was impregnable by force He made as though he sued to him for Peace and under colour of friendship to draw him to a parley wherein he had a design to seize upon him thinking that it was the shortest way to end the Warre But Judas took good order for the security of his person and diverted that wicked design that the other had upon him The Agreement that was esteemed a meer dissembling failed not to succeed the two Generalls saw each other and having promised faithfulnesse to one another Nicanor entred into Jerusalem and expressed much cordialnesse to the Maccabean whether he was taken with the admiration of his vircues and the charms of his conversation or that he employed all those caresses to deceive him Yet they were so visible that they gave a jealousie to the King by the reports of some ill tongues that rendred the familiarity of Judas and Nicanor suspected to the State He was constrained to take a journey to the Court to justifie himself thereon and was dismissed with an expresse command to send the Maccabean bound in chains unto the city of Antioch if he would that his justifications should be believed He returned then into Judea continuing alwayes his impostures but Judas having been advertised of it distrusted him and left Jerusalem to retire himself unto Samaria Nicanor caused the Priests to be summoned to deliver him up alive or dead and in case they did refuse he threatned to profane the Temple and to make a dedication of it to the false Deities The Priests having protested to him that it was not in their power since Judas had forsooke their city he retired with an intention to make an exact inquest after him and to carry him prisoner to the King But he seeing that the danger was very great stifned his courage and resolved himself rather to die like a gallant man then to let himself be taken like a sit-still He disposed his whole army by extraordinary devotions and exhortations that were all of fire as being to enterprize one of the most important combats Nicanor caused his troops to march who were of a great number and concluded to give battle on a Saturday believing that the day of Rest would make him a better market of the enemies bloud He had in his Army some Jews that followed him either by a voluntary Apostacy or by necessity that at that time advertised him that he would do well to deferre the day of so dangerous a battle by reason that it was dedicated to Rest But he demanded thereupon who he was that had ordained that day of Sabbath to countenance their sloth They answered him that it was the God of heaven that had destined it for his glory whereto he replyed That that God of heaven should content himself to make Laws in his own Dominion but that he that was the Almighty here on earth commanded them to march for the businesse of the King He was carried away with choler and precipitation which are two very dangerous rocks in the beginning of a battle besides the vengeance of God pursued him as the chief of all blasphemers He fought so ill that having been defeated by Judas he left thirty and five thousand dead upon the place whose number he augmented finding himself involved in the common misery The Conquerour caused his body to be sought out and commanded that his head should be cut off and the hand that he had stretched out against the Altars ordering them to be hanged up in very remarkable places to be beheld by all the world the Tongue that had blasphemed against God was plucked out of his palate and given for a prey to the birds of rapine Such was the end of that blasphemer who hath made us see that a man never despises God in his life but he experiments the arrows of his vengeance at his death He should make a long discourse that would follow in the trace all the valorous acts of Judas I content my self my Reader to set before your eyes all that is most illustrious and to make you see how God fought for Judas and his brethren under the Reign of six Kings with whom they had great businesse to scuffle for The first and the most capitall of their enemies was that Antiochus surnamed the Illustrious who was a factious spirit turbulent and enraged that had undertaken to destroy the whole Nation of the Jews because they had rejoyced at the presages of his death One onely expedition that he made unto Jerusalem to revenge himself cost the liberty or the life of fourscore thousand souls the entire desolation of the Temple pillaged ransacked and profaned even so farre as that there was seen in it a Statue of Jupiter Olympian upon the Altar After all these disastres he left Lysias his Lieutenant to extirpate the remainders of the Jewish people and drew away to the coasts of Persia to make some new pillages It was a King that Daniel calls the Impudent because he had neither God nor Conscience nor Faith nor Government alwayes carried away by an impetuous flux of his own passions that transfigured him into the savagest of all beasts After a Reign of twelve years he finished his life by a most horrible end which made it visible enough that God combated for his Macchabe and for all the faithfull people The Scripture saith That that wicked man that often passed from profusion to necessity without ever separating himself from an insatiable avarice having heard that there was a Temple very rich in the city of Persepolis and that was filled with gold and silver and all the most exquisite rarities that Alexander the Great had left there resolved to take the City and pillage the Temple as he had done that of Jerusalem But the inhabitants having had intelligence of his design beat him back with much confusion and great losse of his men in the ruine of which he saw himself almost overwhelmed As he returned from that voyage in a very shamefull disorder he heard of the great successes of our Macchabee and of the routing of the Lieutenants and of the forces that he had left behind him in Judea This news arriving at a crosse time struck him upon his wounds and pierced him to the heart with a lively and pricking grief He fumed against heaven he detested his fortune and his life and swore that he would make no more of Jerusalem but a common tomb of all the inhabitants of the City He hastned with great marches for that effect and was smitten with a stroke from heaven as invisible as it was afterward uncureable He that had plucked out the bowels of so many innocents felt himself tormented with a furious collick and with a multitude of infernall pains that in a moment deprived him of his appetite of his rest and of all the joyes of life and as evils ordinarily enough come upon the neck of one another it happened that whiles he caused himself to be drawn
granted you for the exercise of virtue otherwise you shall pay the losses thereof in the length of a corrupt and miserable life and your bones in old age shall be filled with the follies of youth which shall sleep with you even in your tomb and drag your souls into the bottomless precipice from whence there is no recovery The ninth REASON Which maketh it appear the Court is a life of penance AMongst the motives which the exact Masters of spiritual life propose to Religious men to invite them to perfection they set before their eyes that they are all stirred up to virtue when they already are in the arms of penance The like with just reason we may say to Courtiers the more to inflame them to fortifie themselves in great and glorious virtues to wit that arriving at Court they enter into a house of penance where they every day have a thousand occasions of suffering which is the shortest way to perfection That the Court is a place of publick penance appeareth for the reasons which I intend now to produce First Antiquity hath called penance by the word Envie as Tertullian Tertul. Apol. c. 40. Invidia Coelum tundimus hath done who saith We strike at the gates of Heaven as with the hammer of envie that is to say with penance This name hath been given either for that it doth make God as it were envied if he pardon not seeing the estate of penitents so deplorable Penance called by the name of envy Invidiam facit Deo nisi ignoscat as the most learned Bishop of Orleans hath noted in his observations upon Tertullian or for that the Latine word invidere signifieth originally not to see any thing but to turn the eye aside as from a sad object and the habit estate and condition of the penitents was heretofore so lamentable that the nice and curious averted their eyes from them and could not endure so much as onely to behold them Howsoever it be the title of envie doth excellently well agree with the Court. That is the nest where envie hatcheth her Envy of Court egs the throne where she exerciseth her Empire the Altar where she hath many sacrifices and were she banished from all the corners of the earth we then should search for her among Courtiers their life always being between the two scales of the ballance whereof the one is called envie the other miserie This is it which obligeth them to an extraordinary perfection that they may perpetually stand upon their guard and avoid the least defect This is it which if they know well how to use it doth absolutely shut up from them the gate to all excess for if envie according to the proverb will offer to shave an egge what will she not do in a meadow Secondly the ancient Canons and Doctours of Five degrees of penance among the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church as S. Basil observe five degrees of penance The first was called sorrow which was a state of tears and grones The second is called audience which was a degree to which penitents after an infinit number of sighs were admitted to hear the instructions and preachings of the word of God whereof they were before deprived The third humiliation which was when the penitents were admitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a certain part of the Mass but not at the Sacrifices for they went out before the consecration a little after the newly instructed Christians the Priest repeating over them a certain prayer during which time they made a low obeysance their face bowed to the ground The fourth degree is called consistence where the penitents had leave to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hear Mass at the full length as others but not to make any oblation nor to communicate for that was reserved to the last degree called communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they obtained a full reconciliation in the participation of the holy mysteries as the fore-alledged Bishop hath most excellently explicated Of these five parts of penance Courtiers for the Practise of these degrees at Court most part exercise those which are most irksom and very seldom sparticipate in the consolations of the other more sweet and benign If penitents have a degree of tears and lamentations where are sighs and groans more frequent than in Court for the many disasters which ordinarily occur in their affairs One may well apply to them that passage of Job expressed in S. Gregorie the Great The Giants or men Job 20. Gigantes gemunt sub aquis Estate of tears of the earth do groan under the waters Out alas how many times the poor miserable creatures after a world of travels pursuits and hopes which are dreams without sleep seeing themselves transported into disgrace with a furious torrent of envie sigh and mourn in an Ocean of calamities One frown of an incensed Prince is more formidable to them than the eye of a Basilisk yea more terrible than the crack of a Canon The favours they enjoy are winged and slippery all the contentment they can possibly receive in ten years will not afford so much joy to their hearts as the repulse of one sole day coming as a stroak of thunder afflicteth them and makes them give ground if they have not recourse to heavenly consolations See you not how Absalom re-established Obsacro ut videaâ— facieâ—â— Regis quod si memor est iniquitatis meae interficiat me 2 Reg. 14. in Court yet deprived of the King his fathers sight bare this disgrace with so much anziety of mind that he asked a bloudy death for his remedy What will the look of a Lion be if the onely deprivation of a favourable eye be so ill to be digested What will become of so many other contrarieties which at every turn transfix so many brave designs so well projected Where will not occasion of many most bitter sorrows be found among so divers accidents which cause us to stand at all times prepared for blows If penitents be in a state State of humilitie of humiliation wherein as other Interpreters observe they not onely humbled themselves prostrated on the earth at the Priests benediction but they lowly laid themselves under the feet of all the world where I pray are souls found born more to servitude more pliant more abased than the Courtiers They bend like the fishers angling-line they stoup they turn and wheel about to all purposes that they may arrive where they pretend They buy all their honour at the price of great submissions their scarlet at the price of sordid ambition and glory with the coyn of slavery That is it which S. Cyprian excellently well observed Behold â—e this Cyprian ad Donatum Qui amictu clariore conspicuus fulgere sibi videtur in purpura quibus hoc sordibus emit ut fulgeat Quos arragantium fastus prius pertuliâ— Quos superbâ—â—fores matutinus saluator obsedit Courtier who
since Luther and Calvin And think not this novelty is onely proved by reason It is your own confession in the 31. article where you openly profess the Church hath not onely been reformed but absolutely made new this sole innovation if you judge aright of it should give you occasion to suspect it The sage Common-wealth of the Lycians heretofore Novelties ever suspected by the wise ordained that all those who would propose any noveltic in matter of law should deliver it in publick with a halter about their necks to the end that if their propositions were not found to be good and profitable the authours thereof should be strangled in the place And what can one think of them which have brought in such huge novelism in matter of Religion so disastrous and so prejudicial to Christendom by the effusion of so much bloud Judge your selves Force of argument and weigh at leisure the force of this argument you shall perceive it is very hard to find evasions against Weak evasions of Ministers this veritie For of two things you must confess one either that the Church hath wholly been extinct the space of about a thousand years and then was newly repaired according to the ancient model of the Apostles or that it hath always been on foot but invisible and unknown These two evasions are very vain and frivolous as First evasion refuted you shall understand thereunto a little applying your judgement For to speak of the first expressed in the 31. Article of your Faith that the Church hath been newly reformed First this is against the word Reason 1 of God who to his Church promiseth an assistance without interruption even to the end of the world These are his words in S. Matthew Behold I am Matth. 28. 2. with you all the days even to the consummation of the world He admitteth not one sole day of interruption and you make one of a thousand or eleven hundred years Secondly you make a Jesus Christ disarrayed a Reason 2 Church reduced to nothing for the space of ten Ages which is very intolerable and shall never be nay not during the time of Antichrist's persecution Reason 3 Moreover were it so you must deny the providence of God so to have abandoned to a general desolation a work fast cemented with the bloud of his Son yea he who hath a care even of the nests of the little halcyons Finally you must say that Jesus Christ was an Impostour and unable an Impostour to have promised a Church without interruption unable in that he could not preserve it all which is blasphemous To affirm the second that this Church hath always Second evasion overthrown been but yet unknown and invisible if all men were changed into beasts it might happen they would be thus perswaded But if they yet retain one dram of human capacitie it were impossible so impertinent is this proposition For first of all because you will affirm nothing without proof out of holy Scripture it is demanded of you where is it spoken of this unknown Church of this invisible Church Much otherwise In sole posuit tabernaculum suum in manifestatione posuit Ecclesiam suam August in Psal 18. she is compared to a Citie planted upon a hill to the Light to the pavilion in the Sun as the Scripture teacheth us and S. Augustine proveth it by the same Scripture upon the 18. Psalm Secondly if this Church were unknown whither should the Gentiles have addressed themselves for their conversion or those that were doubtful for their resolution or all the faithful for their direction God referreth them all to his Church Is it not a meer mockerie to send them to a thing invisible Thirdly if there be no proof in Scripture which averreth this some human reason at least is required Can a proposition more reasonable be made than to ask of those who maintain a thing to have been in former Ages to produce some marks thereof That they shew how for a thousand years of desolation their Church hath been in being That they set before us one sole historie which witnesseth how in the thousand two three four and five hundred years there was found a company of brethren who professed an universal sum of all the articles which these men now maintain The Phenix is very rare but yet it is said in such Allaâ—us est Phoenix in urbem anno urbis 800. Pâ—â—â— l. 10. c. 11. and such a year a Phenix was seen in Rome Do we find that any man saith the like of the pretended reformed Religion There is not a word of it We find the Waldneses Circumcellians Gnosticks Borborites and Beguins who have held some piece of our Hereticks belief and we likewise behold that all have been condemned as Hereticks But there is not one to be found who hath framed this body of the pretended Religion as it is at this day composed What meaneth this Is it to have one small sparkle of the understanding of man to affirm such a thing to have been and not to know how to produce one proof Is not this to play Aesops ass that vaunted he had Aesops Ass great secrets of wisdom to communicate to other beasts and to authorize it he hid himself a long time in a drie pit from whence he came with a Philosophers cloak saying That whilest he had been invisible A notable passage of Tertullian he had much addicted himself to sciences and the knowledge of truth In the end it was known he was an ass and with many blows and bastonadoes Asinus de puteo modo venis jam exclamas Dic qui sis à quo venias quod sit tibi jus in nobis Tertul. in Marc. l. 4. c. 23 he was sent back again to the pit from whence he came This is the parable which Tertullian spake to the Hereticks of his time You now come forth as an Ass out of Aesops pit and you crie out Tell me who are you From whence come you who sent you What right have you upon us to extinguish the belief of our fore-fathers Do you not behold a beginning of the pretended shameless and ridiculous Religion which well proveth its nullitie The second consideration on which we must rest Second point progress and publication of the sect is well to ballance the progress advancement and publication of this sect If you find it conformable to the ancient manner of the Primitive Church follow it If it be directly opposite have you not great reason to abandon it Now Sir so it is and behold how The true Church from her infancie hath had four marks most evident The first is a profound humilitie The second a great love of virginitie chastitie and continencie witness Athenagoras a most ancient Reperire apud nos est permulâ—os viros mulieres qui in celibatu consenescunt Rom. 12. Authour who maketh mention of this great puritie of bodie
