makes them and that they have no need of our Sacrifices but that they would have our Heart The King ought to acknowledge God with a very deep sense of Piety as the chiefest essence the chiefest light a Trinity within an Unity infinite an Eternall Spirit whose Power is Almightinesse whose Will is the highest Reason and whose Nature is nothing but Holinesse That he is a Mysterious Silence a Lovely Terriblenesse an Immensnesse of Glory which Sees all and Knows all from whom all Beings have their rising which gives and takes away Empires before whom the World and all its Kingdomes and all its Monarchs are but as it were small atoms moving within that immovable Beam This sense will cause the Prince to tender his Crown and Person at the feet of God with a perfect humility and whole dependance on him in all things he will learn the mysteries of our faith and all the great maximes of Religion not for disputation but to believe and adore them In prosecution of this deep sense it behooves him The service of God to professe the outward worship and service for the performance of his duty and the example of his people as by his assisting at divine Service with great reverence honouring the holy Sacrament shewing himself exceeding devout towards the most holy mother of God towards the Angels and Saints frequenting confession and the Eucharist hearkening willingly to the word of God and regulating his prayers and daily devotions by the advice of those that direct his conscience and above all accounting it the chiefest devotion to be carefull of his people just in his Government and full of compassion towards the afflicted It is also expedient to take heed that the Prince in this do neither too much nor too little it is not fitting that he take upon him the devotion of a Priest or Religious man which might a little diminish the credit of his profession nor that he should likewise become too carelesse and negligent in Divine matters for fear lest he fall into Libertinism which is the gulf of all misfortunes True Piety in a Monarch shineth forth most of Zeal all in zeal which is a mostardent love of the honour of God and to attein to this he ought above all to keep the Law of God avoiding all grievous and scandalous sins and he ought continually to take care that God be served in his own house and throughout his whole Realm That Blasphemies Sacriledges Heresies Simonie and all impicties be scattered and vanish by the beams of his power That the Pope which is the Father and chief Shepheard of all Christendome be respected with a holy Reverence That the Bishops be honoured and mainteined That the Church be provided of good Pastours That the Clergy live under Rule and comelinesse and that it be mainteined in its rights That Hospitals Monasteries and Religious-houses be protected and preserved in their estates He ought not to suffer in any manner whatsoever according to the order of Lewis that sacred placed be violated in the Warrs which may happen between Christian Princes He ought to have an earnest zeal and indefatigable for the advancement of the Faith and Religion and according as the times and occasions shall permit to employ his arms and person to subdue the pride of Infidels and set up the Standard of the Crosse This is the portion which God reserves for Christian Princes which should never partake of true honour but that which is enclosed within the glory of Jesus Christ saith Julius Firmicus to the children of Constantine Neverthelesse in designs of war against the Insidels nothing should be too fervently hasted under pretence of zeal to the prejudice of the Realm but to attend the coming in of God which knowes the times and opportunities and that sometimes gives in without much labour which men at other times undertake without good advice and with little successe Wisedome doth very excellently agree with Piety as being a science of Divine and Humane things not idle but with an active relish and skill for the directing of our life If a Prince do not study to get this wisedome he is ignorant of his profession and makes himself contemptible to his subjects He is given by God to his Kingdome as the Soul to the Body and how can he then subsist without understanding He is given as the Eye what can he do without Light He ought himself to be the Light and would it not be a shame for him to be covered with perpetuall darknesse The Jer. 23. 5. King shall reign and shall be wise saith the holy Scripture this is the onely thing that Solomon desired of God at the beginning of his reign and he gave him this request in such a manner that he replenisht him with a wonderfull ability Wisedome maketh a man more worth then a thousand The greatnesse of Wisdome it multiplies it self into many heads and gathers together the riches of the Universe into one onely heart The Wiseman draws an harmlesse Tribute from the Learning of all ages he learns the lives of all for to husband well his own he enters into those great labyrinths of time past as into his own house he makes use of so many rare inventions of the best wits of the World as of his own Patrimony You may say that the Soul of a learned Prince hath run through many Ages in divers Bodies Wisedome maketh him to passe through long wayes with small charges and to discover the whole World without going out of his Closet He learns he discourseth he judgeth he approveth he condemneth that which is past makes him profit by that which is to come Good Counsels do enlighten him and even the follyes of others erect him a Theatre for Wisdome Yet he must take heed lest of a Prince becoming What the wisdome of a Prince should be a Philosopher he cease not to be a King he ought not to study onely to know and dispute but to have the knowledge and practise of Excellent things To think to become wise by the reading of Books onely is like thinking to be hot by the remembrance of fire He must of necessity traffick with his own understanding with his own experience and that he may profit by Teachers he must be a teacher to himself I would not that all Princes should be such Philosophers as Marcus Aurelius the Emperour nor so Eloquent as Julian the Apostate nor so curious in every Art as Hadrian It is a Science which comes very near to ignorance to studie for that which will profit nothing and to take the pains to learn that which would be better unlearned Seeing that the Scripture is the Book of books and that the Antients called the Bible the Crown a Hielel Autor Hebraeus excercet se in Corona 1. Lege King ought not to be ignorant thereof yet not to make himself a Divine but thereby to learn his duty Naturall Phylosophy which sets before us the
and saith It is the mark of the excellencie of our Religion The third a great obedience to Superiours recommended by S. Paul to the Romans Let every soul be subject to superiour Powers The fourth a sweetness and an admirable patience in persecutions Behold what appeared in the publication of the Gospel If you observe any thing like Consider the force of this proof in the progress of the pretended Religion then have you cause to have a good opinion of it But if you therein do see all her proceedings opposite to the same conclude it is not of God And tell me what are her proceedings in the fore-alledged points It cannot be doubted but that the virtue of humilitie First mark is the foundation of faith and one of the most noble characters of Christian Religion Where humilitie Prov. 11. is saith the Wise-man there is wisdom and God is pleased to drie up the roots of proad people Now Ezech. 10. all heresie is inseparably tied to a proud spirit from whence it took beginning derived nourishment and receives increase We might alledge an infinite number of testimonies to this purpose But we do not now tell you Epiphan hoeres 19. Illebertus hoereticus sub Zacharia how two heretick women of the race of Elxay did as it were cause their spittle to be adored nor how one Hildebert gave the paring of his nails to his sectaries for reliques so true is it that heresie being a sprout of the evil spirit still retains the mark of that pride which having once assaied to disturb Heaven never suffers the earth to enjoy repose It is well known how in the last Age one called John Leyden by trade a botcher and ring-leader of Corvin and Florimon Hereticks in Germanie having first published a law of pluralitie of wives went into the field drawing along with him huge troups of unchaste creatures where after he had played the prophet he caused himself to be chosen King took a triple diadem erected a proud pavilion wherein he gave audience established his Court and Potentates choosing out rogues and reprobates at that time attired in cloth of gold and silver and other costly stuffs which having but a little before served for ornaments on Altars were now cut in pieces by the hands of these Harpies and employed to cover infamous bodies that rather deserved to be involved in sulphur and flames When this King of Cardes marched through the Citie you would have taken him for the great Duke of Muscovia or some antick King of Hierusalem A Page mounted on hors-back bare a Bible covered with plates of gold before him another carried a naked sword willing thereby to expreâ—s he was born for the defence of the Gospel Besides he commonly had in his hand a golden globe whereon these words were engraven King of Justice on earth Anne Delphonse the first of fourteen wives this Impostour had married went along with him covered with a mantle furred with ermines clasped with a great buckle all of massie gold This would seem strange if we had not lately known the insolence of rebels and their imaginary regalities which are mounted to such a height of furie that they draw very near to the like frenzie Yet will we not at this time instance hereupon in any thing concerning this article We onely say that to separate Religion from rebellion and the manners of men from doctrine the maximes of Sectaries make an absolute profession of the most enraged vanity that may be observed in the course of human life For if the Scripture doth so strictly recommend Rom. 12. Non alta sapientes sed humilibus consentientes Prov. 35. Ne innitaris prudentia tuae unto us in the practice of humilitie not to make our selves over wise or able not to rest upon our own judgement nor proper prudence to hearken to our fore-fathers to obey Pastours who have lawful succession to work our salvation with fear and trembling at Gods judgements what may we think of a sect which authorizeth a peculiar spirit which hath ever been the seminary of all schisms and disorders which without distinction putteth the Scripture into all hands to judge of points of faith from whence have risen amongst them an infinite number of divisions which teacheth to account as dotages all that which the piety of our fore-fathers reverenced all that the wisest and most religious men of the earth decided which teacheth to spit against light and trample under foot the commandments of Pastours and Prelates to flatter ones self with assurance of salvation and predestination in the greateste orbitancies and neglects of life Verily it is an admirable thing to behold how the petty spirits of artificers and silly women busie themselves herein and to what a degree of pride they come when abused by I know not what imaginary texts of Scripture they grow big with the opinion of their own abilitie What pride more irregular than to see men not content with the Religion of Charlemaigne and S. Lewis nor of the Churches and tombs of their Ancestours to become so curious as to think their Kings and Pastours to be Idolaters and all the better part of mankind bestial from whom they separate themselves as from people infected with a spiritual contagion and do all they can to deifie their own opinions What pharisie ever came near this height of pride If there were any the least spark of humilitie a good soul would say within it self What do I or where am I It is an old saying He that too much believes in himself is a devil to himself I think I am grounded on the word of God but have not all hereticks had the same foundation which they in conclusion found onely to subsist in their own imagination Why should I separate my self from the main bodie of the ancient Church to satisfie the itch of my peculiar judgement It is not credible that so many men of honour and worth who are clear-sighted in all other things should be deceived in this they may have had doubts and opinions as we but they have overcome them by humility and reason they have stuck to the bodie of the tree they have followed the general consent of people which rather live in uniformitie than adhere to noveltie Let them not be figured to me as Idolaters ideots and men superstitious they have far other aims than these The wisest and most temperate of our side believe them not to be damned in their Religion To what purpose then is all this to handle a business apart to be separated from our near alies from Sacraments Church tombs and to be the cause of so many divisions spoils and bloudshed I plainly see we must hereafter live in re-union It is the spirit of God which commandeth it If I have beliefs in my heart different from the ordinary I ought not divulge them to create schisms and scandals I should inform my self I should obey it is fit I
alios luxurid alios continentiâ occidere Tertul. ad uxorem eys to bereave himself of the spectacle of this universe but teareth from his heart all the roots of depraved thoughts to prepare therein a Paradise to our Sovereign Lord and Master He sees all and desires nothing and although he touch at the sense of it stays not in the consent There is never a more undoubted triumph of chastity than to deprive ones self of the instruments of evil For as very well Climachus saith the dead are never crowned nor any man justly praised for having the impotency of doing ill We find in ancient Rome Vestal virgins and in the Citie of Egea and Temple of Delphos We are not ignorant that many have made profession of virginity but what virginity a virginity mingled with idolatry and secret impurities loose liberty and thoughts resigned to all kind of objects Which caused Tertullian to say a O goodly continency which offers sacrifice to hell Virginity amongst Christians admitteth not one sole glance with deliberate consent one dishonest thought if voluntary It reverenceth its secrets and tells it not Let us sin none see us there is nothing Quis me videtâ— tenebrae circumdant na quem vereâ—r delictorum meorum non commemeraâ—itur Alâ—â—ssimus Eccles 23. Oculi Domini multò plus lucidiores sunt super solem circumspicientes emnes vias hominum prosundum abyssâ— but darkness round about us which cannot accuse us our sins shall be letters sealed up from God Nay much otherwise the eyes of God are two flaming torches more resplendant than the Sun it self which will drench us in the abyss and for this cause we keep chaste our most secret thoughts O excellent and admirable purity O the true juice of Galbanum O the true tribute of heaven Consider now the second ingredient of the perfume of God which is myrrhe to wit mortification of senses Where shall we find throughout the whole Synagogue and all antiquity a chastity preserved with so many austerities and mortifications as in true Christianity Saint Ambrose in an Oration he made against Symmachus mocketh at Vestal virgins who made a shew to embrace virginity living in superfluitie and delights which is as if one would quench hot embers with oyl or hope for beauty from the dawbing of a cole Mortification of appetites hath ever been esteemed by Saints as a Pallissado of the delicious garden of chastity and formal reason proveth unto us that to cut off a vice subsisting in the flesh necessarily the sinews of the flesh must be taken Eccles 10. Qui dissipat sepem mordebit cum coluher away You may have as many fruits of honesty as there are of it in terrestrial Paradise you may have an infinite number of virtues the ordinary companions of purity of body If you destroy mortification the serpent will enter into your garden and sting you O Maids you infinitely betray the glory of your soul when you think to preserve the treasure of purity in vanity bravery and curiosity which have ever been accounted the nest of immodesty How Quis miserebitur incantatoria serpente percusso Eccl. 12. 13. can you imagine that living in banquets pleasures dissolute sports among stage-plays love-pamphlets and continual occasions of sin you can keep to God the faith you promised him in your confessions You deceive your self you have betrayed your bulwarks and ruined your ramparts the serpent will rush in upon you to suck your bloud and then will be a fit time indeed to crie out murder You take delight to play with aspicks and then say they have stung me give me a remedy Must you needs confide in serpents Must you needs approch Circuierunt in melotis in pellibus caprinis egentes angusti â afflicti quibus dignus non erat mundus in solitudinibus errantes in montibus speluncis cavernis terrae Hebr. 11. 18. so near to a creature untractable With what arms think you did the Church in its first beginning preserve this gift of chastity and raise it to such a degree that it filled the world with astonishment but by flight from occasions but by rigours and austerities of life What flames of sensuality did not they quench who lived in wildernesses covered with skins companions of bruit beasts feeding on roots pulled up with their nails and steeped in the sweat of their fore-heads All passed times have infinitely commended a Joseph Reliquit sua tanquam non sua quae adultera suis manibus detinebat aliena judicavit quae ab impudicitiâ poterant comprehendi Ambros de Joseph for leaving a cloak in his flight in the hands of an unchaste Mistress He forsook his own saith Saint Ambrose as no longer accounting it his since it was in the hands of an adulteress and thought a garment touched by the hands of an unchaste woman was no longer for Josephs wearing If this act be laudable what shall we say of those who have not left a simple habit already polluted by an evil touch but quite forsaken and abandoned in their best health their own bodies although most chaste and innocent to preserve purity of soul by an extraordinary mortification of flesh What shall we say of a Christian maid of whom Isodore of Pelusium Isod pelus l. 2. ep 53. speaketh who seeing herself sollicited by a yong man shaved her head close to the skin to cure anothers love depriving herself not of a coiff not of a petticote or gown but of an ornament which is on womens heads as flowers in meadows What shall we Acepsimas ut refert Theodoretus Menaea Graeca say of those who to chastise a slight glance rather curious than unchaste have put irons about their necks that so they might perpetually look on the earth as unworthy to behold heaven And what of others who were threescore years without sight of any creature Is not this properly to cast off not a cloak as Joseph but the body as if it were dead Is not this to live in mortal flesh as if he had it not And can you Quid est dicere volo habere quod vincam nisi volo habere quo peream vide ne unde te putas habere triumphum aeternum incurros opprobrium inter omnia enim Christianorum piacertamina sola sunt dura praelia castitatis ubi quotidiana pugna rara victoria August de viâ—andà famil mulier to 9. think God hath sold virginity to such at the price of so many travels and mortifications and will afford it you in pleasures and continual conversation amongst men since where there is most battel is most merit What else is it to say I will have wherewithal to overcome but that I will have wherewith to undo my self Beware lest you purchase an eternal ignominie where you promise your self a triumph For amongst all the battels in Christian Religion none is more sharp than that of chastity where the danger
though too too late You that have made me so many times become red with bloud suffer me once to be ruddie with shame that I so lightly have been deceived to the end I may not blush to see my self converted with all the world And tell me not I pray that I am old Decrepitness is not in years but in manners It is never too late to learn ones salvation and it is ever seasonable to do good Shame is but for those who have neither power nor will to correct their vices Come learn a new warfare of Christians with me which Notable answers to the libertie of Symmachus in earth beareth arms and in Heaven its conquests From whom should I learn the mysteries of Heaven but from him that made it and not from man who doth not so much as know all that passeth in his own house Whom would you have me confide in the matter of belief we ought to have of God but God himself How shall I take you for a Master since in the seeking to teach me you confess your own ignorance You say God is a great secret and must be sought by many ways but he who once hath hit on the readie way why should he amuse himself with crooked turnings You seek him blindfold and we find him in the light You enquire him with suspicions and minds disturbance and we find him in the revelation of the wisdom and veritie of God himself It is a malicious stupiditie to think we can serve this sovereign Master in all sorts of Sects As there is but one sun in the world so is there but one truth It is a streight line which is to be made but one way All other superstitions are crooked lines that have as many semblances as defects How can we reconcile our Religions you adoring the works of your hands and we accounting it an injurie done to God to worship the works of men How shall we have one and the same God if you adore stocks and stones which our God instructeth us to trample under foot To whom shall we entrust this veritie in such a great diversitie of opinions but to a Man-God whose words were no other than prophesies wisdoms and verities his life innocencie sanctitie and virtue his actions power wonders miracles in all parts of the world What secret spirit set the Cross on the top of your Capitol You demand proofs of the Divinitie and I shew you the conquest of a world under the feet of one crucified the less this action hath of man the more you behold therein the work of God Then Symmachus you redemand the Altars of Idols of Grave words for the Emperour whom Of a Christian Emperour whose heart is in the hand of God arms are for the protection of faith Would you have him employ his chast and innocent hands which he never lifted up but to the living God to repair the monuments of a false Deitie In what Historie find you that the Pagan Emperours have built Chappels and Temples for us And think you our great Prince hath less zeal for truth than his Predecessours for falshood They have made all the parts of the world ruddie with our bloud for defence of their Idols but God hath blasted their purposes and overthrown by his power what they would have raised by their injustice Would you that a Christian Emperour should from the ruins of your Gods restore for you in contempt of his own Religion objects of sin on the Altars But let us a little further see the sequel hereof They demand A pertinent reply to the act of Vestals revenews for the Vestals for they cannot otherwise serve their God Behold how couragious the Gentiles are We have imbraced and maintained our faith in povertie injuries and persecutions and they crie out their ceremonies cannot subsist without their own interest It is a shamefull thing to sell virginitie and to fix themselves on profit through the despair of virtues What armies have these maids to maintain who have such care of their revenews Their number exceedeth not seven which they have chosen amongst so many thousands to guard a mercenary virginity that still reserves a night to make experience of marriage Is it for this they must be mytred for this scarletted for this endowed with a thousand priviledges and entertained in magnificent Caroches with a train of Princesses to brave it through the streets of a Citie Behold the holy virgins and poor maidens of Symmachus By my consent let him reflect the eye of his understanding and bodie on the state of our Religious women he shall see companies replenished with honour integritie shame-facedness who know how to use the gift of virginitie as it ought to be They wear no atyres nor pompeous myters on their heads but a poor veil which borroweth its worth from the lustre of their chastitie They know not what belongs to attractives of beautie for they have renounced all curiosities of the world Purple and superfluitie never dwels in their house but rather fasts and austerities It is not their custom to flatter or sell at the price of honour and priviledges the puritie of their bodies but much otherwise they do all as if their sufferings were to be the recompence of their virtues Never will they learn the trade of setting their flesh to sale to the best bidder sell the abstinence from pleasures to them that offer most well knowing the first victory of chastitie is to triumph over greediness of riches which are the most dangerous baits of sin If we should give great revenews to all the maids which are now readie to receive the veil what treasures would furnish out such an expence And if they dare affirm that none is due but to Vestals is it not an impudence to be desirous to deprive Christian virgins from goods given in favour of virginitie as if to be Christians were to be the less chast or as if the Religion they profess were on their foreheads a mark of infamie Who can endure under the reign of most Christian Emperours customs which are onely tollerable in the Empire of Nero's Symmachus demandeth moneys of the Common-wealth for entertainment of his Vestals we by certain modern laws have been bereft the successions which we might expect from particulars without making complaints so temperate we are in our proceedings Some Ecclesiasticks likewise have been made to renounce their patrimony to be freed from Court-obligations and enjoy the priviledges of the Church Were this done to the Pagans they would cast flames from their mouthes for how could it be but very troublesome to purchase the vacancy of a holy ministery with the prejudice of his means in consecrating himself to the safety of the whole world to have necessitie for recompence in his house Wils are valid in favour of the ministers of Idols Be they never so profane in superstition so abject in condition so prodigal of their honour they
and bryers Se you not also how at the point of the first season the earth is wholly bare then in the springs progress it beginneth to produce certain small flowers which are as the eyes of the medows but eyes which spring and eclipse in one and the self-same day and the best of all is kept for the latter season And we our selves when we are born are nothing else but a little lump of flesh which is pollished with time and changed into a more lively infancie but still ignorant untill our soul be perfected by time for then we leave the rudiments of minoritie to become perfect men Behold the course which Religions have held in the world all that which is gone afore hath been either in part gross and carnal or deceitfull and lying by the cunning of the devil Grace in latter times hath set a seal on the work it began from the birth of the world If things the less antient be the less perfect we must prefer the Chaos before the sun acorns before harvests March-violets before grapes and say we have done ill to cover the earth with silver and change shepherds cottages into the gilded marble of the Capitol But they are industrious to wound themselves crying up the ancient ceremonies If this antiquitie be so recommendable why did Rome yearly change her Religion as certain birds do their feathers introducing daily some innovation in matter of superstitions derived from the same Nations they by their arms had captivated Shall it be said she will open her Temples to all the Idols of the earth and onely shut them up from heavenly verities He now here speaketh to us of a victory which is a gift of God and not a Goddess a gift which is oftentimes granted to the strength of legions and never allotted to the impietie of superstitions They will set up their Altar in the midst of a sovereign Court and say that maugre our opposition we must swallow the smoak of their sacrifices hear their goodly musick and receive the ashes of their prophane victims on our forehead where we bear the character of the living God Is it not absolutely to out-brave Christianitie under most Christian Emperours What shall now presently be done at Court by the better part of the Senate which is Christian It will be necessary that they either in refusing untruth oppose your Edicts if the unhappiness of the time should make them favour a request so uncivil or by connivency confess their sacriledge I will speak freely it is not an Altar they desire to plant in the Capitol but rather faith which they now would tear from our hearts If you command such a sin you commit it The Emperour Constans of most worthy memorie being as yet but a Catechumen would not so much as behold this Altar for fear that by the sole sight thereof his conscience might be polluted he caused it presently to be taken away and will you restore it to make them hereafter swear to your laws before false Gods What need have we of such an oath The Senat is assembled by your commands and for you To you they ow their fidelitie and conscience not to Gods who are of no account It preferreth you before their own children but not before their Religion then is it a charitie much greater than your Empire to preserve that pietie which safeguards your Empire All here below in the affairs of men is most uncertain all therein is transitorie and great fortunes which have the sun in their face have ice under foot we possess nothing immortal but true Religion which raiseth us above Monarchs to equal us with Angels Pompey after he had measured three parts of the world more by his triumphs than travels is defeated repelled banished and dead on the frontiers of the Empire by the hand of a half man and the earth which seemed too scantie for his conquests was seen to fail him for a tomb Cyrus after he had overcome so many potent enemies after he had equalled his victories to his clemencie is vanquished by Tamaris and his head crowned with so many laurels served as a matter of sport for a woman who drencht it in a leathern sack filled with humane bloud saying unto him Satiate thee with that thou so much hast desired Hamilcar Captain of the Carthaginians one of the most superstitious Princes that ever the earth bare after so many tropheys threw himself through despair into the fire which be had caused to be kindled for the sacrifice of his Gods seeing it had no whit availed him I will not say Christian Emperours shall ever be fortunate in temporal affairs but I dare affirm that if we must needs be afflicted as men although we should loose all yet never ought we to forsake Religion as Julian that unhappie Monarch hath done who joyned the ship-wrack of his faith to the loss of his Empire Most sacred Majestie remember that all the men of the world fight for you and that you should combat for Ambros epist 11. ad Valent. the true Religion without which there is neither protection in the Empire nor safety in the world If there be occasion to resolve a matter of arms make address to your Councel of War but if a point of Religion be handled you neither ought nor may determine it without the advise of your Bishops You should see them all here assembled if the practice of our enemies had not prevented them I answer for all and in the name of all I implore the pietie and justice of your Majestie that no man here may pretend to abuse your Minoritie to the prejudice of your soul Take heed how you precipitate any thing in this affair without imparting it to the Emperour Theodosius whom you have hitherto honoured as a father If you do otherwise I will not conceal that from you which my profession commandeth and conscience obligeth me to tell you You will come to the Church but you will find no Bishop there or if you do it will be but to resist you What would you answer him when he should tell you The Church hath nothing to do with your liberalities since you have adorned the Temples of Gentilism you shall never build the houses of Sion the Altar of Jesus Christ cannot endure your offerings since you have erected Altars for Idols Your word your letter your signet is the work of your heart of which our enemies make a trophey and which you cannot denie Your service can no longer be pleasing to the Saviour of the world since you are engaged to false Divinities Think you to serve two Masters Think you it will be lawfull to entertain Vestals to the contempt of Religious women of your name and belief You have no more to do with Bishops since you have preferred Sacrificers to the devil before them What answer you to this That you have committed a fault pardonable in a child Every age is perfect for Jesus Christ and
