Beware how you enter into the list among so many noble spirits there to discover your weaknesse and to adde nothing to the lustre of the honour of so many worthy Ancestours but to render your own crimes the more remarkable Shew your self herein a reasonable man and endeavour that all your actions may be as lines which grow from the centre of wisdome to be produced with all felicitie Remember things past rectifie the present foresee those to come Above all learn to set a true estimation upon every thing in the world and suffer not your self to be surprised by the illusions of so many objects which when they have charmed the eyes and overthrown reason leave nothing behind them but sorrow to have done ill and impotencie of doing well In conversation take the measure of your self and the like of those with whom you deal to husband and accommodate your self reasonably to all the world yielding to every one the respect which his merit seems to require The exercise of devotion will not hinder you from the endeavour how to become an able man in your profession from being honest civil discreet affable liberal obliging stout couragious patient which are the principal qualities of a Courtier It is not desired that to be devout you should have a spirit drowzie sluggish overwhelmed not that through overmuch simplicitie you make profusion of your self in an Age where bountie seemeth to be the prey of insolent spirits Wisdom will teach you neither to intrude nor pour out your self to dissemble through virtue that which ought to be concealed to adapt your self to companies and affairs to believe nothing lightly nor to promise nor decide any thing without consideration to persevere in certain things not ill because you have begun them not to be harsh nor too much complying since the one tasteth of brutishness the other inclines to flatterie To propose to your self good and evil which may arise from an affair to moderate the one and tollerate the other Above all honour the King next after God as the source of all greatness and the fountain of the most noble lights which reflect on Nobilitie Honour him with profound respect as the lively Image of God Love him sincerely serve him with all fidelitie If you be employed in affairs and governments endeavour to persist therein with conscience and honour which are the two mansions of a great soul If you have merit without employment and recompence say not therefore that all is lost It is a good business to be well at rest to manure your spirit to enable your self with reading and peaceable conversion to govern your house Learn nothing but what you ought to know Search that onely which you may profitably find desire nothing but what you may honourably wish for And be not conceited to run after a spectre of imaginarie favour nor to mount to a place where you cannot stay without fear nor fall without ruin So many great Monarchs so many Princes Lords and valorous men who are come from Courts and the profession of arms to enter into the Temple of pietie assure us this life is capable of Saints and that no man ought to despair of virtue but he who renounceth it If the brevitie of this Treatise would permit I would willingly set before you a David a Josias an Ezechias a Charlemaign a S. Lewis a Hermingildes a Henry a Stephen a Casimire a Godfrey of Bovillon a Wenceslaus an Edward an Elzear an Amideus I would make you see flourishing Squadrons of Martyrs drawn from warfare amongst which you would admire a Maurice an Exuperius a Sebastian a Marius a Mennas an Olympiades a Meliton a Leontius a Maximus a Julian an Abdon a Sennen a Valens a Priscus a Marcellus a Marcellinus a Severinus a Philoromus a Philoctemon and so many such like Finally I would shew in the latter Ages men worthy of all honour eminent in arms and enobled with singular pietie but I now content my self to draw from Eusebius Theodoret Nicephorus Zozimus Socrates Sozomenus Cedrenus and above all Cardinal Baronius the life of Great Constantine who hath been the very prime man amongst Christian princes and hath witnessed especially after his Baptism a masculine pietie and a great example of sanctitie IMP. CAES. FLAVIVS CONSTAN AVG. CONSTANTINE The first SECTION The Providence of God over Constantine I Will shew to Christian Nobilitie its source in the life of the prime Gentleman of Christianitie If we respect antiquitie greatness and dignitie we shall not find a Prince either more anciently noble than he who first of all among Emperours deserved the title of Christian or more truly great than he who so happily engraffed the empire of the universe on the tree of the Cross or more justly honourable than he who cemented his honour with the bloud of the Lamb. It is the admirable Constantine Greatness of Constantine who so perfectly allied valour to pietie Monarchy to humilitie the wisdom of the Cross to the government of the world the nails and thorns of the passion to the Diadem of Kings and delights of the Court that he hath left matter of meditation for the wise of profit for Religious of imitation for Monarchs and of wonder for those who admire nothing vulgar Behold a marvellous Theatre of the providence of Theatre of Divine Providence God whereunto I would willingly invite all those spirits repleat with humane policie and devested of heavenly Maxims who are onely great by the greatness of their ruin to see how the breath of God demolisheth the Towers of Babel to raise the walls of Sion how the subtil are surprized in their subtility how the science of men becometh blind in its proper lights how the vigour of the world is slain by its own hands how stabilitie is overturned by the supports it chooseth how the spirit of flesh at unawares contributeth to plant the Gross on the top of