understanding be it true or false from hence there glide into the condition of humane life a thousand extravagant illusions It is even at this day that Semblanâ—es the children of opinion and lying truth hath lost her garment falshood is clothed with it and Opinion in this Court-like habit hath really and actually produced little monsters but such as yet holding and retaining the malice of their father and levity of their mother attire themselves with certain veils which make them seem beautiful they flie up and down like little Cupids they make a trade of deceiving and practice with so much subtility that they ensnare even the wisest Behold our unhappiness The world the Island of dreams Verar Hist l. 2. we are in this world as in the Island of dreams whereof Luctan speaketh We dream broad-waking and such dreams which are by so much the more perillous by how much we the less look into the danger A man who hath dreamed all the night as soon as he beginneth to open his eye-lids mocketh at his own fantasies and saith they were dreams we dream all the days of our life and say they are verities We run after the false imaginations as children after butter-flies When the great night of our death draweth near we begin to discharge our selves from this waking sleep and from this sleeping vigil we find we have death at hand And as for the butter-flies which we so eagerly followed after we have broken our heads and shins in their pursuit we neither have their legs nor wings in our hands Behold one of the greatest impediments of perfection Alas Noble spirit thou wouldst be truly noble if thou couldst shake off this golden yoak the opinion whereof hath so surcharged thee consecrating thy bondage thereunto by a precious imposture But who will do it Had not he anciently a notable subject Mercur. Tris Souls in the torrent of opinion hereon who said when he considered the estate of the world the souls of men seemed to him to be all thrown headlong from the Palace of verity into the torrent of opinion all of them tumbled into the mercy of the waves and few were to be found that would bravely settle themselves to row against the stream Seneca hath well observed and touched the true Senec. de beata vita Opinion the source of all corruptions source of the corruption which at this day reigneth upon the earth We live not according to reason but by relation to the life of another and from thence cometh Non ad rationew sedad similitudinem vivimus inde ista tanta coacervatio aliorum supraialos ruentium Against the life of opinion that we fall one upon another by heaps as blind men into a ditch To take away this confusion I produce onely three considerations which are very pressing and pregnant The first that this life which is so lead by opinion is very ridiculous The second that it is base and servile The third that it boweth under a cruel tyranny from whence it may with a little courage dis-infranchize it self And first I demand if it be agreeable to a noble and generous heart to forsake the gravity incident to his nature and to embrace idle toys and fopperies No man will consent hereunto but he that will betray his reason Now so it is that all the opinions which at this day intoxicate the world are not builded but upon the flying sand upon the giddy humours of windy brains upon the passions and affections of a debauched and corrupted multitude Where the sheep feedeth that goeth Cornel. Tac. hist 2. Multitudo vulgi more magis quam judicio post alius alium quasi prudentiorem sequitur Strange giddiness of opinion before they which follow must graze though they die for it Every one attendeth his companion as the wisest and he that venteth folly with the greatest confidence is the best welcom What monsters what prodigious fancies of scattered and uncollected spirits have not been received for laudable actions being favoured and authorized by opinion It is a thing ridiculous and almost incredible to see the chimerical conceits that it hath perswaded making them to be taken not by a particular man or one sole family but by a whole and entire Nation for maxims of wisdom The Mossins a people performed all the actions Apollonius 2. Argonaut vers 138. of most secrecy in publick yea even those which are ordained for the necessities of nature and treated the affairs of the Common-wealth in their houses constantly believing it was very requisite so to do The Tibarenes as soon as their wives were delivered Idem ibidem bound up their heads with a kercheff lay down on their bed and made themselves to be attended like the child-bed women The poor women in the mean time were up and about the house endeavouring to make ready bathes for their husbands and to dress and season their viands to tend and cherish them as if they had born all the pain of feminine travel Could you have any thing more ridiculous And yet opinion made it appear very reasonable There are such to be found who place all their honour and glory in drinking hard and eating freely to call a man a robber a thief an adulterer were in this Countrey nothing to say that such an one were not a great gourmandizer nor a great drinker would be to do him an unpardonable injurie Others placed all the excellency and dignity of man Aruncani Lips politic in carrying a huge log of wood a great distance and by this tryal chose their Kings The greatest burden-carriers and porters were there great Lords Others did kill and eat their aged parents for a ceremony of Religion And opinion made this good What also do not those people of India and other parts discovered in our days Some think it is honourable to turn their back to salute one Others thrust their finger to the earth and after lift it to heaven to do reverence Others gather up the spittle of their Prince and speak to him through a hollow trunk Others offer to their gods their old shoes in sacrifice A man would laugh when he heareth speech of it and yet we see that the proudest Monarchs of the world who supposed they had shut up all wisdom in their laws and customs trampled virtue under their feet and placed Dragons Bats and Quartan-agues on their Altars Behold what opinion can do These follies you will say are not now in practice He that would well examine all the fantastick humours of apparel all the giddy conceits of sports and pastimes the folly of complements which at this time reign amongst men should find things as ridiculous as these as it were to adore an humble poor crucified God and yet to be mad after greatness riches and curiosities To believe that one perpetually liveth under the eyes of God yet to behave himself like a wild colt at his own fantasie neither
with lawful and necessary circumstances touch the motive without extravagancies and the intention which hath excited us to do it and continuance of the sin to represent the state of the soul to the life Yet for all this you must not so much think upon this preparation nor the means to unfold your self that thereby the principal part of penance be neglected which is contrition This contrition is a sorrow to have offended God Contrition not principally for the deformity of sin and the fear of punishment for that is nothing but attrition but for that this sin is committed against God infinitely good and infinitely amiable and for that one maketh a firm resolution to be confessed and to preserve himself from sin in time to come Behold the point of contrition which to attain you must seriously and advisedly represent to your self the greatness goodness power wisdom justice love mercy benefits of God opposed to your malice weakness Hostility of sin baseness ignorance presumption misery ingratitude and well figure to your self the hostility of mortal sin to obtain an eternal detestation against it To consider how it ruineth riches honours credit reputation posterity and Empires That it soyleth the glory of an innocent life and leaveth a character of infamy That it overthroweth bodies health good grace that it openeth the gates of sudden and unexpected death That it maketh man blind dumb deaf wicked senseless stupid savage and many times furious and enraged by the remorse of conscience That it dispoileth a soul of all the graces beauties excellencies priviledges love favour of God hope of life and salvation That it killeth it and rendeth it more cruelly than a tiger or panther That a life of God was needful to take away such a blemish and that if a soul be spotted at the hour of death an eternity of flames cannot deliver it and such like In sins which seem least you shall always have great cause of contrition when the benefits of God shall be represented unto you which he particularly and personally hath conferred upon us opposed to our childishness of heart tepidity slackness infidelity negligence ingratitude As for the proceeding Proceeding in confession to confession the preparatives being well made it is needful to choose a Confessour who hath four qualities jurisdiction reputation knowledge discretion and after you have confessed to him entirely faithfully sincerely to accomplish the penance enjoyned you with obedience promptness and punctual diligence afterward to take a new spirit to resist temptations and to busie your self in good works with more courage than ever The eleventh SECTION The Practice of Examen THe practice of Confession is made more easie Necessity of examen by the examen of conscience as well general as particular Think not too much is required of your profession if there be speech used to you of the examen of conscience Not onely the Philosophers have made it as Pythagoras Seneca Plutarch but poor barbarous Indians by the relation of Apulejus took an account every evening of the good and evil they had done each day This is it which is required of you Prepare daily a little Consistory of justice in your conscience see what passeth within your self acknowledge your defects and amend them to prevent the justice of God It is said the eclipse of the Sun causeth the earthquake and the eclipse of reason by ignorance of the interiour man produceth great disorders in the Culielm Pariâ—iens c. 12. Sacro poenite In hoc Tribunali sedet misericordia assidet autem justitia ubi quicquid contra poenitentem inscribit justitia totum delet misericordia acumen styli velut â—igens in corde poenitentis soul For the wicked spirit saith Procopius upon the first of Kings endeavoureth to use us as did the Ammonites the inhabitants of Jabes They seek to pull out our right eye and to bereave us of the sight of our selves to bury us in great and deep confusions But let us make use of all the lights which God hath given us to cast reflections into the bottom of our thoughts The conscience is an admirable Tribunal where Justice pleadeth and Mercie sentenceth All that which the me writes the other blotteth out putting as it were the point of the pen upon the heart of the penitent A good Interpreter of the Scripture relateth the Delrio ser de Conscientia vision of a wise man who on a day sought for the house of conscience and it seemed to him he beheld a Citie built with goodly architecture beautified with five gates which had as many narrow paths ending in one larger way Upon this way stood a Register who took the names of all passengers to record them Beyond that he saw two Tribunes attended by a great concourse of the common people who governed the inferiour parts of the Citie above was beheld a Cittadel wherein a great Princess commanded who had a scepter in hand and crown on her head By her side was a Ladie very ancient and venerable who in one hand held a torch with which she lighted this Queen and in the other a goad wherewith she pricked her if she governed not according to her direction The wise man amazed asked in his heart what all this train meant and he heard a voice within which said unto him Behold thy self ere thou art aware arrived at the house of conscience which thou â—oughtest for These five gates thou seest are the five senses The way where they all meet is common sense All the people which enter in by heaps are the objects of the creatures of the world which first touch our senses before they pass into the soul This Register who writeth down the names is imagination that keeps record of all things These two Tribunes are the two appetites the one is called the appetite of concupiscence which is ever in search after its desires the other the appetite of anger extreamly striving to strike at all obstacles which oppose its good either real or pretended This mass of people thou seest are the passions which make ill work in the inferiour parts of the Citie This Princess in the Cittadel with crown and scepter is reason The ancient and venerable Ladie by her side is conscience She hath a torch to shew the good way and the goad to prick those that wander In a word if Dictamen rationis spiritus corrector paedagogus animae S. Thom. 1. p. q. 79. thou desirest to know what conscience is it is a sovereign notice of good and ill which God impresseth on our hearts as with a hot iron and is very hard to be taken off Happy he who often visiteth this interiour house God hath given him and pondereth all his thoughts his words and actions to adopt them to the measures of the eternal law You know a general examen hath five parts Parts Thanksgiving invocation discussion petition resolution In thanksgiving we thank God
circumstances of his crime Behold you not saith he a bruitish stupiditie to conspire against your father having as yet the bloud of your brothers before your eyes and all the assurances of the scepter in your hands Needs must you perpetrate a parricide to make your self possessour of a Crown which was acquired for you by so solemn and authentical a Testament Look you after nothing but the bloud of your father to set a seal upon it yea of a father whose life is so dear to all bonest men and of nature so indulgent to love his children that have never so little merit An ingratitude able to make Heaven blush and earth tremble under your feet An ingratitude worthy that all the elements should conspire to punish it This man ceased not to discharge against him words of fire with a masculine eloquence and the miserable Antipater prostrated himself on the ground and prayed God to do a miracle in favour of him to make manifest his innocency since he found himself so oppressed by the malice of men It is wonder saith the Historian that those who during their life have believed no God would yet acknowledge him at their death This man lived as if there were neither Heaven God nor Angels and now seeing himself in the horrours of death prayed the Divinity to excuse his crime Varus saith unto him My friend expect not extraordinarie signs from Heaven in your favour but if you have any good reasons boldly produce them The King your father desireth nothing more than your justification Thereupon he stood confounded like a lost man Varus taking the poison that had been before represented to the Councel caused it to be given to an offender already condemned who instantly died and all the assembly arose as it is said with manifest condemnation of Antipater His father esteeming him absolutely convicted required of him his complices he onely named Antiphilus who brought the poison saying this wicked man was cause of all his unhappiness It was a great chance Herod at that time had not caused the sentence of death to be executed upon him but according to his ordinary proceeding he resolveth to inform Caesar of all that had passed and to send him the whole process formally drawn to order all at his pleasure In the mean time Antipater is streightly imprisoned expecting hourly as a miserable victim the stroke of death Herod at that time was about seventy years of age Horrible state of Herod in his lattâ—r days and already felt through imbecillity of body the approach of the last hour It was a very hard morsel for him to digest Never man better loved this present life Very freely would he have forsaken his part of the next world eternally to enjoy this though he in effect was therein most unhappy Towards the end of his days he grew so harsh so wayward then so collerick and furious that his houshold servants knew not how to come about him they handled him in his Palace as an old Lion chained with the fetters of an incurable malady He perswaded himself he was hated of all the world and was therein no whit deceived as having given too great occasion thereof The people almost forgot their duty with impatience and could no longer endure him As soon as his sickness was bruited abroad Judas The golden Eagle thrown down and Matthias the principal Doctours of the Jewish Law who had the youth at command perswaded the most valiant of their sect to undergo a bold adventure which was that Herod having re-edified and adorned the Temple of Jerusalem and as he had always shewed himself for the accommodation of his own estate to be an Idolater of Caesars fortune to set upon the principal gate the Romane Eagle all glittering in gold This much offended the sight of the Jews who could not endure any should place portraictures of men or beasts or any other figures in their Temples so much they abhorred such monsters which their fathers had seen adored in Aegypt Behold why this Judas and Matthias who were the chief thinking the sickness of Herod would help them began earnestly to exhort the most valiant of the young men who every day frequented their houses to take in hand the quarrel of God according to the spirit of their Ancestours and to beat down this abomination which they had fixed upon their Temple That the peril was not now so great Herod having enough to do to wrastle with his own pain but if it should happen they lost their lives to die in so glorious an act was to be buried in the midst of palms and triumphs There needed no more to encourage the youth Behold a troup of the most adventurous came forth about the midst of the day armed with axes and hatchets who climbed to the top of the Temple and hewed in pieces the Eagles in the sight of the whole world Judas and Matthias being there present and serving for trumpets in this exploit The noise hereof instantly came to the Palace and the Captain of the Guard ran thither with the most resolute souldiers He much feared some further plot and that this defacing of the Eagle might prove a preamble to some greater sedition But at the first as he began to charge the people retired which the more encouraged him for pursuit Fourty young men of those who had done the feat were taken in the place Judas and Matthias who accompanied them deeming it a thing unworthy to flie away and that at the least they ought to follow them in peril whom they had brought into danger Being presented to Herod and demanded from whence this boldness proceeded they freely answered Their plot had been fully agreed upon among themselves and if it were to do again they would be in readiness to put it in execution in regard they were more bound to Moses than Herod Herod amazed at this resolution and fearing greater commotions caused them to be secretly conveyed to Jerico whither himself after though crazy was carried and assembling the principal spake to them out of his litter making a long narration of the good offices he had done in favour of the whole Nation of the Temple he had built for them of the ornaments with which he had enriched it adding he had done in few years what their Asmonean Kings could not perform in six-score And for recompence of his piety at noon day they had hewed down with notable boldness a holy gift which he had raised in the Temple wherein God was more interessed than himself for which he required a reason These now fearing any further to incense him declined the danger and put him upon their companions leaving them to the pleasure of the King At that time the High-priesthood is taken from Matthias and another Matthias who was held to have been the authour of the sedition burned alive that night with his companions at which time an eclipse of the moon was seen that made this spectacle