satisfaction of my mind but the establishment of my fortune Notwithstanding I have wholly left it through a most undoubted knowledge that we cannot resolve on any thing solid therein Judge you what you please but ever a well rectified spirit will be ashamed to profess a science not supported by reason and which knows almost no other trade but to deceive This at that time somewhat startled him but stayed not his purpose so much he loved to deceive himself and so much he resolved to find out this secret in the end But ever as he waded further not discovering firm land he found trouble in a barren labour and much vanitie where he to himself proposed some soliditie Nothing confirmed him so much in contempt of this folly as the discourse he had with Firminus a young man of eminent qualitie sick of the same disease that he was for the curiositie of Astrologie ceased not to incite him as being born of a father an Astrologer a man of honour but so curious that he calculated the very horoscope of cats and dogs that were whelped in his house yet so little had he profited therein that at the same time his son came into the world a servant of his neighbours being delivered of a male-child he foretold according to the rules of his art that both of them being born under one same constellation should run the like fortune which was so false that this Firminus his son being born of a rich family progressed far into the honour of the times whilest the son of the servant notwithstanding the favours of his goodly horoscope waxed old in servitude This young man who made this narration though convinced by his own experience still suffered himself to be beguiled with his proper errour so difficult it is to take away this charm by force of reasons Our Augustine by little and little dispersed those vapours both by the vivacitie of his own excellent judgement and the consideration of others folly He was likewise solicited to attempt a kind of magick much in request among the heathen Philosophers of that Age which was to seek predictions from the shop of the devil by means of the effusion of the bloud of beasts and sometiemes of children But God who as yet held a bridle on this uncollected soul and would not suffer it to be defiled with those black furies gave him in the beginning so much horrour upon all these proceedings that a Negromancer promising him one day to bear away the prize of Poesie in a publick meeting of Poets if he would assure him of a reasonable reward he answered that were the Crown to be given in those games of profit of gold wholly celestial he would not buy it by such kind of ways at the rate of the bloud of a flie Which he partly spake through some sence of pietie partly also by the knowledge he had of the illusion and barrenness of such sciences He was much more troubled about the Articles His Religion of Faith for though from his childhood he was educated in Christian Religion under the wings of his good mother S. Monica yet suffering his mind to mount up unto so many curiosities he had greatly weakened the sence of pietie And being desirous to penetrate all by the help of humane reasons when he began to think on the Christian maxims of Faith he therein beheld much terrour and abyss He came to this condition that not content with the God of his forefathers who taught him holy counsels and the universal voice of the Church he put himself upon masterie now wholly ready to shape a Divinitie on the weak idaeas of his own brain The Manichees at that time swayed in Africk who having found this spirit and seeing he might one day prove a support to their Sect they spared nothing to gain him and he being upon change it was not very hard to bring him into the snare This Sect sprang from one named Manes a Persian by birth and a servant by condition who having inherited the goods of a Mistress whom he served from a good slave which he had been had he remained in that siate became by studie an ill Philosopher and a worse Divine for mingling some old dotages of the magick of Persians with other maxims of Christianitie partly by the help of his purse partly also by an infinitie of impostures derived from his giddy spirit he made himself head of a faction protesting he was the holy Ghost His principal folly consisted in placing two Gods in the world the one good the other bad who had many strange battels The bodie as he said was the creature of the evil God and the soul a portion of the substance of the good enthraled in matter And following these principals he gave a phantastical bodie to the Saviour of the world esteeming it a thing unworthy of the Word to be personally united to the flesh which he held in the number of of things execrable Behold the cause why those who were ingulfed in this Sect made shew to abstain from meat and wine which they termed the dragons gall I do not think that ever Augustine fully consented to all the chymeraes of Manes which were innumerable but at the least he relished this Sect in the opinion it had of the original and nature of the bodie and soul and in many other articles even to the believing as himself witnesseth fables most ridiculous Great God! who thunderest upon the pride of humane spirits and draggest into the dust of the earth those that would go equal with Angels What Eclypse of understanding What abasing of courage in miserable Augustine To say that a man whose eye was so piercing doctrine so eminent and eloquence so divine after he had forsaken the helm of faith and reason became so abandoned as to make himself a partie of the Sect of a barbarous and phantastical slave who in the end for his misdeeds was flayed by the command of the King of Persia as if the skin of this man could no longer cover a soul so wicked Behold whither curiositie transporteth an exorbitant spirit Behold into what so many goodly gifts of grace and nature are dissolved Behold now the Eternal Wisdom besotteth those who forsake him to court the lying fantasies of their imagination A second obstacle went along with this extravagant A second impediment Presumption curiositie to settle him fixedly in errour which was the presumption of his own abilities an inseparable companion of heresie He that once in his brain hath deified crocodiles and dragons not onely adoreth them but will perswade others that he hath reason to set candles before them and burn incense for them It is a terrible blow when one is wounded in the head by his proper judgement whose ill never rests in the mean We come to the end of all by the strength of industrie Stones are pulled forth from the entrails of men the head is opened to make smoak issue
Sects making his arrows of every wood so to hit the white of honour Verily if there be any vice deserving the execration Detestable hypocrisie of all mankind it is that which distendeth snares over Altars and which under colour of piety and zeal entrappeth men Cities and Provinces with a kind of theft which seeketh to make it self honourable under pretence of piety and Religion This was very familiar with this bad man for seeing many Pagans of quality who bit the bridle expecting the re-establishment of Idols he under-hand entertained them with very fair hopes On the other side he favoured the Synagogue of Jews in secret supposing these men being lost in Religion and conscience might one day serve his turn though but to fill up ditches But then beholding the Catholick Church in an eminent height he openly courted it and that with demonstrations of respect and service which might seem to proceed from none but the most zealous Letters also of his were found written to the Emperour Valentinian the Second where he made many declarations of the duty he owed to the Catholick Church so compleat that they seem much fitter for the mouth of a Bishop than of a Tyrant He speaketh of God like a Saint saying (a) (a) (a) Periâ—â—â—â— mihi crede divina teâ—tanâ—â—r Insanuâ— ubi error exâ—fabilis non est ibi velle peccare Baron an 387. 35. Great hecd must be taken not to contend with ones Master and that sins committed against Religion admit no excuse He talks of Rome (b) (b) (b) Româ— Veâ—â—rabilis enjus hac parte Principitatâ—s est Epist ad Siricium eod anno sect 65. as a Pope calling it in full voice The most Venerable and Princess of Religion He seemed to sweat bloud and water in defence of S. Ambrose whose virtue he infinitely feared it being joyned to a liberty which never accustomed to bow under tyranny In another Epistle where he writeth to Pope Siricius he tells how going from the Font of Baptism he had been transported to the Imperial Throne which being ignorant of the life of the children of God he esteemeth an incomparable favour from Heaven and in recompence thereof promiseth all service to the Church of Rome satisfying himself onely to execute that which should be commanded him without any desire to enter into the knowledge of the cause Moreover if he saw any forlorn Hereticks who were feeble in faction and much out of favour he ran upon them with all manner of violence and then shewing spiders webs of one side filled with little flies and on the other side all broken by creatures of a larger size he raiseth mightie tropheyes thinking so to piece out his fortune by the effusion of contemptible bloud In this manner he caused Priscillian and many other of his Sect to be put to death who were Hereticks possessed with a black and melancholy devil and such as in truth according to the laws both divine and humane well deserved punishment but not according to the proceedings were observed in their process much blamed by S. Martin and other wise Bishops who took notice of passions over-bloudy even in the Ecclesiasticks that sought after spoil O God! it is verily one of the greatest unhappinesses Virtutibus vitia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot Origen Basil Albertus in Paradiso animz Prolog of humane life to say that vices keep shop near to virtues and often deceive the best experienced merchants with their artifices That is most true which is spoken by Albertus the Great Master of Saint Thomas Severitie counterfeiteth justice melancholy calleth it self gravitie babble stealeth into the name of affabilitie as doth dissolution pass under colour of free mirth The prodigal saith he is an honest man the covetous provident the self-conceited constant the craftie prudent curiosity borroweth the title of circumspection vain-glory of generosity presumption of hope carnal love of charity dissimulation of patience pusillanimity of mildness indiscreet zeal of fervour in matter of Religion and the worst of all is hypocrisie puts on the mask of sanctity Yet if with these Pretext of devotion daÌ„gerous semblances and borrowed faces they onely deceived vulgar souls it were somewhat tollerable but it is a thing most deplorable that the subtile who have no other God but their own interests by slight complacences and petty affectations of devotion ensnare noble and Religious souls who measuring all by their own innocency daily afford more support to credulity A little outward shew handsomly exprest ravisheth men with admiration and causeth Altars to be raised to them for whom God hath prepared gibbets There are also many silly A parable of the fowler birds who seeing the fowler with blear and running eyes role a huge pair of beads in his hands say this is a holy man and full of compassion but the more judicious answer We must not regard his eyes nor beads but the bloud and rapine which is in his hands Had Maximus been beheld upon this side he had never deceived the world but his plaistered devotions served his turn to amuze easie natures whilest his ambitions cleft mountains to climb to the Throne of Caesars Pope Siricius beguiled with the mask of this false piety gave demonstration of much affection to him and when he was declared Emperour many Bishops used with him at Trier sundry complements which too near approched to servitude There was none at that time but our Saint Martin who held a strong power over this spirit and the wily Maximus who well foresaw there was no resistance to be used against a stroke of thunder submitted with all pliantness and postures to draw this great Prelate to his amity He who heretofore made himself to be petitioned unto by the Bishops received the commandments of S. Martin as decrees and endeavoured to yield him all satisfaction One desire onely he fixed in his heart which was some one time to invite this holy man to his table to wipe away all the ill reputation of which the most judicious could not be ignorant but S. Martin constantly refused it until Maximus upon a time having made a thousand protestations of the sincerity of his intentions in that point which concerned the usurpation of the Empire the man of God whether perswaded by reasons or mollified by so many prayers went thither and used there passages of generosity which you shall know In this banquet were present the false Emperour Sulpitius in vita S. Martini cap. 23. Maximus with his brother and his uncle a Consul and two Counts S. Martin for his honour was placed in the middle near the person of Maximus and when about the midst of dinner the cup-bearer presented a goblet to his Master he for a singular testimony of his affection put it into the hands of the good Bishop seeming to have a holy ambition to drink therein after it was consecrated by the touch of his lips but S. Martin not using any other complement
S. Ambrose speaketh to the souls of his two pupils happy gone as you are out of the desert of this world dwell now in the everlasting delights of God united in Heaven as you have been on earth If my prayers have any force before God I will not let a day pass of my life that I remember you not I will not make a praier wherein I insert not the names of my dearest Pupils Gratian and Valentinian In the silence of the night the apple of mine eyes shall be waking and full of tears for you and as often as I approach to Altars my sacrifices shall mount to Heaven in the odour of sweetness By my will dearest children if I could have given my life for yours I should have found consolation for all my sorrows Then turning himself to his sisters those mournfull turtles whom this good Prince had so passionately loved that in consideration of them he deferred his own marriage fearing lest the love of a wife might diminish his charity towards them the good Bishop thus spake unto them My holy daughters I will not bereave you of tears this were to be over ignorant in the resentments of your hearts I wish that you bewail your brother but bemoan him not as lost he shall live more than ever in your eyes in your breasts in your hearts in your embracements in your kisses in your memorie in your praiers nor shall any thing draw him from your thoughts but you ought now to consider him with a quite other visage not as a man mortal for whom you were ever in fear but as an Angel in whom you dread nothing An Angel who will assist comfort and hold you day and night in his protection The seventeenth SECTION The tyranny of Eugenius and notable libertie of S. Ambrose IN the mean while Eugenius drawn from the school to the Throne of Monarchs to serve as a specious game for the fortune of the times changeth his ferula into a scepter and makes himself an Emperour like the ice of one night The faithless man who had been a Christian shutting up his eyes then from all consideration of piety and onely opening them to the lustre of this unexpected greatness made himself an arm of towe forsaking the direction of God to support in humane policie He put all his hope in the sword of Arbogastus and counsel of Flavianus a Gentleman of prime quality and much versed in judicial Astrologie who promised him a golden fortune if he would leave Christian Religion to re-advance the worship of false gods towards which Eugenius blinded with his presumption discovered great inclinations He chose the Citie of Milan to begin the web of his wicked purposes where S. Ambrose did not desire him not through fear of his arms but for the horrour he had conceived of his sacriledges The false Emperour failed not to write to the holy Bishop to require his friendship which he would make use of to support his authoritie but holy Ambrose shewed so generous a contempt of his letters that he deigned not so much as to make answer untill such time that being informed how Eugenius under-hand favoured the Sect of Pagans having already allowed them this Altar of Victorie for which so many battels had been fought he wrote to him a most couragious letter where not touching his election nor affairs of State as then not well known he reprehendeth him for his impietie and said among other things I ow the retreat which I made from Milan not attending Epist Ambros ad Eugenium you to the fear of God which shall perpetually be the rule of my actions The grace of our Saviour shall ever be more precious with me than that of Caesars nor will I at any time flatter a man to betray my conscience I wrong no person if I render to God that which is due to him and I profit all men when I conceal not a truth from great-ones I understand you have granted to Pagans that which constantly hath been denied by Catholick Emperours God knoweth all the secrets of your heart It is a very ill business if you unwilling to be beguiled by men think to deceive God who seeth all that is to be done even to nothing The Gentiles who so much have importuned you to satisfie their passion taught you to be urgent to make a good refusal of that which you cannot give but with committing sacriledge I am no Controller of your liberalities but an interpreter of your faith Give of your treasures what ever you think good I envie no man but you shall not give any thing of the rights of God which I will not resist with the utmost extent of my power You make a goodly matter to present offerings to Jesus Christ you will find few that make account of these dissimulations every man hereafter will regard not what you do but what you have a will to do As for my part I enter not now into consideration of your estate but if you be true Emperour you will begin with the service of the divine Majestie This is it which I cannot hide from you because my life and flatterie are two things incompatible As for the rest the Emperour Theodosius seeing the tyrannie of Eugenius in a readiness well foresaw necessitie must needs put arms into his hands to be mannaged with pietie Whilest the infamous Eugenius made slaughter of beasts amusing himself on the consideration of their entrails from thence to judge the events of war the brave Theodosius prostrated himself before the Altars of the living God covered Theodosius maketh the Court holy with hair-cloth imploring the assistance of Saints for his succour and all the prayers of souls the most purified which at that time lived within Monasteries He departed from Constantinople with these aids causing the Standard of the Cross to march before him Eugenius was alreadie encamped on the Alps to hinder the passage of his adversarie and had in a manner covered them with Statues of false Gods as of Jupiter and Hercules so bestial was this man The Emperour seeing he needs must fight commanded Gaynes Colonel of the Goths who led the vanguard to break the trenches of his enemies which he quickly did but they being yet very fresh and having a notable advantage of place taken by them sustained the first assault with much resolution and infinite loss on the Emperours part for it is thought that Gaynes who was a valiant Captain in his own person yet too wilfully opinionative to force this passage of the Alps lost there about ten thousand men which were killed like flies so that needs a retreat must be made very shamefull for Theodosius his army Eugenius whose head was not made for a diadem thinking the whole business ended after so great a slaughter of his enemies was so puffed up with this success that he rather thought how to glorifie his victorie than foresee his defence The sage Emperour on the other
seen to wax hoary in the Northern snows I see the Roman Caesars who invade or those which are already effeminated by their proper vice or such as are wanderers and dis-united not to have an assured State to resist their enemies My ears are perpetually filled with the acts of Cynogirus who having both his hands cut off bit the arms and ships of his enemies with his teeth of one Otryades who wrote his victory with his own bloud of one Sergius who fought four times with the left hand which Plinie observeth in his History as a prodigie of the one-eyed Horatius who defended a bridge against the Army of his enemies of a maid named Claelia who passed over Tyber on horse-back of one Sicinnius that had been in six-score combats and bare away thirty six spoils of his enemies with five and fourty wounds at divers times I will not extenuate their prowess nor take away from them the honour they deserved for to say there was no valour nor vigour in these ancient courages were to proceed against common opinion But we now adays see many Aristarchuses in the world who have spirits so retrograde that when we speak of bruit beasts they highly glorifie them above men as if they were of the race of Ulysses his souldiers who as fables tell us were turned into hogs so when we come to compare the valour of Christians with that of Infidels they find nothing which on our part may give them content so much have they either of malice or stupidity Let me die if in the sole life of Captain Bayard Prowess of Christians warlick atchievments may not be observed which in manage and valour surpass those of Alexander's and Pompey's and he that would number all the heroick actions which have been performed in our wars sometimes by silly souldiers sometimes also by Christian women might as soon reckon the stars in the firmament And had I now undertaken to make a simple enumeration of great Captains which have flourished in Christendom it would weary pens fill books and confound readers I would willingly know whether Constantine going out of an Oratory where he prayed with the Bishops before he had so many battels was less valiant against Maxentius Maximianus Licinius If Theodosius in recommending himself so particularly to the prayers of Monks have the less done his devoir against Maximus and Eugenius Whether Heraclius were the more remiss for carrying the Image of our Blessed Ladie in his hands when he subdued Cosroes King of Persia in three pitched battels Whether Clodovaeus did the less good when he caused his standards to march under the conduct of the prayers of Saint Martin Whether Charls Martel were weakened in his devotions when at the onely battels of Towers he cut in pieces three hundred three-score and fifteen thousand Saracens with the most hydeous slaughter that ever was seen Whether Charlemaine in being so firmly tied to Altars felt his arm to fail against the Lombards Saxons and Moors Whether the sword of Godfrey of Bovillon after so many actions of piety were the less keen when it cleft the Barbarians at a blow from the crown of the head to the girdle-stead and glistered in azure all covered with rays of Palms and Laurels Whether Bellisarius in being a good Catholick did the less charge the Goths And whether Simon Momfort in taking his sword from the Altar were the less dreadfull to the Albigean Hereticks Assuredly there is nothing so strong nothing so invincible nor triumphant as a valour which marcheth under the laws of Christian Religion The Turkish Nation which seemeth to be born to brandish the sword and to have ample transcendency in matters of arms feareth not so much the Persian and Tartarian standards as the banners of Christians And Baronius in an Epistle dedicatory of his Annals which he wrote to the Great Henry the Fourth of famous memory observeth that they hold it as a fatal Prophefie among them that their Empire shall never be destroyed unless it be by the hands of French-men If they have obtained victories against Christians in so many wars it hath ever been our divisions that have disarmed us our ambitions that have devoured us our Apostata-brothers who have betrayed us our Infidels who have acquainted them with our intentions our industries and arms our mutual quarrels which have wasted us our sins that have chastised us the hand of a powerfull God which hath excited the Saracens to purifie under some colour of temperance and justice those lands which ours had defiled by so many ordours and sacriledges for otherwise there could not be any force in the world able to resist Christian Princes were they well united We know it by the success of the battel of Lepanto and the prowess of George Castrioth called Scanderbeg who with a flying camp defeated seven Generals of the Turkish Army in seven great battels wherein he slew two thousand men with his own hand and in the end made Amurath stark mad to see himself defied beaten and maimed by a petty Lord and with so small numbers What could this brave courage have done had it been assisted with men gold and arms answerable to his merits Are you not then very ridiculous O Souldier when to be accounted valiant you play the Cyclop and fear lest devotion might weaken your courage Accuse not your Religion for it is holy accuse not devotion for it is innocent Rather accuse your own impiety your own neglect your own unworthiness of spirit and your own baseness that is it which enfeebleth you and causeth that you are onely valiant to play the beast No man looseth courage but he that never had it and no man hath it if he beg it not of the true God of hosts Where should we seek for light but of the Sun for water but in rivers and heat but in fire And where think you to find true strength but with the God of the strong The more you shall be united to him the more able shall you be not that he will ever give you strength of body as to Milo that you may bear an ox but in serving him you shall have from him the courage of a man who hath his root in reason his increase in piety and his Crown in true glory The fourth SECTION Manifest Proofs which declare that Pietie and Valour are not things incompatible IT is an intollerable thing to see certain young Roarers who think to make themselves esteemed valiant by profession of impiety and have as it were but one shame which is not to be shameless at all as if we had never seen nor as yet was ever heard in the world of souldiers furnished before God and men with great and Divine virtues who fail not to be as couragious as Lions Let us not search out Saints of the Martyrologe let us onely behold among a thousand one man whose life was very lately printed written in a low stile I mean the Marshal Boucicaut who
poverty that he with much straitness enjoyed the necessities of life Crispus having manured his spirit with learning very couragiously addicted himself to the exercise of arms wherein he very well expressed the Genius and dexterity of his father but with much more grace and sweetness For Histories assure us he was of visage most amiable full of attractives and admiration which made upon the minds of men so much the more impression as they were ingrafted in a singular modesty and a goodness so natural that no man could near hand behold it without affection O God what fury is there in dishonest love and how much did it disturb the house of Constantine If Lords and Ladies who give admittance to affections and thoughts unlawful did well consider the acerbities which attend this passion they would rather tear their hearts out with their nails than pollute them with such ordures It is not without cause what the wise Aristophanes hath said that love was banished So Simon the MagiciaÌ„ said that the soul of Helena had put fire trouble and jealousie among the Angelâ— but that taking from thâ— this object of concupiscence he had accorded them Phâ—â—astrius de haeres from Heaven as a trouble-feast and disturber of the repose of Divinities The truth is where this passion setteth foot it exileth from thence innocency and tranquility two the most precious pearls of life and and were there wicked loves in Heaven there would no longer be felicities Happy is that life which hath no eyes for those carnal beauties and is all eyes to preserve it self especially in the beginning from such surprizals The miserable Fausta wife of Constantine daughter of Maximian who had received good education in the house of her father and was of a very sensual humour even so far as to controle the devotions of her husband and pick quarrels against Religion which she would never embrace had in this disorder vehement dispositions sinisterly to admit the love which the beauty of Crispus might easily afford her This divine feature standing always as an object for the wanton eyes of the Empress enkindled so much fire in her veins that another flame must be found to quench it The children which she had by her husband were nothing to her in comparison of Crispus Crispus was in her heart Crispus in her thought Crispus in her discourse wherein she yet had some temper fearing to discover her passion Yet could she not forbear but say Crispus was the idaea of perfect men and the incomparable son whose worth and virtue would survive with the world It was much wondered how a step-mother should entertain so much good opinion of the son of her husband yet she having hitherto lived within the limits of honour it was interpreted all these affections were sincere and innocent Crispus who then thought not upon his own defence in a combat that was nothing but courtesie took all these favours as witnesses of a most unspotted amity reciprocally rendering to her much respect wherewith she shewed her self not a little troubled desiring he would treat with her in a more free fashion for love had already despoiled her of majesty Saint Augustine hath very well said that he who will punish an exorbitant spirit must leave it in its own hands to serve both as a scaffold and executioner to it self The unfortunate Fausta who had already given over-free passage to sin felt accesses of ice and fire of desires of affrightments of confidence and remorse Her conscience accused her in the bottom of her heart and ceased not to shew her the enormity of this fault when by the help of impudency she thought to have quenched these little sparkles of goodness which God soweth in the most forsaken hearts She knew not how or where to begin this pernicious design Crispus seemed to be too chaste his Christian religion made him in her opinion too austere his spirit was as yet too tender and not capable of a most powerful wickednes and although he should consent where may faithfull complices be found fit occasions and liberty to content an infamous desire The pain which ordinarily attendeth crimes the rigour of a Constantine jealous of his bed the infamy and apprehensions of punishments coming to fall upon her thoughts made her well to see both the abyss and horrour but passion transported her hood-wincked beyond all considerations so that one day taking her opportunitie she accosted the young Prince with words which sufficiently testified her a lost woman But he who would not at the first put her into confusion with modestie declined what she had said and interpreted it far from her thought She who would no longer appear a Lucrece being much troubled he should understand in a chast sense what she had spoken to an ill purpose unfolds her self so freely that the wise Crispus no further able to suffer this blushless spirit spake a word to her rough and hopeless That if she persisted in this infamous desire he would give the Emperour notice and thereupon flew from her like a lightening and withdrew leaving her in a despair and rage not sufficiently to be expressed All her love then turned into a diabolical hatred which suggested Love turned into rage furies and black thoughts resolving with her self to use him as as the wife of Potiâ—â—ar did Joseph She served her self with all the arms of grief which were at that time very natural to her ceasing not to weep and sigh before her husband as if she had afflicted her self for anothers sin yet had she so much cunning that she feigned to hide her tears and smother her sighs to render the disguise more dangerous by a pretext of modesty The Emperour seeing her in this plight asked the A wicked calumny cause of her sadness She answered it was fit for his Majesty not to know it He the more persisted to understand what she feigned to conceal pressing and interrogating her to draw her calumny from her with as much earnestness as one would a truth In the end she declared with many counterfeit horrours and words cruelly modest That his son Crispus would have enterprized upon the honour of his bed but God be thanked her faith inviolable put her under safety free from such dangers And that she demanded no other satisfaction from this miserable man who was fled but the remorse of his wicked conscience Constantine recommending silence unto her entered into a black and deep anger proposing unto himself that the retreat of his son was a note of his crime he determined therefore to put him speedily to death and for this purpose calling one of his servants the most trusty and best resolved for executions having under great oaths and execrations obliged him to secresie gives him express commandment to meet with his son Crispus as soon as he could to treat warily with him not affrighting nor giving him the least suspition and withal to fail not to serve him at his