Capitols and heads of Monarchs by the same ways wherewith it promised to over-cloud them with darkness and abysses I here produce a Constantine beed up very young in the Court of Diocletian who had an intention to become a scourge to Christianitie but God surprized him therein as Moses in the Court of Pharaoh to stop the stream of persecution to calm the tempests of the time confound Idols and raise the Church on the ruins of Gentilism Reader stay a little on the frontispice of this history and behold how the Eternal Providence led this young Constantine by the hand like another Cyrus to humble the Great-ones of the earth before his face and to give him hidden treasures to take Isaiah 49. from him so many bars and impediments to open for him so many gates of iron and to cause so many Kings to turn their faces and afford him their place There was at that time twelve heads which alreadie either wore the diadem or thought themselves capable of it Diocletian and Maximian held the highest place
to obey thy Commandments and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour In the time of Plague LEt thy anger cease O Lod and be appeased for the iniquity of thy people as thou hast sworn by thy self O holy God holy and strong holy and immortal have mercy upon us For the Clergy ALmighty and everlasting God who by thy Spirit dost sanctifie and govern the whole body of the Church graciously hear our prayers for all those whom thou hast ordained and called to the publick service of thy Sanctuary that by the help of thy grace they may faithfully serve thee in their several degrees through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Citie COmpass this Citie O Lord with thy protection and let thy holy Angels guard the walls thereof O Lord mercifully hear thy people For the sick O God the onely refuge of our infirmities by thy mighty power relieve thy sick servants that they with thy gracious assistance may be able to give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church through Jesus Christ For grace LOrd from whom all good things do come grant unto us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same through our Lord Jesus Christ For the afflicted O Almighty God the afflicted soul the troubled spirit crieth unto thee Hear O Lord and have mercy for thou art a merciful God For friends I Beseech thee O Lord for all those to whom I am indebted for my birth education instruction promotion their necessities are known unto thee thou art rich in all things reward them for these benefits with blessings both temporal and eternal For enemies O God the lover and preserver of peace and charity give unto all our enemies thy true peace and love and remission of sins and mightily deliver us from their snares through Jesus Christ our Lord. For travellers ASsist us mercifully O Lord in our supplications and prayers and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation that among all the changes and chances of this mortal life they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help through Christ our Lord. For a Family ALmighty and everlasting God send down thy holy Angel from heaven to visit protect and defend all that dwell in this house through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the dying FAther of spirits and God of all flesh receive the souls which thou hast redeemed with thy bloud returning unto thee For the fruits of the earth O God in whom we live and move and have our being open thy treasure in the due season and give a blessing to the works of thy hands For women in travel O Lord of thy goodness help thy servants who are in pains of child-birth that being delivered out of their present danger they may glorifie thy holy name blessed for ever Against temptation ALmighty God which dost see that we have no power of our selves to help our selves keep thou us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul through Jesus Christ For misbelievers and sinners ALmighty and everliving God who desirest not the death of a sinner mercifully look upon all that are deceived by the subtility of Satan that all evil prejudice laid aside they may return to the unity of thy truth and love For Prisoners O God who didst deliver S. Peter from his chains and restoredst him to liberty have pitie upon thy servants in captivity release their bonds and grant them freedom and safety for his merits who liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy Ghost ever one God world without end For temporal necessaries REplenish those O Lord we beseech thee with temporal nourishment whom thou hast refreshed with thy blessed Sacraments Against tempests DRive spiritual wickedness from thy house O Lord and preserve it from the malignity of tempestuous weather A Prayer of Thomas Aquinas before study O Unspeakable Creatour who out of the treasure of thy wisdom hast ordained Hierarchies of Angels and hast placed them above the highest heaven in a wonderfull order and disposed them sweetly for all parts of the world Thou the true fountain and incomprehensible principle of light and wisdom vouchsafe to illuminate the darkness of my understanding with a beam of thy light remove the darkness wherein I was born sin and ignorance Thou who makest the tongues of infants eloquent loosen my tongue and pour forth the grace of thy spirit upon my lips give me acuteness to apprehend capacity to retain subtility to interpret aptness to learn readiness to speak direct my beginning further my progression and perfect my conclusion THE PENITENT OR ENTERTAINMENTS for LENT And for the first day upon the Consideration of Ashes THou art Dust and to Dust thou shalt return Genes 3. 