who is pleased to take the pain to look into the deportments of men Ecclesiastical who are of eminent extraction shall perceive you are in the Church as an unprofitable burden (d) (d) (d) Principatus sine meritoris sublimitate bonorum titulus sinehomine dignitas in indigne ornameÌ„tum in luto Salvia l. 1. ad Eccles Cath. to disgrace the charge which honoureth you and that all those that name you when you happen to be mentioned in honourable assemblies will wish a cloud of darkness at noon-day to cover the shame of their foreheads Adde that the Church stretcheth out her arms and intreateth you would not suffer her laurels to wither in your hands to defile her victories nor eclipse her lights She hath seen many miseries many hath she born many vanquished but never felt any wounds more dolorous than those which fell upon her by vice (e) (e) (e) Nescio criminum an numinum turbam Tert. advers Valentinianos de eorum diis cap. 8. ignorance and the negligence of her Prelates That is it which hath opened the gate to heresies which hath fomented infidelities enlarged impiety disposed the brows of the wicked to impudence the tongue to slander the hands to rapine which hath darkened the present times with horrible confusions and which vomiteth upon the times and Ages of posterity Will you increase these calamities and with your corruptions make a bridge for the faithless to ruin Christianity For that perhaps shall be the last scourge which God will use to punish the abuses of ill Prelates and the sins of the people in general For conclusion I demand what will become of you in the end at the last judgement of God under which the Angels tremble who govern the world What will become of you when you shall be accused to have been a viper in the Church a scandal to the simple an ill example to the most corrupt a fiery torch that would enflame the house of God Where may one find punishments sufficient to inflict on you and where can you get members enough to furnish out so many punishments when the stones and marbles of those places you have possessed will crack in pieces to flie into your eyes On the contrary if you take the right way which I propose you shall lead a peaceable life in the security of a good conscience rich in honour and ability honourable in reputation terrible to the wicked reverenced by honest men fertile in good actions abundant in infinitie of fruits fruitfull in recompences prosperous in successes glorious to posterity attended on earth with the odour of virtues and crowned in Heaven by Eternitie The tenth SECTION The examples of great Prelates are very lively spurs to virtue TO come to this effect often represent before your eyes the lively images of so many worthy Prelates who have flourished through all Ages and behold them as stars which God with his own hand hath planted in this great firmament of the Church as well that he there might make his glory shine as here to prepare a way for our direction Think sometime within your self what a spirit one S. Nilamon Martyrol Rom. ad 6. Januar. had who died with terrour as they bare him to the Throne of a Bishop for which so many other pine away with ambition he forgoing life with apprehension he should loose his innocency What humility in S. Peter of Alexandria who being the lawfull Baronius Successour of S. Mark would never mount to his chair but contented himself to sit the residue of his days on the foot-stool until after his death the Chron. Alexandr people having attired him with his Pontifical habit did carry his body to the seat which he never had possessed A man truly humble whose death must be expected to honour his merit as if honour were incompatible with his life What zeal in Eustatius Bishop of Epiphanium whose heart was so surprized with onely notice of the prosanation of a Church that he fell down dead in the place making himself a tomb furnished with the triumphs of his own piety a thousand times more pretious than gold and richest diamonds What liberality in Saint Exuâ—erius Bishop of Tholouse to give away the gold and silver of his Church for the necessities of the poor yea even to the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament in a little basket of osier What charity in Saint Paulinus who after he had in alms spent his whole patrimony which was both very rich and abundant sold himself and voluntarily became a slave to redeem the son of poor widows What faith in Saint Gregorie Thaumaturgus to remove mountains and command over elements with as much liberty as a Master over his servants What power in S. Leo and S. Lupus to stay Attila and make head against an Army composed of seven hundred thousand men drawn from the most dreadful Nations of the earth What confidence in S. Martin to submit his shoulders to receive the fall of a huge tree on condition he might thereby banish the Idols Let us lay aside all other actions which are miraculous behold the lives of those who have traced a more ordinary way Imitate the contemplation of a S. Denis the fervour of a S. Ignatius the constancy of a S. Athanasius the contempt of the world of a S. Hilarie the generosity of a S. Cyprian the austerity of a S. Basil the mildness of a S. Augustine the majesty of a S. Ambrose the vigilancy of a S. Gregorie the vigour of a S. Cyril the wisdom of a S. Remigius Propose to your self the acts of S. Vedastus Herculanus Eleutherius Medardus Lucipinus Nicerius Romanus Sulpitius Pretextatus Germanus Amandus Claudius Lambertus Woâ—phranus Swibertus and many such like Consider the deportments of S. Thomas of Canterbury S. Lewis of Tholouse and above all let not your eye pass over Saint Charles Boromaeus whom God hath made resplendent in our days to teach us that no Age is secluded from sanctity A man is powerfull to perswade virtue when in one and the same instant he alledgeth three-score thousand reasons each of which weigh a Crown of gold hath one of the best Writers of this Age said and so did S. Charles forsaking three-score thousand crowns of yearly rent for one mornings Mass He was a Bishop who often fasted with bread and water even in the time of feasts who every day said his Breviary on his knees and moistened it with his The Reverend Father â—inet tears who celebrated Mass every day with a majesty more than humane who had two retirements in the year to attend to spiritual exercises who read the Bible on his knees sheading brinish tears who gave alms above his ability who in person waited on the infectious who wore hair-cloth under his scarlet habit who slept on the bare boards who stirred not out of his Diocess who visited it on foot who in his charge made himself indefatigable who ever was the foremost
1. must saith he gather together the water which distilleth from the Prophets as the clouds from many places to the end your land may be moistened and watered with their familiar fountains His preachings were solid pure gently flowing and full of good instructions and although his discourse had much sweetness in it yet had he not so suck'd honey from those bees which courted him in his cradle that he retained not their stings A nature too flexible resembleth the air which as soon giveth place to beggers as Caesars and as there is nothing more insupportable in a charge than a spirit opinionative so nothing is more fruitless than a weather-cock who turneth with every wind and hath no other direction but the passions of al those that nearest approach him S. Ambrose endeavoured to cure all the world as much as he might possibly with sweetness mixing oft-times his own tears with those of his penitents but if he met with obdurate and rebellious hearts he took upon him a marvellous predominancy both of authority and eloquence to tame vice and disarm insolence Constantine (d) (d) (d) Constantius medicus de liquidis a great Physitian observeth that it is not good to feed those with hony ormilk who are dangerously wounded for seldom by this course is death escaped Our great Bishop made the like judgement upon the maladies of the soul and never bent himself to cherish by supple indulgences those hearts which he saw to be ulcered with any malice His admonitions were not upon idle discourses for they were seen to be waited on with good effects and as it were a general reformation in all orders (e) (e) (e) Reformation of the Clergy He began to measure the Temple by the Sanctuary for esteeming that the sinews of words are laudable examples he endeavoured to make a good Clergy to serve as a mirrour for the Laity The waters of Jordan heretofore offered homage to the feet of Priests because they bare the Ark on their shoulders There is not any thing that gives not way to a good Ecclesiastick who carrieth sanctity in his heart his words are thunder-claps when his life is the lightening Behold why this great Saint desired nothing so much as to see the house not of Caesar but of Jesus free both from crime and suspition of it Above all he strove to extirpate two plagues fatal and opposite enemies of all sanctity avarice and lust not onely desiring the Priests of his Diocess should have chaste bodies but innocent hands also and not covetous to draw superfluities to their condition of life He voluntarily bred them in poverty and frugality as in the first mansion from whence the glory of the primitive Church proceeded well knowing the augmentation of riches doth not equally increase piety One would not believe what choice he made in Ecclesiastical preferments even to the refusing many times of some who had been very much recommended unto him and had nothing to give occasion of rejection but some petty uncomeliness in gesture or exteriour parts that alone offended the eyes of Saint Ambrose who was not willing to see any thing but lustre in his Clergy And although such things seemed idle to many yet was he no whit in his judgement deceived for having one day dismissed two for one sole levity in their gate he found they afterward made shipwrack of faith and already discovered the unconstant perfidiousness of their mind in this wanton action of their carriage Where reasons could not avail he employed a severe censure having no regard to exteriour semblances when there was occasions to chastise a crime Witness one Gerontius who lived in Milan under his rule a man of a spirit most pregnant and curious beyond his profession who was not contented to seek into the secrets of physick and excessively endeavour to polish his tongue which was very pregnant but he descended to some folly of Nigromancy Now this man having an itch of speech and especially of all that which he thought might make for his advantage vaunted in some company that he one night had taken one Onoscelides that is to say a devil who appeared to him with the legs of an Ass and that he had shaved him and led him to the mill whether it were that he in effect had seen such a spectre his brain being already much disposed to illusions or whether it were through vanity and imposture that he boasted himself of what he had done as it oftentimes happeneth to such kind of men who make tropheys of great crimes whilest it raiseth them in the opinion of the world above the ordinary sort These words being related to Saint Ambrose he very sharply reprehended him and imprisoned him in his own house in joyning sundry penances for expiation of this fault most unworthy of a Deacon of the Church of Milan such as he was He who was not capable of such a remedy fled and went to Constantinople with intention to disgrace S. Ambrose which he did as much as possibly he might There by the soft insinuation of his wit joyned to an incredible vain tattle in stead of seeking out a wholesom playster for his ulcers he covered them with cloath of gold in such sort that through the favour of Great-ones whom he had gained he was preferred to the Bishoprick of Nicomedia S. Ambrose effectually wrote to Nectarius discovering the impostures of this man and beseeching him for the honour of the Church and his own proper interest he would not suffer that Episcopal See to be defiled with ordures that astonished heaven and earth Nectarius employed all his power in this affair desiring both to discharge his own conscience and oblige the Bishop of Milan but he found this Impostour had by his charms got so much favor that to remove him was very difficult The glory hereof was reserved for S. John Chrysostom who afterward removed him as soon as he was preferred to the dignity of Patriarch of Constantinople Behold the severity this great Pastour used in the institution of his Clergy and as he saw that good Religious men and women served for a great ornament Religious cherished by S. Ambrose of the Church so he took a most particular care to entertain them and manure them as worthy plants of the garden of the Church Never could be rest till he saw a Monasterie erected in the suburbs of Milan where many holy personages dedicated themselves to a solitary life to perform on earth what the Angels do in Heaven As for Virgins who took the veil irrevocably to consecrate their virginity to Jesus Christ he trained them up in the Church with so much study fervour and zeal that we cannot imagine more For he dedicated to them the first fruits of his labours writing in their favour the books of Virginity which he composed in the first year of his charge in a most flourishing and elabourate stile where to shew the respect he bare to this
souldiers but by a much stronger reason ought they to cherish it in the mouthes of Bishops There hath ever been a notable difference between good and evil Princes which causeth that the one desires the libertie of their subjects and the other love nothing so much in them as slaverie God commandeth us to bear his word to the face of Kings and not be ashamed of justice I do not intrude through importunitie but present my self of dutie That which I do I do for your good and in consideration of your safetie If I derive not the effect which I pretend yet ever will I better love to be by your Majestie esteemed troublesom than unprofitable or infamous You have commanded enquiries should be made of those who have burnt the Synagogue of the Jews to inflict punishment and that the Bishop by whose solicitation this fire hath been kindled should be condemned to re-edifie the wasted buildings What have you done O Emperour in imposing such a command which by necessitie will make of a Bishop either a Prevaricatour or a Martyr although neither the one nor other be proper for your time I desire a Bishop may be found so fervent as to burn a Synagogue of the Jews and for that cause you have deputed for him a Commissarie to the end that if he obey your commands he should betray his own law and if he resist make you to do that which the Neroes and Domitians have acted Behold to what this affair will come if you take not heed For my part I propose to my self that the Bishop will rather encline to matter of Martyrdom than of treason he will say that he hath stirred up the people sounded the alarm taken the flaming fire-brands in hand and that he will expose himself for his whole flock O happie lie which shall serve others for absolution and him for a Crown But what need is there to enquire into the absent Behold me present behold me avowing the act I publish and protest if needs you will have it so I my self burned this Synagogue now in question that there might no longer be a place where Jesus Christ should be denied And do not tell me that I have not burned any in mine own Diocess Heaven hath done it for me Heaven hath prevented the negligence which I then thought to be reasonable And if men have in it seconded the will of Heaven would you send one of your Counts to punish them and re-build the Synagogue of the Jews at our charge that so the hand of a Captain which carrieth the Standards of the Cross may not henceforth bear them until be hath been defiled with a sacriledge intended against the Cross of Christ We have heretofore seen on the front of the Temple of Idols how they have been built of the spoils of Cimbrians but we shall hereafter read over the portal of Synagogues that they were made with the bloud of Christians by the commandment of a Christian Emperour The Jews passionately desire to see Christians at the chain and they shall find a Christian Emperour minister of their furies You will make them triumph over the Church of God you will cause them to put our tears and afflictions among their days of Festivals and the victories they will gain upon us with those they have had from the Amorrheans and Cananeans He pursued this subject with great vigour of strong reasons and good words and seeing the Emperour made no reckoning of this advise given him in particular he failed not according to promise to speak of it in publick in a Sermon he made of the waking-rod of Jeremie where descending upon the history of Nathan who reproched David for his sin by consideration of the benefits he had received from God he made a long apostrophe to the Emperour Theodosius to him applying the word of God I have then made thee Emperour of a private man I have subjected barbarous Nations to thee I have afforded thee issue to succeed in thy Empires I have given thee peace I have put thine enemies fettered into thy hands I have opened land and seas to thy Legions I have sheltered thee under the buckler of my protection I have confounded the counsels of thy adversaries to make thy enterprizes prosperous I have rendered thee dreadfull to people marking thee on the forehead with the rays of my Majestie that thou mayest re-edifie the Synagogue of the Jews He spake many things in the like terms with so much lightening thunder and tempest that Theodosius was wholly amazed nor could say any thing else to him coming from the pulpit but Bishop you have preached to me to day Sacred Majestie answereth S. Ambrose it is for your good It is true replieth the Emperour I did ill to give this command And for that saith Saint Ambrose I will not go to the Altar to offer the pledge of our salvation for you till you have revoked this Edict I from this present revoke it saith Theodosius On this assurance which you give answereth the Bishop I will offer sacrifice As for the other contestation of Saint Ambrose with Theodosius which was concerning the murder of the Thessalonians of one part the matter is so notorious that it needeth no declaration but on the other it is so important that it were a crime to let it pass under silence The Thessalonians in a popular commotion slew one of the Emperour's Captains who had caused a Coach-man to be imprisoned The news reported at Court incensed all men of arms who think wearing swords they have right over the bloud of people Theodosius could do no otherwise but shew himself offended with this death For the Emperours then thought the souldiers were as necessary for their fortunes as feathers for birds As the thunder already roared in the cloud and the thunder-stroke of the Imperial Eagle menaced the miserable Citie tainted with this murder S. Ambrose came thither very fitly who much sweetened the affairs and wholly disposed the Emperour to clemency But as it is the wind which worketh all the mischief on the Sea this element being of its own nature very peacefull so they are ill officers who often cause those disturbances which happen in the lives of Great men their good natures very frequently affording them inclinations to sweetness These Captains which possessed the ears of the Emperour ceased not to breath and murmur so strongly that after the departure of S. Ambrose they raised fire and tempest Theodosius giveth freedom to the souldiers for the revenge they were to exercise upon the Citie of Thessalonica They who were willing to drown all their passion in bloud bethought themselves of a wicked and barbarous invention putting the poor people into a large publick place enclosed with rails comonly called the Circus where ordinarily games were presented divulging they had an admirable spectacle to shew for entertainment of the Burgesses of the Citie Curiositie of its nature is ever credulous and he that hath the image of
merit who left faith as an inheritance for Princes of his posteritie This extremity then is an extremity either of troublesom affairs in which Constantine saw himself involved for having so long time deferred his Baptism or as others say an extremity of sickness wherewith he was surprized in the Citie of Rome and cured by Baptism The opinion of Eusebius being rejected I ask whether it be not much more probable to take that of a Councel entire and very ancient held under Pople Silvester about the year of our Lord Three hundred twenty four which is said expresly to have been assembled at the same time that the Emperour Constantine was baptized by Sylvester Bishop of Rome than to adhere to inventions of a passionate adversary As for other circumstances of this Baptism which are The history of the Baptism of ConstaÌ„tine drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester is more easie piously to be believed than effectually proved drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester we must affirm there are divers things very hard to believe if we proceed according to humane reason for we cannot so easily imagine what is expressed in those writings that Sylvester was hidden in the caverns of the mountain which afterward bare his name flying the persecution of Constantine of which other Authours make no mention as being contrary to the humour and Edicts of this Prince who after the victory gained against Maxentius ever favoured Christianitie Besides it is there said that Constantine demanded what Gods were S. Peter and Paul who had appeared to him in his sleep Which was not very likely in an Emperour that so many years before was instructed in the mysteries of Christian Religion Adde also the leaprousie of Constantine whereof no authour hath spoken before those acts and wherewith it is held that Constantius the son of this great Emperour was much offended complaining they attributed to his father counterfeit maladies to cure him in picture If we must pursue opinions humanely reasonable I would say that Constantine could no more be leaprous than our King Clodovaeus of most glorious memory of whom S. Gregory of Towers Gregor Turon hist l. 2. cap. 31. Prodit novus Constantinus ad lavacrum deleturus leprae veteris morbum hath said that on the day of his Baptism he was cured of an old leaprosie intending by that speech from sin It is true that Cardinal Baronius doth all which an able man may to clear these difficulties but there are certain things which it is more comely to believe piously than easily to establish by reason And therefore if the Reader here desire to know my conceit I hold it is a timorarious thing to go about to tax and turmoil old beliefs which though they pass not for articles of faith are notwithstanding received with edification in common opinions Varro saith that no Contra mulâ—os sapere desipere est desire to be wise contrary to common understanding is to rank ones self in the number of fools and the great S. Hilary hath said very worthily that the Sapientiae priâ—ae haec veritas est interdum sapere quoâ— nclit Hilar. l. 8. de Trinitate first verity of wisdom is sometime to believe what one would not submitting our judgement to men of the best understanding which if it were well conceived so many young heads would be ashamed to account themselves able men especially in matter of faith thereby inordinately taxing all the monuments of antiquity I say then for these acts which are accounted to be S. Sylvesters and namely for those reported by Pope Adrian as it is not my intention to engage my self upon the proof of them by a way of sleight human reasons so would I not in any sort impugn but rather believe them with a religious simplicity which is the science of Saints and ever the most assured These acts tell us that Constantine still deferring History of Baptism according to the acts of S. Sylvester his Baptism and living in much liberty was strucken with a leaprousie which was a manifest wound from Heaven wherewith greatly afflicted he consulted with Magicians to apply some remedie They gave him deadly counsel whereof the Kings of Aegypt had heretofore made use in the like maladie which was to make a bath of humane bloud This at the beginning seemed to him very strange but the infirmity which pressed him had no ears to hear reason little children were taken of the meanest condition in the Citie to cut their throats like sheep and consecrate their bloud to the health of the Emperour The mothers dissheveled and desperate ran after their tender infants even to the gates of the Palace and howled so dreadfully that Constantine hearing their cries and withal the cause of their sorrow commanded the infants to be restored to their mournfull mothers esteeming it more reasonable to tollerate his evil than to be cured with so cruel a remedy The night following S. Peter and S. Paul appeared to him in a dream and advised him to forsake all these Pagan superstitions to re-edifie the Churches of Christians and send for Pope Sylvester who was at that time hidden in the grots of Mount Soracte that would discover unto him a fish-pool which should heal his leaprousie As soon as he a wakened he recounted his dream to the Lords of his Court and sent to seek out the Pope who seeing these Gentlemen come disposed himself to Martyrdom thinking they came to lead him forth to slaughter but understanding from their own mouthes much other news he set forward towards the Emperour who most courteously received him and having made a long discourse of matters which had happened unto him concerning his calling to Christianity he demandeth of him what Gods were Peter and Paul who had appeared unto him in sleep and made overture of the fish-pool wherein he should be washed The Pope answered they were no Gods but Apostles and servants of God Thereupon he required to see their images which Sylvester sent for by a Deacon and having found them like to the faces he saw in sleep he cryed out aloud that he no longer must defer the fish-pool Sylvester seeing him resolved to be baptized commandeth a publick fast accompanied with ordinary prayers catechizeth the Emperour and counselleth him to take seven days of retirement to prepare himself for Baptism and which is more to lay aside for those days the purple and Imperial Diadem that he might be clothed with the habit of penance which he couragiously performed And the day of Baptism being come as soon as he was washed with these life-giving waters he was miraculously cured of his leprousie beholding a light from heaven and a hand stretched over him See what is in these ancient monuments and which Cardinal Baronius rendereth probable with reasons very consonant The ninth SECTION The acts of Constantine after his Baptism CONSTANTINE after his Baptism began a quite other course of life for