first repast with poison well prepared so to send him into the other world This man amazed at such a dreadfull command asked of the Emperour If he had so well resolved on this affair as to use a son of so great merit in this manner Yea saith he I have thought upon it and it is necessary he die for I must tell you it not being needfull to inform you further that besides the practise conceived by him his life is incompatible with mine The other supposed he had plotted some conspiracy upon the life and scepter of his father behold the cause why he hastened the blow and being already very familiar with poor Crispus he accosted him with great complements of honour and courtesie feigning to make him merry because indeed he then saw him in a very sad humour upon that which had passed between him and Fausta covering his thoughts as much as he might to preserve the honour of his wicked step-mother Hereupon an unhappy banquet was prepared for the innocent Death of Crispus which was the last of his life poison being traiterously given him there where he least expected it Verily this death which way soever we look is most lamentable The Tragedies which bemoan it with so much ornament as that of our Stephanius have much spirit in them but taking onely the thing in the simple nakedness of the fact it ministereth matter of compassion to hearts most obdurate A young Prince at that time the most absolute in the world beautifull as an Absalom valiant as an Alexander innocent as a Joseph at that time taken away when he was at the gates of the Empire which expected him and taken away by a death so hydeous and treacherous and by the commandment of his father who caused him to die as one incestuous not admitting him to speak nor permitting him to justifie himself nor affording leisure to know himself nor one small moment of time to prepare himself for death which is allowed to the most criminal He was silently involved in the extremity of unhappiness to shut up the mouth of innocency and open that of calumny to rail against his very ashes The generous soul ever prepared for this passage by the laws of Christianity which it had so devoutly embraced issued out of his chaste body to hasten to the crown of the Elect leaving incomparable sorrows behind it Alas what doth not a wicked affection a calumny a suspition an unbridled anger an inconsiderate word O you Great-ones will you never learn wisdom by the evils of others As soon as this news came to the Court the wicked The rage of Fausta turned into pitie Fausta well saw it was an effect of her treachery and lively representing before her own eyes this poor Prince whom she before had so much affected at that time so unworthily massacred in a beauty in an age wherein such as die are most pittied and in a goodness which would have given matter of compassion to Tigers and Lions all her passion and hatred was turned into an enraged sorrow which made her crie out and lament at the feet of her husband confessing she had slain the chaste Crispus by her detestable calumny that it was she who had sollicited Calumny discovered him to evil but had found him a Joseph endowed with an invincible chastity and had detested her sin as it well deserved whereupon excited with choler and fearing to be prevented she had proceeded to this dreadfull accusation and therefore was unworthy to live since she had slain the most innocent Prince of the world and stained his own father with his proper bloud Constantine amazed beyond description at so prodigious an accident had neither reply nor sense of a man so much wonder had rapt him from himself but when he saw his holy mother Helena who had so tenderly bred up the poor Crispus bewailing him with unconsolable tears and begging of the father at the least the body of her grand-child to wash it with the waters of her eyes and bury it with her hands saying the wicked beast had slain her Joseph he was pierced to the quick with compassion mingled with fury Then the poor sister of the deceased who seemed nought else but the shaddow of her brother coming also to dissolve her self wholly into tears near to her Grand-mother this spectacle the more enkindled the passion of the Emperour And thinking that Fausta well deserved death being convinced of such a mischief by her own confession he caused her to enter into the bath and so in an instant to be smothered with the vapour which was a punishment wherewith many times they put persons of quality to death Behold the issue of the hydeous loves of Fausta to Death of Fausta teach all Ladies that those passions which begin by complacencies soothings and curiosities very often end in horrible tragedies In the mean time the house of Constantine remained long drenched in a dead silence and all was very secretly carried so that none knowing what publickly to think of the death of Crispus and Fausta it gave occasion to many to affirm they died for some conspiracy We cannot here excuse Constantine of a violent anger a precipitation a proceeding too bloudy Howsoever he caused Crispus to die under a false belief of impurity which he thought was to be revenged and Fausta punished by way of justice Behold why this sin though it hath much mischief in it yet it hath not the determinate wickedness of the sin of David in the death of Urias because the one wrought with a manifest knowledge of his crime and the other proceeded therein with much ignorance and sense of justice Yet Constantine after these exorbitances was touched with great remorse which in the end put him actually on the profession of Christianity The eighth SECTION The calling of Constantine to Christianitie The progress of his Conversion and Baptism I Have always esteemed the saying of S. Paulinus Constant 19. which we before alledged very probable that the faith of S. Helena did not onely make Constantine a Christian but the first of Christian Princes This good mother without doubt gave him the first tincture of Christianity but being of an ambitious and warlike spirit who went along with the main stream of the world he was not so soon confirmed in the faith and integrity of religion Notwithstanding he began to have most lively apprehēsions for his conversion about the seventh year of his Empire which was the year of the defeat of Maxentius whilest he had this great war upon his hands his temporal necessities opening his eyes that he might have recourse to spiritual forces He then endeavoured as he afterward relateth Beginning of the conversion of the Emperour to meditate seriously within himself that there was some Divine Providence from Heaven which gave concussions to victories and Empires without which the counsels of men were cloudy their Armies weak and labours vain Afterward
remembering what had passed in the Roman Empire he saw that those Emperours who had shewed themselves most fervent in the superstition of false gods and were the greatest persecutours of Christians had been infamous and unhappy not beloved of the people without name not honoured issueless and and for the most part odious and execrable to posterity He then imagined that this Religion which professed so much sanctity and was grown up in the tempests of three hundred years had something divine in it and that perhaps it would not be amiss to invoke in this great labyrinth of affairs the God of his mother As he then went up and down revolving these discourses in the bottom of his thoughts casting his eyes up to Heaven he perceived about the evening the figure of a great Cross all composed of most resplendent light which seemed unto him to bear these Characters IN HOC VINCE Vanquish in this sign This was much more important than the bowe in Heaven which Augustus Caesar saw about the sun when he entered into Rome to take possession of the Empire Notwithstanding Constantine and the Captains who observed this sign in Heaven had some distrust because of the figure of the Cross which till then was ever accounted of an ill presage Now as the Emperour slept in the night in great perplexity of cogitations it seemed that the God of the Christians appeared unto him with the same sign which he had seen the day before commanding him expresly to carry it hereafter in his Ensigns Following this vision he caused a Banner to be made in the manner as Eusebius describeth it who had seen it It was as a launce all of gold which had a piece of wood athwart in form of a Cross from whence hung a rich imbroidery in which was the image of the Emperour and about it a Crown of gold and pearl which bare in the middle the two first letters of the name of our Saviour This was from that time forward his prime Banner which the Romans called the Labarum It was no otherwise different from the standards of the Roman Bands but that it carried the sacred cypher of this venerable Title which was not understood by all the world but held by the Pagans as some devise of the fantasie of spirit The war against Maxentius having so prosperously succeeded as we have said under this propitious standard Constantine held the Saviour of the world in great veneration and made the Edicts which we know in favor of Christians Notwithstanding he for a long time deferred his publick and solemn profession thereof whether it were that the course of great warlike enterprizes and affairs diverted his mind or whether he feared to distast the prime men of the Empire by this change It is likewise thought that his wife Fausta whom he in the beginning much affected greatly weakened his love to Christianity in such sort that the Christians ceased not to be still ill intreated in this remisness of the Emperour In the Absolute coÌ„version of the Emperour end after the calamitie of the death of his son and wife so tragically happened in his own house he seriously opened his eyes about the nineteenth year of his Empire to seek remedy for his evils Zosimus a Pagan leadeth us as it were not thinking of it to the knowledge of the time and manner of his Baptism For he saith that Constantine after the death of Crispus and Fausta had great remorse of conscience and that not wholly having abjured Paganism he sought from South-sayers and Pagan Philosophers as others adde the means to purifie himself from the bloud which he so unfortunately had shed It is said that one Sopater the wisest of the Discourse of Sopater Platonists who had sometime lived in his Court told him these stains of bloud would stick on souls and never be washed out and that if they departed this life without punishment they would re-enter into other bodies to expiate in the end those crimes which they had committed and that there was no other remedy The Emperour found this Philosophie very harsh and his spirit being much tormented with very strange disturbances behold saith Zosimus an Aegyptian newly come from Spain to Rome note that he meaneth the great Bishop Hosius who was sent at the same time into Aegypt by Pope Sylvester This Aegyptian saith he having insinuated himself into the favour of some Ladies of the Court found by their means access to the Emperour who failed not to propose unto him the difficulties and troubles of his conscience This man answered him that his Majesty should not need to disquiet himself hereupon and that there was no crime so enormous which might not be expiated by the remedies which are practised in Christian Religion To this the Emperour very willingly hearkened and resolved all delayes laid apart to become a Christian See here the beginning of the Baptism of Constantine His Baptism As for the sequel it is a question much perplexed for some would have him to be baptized in the suburbs of Nicomedia upon the point of death and others at Rome by S. Sylvester about the 19th year of his Empire I say briefly to decide this difficulty that it is a most unreasonable belief to think that Constantine the Great called by the general voice of the holy Fathers The holy and Religious Emperour Constantine recorded in memorials and publick registers of the Church which are recited before Altars as the chief of Orthodox Princes Constantine whom the Arians yea the most refractory which have been after him never durst declare of their faction to have been christened at his death by the hand of an Arian Bishop out of the communion of the Catholick Church There is not one to be found who favoureth this opinion but Eusebius who hath been an Ensign-bearer of the Arians and who no more ought to be credited in this article than a Pagan Historian it being most unequal to take him for a Judge who had made himself a party in this affair And if some passages be found somewhat doubtful in the Chronicle of S. Hierom which seem to support this errour it is easie to consider that this Doctour who was a merchant enriched with infinite variety of learning hath made many pieces which he rather translated and compiled from others than composed upon his own invention and the learned are not ignorant that his Chronicle is accounted in this kind of books as a work formed from observations and opinions of Eusebius which should not at all alter the estimation we have of Constantine acknowledged and averred by so many other passages of the same Doctour And if S. Ambrose in the funeral Oration of Theodosius said that Constantine received Baptism being in extremity we must not Iâ— ultimis coâ—stitutus therefore infer that he was baptized by Arian in the last instant of his life otherwise he would not call him in the same passage a Monarch of great
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
laying aside all humane respects which had hitherto tyed him to Gentilism for considerations of his State he caused a Throne to be prepared in the Palace of Trajan where having sent for the Senate he declared with the eloquence of a Monarch the reasons which had moved him to this alteration of Religion and said SIRS I doubt not but the change of Religion which Notable Oration of Constantine partly drawn out of his acts and Edicts I have made will appear strange to many who blame all that which they cannot understand and will understand nothing but what flatters their presumption All noveltie is odious to those who love the old age of errour Yet I can tell you this is no new Religion which I have imbraced but that which was begun in the purified souls of the golden Age happily finished in our days The first men of the world had verity in bloom we now see the fruit which we may and shall enjoy if we be not ungratefull to our happiness and traiterous to our own conscience Believe me Sirs the world is almost grown out of it's non-age for God hath taken pitie of the ignorance thereof and made it see it was not time any longer to place Dragons and Owls upon Altars nor other Gods accounted as monsters if they would return into the life of men If our Ancestours blinded by mishap have made to be esteemed for Divinities so many criminals for whom our laws do now ordain punishments we are not bound to participate with the crimes of the one nor the errours of the other under pretext of antiquitie I must confess that I from my infancie have had great distrust upon the follies which I saw in the superstition of Gentiles and that which further confirmed me in this opinion was that one day I heard the answer of an Oracle which had long time stood mute and being demanded the cause of this silence answered The Just hindered it from speaking and we found those Just were the Christians who then had power to stop the mouthes of devils Afterward I began to consider those men whom I saw so persecuted and that there was not a corner of the earth that was not ruddie with their bloud yet were they notwithstanding so patient in their persecutions that they had prayers on their lips for those who rent their hearts out of their bodies This then gave me matter of amazement but when I came to think on their Church which flourished among so many storms and encreased under the swords of persecution this seemed to me more than humane yet transported with the torrent of common opinions I still resisted the voice of God which spake in my heart when it opened my eyes and made me once lively apprehend the dreadfull ends of Emperours who had persecuted Christianitie comparing them to the felicitie of my father Constantius of most glorious memorie who had preserved his hands innocent even to death free from any stain of Christian bloud This was sufficiently potent to move a soul which would easily yield to reason but God redoubling his inspirations made me one day behold in the Heavens a prodigie which many saw with me to wit the figure of the Cross composed of most resplendent light which appeared just at the time I was to wage battel against Maxentius I call the living God to witness that I therein read distinctly these words written as with the rays of the Sun IN HOC VINCE And it is a wonder that I deferred still to yield my self up till such time that the Saviour of the world advertised me in a vision to take into my Standards the sign which I had seen in Heaven the day before I instantly obeyed and have seen so prodigious effects succeed in the defeat of Maxentius which you have admired attributing to man that which was a work of the Divinitie I thought then to have discovered what I was but considerations of state which had too much force upon my soul stayed me and have made me walk along hitherto in a life more licentious than I intended I now protest before the face of Heaven and earth that I am a Christian both in heart and profession nor shall any motives ever alter that which I have so constantly resolved on Yet for all this I purpose not to force any man in his Religion leaving for this time belief as free as elements Yet for the charitie I hear towards my good subjects I cannot but wish them as much good as my self Now all my greatest happiness and which I esteem more than my Purple and Diadem is to entertain the knowledge of a living God which hath been revealed to us by his onely Son Jesus Christ the Doctour and Saviour of the world His person is full of miracles his life of wisdom and goodness his doctrine of puritie and if to conquer our pride and expiate our demerits he hath humbled himself to the punishment of the Cross so much therefore the more ought it to be honourable since he hath done for us all that which an incomparable love can do and endured all that which an invinoible patience may suffer I can do no other but love and singularly honour those who are enrolled under his Standard as my brothers in Religion and let it not seem strange to any if heretofore shewing my self very liberal to beautifie and enrich the Temples of Gentilism I now apply my self to build and adorn the Churches I will render what I ow to God and my own conscience nor shall my subjects who are of a Religion different from mine be any way interessed therein desiring to preserve them as persons whom I hope one day to have companions in faith and coheirs in glorie if they adde never so little consent to the lights wherewith the wisdom of God Incarnate hath replenished the world I onely beseech thee O great God on whom all Scepters and Crowns depend since you have united the East and West under my hands you would arrange them under the yoak of your Law which is the knot of Empires and source of felicitie I offer unto you my person mine Arms my Scepter and all mine abilities humbly begging of you to accept my slender service and to give me the assisting wisdom of your Thrones to govern in all honour all justice all peace and amitie the people which you have committed to my charge This Oration was heard by all the world with Admirable change of the world by the Oration and example of the Emperour very great applause in such sort that for the space of two hours the cries of an infinite number were heard who made many acclamations in favour of Christian Religion Fourty times was repeated UNUS DEUS CHRISTIANORUM There is but one God which is the God of the Christians and thirty times was proclaimed LET THOSE WHO DENY CHRIST COME TO NOUGHT and ten times LET THE TEMPLES BE SHUT UP LET THE CHURCHES BE OPENED And fourteen
the 1. Decad. chap. 12. 13. Agreat man having qualities and virtues of mind and body most innumerable and that his fortune being very great be had notwithstanding equalled it by his industry and merit Behold a testimony from the mouth of an enemy I would here willingly demand of Machiavel who in the Treatise he composed of a Prince said That he which in all things would hold a strict profession of an honest man cannot long continue in the company of such others as are of no esteem and that it is necessary for a Prince who will maintain his own power to learn how he may sometimes be wicked and to practise it according to the necessity of affairs And in his State-Discourses well discovereth he is of opinion a Prince should cherish the Religion which most suteth with his designs whatsoever they be I should willingly know of all those that pursue Admirable providence of God above all humane Policy the like Maxims with this corrupt spirit what they would here answer me upon the progression of the fortune of Constantine Verily behold here a Statewisedom whereunto the pen of this Secretary who pretended ability in some petty humane tracks cannot arrive Behold a light whereat all these eyes are dazeld Behold an abyss where all carnal men are lost if we will well reckon them up we shall find twelve or thirteen who in several ways argue upon the Diadem with Constantine By what degrees hath the divine providence conducted him to the Sovereignity of the Empires of the world Is it by those which Monsieur Nicholas Machiavel hath prepared to lead his Prince in If one must dispoil himself of innocency to be re-invested with the robe Imperial why did Constantine take the way of Empire by that of sanctitie If use must be made of Religion as of an instrument of State and that taken which hath the most credit in the opinion of the people why went he about to chuse Christian Religion at that time when the most part of the world was ingulfed in Gentilism Behold Maxentius who according to the ordinary custom of the people of Rome caused the pretended books of Sybilles to be turned over consulted with Augures offered sacrifices This gave him a reputation of piety with a people as much infidel as him self Why did not Constantine pursue the same ways Why did he set the sign of the Cross on his Standards esteemed fatal and of ill presage in the minds of the most part of his army What favour might he then expect from Christians Would he draw treasures from them They were despoiled of all Pretended he to raise huge armies of them for his service They were so cut down that one onely month saw seventeen thousand heads upon the ground Did he perswade himself there was much strength in their religion They were all either massacred maimed or banished Did he look for counsel They were men esteemed void of learning or policy Did he hope for credit They were trampled under foot like dirt in the streets Why then did a man reputed of so excellent judgement confine his interests to these miserable creatures He stood in need for the accōmodation of his affairs of a Roman Senate and it was Pagan He wanted good Captains they were in a manner all Gentiles He must have Forts and they all held for ancient superstition What doth he go about And yet behold in a time wherein his affairs least seemed to require it he takes the marks of Christianitie and with them hasteneth to assail the Army of Maxentius composed of a hundred threescore and ten thousand footmen and eighteen thousand horse he himself according to the relation of those who lived in the very same time having in this conflict but very small troops From whence cometh it that he in so short a time and with so few people defeated such formidable powers Not to bely the matter had these men been but earthen statues they might make resistance Had they but been an army of sheep they might weary the souldiers of Constantine to cut their throats From whence comes it they were so soon defeated From whence comes it that Maxentius so basely betook himself to the stratagem of a bridge which he prepared for his enemie From whence comes it that a Roman Senate which had confirmed so many Edicts against the Cross a people bred up in the horrour of the crucified should readily receive a man who entred into Rome with the Cross and the name of the crucified upon his Standard From whence comes it that on the triumphall Arch dedicated to him he would have no mention of Roman Gods At the least according to the counsel of the Sectaries of the Florentine Secretary he should dissemble his religion he should give way to time he should make himself outwardly a Diocletian and inwardly if needs he would a Constantine Will any one say he was at that time a man victorious who came to give law and not receive it But who saw not that his fortune being as yet in the bud he was to walk towards Empires as on thorns fearing above all things to irritate in the change of Religion the principall spirits of the East and West who were passionately affected towards their Sect I affirm Maxentius the Defendor of the Gods ruinated himself by his ill government Lycinius was yet on foot and verily Lycinius an ancient souldier who had waxed old in arms and had never arrived to the Empire but by his valour drew in the end all the partie of Gentilism with forces innumerable both by sea and land which seemed able to swallow many worlds He made use of the counsell of Monsieur Machiavel he protested he took arms for the defence of the Gods and Altars of ancient Rligion against a man who sought to introduce a barbarous Sect into the World Was not this a matter very specious in the times when the superstition of Gentiles was exalted by Edicts of Emperours to the highest degree of honour Lycinius notwithstanding is beaten overthrown ruined both by sea and land although he were one of the most inventive in the subtilities of the art millitary of the most resolute for execution and the most stubborn to make up again a desperate fortune O you Nobilitie what shall we say hereupon Must we not confess there is one God in heaven and not any other God but that of Constantine who giveth Kingdoms establisheth Scepters and cementeth Crowns If all this proceeding had been an extravagancie of passion we might attribute one part of it to the hazard of Wars the other to the valour of Souldiers and the last to the heat of the first encounters But to hold an Empire thirtie and one years with so great an equality so accomplished a felicitie so secure a peace from the time of his last conquest what may one answer to this From whence is it that Constantine having forsaken ancient Rome of purpose to build a fair Citie
where God might sincerely be honoured and adored without any commixtion of Gods or Altars of Gentils which he as yet through necessity must tolerate at Rome yet nothing was changed in the West Was there want of men to undertake it The greatest of the Senate were in a manner all Pagans Were there not people enough to make revolts They were as much inclined thereunto as ever Were there not souldiers to support the enterprizes of those who had a desire to rebel There was as many and perhaps more at that time as at any time before From whence then proceeded this sweet tranquilitie but that the great Angel-Protectour of Constantine given unto him by the living God held one foot on the East and another on the West to protect preserve and honour a man who had defended maintaimed and reverenced true Religion Oh Nobilitie let no man go about to confine your Advise to the Nobility hearts to these slender and wretched policies which ruine all generositie Whilest your Ancestours sincerely honoured the God of Constantine of Charlemain and S. Lewis and whilest they with all sinceritie manured the pietie of their predecessours without any mixture of novelties factions and subtilities they flew like Eagles to the conquest of Provinces and made their arms resplendent almost in so many places as the sun enlightneth with his rays Now they endeavour to perswade you that following a pettie spirit of wrangling which submitteth religion to interests you shall make up to your selves golden fortunes when indeed experience daily teacheth you they are but of gilded ice and are melted under the lightening of Gods justice Open your eys to that which I present you in Successours of Constantine this historie behold yet if you please as you pass along the sequel and proceeding of the successours of Constantine He left three sons the one called by his own name the other Constantius from the name of his Grand-father and the third Constans Constantine and Constans lived not long the whole Empire which was divided between three was re-united under the power of Constantius who verily was an enemie to the superstitions of Gentiles for which God gave him in recompence great victories against the Tyrant Magnentius But this unfortunate Prince instead of following the same belief of his father hastened to throw himself violently into the novelties of the Arians whereof Ammianus the Historian who was a Pagan souldier very aptly reprehendeth him saying he had done himself great wrong for that instead of preserving Christian Religion in its simplicity he had imbroiled and falsified it with novelism using more perplexity to search out subtilities than gravitie to pacifie the Church For he by this means saith he stirred up an infinite number of dissentions which he nourished with disputes and quirks of words so that under his reign you should never see Bishops but riding post over the fields to hold Synods thereby to draw all Christendom to the Emperours party This was the cause that there were almost no horses nor Couriers to be found for the affairs of the Empire so much were they imployed in voyages which were made for these goodly Councels He hath excellently well expressed in few words the nature of Constantius for he was perpetually busied in these litigious wranglings of the heresie of Arians assembling Conventicles of his false-Bishops to condemn the Orthodox From whence it came to pass that hated of men and forsaken by God he led a life full of jealousies suspicions disturbances and which is worse defiled with bloud and massacres In the end having heard the news that Julian the Apostata his cousin whom he had before declared Caesar was among the Gauls and saluted Emperour and having passed through Italy came to present himself in Thrace he went speedily out to resist him and fell into such desperate furies that on his way he was surprised with a sharp feaver which so broiled his body that they durst no more touch him than a burning fornace This malady in a few days bereaved him of soul and Empire leaving the one to the judgment of God and the other to Julian Behold what became of this deplorable Prince in the one and fourtieth year of his age for having betrayed the Religion of his father the gravitie and modesty observed in him which was the cause he was never seen to spit nor wipe his nose nor turn his head in publick nothing availing him to lengthen out his life Julian Nephew and son-in-law of great Constantine for he espoused Helena sister of Crispus took instantly the government of the whole Empire upon him and would needs overthrow all that which his uncle had done in matter of Religion Let us consider a little without passion the notable extravagancies of this spirit who contemning the pietie Julian with the qualities which Machiavel giveth a Prince had ill succ ss of Constantine sought to establish himself by all the ways which the poor policie of earth suggesteth to those who have renounced heaven To speak to the purpose we must affirm this man had all the qualities which Monsieur Machiavel gave to his Prince If dissimulation may be used for a Kingdom never was a lamb more mild than this young man at the Court of Constantius to take all suspicions from him which he conceived of his near allies and although he already entertained most mischievous thoughts in the matter of Christian Religion he so covered them by the publick profession he made of it that the very Eunuchs who had all charge most narrowly to prie into his actions upon this point observed nothing therein which tended to alteration in Religion But far otherwise about the age of sixteen he caused his hair to be cut and vowed himself to the Church as a Prince most Religious who thought little on the Empire of the world And after when he was sent into France although he used strange superstitions and witch-crafts rising up in the night to pray to Mercury to whom he dedicated much devotion yet did he also notwithstanding celebrate the feasts with Christians and that which besides is more considerable when he was proclaimed Emperour though he had an enraged desire towards it and that all this solemnitie was throughly agreed upon by his cunning yet seigned he to have all the aversions in the world against it and caused himself to be carried to the throne as one would draw an unruly sacrifice to the slaughter What spirit was evermore dissembled than this mans If as saith the Secretary a Prince should endeavour to have virtues in apparence which may render him acceptable in publick though he be not to take much pains to have them in effect never did any man better put on the mask of much honesty than this For in the fortune of Emperour he would seem like the most mortified Stoik of all that Sect shewing himself so chast that never might you hear one sole misbecomming word fall from his lips so