1. It is an excellent way to begin Lent with the consideration of Dust whereby Nature gives us beginning and by the same Death shall put an end to all our worldly vanities There is no better way to abate and humble the proudest of all Creatures than to represent his beginning and his end The middle part of our life like a kind of Proteus takes upon it several shapes not understood by others but the first and last part of it deceive no man for they do both begin and end in Dust It is a strange thing that Man knowing well what he hath been and what he must be is not confounded in himself by observing the pride of his own life and the great disorder of his passions The end of all other creatures is less deformed than that of man Plants in their death retain some pleasing smell of their bodies The little rose buries it self in her natural sweetness and carnation colour Many Creatures at their death leave us their teeth horns feathers skins of which we make great use Others after death are served up in silver and golden dishes to feed the greatest persons of the world Onely mans dead carcase is good for nothing but to feed worms and yet he often retains the presumptuous pride of a Giant by the exorbitancie of his heart and the cruel nature of a murderer by the furious rage of his revenge Surely that man must either be stupid by nature or most wicked by his own election who will not correct and amend himself having still before his eyes Ashes for his Glass and Death for his Mistress 2. This consideration of Dust is an excellent remedy to cure vices and an assured Rampire against all temptations S. Paulinus saith excellently well That holy Job was free from all temptations when he was placed upon the smoke and dust of his humility He that lies upon the ground can
by causing him to be espoused to the daughter of an high Priest of the city of Heliopolis consecrated to the sun but he caused him to be called The Saviour of the world and commanded that he should be carryed through the capitall city upon his triumphant chariot and that the Herald of Arms should cause men to bend their knees before him that he might be acknowledged of all the people and that all the world might understand that nothing was done but by his orders Where are those admirers of the fortunes of glasse that happen to to the wicked where are those adorers of the Colussu's of dirt that appear by the help of some false guildings and are immediately reduced to dust Let them see and let them consider that the God of heaven and earth which we adore is the God of honour too whereof he gives a share to his when it pleases him with magnificences that surpasse all whatsoever one can imagine For a prison of three years Joseph is exalted to a principality of fourscore with an authority so absolute that it never yet had its equall since the foundation of the Monarchy of the Egyptians It now remains to observe for the instruction of Courtiers the deportments of Joseph in that Charge and although the Scripture sayes very little of that businesse enlarging it self principally upon the narration of his reconciliation with his brethren yet it omits not to give us something whereon to meditate and whereby to instruct our selves about his demeanour at the Court. In the first place he is greatly to be commended for having preserved through his whole life a piety inviolable in the Religion of his fathers without altering the service of the true God by any bad tincture of the superstition of the Egyptians Represent to your selves a child about seventeen years of age that was in a strange Nation as the Morning-star whereof the Scripture speaks in the midst of clouds without a father without a mother without a governour or a teacher without a Priest without a Sacrifice without a Law without Precepts and without example that saw himself allured and powerfully sollicited to quit his Religion by that complacency which he desired to give his Prince by the consideration of his fortune by the friendship of the great ones by the condition of his marriage and by the liking which he might aim at of a people extremely fastned to their errour that could not easily endure those that had any other opinion of their Gods then their madnesse did prescibe And yet in an age so tender he holds his own by constancy of mind against the mighty by reason against the sages of the countrey by warinesse against his own wife by sweetnesse and by prudence against the people He remains alone amongst so many millions of superstitious men an adorer of the truth in spirit without other sacrifices or ceremonies which were not lawful for him to use To speak truth he that shall weigh all these circumstances will find a marvellous weight of virtue and constancy in this holy personage We may see many of the young gentry sufficiently well educated at the first that coming to breathe the air of liberty amongst the Hereticks and having not the frequentation of the Sacraments so free as formerly easily forget their duty and without having any other corruptour to sollicite them corrupt themselves of themselves through the want of courage and wearisomnesse of virtue But if there be any baits of pleasure or of honour that allures them to the side of impiety they tread often times under foot all that there is of divine and humane for the satisfying of their sensuality But this young man that saw every day before his eyes a thousand stumbling-blocks in a Nation that was addicted to Idolatry above all the People of the World and that had often torn in pieces those that expressed any contempt of their Ceremonies preserves himself amidst these enticements and these furies as a fountain of fresh-water in the midst of the salt-Sea The true God alwayes returned into his thoughts when he was to combate against the passion of his Mistresse when he was to present himself to