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
it ordinarily is cherished lessened and lost it self Aglae began at first to be weary of the frequency of this infamous familiarity then recalled again into her heart the sense of honour next of virtue and lastly God more fully touching her soul set her in open view to her self and made her entertain a great distast of this inordinate life Boniface on the other side felt his conscience much galled and thought on nothing but to break his chain which he often begged of God giving many alms in the height of his uncleanness Aglae called him to her in this disposition and said She was was resolved Admirable conversion to make an end of the exorbitancies of her life that it was in conclusion to wearie heaven and earth too much by her sins and that if love had wounded her repentance would cure her God having left her no other remedie upon evils past than sorrow to have committed them As for the rest as he had followed her with so much facilitie in wickedness it was no reason he should forsake her in the way of repentance That she was a woman he a man that his sex obliged him to take at the least so much courage as her self in a matter which concerned eternal salvation and that desiring to equal him in this resolution she should have the happiness above him to have prevented him Boniface replied She might confidently do what she thought good he would ever account it his glorie to wait on her in so good a purpose and that God could not do him a greater favour than to change the commandments of his Mistress into precepts of salvation The Ladie answered She found nothing more necessary Devotion of Aglae in enquiry after Martyrs than to implore the mercy of God by the bloud of his Martyrs and therefore he should take a voyage into the Province of Cilicia where daily many such were made and bring her thence some relicks The Steward who could not forget his sweet nature said unto her Madame you would much wonder if from the Countrey of Martyrs I return a Martyr and that my body be brought back to serve you for relicks Aglae replied Mock not but do speedily what I tell you and think your self most happy to be at the feet of so many glorious Confessours He failed not to put himself quickly on the way with men and money handkerchiefs and perfumes for performance of his purpose and handled the matter so that he was speedily in the Citie of Tharsus at that time the Theater of Martyrs Scarcely was he arrived but he heard twenty Christians were led forth into a publick place to be martyred and being already changed into another man who breathed nothing at all but the glory of God he stole from his company and went presently into the open place where perceiving the Martyrs he brake through the throng Boniface martyred hastened to kiss their chains and wounds moistening his eyes with their bloud and earnestly beseeching them to pray unto God for him The President Simplicianus seeing this young stranger meddle so far in a matter whereunto he was not called commanded him to withdraw but he speaking with a generous confidence and publickly professing what he was he caused him to be apprehended and to be put to the torture where he was roughly handled for the executioners not content to have pulled off his skin with iron pincers thrust silvers of pointed reeds between the flesh and nails which caused most exquisite torments Notwithstanding the valorous Champion had no other words in his mouth in the extremity of his torments but My Saviour Jesus I give thee thanks for the favour thou hast done me to day by letting me suffer for thy sake It is good reason the bodie which hath so much offended thee bear somewhat for thee If executioners encrease my torments augment the assistance of thy grace and crown my combat with a faithfull perseverance He spake with so much fervour grace and devotion that those present were much moved thereat which the Judge perceiving commanded molten lead to be poured into his mouth to enforce him to a cruel silence but that not succeeding as he imagined the people mutined and brake down an Altar set up there for sacrifice to Idols whereat the Provost was somewhat astonished and thinking it not fit at that time any further to incense them he sent all the Martyrs back into prison The next day he went to the place with more violence and terrour and thinking to terrifie Boniface he shewed him a cauldron of hot scalding pitch threatening withal to burn him if he obeyed not the Emperours Edicts To which the Martyr answered There was neither fire sword nor any horrid torture able to separate him from Jesus Christ he then shewing himself very resolute without leisure given to say any more was plunged into the cauldron from whence he by miracle came forth entire to the admiration of all the world which began to work great conversions among the people Simplicianus fearing a second sedition caused his head speedily to be cut off with an ax and to consummate a glorious Martyrdom In the mean space they who were of his company sought round about for him at which time they heard there was a young Christian stranger to be executed who had shewed very much constancy in his punishment They thinking nothing less than of him said it was not their Boniface who ever would more readily be found among Courtisans than the executioners of Tharsus Yet coming to the place for curiositie they found his head upon one side his body on the other extreamly amazed at what was passed They bought his body for five hundred liures and having it in their hands they asked him mercy with weeping tears for the rash judgement they had given to the prejudice of his virtue Upon this they had nothing so much in their desires as to carry back the body to their Mistress Aglae supposing they could not give her any relicks either more undoubted or acceptable The holy woman had already had a revelation from the mouth of an Angel of the glory of Boniface and being on the way to encounter him so soon as she met him she prostrated her self before his body and said My dear Boniface I shed not tears over thee they Speech of Aglae to Boniface would fall too low to bewail such a death as thine Thou wentest out a penitent from me and returnest a Martyr thou art become a Master from the first day of thy apprentiship thou hast vanquished ere scarce seen the enemie yea the Crown wherewith thou soughtest to glorifie other Martyrs is fallen on thy own head Ah how many bloudie gates were to be opened to thy generous soul to afford a large passage to its triumphs Iron hooks which have dissevered thy holy members have united thy heart to Jesus Reeds thrust under thy nails have confirmed thy constancie Boyling cauldrons found in thy heart
Charls of Anjou much fearing this young Lion forgat His sentence and death all generosity to serve his own turn and did a most base act detested by all understandings that have any humanity which is that having kept Conradinus a whole year in a straight prison he assembled certain wicked Lawyers to decide the cause of one of the noblest spirits at that time under heaven who to second the passion of their Master rendered the laws criminal and served themselves with written right to kill a Prince contrary to the law of nature judging him worthy of death in that said they he disturbed the peace of the Church and aspired to Empire A scaffold was prepared in a publick place all hanged with red where Conradinus is brought with other Lords A Protonotary clothed after the ancient fashion mounteth into a chair set there for the purpose and aloud pronounceth the wicked sentence After which Conradinus raising himself casting an eye ful of fervour and flames on the Judge said Base and cruel slave as thou art to open thy mouth to condemn thy Sovereign It was a lamentable thing to see this great Prince on a scaffold in so tender years wise as an Apollo beautiful as an Amazon and valiant as an Achilles to leave his head under the sword of an Executioner in the place where he hoped to crown it â—e called heaven earth to bear witness of Charls his cruelty who unseen beheld this goodly spectacle froÌ„ an high turret He complained that his goods being taken from him they robbed him of his life as a thief that the blossom of his age was cut off by the hand of a hang-man taking away his head to bereave him of the Crown lastly throwing down his glove demanded an account of this inhumanity Then seeing his Cousin Frederick's head to fall before him he took it kissed it and laid it to his bosom asking pardon of it as if he had been the cause of his disaster in having been the companion of his valour This great heart wanting tears to deplore it self wept over a friend and finishing his sorrows with his life stretched out his neck to the Minister of justice Behold how Charls who had been treated with all humanity in the prisons of Sarazens used a Christian Prince so true it proves that ambition seemeth to blot out the character of Christianity to put in the place of it some thing worse than the Turbant This death lamented through all the world yea which maketh Theaters still mourn sensibly struck the heart of Queen Constantia his Aunt wife of Peter of Arragon She bewailed the poor Prince with tears which could never be dried up as one whom she dearly loved and then again representing to her self so many virtues and delights drowned in such generous bloud and so unworthily shed her heart dissolved into sorrow But as she was drenched in tears so her husband thundred in arms to revenge his death He rigged out a fleet of ships the charge whereof he Collenutius histor Neapol l. 5. c. 4. 5. recommended to Roger de Loria to assail Charls the second Prince of Salerno the onely son of Charls of Anjou who commanded in the absence of his father The admiral of the Arragonian failed not to encounter The son of Charls of Anjou taken him and sought so furiously with him that having sunck many of his ships he took him prisoner and brought him into Sicily where Queen Constantia was expecting the event of this battle She failed not to cause the heads of many Gentlemen to be cut off in revenge of Conradinus so to moisten his ashes with the bloud of his enemies Charls the Kings onely son was set apart with nine principal Lords of the Army and left to the discretion of Constantia Her wound was still all bloudy and the greatest of the Kingdom counselled her speedily to put to death the son of her capital enemy yea the people mutined for this execution which was the cause the Queen having taken order for his arraignment and he thereupon condemned to death she on a Friday morning sent him word it was now time to dispose himself for his last hour The Prince nephew to S. Lewis and who had some sense of his uncles piety very couragiously received these tidings saying That besides other courtesies he had received from the Queen in prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on the day whereon Christ died innocent This speech was related to Queen Constantia who was therewith much moved and having some space bethought her self she replyed Tell Prince Charls if he take contentment to suffer An excellent passage of clemency death on a Friday I will likewise find out mine own satisfaction to forgive him on the same day that Jesus signed the pardon of his Executioners with his proper bloud God forbid I shed the bloud of a man on the day my Master poured out his for me Although time surprize me in the dolour of my wounds I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him and it shall not be my fault that he is not at this instant in full liberty This magnanimous heart caused the execution to be staied yet fearing if she left him to himself the people might tear him in pieces she sent him to the King her husband entreating by all which was most pretious unto him to save his life and send him back to his Father Peter of Arragon who sought his own accommodation in so good a prize freed him from danger of death yet enlarged him not suddenly For his deliverance must come from a hand wholly celestial Sylvester Pruere writes that lying long imprisoned in the City of Barcellon the day of S. Mary Magdalen aproaching who was his great Patroness he disposed himself to a singular devotion fasting confessing his sins communicating begging of her with tears to deliver him from this captivity Heaven was not deaf to his prayers Behold on the day of the feast he perceived a Lady full of Majesty who commanded him to follow her at which words he felt as it were a diffusion of extraordinary joy spread over his heart He followed her step by step as a man rapt and seeing all the gates flie open before her without resistance and finding himself so cheerful that his body seemed to have put on the nature of a spirit he well perceived heaven wrought wonders for him The Lady looking on him after she had gone some part of the way asked him where he thought he was to which he replied that he imagined himself to be yet in the Territory of Barcellon Charls you are deceived said she you are in the County of Provence a league from Narbon and thereupon she vanished Charls not at all doubting the miracle nor the protection of S. Mary Magdalen prostrated himself on the earth adoring
summons you shall have from the will of God It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience nor to have an ear not deaf to death through faintness of courage This resignation was most excellent and very admirable in our Ladie for two reasons First the great knowledge she had of beatitude Secondly the ineffable love she bare to her Son For I leave you to think if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges and if we be so much the more earnest after a good as we are the better informed of its merit what impatience Patience of our Lady to endure life must our Ladie needs have of life since she received a science of beatitude strong powerful and resplendent above all other creatures God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories in the depth of his dolours It is no wonder we so very easily affect life seeing we are as the little children of a King bred in the house of a shepheard as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth touching the education of Nebuchadnezzar We know not what a scepter Kingdom or crown is in this great meaness of a life base and terrestrial But had we talked onely one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul and discoursed of the state of the other life our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires Which makes me say It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin in those great knowledges she had of Paradise to have continued so many years in this life and if you consider the most ardent love she bare her Son who was the adamant of all loves you shall find the holy Virgin who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb more merited in this resignation she made to see her self separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange bloudy and hydeous There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of Martyrdom of love love It is an exhalation in a cloud It is a fire in a myne a torrent shut up in ditches a night of separation lasteth Ages and all waxeth old for it but its desires Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining without complaint or disturbance peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour what virtue and how far are we from it So now adays throughout the world you see nothing Worldly irresolutions of death Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negos but mourners who are loth to live or faint-hearted that would never die Some crie out Come to me O sluggish death thou hast forgotten me what do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Ah death hast thou ears of brass and diamond for me alone Canst thou not shut up mine eyes which I daily drown in my tears Much otherwise when we see one die young fresh flourishing in honour wealth health prosperity we crie out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious To take saith one this young betrothed this poor maid this husband intended this excellent man who so well played the Rhodomont to lay hold of one so necessarie for the publick in the flower of his age Why took it not away this cripple this beggar who hath not wherewith to live Why took it not away this other who daily dies yet cannot die once O our manners O dainty conceits O fit language Were it not some little humane respect we would take Gods Providence by the throat Whom do we contend withal The indifferency we daily see in the death of men where as soon the young is taken as the old the happie as the miserable the Emperour as the porter is one of the greatest signs of Gods Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth It is not a punishment but a wholesom doctrine by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom First when we entered into life our advise was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age such a day such a year such an hour so when we must be gone from hence there is no reason to ask our counsel Let us onely yield up this last loan and not murmure against the father of the family Let us not say this man should go before and this after Who knows them better than God You complain this miserable creature lives so long how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience Why gnash you your teeth for anger that this man rich that man fortunate and that other so qualified is taken hence in his flourishing youth How know you the misadventures and shipwracks which attended him had he still continued in the world You say he was necessary why God will shew there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself Vnâ— aâ—ulso non deficit alter aureus Poor eyes of a bat which see nothing but darkness you would give eyes to Argus and light to the Sun If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just handle the matter so that for the first sign of a good death you be ever indifferent to live or die accordding to our Ladies example Daily expect death stand perpetually on your guard Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus which is so well practised Instinct of the Onocratalus Constancy of faith to expect the Hawk to grapple with her that even when sleep shuts up her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted as if she would contend with her adversary Know we are continually among rocks and dangers that there needs but one hour to get all or loose all that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief and that we must be ready to receive it and resolute to combat with death to gain immortalitie Hold this concluding sentence of Tertul. Idol c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat tuta si cauta secura si attonita Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum inexplicabile impactis naufragium irrespirabile â— devoratis hypocriphium Second quality of good death Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian as an Oracle Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea called life Christian faith passeth on breaking the waves filling the sails with Gods spirit ever assured yet ever distrustful and perpetually fearless yet still carefull of the future As for the rest it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched a gulf which suffocates all such as it once swalloweth The second