so many charities since the doors of Churches from whence we expect good are kissed Clotilda was much pleased with this reply and well saw this man belyed his habit by his discourse and garb She therefore importuned to tell who he was and from whence it proceeded that he was reduced to such misery as to beg his bread Madam saith Aurelianus since your Greatness presseth me thus far you shall know I am born of a good place and that it which hath brought me to this state is nothing els but the love of a Lady whom I court not for my self but for one of the greatest Princes under Heaven The maid was very curious to know who this Prince was as also the Lady sought unto with so much pains Aurelianus seeing it was now time to speak to the purpose said The Lady is three steps from me for indeed it is your self At which she began to blush again and to shew some disturbance of mind but quoth he Madam trouble not your self since I am in a place where I with confidence may speak unto you your Excellency shall know I am sent by Clodovaeus King of France my Master who is the best Prince and the most valiant Monarch in the whole world The fame of your most precious and eminent qualities coming to his ear he desireth to marry you and hath dispatched me to give you notice thereof and require your consent I could have entered into the Court with some very solemn Embassage but the difficulties the King your uncle enforceth upon you made me resolve to take this attyre to speak to you with the more freedom You may well assure your self this marriage shall make you the prime Queen of the West and the most happy in the world and to approve the authority of my commission behold the ring of the King my Master which I present unto you There is not any woman so holy who is not capable of much delight upon praises afforded her and who doth not willingly open her eyes to greatness Clotilda was not so insensible as not to be touched to the quick with such an Embassage howsoever she shewed in this surprisal she had within her a heart very faithful to God for most freely refusing the ring and interrupting the Embassadour Speak no more Syr said she I know your Prince is a Pagan and I a Christian God forbid that I ever marry an Infidel were he the Monarch of the world Madam replieth the Gentleman frame to your self no difficulties upon the difference of Religions my Prince is not so tied to his Sect as not to forsake it for your love But what means will there be said Clotilda to gain my uncle I do not think he hath any purpose to marry me The Embassadour answereth If you give me your consent we will find opportunity to bear you from hence Not so replyed the prudent maid it is a course I will never admit Ah why Madam saith Aurelianus should you do it who would condemn your discretion Is it a sin in your Religion to flie from the den of a furious wretch to resign your self into the hands of a King We know how he used your father and mother and how he also treateth you at this time At this word the Lady poured forth some tears and said Do by Embassadours all that possibly you can and assure the King your Master that I hold my self much honoured by the choise he maketh of me and that he cannot be so soon for God as I for him at least in heart and body when the King my uncle shall give me leave Upon these conditions I take your ring which I very charily will keep All this passed very happily in a Court of the Palace where she ordinarily spake to the poor interrogating them of their necessities and none perceived there was any other business but the care of the poor her confident friend onely excepted who had a share in the secrets of Clotilda The third SECTION The Embassage to the King of Burgundy for the marriage of Clotilda AUrelianus touched Heaven with his finger that he had so successefully thrived in his commission and forgot not parcel-meal to relate to the King his Master all the particulars of his voyage entertaining him above all with a curious discourse made upon the admirable beauty and singular prudence of Clotilda Clodovaeus burnt with impatience and would presently have taken the King of Burgundy by the beard to make him let go his hold but wisdom adviseth him he must observe therein requisite formalities and that it was fit to send his Embassadours to Gombaut to require of him his neece in marriage which he speedily did appointing thereunto his faithful Aurelianus to whom he allotted a flourishing company of Nobility which caused such apprehensions to arise in the mind of the Burgundian that he slept not upon it either night or day From whence proceedeth it said he to himself that Clodovaeus knoweth my neece since I have hitherto kept her so close that she hath seen nothing but the wals of the Church and my Palace Is there some eel under a rock Would he have my estate This French man is too harsh I would neither have him for a son in law nor a neighbour Besides this maid who hath seemed hitherto as a lamb in my house being at my dispose when she behold her self Queen of France and have swords at her command who can tell whether she will not shew me her teeth and revenge on me the bloud of her father and mother I must rather keep her immured within ten iron gates that she may not escape my power Behold a great act of State which I must cunningly play This man environed with such thoughts receaved the Embassadours of France very sleightly and having promised with all speed to give them answer he was wary enough not to discover all the thoughts he had thereupon but taking the most pleasing pretext answered that he honoured the King Clodovaeus as one of the most valiant Princes of that Age and should ever account the service done him as one of the greatest favours he could receive from Heaven but as for this alliance which he sought it was a matter he could not thinke on First because his neece had never raised her ambition so high as to pretend marriage with so great a King having nothing in her person so eminent as might deserve such a husband and although there were some equality on this side yet was there on the other part an assential impediment which was diversity of Religions it being a thing unheard of for a Christian maid to marry a Pagan nor could he permit it without betraying the salvation of his nlece and disgracing himself through the whole world Aurelianus who well knew where it itched with him replyed in few words That for the qualities of his neece he should not trouble himself that the woman best beloved was ever best conditioned that it was
was pleased to consecrate the Kings of France and the whole Realm to his Majesty to derive from hence an infinite number of services and as those great Kings are the first of the Church and the most perfect images In bapismate ejus Angelus ampullam sacri Chrismatis detulit Vide Morum de sacris unctionibus l. 2. c. 7. Clemens quartus alias Guido scripsit in Jus civile of the Divinitie among all Monarchs especially when they declare themselves imitatours of the piety of Clodovaeus so God was willing to renew at their consecration the wonders he did at the Baptism of his Son to the end the workmanship might have conformity with its model for he caused a dove visibly to appear which bare in her beak the holy Viol filled with the unction wherewith Clodovaeus and his successours were afterward anointed It is a thing so authentical that it is rather to be reverenced than disputed the memory thereof is still preserved in the Epitaph set over the ashes of Clodovaeus in the Church of S. Genevofue of Paris which saith this dove was an Angel in S. Thomas in the second book of the institution of Princes in Clement the fourth in his questions and so many other Authours that it were to do a thing already done to distend my self any further upon this subject Others have added That the flower-de-Iuces Ita Savarus in Tractatu de sanctitate Regis Ludovicit were brought at the same time by the help of an Angel to be set in the arms and Scutcheons of the Kings of France but that is not well proved I should rather believe that the lilies were the Symbole of the Gauls as the balm of Judea long time before Clodovaeus For there are yet certain medals found stamped in the time of the Emperour Adâ—tan who was little above one hundred years after our Saviour Christ whereon the figure of a Gaul was to be seen formed as an honourable Ladie which seemed to hold in her hand a flower-de-luce offering it to the Emperour and yielding thanks for its preservation by this title engraven on the same coyn RESTITUTORI GALLIAE I cannot likewise understand who is that Cilurus cited by Monsieur Capet in his pleadings of Rights and Liberties that maketh mention of a rod sprinkled with flower-deluces which then appeared in Heaven to witness the Kings of France should be the true defendours of the Catholick Church We have no want of true miracles nor need we go about to entertain ill grounded fantasies they who desire to establish false things gain nought else upon the credulity of humane spirits but to make truth to be doubted That which I find in this Baptism most probable is that Clodovaeus was baptized with his children his sisters and more than three thousand Cavaliers Captains souldiers and other Courtiers not numbering women and little children and which is more the King made an Edict so favourable for Christian Religion that being published it converted to the faith almost all the rest of the French Nation in such sort that every where there was nothing to be seen but burning of Idols and erecting of Altars The admirable Clotilda who had so long time sighed after this most happy day being wholly absorpt in reverence and thanksgiving rendered to God beheld her self crowned with so many thousands of children and if those women of the old Testament for a slender carnal race sung Canticles of triumph what might this Ladie both say and do who after her coming into France saw the face of a Monarchy absolutely changed the Kingdom of God established and so many souls arranged under the banner of our Saviour who was pleased so powerfully to make use herein of her prayers and industrie The seventh SECTION What Clodovaeus did by the perswasion of Clotilda after his Baptism THe holy woman daily building upon her foundations ceased not to dispose her husband to all the holy and glorious actions which she could think on that he might in some sort answer the favours he had received from the Divine Majesty She caused him to bend his affections to the embellishing and enriching of Churches which he did beginning with that of Rhemes with so much magnificence that S. Remigius who was of a noble and generous courage had much ado with himself to take all which the King was willing to give humbly beseeching his Majesty he would apply his liberalities to other places that had more need thereof Thereupon he disposed himself to build the Church of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul whom he honoured as the Fathers of Christianity It is now delicated to S. Genovefue of Paris which the King and Queen afterward chose out for the place of their sepulchers One cannot too much glorifie this holy place which hath been as the cradle of the piety of Clodovaeus and it is a most manifest blessing from Heaven that it fell into the hands of that sage and religious Prelate the Lord Cardinal of Rochefaucault who by his zeal a most powerfull alchymie daily changeth the bricks and morter into marbles and gold and not content with dead stones hath assembled the living in so many good Religious men there eternally to praise the greatness of God and of this heavenly Virgin Patroness of the place He could not better serve our great King than by so preciously honouring the ashes of the first most Christian Prince and of his holy spouse Clotilda to tie their protection to his standards In the third place the blessed woman very deeply impressed in the soul of her husband the devotion of S. Martin in such sort that in all his most thorny affairs he had a singular recourse to this great Apostle of France making there many vows and sometimes praying prostrate at his tomb with the fervour of an incredible piety From whence also proceeded that not satisfying himself with giving large donatives to his Church he treated the whole Diocess with marvellous reverence forbidding his troups when they marched upon any exploit to take ought else in those precincts but salt and herbs Which was so streightly observed that he caused a souldier to pass through the pikes who had taken hay from a Countrey-man saying it was herbs Moreover to imitate in all eminency the piety of great Constantine he procured a national Councel to be held at Orleans where he witnessed much respect to the Prelates assembled in that place to decide Ecclesiastical affairs writing unto them a notable Baron tom 5. anno 514. letter by which he confirmed the rights and immunities of the Church according to the form of ancient Canons In the end Pope Hormisdas coming to succeed Symmachus in the holy See Clodovaeus was the very first dispatched Embassadours unto him with a very beautifull Crown surnamed the Realm It hath been a custom very ordinary in all times to offer Jewels and Crowns to Altars in gratefull acknowledgement towards the Divine Majesty So Constantine tendered his Diadem
might have tied you unto him and not made use of so many things For what is more essential for the foundation of a belief than the revelation of the first Verity which might have been known to us by fewer proofs But behold his goodness and how he dealeth with our infirmities as to be willing to strike us so sensibly with reflection of the greatness of our faith to win us to his direction The Jews ran after a simple figure and tied themselves to weak elements The Gentiles are filled with childish toys and dotages which made the most learned amongst them to mock at their religion and say That should their gods have appeared alive in such Senec. l. de superstitione apud S. August l. 6. de Civitate Dei manner as they painted them they would be accounted Monsters In the heart of Mabumetans a tyrannous law is planted with sword and empalements No man is permitted to dispute upon it so many ridiculous and shamefull things there are in it which makes a soul recoyl in the very beginning that hath never so little humanity But Christian Religion hath appeared in the bosom of glory ever holy ever victorious ever opposed by the wicked and still triumphant over impiety It is enriched by its losses glorified by its persecutions established by its totterings and honoured by its wounds God for it hath opened all the most learned lips directed all the best pens and for it bound himself with as many witnesses as there are letters in the Scripture Have not we then cause to proclaim with Tertullian O how happie are O beatos nos quâ—rum causâ Deus jurat O miserrimos si nec juranti Deo credimus Tertul. c. 4. de poen we to say God engageth his own faith by oath to confirm ours And are not we worthie of all unhappiness if we any whit distrust this Eternal Veritie 3. You perhaps will say all it teacheth is very high and that to be faithfull one must as it were cease to be reasonable But tell not me faith is opposite to reason It is above not against it it commandeth our sense to obey God it laboureth to raise not demolish or if it demolish it is but by ruining rebellion to establish obedience What is more reasonable That to be faithfull is to be conformable to reason than to subject your reason to God and to suffer your self sweetly to pass along in the current of this puissant Authority which hath drawn so many Ages after it destroyed so many errours gained so many battels and won so many Crowns Faith is a great gift although it be the gift of the humble It is the first life of humane understanding Guillelm Paris de moribus Guillelm Lugdun de fide Prima vita mentis humanae c. the Jasper stone which serves for foundation of the Citie of God the virginitie of the soul the source which watereth all the felicities of mankind Why are you amazed when God would have you believe that which is above your understanding and surpasseth your knowledge It is a most happie ignorance said S. Hilarie which rather deserveth reward than pardon S. Hilarius 8. de Trinit Habet non taus veniam quam praemium ignorare quoâ— credaâ— Necessity of faith when one trusteth to the word of God in that be cannot comprehend You see how policie is guided by human faith without which all the world were nought but disorder and life a perpetual confusion And yet you think it a strange matter that God in his great policie exacteth a faith absolutely Divine to serve as an enterance into your felicity If you take away humane faith and stick fast in the resolution not to believe any thing but what you see you will become a monster fit to be excluded from humane Si quod nescitur credendum non est quomo do servient parentibus liberi quos parentes suos esse non credent society you will disturb the beds of the most chast wedlocks you will accuse the modesty of the sincerest women you will make the children to be doubted not onely by the fathers but the mothers also who are so often enforced to believe mid-wives and nurses you will almost make doubt whether you have a liver a heart a spleen or any lungs nor will believe you have any thing but that which you cannot behold without death These are considerations S. August l. de utilitate credendi Sine hoc nec ipsa exigi potest vita communis â—ypr in symbol Apostol which Saint Augustine and Theodoret pursued in the Treatise they wrote of Faith by which they shew the necessity of humane belief to pass on further to the Divine Then what occasion have you to make your sense rebel against God who becomes a surety for what he promiseth us since we every moment must give credit to the fidelitie of most abject persons in the actions of civil life Who seeth not that to take faith from Religion is to tear the Altar out of the Temple the apple from the eye and the heart out of humane body Do you not consider likewise that it was an invention Great Providence of God in the establishment of faith worthy the Eternal Wisdom to draw us to him by three degrees which are as three Heavens observeable in nature and above nature The first is that of science the second of faith the third of glory Science appertaineth not to the whole world All are permitted to live well but few to speak well Lactantius Some have not will for it others means Some have no inclination others can never make application Needs must then three parts of mankind be deprived of the knowledge of things most divine and persevere in ignorance according to the unhappiness of accidents without the help of faith which replenisheth us with the knowledge of God Besides we find sciences are extreamly sophisticate as well through the weakness of our understanding as the corruption of our manners Academies are framed as palaces of veritie yet it is never so ill handled as in places where shew is made to adore it Under the shadow of defence it is rent asunder and as the ancient Teletias it is strangled in making much of it What inconvenience then do we find if God to remedy this misery hath given us faith which contenteth the whole world by its universality as it assureth all well composed minds by its certainty If the perfection S. Thomas 2. 2. q. 2. art 3. of our nature had been limited within natural actions divine faith had not needed to conduct us But since God hath called us to a felicity above nature were it not fit we were directed thereto by a supernatural knowledge 4. Consequently look on the Operation of Religion The powerfull operations of out Religion Esther 10. the second note of its excellency you shall see the fountain of Mordecheus which in the beginning creepeth
on with little noise through the meadows and in an instant turneth into a great river and this river into light and this light into a sun but a sun which affordeth lustre and water to all the world The powers of the world which glitter with so much pomp have this almost ever proper to them to be either unprofitable or malign What did those great Philosophers who framed worlds in their idaeas What did the Plato's Aristotoles and Zeno's Could they ever perswade any one silly hamlet to live under those goodly Common-wealths they instituted on paper What did the Alexanders Caesars and Pompeys with all their forces but tend to the destruction of mankind It is a strange thing that the last Plin. l. 7. c. 26. Cruel vanity of Pompey of them caused a Temple to be built to Minerva over the gate whereof he commanded to be engraven that he had taken routed and slain two millions one hundred four-score and three thousand men pillaged or sunk eight hundred forty six ships made desolate one thousand five hundred thirty eight Cities and towns Behold how the great-ones of the earth make themselves remarkable as dreadfull Comets by the ruin of the whole world But Jesus in establishing his Religion would not be powerfull but to do good since He is the Adamant saith Salvianus who hath drawn Salvian de provid l. 4. â—halyâ—em affectu quasi spirante 〈◊〉 â—â—cris sui manibus this mightie mass of Iron of all Ages with the hands of his love and lively affections towards mankind How can the tree be better known than by the fruits And upon what may one more reasonably ground the judgement made of Religion than upon the works thereof What have all other Religions taught but to cut the throats of children to embrue Altars of Idols with bloud but to create ordures and abominations to cover secret mischiefs with the veyl of hypocrisie to authorize fables and canonize vice But Christian Religion is that alone which brought piety into the world where it was before unknown It is that which hath crushed murderous and adulterous gods under the ruins of their Temples which demolished profane altars suppressed sacrifices of humane bloud destroyed Amphitheaters where they gloried to tear men in pieces which confounded witch-crafts tamed pride quailed convetousness stopped the inundations of luxury repressed extravagancies of ambition choaked enraged desires of avarice and turned a land of Tigers Leopards and fiery Serpents into a Paradise of delights It is that which drew from Heaven all the virtues whereof some had before been unheard of others contemned the rest persecuted It is that which taught humility chastity virginity modesty temperance justice and fortitude That which discovered true prudence which opened the sources of contemplation which furnished out the Hoast of religious Orders which brake so many chains of the world trampled under foot so many Idols of gold and silver seated poverty in the throne of glory erected statues of innocency established purity even in thoughts Is it not that which so many Martyrs Confessours Doctours Virgins have done whose triumphs we daily honour Is it not upon these that Jesus having vanquished so many monsters imprinted the rays of his sanctity which is preserved and maintained even in the corruption of Ages in the persons of so many as God hath reserved to himself Must we not confess that a life led according to the doctrine of Jesus Christ is a manifest conviction of all errours and a little miracle in the world 5. From thence when we consider by what means our Saviour hath wrought this establishment which are found so contrary to all humane ways and how he acteth in suffering how he draws to him in rejecting how he is exalted by his abasings glorified by his ignominie enriched by poverty how he doth raise by destroying how he lives by his death and is eternized by dying This is it which transporteth humane understanding into admiration of the greatness of our Religion 6. Finally if you also cast your eye on this last The repose which our faith promiseth perfection of Repose you shall well understand how Alexander after he had conquered the Persians being desirous to pass into the Indies those who thought they were at the worlds end disswaded him and said It was time for Alexander to rest where the sun Tempus est Alexandrum cum orbe sole desinere Senec. Suasor and the world ended But our Religion goes much further than the sun and this inferiour condition of the world It hath the total universe for object of its travel and the Kingdom of Heaven for its repose All other Sects proposed pleasures to themselves for object of their pretensions which might make them desire the body of a horse or a hog to enjoy it with the more advantage But God lifting us up to himself above the tracks of the sun and time promiseth the same delights which he hath for himself in the vision possession and fruition of that divine face which makes all the Happy (a) (a) (a) Scimus quoniam si terrestris domus nostrae habitationis hujus dissolvitur quòd aedisicationem a Deo habemus domum non manufactam aeternam in coelis 2 Cor. 5. Invisibilem tanquam videns sustinuit Heb. 11. 27. We know this house of morter and clay failing wherewith we are covered God hath prepared an eternal building for us in Heaven not made by the hand of man as the Apostle assureth us and as we shall deduce towards the end of these Treatises Thither it is our faith paceth roundly on beholding with a purified eye the lights of Heaven a God invisible as if he were already visible Unto this life it is we prepare our souls and begin on earth to make the first essays of Beatitude 7. I then demand of you O Noble men whether Errours of the times S. Hilarius l. 8. de Trinit Fidem potius ipsi constituunt quim accipiunt all this well considered you ought not to abhor these petty undertakers who seem to come into the world not to receive Rules of Faith in it but to prescribe them They who cannot reform a silly flie in the works of Nature will make themselves Monarchs in the belief of our faith and trick up a new this great work of Religion which derives its accomplishment from God They believe what pleaseth themselves to displease the prime Verity and create a new symbol in the chymaeraes of their wits to introduce an impiety into Christianity Needs must they have a fling at the Bible as if it were the book of a man labour about the fountain-heads of the four rivers of terrestrial Paradise the speaking serpent Noah's Ark the Tower of Babel the red Sea the jaw-bone and foxes of Sampson as if the Omnipotency of God were not a pledge sufficient enough against all these weaknesses and curiosities of wit which saith Tertullian Tert. de praescript Doctrinae
not yet come yet withal commanded this man who rather chose death than to become an Authour of impiety in the re-establishment of this Temple The rage of Idolaters by the Magi professed enemies Terrible persecution of our Religion was not wholly extinct in the bloud of Audas but stirred up a violent persecution which almost proceeded to the undermyning the foundations of Christian religion in Persia Men were every where seen to be flayed and roasted pierced with bodkins and arrows thereby becoming spectacles of terrour and pitie to all those who beheld them Some were exposed to wasps in the boyling ardours of the Sun Others thrown into caves and places filled with infection to be devoured by rats and slowly gnawn by ugly vermine Their members fell in pieces and their life daily distilled drop after drop their faith unshaken which the sword of persecution sought for even in their entrails Their members were not tormented for they had none but wounds for they were all over covered with them and as torments redoubled one upon another gave no end to their sufferings so God found the means to finish their pain and life by the eternity of their crowns The King seeing so dreadfull tortures rather served to publish the glory of the Combattants than ruin their virtue resolved upon other cruelties which being apparently less violent were in effect much more pernicious There were among the Christians two Lords of prime quality the one whereof was called Hormisdas the other Suenes who being the two eyes of the Court and Standard-bearers of Christianity the endeavour of the Gentils was most violent against them to force them to abjure Religion Hormisdas is first summoned Hormisdas â—he strength of his will to return to the Persian superstition and being sent for to the Palace the King who much esteemed him both for his great nobility for he was of the bloud Royal as also for the services his father had done to the Crown in the quality of the Governour of a Province unwilling to loose him he made tryal of all sorts of allurements to gain him to his opinion But the brave Champion stood firm in his belief telling the King with many excellent reasons that destroying the faith of his true God in Persia he would bury the loyalty due to his Majesty in the ruins thereof which was the cause that Ildegerdes in stead of yielding the homage he owed to reason and truth became furiously chollerick so that degrading him of honour and confiscating all his goods yea leaving him nought at all but a poor pair of linnen breeches he sent him out to keep the camels of the Army adding to this great inhumanity the most barbarous scorn could be invented against a gentleman endowed with such excelleÌ„t parts But this couragious heart which had studied the glory of the Cross in the deep abyss of the ignominie of Jesus drave camels before the eyes of an Army wherein he had commanded with such alacrity as others govern Empires and thought his nakedness more glorious than the purple of Monarchs The King one day beholding him out of a chamber window among the camels roasted under the scorching Sun and all covered over with dust felt his heart mollified by the effect of his own cruelty and calling him into his palace after he had laid before him the worth of his extraction and the noble employments wherewith he meant to honour him he clothed him with rich apparel and conjured him by all the ways of friendship to return to the throne of honour by forsaking his Religion But Hormisdas displeased with such discourse took the robes were cast over his shoulders and tore them in pieces in the Kings presence saying Sir keep your gifts and impieties and know Hormisdas will never do any thing unworthy his courage which was the cause Ildegerdes thrust him naked out of the Court and sent him back again to his camels where he ware out a long painful martyrdom The same storm fell at that time upon Suenes one of Suenes perfecuted the wealthiest and most powerful in the kingdom and who had a thousand servants in his family Officers were sent to seize on his whole estate possessed by him not to maintain riot but cherish piety so that in a short time he saw himself reduced to beggery But he weighing how Almighty God who clotheth Heaven with beauties of light and in the spring-time maketh a garment for the earth bordred and adorned with so many millions of flowers had for us put on nakedness scorned all these violences and said aloud They were not near taking away the treasure of faith he bare in his heart who attempted it on this silly moveable of fortune The King purposely to afflict him the more took all his children from him to thrust them into servitude and fetters if they would follow their fathers example wherewith somewhat softened seeing they snatched from between his arms those who in the imbecility of age had more need of his example than wealth he kissing them said Children Keep constantly An excellent instruction for children the faith of your poor father and leave greatness and worldly fortunes to others You shall ever be wealthie enough if you persist loyal to God Faith will wipe away your tears will enrich your povertie glorisie your chains and immortalize the honour of your death This persecution is a cloud that passeth but we shall quickly behold a bright day which neither admitteth end nor darkness This constancy which should make all the world Stranger persecution of a man wonder exasperated the infidels so that daily seeking out all the ways how to torment and burn him with a soft fire they advised to give the confiscation of all his goods to one of his servants who had been the most treacherous and cruel against his Master He had nothing left but a wife who possessed in his heart the place of those chast correspondencies which the law of God afforded him and she in the beginning making a shew of willingness inseparably to follow the fortune of her husband much comforted this generous soul who thought nothing was his but what he gained to Jesus Christ But behold a strong battery to take from him the remainders of his consolation The King caused this woman to be vehemently solicited to make a divorce from her husband and to marry his servant to whom he already had given possession of his great estate This at the first a little startled the soul of this Lady she yet having some humanity in her but saw her self encompassed with many kinred and worldly friends who suggested according to the maxims of impiety That it was a folly to forsake a blessing so present to run Violent temptation of a woman after a fantasie of felicitie That the command of Kings must be obeyed who are visible gods on earth That a husband despoiled of all his means retaineth nothing of man but bodie nor
their Minerva in marriage the Guardian-Goddess of their Citie who had refused all the gods This Prince was not amazed at their complement for he presently replied Their motion was gratefull But seeing Minerva was a great goddess he must suitably accommodate her to her dignity and therefore ordained they should find out six hundred thousand crowns to give her in marriage An Athenian thereupon replied Jupiter her father took the goddess Semele without demand of any portion But this was to little purpose their flattery cost them so great a sum that needs must they afterwards exact it with the peoples clamour many of them affixing pasquils upon Anthonies statue to deface false applauses by a just reproch If all flatterers were punished in such measure the number would be very small But since they find rewards where others received nothing but punishment it is no wonder the Ages are wholly drenched into servile complacence Never were Christian men seen to be more disposed to slavery The great eye of Divine Providence is taken away and all sense of Religion to adhere to men of gold and silver They cease not to deifie them and we may truly say the favour of the rich and great-ones of this Age is now adays become a false Divinity which receiveth Incense and Victims almost from all hands Notwithstanding he is cursed by the Prophet who putteth his trust in man to the exclusion of God and who thinking to fortifie himself throughly in the course of humane affairs makes to himself an arm of flesh and hay to raise fortunes which will vanish like phantasms For this cause I here purpose to present unto you some passages of Gods greatness to oppose them against the abjectness and infirmity of the mightiest on earth that so we may learn from this discourse to be replenished with a worthy estimation of the Divinitie and a knowledge of the nothing of the richest magnificences on earth The greatness of God compared to the low condition of men AL the praise of great things endeth in one ample word by how much the more an essence is simple by so much the fewer words shall we need to explicate it Of whom must we learn to speak of God but of God himself And what do we learn God is who he is from him but that he is what he is That is to say little and that is to say all For as S. Bernard hath excellently observed call God good call him great call S. Bernard l. 5. de consid Si bonum si magnum si beatum si sapientem vel quicquid aliud tale de Deo dixeris in hâ—c verbo instatiratur quod est Est N. mpe hoc est ei esse quod omnia esse Si centum talia addâ—â— non recessisti ab esse si ea dixeris nihil addidisti ad esse si nihil dixeriâ— nihil de eo minuisti him blessed call him wise call him all you can you find him included in this word When God said I am what I am he said He is all he is Adde hereunto a century of attributes you shall not go far from the essence If you speak them you adde nothing unto it if you mention them not you not at all lessen it S. Denys gives a particular reason thereof when he saith that (a) (a) (a) Greatnes of essence essence is the first and last pledge of Nature the most intimate most necessary most independent most simple and most perfect of all things in the world Behold the cause why the Celestial Father could say nothing better to the purpose of himself than (b) (b) (b) Ego sum qui sum Eternity of nothing first humiliation of man I am what I am Let us here then speak of the excellency of Gods Essence comprised under these words and oppose against it the frailty and nullity of our essence that penetrated with the greatness of the Omnipotent we may be drenched in the abyss of low humility 2. Our first abjectness and which is of power to humble those who think themselves the most able in the world is that we have been an eternity in nothing For if you mount still a cending upward to the source of time when you shall have reckoned millions of Ages you shall find nothing but labyrinths and abysses of this great eternity without end and when you shall present to your thoughts all that time which hath preceded be it real or imaginary you will be ashamed to see so many millions of years wherein you had not so much as the essence of a rush of a butter-flie or a silly gnat That Rodomont who threateneth to hew down mountains and thunder-strike mortals and thinks all the ample house of Nature was created onely for him who swalloweth the world by avarice and wastes it as fast by riot thirty or forty years ago was not able to contend for excellency with a catter-piller (c) (c) (c) Heâ—ierni quâ—â—pe sumus igâ—oramus quoniam sicut umbra dies nostri sunt super â—erram 〈◊〉 8. 9. Tâ—rtul adver Marâ— l. 1. c. 8. Vna germana divinitas nec de nè vitate nec de vetustate sed de sua vâ—ritate censetur Non babet tempus aeternitas omne enim tempus esi Deus si vetus est non erit si est novus non fuit What weakness what confusion of humane essence But thine O great God hath no beginning It hath seen all times unfolded from thy breast It hath assigned them measure and hath taken none from others for it self but its Eternity The beginning of the lives and reigns of all Caesars is reckoned but of Gods years no man hath a register He is neither young nor old ancient nor new Content your self with saying He is Eternal 3. The second point of our infirmity is that after Humiliation of death we have had being for a few years we shall be to speak according to the phrase of the world an eternity in a tomb as bodies confiscated by death abandoned to worms despoiled even to the bones become dust and consumed to be reduced into the mass of elements from whence we came I affirm the soul is immortal which many times serveth to immortalize its punishments I affirm the body riseth again although both being separated so long one from another no more make up a man The Axiom of S. Bernard Bernard c. 3. de animâ In non hominem vertitur omnis home Estne quicquam in terris tam magnum quod perire mundus sciat Senec. l. 4. natur qq c. 1. must be made good Every man is reduced to be no longer a man So many persons go daily in and out of the world as small drops of water into the seas The ocean is no whit altered either by their enterance in or passage out Seneca was astonished how one could say there were Comets which presaged the death of great men It is not credible
