Passion and Incarnation are so great yet they are as it were enlarged and made greater by this holy Sacrament The greatness of the work of the Incarnation consisted in this that God abased himself and was made man and the greatness of that of the Passion in that he humbled himself unto death But in this Sacrament he abases and humbles himself yet lower becoming food for man which is less than to be man or to die which is natural unto man Besides this the general fruit of the Incarnation and Passion is after a most admirable manner particularly applyed in this blessed Sacrament to every one which receives it worthily The Death and Passion of Christ upon Mount Calvarie was no doubt a great work of God but in this Mysterie we behold the same Death Passion and Sacrifice after an unbloody and impassible manner which is certainly the greater miracle and expresses more the Divine power The Incarnation likewise when the Eternal Word entred into the womb of a Virgin was a great work of God but in this Mysterie it is in a certain manner extended and made greater and is therefore called an extension of the Incarnation our Lord here entring into the breast of every Christian and uniting himself unto him These are the marvails of the Law of Grace concerning which the Prophet Isaias said unto the Lord Isai 64. When thou shalt do wonders we shall not sustain them Thou hast descended and the mountains melted at thy presence From the beginning they have not heard nor understood with their ears neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what thou hast prepared for those who expect thee The Prophet speaks of those wondrous works which were to be seen at the coming of the Messias which wore to be such as the world had never heard of nor had ever entred into any thought but that of God and therefore the Apostle alleadging this place saith That the eye hath not seen nor the ear hath heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love him Since over and above those two stupendious wonders of taking flesh and dying for us he hath given himself as food unto those Souls who remain in his grace and love him which is so great and marvailous a work as onely God could think of it and besides God none And as onely God can truly value it so it is not in the power of man sufficiently to acknowledge it No humane heart being able to support the weight of such an obligation and the greatness of the Divine love which shines forth in this wonder of wonders Tertul. li. de Patien cap.