a stable foot to receive it willingly with a spirit infinitely peacefull afterward to be fortified by Sacraments of the Church with most exemplar devotion and having given the last adieus to his good subjects to go out of the world and all glorious honours as joyfull as from a prison But God with drew this stroke when life held but by a slender threed and heard the many prayers made throughout all France He restored you to life at the same time he had given it you He setled the pillars of this State which then tottered over our heads He raised our joys again which were faded and gave us that we would not loose to gain the whole world It is SIR to tell you you must perform all God requireth at your sacred hands and so to profit in sanctitie that the earth may one day give you in reward of piety the Altars you have raised to Heaven by the valour of your arms To the King of all Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be given honour and glory for ever and ever THE CHRISTIAN DIARY THE AUTHOURS DESIGN OF the practice of Virtues I have already spoken in my Book of the HOLY COURT This is a small Pattern thereof in every days action It should employ your heart rather than your eyes or hand It is short to read but if you practice it you will in one day find years and ages of felicitie Indeed we have at this present many spiritual Books which eccho one another This Age is as fruitfull in words as barren in works Enclining to speak much to do nothing evapourating the best part of wit by pen or tongue Nevertheless in matters of Devotion it is apparent that a man cannot say too much that which he can never do enough and that in so great a penurie of worthy acts we should not be sparing of good words I present you with this short Treatise carry it in your hand as the clock which a great Prince wore in a Ring it striketh every hour of the day and agreeth with Reason as true dials with the Sun If you read it with attention you will find it great in its littleness rich in its povertie and large in its brevitie Great books make men sometimes more learned seldom more innocent This reduceth wisdom to practice and prosperity to devotion By often reading it and doing what it directeth you shall know what it is for it hath no other character of its worth than that of your virtues THE CHRISTIAN DIARY The First PART The first SECTION The Importance of well ordering every Action of the day A Wise Hermit as Pelagius a Greek Authour relates being demanded if the way to perfection were very long said That the Virtues accompany one another and if a man would himself he might in one day attain to a proportionable measure of Divinitie Indeed our Virtues are all conjoyned in our Actions our Actions in the Hours the Hours in the Day the Days in the Moneth the Moneths in the Year and the Years in the Ages Every day is a little map of our life and the way to be soon perfect is to use much consideration and perfection in the performance of every days action See here a draught thereof the lineaments of which I have taken in part from one endued with much wisdom religion integrity whom I would willingly name did I not fear to offend his humility which can suffer all things but his own praises The second SECTION At Waking THe Sun hath long since for your benefit chased away the shades of night to delight you with the sight of the wonderfull works of God and your curtains are yet undrawn to entertain you with a shadow of death Arise out of bed and consider that this great star which makes you begin the course of this day must this day run about ten or twelve millions of leagues and you how many steps will you proceed towards virtue This unwearied Harbinger is gone to take you up a lodging in the grave Each minute is so much deducted from your life Will you not follow the counsel of the Son of God and work while it is day A long night will shortly cover you with its wings in which you will not have the power to work Suppose every day a day in Harvest suppose it a Market-day suppose it a day wherein you are to work in a golden Mine suppose it a ring which you are to engrave and ennammel with your actions to be at night presented on Gods Altar Set before you the excellent consideration of S. Bernard That your actions in passing pass not away for every good work is a grain of seed for eternal life Say with the famous Painter Xeuxes Aeternitati pingo I paint for eternity Follow the counsel of Thomas Aquinas Do every action in the name of Jesus Christ desiring to have the approbation and good affections of all the Church Militant and Triumphant Do it as if the glory of God the welfare of all the world and your whole salvation depended on it and as if that were to set the seal to all your works Contrive over night the good works you are to do the next day on what points you are to meditate what sin you are to vanquish what virtue you are to practice what business you are to do that with a well-digested foresight you may give birth to every thing in its own time This is Ariadnes clew which guides our actions in the great labyrinth of Time without which all would go to confusion Be curious sometimes to know of what colour the dawning of the day is prevent the light as the Wiseman adviseth to praise God Take heed of imitating that Epicurean swine who boasted that he had grown old without seeing the Sun either rise or set It is a good custom to rise betimes but hardly perswaded to Ladies and those Antipodes to Nature who change the night into day and the day into night The famous Apollonius being very early at Vespasian's gate and finding him stirring from thence conjectured that he was worthy to govern an Empire and said to his companion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This man surely will be Emperour he is so early That unto which you are to dispose the day may be divided into four parts Devotion Practice of Virtues Business and Recreation Devotion should bear the light and open the door to all our actions As soon as you awake make an account you are to give the first fruits of your reason your sense and faculties to the Divine Majesty Let the Memory immediately call to mind that the works of God must be done Let the Understanding cast an ejaculation upon its Creatour like a flash of lightening Let the Will enflame it self with love of him Let the Heart let flie the burning shafts of desires and celestial affections Let the Mouth and Tongue labour to pronounce some vocal prayer to the most blessed Trinitie Let the Hands lift
As soon as you have received the Sacrament say this prayer of S. Bernard in his Meditations upon the Passion O Heavenly Father look down from thy Sanctuary from the Throne of thy glory upon the blessed sacrifice which our High Priest Jesus thy most innocent and sacred Son doth offer unto thee for the sins of his Brethren Pardon the multitude of our offences and have compassion upon our miseries Hearken to the voice of the bloud of that immaculate Lamb which crieth out to thee and he himself standeth before thee at the right hand of thy Majestie crowned with honour and glory Behold O Lord the face of thy Messias who hath been obedient to thee even unto death and put not his blessed wounds out of thy sight nor the satisfaction he made for our sins out of thy rememberance O let every tongue praise and bless thee in commemoration of thy infinite goodness who didst deliver thy onely Son over to death upon Earth to make him our most prevalent Advocate in Heaven For Petition Immediately after you have recited the Lords Prayer say these words of the aforesaid Liturgie O God be mindfull of all Pastours and faithfull people dwelling in all parts of the habitable world in the union of the Catholick Faith and preserve them in thy holy peace O God bless our most gracious King and his whole Kingdom hear the prayers which we offer up at thy Altar O God remember all those that travel by sea or land and are exposed to so many dreadfull dangers Remember the many poor prisoners and exiles who groan under the miseries of the world O God remember the sick and all such as are in any discomfort of mind Remember the many poor souls opprest with bitterness who implore thy succour Remember also the conversion of so many Hereticks Infidels and sinners whom thou hast created after thine own image O God remember our Friends and Benefactours Accept this sacrifice for us sinners and let us all feel the effects of thy Mercy drive away scandal war and heresie and grant us thy peace and love And at the end of the Communion O God pour down thy graces upon us direct our steps in thy ways strengthen us in thy fear confirm us in thy love and give us at last the inheritance of thy children It is very expedient also to have our devotions ordered for every day of the week The seventeenth SECTION Devotion ordered for the days of the Week WE may derive an excellent practise of Devotion for every day of the Week from the Hymn of S. Ambrose used by the Church For therein we learn to give God thanks for every work of the Creation and to make the greater world correspond with the lesser Sunday which is the day wherein the light was created we should render thanks to God for having produced this temporal light which is the smile of Heaven and joy of the world spreading it like cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth and lighting it as a torch by which we might behold his works Then penetrating further we will give him thanks for having afforded us his Son called by the Fathers The Day-bringer to communicate unto us the great light of faith which is as saith S. Bernard a Copy of Eternity we will humbly beseech him that this light may never be eclipsed in our understandings but may replenish us every day more and more with the knowledge of his blessed will And for this purpose we must hear the word of God and be present at Divine Service with all fervour and purity Take great heed that you stain not this day which God hath set apart for himself with any disorder nor give the first fruits of the week to Dagon which you should offer up at the feet of the Ark of the Covenant Munday which is the day wherein the Firmanent was created to separate the celestial waters from the inferiour and terrestrial we will represent unto our selves that God hath given us Reason as a Firmament to separate divine cogitations from animal and we will pray unto him to mortifie anger and concupiscence in us and to grant us absolute sway over all passions which resist the eternal Law Thesday the day wherein the waters which before covered the whole element of Earth were ranked in their place and the earth appeared to become the dwelling nurse and grave of man we will figure unto our selves the great work of the justification of the world done by the Incarnate Word who took away a great heap of obstacâ—es as well of ignorance as of sin that covered the face of the whole world and made a Church which like a holy Land appears laden with fruit and beauties to raise us up in Faith and to bury us in the hope of the Resurrection We will beseech him to take away all hinderances to our soul so many ignorances sins imperfections fears sorrows cares which detain it as in an abyss and to replenish us with the fruits of justice Wednesday wherein the Sun Moon and Stars were created we will propose unto our selves for object the Beauty and Excellency of the Church of God adorned with the presence of the Saviour of the world as with a Sun and with so many Saints as with Stars of the Firmament and we will humbly beseech God to embellish our soul with light and virtue suitable to its condition Especially to give us the six qualities of the Sun Greatness Beauty Measure Feâ—vour Readiness and Fruitfulness Greatness in the elevation of our mind above all created things and in a capacity of heart which can never be filled with any thing but God Beauty in gifts of grace Measure to limit our passions Fervour in the exercise of charity Readiness in the obedience we ow to his Law Fruitfulness in bringing forth good works Toursday the day wherein God as S. Ambrose saith drew the birds and fishes out of the waters the birds to flie in the air and the fishes to dwell in this lower Element We will imagine the great separation which shall be made at the day of Gods judgement when so vast a number of men extracted from one and the same mass some shall be raised on high to people Heaven and enjoy the sight of God others shall be made a prey to hell and everlasting torments And in this great abyss and horrour of thought we will beseech God to hold us in the number of his elect and to be pleased to mark out our predestination in our good and commendable actions Friday wherein the other creatures were brought forth and man created who was then appointed to them for a King and Governour we will set before us the greatness excellency and beauty of this Man in the Talents which God hath given him as well of grace as of nature How much it cost to make him the hands of the Creatour being employed in his production Hands saith S. Basil which were to him as a
was there known to all the world and the disdain of that ungratefull Nation closed the hands of his great bounty Is it not a great unhappiness to be weary and tyred with often communicating to be wicked because God is good and to shut up our selves close when he would impart himself to us Men make little account of great benefits and spiritual helps for that they have them present They must lose those favours to know them well and seek outragiously without effect what they have kickt away with contempt because it was easily possest 2. The choices and elections of God are not to be comprehended within our thoughts but they should be adored by our hearts He is Master of his own favours and doth what he will in the Kingdoms of Nature Grace and Glory He makes vessels of Potters earth of gold and silver He makes Holy-dayes and working-working-dayes saith the Wiseman his liberalites are as free to him as his thoughts We must not examine the reason why he doth elevate some and abase others Our eye must not be wicked because his heart is good Let us content our selves that he loves the humble and to know that the lowest place of all is most secure No man is made reprobate without justice no man is saved without mercy God creates men to repair in many that which he hath made and also to punish in the persons of many that which he hath not made 3. Jesus doth not cure his brethren and yet cures strangers to shew that his powers are not tied to any nation but his own will So likewise the graces of God are not to be measured according to the nature of him who receives them but by the pure bounty of him who gives them The humility of some doth call him when the presumption of others doth estrange him The weak grounds of a dying law did no good to the Jews who disdained the grace of Jesus Christ And that disdain deprived them of their adoption of the glory of the New Testament of all the promises and of all Magistracy They lost all because they would keep their own wills Let us learn by the grace of God to desire earnestly that good which we would obtain effectually Persons distasted and surfetted cannot advance much in a spiritual life And he that seeks after perfection coldly shall never find it Aspirations THy beauties most sweet Jesus are without stain thy goodness without reproch and thy conversation without importunity God forbid I should be of the number of those souls which are distasted with Monna and languish after the onions of Egypt The more I taste thee the more I incline to do thee honour Familiarity with an infinite thing begets no contempt but onely from those whom thou doest despise for their own faults O what high secrets are thy favours O what Abysses are thy graces We may wish and run But except thou cooperate nothing is done If thou cease to work all is undone I put all my happiness into thy hands It is thou alone which knowest how to chuse what we most need by thy Sovereign wisdom and thou givest it by thy extream bounty The Gospel upon Tuesday the third week in Lent S. Matth. 18. If thy brother offend thee tell him of it alone BUt if thy brother shall offend against thee go and rebuke him between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou shalt gain thy brother and if he will not hear thee joyn with thee besides one or two that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand And if he will not hear them tell the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the Heathen and the Publican Amen I say to you whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven Again I say to you that if two of you shall consent upon earth concerning every thing whatsoever they ask it shall be done to them of my Father which is in heaven for where there be two or three gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them Then came Peter unto him and said Lord how often shall my brother offend against me and I forgive him until seven times Jesus said to him I say not to thee until seven times but until seventy times seven times Moralities 1. THe heavens are happy that they go always in one measure and in so great a revolution of ages do not make one false step but man is naturally subject to fail He is full of imperfections and if he have any virtues he carries them like dust against the wind or snow against the sun This is the reason which teaches him that he needs good advice 2. It is somewhat hard to give right correction but much harder to receive it profitably Some are so very fair spoken that they praise all which they see and because they will find nothing amiss they are ordinarily good to no body They shew to those whom they flatter their virtues in great and their faults in little they will say to those who are plunged in great disorders they have no other fault but that they are not sufficiently carefull of their own health Others do correct with such sharpness and violence that they wound their own hearts to cure other mens and seem to have a greater mind to please their own passions than to amend those whom they would instruct Correction should be accompanied with sweetness but it must carry withall a little vigour to make a right temper and to keep a mean between softness and austerity Jesus in the Prophet Isaiah is called both a rod and a flower to shew us according to Origen that he carries severity mingled with sweetness to use either of them according to the diversity of persons 3. It is not a very easie thing to receive brotherly correction patiently we are so far in love with being well thought of And after we have lost the tree of life which is virtue it self we would keep the bark of it which is onely reputation All shadows proceed from those bodies upon which somewhat shines honour is the child of a known virtue and many when they cannot get one lawfull are willing to have a Bastard This is the cause why so many resemble those serpents which requite them with poison who sing to them pleasant songs Whatsoever is spoken to instruct them makes them passionate and dart out angry speeches against those who speak to them mild and gentle words of truth and tending to their salvation Rest assured you can never get perfection except you count it a glorie to learn and discover your own imperfections 4. There is nothing of more force than the prayers of just men which are animated by the same spirit and cimented together with perfect concord They are most powerfull both in heaven and earth When they desire what