it is a distinct question which would well deserve a much longer discourse than this present design permitteth (b) (b) (b) Vanity of Astrology We have shewed in some other former tracts and will also manifest once again how vain and frivolous the science of Horoscopes is being taken in that height whereunto the vanitie of some impostours hath raised it not here intending to condemn those who handle Astrologie within limits permitted by the Church Let us now be contented to say it is a savage ignorance to seek to infer from the course of planets an absolute necessity upon mens actions since even judicial Astrologers the most fervent and obstinate durst never proceed so far All say the stars make impressions of certain qualities upon bodies and minds but that they may be diverted by precaution which gave authority to the famous axiom of Ptolomy cited by S. Thomas in the book of destiny affirming (a) (a) (a) S. Thom. opusc defat Sapiens dominabitur astris the wise man shall rule the stars (b) (b) (b) Tertull. de Ido c. 9. Expelluntur mathematici sicut angeli eorum urbe Italia interdicitur mathematicis sicut coelum Angelis Non potest regnum coelorum sperare cujus digitus aut radius abâ—titur coelo Tertullian in the treatise of Idolatry said pertinently that evil Angels are made prime masters of the curiosity of Horoscopes and that as they were banished from heaven so are their disciples from the earth as by an extension of the divine sentence He addeth that man should not at all pretend to the Kingdom of heaven who makes a practise to abuse both heaven and stars It seemes God pursueth those who addict themselves to such vanities as fugitives from Divine Providence And it is very often observed that great-ones who are ensnared in the servitude of this curiosity have felt violent shocks and many times most dreadful events (c) (c) (c) Alexander de Angelis l. 4. c. 40. Henery the second to whom Carden and Gauricus two lights of Astrology had foretold verdant and happy old Age was miserably slain in the flower of his youth in games and pleasures of a Turneament The Princes his children whose Horoscopes were so curiously looked into and of whom wonders had been spoken were not much more prosperous Zica King of the Arabians to whom Astrology had promised long life to persecute Christians died in the year of the same prediction Albumazar the Oracle of Astrology left in writing that he found Christian religion according to the influence of stars should last but a thousand four hundred years he already hath belyed more than two hundred and it will be a lie to the worlds end The year 1524. wherein happened the great conjunction of Saturn Jupiter and Mars in the sign Pisces Astrolgers had foretold the world should perish by water which was the cause many men of quality made arks in imitation of Noâ—hs to save themselves from the deluge all which turned into laughter The year 1630. was likewise threatened by some predictions with an inundation should drown half mankind which proved false by a season quite contrary It was foretold a Constable of France well known that he would dye beyond the Alps before a city besieged in the 83. year of his Age and that if he escaped this time he was to live above a hundred years which was notoriously untrue this man deceasing in the 84. year of a natural death A Mathematician of John Galeazzo Duke of Milan who promised himself long life according to his planets was slain at the same time when he prognosticated this by the commandment of the same Duke Another Astrologer of Henry the seaventh King of England advised this great Prince to take heed of Christmas night was asked whither his own star would send him that night to which he answered to his own house in security of peace Yet was he instantly sent to the tower to celebrate the vigil of this great festival One might reckon up by thousands the falshoods miseries and disasters which wait on these superstitions Who can then sufficiently deplore the folly of Existimant tot circa unum caput tumultuantes Deos. Aurelius one who forsaking the great government of God the fountain of wits and treasure of fortunes makes himself a slave of Mercury or Saturn contrary to the voice of Scripture decision of Councels Oracles of holy Fathers Laws of Emperours consultations of the wise experience of people and consent of all the most solid judgments We will not labour to ruin a doctrine forsaken Against the necessity inferred of prescience both by honour and reason We onely speak against those who will infer a necessity derived from divine prescience by force of which sins themselves according to their understandings are directly caused by the decrees of heaven It is the opinion of Velleius Paterculus who said destiny did all the good and Ita efficitur quod est miserrimum ut quod accidit etiam merito accidisse videatur casus in cuâ—pam transeat evil in the world and that it was a miserable thing to attribute that which proceedeth from above to the demerit of men and to make the ordinances of heaven to pass as crimes of mortals This Maxim was defended by Hereticks even to fury and it is a wonder men have been so wicked as to burden the prime sanctity with all the ordures of the world We well know if destiny be taken for the ordinance by which God establisheth the lives of particulars and states of Empires it is nothing else but the Divine Providence whereof we speak but good heed must be taken from concluding sins within the list of Gods will who onely being pleased to permit them can not in any sort establish or will them And it is here an impertinent thing to say All God hath foreseen shall necessarily happen otherwise he would be deceived in his foresight which cannot be affirmed without blasphemy but he foresaw all future things they then of necessity will happen Who sees not it is a childish toy and that this captious argument must be overthrown by saying All which God hath foreseen necessarily happeneth by necessity and all he foresaw indifferently happeneth by indifferency Now so it is that of all which dependeth on our liberty he hath not foreseen any thing necessarily but indifferently We must then conclude that all is done by indifferency not fatal necessity Hearken to the excellent decision of S. Iohn Damascene Damas l. 2. Orth. fidei c. 32. God foresaw all things but he determineth not all Omnia quidem Deus praenoscit non omnia tamen praefinit praenoscit enim ea quae in nostrâ sunt potestate non autem ea praefinit quia non vult peccatum nec cogiâ— ad virtutem things He well foresaw all which is and shall be in your power but he determines not because he willeth not sin nor will
was that putting him on the discourse of his education he said his father did all he could to win him to Christianity but that he ever stuck to his mothers side not enduring the impertinencies of a Religion which professeth a son as old as his father a mother without a husband a child-birth joyned to virginity a God crucified a Cross divinized and such other extravagancies whereat he set himself a jeering with so much tattle that he gained the Emperours heart Scoffs have this proper in them that they penetrate Scoffing dangerous very far into jocund minds and though they proceed from a soft spirit they often make more impression than iron The Emperour so well liked his humour that he gave him a charge in the Citie of Alexandria with two Companies to forrage round about and cleanse the Countrey from the sect of Christians The mother conceived much joy thereat and the son who seemed already to touch Heaven with a finger put himself into action for accomplishment of his Commission But O the bottomless depth of Gods judgements Admirable Conversion Behold he going about to surprize is surprized and of a Lion is become a Lamb and of one victorious a victim He being near the Citie of Apamea in Syria the earth shook under his feet the air was enflamed with lightening and thunders roared in the clouds a voice came from Heaven which said unto him Neanias whither goest thou and to what purpose is this equipage He although much astonished answered it was for the Christians The voice replied Is it then to me you go But he having the hardness to ask it who are you saw a Cross in the air and heard these words I am Jesus the Crucified Son of the living God and you shall hereafter be a vessel of election for me This vision beat him down to raise him like S. Paul and of a persecutour in a moment made him a Confessour He secretly sent for a Gold-smith and causing him to make a rich Cross he embraced it he kissed it and carried it hanging about his neck to engrave it in his heart In stead of persecuting the Christians he turned his arms against a race of Sarazâ—ns who over-ran the Countrey and ravished maids to satisfie their bruitishness which filled houses with terrour and tears The Cross gave great success to his arms and in short time having chased away this pernicious faction he went to the Citie of Antioch being already fully instructed in the points of his religion The mother who knew not what had passed in Inter-view between Procopius and his mother this maatter entertains him with much joy not satisfying her self either with his sight or in congratulating his triumphs But he who no longer cared for any thing under God said I have obtained other victories which you know not And what replied the mother Madam I have vanquished my self by the grace of God and departing hence a Pagan am returned a Christian desiring nothing more in the world of you but since you gave me birth you will take example from me How my son sayes the mother you are disposed to be merry No replies he and drawing out his Cross behold said he the marks of the Religion I profess She much amazed drew him aside into her closet and asked him who had recommended this abomination to him and whether he were become a fool There are none but fools said he who with reverence look after deaf and dumb gods the time is come these feeble Deities must be abjured and all the works of darkness and speaking this he ransacked his mothers closet which was very sumptuous breaking and throwing down the golden and silver idols and withal saying these silly entertainments were onely good to make money of to distribute among the poor Theodosia was so offended at this act that without Revenge of Theodosia any regard of bloud and nature she went to the Emperour and related all had passed resolving rather to deliver her sole son to executioners than to loose the satisfaction of her revenge Diocletian as much surprized with astonishment as enflamed with anger having praised the mother for her zeal wrote to Justus Governour of Palestine and commanded him to seize on the person of Neanias and to seek by all means to reduce him to obedience and in case of refusal to take away his sword and proceed against him with all the rigour of punishments ordained for Christians The Governour having received the Emperours Mandate went with his Guards to the house of Neanias and signified the tenour of his Commission withal delivering into his hand the Emperours Letters wherein perceiving some blasphemies against our Saviour he tare them in pieces and said to Justus Constancy of Procopius Execute your Commission I have a bodie to suffer but not a soul to betray my Religion The other conjured him by all the ways of friendship to take pitie of his age and not become an enemy to his own life and fortune adding timorarious counsels are sources of irrecoverable evils But the valorous Champion drawing out his sword threw it at the Judge's feet professing he was wholly gained to Jesus Christ whereupon he fettered him and led him to Caesarea In few days he was brought to the Palace to answer His sufferings for Religion upon accusations objected which he most freely averred persisting in the confession of his faith with admirable constancy which was the cause the Judge proceeding according to ordinary forms exercised against the faithfull made him cruelly to be beaten with rods in sight of all the world Diocletian thought by these shamefull and barbarous ways to stifle Christianity but these outrages practised upon men of quality enkindled the courage of Christians and sowed seeds of Martyrs Many Pagans were seen who deplored this punishment beholding a young Lord whom they had lately seen triumphant in courtesie in arms and valour delivered into the hands of hangmen to be used like a thief The Martyr perceiving the peoples tears said Fathers and Brethren bewail not my sufferings lament your own errours my pains will pass away but the torment of infidelitie shall be everlasting Then lifting his eyes to Heaven he servently besought God to fortifie him in his combats to whom he resigned the total glory Justus seeing him more couragious than he wished sent him back unto the prison where he was comforted with the sight of Angels and it is said our Saviour himself appearing baptized him with his own hands and gave him the name of Procopius and heartened him bravely to finish his combats The next day he came forth of prison like the Sun out of clouds his body reflecting lustre and majesty when they thought him spent with excess of torments The whole Citie was filled with rumour and many souldiers secretly coming to the Bishop Leontius were converted to faith whereof the Governour advertised made them presently to be beheaded fearing to exasperate the Bands if he
for an Epistle of Libanius and it seemed to him he who was King of words might become a King over hearts and Empires His spirit of fire took nourishment on all sides and devoured as well cedars as thorns He as yet retained some affection towards the knowledge of sacred things but curiosities predominated in his mind He penetrated all he could into the secrets of sciences to loose the mystery of faith It is the beginning of infidelity to deifiea man by the tongue and to think the Kingdom of God consisteth in words Who hath not faith and virtue satisfying himself with learning and sciences resembleth those Indian trees which bear muskie Pears whose smell is very oderiferous and tast pleasing but yield a pestilent juice wherewith they use to envenom arrows Julian still manuring his studies and neglecting How he became depraved piety became very vain greedy of slightest applauses a great talker a profuse scoffer extreamly curious to know things future doubtfull in faith temerarious in search of things divine wedded to his own opinion obstinate in his errours and lastly an enemy of Christianity S. Gregorie saith he then observed in him an inconstant Judgement of S. Gregorie Nazianzen wit a fickle head a wandering eye unsteddy shoulders roaming feet vehement laughter garbs and countenances immodest questions ridiculous answers much worse and many other things which promised nothing good in him Maximus a Pagan Philosopher and a Magician concluded his corruption pouring into the bottom of his soul the blackest impiety that might be He was twenty years a Christian and ten projecting the change of his Religion still much tottering yet never daring to let it break forth for fear of the Emperour Constantius his cousin who was very suspitious and one who never would have suffered this alteration of Religion in him He kept him much under without train officers money saw him very seldom and used him with severity so that Julian feared the Court like fire and never durst lift up his eyes before Constantius whom he called the hangman of his family Fear which is an ill Mistress of duty held him in under the mask of Religion whilest the Emperour lived who nothing at all mis-doubting his wicked purposes associated him to the Empire very solemnly For having in a great assembly of his States pronounced a brave Oration upon the choice he made of him he with his own hands gave him the Purple Robe calling him Brother and conjuring him to set his shoulders equal with his to support the burden of Empire and to knit this amity with a stronger knot he gave him his sister Helena in marriage who was not long liv'd All ceremonies of dignity and wedlock done he sent him to govern the Gauls where he performed many brave feats of arms against the Almaignes Then was the time when in so great liberty he was He is a Christian for policy and was an Infidel in his soul uttterly depraved yet still so reserved that although already a Pagan in soul he durst not pass great festivals without going to Church and performing all the ceremonies of Christian Religion as he did on the day of Epiphanie whilest he was in France according to the observation of Ammianus Marcellinus He Marcel l. 21. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls vaunted in an Epistle he wrote to the Athenians that he had three times passed the Rhene pacified the Gauls subjugated all the rebellious towns delivered twenty thousand prisoners out of the hands of Barbarians and sent much matter of triumph to Constantius But whether it were that vanity by which he extolled his slightest prowesses made him odious or whether such as envied his glory did him ill service with the Emperour all he did had not that great splendour which he passionately desired in all his actions Constantius who ever dreaded this his nature much like a standing water caused him to be narrowly looked into at first by trusty men but he by little and little shook off this yoke and made himself to be beloved as much as he might among the Gauls as well the natives of the countrey who were pleased with the freeness of his humour as the souldiers whom he secretly won with fair promises and large hopes In the end whilest the Emperour who was an heretick Subtility of Julian to invade the Empire began the persecution of the Eastern Church this man prepared a faction against him in the West For imagining he was already strong enough he caused himself to be proclaimed Emperour by secret practises feigning otherwise to refuse all he desired He began to play this goodly game with impatient ardour being then at Paris for there it was where the legions of souldiers encompassing him at the shutting in of evening called him Augustus with loud cries whereupon he at first made a shew he would flie and hide himself but at break of day he appeared gently reprehending the souldiers for what they had done and apparently seeming to refuse the title of Emperour They who were hired to undertake this attempt cried out so much the louder as he the more denied the honour offered him He in the mean time to omit nothing in this dissimulation held forth his hand like a suppliant and intreated this might not be wherewith they seemed offended unless he speedily embraced what they presented He was requested that to content the Legions he would instantly grace himself with a diadem He answered It was an ornament he never thought upon nor regarded it at all Some thereupon cried out aloud he might do well to put his wifes dressings upon his head But he replied It were no good presage to adorn a Caesar's head with womens attires Whereupon some said he must then make use of rich hors trappings to counterfeit a diadem But Jalian opposing it said He weither would be a woman nor a horse The Count Maurus who had the word pulled off his chain and put it over his head the souldiers redoubling their acclamations with much alactity When altogether unable sufficiently to dissemble this jugling he not onely accepted this diadem but promised to each souldier five crowns of gold and a pound of silver and then presently dispatched an Embassadour to the Emperour with express letters to this purport That the souldiers had saluted him Emperour which Embassage of Julian in the beginning he much disliked endeavouring to repress them as well by authoritie as fair speeches but they persisted so obstinate in their enterprize that he should have incurred the peril of his life had be not given them satisfaction Behold the cause wherefore he was enforced to take the diadem with all possible repugnance But that he more esteemed the judgement and approbation of Constantius than all the Empires in the world and besought him not to hearken to envious spirits who laboured to embroil them to advance their own ends but that regarding his birth and loyaltie he would confirm him in the
ground Saint John Climacus saith fire is no more contrary to water than rash judgement is to the state of repentance It is a certain sign that we do not see our own sins when we seek curiously after the least defects of our neighbour If we would but once enter into our selves we should be so busie to lament our own lives that we should not have time to censure those of others Aspirations O Judge most redoubtable who dost plant thy Throne within the heart of man who judgest the greatest Monarchs without leaving them power to appeal Thy judgements are secret and impenetrable That which shines to our eyes like a Diamond is like a contemptible worm in thy ballance That which we value as a Star thou judgest to be a coal We have just so much greatness virtue and happiness as we have by enterance into thy heart And he whom thou esteemest needs not the judgement of mortal man No innocent is justified nor guilty person condemned without thee and therefore I will from henceforth judge onely according to thee I will lay down all my affections and take thine so far as I shall be able and I will account nothing great but what shall be so in thy esteem The Gospel upon Wednesday the fourth week in Lent S. John 9. Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle ANd Jesus passing by saw a blind man from his nativitie and his Disciples asked him Rabbi Who hath sinned this man or his parents that he should be born blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the vvorks of God may be manifested in him I must vvork the vvorks of him that sent me whiles it is day the night cometh vvhen no man can vvork As long as I am in the vvorld I am the light of the vvorld When he had said these things he spit on the ground and made clay of the spittle and spred the clay upon his eyes and said to him Go wash in the Pool of Silo which is interpreted sent He vvent therefore and vvashed and he came seeing Therefore the neighbours and they vvhich had seen him before that he vvas a beggar said Is not this he that sate and begged Others said that this is he But others no not so but he is like him But he said that I am he They said therefore to him How vvere thine eyes opened He answered that man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said to me Go to the Pool of Silo and vvash and I vvent and vvashed and saw And they said to him Where is he He saith I know not They bring him that had been blind to the Pharisees And it vvas the Sabbath vvhen Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes Again therefore the Pharisees asked him how he saw But he said to them he put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and I see Certain therefore of the Pharisees said This man is not of God that keepeth not the Sabbath But others said How can a man that is a sinner do these signs And there vvas a schism among them They say therefore to the blind again Thou vvhat sayest thou of him that opened thine eyes And he said that he is a Prophet The Jews therefore did not believe of him that he had been blind and saw until they called the Parents of him that saw and asked them saying Is this your son vvhom you say that he vvas born blind how then doth he now see His parents answered them and said We know that this is our son and that he was born blind but how be now seeth vve know not or vvho hath opened his eyes vveknow not ask himself he is of age let himself speak of himself These things his parents said because they feared the Jews For the Jews had now conspired that if any man should confess him to be Christ he should be put out of the Synagogue Therefore did his parents say that he is of age ask himself They therefore again called the man that had been blind and said to him Give glorie to God vve know that this man is a sinner He therefore said to them Whether he be a sinner I know not one thing I know that vvhereas I was blind now I see They said therefore to him What did he to thee How did he open thine eyes He answered them I have now told you and you have heard vvhy vvill you hear it again vvill you also become his Disciples They reviled him therefore and said be thou his Disciple but vve are the Disciples of Moses vve know that to Moses God did speak but this man vve know not vvhence he is The man answered and said to them For in this it is marvellous that you know not vvhence he is and he hath opened mine eyes And vve know that sinners God doth not hear But if a man be a server of God and do the vvill of him him he heareth From the beginning of the vvorld it hath not been heard that any man hath opened the eyes of one born blind unless this man vvere of God he could not do any thing They answered and said to him Thou vvast vvholly born in sins and dost thou teach us And they did cast him forth Jesus heard that they cast him forth and vvhen he had found him he said to him Dost thou believe in the Son of God He answered and said Who is he Lord that I may believe in him And Jesus said to him Both thou hast seen him and he that talketh vvith thee he it is But he said I believe Lord and falling down he adored him Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all brightness who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles as the Sun doth with the hours of the day gives eyes to a blind man and doth it by clay and spittle to teach us that none hath power to do works above nature but he that was the Authour of it On the other side a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest sight and being restored to light he renders again the same to the first fountain from whence it came He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth and of a poor beggar becomes a confessour and after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities We should in imitation of him love the light by adoring the fountain of it and behave our selves as witnesses and defenders of the truth 2. God is a light and by his light draws all unto him he makes a break of day by his grace in this life which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity But many lose themselves in this world some for want of light some by a false light and some by having too much light 3. Those lose themselves for want of light who are not at all instructed in the faith and maxims of Christian Religion and those instead of
Ambrose 207 His death 215 Ammon plotteth incest with his sister 407 He is counselled to this sin by Joadab ib. He dissembleth fickness ib. Thamars advise to him ib. He despiseth his dishonoured sister ib. He is slain 408 Anaâ—tatius fearing thunder is slain by a Thunder bolt 288 Angelical Aenigma's 56 Why bad Angels punished without mercy 23 Antipater his cunningness in geeting the kingdom of Judea 115 He calumniateth his brothers 130 He is thrown from the top of the wheel 132 His Conspiracy is discovered 133 His wofull event ib. His Accusation before his Father ib. His death 135 Wicked Antiothus punished 348 He is delivered Hostage to the Romanes 347 His manners 393 He warreth against Ptolomey ib. The war between them is ended by a marriage ib. Antonie's generous act 352 A trick of an Ape 43 Apes in the Court of Solomon 46 A pretty tale of an Ape ib. Intellectual Appetite faulty 37 Appetite of man infinite 436 Apple of discord 145 Arbogastus 210 Aristobulus taken prisoner by Pompey and Jerusalem become tributarie 115 His pitifull death 119 Arius and his qualities 251 Original of Arians ib. Their proceedings ib. Condemnation of Arius 154 End of Arius ib. Arts tributarie to Great-men 16 Astrologie the vanity thereof 360 Athanasius 254 Athenais her admirable adventure 141 She pleadeth her cause before Pulcheria 142 Her Conversion ib. She could not brook Pulcheria 145 Audas destroyeth a Pyraum 942 Sr. Augustine converted by Sr. Ambrose 188 His wit ib. His inclination ib. He studied Judicial Astrologie 189 His Religion ib. Curiositie Presumption and Love the three impediments in the conversion of Sr. Augustine 190 The Oeconomy of God in the conversion of S â— Augustine 193 He is baptized by Sr. Ambrose 198 B THe Bat employeth her eyes to make her wings 382 An excellent Act of Bayard the Cavalier 227 Opinion concerning Beatitude 435 The essential point of Beatitude is union with God 437 Three acts of Beatitude ib. Three effects of Beatitude 438 Excellency of Beatike science ib. Beautie of beatike love as it is compared to the weakness of worldly love ib. Beautie condemned by Idolaters 9 Defence of Beautie as the gift of God 10 Natural Beautie of men praised by Poets ib. Beautie an instrument of God ib. Beautie of our Saviour ib. Power of Beautie 11 Beautie of Constantine 16 Abuse of Beautie damnable ib. Vanitie of Beautie 93 Tyrannie of the Belly 52 Binet a Reverend Father of the Church 174 Boetius his Nobilitie 276 His eminent wisdom and learning 278 He was stiled the Father and Light of his Countrey 287 His opinion of the providence of God 291 His death ibid. Boleslaus his notable act 5 Boniface martyred 380 C CAligula a great scoffer 47 The devils busied about Calumny 46 From whence it proceedeth 47 Horrour of Calumny ibid. Calumny plotted against the sons of Mariamne 128 Calumny of Fausta against her son Crispus 244 Her rage turned into pitie ibid. Her Calumny discovered ibid. Her death ibid. Camerarius his observation concerning the Heron. 405 The excellency of a brave Captain 217 The delight of Histories to praise Captains 218 Singular commendation of Cato 13 The praise of the strength and courage of Cato ibid. The Stone Ceraunia 7 Charity excellently displayed 2 Charity towards God and our neighbour defined 469 Charity in Conversation defined ibid. Charity with the acts thereof 91 An excellent passage of Charity ibid. Charls of Anjou is taken and put to death 402 Charlemaign his goodness and indulgence 403 Chastity defined 468 Three sorts of Chastity with the acts thereof 85 86 A royal act of Chastity in a Souldier 230 S. Paul calleth Chastity Sanctification 304 Excellent Instructions for Children 343 Chrysaphius an heretical Eunuch projecteth ruin to Theodosius his Court. 147 He entangleth the Emperour and his Wife in the heresie of the Eutyches 148 Christians Warfare delicate 2 To do good and suffer wrong the true Character of a Christian 48 Virtue of the first Christians 53 The happiness to be born a Christian 339 Solitude of Christian Religion ibid. Clergy reformed 149 Clotilda 309 Her birth and education ibid. Clodovaeus requireth her in marriage ibid. An Embassadour is dispatched to the King of Burgundie concerning the Marriage 310 Her first Request to King Clodovaeus her husband 312 How she behaved her self in the Conversion of her husband 313 She converteth her husband 315 How Clodovaeus behaved himself after Baptism 316 Communion without preparation what it is 72 What ought to be done in the day of receiving the Communion 73 Considerations for Communions ibid. Fruits of Communions ibid. General Confession of sin the beginning of spiritual life 69 Practice of ordinary Confession 70 Three sorts of Conscience from whence Impiety doth spring 26 Horrible estate of a sinfull Conscience 27 Bruitish Conscience ibid. Curious Conscience ibid. Nothing so pleasing as the house of a good Conscience 48 Constancy in Tribulation doth manifestly appear in the death of Sosia and Eleonora 411 Constantia her exceeding Clemency to the Son of Charls of Anjou being condemned to death 403 Constantine's Law 12 His greatness 233 His Nobility 235 His notable Moderation ibid. He was bred up in the Court of Diocletian 237 His first battel against Lycinius 242 His great victory 243 His first Marriage 244 The beginning of his Conversion 246 His absolute Conversion ibid. His Baptism ibid. The History of his Baptism drawn from the acts of Saint Sylvester is more easie piously to be believed than effectually proved 247 His Oration ibid. The great alteration of the world by his Oration and Example 248 His Piety Devotion and Humility 249 He made an Oration in the Assembly of Bishops 253 His Successours 259 Constantinople built 254 His death 274 Divers degrees of Contemplation 384 Contrition what it is 71 Cross of Nature what it is 52 Honour of the Cross 251 The Court full of Envie 17 Comparison between a Courtier and a Religious man 18 A Courtier frustrated of his hope how he is afflicted 352 Courage compared to the River Tygris 13 Baseness of Courage in some Noble-men 14 Crispus his death 245 Curiosity and the Description thereof 188 The whole world an enemy of Curiosity 405 Impious Curiosity pulls out both its eyes 27 Dangerous Curiosity 28 D PAins of the Damned are eternal 431 Three Reasons to prove the eternity of the Damned ibid. An excellent Conceit of Picus Mirandula concerning the punishment of the Damned 432 Strange Narration of Palladius concerning the Damned ibid. Souls of the Damned tormented by their lights ibid. Daniel and his Companions bred at Court 16 Daniel the Hermite having seen a Vision went to Constantine and spake to Eulogius 364 David his remedy against a malevolent Tongue 48 Day is precious 94 Motives to pass the Day well ibid. Every Day a Table of Life ibid. To provide in the evening for the Day to come 95 Three parts of the Day ibid. Five things to be practised in the Day ibid. Desperate