Perfecto odio oderaâ—â— illos Psal 138. is dangerous lest seeking to pull them away we be more passionate against the party who hath them then against all the most abominable iniquities We must not believe our selves when there is question of some important punishment nor such as are born to flatter our likings with too much servitude but those Angels for our counsellours if it be possible who are disintangled from the matter of Interests There are some who use to fortifie themselves in their resolutions by the deportments of those who are held for Saints in the Church and do readily alledge the examples of David who being upon his death-bed recommended to his son Solomon the punishment of Joab and Shimei But we must here consider that David is not a man impeceable to serve Question upon the act of David as a pattern for all our actions and that it is ever better to consecrate our dying lips with the words our Saviour spake a thousand years after on the crosse then with those he left in this instant as a Testament to his son The Jews had naturally great inclinations to revenge and many sought to perswade themselves it was by their laws permitted which is the cause this great King was not so perfectly free from all the seeds of Hatred in the whole course of his life But forasmuch as concerneth this last will of his one may excuse him for divers reasons nor can it be denyed an act of justice to put Joah to death who had defiled his hands with the bloud of two innocent Princes but it is strange that David reserved this so rough a punishment for him after fourty years of great and singular services when he was about threescore and ten years old Yet Theodoret brings a reason of state for it wherein he sheweth that Joah Theodoretin c. 2. l. 3. Regum citatus in Glossa Joah being in himself a great Captain was withall daring in his manners and tyrannicall in his undertakings and had already made it but too much appear that he meant to embroil the state after the death of his Master and to set Adonijah upon the throne to the prejudice of Solomon which was the cause that David who sought fixedly to establish the Kingdome upon his lawfull successour councelled him to take him away by a just punishment of other crimes which he had committed And as for Shimei who had surcharged him with injuries and curses when afterward he returned victorious into Hierusalem he came before him and craving pardon of his fault with lowly submission which stayed David and made him swear he should not dye for it which seemeth to convince him of perjury when he commanded his son Solomon to kill him I cannot approve Tostatus his distinction who saith When persons very different in the qualities of their rights treat together that he who hath justice on his side may promise things with an intention not to perform them as the other meaneth them For verily the permission of this manner of captious proceedings would throw a distrust upon all treaties But it is easie to see that David in this occasion beholding himself to be accomplished with joy and glory when Shimei came to cast himself at his feet and that Abishai counselled him instantly to put him to death he swore he should not dy and that the alacrity of a day so pleasing should not be purpled with humane bloud so that he had no further purpose but to assure Shimei for the time present and to promise him impunity in this conjunction of Kingdome and affairs but when he saw this spirit was insolent and like also to occasion trouble in the young King he did not absolutely command as Cajetan observeth to put him to death for what was past which had been pardoned but not to spare him in new occasions of commotion as actually Solomon following the intentions of the King his father troubled him not upon his slanders but upon another occurrent Now although one may alwayes give colour to the Hatred which is undertaken upon consideration and that it be sometimes necessary for the extirpation of the wicked yet must we more incline to clemency then justice in all which concerneth our selves For Hatreds of Interest which concern estates and Hatred of interest honour they many times in these dayes are incurable if they be not accompanied with some reasonable satisfaction It is a thing very remarkable that our Saviour Luc. 12. 14. who accordeth elements and pacifieth totall Nature would not undertake the agreement of two brothers upon the partition of their patrimony Nay there are some now a dayes so greedy and fleshed in prey that for a fingers breadth of land they would oppose Jesus Christ if he should visibly come to mediate their reconciliation After a thousand reasons which may be alledged for peace and good correspondence they derive but one conclusion out of it which is to have their will For which cause God chastiseth them and very often permitteth dissipation of goods ruine of families and many other accidents which stain their consciences and tarnish their reputation As on the contraty he blesseth the children of peace who forgo somewhat of their interest to acquire this inestimable treasure It is almost as hard to preserve charity in a great suit as to maintain fire in the water or under earth to keep inextinguible lamps He who will persist with a conscience indifferently Christian must never descend into suits Suits their nature and description but with a leaden pace and come out of them with the wings of an Eagle Suits are as the sons of Chaos and night there is nothing in them but confusion and darknesse It is a mixture of all evils which hath the heat of fire the threats the roaring thunders and tempests of the air the rocks of the sea the talons of birds of rapine and ravenous throat of fishes the gall of serpents the fury of salvage beasts and the malignity of poysons Before it ever walketh the desire of anothers goods by its side deceit revenge injustice falshood and treachery after it repentance poverty shame and infamy As war is made for peace so we sometimes undertake suits for justice and those are honest men who desire it but they who at this present do it with all sincerity are the greatest Saints of this age who seem to be given by God to mortifie civil hatreds and to establish minds in concord After suits Hatred brings forth another mischief Duell which is Duel a true Sacrifice of Moloch which hath cost France so much bloud mothers and wives so many tears which filleth families with sorrow friends with grief ages with horrour and hearts the most reasonable with the detestation of such a Crime The edicts of our most Christian King which have Means to use an efficacious remedy in Duell had more force then all other have served instead of a Jasper-stone to stanch
He is never damnified but alwayes equall to himself because he admitteth not Age but is one day composed of Eternity One may object here that to hope for any thing from another it is not alwayes necessary he be absolutely greater or more worthy then we We hope from artificers we hope likewise from our servants the performance of businesses which we put into their hands and therefore one might inferre that it is not a proposition contrary to reason to say that God can hope something from us as are the praises and service which we are bound to render to him as were likewise our conversion To that I answer it is true that the greatest Monarchs of the earth may hope from the meanest persons of their God is independent of all creatures and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinity of his persections kingdome because they are men and have dependence of men and in this God greatly humbleth great men when he makes them see that all this glorious pomp of their fortune which seems to afford matter of jealousie to heaven and of new laws to earth subsisteth not but by the commerce of merchants and by the labour and sweat of peasants all which makes no impression on the Divinity It exspecteth say you our praises as if God were not his owne praise to himself as if he stood in need of a mortall mouth to honour an Essence Tanquam momentum staterae sie est ante te orbis terrarum Sap. 11 3. Resoluto mundo diis in unum confusis cessante naturâ acquiesâ—â— sibi cogitati onibus suis traditus Sence ep 9. immortall Were all the lipps of men the most eloquent at this present covered under ashes what would it concern him All the world is before him no more then the turn of a ballance Hath not he the morning starres round about his awfull throne I mean those great Angels all replenished with lights and perfections who praise him incessantly And were the world annihilated and the very Angels confounded in the masse of starres and elements he would ever be God alwayes as great as himself and even left alone to his thoughts in his own thoughts he would find heaven But yet you will say he may expect our conversion which partly dependeth on our selves since he who made us without us will not save us without us It is easie to reply thereupon that God hath no need of the God hath no need of our conversion to encrease his glory Fasciculum suum super terram sundavit Amos 6. conversion of men to augment his glory but to establish their salvation and should he have need he continually hath his elect before him in the book of his prescience without blotting forth or thereunto adding any names Think you he expecteth till we have done to judge of our works He knoweth from all eternity what we must do in such or such an occasion his prescience not imposing any necessity upon our free-will This great God sitting in the highest part of heaven continually Manet spectator cunctorum Deus visionisque ejus praesens aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum qualitate concurrit Boet. l. 5. p. 6. beholdeth all the actions of men and the eternity of his vision perpetually present infallibly meeteth with the quality of our merits It letteth us go according to the current of the stream and the choice of our liberty but if he would proceed with absolute power there is no will so determinate upon evil which can resist him And therefore we must conclude his account is already made both within himself and without himself he not any whit depending on the future It is more clear then the day that God cannot hope God supporteth all good hopes by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence Sperastis in Domino in seculis aeternis in Domino Deo forti in perpetuum Isa 16. 2. but it is likewise most manifest that he supporteth all good hopes by reason of the capacity of his Essence of his power and of his goodnesse and therefore Esay speaks very notably You have put your hope in our Lord who is in eternall ages In our Lord I say the true God whose strength is not limitted by length of time Men are weak and God is the God of the strong Men sometimes preserve for a time but God guardeth us eternally Men have their wills as changeable as their power is limitted but God besides that he is of a constancy unshaken exerciseth a power unbounded Where then may we better lodge our hopes then in the Divinity There it is where our second modell I meane the holy We must place our hopes in God by the example of the holy Humanity of Jesus Christ In te projectus sum ex uteâ—o spes mea ab ube ribus matrismeae For what reasons our Lord prayed humanity of Jesus placed all his hope My God my Hope I did cast my self between thy arms so soon as I began to be born in the world and at my going from my mothers bosome But one may here aske of theology If Jesus had the virtue of Hope what is it then he might hope I answer that if he might pray he might hope For prayer and namely a request is not made but with hope to obtein that we seek for Now who doubteth but that Jesus prayed on earth and doth he not also pray now in heaven He prayed saith Theology for four reasons First for the exercise of his virtue which is most excellent Secondly for our example Thirdly for the accomplishment of his commission and lastly for necessity I am not ignorant that S. John Damascen hath said that Christ prayed not but in appearance Damascen l. 4. de side insomuch as prayer being properly an ascension of the mind to God it could not be that the soul of Jesus Christ should mount anew into the Divinity since from the day of his Conception it was there as it were enchased not being able to be separated from it one sole moment But this question is satisfied by saying with Vazquez that it is true that our Lord in regard of the person of the Word could not pray having in this kind no superiour but by reason of the Humanity which might be wanting and indigent without the help of the Divinity therefore he mounted up to the source of the word not by vision and beatifick love which he already enjoyed but by the knowledge of science infused and by a new desire to impetrate something of his heavenly Father I say he already had Beatitude and that he was as it were engulfed in lights of glory he notwithstanding had not yet glorification of his body exaltation of his name extent of his Church from one pole to the other which made him pray and to say with S. John I beseech thee O Father make me glorious and resplendent before the face of all Creatures as I was from
be for our advantage There are who escape out of prison by fire others who are faln into precipices very gently and have in the bottome found their liberty others to whom poysons are turned into nutriment others to whom blows of a sword have broken impostumes so true it is that the seeds of good hap are sometimes hidden under the apparances of ill Besides this give your self the leisure to find out the To take things at the worst whole latitude of the evill which strikes you Take if you think good all things at the worst and handle your self as an enemy yet you shall find that this evil is not so bad as it is said that many have gone that way before you and that if God permit it he will give you strength to bear it The fear it self which is the worst of our evils is not so great a torment since it affordeth us precaution industry and fit means and suggesteth us wayes to fear no more If you never have experienced evil you have much to complain that you so little have been a man and if you have some experience of the time past it will much serve you to sweeten the apprehension of the evils to come Vanquish your own conceits as much as you can and pray them not to present unto you under so hideous a mask those pains which women and children have many times laughed at If you in the beginning feel any horrour and the first rebellions of nature lose not courage for Fiducia pallens Statius Theb. Rodericus Toletanus rerum Hisp l. 5. c. 23. all that since the Poet painted Boldnesse with a pale visage We have often seen great Captains as Garcias to quake in the beginning of dangerous battels because their flesh as they said laid hold of their courage and carried the imagination into the most hideous perils Lastly be it how it will be you shall find the remedy of your fears in the presence of that which you fear since there are some who in the irresolution of some affair do endure a thousand evils and so soon as the determination thereof succeedeth though to their prejudice they fell themselves much more lightned Many prisoners who stand on thorns in prison expecting the issue of their triall go very resolute to execution seeing it is better to die once then to live still in the apprehension of death David shook with fear Reg 2. 12. wept and fasted lay on the ground for the sicknesse of his young son But after the death was denounced him he rose up from the earth changed his habit washed and perfumed himself then having worshipped in the house of God he asked for his dinner and first of all comforted Bathsheba upon this accident whereat his houshold-servants were amazed But he taught them we must not afflict our selves for those things whereof there is no remedy I conclude with the last kind of fear which comes from things very extraordinary as are Comets Armies of fire Prodigies in the Heavens and the Air Thunders Lightnings Monsters Inundations Fires Earthquakes Spirits Spectres Devils and Hell Good God! what terrour is there in this miserable life since besides these which are so ordinary with us we must expect other from places so high and so low But howsoever we notwithstanding do find courages which surmount them with the assistance of God although it do not ordinarily happen without some impressions of fear otherwise we must be far engaged in stupidity Comets Eclipses flying fires and so many other Meteors do not now-a-dayes so much affright since we have discovered the causes which is a powerfull proof that ignorance in many occasions makes up a great part of our torments Pericles strook Stratagem of Pericles Polyaenus l. 3. a fire-steel in an assembly of his Captains and Souldiers who were astonished at a thunder and lightning happened in the instant of a battel shewing that what the heavens did was that he was doing before their eyes which marvellously satisfied them Superstition makes a thousand fantasies to be feared whereat we might laugh with a little wisdome The Euseb l. 1. de praeparat Evang. c. 7. Egyptians were half dead when the figure of a huge dragon which sometimes of the year was shewed them did not seem to look well on them and the Romans fell in their Courage when the Cocks which governed their battels did not feed to their liking Hecataeus Hecataeus apud Cunaeum l. 2. de Rep. Hebraeorum an antient Historian telleth that Alexanders whole army stood still to look on a bird from whence the Augur went about to derive some presage which being seen by a Jew named Mosellan he drew an arrow out of his quiver and kill'd it mocking at the Grecians who expected their destiny from a creature which so little knew its own As we laugh at this present at these fopperies so we should entertain with scorn so many dreams and superstitious observations which trouble them enough who make account of them Wild beasts inundation of rivers productions of mountains big with flames sulphur and stonas are other causes of terrour nor hath there ever been seen any more hideous then that which happened these late years in Italy in the last fiering of Mount Vesuvius The burning of Vesuvius in the year 1631. Julius Recupitus which is excellently described by F. Julius Recupitus Then it there can be nothing seen more able to excite terrour unlesse in an instant the bottome of Hell were laid open and all the hideous aspects of the torments of the damned Yet it is a strange thing how among waves of fire which ran on all sides clouds of Ashes which appeared like vast mountains continuall Earthquakes countrebuffs of Hillocks and of houses of Abysses of Gulphs and of Chaoses there were people to be found who yet thought upon their purses and took the way towards their houses to lay hold of their slender substances which makes us see that there is nothing so horrid where the soul of man returned to it self findeth not some leisure to breathe The monsters of the Roman Amphitheatre which in the beginning made the most hardy to quake were in the end despised by women who were hired to combat with them Things not seen which it seems should most trouble the mind because they are most hidden are also in some sort surmounted since we read how that many great Anchorets lay in Church-yards infested with ghosts and spectres and about solitudes in forrests and wildernesses the most retired in the midst of so many illusions of evill spirits as it is written in the Acts of Saint Anthony S. Hilarion and S. Macarius There is nothing but the day of Judgement Hell and the punishments of the damned we should reasonably fear and not out of visionary scruples to free us from all fear § 4. That the Contemplation of the power and Bounty of God ought to take away all our fears BUt if these reason