facil and sweet The one took the golden branch with violence the other gathered it gently as if the Providence of God had put it into his hands Now Raymond not satisfied with seminaries of students embraced the conquest of the Holy Land and stirred up many cities of Italy in this matter exhorting them to make contributions wherein he was so perswasive that the city of Pisa alone which is none of the greatest furnished him with devotists who made of one sole free gift twenty five thousand crowns which he would by no means handle leaving it to the dispose of the Pope who would not give ear to the erection of new Colledges so much were the affairs of the Papacy embroiled He more easily obtained one thing which was one of his three wishes to wit the suppression of the books of Averroes an enemy to Christianity which many with too much curiosity read in the Schools of Philosophy God many times grants good dispositions to his servants whereof he will not they have the accomplishment making them appear more eminent in sufferings then actions This great man was of the number of those for he made himself most remarkable in the love of suffering wandring over the world in extreme poverty great incommodities of heat cold nakednesse hunger scorns contempts dolours banishments dangers both by sea and land shipwracks treasons chains prisons and a thousand images of death One day travelling alone through a huge forrest he met two lions which caused some little fear of death in him as he witnesseth in his writings desirous to live that he might yet on earth serve his well-beloved but in this great surprisall be had a thought that love would put it self into the midst of this passage and make him endure death with the more contentment herewith he comforted himself and the lions drew near and licked his face bathed in tears of Devotion and kissed his feet and hands doing him no harm Men were more sharp and discourteous to him who ceased not to drag him before Tribunals to charge him with calumnies for his extraordinary wayes to give sentence against him but in all he appealed to his well-beloved who never forsook him Seeing himself destitute of all succour for the conversion of Sarazens he passed alone into the kingdome of Thunes where he freely disputed with the chief of the Mahometans concerning the greatnesse and excellency of our Faith against the impostures of Mahomet which was the cause that he was immediately cast into prison and condemned by the King himself to have his head cut off to which he disposed himself with an incomparable fervour of love At which time one of the prime men of State in the countrey who had conceived well of him out of the admiration of his wit perswaded the King to be satisfied with banishing him out of his kingdome and that by this way he should do all he was obliged unto for the preservation of his own law and should get the reputation of a mild Prince among Christians abstaining from the bloud of such a man which he did but he was thrust out of Thunes with so many blows and ignominies that he therein gained a noble participation in the Crosse of Jesus Christ The fervour which incessantly boiled in his veins suffered him not to be long at rest He went into the kingdome of Bugia as Jonas into Nineveh crying out aloud through the streets that there was in the world but one Religion and that was ours and that the law of Mahomet was a meer imposture and a fantasie He was instantly laid hands on as a mad-man and lead to the high Priest named Alguassin who asked him whether he knew not the Laws of the countrey which forbad him upon pain of death to speak against Mahometisme To which he answered he could not be ignorant of it but that a man who knew the truth of Christian Religion as he did could do no other but seal it with his blood This Alguassin proud of science perceiving him to be a man of a good wit entred farther into discourse with him where he found himself shamefully gravelled which made him forsake the Syllogismes of the School to have recourse to the arguments of tyrants which are arms and violence for he caused him to be presently taken as an Emissary Goat there being not any Mahometan hand so little which delighted not to hale and leade him with blows untill they brought him into the most hideous prison which was rather a retreat then a gaol where he endured a thousand miseries with an unshaken constancy The Genowayes his good friends who traffick in these parts moved with his affliction got with good round summes of money a more reasonable prison for him where he began again to dispute with the most learned of the sect and made himself to be so much admired by those his adversaries that they endeavoured to gain him to their Religion promising him wife family honours and riches as much as he could wish but he mocked at all their machinations and seeing them fervent to dispute he persisted therein with great strength of reason and courage They said words were lost in the air but they must take the pen in hand and write on both sides with which he was infinitely pleased and spent nights and dayes in prison to compose a great volumn for defence of our Religion But the King of Bugea coming into his capitall city dissipated all these counsels much fearing the touch of his Law which was gold of a base allay and caused him the second time to come out of prison From thence he sought to get something in Greece passing over into Cyprus where he disputed against the Nestorians and Jacobites who rendred him poison for the honey of his discourses whereof he was like to die had he not been preserved by divine Providence and the assistance of a good Angel The blessed man had already passed forty years in a thousand toils and crosses and spared not to suffer by reason of the flames of love which burnt his heart but he knew not whether he suffered or no so much he took to heart the cup which God had mingled for him Verily our Lord appearing one day unto him and asking him if he well knew what love was of which he so many years had made profession he very excellently answered If I do not well know what Love is I at least well understand what Patience is meaning that it was to suffer since nothing troubled him for the satisfaction he had in Gods causes And another time being asked whether he had Patience he said All pleased him and that he had no cause of impatience which onely belongs to them who keep the possession of their own will Lastly being about fourscore years of age he considered within himself what he said afterwards that love was a sea full tempests and storms where a port was not to be hoped for but with the losse of himself and
at once when it is born with us and Utility of melancholy proportioned to the functions of our mind and motions of our body It is a land which seemeth somewhat dry but it hideth great treasures What would become Saturnus fuerit opti mè constitutus largitur scientiae profunditatem of subtilty of wit weight of judgement in conceits invention in sciences indefatigable labour in affairs constancy in resolutions a corrective for light humours beseemlinesse in modesty perseverance in devotion strength in meditation constancy in serious life patience in contempt exercise of humility if the Melancholick temperature and Saturnian influence did not thereto contribute solidity It 's that which maketh great Captains sage Counsellours of State divine Philosophers and the most famous Religious From whence it cometh that the Antiens called it the passion of Demy-gods Onely heed must be taken it run not into some excesse and render not nature sharp criticall Abditas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gellius l. 18 cap. 7. presumptuous inflexible and odious For by that means certain spirits too much do sooth their own humour using therein not any correction make themselves among company that which Aconite is among plants They are insupportable in conversation and Sad spirits oft-times mingling vanity with sharpnesse there is not any thing wherein they will not find somewhat to reprehend in words in sciences in affairs in sport in recreation in voyce in garb in habits and because nothing pleaseth them they many times displease all the world It is a great prudence in such as feel themselves naturally disposed to Melancholy to cultivate their mind and to take from it all which may make it harsh by a perpetuall countrepoise of sweetnesse and mildnesse The wicked Rutilius thought all the Anachorets Rutilius in Itinerat and Religious were sick of Bellerophon's disease which is a furious sadnesse but he is grosly deceived For it is undoubted there are great Religious persons who drawing nought out of Melancholy but solidity and constancy do associate unto it out of virtue a singular serenity of life so that it is a hard matter to find any of a humour more pliant and pleasing Palladius Pallad in hist Laufia in his Lausiac History maketh mention of a famous Abbot named Apolon who was the father and master of about five hundred Monks whom he maintained in so perfect alacrity that their countenances seemed to bear the characters of Celestiall tranquillity There were none sad and if any one seemed to be touched with heavinesse the good Abbot drove it away by his discourse as swiftly as the Northern wind dispelleth the clouds saying unto them It was for Jews for Gentiles and for sinnes to be contristated but good religious men ought to entertain an eternall commerce with Joy S. Athanasius saith of S. Anthony that his face S. Athan. c. 40. in vita S. Anton. was a looking-glasse wherein God caused the sanctity of his mind to be resplendent and that he alwayes seemed chearfull as if the bloomings of his heart had Dionyfius exiguus in vita S. Pachomii put his venerable face all into blossome So much saith Denis surnamed the little S. Pachomius a man very eminent who in body altogether dissolved with austerities and maladies did in conversation retain the vigour of holy alacrity It is an imitation of the Saviour of the world who according to the Prophet Esay was to be neither sad nor tempestuous And as pious Anna of whom is spoken in the first book of Non erit tristis neque turbulenrus Isa 42. 4. 1 Regum Vultus ejus non sunt amplius in diversa mutad Kings forsook all the countenances and crabbed looks which sadnesse caused in her so soon as she had conceived the little Samuel so we must inferre that a soul which is honoured with the spirituall conception of Jesus formed in his heart is able to drive away all the disturbances of dolour Otherwise if this evill humour of Sadnesse be cherished without breaking it upon all occasions by convenient diversions and the direction of reason it encreaseth with age and being aided by evil dispositions of body it often degenerateth into shamefull follies and hideous frenzies From thence are come those Melancholicks of whom Gallen speaketh Gal. c. 6. l. 3 de locis affectis whereof one thought himself to be an earthen-pot the other imagined he was a cock and ceased not to crow and clap his wings the other feared that Atlas would let the heavens fall And Trallianus assureth Trallian l. 1 cap 16. there was a woman who continually kept her hand very closely shut fearing lest the world which in her opinion was held between her fingers might escape her Such Melancholies saith S. Jerome stand more in need of Hippocrates his remedies then the discourses of Philosophers But laying aside these Sadnesses of naturall Melancholy it is fit to know that which proceedeth from a tedious anxiety of heart is very hurtfull to the practice of virtue and may be cured by the resolution and courage of a well-disposed will It is the malady which the Grecian calls Acedia against which Cassian wrote Cassian lib. de spiritu Acediae a whole book shewing it fastneth very easily upon persons who make profession of Devotion if they use not labour and study to divert it And verily there are people in no sort fit for Religion nor the exercises of Meditation who neverthelesse are therein embarked through levity or ignorance never having well weighed the greatnesse of that vocation But if they meet some spirituall Directours either indiscreetly Zealous or little experienced they will raise them from earth and instantly apply them to the highest contemplations drawing them from handy labours and employments of civil life I would willingly ask what can they else do but fall into the passion of slothfulnesse into anxieties and languors which make life unprofitable to them In the mean time they who have undertaken the charge to guide them in their Labyrinth make them many times believe these drynesse and disrelishes are the visitations of God who will try them and that they must go on and not faint nor suffer the honour of their crown to wither And there are who living as beasts in a meer lazinesse of spirit imagine it is an Inaction which causeth a cessation from all the functions of their soul to let the Spirit of God to work in them Hereupon we see some Devoters so well practised in this mystery that they abandon all the correspondencies due to a husband all the care of their children all the providence they ought to have for their family and houshold affairs to satisfie the fancies of their mind It is not Devotion which teacheth them this nor is it fit that Libertines hereby take occasion to condemn the exercise of piety It is an errour must be corrected and speedily such spirits must be reduced to labour and
the river of Silias wherein all sinks to the bottome and nothing floateth all passeth with them into the bottom of the soul nought stayes in the superficies which is the cause that the heart replenished with cares and apprehensions dischargeth it self what it may by the tongue Besides the materiall cause of Despair which is observed in Melancholy we find others efficient which ordinarily fasten upon great strong passions of Love of Ambition and of Avarice All histories are full of miserable people who having settled their affections upon objects whence they could not with reason expect any satisfaction after an infinite number of languors toils and pursuits have buried their love in Despair and drowned their ardour in the blood of their wounds Some have hanged themselves at the gate of their Mistresses others have thrown themselves headlong down into ruines others have been exposed to salvage beasts rather chusing to suffer the fury of tygers and lions then the rage of Love without fruition The Poet Virgil did her wrong to put Dido Queen Dido profâ—â—â— in alieno â—â—lo â—bi nuâ—â—ias regis 〈◊〉 optasâ—â— lebueratne tamen secundas experiretur maluitè contrario uri quà m nubere Tertul. in exhort ad castitatem of Carthage into the number of the Unhappy saying she sacrificed her self to the sword and flames out of a Despair conceived to see her self deprived of her Trojan Tertullian justified the Ashes of his Countrey-woman assuring us she was one of the most chaste Ladies in the world and did more in the matter of Chastity then S. Paul prescribeth For the Apostle having said That it is better to marry then to burn she rather chose to burn then to marry making her own funerall alive and rather entring upon the flaming pyle then to comply with the passion of a King who sought her in marriage after the death of her husband whom she had singularly loved The passion of Ambition is no lesse violent in proud and arrogant spirits who having been long born as on the wings of glory and seeing themselves on a sudden so unfortunate as to be trampled under foot by those who adored them cannot digest the change of their fortune anticipating that by violence which they ought rather to expect from mercy Such was Achitophel accounted to be one of the greatest States-men of 1 Reg. 17. 23 his time whose counsels were esteemed as of a Deitie when seeing himself faln from the great authority he had acquired after he had set the affairs of his house in order he took a halter with which he hanged himself And it is thought Pilate followed the like course Tantis irrogante Caio angâ—â—ibus coarctatus est ut se suâ transverberans manu malorum compendium mortis celeritate quaesierit Paul Oros l. 7. c. 4. when he saw himself to be discountenanced after the death of his master Tiberius and banished by Caius Caligula the successour to the Empire This calamity seemed unto him so intolerable that he sought to shorten his miseries by hastening his death which he gave himself by his own hand Yet Eusebius who seems to be the chief authour of this narration and who is followed by Paulus Orosius and others doth not assure it as a thing undoubtedly true but as a popular rumour For my part I think it not amisse to believe Pilatus jam tunc pro sua conscientia Christian Tertul. in Apoleg Tertullian who conceiveth that after the death of our Saviour Pilate was a Christian in his conscience when he in writing expressed to the Emperour Tiberius the things which occurred in the person of our Saviour with so much honour for our Religion that from that time the Emperour resolved to put Jesus Christ into the number of the Gods But if the opinion of this Author Yes that it might very well as many examples testifie were true It could not be credible that a man who had a tincture of Christianity should have ended his life by so furious a Despair Avarice in this point will nothing at all give place to Ambition for there are many to be found who seeing themselves unexpectedly deprived of treasures which they kept as the Griphons of Scythia would no longer behold the Sun after the Sun had seen the Gold which they hid in the bowels of the earth Witnesse that covetous man of the Greek Anthology who strangled himself with the same halter wherewith another man had determined to hang himself who by chance having found this caitiffs treasure was diverted from it This may very well teach us that it is very dangerous passionately to affect the objects of the world because as saith S. Gregory one cannot without immeasurable grief lose all that which with unlimitted love is possessed The evil spirit who soundeth each ones inclinations and discovereth their dispositions powerfully intermedleth in them and layeth snares for men in all the things wherein he observeth them to be with the most fervour busied To these occasions of Despair fear of pain and shame is added which is very ordinary and is the cause that many hasten their end before they fall into the hands of their enemies or are laid hold on by Justice which is as much as if one should die not to dye This was very common among Pagans who esteemed that a glory which we hold the worst of crimes and the like opinion crept very farre into the minds of the Hebrews who thought themselves to be sacred persons and imagined they did an act generous and profitable to the glory of God to kill themselves before the hands of Infidels were bathed in their bloud This is the cause if we believe the ordinary Glosse of the first Book of Kings and Glossa in 1 Reg. 31. Dicunt Hebraei aliqui etiam Christiani quod interficere seipsum inâ—uitu Divini honoris nè vituperium exerceatur in proprio corpore redundans in Dei vituperium sicut timebar Saul non esse illicitum the antient Interpreters of this Nation that we cannot conclude the damnation of Saul by an infallible demonstration for having strucken himself seeing that according to their opinion he was not sufficiently illuminated by the lights of the antient Law that it was a Mortall sin to hasten his death to save the honour of his Religion and to deliver himself from the scorn of Infidels Nay they assure us that he in this occasion ordered himself as a treasure of God refusing to deliver up unto enemies a Head honoured with sacred Unction to be alive defiled by their profane hands They add that he had before him the example of Samson who was admired by all his own Nation for being over-whelmed with the Philistims under the ruines of a house And that after him Razias esteemed a Saint Macch. 1. 12 and a courageous man gave himself the stroke of death and threw his bowels all bloudy from the top of a turret on the heads of his enemies But
for us we shall soon see one another and re-enter into the possession of those whose absence we a while lament It is not absence say you which most afflicteth me but to see my self destitute of a support which I expected that is it vexeth me Enter into thy heart lay thy hand on thy thoughts and they will teach thee that all thy unhappinesse cometh from being still too much tied to honours ambitions and worldly commodities I would divert thee as much as I might possibly from despair but I at this present find that the remedy of thy evils will never be but in a holy Despair of all the frivolous fair semblances of the world O how wisely said Vegetius That Despair is in many a necessity of virtue But more wisely S. John Climachus Veg. l 4. c. 5. Necessitas quaedam virtutis est desperatio Clym gr 3. peregrinatio vera est omnium protsus rerum desperatio who defining the life of a perfect Christian which he calleth the Pilgrimage did let these words fall True and perfect Religion is a generall Despair of all things O what a happy science is it to know how to Despair of all to put all our hope in God alone Let us take away those deceitfull and treacherous props which besiege our credulous minds and cease not to enter into our heart by heaps Let us bid adieu to all the charming promises of a barren and lying world and turning our eyes towards this celestiall Jerusalem our true countrey let us sing with the Prophet All the greatest comfort I have in this miserable life is that I often lift Levavi oculos meos in montes unde veniet auxilium mihi Auxilium meum à Domino qui fecit coelum terram Psal 120. up mine eyes to the mountains and towards heaven to see if any necessary succour comes to me from any place From whence can I hope more help or consolation then from the great God omnipotent who of nothing created this Vniverse and hath for my sake made an infinity of so many goodly creatures Should I see armed squadrons of thunders and lightnings to fall on me I would have a spirit as confident as if there were no danger Were I Si consistant adversùm me castra non timebit cor meum Psal 263. c. to passe through the horrours of death being in thy company I would fear no danger Moreover I hold it for a singular favour and it shall be no small comfort to me when thou takest pain lovingly to chastise me for my misdeeds and to favour me with thy visits Happy he who hath raised his gain from his losses his assurance out of his uncertainties his strength out of his infirmities his hopes out of his proper Despairs and who hopes not any thing but what is promised by God nor is contented but with God who satisfieth all desires and crowneth all felicities The ninth Treatise Of FEAR § 1. The Definition the Description the Causes and Effects thereof FEar is the daughter of self-love and opinion a Passion truly horrid which causeth The nature of Fear and the bad effects of it all things to be feared yea those which are not as yet in being and by making all to be feared hath nothing so terrible as it self It falleth on a poor heart on a miserable man as would a tempest not fore-seen or like a ravenous beast practised in slaughter and confiscateth a body which it suddenly interdicteth the functions of nature and the use of forces It doth at first that with us which the Sparrow-hawk doth with the Quail It laies hold on the heart which is the fountain of heat and source of life it seizeth on it it gripes it it tortureth it in such sort that all the members of the body extremely afflicted with the accident befaln their poor Prince send him some small tributes of bloud and heat to comfort him in his sufferings whereby the body becomes much weakned The vermillion of cheeks instantly fadeth and palenesse spreads over all the face destitute of the bloud wherewith it was formerly coloured the hair hard strained at the root with cold stares and stands on end the flames which sweetly blaze in the eyes fall into eclipse the voyce is interrupted words are imperfectly spoken all the organs and bands are loosened and untyed quaking spreads it self over all especially the knees which are the Basis of this building of Nature and over the hands which are frontier-places most distant from the direction of the Prince who is then toiled with the confusion of his state This evill passion is not content to seize on our body but it flieth to the superior region of our soul to cause disorder robbing us almost in a moment of memory understanding judgement will courage and rendring us benumm'd dull and stupid in our actions This notwithstanding is not to be understood but of an inordinate fear And that we may see day-light through this dark passion to know it in all The sorts of Fear Clavus animae fluctuantis Amb. de Paradis Tertul. de cultufoemin O necessarius timor qui tim et arte non casu voluntate non necessitate religione non culpa S. Zeno. the parts thereof I say first in generall that there are two sorts of Fear Morall and Naturall Morall which comprehending filiall and servile is not properly a Passion but a Virtue which S. Barnaby according to the report of Clemens Alexandrinus called the Coadjutrix of Faith S. Ambrose the rudder of the soul And Tertullian the foundation of Salvation Of this very same it was S. Zeno spake so eloquently O necessary fear which art to be procured by care and study and not to be met by chance voluntarily not out of necessity and rather by overmuch piety and tendernesse then by the occasion of sin which brings a guilty soul vexation enough Naturall fear is properly an apprehension of a near approaching evil framed in the soul whether it be reall or seeming to which one cannot easily make resistance It is divided into six parts according to the Doctrine of S. John Damascen to wit Pusillanimity Bashfulnesse Six sorts of naturall Fear Shame Amazement Stupidity and Agony Pusillanimity feareth a labour burthensome and offensive to nature Bashfulnesse flyeth a foul act not yet committed Shame dreadeth disgrace which ordinarily followeth the sinne when it is committed Amazement which we otherwise call admiration is caused by an object we have of some evill which is great new and not expected the progressions and events whereof we cannot fore-see Stupidity proceedeth from a great superabundance of fear which oppresseth all the faculties of the soul And Agony is the last degree which totally swalloweth up the spirit in the extreme nearnesse of great evils and greatly remedilesse Forasmuch as concerneth the causes of this passion The causes of fear if we will reason upon it we shall find that the chief and most
affrightment in the towns and as many sackings as quarterings Those which sit at the Stern of Empires and Common-wealths are greatly accountable to God for that which hath past in this businesse Kings ought not onely to maintain Justice by their Arms but to teach it by their behaviour and to consecrate it by their examples The Doctour Navarrus hath set down divers sins against Justice by the which Princes Common-wealths and Lords may offend against God mortally as to take unlawfully the goods that belong not to them and to keep them without restitution To govern loosely and negligently their Kingdomes and Principalities To suffer their Countreys to be unprovided of victualls and defence necessary which may bring their Subjects in danger of being spoiled To wast and consume in charges either evil or unnecessary the goods which are for the defence of their estates To burden excessively their subjects with Imposts and Subsidies without propounding any good intent therefore and without having any necessity not pretended but true and reall To suffer the poor to die with famine and not to sustain them with their Revenues in that extremity Not to hearken to reasonable conditions for a just Peace and to give occasion to the enemies of the Christian name to invade their Lands and root out our Religion To dispense either with the Law of God or Nature To give judgement in the suits of their Subjects according to their own affection To deceive their creditours to suppresse the Liberty and Rights of the people to compell them by threatnings or importunate intreaties to give their goods or to make marriages against their wills or to their disadvantage To make unjust Wars to hinder the service of the Church to sell offices and places of Charge so dear that they give occasion to those that buy them to make ill use thereof To present to Benefices with Cure of Souls persons unworthy and scandalous To give Commissions and Offices to corrupt and unfit officers To tolerate and permit vices filthinesse and robberies by their servants and to condemne to death and cause to be slain unjustly without due order of Law and to violate the marriage-beds of their Subjects All these things and others which this Doctour hath noted cause great sins of Injustice in the persons of great ones unto which they ought especially to take heed and to prevent the same it is most necessary that they be instructed in the duties of their charge and in the estate of their affairs bending themselves thereto as the most important point of their safety and seeing that the passion of Hatred or Love which one may bear to some person will trouble the judgement and pervert Justice S. Lewis counselled the King his son strongly to keep his heart in quiet and in the uncertainty of any differences alwayes to restrain his own affection and to keep under all movings of the spirit as the most capitall enemy to Reason Many Princes have often lost both their life and Sceptre for giving themselves to some unjust action and there is no cause more ordinary for which God translates Kingdomes from one hand to another then Injustice as on the contrary those Princes which have been great Justiciaries do shine as the stars of the first magnitude within Gods Eternity and even their ashes do seem as yet to exhale from their Tombs a certain savour which rejoyceth people and keeps their memory for ever blessed But one cannot believe the rare mixture that Justice Goodnesse its Excellency and Goodnesse make joyned together Goodnesse is an essence profitable and helpfull which serves as a Nurse to Love it hath its originall in the Deity and from thence disperseth it self by little veins into all created Beings and mixeth it self with every object as the light with every Colour It drives away and stops up evil on every side and there is no place even to the lowest hell where it causeth not some beam of its brightnesse to shine Beauty which amazeth all mortall eyes is but the flower of its essence but Goodnesse is the fruit thereof and its savour is the savour of God which all creatures do taste and relish God which as Casiodore saith is the cause of all Beings the life of the senses the wisdome of understandings the love and glory of Angels having from all eternity his happinesse complete in his own bosome hath created man that he might have to whom to do good as Gregory Nyssen writes and S. Cyprian saith that this eternall Spirit did move upon the waters from the beginning of the world to unite and appropriate the Creature to its self and to dispose it for the loving inspirations of its Goodnesse The Prince which according to the obligement of his Charge would make himself an imitatour of God ought to be exceedingly good with four sorts of Goodnesse of Behaviour of Affability of Bounty and of Clemency I say first of Behaviour for that there is small hope of any great one which is not good towards God which keeps not his Law and rules not his life thereby if he have any virtues they are all sophisticate and if he do any good it is by ebbing and flowing by fits and for some ends No person can be truly good towards others which doth not begin with himself he must needs have Christian Love without which no man shall ever see God if he possesse this virtue he will first have a love of honour to those which have begot him a conjugall love for his wife a cordiall love to those of his bloud and all his kindred from thence it will spread it self over his whole house and through all his estate and will cause him to love his Subjects with a certain tendernesse as his own goods and as the good shepherd cherisheth his flocks He will imitate our Lord which looked from the top of the mountain upon the poor people of Judea that followed him and his heart melted for them with singular compassion Herein doth truly consist the virtue of Piety which gives so great a lustre to the life of Princes Now according to the Goodnesse that is in his heart he must needs pour it forth upon all his by these three conduit-pipes that I have said of Affability of Liberality and of Clemency Affability which is a well ordered sweetnesse both in words and converse ought to increase together with a Prince from his tender age This is a virtue which costeth nothing and yet brings forth great fruit it procures treasuries of hearts and wills which do assist great ones when need requires A good word that cometh forth of the mouth of a King is like the Manna that came from heaven and fell upon the desert It nourisheth and delighteth his Subjects it hath hands to frame and fashion their hearts as it pleaseth him it carrieth with it chains of gold sweetly to captivate their wills The command that cometh with sweetness is performed with strength invincible and every