Forrests with bloud and massacres perpetually under their paws by naturall instinct quake at the thundering voyce of God Fishes in the bottome of seas and abysses with horrour hear it enraged tempests which seem ready to tear the world in pieces become silent at the command of the Highest and draw in their O maxime O summe invisibilium procreator opifex invise nullis unquam comprehense naturis dâ—gnus eâ— verè si modò te dignum mortali dicendum est cre cui spirans omnis intelligénsque natura habere agere nunquam gratias desinat cui totâ conveniat vitâ genu nixo procumbere continuatis precibus suppiicà te Arnob. contra gentes wings under his throne waves and floods which make a shew not to regard this great All no more then a single Element dissolve their fury upon the sight of one silly grain of sand which imposeth a law on them by virtue of Gods ordinance The very divels all on Fire in the flames of their punishment which infinite misery seems to have exempted from fear can not free themselves from this sting O most mighty O most sovereign Lord of things visible and invisible O great Eye who seest all and art not seen by any here below Thou art truly worthy If we with mortall lips may call thee worthy yea worthy to whom all intelligent and reasonable Nature should give continuall thanks for thy inexplicable benefits worthy before whom we on our bended knees should all our life-time remain prostrate worthy that for thee we should have praises and prayers everlastingly on our lips And where is that brazen brow which dares to offend thee in the midst of thy Temple of this universe from whence thou on all sides beholdest us O what a monster is impudency if it persist insensible to such considerations § 5. Of the reverence which the holy Humanity of our Lord bare to his Eternall Father LEt us look on the other Modell and consider how The reverence Jesus bare to that divine Majesty Jesus Christ uncapable properly either of fear or Shamefac'dnesse caused by any defect observed all the dayes of his mortall conversation so lowly a reverence towards the divine Majesty that it serves for matter of admiration to all Angels and of example for all ages To understand this well I beseech you to take into your consideration two reasons that I will set before you which me thinks are well worthy of your ponderation First that the greatnesse of actions ought ever to be measured by the end for which God hath instituted them as if one prove that the actions of understanding are given us to raise us to the knowledge of God we by the same means infer that those actions are very noble since they are directed to an end so eminent Now wherefore think you was the eternall Word Incarnate in the womb of a holy Virgin I say that besides consideration of humane Redemption and the instruction of all mortals God covered himself with the flesh of man that there might by that means be a person in the world able to praise and honour God asmuch as he is praise-worthy and honourable by a nature create hypostatically joyned to the divine nature Philo in Philo de plantatione Noemi the Book of Noahs plantation saith that search was made through the world for a voyce suteable to the divine Majesty to speak and recount his praises and there was none found For although the sovereign Creatour hath been praised from the beginning of Ages by the morning starrs which are the Angels as saith Job Cum me laudarent astra matutina jubiâ— larent omnes filii Dei Job 38. 5. yet we must say that all the praises which the highest Seraphims may give to the Divinity if we compare them to the merits of its incomparable greatnesse are like a Candle in comparison of the Sun a small drop of water parallell'd with the sea and an infant-like stutterer who should undertake to declare the prowesses of the most illustrious Cesars There needeth a lauding God a reverencing God and an adoring God to praise reverence and adore God worthily otherwise there were nothing sutable to his Divine Majesty there being no proportion between the finite and the Infinite And that which seemed to be impossible is accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ All reverences of Angels and men are dissolved into him as if one should melt many small Bells to make a great one And verily all creatures being dumb in his presence he made himself as a huge Bell of the great clock of the word which striketh the hours and resoundeth thanks to his heavenly Father All our reverences our homages our adorations have neither force dignity nor value if they be not united and incorporated with the homage submission and adoration which this glorious Humanity rendereth to his Celestiall Father even above the vaults of the Empereall Heaven This is the great Angel of Counsel of whom we may pronounce these words of the Apocalypse That he came to present himself Apoc. 8. 3. before the Altar having in his hand a golden Incensorie and much incense was given him that he might offer the prayers of holy Saints on this golden Altar The second reason is that the reverence and honour we do to one is justly augmented according as we more clearly know his great and worthy parts whereupon we may inferr that as our Saviour had knowledges and incomparable lights of the Majestie of his heavenly Father not onely in respect of science increate but of science beatifick and infused so had he proportionably resentments of honour so profoundly reverent that he perpetually lived absorpt in this reverence as a drop of water in the sea or a hot Iron in the fornace There was neither vein nor artery which was not every moment penetrated and overflowed with the veneration he yeilded to God his Father Men who naturally are dull and sensuall stand in need of exteriour signs to raise them to the reverence of God For which cause the sages of the world in the falshood of pretended religions have always affected some tokens of terrour to affright perjured and Philostr l. 1. c. 16 de vit Apollonii A notable custome of the Babylonians in doing Justice wicked men So the Babylonians when they sat on matters of Justice went into a Hall of the Palace made in the form of the heavens where were hanged the figures of their Gods all resplentent in gold and where were to be seen on the roof certain forms of birds which they thought to be sent from on high as messengers of The custom of Bochyris a Judge of Egypt the Sun So Bochyris a most famous Judge of Egypt ordinarily named as the Father and protectour of Equitie that he might powerfully imprint an apprehension of God avenger of Injustices when he fate on his throne of Judicature always had the image of a serpent in embossed
endowed with that onely quality Above all he shewed himself all his life very zealous for religion and wonderfully affected towards divine things He removeth the Ark of the Covenant with great and stately Ceremonies he prepared infinite treasure to build the House of God he composeth Hymns for his people which have astonished all ages and which serve for perpetuall springs of devotion in the Church He ordained the Quyres of Musick and singers which have prescribed the law of prayses in consort for all Nations He perfectly honoured the Prophets and Priests mainteining a very great intelligence with and amongst them All these exercises no wayes diminished in him actions His valour and his wars of valour he overthrew the Philistims in two great battels he made war on every side in the East against the Moabites and Ammonites in the West against the Phoenicians on the South against the Amalekites the Arabians and Idumeans in the North against the Syrians the Sabeans and Mesopotamians and was happy in all his enterprises Besides this he made leagues with the Kings his neighbours for the benefit of commerce gaining them all either by friendship or subduing them by force He rendred Justice exactly to his Subjects he favoured His justice and good husbandry Arts he enriched and fortified the Towns he made himself flately Palaces and drew the Kingdome of Juda out of servility which had not yet known what magnificence was he was honoured by the great ones beloved by the Priests admired by the wisest and as it were adored by all his people But as all light in mortall things hath its shadow His vices The love of Bathsheba God suffred him to fall into a great offence which served to humble him and caused very much trouble in his house His mind being loosed from the cares of war and businesses had too much inclination to the flesh more then it used He was sleeping upon his bed and The love Bathsheba being awaked in the afternoon he walked on the top of his house upon the covering made in platform and delighted in the fair prospects that he had from his Palace from whence he descried a woman that bathed her self in her garden he enquired of her name her kindred and her qualities and became in love thereby sends for her to his house and had company with her How dear did this unhappy cast of his eye cost him and how many damned are there that shall one day bewail with eyes of fire the concupiscence of their fleshly eyes This Fountain where Bathsheba washt her self ran with flames and poyson which entring by the senses of a Prophet empoysoned his heart blinded his reason infected his thoughts and overthrew his whole soul This Creature was neither Bear nor Lyon nor Goliah nor Philistim and yet she overthrew in a moment him that made but a sport of Bears which conquered Lyons subdued Goliahs and marched over the heads of Philistims All conspired unto the mishap of poore David the season the hour the sleep the solitarinesse the prospect the object a woman very fair and smoothly composed for it seemed that this unlucky one did lye in ambush and made it her glory to triumph over a Saint and one of the valiantest men that was at that time upon the earth Perhaps she would onely have given an occasion of love but not have taken had she been like the Sun that scorches all here below and yet remains untoucht in the midst of his flames When one doth more then he ought in this blind passion he goes further then he thought It is a great temptation to a woman to be beloved of a King Cleophis by this means gained a Kingdome Paulus Orosius l. 3. Concubitu regnum ab Alexandro redemit in a night Bathsheba looked more upon the greatnesse then the pleasure When love and ambition blow at the same time in the head of a woman she hath two great Devils to fight with She might honestly have refused this visit she might have deferred it have gained time and turned aside the occasion There is no need sometimes but of a spiders web to beat back the darts of love that at other times the Ramparts of Semyramis are not strong enough against it But she was ready to sell and to yield that had already laid aside her honour with her attire She failed not speedily to send news to David that she had conceived and that her husband having not seen her might very easily conceive that that was none of his doing The honour of this lost creature must now have a The death of Utiah cover the King sends for her husband under some other pretence he comes from the Army he is very kindly enterteined they are earnest with him to go take his ease at his house and to go to see his wife But the good man refuseth it saying that it was not fitting for him to lye in a bed when the Ark of God and his Captain Joab were under Tents He lyes upon the ground before the door of Davids chamber and so passeth the night having no other desire then to return speedily to the army Alas poor Vriah a harmlesse sacrifice thou wast The blindnesse of David but too faithful to faithlessnesse and therefore thou must water with thy blood the loves of thy master David takes the pen and love dictates to him a bloody letter by which he sends to Joab that he should place Vriah amongst the forlom-hope that they might so fairly be rid of him for such was his pleasure Vriah carrieth this deadly packet Joab without enquiring any further obeys the innocent is massacred and the false liberty of these two lovers thinks it is now in surety enough David remains nine moneths covered with this filth and this blood without coming to the knowledge of himself untill that Nathan takes away the veil that thus blinded him Truth is one of the excellentest commodities that is The carriage of truth costs dear at the court in all nature but the carryage thereof costs dear which makes that many will not take it up to bear especially when there is any question about carrying it into a Kings Palace one saith that it is not yet time another that it will not be usefull others that it is of no great force obliging One will daub over businesses another seems to make a conscience one studies for reasons where little is to be found for to please the humours of great ones but there is danger that those that would preserve themselves by fair-speaking do not ruine themselves by flattery The Prophet Nathan sheweth himself courageous in this point for although he was not ignorant that it was a thing dangerous enough to speak freely to a King and to a lover of that which he least did love to hear yet he resolved to shew David his sin and took a very right course therein preventing him with a Parable of a rich man having
as to name her The Revengeresse of the Cause of God The Conqueresse of Impiety and the Protectresse of the Catholick Faith All businesses took a very happy couâ—se and the State prospered visibly in the hands of that great Princesse But it seems that disorder is fatall to the Courts of great Ones and that virtue can never reign there without contradiction The ambition that every one hath to promote his fortune the impatience of good the desire of novelty the envy that alwayes follows the happy cease not secretly to contrive wicked plots which are hatched at last into pernicious effects The passages to the spirit of the Emperour could not be so well stopped up but that he had about his person some young men the most venomous pestilences of the court who by giving him suspicions of the Empress his mother involved his Dignity and his Life in a misery that causes horrour to my thoughts They cease not to insinuate into his heart by cursed flatteries that gave him the taste of sinne and the love of a faulty liberty that would no longer measure his Powers but by the impunity of all vices They call'd him the perpetuall Pupil the shadow of Stauratius and told him that the age of twenty years might have made him proceed Master of his affairs and of himself that it was an insufferable shame to him to endure servitude in a birth that gave him the Empire of the World that his mother loved his Sceptre and not his Person and that she was so much used to Reign that she would never quit the Sovereign Authority if he did not expresse Vigour and Resolution to be that which God was pleased he should be born without dependence on any one that the Pedagogie of Stauratius was infamous to a Monarch that had thrice seven years over his head and that he ought no more to play the child in a time wherein so many other Princes had played the Conquerours They talk to him of it so much that he resolved to take away all Authory from the State-Officer and to put his Mother out of the Government and direction of his affairs which he began to manage after a strange fashion favouring the heresie of the Iconoclasts and all disorders following the advice of that pernicious counsell of the youth that had began his ruine Irene had an intention at first to marry him to the Princesse Rotrude daughter of our Charlemagne but some Greeks diverted that resolution telling her that that alliance would give too great a prop to his naturall disposition that seemed already bad enough and that if the French began to set a foot in the Empire they would one day carry the Crown upon their head This caused his mother to marry him to Mary the Armenian who wanted not good qualities but whether it was that the Emperour found her not to his liking or whether it was to spite the Empresse his mother that had given her to him he made a very scandalous divorce from that Princesse after he had lawfully wedded her and married with a Chamber-maid of his Mothers through the irregularnesse of his sensuality The Patriarch Tarasus had a good mind to oppose himself against it but seeing that this Prince enraged with love and choler threatned to open the Temples of the Idols if one crossed the phrensie of his passion he held his peace and let a businesse shamefull to Christianity passe by dissimulation But Plato and Theodore who were then the two greatest lights of Greece in holinesse and learning much blamed his proceedings and separated themselves from his communion which made a great rent in the Eastern Church Constantine sullying also his Loves with humane blood caused the eyes to be put out of his Unkle Nicephorus and of the Generall Alexius greatly renowned by his prowesse which drew much hatred upon the person and government of this Prince yet he left not off for all that to continue even so far as to take pleasure in cutting off the tongues of many that disapproved of the insolency of his manners Eight years were already passed in these disorders and his mother retired into her private condition was secretly sollicited by many to take again the Managing of the affairs to stop the Riots of her son She hearkened to it and with the assistance of Stauratius plotted an horrible conspiracy against the Emperour whom she caused to be apprehended imprisoned and made blind whereat he conceived so much despight and sadnesse that in few dayes he quitted the Sceptre with his life The wicked deportments of Constantine and the good reputation in which Irene had lived till then caused many even amongst the Church-men to find out reasons not onely to excuse but also to approve this bold attempt yet I find it so enormous so contrary to the law of nature so injurious to the inviolable Majesty of Kings that my pen passes over it with horrour and cannot choose but condemn it not onely with the Law of God that detests it but with the heavens themselves which hid the Sun seventeen dayes together veiled themselves with darknesse and wept for the inhumanity of that crime Yet I rather believe that which Cardinall Baronius hath written that his mother never consented to the making of him blind although she had given command to seize upon him but that those who feared the danger of that Commission wished rather the death of him then the imprisonment But howsoever it came to passe the Empresse took again the Government in hand and seeing that in that great confusion of affairs she had need of a strong prop she sought for by an expresse embassage allyance and a marriage with Charlemagne which was not any way disrellished seeing all that had passed failed not to be coloured with fair pretences and for that purpose sent back Embassadours to her to end the businesse but when they arrived at Constantinople they found that Nicephorus one of the Grandees of the East an hypocrite and a traytor to the miserable Irene had already seized upon the Empire and banished her into the Isle of Lesbos where she dyed soon after with the testimonies of a strong repentance and a perfect disengagement from all worldly things Yet this new Usurper knowing that our Charles had already been Proclaimed Emperour in the West treated him with great submissions not for the love of his person but for the fear of his credit and of his Arms. Behold how Providence disposed businesses in the East to make him mount upon the Throne of the Cesars she permitted also in the West strange revolutions and abominable accidents out of which by her extream wisdome and goodnesse she extracted good for the advancement of this Monarch After the death of Adrian the Pope Leo the Third was set in Saint Peters chair but his Predecessours Nephews that saw that the Pontificate had taken another visage since the city of Rome had been delivered from the chains of the Lombard and that
fair chamber to repose her self but before she entred into it she desired a courtesie which was that she might go out before day to addresse her Prayers to the God she worshipped according to her custome and passe up and down in his Camp with all freedome which was granted to her She went therefore in the silence of the night to wash her self in a secret fountain that she might purifie her self from the commerce of those Infidels and prayed God incessantly that it would please him to prosper her design for the deliverance of her Countrey She had now passed four dayes in the Army watching an opportunity to execute that which she had projected when Holophernes would needs entertain himself with mirth and make a magnificent feast to which he resolved to invite his ghest thinking good chear and jollity would dispose her to that which he had a mind to have of her But because the Assyrians hold it a great dishonour for a man to make love to a woman and not to win her he would not hazard himself so much as to make an overture to her of such a discourse himself but gave the Commission of it to Vagoa the chief Gentleman of his chamber who used to serve him in such a businesse He failed not to make her know that she was very farre in the favour of his Master and that that very day he made a banquet and desired to see her in particular and that she should take heed of making a scruple of obeying for it was one of the greatest honours that she could receive in her whole life He added that she ought a little to be merry and passe away her time without engendring melancholy she understood well what he meant to say and answered that she was wholly disposed to obey his Lords commands and would have no other will but his and straight way adorns and dresses her self the most pleasingly she could to wound him in the eyes and so passes into her chamber As soon as he saw her alone and near him his heart was totally overthrown and it seemed that the lightning that issued out of the eyes of that beauty had crushed it to powder His passion permitted him not to speak much he was so much moved he contented himself onely with inviting her to be merry and assuring her that she had gained his heart The holy woman prayed him that it might seem good in his eyes that she might entertain her self after her own fashion and that she might eat of that which her servant had prepared for her which he consented to being willing to leave her in a full liberty that he might not scare nor trouble her Now behold him the happiest man in the whole world He drinks with large draughts makes himself exceeding merry and wonderfully pleasant whereat Judith expressed that she had a great content to see him in so good an humour and said that she had cause to reckon in time to come that day for the happiest of all her life The other to please her drank so much the more so that he made himself drunk with a dead drunkennesse It appears plainly that this man was an honest hog and took not the way to bring about his design depriving himself of reason when he had most need of it Vagoa that had the word does his office brings his Master to bed and gets him gone shutting the door to leave him alone with Judith All the servants had so well liquored themselves that they desired nothing but repose Judith alone was well awake and made a sign to her servant to stay for her before the door and not to leave her She contemplates this brave Generall who was now in a dead sleep she stands still for a certain time by his beds side praying God ardently in her silence that it would please him to accomplish by her hand that great stroke that she had destined From thence she goes to the pillar where Holophernes's Cimetre was hanged and draws it boldly out of the scabbard then layes hold of her man by his long hair saying onely in her heart My God it is now strengthen my arm and instantly having turned him for her best advantage she strikes with a masculine hand and cuts off his head at two strokes carries away his pavilion and tumbled down his body as a log She gives suddenly his head to her waiting-woman who puts it up in the same bag that she had brought her victuals in and both of them passe through the midst of the Army without being staid by any one by reason of the permission that they had from the Generall Holophernes They come by night to the gate of the city and cry afarre off to the Centinels Open God is with us that hath done wonders in Israel They run to advertise Ozias and the Priests who come in haste to receive her All the city from the highest to the lowest assemble themselves about her thinking that she had been lost and looked upon her as a woman come from the other world She causes instantly torches to be lighted and gets her up into an high place from whence they were wont to make Orations to the people and after she had made a silence she thus spake Sirs Praise God our Lord who never forsakes his own and hath through his grace accomplished this day by me his most humble servant the promise which he hath made to his chosen people for this night he hath slain by my hands the common enemy of our Nation And as she was saying this she drew out of the bag that horrible head of Holophernes pale and bloudy and shewed it to the whole Assembly adding Behold the head of Holophernes the Generall of the army of the Assyrians and then she spread abroad the pavilion saying Behold the pavilion under which he reposed himself in his drunkennesse and where God struck him by the hand of a woman I call that living God to witnesse that by the protection of his holy Angel he hath preserved me pure going and coming and in the abode which I made in the Camp without permitting any one to attempt any thing upon my honour And now he hath brought me back glad of his victory of my own safety and of your deliverance It is to him that we ought to give all the praise because his goodnesses and mercies are inexhaustible The people felt transports of joyes and seeing that head by the help of torches in the silence of the night thought that it was a dream but the multitude of those that beheld all one and the same thing present and reall made them plainly see that it was a truth They prostrate themselves all on the earth adoring the living God that was the worker of those great wonders and then turning themselves to Judith gave her a thousand blessings with triumphant acclamations protesting that she was their Mother and their Deliverer Then Ozias the Prince of the people of Israel in
all rhe Nations that are from India to Ethiopia To the Princes and Governours of the seven and twenty Provinces of our Empire Greeting Many abusing through their Pride the Goodnesse of Princes and the Honours that have been given them do not onely endeavour to oppresse People but also by a detestable Felony to attempt upon the Life of their Benefactours not being able to bear the Weight of the Glory to which they are Exalted They are not contented to be Ingratefull for Benefits and to Violate the Laws of Humanity but perswade themselves that though they runne out into so great Crimes they shall escape the Judgments of that Great God from whom nothing is Concealed Their Fury is so irregulated that though they be defiled with all sorts of Vices they Accuse those that are Innocent and observe punctually all the Justnesse of their Duty endeavouring to ruine them by the Artifices and Juglings of their Lyes And for this they surprise the Ear of Kings who have an Heart full of Goodnesse and Sincerity measuring those that are near their Persons by their own Dispositions The Proof of this may befound in Antient Stories and even in those of our Dayes too which shew sufficiently how the Good Intentions of Kings are Corrupted by the wicked Counsels of their Ministers and Servants For this Reason we ought to give order for the Peace of our Provinces and if we are Constrained to make you a Countermand know that it proceeds rather from the necessity of the Times then from the inconstancy of our Resolutions It is necessary that you should understand that Haman the son of Amadatha a Macedonian by Nation and Affection after he had been promoted by our Goodnesse to the second Place of our Kingdome hath defiled by his Cruelty the effects of our Piety and hath puffed himself up with so great an Arrogance as to have dared to attempt to deprive us of our Sceptre and of our Life For he resolved to cause Mordecai to Dye to whose Fidelity I own my preservation and to destroy with him Hester the Companion of our Bed and of our Sceptre with her whole Nation by Inventions pernicious and till this time unheard of He hoped by this means that having taken away ouâ— Conservatours he might surprise us in a Dereliction and translate the Kingdome of the Persians to the Macedonians But we have discovered that the Jews destined to death by this wicked Villain are without fault That they use good Laws and that they are the true Children of the most High most Great and Everliving God by whom the Empire is given and preserved to us And for this Reason we make void and disannul the Letters that he hath directed to you in our Name to cause them to be Murthered making you to know that the Authour of the Lye hath been hanged upon the Gallowes at the Gate of Shushan God rendering to him that which he hath deserved Furthermore we Will and Ordain that the Jews live in all our Provinces according to their Law and Ceremonies and that you assist them in bringing their Enemies to Punishment the same day that they had determined to destroy them seeing that the God Almighty hath turned to them into Joy that day of Tears and Grief And since that that is Important even for our Life and Preservation We Command that that Day be put in the number of the Feasts that Posterity may know the Recompenses of our Faithfull Servants and the Punishment of those that oppose our Will and make attempt upon our State And if there be any Province or City that refuses to solemnize that very Day with Joyes and Chearfulnesse befitting it we Will that it be destroyed with Fire and Sword and that it be made inaccessible to Men and Beasts to perpetuity to give an Example to others by the punishment of their contempt and Disobedience The Commands of the King were diligently executed and the Jews Dreaded and Honoured in all places by reason of the great Credit that Mordecai had with the King his Master It seemed that the Sunne was risen a new for these people heretofore afflicted and that Heaven powred down upon them blessings in abundance There was nothing every where but Joyes but Dances but Feasts in Testimony of so publick an alacrity But it is clear that Hester held yet somewhat of the Old Testament in the searching out of the enemies of her Nation and in the Revenge that she caused to be ex-excised every where upon them that had sworne her Ruine Haman's House was given her and ten of his Sons hanged to accompany the punishment of their Father Five hundred men were slain in Shushan for having adhered to that miserable man and through all the rest of the Cities of the Kingdome much blood was shed on the same day that had been assigned for the Massacres of the Hebrews We must avow that this History is wonderfully Tragicall and one of the most wonderfull Revolutions of Fortune that ever arrived to Great ones to make Posterity feare the Judgements of a God whose Hand is as weighty in the Chastisement of Crimes as his Eye quick-sighted in the discerning of Hearts The SOULDIERS JOSHUA JUDAS MACCABEUS IOSVE IVDAS MACHABEE HE must be ignorant of the chief and most visible of beauties that knowes not Joshua One cannot see the Sun without remembring the great commerce that this Valourous Captain had with the King of Stars All the World lift their eyes up to it but none hath ever lifted his voyce as far as it to make himself be heard and to make himself to be obeyed The Stars knew Joshua because he bore the Name of him that formed them It is he that first gave us the fore-tasts of the name of Jesus at which the Heaven the Earth and Hell do bend the knee What lovely thing had not this generous Joshua seeing one cannot name him without mentioning Salvation which is the wish and content of all men Who would think that such a spirit had been born and bred in servitude And yet he was Pharaohs slave he was as the rest in the chain that was at that time common to all his people Those were very patient that could endure it but he was far more valiant that found a means to break it When in his little infancy he played upon the banks of the River of Nile with the other prisoners he then strook terrour into all its flotes and the Angels of Egypt knew that he should tread under his feet the pride Pharaoh and carry away the spoils of that proud kingdome so many times cemented with the blood of his brethren He did every thing by Moses's orders and Moses did nothing without him If one was the eye of his people the other was the arm if one was the Conductour of them the other was the Protectour If one had the Providence the other reserved to himself the execution which is ordinarily the most difficult piece of Prudence
the images of the things which we have received in our senses and in our imagination when we were awake and is as the Eccho which brings a repetition of the actions of the day Our soul hath this mark of its immortality that it is in a perpetuall motion without any interruption after the manner of the heavenly Globes and of the intelligences When the body is laid fast by the charming sweetnesses of sleep and the night makes a league with all the actions of the day the soul makes not any with its operations it meditates it reasons it speaks it is in action it negotiates and without parting from its body flies beyond all lands and seas to enjoy a friend She opens her self with joy pricks her self with sorrow interesses her self in businesses and not being able to use the members of her body serves her self with her own members and her own faculties for the satisfaction of her desire And as sword-players cease not sometimes to fence without arms and to use gestures as if there passed a reall combate so our spirit whiles we sleep carries her self away and does every thing in Idea as if it were seconded by the body Such is the state and naturall condition of Dreams as Tertullian hath well explained it in his Book concerning the Soul But beyond this it is expedient to note that there is something in them of extraordinary and Divine which made the Stoicks say that Providence carefull of our preservation gave us Dreaming as a domestick Oracle to inform us of our good and evils This cannot be understood commonly of all Dreams the truth being such that there are five sorts of them which Macrobius following the Antients names the Phantasme the Raving the Vision the Oracle and the figurative Dream we ought not to relie much upon Phantasmes which are as shadows which present themselves to our imagination in the very first cloud of sleep nor of Ravings which follow ordinarily the state of the passions and affections of our soul and of our body as Artemidorus reasons in the beginning of his work but much on Vision which without following the paths trodden the day before by our senses make us see and discover things in our sleep which we experiment when we are awake to be the self same which we saw when we were asleep And as for Oracle which expresses to us apparitions of God and Angels or certain grave persons that seem to speak to us and to advertise us of what we have to do or not to do it cannot be but very considerable as also the Figurative Dream which shews us under Figures and Symbols the divers accidents of things profitable either to the common good or to our particular conduct I have been willing to clear this with more day to make us know the excellent gifts of the divine Goodnesse communicated to our Patriarch in that interpretation which he gave to Dreams To speak truth it was a kind of Prophecy which being properly a manifestation of Truths elevated above the ordinary knowledge of man clearly discovered it self in Joseph in the declaration which he made of things so hidden and so little penetrable to the understanding of the most learned men of Egypt Saint Thomas disputes touching the excellency of Prophecies and sayes That those are more sublime that are purely intellectuall then others that are made by similitudes But although those of our Joseph were revealed by Riddles and by Figures yet they mount for all that to an high point of excellency forasmuch as they were by this means more proportioned to the capacity of a Nation that loved them more when they were involved in the shadows and in the clouds of those Figures then if they had been naked and totally unmixt with corporall Idea's And I think that the great excellency of a master and of a teacher is to accommodate himself to the spirit of those to whom he would perswade the verities of his Doctrine Now it discovers to us at present that this first Courtier of the chosen people had something of Divine that prepared him to great actions inasmuch as from his little child-hood he was exercised by those mysterious Dreams and amorous of Heaven and of the Startes that enlightned him in the silence of a delicious night and brought him the presages of his future greatnesse God hath often spoken to his most faithfull servants by the means of Dreams as to Mordecai to the Wise-men of the East to Saint Joseph the spouse of the most holy Virgin and the observation of them is not bad when one perceives in them some extraordinary thing and which tends to a good end by lawful and commendable means It is true that Aristotle thought that Dreams came not from God because if that had any likelihood that favour would be for none but for the Philosophers and for eminent persons but we must pardon a wise worldly man if he knew not the admirable commerce and the sweet discourses that the Spirit of God is pleased to make with simple and innocent souls which being empty of themselves are filled advantageously with the Deity Such was little Joseph when he saw in a Dream his sheaf of corn that exalted it self above those of his brethren and when he beheld the Sun and the Moon with the eleven Stars that came to worship him and do him reverence This probably seemed to him a presage of a great happinesse seeing that according to the Maximes of Astrampsychus in his book of Dreams it is a mark of felicity to see the stars in ones sleep He had not been then refined at Court when he boasted of that Dream by a childish innocence and related it to his brothers who conceived so much jealousie from it that they resolved upon his destruction Here is a second work of Providence which pleases her self in doing the works of her trade and in conducting to the haven those whom she hath taken in charge by turning her back to them His brothers saith S. Gregory sold him for fear lest he should be worshipped according to his Dream and he was worshipped because he was sold Envy which is properly a sadnesse for the honour and welfare of another forasmuch as that it seems to us to tend to the diminution of ours finds objects in all places it enters into Jacobs family a family of Saints to teach us saith Saint Ambrose that the servants of God have not escaped Passions but conquered them He that in the Government of all Egypt found nothing but admiration amongst strangers meets with envy amongst his brethren and amongst those of whom charity should have been adored though she had been persecuted in all the habitable world There is not a more subtil poyson then that of asps nor a more deadly envy then that of brothers and especially of those that make profession of wisdome and of holinesse This animall Passion that makes at length a sinne of the spirit feels her self most conveniently
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
by our glorious Father S. Gregory the Great it is that which our Fathers have embraced it is that which they have defended by their Words their Arms and their Bloud which they have shed for the Honour of it Nothing is left for those to hope for who are separated from it but the tempests of darkness and the everlasting chains of hell It is well known that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince hath caused these reprocheable furies and the inundations of bloud which hath covered the face of England He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen wherefore those who have followed him in his Errour may also follow him in his Repentance The Peace the Safety the Abundance the Felicity of the Kingdom are ready to re-enter with the true Faith which if you refuse I see the choller of God and a thousand calamities that do threaten you Return therefore O Shunamite Return O fair Island to thy first beginning feign not to thy self imaginary penalties terrours and punishments which are not prepared but for the obstinate The Sovereign Father of Christendom doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience and hath delegated me as the Dove out of the Ark to bring unto thee the Olive Bough to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee This is the acceptable Hour this is the Day of thy salvation The Night which hitherto hath covered thee is at the end of her Course and the Sun of Justice is risen to bring light unto thee It is time to lay down the works of darkness and to take up the Armour of Light to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice that thou abborrest what is past embracest what is present and dost totally put thy self into the hands of God for the time to come This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly and the Cardinal being departed from the Councel the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition which was presently taken into consideration and it was resolved That the ancient religion should be established The Chancellour made this resolution known unto the people and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholick faith In the end he demanded that they would testifie their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal Legate of the holy See which incontenently was done the paper was presented and openly read their Majesties did confirm it both by their authorities and their prayers and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees and all the people demanding mercy whereupon an authentick absolution was given by the Legate the bels did ring in all the Churches Te Deum was sung All places were filled with the cries of joyes as people infranchised and coming out of the gates of hell After this King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders by reason of the retreat of the Emperour his father Pool was left chief of the Councellours with Queen Mary who did wonders for the good of Religion of the State It is true that Cranmer and other turbulent and seditious spirits were punished but so great a moderation was used that the Benefices and the Reveneues of the Church did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King without disturbing them on that innovation all things were continued that might any way be suffered not so much as changing any thing in marriages because they would not ensnare their spirits The heart of the Queen and of her ministers did think on nothing more than to establish Religion to entertain the holy See to render justice to comfort the people to procure peace and rest to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom They did begin again the golden age when after the reign of five years and odde moneths they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness which did oppress with grief all honest men and did bury with them in one Tomb the happiness and safety of that Kingdom O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason what vail hast thou cast on our Councels and our works What might we have not hoped from such beginnings What wisdom would not have concluded That felicity had crowned for ever the enterprizes of this Cardinal An affair so well conducted a negotiation so happy a business of State and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity Where are the fine plots of policy Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect The Chariots of the Romans which covered with Lawrels did march on the heads of Kings did not make their wayes remarkable but by stormings of Towns by Flames and Massacres But behold here many millions of men struck down and raised again with one onely speech so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment and made the happiest that any Ages have seen And after all this to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate and ruinate the house of God which should have reached to the imperial heaven O how true is it that there are the strokes of Fate that is to say an order of the secret purpose of God which is as concealed as inevitable nothing can divert nothing can delay it The counsels of the wise are here blinded their addresses are lost their activity troubled their patience tried and all their reasons confounded Poor Brittain God gave thee these two Great Lights not to enjoy them but as they passed by to behold them Thou art soiled with sacriledges and impieties thou art red with the bloud of the Martyrs The sins of Henrie are not yet expiated and the ignominious passions of his life are punished by the permission of the Errour The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God they will abate nothing of their periods if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority It pertaineth to God onely to know and appoint the times of punishment and Mercy and there is nothing more expedient for man than to submit to his Laws to obey his Decrees to reverence his Chastisements and to adore the Hand that strikes him FINIS THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES Written in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. And now translated into English Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCL The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes IF it be