woman well bred and of good courage Ishbosheth was offended thereat for that he had done this without telling him of it But Abner for one poore word spoken to in a very mild manner entred into a rage against The insolence of Abner his King and said that it was to use him like a dog to quarrel with him for a woman after so great services as he had done for the Crown reproching his Master for that he held both his life and his Kingdome of him But seeing that he used him in this manner he would take a course with him and would translate the government from the house of Saul to that of David Masters should not give too much authority to their subjects The poor Prince held his peace and durst not answer one word onely to this bold fellow which was a pitifull thing to see him thus devoured by his own servant The houses of Great ones are very often filled with such servants who having been honoured with an especiall confidence of their Master in the administration of their affairs whether they be their Receivers or Stewards of their families take upon them authority and not contenting themselves to govern the goods enter upon the right of their Lords leaving them nothing but a name and shadow of the Power which is due unto them Abner grew so hot with anger that he dispatched He treateth with David his Messengers to David to desire his friendship and promiseth him to bring the whole Kingdome of Ishbosheth into his hands David answered that he was content to make peace with him so that he would cause his wife Michol to be restored him whom they had married to another after his departure which was readily agreed to for him for they took her away from the hands of her husband that followed her weeping this woman with her lofty spirit had some pleasing behaviour wherewith Davids affection was taken In the mean while Abner powerfully sollicits the people of Israel to betake themselves on Davids side shewing them that God had committed their safety and rest into his hands and that it was he which should unite together all the families under his obedience for to compose a Monarchy which should become happy to his people helpfull to his friends and terrible to his enemies This discourse did very much shake the principall ones of the Nation which were not ignorant of the small hopes that were in the person of Ishbosheth which was disparaged both by nature and fortune This stout Captain following the businesse came to meet with David in Hebron who made him a feast hearkened unto his propositions and conducted him back with honour Joab who was at that time absent at his return quickly understood of the coming of Abner whereat Joabs Jealousie over Abner he entred into a furious jealousie fearing lest David should be of the humour of those which delight more in making of friends then keeping of those that are made and that the friendship of a man which seemed to draw a whole Kingdome after him might much prejudice his fortunes He enters roughly into his Kings chamber telling him that this was but a deceiver which came but to spy out his secrets and to do him some ill turn that he should lay hold of him seeing he was come under his power And for that David answered him nothing seeing him in a hot anger he went out furiously and without authority sent a message to the chief Captain Abner to intreat him to return to Hebron under colour of treating more fully with David The death of Abner He lightly believed it and came back the same way when as Joab that lay in wait for him took him treasonably and killed him at the gate of the city David was indeed very much perplexed hereat and David tolerates Joab in his fault upon necessitie uttered grievous curses against Joab and his whole race neverthelesse as the wisest did judge that there was a great interest in this death and that his chief Captain had become the executour thereof this made some to think that there was some design and though that suspicion was false David did all that he could to deface the blemish thereof assisting at the funeralls of Abner very near to the corps protesting against the cruelty of those that had taken his life from him and highly setting forth the praises of the dead yet he caused not processe to be made against Joab conceiving that he was not able to destroy him in such a time when it was dangerous to provoke him Neverthelesse he kept the resolution to punish him even to his death but Joab contemned all upon the confidence that he had that none could go beyond him and measured his own greatnesse by the impunity of his great offences It is hard to excuse David upon this treaty that he David cannot be excused upon the treaty made with Abner if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God projected with Abner traytour to his Master if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God or to the right that he pretended to have to the Crown in consideration of his first anointment made by Samuel He knew that the Edicts of his royall dignity were written in heaven and for this cause without endeavouring by any criminall way he expected the work of Providence and applyed himself to the events for without any thought of his Ishbosheth King of Israel was slain by two murtherers Rechab and Baana which killd him as he slept upon his bed at noon-day and brought his head to him at which this great King was so highly incensed abhorring this barbarous act that he condemned them presently to death and after he had caused their heads and feet to be cut off he made them to be hanged at the fish-pond of Hebron David absolute by the death of Ishbosheth son of Saul The death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul ended the difference which was between the two Royall houses and the other families yielded themselves to David by an universall consentment It was then that he began to reign absolutely and to make to appear as in a glorious light the admirable qualities and Royall virtues wherewith he was adorned And it is certain that of all the Kings of Juda there was none hath equalled him in all kind of perfections He was one that feared God without superstition religious without hypocrisie valiant without any sternnesse liberall without reproching it to any one a good husband without covetousnesse The Royal qualities of David stout without insolency vigilant without unquietnesse wise without subtilty courteous without loosnesse humble without cowardlinesse chearfull without too much familiarity grave without fiercenesse and kind without any complements He united all those things together which ordinarily His zeal to religion make Princes great and proved in each of them so advantageous as if he had been
demands an account of that action and resolved to re-establish the true King in his right because that besides that justice would have it so he was much more favourable to the Catholicks The other answered that he had dispossessed a Sit-still and a Traitour to the Religion of the Arrians and that the Greek ought to look to his own businesse without intermedling with the Kingdoms of another This Arrogance netled more the Emperour who now saw himself perswaded by all reasons to enterprise a Warre against an Heretick for Religion against a Tyrant for Justice against an Adversary for his Goods He ordered all this businesse with a marvellous prudence for he sowed first division in Gilimer's Kingdome interressing as much as possible every man to his party the Catholicks for his protection the Kinsmen of Hilderic for Revenge the Zealous men for Piety the Understanding for Reason the Souldiers for the Booty and all the world for the sweetnesse of the tranquility under his Government He chose Belizarius Generall to whom he gave an Army more Valiant then numerous of Souldiers well tried and charged him to use the Africans as his own people and as his children One cannot believe the effect that this moderation wrought The People began to look upon the Armies of that brave Captain not as upon those of an enemie but rather of a Liberatour Tripolis rendred it self quickly to him and the Isle of Sardynia revolted against the Tyrant He dismantled all the strong Holds that might defend him from the Enemie as if he had been assured to live in perpetuall peace which caused that Belizarius in a short time marched even to the gates of Carthage The Usurper as fearfull in Warre as he was bold in wickednesse was astonished and surprised having not had so much leisure as to fortifie the place of his abode He suddenly dispatches his brother Amaras to cut off all the Avenues from the Greeks but he was encountred by John the Armenian who led the Van-guard of the Imperialists and who hotly gave him battell in which the African lost the Victory and his life The Tyrant whether out of rage or out of fear caused Hilderic his Master which he kept in prison to be murther'd and went out with his best Troops to meet Belizarius all dip'd as he yet was in innocent blood and troubled with the image of his crimes He met with the Grecian Generall a little scattered from the rest of his Army and might have defeated him if art and activenesse or rather happinesse had accompanied his designs But while he ranges his ill-traind souldiers Belizarius surprises him kills his best troops and constrains him to put himself in flight He seeing his army much lessened sends for his brother Zaron who led some troops near the coasts of Sardynia to come and joyn with him which he did readily but in the mean time Belizarius following the paths that good fortune trod out for him enters Carthage which cryes for quarter to him without resistance The two brothers rallyed together made as though they would retake it but seeing themselves vigorously repulsed by the Imperialists they more thought of a Retreat then an Assault This caused all the People to despair of their party seeing they themselves had forsaken the seat of Empire They withdrew themselves to a place called Tricamerum about eight Leagues from Carthage whither Belizarius after he had taken order for the security of the conquered countrey soon followed them and commanded John the Armenian to passe the River for whose advantage they were encamped there and to charge them He obeyed and executed very courageously his Generals commands But Zaron Gilimer's brother susteins his onset and twice beat him back till such time as Belizarius re-enforced his Van-guard with new Troops who defeated the enemie and killed the chief Commander in the combat His head was cut off and shewed the Affricanes who fell into a great despair of their affairs Ah my brother sayes Gilimer the most valiant man on earth could I not be miserable without losing you and without sacrificing you to my fortune It is now that I perceive the disastre of my Nation It is now that the blood of Hilderie rebounds against me In the mean time Belizarius who lead up the battalio passed also the River which was fordable and assaults Gilimer who made but a small resistance but taking with him his domesticks saved himself by abandoning his Camp where nothing was heard but the cryes and sighs of the Captives that lamented their Misfortune The unhappy King saved himself in Rocks situated upon high mountains where there was a Fortresse almost inaccessible but unfurnished of Victuals and Munition whither Pharas had order to follow him in the place of John the Armenian who was unhappily killed by accident by a Captain that shot at a Bird. Gilimer that now thought that there was no greater enemy in the world then Hunger was quickly weary of the place to which he was retired and seeing himself sollicited every day by his friends to render up himself he sends to Pharas to demand three things for the capitulation of the Treaty which were some Bread a Sponge and a Lute some Bread because he now knew not what it was to Eat a Sponge to wipe off the tears that he continually powred out upon the Tombes of his brothers and the Funeralls of his Countrey a Lute to give some truce to his anguish by its Musick This disastrous man which had never well played the King would now play the Philosopher at the end of his dayes and expresse a contempt of all things Pharas easily granted him what he demanded and having taken him conducted him to Belizarius who was retired to Carthage This Generall contemplated the principall object of his Conquest with delight and had a great curiositie to entertein him but he did nothing but laugh with a forced and unpleasing laughter All his treasures fell into the hands of the Conquerour who suddenly carryed him to Constantinople A Triumph after the manner of the Antients was ordained in honour of Belizarius who entered in great pomp into the City with all his souldiery causing the proud spoiles of Africa to be born before him and dragging after him the prisoners among which was Gilimer in chains who was brought before the Emperour and the Emperesse seated upon their Thrones on an high Theatre with an unparrellel'd magnificence Gilimer as soon as he saw a farre off this pompous splendour cryed out Vanity of Vanities and every thing is vanity afterward began again his laughings which he did in my opinion that he might passe for a Fool and so have his life He did obeysance to Justinian with most humble submissions who used him with much clemency giving him a Place in the Lands of the Empire to finish there the rest of his dayes The Booty was divided with much equity and the rich Vessels of the Temple of Jerusalem that the Vandalls had
years before his death which makes the truth more remarkable he speaketh clearly that the Soul returneth to heaven if it be well purified from its commerce with earth that heaven is its true Countrey and Element and that it is a great proof of its Divinity that it delighteth to hear of heavenly things as being the affairs proper to it self We must take care not here to judge and condemn Seneca on a doubtfull word as when in his Consolation to Martia he saith That all end by Death and by Death it self He onely there toucheth of Goods and Evils of Honours Riches Pleasures Troubles and the Cares of this present life It is most clear that there is nothing in that Sentence which derogates from the Immortality of the Soul because he concludes that Treatise with the joyes which a happy Soul receiveth in the other life And it is not from our purpose to consider that Seneca sometimes in disputing speaketh by supposition according to the Idaea of others and not according to his own We cannot know better the opinion of an Authour then by his Actions and his Practise and we observe that Seneca hath not onely professed the Immortality of the Soul by words but believeth the effect in secret for he reverenced the Souls of great Personages and did believe them to be in heaven which he testified before he received the Christian Faith when being in a countrey-house of Scipio of Africa he rendred divine honours to his Epist 86. Spirit prostrating himself at the Altar of his Sepulchre and perswading himself he said that his Soul was in heaven not because that he was Generall of the Army but because he lived an honest man and having infinitely obliged his ingratefull countrey he retired himself in a voluntary solitude to his own house to give no fears and jealousies of his greatnesse If we demand where he placed the sovereign good His opinion of the sovereign good and the end of Man we shall find that he established the felicity of this present life to live according to Reason and that of the life to come in the re-union of the Soul with its first beginning which is God From this foundation he hath drawn a rule and propositions which he hath dispersed over all his Books and these are to despise all the goods of the world Honours Empires Riches Reputation Pleasures gorgeous Habiliments stately Buildings great Possessions Gold Silver precious Stones Feasts Theatres Playes and to take all things as accessory and to regard them no more then the moveables of an Inne where we are not but as passengers And above all things to esteem of virtue of the mortification of loose desires of contemplation of eternall virtues of Justice Prudence Fortitude Temperance of Liberality Benignity of Friendship of Constancy in a good course of life of Patience in Tribulation of Courage to support injuries of Sicknesse Banishment Chains Reproaches of Punishments and of Death it self We may affirm that never any man spoke more worthily then he of all these subjects Never Conquerour did subdue Nations with more honour then this great Spirit with a magnificent glory at his feet hath levelled and spurned down all the Kingdomes of Fortune All that he speaketh is vigorons ardent lively His heart when he did write did inflame his style to inflame the hearts of all the world His words followed his thoughts He did speak in true Philosophy but as a king and not as a slave to words and periods His brevity is not without clearnesse His strength hath beauty his beauty hath no affectation he is polished smooth full and entire never languishing impetuous without confusion his discourse is tissued yet nothing unmasculine invincible in his reasoning and agreeable in all things Howsoever we ought not to conclude by his Books that he was a Christian because he wrote them all before he had any knowledge of Christianity and therefore it is not to be wondred at if sometimes he hath Sentences which are not conformable unto our Religion Some one will object that he is admirable in his Writings but his Works carry no correspondency with The answer to the calumniatours of Seneca his Pen. This indeed is the abuse of some spirits grounded on the calumnies of Dion and Suillius which those men may easily see confuted who without passion will open their eyes unto the truth He reproacheth him for his great Riches in lands in gold and silver and sumptuous moveables and layeth to his charge that he had five hundred beds of cedar with feet of ivory It seems that this slanderer was steward of Seneca's house so curious he was in decyphering his estate But all this is but a mere invention for how is it possible that he who according to Cornelius Tacitus did not live but onely on fruit and bread and water and who never had any but his wife to eat with him or two or three friends at most should have five hundred beds of cedar and ivory to serve him at his feasts It is true that he had goods enough but nothing unjustly gotten they were the gifts and largesses of the Emperour And because he had sometimes written that Goods were forbidden to Philosophers he therefore was content to hold them in servitude and not to be commanded by them He was overcome by Nero to carry some splendour in his house as being the chiefest of the Estate and it was put upon him as a sumptuous habit upon some statue We cannot find that he had ever any children but his Books or that he made it his study to enrich his Nephews or his Nieces or to raise a subsistence for his house from the charges greatnesse and riches of the Empire He had the smallest train and pomp that possibly could be and when he had the licence to be at liberty from the Court he lived in an admirable simplicity and which is more he besought Nero with much importunity to discharge him from the unprofitable burden of his riches and to put severall stewards into his houses to receive his revenues but he made answer to him that he did a wrong unto himself to demand that discharge for he had nothing too much and that he had in Rome many slaves enfranchized who were farre more rich then Seneca Yet for all this Reproach is proved to be unjust Dion proceeds further in his slander and alledgeth That he indeared Queens and Princes to him for he wrote their Papers and professed himself a friend to the richest Favourites What is this but to reproach a Courtier with his Trade his Discretion his Civility his Affability which this great personage made very worthily to comply with his Philosophy He married an illustrious Lady and of invaluable wealth What! should he being in that high dignity to please Suillus become suitor to some chamber-maid or for mortifications sake court some countrey girle ought he to bring such a reproach after him to the Court of the
Prince what sinne hath he committed to espouse the most honest Lady in Rome called Paulina and to have lived with her in the condition of a good husband and in a perfect intelligence But he made love to the mother of the Emperour This slander never came into the thought neither of Tacitus nor Suetotius nor any other Historian who was a man of judgement It was onely the invention of an Impostor infected with poyson that dreamed of any such thing Agrippina had other manner of gallants and servants then Sececa in her Court she sought not after bodies made thin with abstinence and manners quite removed from such commerce In a Court so clear-sighted there could never be discovered any familiarities which might give the least impression of such a thought and which would have removed both the one and the other no Seneca did rather encline too much unto severity then to give any allurements to Agrippina The Glosser yet goes further and saith That he was His falling off from Agrippinaâ— ungratefull to her What ingratitude he alwayes endeavoured to tie the spirits of the mother to the son in a perfect friendship and did not cease to redresse all breaches that might give occasion of offence But when he observed that Agrippina did mount upon the Throne of her son did give audience to the Ambassadours of the Nations did visit the Armies and when he heard her vaunt that the Empire came unto him by her means and that she would take it away from him when she thought good he could not digest it He preserved himself in that fidelity which he had sworn unto the Emperour but he never counselled him either to remove Agrippina or to displease her When Nero very warmly called him and Burrhus together and in a great fright told them that his mother had conspired against his life and that he was but a dead man if he did not prevent it Seneca remained so lost in amazement that in all his life he was never dumb but at that instant And Cornelius Tacitus makes no mention of the least word he did let fall that might witnesse his consent to so horrible a deed It is true that he composed the Declaration of Nero after his mothers He is excusable for making the Declaration death but it was by a rigorous necessity He found himself betwixt two desperate extremities either to leave the whole Empire at randome to forsake the Helm and the Vessel in the tempest and tender his neck to Nero or to find some lenitive to ease the calamities so full of virulence Some there are that do thus excuse him for it and say It was no marvel that he did deport himself in this fashion because he was near to Princes and that those who even make a profession of virtue do study their own preservation and oftentimes conceal those affairs which they cannot redresse For my own part I am of judgement that great men being in a place where they are obliged to speak if they should wilfully or timerously hold their peace do grievously offend God by their silence and that Seneca should rather have died then have adhered to Nero polluted with his mothers bloud and execrable to all the world He had before demanded leave to be gone from Court wisely foreseeing the tempests that follow but he could not obtain it nor resist Nero without putting himself in danger of his life You see there may be a time when an honest man should rather venter his life then give a scandall unto Virtue But his dissimulation could not help him from being made at last a sacrifice to his most cruel Scholar as we anon shall declare unto you But for the present let us demand and examine the Why Seneca having so many gallant qualities did perform so little in the reâ—ormation of Manners cause why Seneca with so much Power Authority Eloquence Philosophy and humane Wisdome did effect so little for the reformation of manners in the Court of Nero and in the City of Rome It is without all doubt that the wisdome of Books was too low for so high a design We must make use of the grace of Redemption and the Bloud and the Gospel of Jesus to redresse such lamentable confusions Let us then behold S. Paul who at the same time did come to plant the Faith in Rome and talked with Seneca and made him to behold more excellent Light in the purity of his Life and Doctrine It is not my intention in this place to write at large Serrar Baran Cornel. the life of S. Paul which is already sufficiently known but particularly to touch on those things which he did at Rome when Seneca was in the government of the Affairs of the Empire Neverthelesse it is expedient to make a short recapitulation of the Times and the Voyages of this great Apostle to understand the occasion that did bring him to Rome and what he there did practise for the advancement of the Faith S. Paul being born in the second or third year of S. Paul came to Rome our Saviour was miraculously converted to the Christian Religion in the three and thirtieth year of his age By his Extraction he was a Jew born in the city of Tarsus in the Province of Cilicia where was a flourishing University from which came Antipater Archidemus Artemidorus Diogenes and Diodorus But S. Paul although he took his birth in the air of the Philosophers and had some tincture of their Principles did not amuse himself on the Philosophy of the Gentiles but retiring to Jerusalem he studied at the feet of Gamaliel a great Doctour of the Mosaick Law The zeal which he had for his Religion made him furiously to persecute Christianity from his birth unto the time that he was subdued by the Spirit of God and of a ravening wolf was made a lamb of the Fold Saul fell saith S. Augustine and Paul did rise the Interpretation of which name according to Hesychius is admirable to shew unto us that all things are marvellous in him even his name it self After his Conversion he preached in Arabia and in S. Paul falsly accused Damascus for the space of three years and did powerfully convince the Jews on the verities of our Faith who to divert the course of his Ministery in the imbroilments which then were raised between the King of the Arabians and the Romans did accuse him for having moved in the favour of Rome against the Arabians and their King Aretas who at that time held the city of Damascus and had placed in it a Governour of his own faction This Barbarian made an exact inquisition and would have apprehended S. Paul Baron Christi Anno 39 Cornel. in 2. apud Corin. cap. 11. who was then in the same city But his brethren the Christians were very carefull to deliver the Innocent from the hands of the guilty and shewing themselves neither slothful nor fearful in a busines of
it is affirmed that she was taken with the love of this her brother Agrippa and that most passionately she did affect him neverthelesse to divert the fame and suspicion of the world finding her self courted by Polemon King of Cilicia she consented to espouse him on that condition that he should be circumcized to which the Prince was presently resolved being overcome by the temptation of her Beauties and the excesse of Love to which she had enflamed him She remained a certain time with him but her high and wanton spirit did distaste him and she returned into her own countrey to the Embraces of her brother who lived with her and entertained her in his place without regarding of the scandall I leave you to judge my Readers how the matter was disposed to receive the fire which proceeded from the mouth of S. Paul All that he could do was to imprint in the soul of the Prince and Princesse a good opinion of the Christian Religion and a good respect for his own person for at the rising of this Session they told the President that there was nothing in that man that deserved either imprisonment or death but because he had appealed to Cesar it was necessary that he should be sent to Rome After this S. Paul was imbarked under the conduct S. Paul imbarked for Rome of the Centurion Julius who did use him with great humanity and in the end after a laborious voyage and shipwrack they arrived at Rome He made his coming known to the chiefest of his Nation who then resided in the capitall City of the world and did inform them of his good Intentions protesting to them that he was not come to accuse his Nation but having done nothing against their Law or their Religion they had delivered him over to the Infidels who having found his cause good were ready to clear him had not the clamours and the oppositions of some of the Jews obliged him He arriveth there and treateth with the Jews to that voyage and as concerning the rest he was in chains he said for the hope of the salvation of Israel They made answer to him that they had understood nothing of him in particular but knew very well that the Sect of the Christians which he had imbraced was contrary to all the world and that they should be glad to understand by what Arguments he could pretend to justifie them To which S. Paul consented and there were great Disputations amongst them concerning the mysteries of our Faith S. Luke doth conclude his History on these conferences and speaketh nothing of the Triall of S. Paul before the Magistrates of Rome but we may learn it from the Epistle which the Apostle did write to his Disciple Timothy and from that which 2 Tim. 4. Phil. 1. he adressed to the Philipians where he declareth that on the first action of that Triall he was forsaken of all the world but singularly assisted by God and that the carrying on this affair did much improve it self to the advancement of the Gospel his chains being known in Jesus Christ to all the Praetoriums in Rome and to all the world as also that at last he was delivered from the mouth of the lion by whom he understood the Emperour Nero. From this and from that which the holy Fathers and S. Paul uâ—doubted â—â— known unâ—o Seneca Interpreters have delivered we may collect that Saint Paul came to Rome in the third year of the Emperour Nero when as yet he was not depraved and when Seneca was in the heighth of his reputation and the management of the publick Affairs We ought not to doubt that what is reported by the Pope S. Linus concerning the knowledge which Seneca had with S. Paul is true seeing that great Minister of State who had his eye over all and who was extremely curious to understand the diversity of Sects and Religions and to be informed of extraordinary Causes to make report thereof unto the Emperour could no wayes be ignorant of so famous a thing which was made known in Rome both to the great and small Besides it is very probable that Seneca assisted at the Triall and heard the Reasons of S. Paul We may also easily conjecture the Discourse which he made before the Priests and the Senatours of Rome by the Apologies and Defences which he used before Felix Festus King Agrippa Bernice and all the Assembly of the Jews and by what he spake to the Senate of the city of Athens He then declared himself to them much after this manner I think my self this day happy that God hath granted me the favour to justifie my self in your presence S. Pauls Oration to the Senate of Rome on all those Articles with which they of my Nation have accused me being throughly possessed of the great sufficiency and the integrity of this Senate to decide all differences in the Empire For this I do begin to breathe again after my long and heavy voyage and after a thousand troubles beholding my self now at the Tribunall of Cesar which I have implored and I beseech you to attend me with that Patience and Equity which you never refuse to those who are oppressed My accusers know very well what hath been my life from my youth and how by the pleasure of God being born at Tarsus a city in Cilicia which is honoured by the priviledge of Burgesses to this Capital City of the world I have followed the Religion of my Fathers conversing with a good and an upright conscience before God and before men without offending any I do avow that according to the most perfect Sect amongst us I have alwayes conceived assured hopes of our Immortality and of the universall Resurrection of men which is established by the the inviolable promise of the living God to whom nothing is impossible and that I have been most curious to observe all the Ceremonies of our Law The zeal which did inflame me for it did make me conceive that I had reason to persecute the Christians and having received a Commission from the chiefest of the Priests I made an exact search to surprize imprison and torment those who made profession of it The fury did so farre transport me that not content to prosecute a violent warre against them in Judea I passed into strange Cities into which they were fled to relieve themselves from punishment it came to passe that going to Damascus a city famous enough as I did breathe forth nothing but fire and threatnings I saw my self suddenly invironed with a light so glorious that it did surpasse the brightest rayes of the Sun and from that Splendour there did proceed the voice of a man who called me by my name and demanded of me wherefore I did persecute him I speak Sirs before God and before you with all sincerity that I felt my self strongly surprised and I demanded of him that spake unto me who he was to which he made answer That he
observe that he never spake ill of the Christians although he hath violently inveighed against the Jews which testifieth that he was endued with some good thoughts in the favour of it His brother Gallio being Proconsul in Achaia would never judge S. Paul for any fact of Religion although the Jews did presse him to it with much importunity Adde to this that our Seneca two years before his death did live a retired life under the colour of indisposition of body and would no more frequent the Temples of the Heathen as also that he would not procure his own death before the Emperour expresly had commanded it as being then of the opinion of the Christians who did forbid self-murder and also that at last that he did forbid the vain pomp and the vain ceremonies at his Funerals These Reasons being weighed do draw unto this Conclusion That it is more beseeming our Religion to conceive well of the Salvation of Seneca then to condemne him The strongest Objection which can be made against this Opinion is That at his death Cornelius Tacitus doth make him to invoke on Jove the Liberatour But no esteem ought to be given to this Argument for Tacitus could not understand that which was altogether out of his knowledge seeing that Seneca did never make open profession of Christianity but kept that thought totally concealed from Nero and all the Heathen And we ought not to be amazed that he was not comprised in that search which was made for Christians it being sufficiently manifest that many illustrious Christians have lived in the Courts of the Heathen Emperours and dissembled their Religion they being not bound in conscience to declare it at all times to run wilfully into Martyrdome Moreover this Historian above named hath written divers things very lightly especially when he maketh mention of the Religion of the Jews and Christians which he describes rather according to his own Idaea then any wayes according to the truth insomuch that when Seneca at his death implored Jesus the Deliverer he did not forbear to translate Jesus into Jove As rashly as this he leaves recorded to posterity that the Jews are descended from the hill Ida the name of which he saith the Jews do bear and that they worship the head of an Asse as also that the Christians confessed that they were Incendiaries and that they burned the city of Rome under Nero. But we find by S. Paul himself in his Epistle written from Rome unto the Philippians that he had many Christians in the house of Nero and Linus the successour of S. Peter who was there present at that time doth rank Seneca amongst them with an high title of commendation and though his History hath been corrupted by the Hereticks and the Ignorant it is never the lesse received in those Points which are comformable to the other Fathers of the Church so that Tacitus in this ought not to be considered This Name then of Redeemer or Deliverer whereof Tacitus maketh mention and this sprinkling of the water which the Faithfull were accustomed to present to God in the manner of Libation doth imploy some secret of which he never heard And as for that Objection that there are some opinions in Seneca's Books which are not conformable to the Christian Religigion it is of no value seeing those Works were composed before his Christianity And to that which others do alledge that he himself was the authour of his own death it is most manifestly false seeing he did not suffer a vein to be opened before the expresse commandment of the Emperour who had pronounced against him the sentence of Death as I have said already which was afterwards executed according to the fashion of those times in which by the permission of Magistrates the houshold-servants of the party condemned performed that office which belonged to the publick executioner of Justice Besides this in the beginning of Christianity Seneca who had but a light tincture of it could not yet know that it was not allowable for him to assist his at his death seeing that many Christian Virgins have killed themselves to divert the violations by their designed ravishers and yet have not been condemned for it S. Paul returning to Rome according to the Calculation of Baronius did find that Seneca was dead and that he was deprived of a great help in the propagation of the Gospel Howsoever he desisted not with all his endeavour to advance with S. Peter the Christian Religion which by and by they shall both bedew with their bloud For Nero to fill up the horrour of his crimes did begin the first Persecution against the Christians And it is our glory saith Tertullian that he was in the head of our Persecutours The wicked Prince perceiving that he could not wipe away the evill reputation with which he was defamed for the burning of Rome did cause the Christians to be accused and did torment them with outrageous and inhumane punishments Some were nailed to Crosses distilling their bloud drop by drop in extremity of pain Others by cruel inventions were covered with the skins of savage beasts and exposed to bandogs who would fly upon them with a most violent rage and tear them in pieces Others being fastned to blocks were burned by degrees by fire with Diabolicall art and sport insomuch that in the Evening when the Sun made haste to bed to be no longer polluted with such horrible spectacles the bodies of the Faithfull being all on fire did serve as torches for the reprobate joyes of the Heathen Nero would be then in his gardens to glut his barbarous eyes with the Torments of those innocent Souls Happy ye Stars who in the combats of that laborious night did behold so many victorious Souls ascend from the midst of the flames to take possession of the Temple of eternall Lights The Infidels themselves had compassion on them knowing that it was an artifice of Nero's to sacrifice those poor Victims to his brutish cruelty Not long after S. Peter and S. Paul did find themselves to be involved in the same Persecution for as they endeavoured themselves to perswade Chastity to some Christian Ladies against the allurements and surprisals of the Emperour he grew enraged at it and commanded them to be locked up in close prison from whence some few dayes after they were taken forth to go to their Execution where S. Peter was crucified with his head downwards and S. Paul was beheaded after they had converted many Souls and even the Executioners themselves They kissed one another with tears of joy and with an assured pace they marched to their place of torment as to a garden inamelled with the most delightfull beauties of Nature At every minute their sacred mouths did call upon the name of their most beloved Master and the pleasures they resented to excommunicate with him in his Sufferings did not permit them to have the least fear of that which of all fears is the most horrible in
from ruine 'T is a rash determination that bloweth off the victorious laurels of so many Christian Kings with such a blind and precipitate whirlwind of words Justly therefore are the Manichees obnoxious to a spirituall Outlawry from the Church whilst I know not whether they more impudently assert innocence or more blameably disarm it All Ages concurre in the justification of Warre against Infidels but the intermingled contentions of the Faithfull have been alwayes reprehended and never impartially tolerated Be pleased to take a review of an old instrument There were many and bitter discords among the Jews many tumults many warres but ever against those that had abandoned the true Religion and collapsed into foul Idolatry and the worship of the Gentiles The Israelites indeed upon the division of the Tribes fought against the Benjamites with a fierce warre and an infinite destruction but this was rather the fury of grief rushing into arms for the revenge of a woman violated with prodigious lust then any destinated opposition or just controversie for the enlargement of their territories The magnanimity of David could scarce be induced to a just resistance of his sonne Absolon forcing his way unto his Fathers Throne thorow the bloud and carkasses of many Citizens till Joab had obstinately dissipated that languidnesse of his gentle mind so detestable an undertaking was it for those who were brethren by the bonds of Nature and Religion to forfeit all civill respects to the rage of warre If you please to consult the first times of the Christian Emperours you shall find Constantine opposing his forces against Julian but not till he became the desertour of Christ and the Standard-bearer of impiety You shall also find Theodosius the Great levying his utmost strength against Maximus Eugenius and Arbogastus but his quarrel was with most perfidious Tyrants who under the veil of Religion laboured to hide flagitious and damnable excesses You shall scarce meet with any Prince in the more innocent times who took up arms to be embrewed in Christian bloud but upon the most deliberate and important causes And indeed Baronius doth excellently observe that the Crosse was first opposed to the Crosse in arms in the Warre which Constantius raised against Magnentius A horrible wickednesse saith he and not to be attempted but by a Christian Tyrant a dissembler of Religion and an Hereticall Emperour I am not ignorant that Augustine hath handled this subject and question against Faustus and that he hath established the equity of Christian arms upon the foundation of the Gospel because John in so exemplary a rigour of life perswaded not the souldiers enquiring after the means of their salvation to cast away their weapons but to be contented with their pay and to strike no man Because also the Apostle not without cause saith That Princes bear not the sword in vain But if it be lawfull to yield our assent to the approbation of his judgement we shall find that all those darts were ejaculated against the mad phrensies of the Manichees who would have Christians to abstain from the sword and to bear the most cruel injuries of treacherous Infidels unrepelled unrevenged He would not therefore either cherish the severity or irritate the power of Christian Princes in an unlawfull Warre against their brethren for in the same place he exclaimeth a defire of doing violence a cruel preparation of mind to revenge an implacable mind a barbarous lust to rebel a secret speculation of Lordly dominion and other such as these are the causes which are justly culpable in the Warres Now who are they according to the opinion of S. Austin that consociate themselves and their adherents in an unjust Warre First they that are hurried into Arms by a blind violence of spirit not so much for love of Justice as a greedinesse of revenge Who being provoked by some injury inhumanely and unmeasurably rave and rage abhorring all attonement and refusing by the authority of an incensed reason to chide out their Passions those petulant and contentious inmates In the second place they who endeavour a Rebellion against their lawfull Sovereigne and casting off the yoke of their Allegiance precipitate themselves into all licencious enormities Finally they who out of a sole desire of Ruling involve and mingle the Kingdomes of their neighbours in commotions and intestine discords and that they may extend their Empire open a passage to their ambitious expectations by all designes either violent or fraudulent Consider now best Princes what a proclivity there is in such to boil with indignation and displeasure to burn with paroxisms of envy and exacerbations of revenge yea and to be tickled with an apprehension of purchasing or amplifying a Kingdome How obvious it is the reins being let loose to transcend the just limits how easie a matter to counterfeit Justice to pretend necessity and now to trample upon those Laws which before were so much outwardly reverenced you will undoubtedly find it true that it is more easie to take up then to moderate and temper Arms. But that I may not detain you long Aquinas requireth three things to the justification or legitimation of a Warre the Authority of the Prince a just Cause and a right Intention whereunto other Divines have added warrantable Reasons to obtain the end it is absolutely unlawfull therefore for private men to appear in Arms for the prosecution of their own right though in judgement This God hath delegated unto Princes that that might happen seldome which must needs be violent To the Lords of the earth we may say with Seneca I am he that God hath chosen out of so many men that I might be his Vicegerent upon earth I am the supreme Arbiter of life and death unto the Nations It is in the hand of my power to dispose the lot of their conditions to all my people These millions of swords that guard my peace shall at the lest intimation of my pleasure be all unsheathed What Cities shall perish and which shall flourish is my jurisdiction To be able to put all these things in execution is indeed a great matter but to forbear the pursuance of them unlesse necessity require it is farre more divine It is a lawfull wish that he to whom all things are lawfull would confine his will to the practice onely of lawfull things The right of the Sword is not extended when it devolveth into the Protection of one but is rather restrained One hand is stretched forth that all may be bound affairs are managed by the wisdome of a paucity lest the temerity of the whole multitude should precipitate them into a promiscuous destruction The parsimony even of the meanest bloud is to be praised No man is more unjustly invested with a superiority over others then he that is prodigall of their lives though in a just emergence Those thunderbolts must be slowly shot which the wounded persons can reverence Let Kings therefore beware lest they glorifie themselves by that faculty
wherewith God hath entrusted them and abuse it to outward pomp rather then exercise it to the advantage of good men Let the fear of misdemeanours and obliquities banish all fiercenesse from them and let them esteem it the greatest impotence to boast a Priviledge of Injustice or a Power to hurt The cause of the Warre must first be balanced by an accurate examination lest the affections obtain precedence over Equity and Reason lest iniquity be predominant in the better part and force and fury comply to cheat the world under the specious title of Injustice I am both sad and ashamed to consider with my self what frivolous occasions have prevailed with many whereon to ground a Warre The Trojan Warre that common Sepulchre of Asia and Europe flamed out from the impetuous flagrancies of a noble Whore By a thousand ships she was re-demanded and for her that had lost all modesty vast numbers of gallant Hero's lost their neglected lives So many chaste lay open to the lust of the enemies that an unchaste might be restored Alexander being yet a child was reprehended by his Tutour for his profusion of Frankincense in his Sacrifices to the Gods but being arrived to mans estate that he might wash away this admonition of his master he invadeth Arabia and there the second time offereth up Sacrifice for the conquest of the Countrey The Egyptians for a slain Cat rose up in arms against the Romans and fourty destroyed many thousand men Caligula with a mighty noise of armed men and a great preparation of all Military ornaments hasteneth to the Ocean there to gather cockles The Romans being contumeliously upbraided with this ridiculous Expedition conspired and almost effected the utter ruine of the scoffing Tarentians The people of Alexandria rebelled against Galienus because of a sottish contention between the Master and the Servant concerning the elegancy and neatnesse of a pair of shoes And to omit many examples which I could commemorate William of England sirnamed the Conquerour who was victorious over all men but himself revenged a pleasant conceit of Maximus the Prince with innumerable destructions The Conquerour was of a corpulent habit and his belly was somewhat prominent thorow a plenty of Hydropick humours wherefore when Philip the King of France heard of the nature of his disease We will allow him time saith he to provide for his lying in which by the bulk of his belly appeareth to be near at hand The Conquerour being mad with fury replyed That he would rise up after his delivery and kindle five hundred fires in France to adorn his up-sitting Nor was he unmindfull of his resolution for presently upon his recovery he entred France with a stupendious army wholly addicting himself by fire famine and horrible slaughters to the satisfaction of his revenge Shall we suppose that he playes and trifles with the bloud of men who upon such slight provocations can enterprize such mournfull Tragedies May we suppose those people miserable with whom the scoffs of furious men must be expiated with such a direfull destruction No man ought to believe himself or another concerning the cause of a Warre but let him weigh it with the exquisite prudence of the principall men whose advices are the more fruitfull of truth the lesse they are espoused to affection A right intention must necessarily be coveted to a just Cause and all these things are estimated by a sober and moderate conclusion or a justifiable end Be such a thought eternally banished from the head and heart of a Christian Prince that he should array himself in a Military posture to oblige some light affections of a luxuriant mind that he should run on slaughters command the burning of towns prosecute and seem to rejoyce in devastations that he should destroy he should extinguish and bury his own glory in the overthrow of others This is the indelible ignominy of Centaures and the Lapathae who in warring seek nothing but Warre The wisest Kings thorow tumults and intestine jarres have made a progresse unto Justice Equity and Concord and being themselves in Arms have sacrificed undefeigning vows to Peace They think of an Enemy as a Physician sometimes of his Patient that he must be recovered by corrosives and sharp remedies Oh that he would have been cured with a diet or asswaged with fomentations But when against the Law and Right of Nations he hath persisted in his obstinacy and contemned the reiterated offers of composing the present differences then you must bind then you must cut then you must burn him yet all this to restore not to exterminate him And all things composed behold like the scourge of a deadly and destructive Warre a Northern tempest rageth in the miseries of Germany there they wallow in bloud and in their night-marches they are conducted by the hideous light of burning Cities some few making a resistance and all men being astonished at the ferall prodigy The Altars are polluted with sacrifice Virgins with rapes the chains of Church-men are heard louder and further then the drums of their persecutours holy things are profaned and the abomination of desolation is consummated their very King who had appointed them thither being either ignorant of those outrages or unconsenting Now can any man conceive that this was devised by a Christian mind Can it be imagined that he who hath any reverence unto or sense of Religion can give such directions It is not credible such a monster could not have been brought forth had not hell conceived the bottomelesse-pit exhaling the fuliginous vapours and the devils themselves torturing mens minds into such uncouth diversities All things cannot properly have a reflected reference unto men The Privado's and Ministers of Princes are not at all times to be accused as though they had cast off all humaniry and covered themselves with brutish cruelty There are certain vagabond and deceitfull spirits destinated to revenge who being themselves lost in misery cease not to comfort their malice by driving others into a participation of those miseries which reason greatest Princes ought so much the more to invite yea to admonish you to leagues of Peace because our Omnipotent God in his secret counsel hath determined to subdue Satan by your hands and to cast him under your feet The highest circumspection and vigilancy are therefore requisite least matter be suppeditated to the Devil who altogether watcheth for destruction from the affections and vices of men Jealousie that tinder of Kingdomes and Nations easily taketh fire if it be fomented onely with an animal wisdome and be not mixed with the prudence of the Saints They who are addicted to one part say that the Spaniards do too much expose their power to Envy that it is hatefull unto equalls terrible to inferiours and if not prevented destructive unto all There is amongst them say they such an epidemicall itch after domination such intentive and indefatigable cares of their ambition such a luxurious wit to enlarge their Empire so vast a
is as the Wise-man said as the rain-bowe that is bright in the fair clouds This is he whom after so many storms so many tempests and such a deluge of Christian bloud God seems to exhibit as a restorer of things a Peace-maker to the world an avenger of evils and a bestower of blessings And indeed this is not done by humane counsel but by the gubernative reason of God which is his Providence that he might demonstrate to the world by no vain auguries that to this man as to the Patriarch Noah the tops of the mountains should appear the waters of strife and the flouds of contention being dried up This I suppose is that dove with silver wings and whose hinder parts glittered as the purest gold whereof the Prophet spake Innocentius hath ever shined brighter then silver by the candour and uprightnesse of his mind but now the latter parts of his life promise a golden Age unto the world He doth not sit idle amidst the complaints and mournings of the Church he doth not revel in an uncircumspect and lazy greatnesse but with unwearied pains and a mind alwayes vigilant he is intent upon illustrious cares for Christ and aimeth at the consolation of mankind The amiable name of Pamphilius is delightfull unto all men and delightfull is the name of Innocentius so often consecrated to the salvation of men Innocentius the first extinguished Alaricus boasting himself in the prey of the Roman Empire with his prayers and by his splendour re-beautified the face of the eternall City when it was infuscated with the sooty vapours of a brutish Warre Innocentius the second dissipated the Schism of the counterfeit Anacletus and with the co-assistance of S. Bernard composed the Christian world when it was disunited with great discords A pure white dove fore-shewed the inauguration of Innocent the third by flying to his side without doubt designing the solicitous endeavours whereby he laboured to consociate all Christian Princes by firm Leagues one with another and to exasperate them against the common enemy of Religion Innocentius the fourth came to Lyons that he might reconcile the irregular tumults in the Church and that by his authority he might remove Frederick the Emperour that fomented many things and disturbed all things Innocentius the fifth was no sooner crowned but presently he addicteth his mind to pacifie the Cities of Italy and being by such pious determinations immortall in glory he spent his short Pontificate in a fatherly care of his people Innocentius the sixth when the flame of a destructive warre devoured France and England stood stoutly for the House of God and with a great spirit laboured for Peace with John and Edward at that time the Kings of the Nations Innocentius the seventh mounted not otherwise to this pitch of supreme Dignity but by a faithfull endeavour constantly transacted to reconcile the Princes and appease the cities of Italy which a malignant force of discord had precipitated into imminent destruction Innocentius the eighth was most desirous of Peace among Christian Princes and could not without some motions of impatience see any go to warre but upon the most important and importunate causes Innocentius the ninth when before his Pontificate he was the Aposticall Nuntio of Gregory the fourteenth staying six years among the Venetians conjoyned them both in Arms and Armies with the Pope and Philip the second King of Spain and irritated them against the Turk whereupon that most famous victory of Naupactus broke the boldnesse of the Sarazens and after a wonderfull manner improved the conduct of Christian Affairs Oh how is the name of the Innocents born and consecrated unto Peace Oh joyful appellation unto Christians The Tenth will accomplish what the nine have attempted so much the greater as this number is the more noble Go on thou dove of Innocence display thy silver wings flie over both earth and sea view the world shew forth in all places the celestiall olive give Peace so ambitiously desired and by such constant expectations wished give Peace I say so often called for and to be implored of thee the Anointed of the Lord or else at this time it must be despaired of What remaineth Greatest Princes but that you grant that to our Petitions which you have hitherto denied to our Reasons Whatsoever restraineth passion whatsoever can appease an armed man in fury doth now run towards you in one troop that so it may be honourable for you to be thus intreated and shamefull for you not to yield to these intreaties Behold the Pope the Pastour and Parent of the whole Church stretcheth out friendly hands unto you and when he might command intreats you almost forgetting that he is the Pope he becomes an humble suppliant A man dear to heaven and born for great enterprises Worthy in all places to bear the felicities of the world about him amidst all his exalted prosperities is your Petitioner that Divine wit equall to his heighth feels a colluctation with these burdens and in a vigorous and circumspect old age is grieved by you The bowels of a Father are urged who is as often fruitfull in the generation of children as he desires those children to be reconciled to Peace Be ashamed not to hear him whose predecessour Attila would hear He is full of dayes honour his grey hairs he is a Father acknowledge his Charity he is the Pope be observant of his Dignity God forbid that he like meek Jacob should be compelled to say Simeon and Levi are brethren in iniquity Let not my soul participate of their counsels and in their company let not my glory come Cursed be their fury because it is obstinate and their indignation because it is cruel The whole Church lamenteth with her Pope in times past triumphing now deformed full of filth now bedewed and almost drowned in tears and tired under cares and sorrows He beseecheth you that you would not suffer the Ammorites and the Moabites to insult in your destructions Prevent the petulancy of such an objection that even Barbarians did reverence him and yet he had Parricides to his sonnes How often have we seen the Priests at Jubilees prostrate in the Sanctuary with ejulations How often have we beheld Religious persons wearying the Altars with unwearied prayers How often have we seen the well-disposed Virgins imploring the aid of heaven by frequent sighs How often have we gladly beheld the Devout multitude crouding the Church to pour forth their wishes Of what quality and complexion is that rigour that which God a vert will not hear the whole world How is the metall of their souls compounded that would make heaven iron unto us and almost noxious whilst it either seemeth not to hear or what it heareth to contemne To be never free from Warres they think is either for the publick profit or for their own if for the publick let them hear S. Augustine crying out That felicity acquired by Martiall exploits is alwayes a brittle perishable beauty
and whether it receive the tincture and complexion from Civil or Hostil bloud yet it is the bloud of man which is alwayes mixt with a benighting palenesse or darksome fear and a cruel desire And again that all humane Affairs are then seated in the best station of felicity when small Kingdomes are joyfull in Concord Piety and Unity of Religion And in a third place he hath this excellent saying Without doubt it is better to have the friendship of a good neighbour then to subdue a contentious bad neighbour They are evil wishes to desire to have whom you hate or whom you fear as he may prove whom you overcome If they judge it profitable for themselves to prolong the Warre truly they are most unjust who place the tears of a torn and ragged world amongst their felicities most miserable of all men are they who cannot be happy but by the miseries of other men He must needs be saith Homer without friend without affinity without law and without God who is a lover of Warre rather by choice then chance rather by will then necessity He is the most poor also who is rich by the calamity of all men How many who have alwayes been of a froward contentious and fighting wit have themselves been tortured with those pains and furies which they raised against others Achitophel that busie contriver of the Jewish warre between the Father and the Sonne paid himself the just wages of his traiterous counsels with an infamous halter The revenging hand of God fell upon Alcimus that traitour and fire-brand and counterfeit Priest among the Jews Alexander of Macedon whilst he makes the end of one Warre the beginning of another being impatient of rest and ever greedy after new bloud whilst he thrusts his Souldiers into battels beyond the progresse of the sunne and the limits of the sea he perished by poison given by his domesticks to whom he began to grow odious for his excessive appetite to Warre He was taken away as they say a green God lest he should further vex the world with arms who should have obliged it by benefits Hannibal whilst he weaveth inextricable webs of Warre a dishonourable old age surpriseth him solitude rejected him society shunn'd him therefore to shorten the date of these contempts he ends his dayes by voluntary poison The Romans that were Conquerours of the world alwayes full yet alwayes covetous whilst they remove the Temple of Peace without their gates they felt the hands of all men conspiring against them and seven times was this Mistresse of Cities taken whereof Sybil had said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rome shall be made a Village Cardinall Baronius cites a little Book witten by Carolus Crassus the Emperour of a Vision presented unto him three years before he reigned wherein he declareth that he beheld in the infernall places many souls of Princes and Bishops who had fomented controversies and fed the rage of Warres to be tormented with most dreadfull pains At the same time as this most learned Cardinall writeth Italy and France were agitated and afflicted with direfull factions but what was worse and indeed monstrous the Bishops and Abbats went forth armed to the battels which execrable custome when it long prevailed in France from thence it came to passe that the most flourishing Provinces were all laid waste with externall and Civil Warres But what was most detestable of all these Churches warriours are commended by the Writers of those times for this Ecclesiasticall gallantry and Spirituall valour when indeed they were rather to be abhorred as the violatours of the sacred Canons despisers of their Order and desertours of their Pastorall duty thus Baronius Likewise Julian a Clergy-man was the authour and promotour of that Varvensian slaughter which of all other was the most to be lamented by the Christian world who when he had contributed his perswasions for a countenance of the Warre against the League he exposed infinite companies of our side to the insulting fury of the Turks he himself being also slain with the young King of the Sarazens Thus Nemesis pursueth bloud-thirsty and contentious souls not suffering those to be at rest who sollicited others into disorder who would have been at rest A watchfull eye abides in heaven ever active never weary who perpetually contemplates the deeds of men and equally dispenseth to every one his deservings They that were long happy receive their portion and they who seem to be dismissed are onely dilated These things being put in so illustrious an example will they nothing move will they effect nothing Will brethren suffer themselves again to rush upon one anothers weapons Or will you O Princes and ye O Clergy-men encourage brethren to pull down tottering Kingdomes with more destructions Wo and alas Will brethren forgetfull of their covenant forgetfull of their name and unmindfull of their relations thus rage beyond the world and kill those they cannot hate But some will say this reason of bloud and alliance is inconsiderable and very unapt to procure a Peace for Kings have Subjects but kinsmen and consanguinity they have none O cruel speech O enemy of mankind O parricide of nature there must needs be a heap of grosse impieties where there is an oblivion of the greatest Charities Where Christ is banished and love finds no habitation there is either no Government or such as borders upon ruine The Turkish Empire that is established upon wickednesse and cemented with bloud may for a time subsist with wickednesse God appointing them to be the rods of his fury for our chastisement Christian Empires which were rooted in Faith and Piety and wanting the sap of Religion and Justice to nourish them have abandoned themselves to the infamous counsels of Machiavilians must unavoidably perish so preposterous a mind lodgeth not in pious Princes the voyce of nature sometime or other will be heard Christ will have a resurrection in the minds of all men Charity will revive and at length some Peace-maker will arise and at one the labouring world Now there hath shined round about us a most fortunate King and a most sweet Infant born for the Peace of Kingdomes and the worlds advantage By how many Prayers was he obtained and with what vehemence of soul was he sollicited how often hath he provoked our desires how often hath he raised our hopes and wasted them with delay when they were raised and renewed them when they were wasted Great things move slowly He had done lesse had he made more haste He lay concealed from the inhabitants of the earth in the secret Majesty of the Fates but now by the Dictates of heaven he is known unto us He was fore-shewed unto us long before he was and not being yet conceived he filled the world with Prophecies and designed his approaches by a prevolant fame At length the desired Infant came forâ—h in that moneth which they call the moneth of the Valiant by the prerogative of a great mind He was born
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