the King when he was to require an oath of his brethren it was by the true God and when he was ready to render up the Ghost he conjured his children not to let his bones rot in a land of Idolatry Yet some men may wonder that in so long a sojourning as he made in Egypt and in an authority so absolute he tooke care onely of the Politick affairs and advanced not the interests of his Religion Some may marvell at the alliance that he made with a daughter of a Priest of Idols which could not be without putting his conscience in great danger there being nothing more full of Artifice then superstition that is upheld with Love But to this I answer That all that he could do then was to preserve his Faith without pretending to ruine the contrary It was not expedient that the figure should incroach upon the Body and that Joseph should do the work of the Messias This demolition of the prophane Temples and this destruction of the Idols was not due but to Jesus Christ and to the Deifying operations of the Evangelicall Law after the coming of the Holy Spirit How should Joseph have been able to enterprise the conversion of the Gentiles seeing that our Lord would not permit no not his Disciples while he was yet on earth to make incursions and missions into the Countrey of the Heathens commanding them to stay for that spirit of fire and light that was to inflame the whole world with its ardours And as for that which touches his allyance there was not yet any Law that forbad the Mariages of the Jews with the Gentiles and he had but newly seen the example of his Father Jacob who had allyed himself with the house of Laban This was done indifferently enough in the Law of Nature by reason that God had not commanded any thing that was contrary to this practice and because that his People were yet but a little family in the middle of the world But this fashion was changed afterward as it is clear by the Scripture and those who produce the Examples of Abraham and of Jacob to perswade allyance with Infidels shew that they have little Reason and much Passion In the second Place I say that the Modesty of Joseph is of a rare Example and of a strength of mind almost incomparable Which will be easie enough to prove to those that know how seriously to weigh the change of humour and of spirit that honour ordinarily brings with it and especially when it is great and sudden and falls upon a person that is not accustomed to it There are some that are like the Thracians that make themselves Drunk standing about burning coals by the odour of a certain herb which they throw into the fire after which they dance
to advance Virtue and to beat down vice without reflecting on any of the Personages of these times no more than if I wrote under the reign of Charlemaigne or S. Lewis I must intreat these spirits of Application which know not how to behold a work without making it subject to their own fancies imagining every letter to be the Ecchoes of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make a gloss upon their own Dreams than on my Books We live not yet God be thanked in an Age so miserable that we dare not sacrifice to Truth without a disguise seeing it is the glory of our Grandees that we may openly make war against Vice as against an enemy and not of our party For to speak sincerely having laid my first Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I considered what great and glistering lights there were in all their Orders within his Court which might serve as Models for my Treatise but to avoid the affectation of all compliance with this world I did expresly forbear it my own nature and my long Robe having so far estranged me from all worldly pretences that it would be a disease unto me but to salute a man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to return me for it As concerning the manner of writing which I have observed I shall easily confess unto my Reader that it proceeded rather from my Genius than from Art and though I have been curious enough to observe whatsoever the Greek or Romane Eloquence hath happily brought forth yet I must acknowledge that there is a Ray of God himself which entering into our spirit and mingling with our nature is more knowing and effectual than all precepts whatsoever And this I can affirm for the instruction of youth to those who have demanded my advice concerning the qualities and conditions of stiles It is true I have perused variety of Books written in all Ages and I have acknowledged that the most sensible amongst them have been raised both in their conceptions and their words above the common reach and alwayes without affectation Others have been passionately taken with some fine niceties which are the capital Enemies to perswasion and above all to be eschewed in the Discourses which are made of Piety whose nerves they do infeeble and whose lustres they do foil we may see that those who from the chair do speak unto us either by account or by writing although it be with terms discreet enough yet they leave a less impression on our hearts and sometimes are so violently carried away to serve their own reputation that they forget their engagements to the Truth We may observe some who through too much spirit seek out by-ways of conceptions of common sense and extravagant words and so strongly adore their own thoughts that they can suffer none but themselves on their own paper which is the cause they seldom meet with the right use of humane understanding being the true Citizens of Plato's Common-wealth capable to controul all things but to perform nothing Others there are who glory in a sterility and are willfully angry against God because in some part of the Heavens he placed so many stars These can endure nothing that is generous without snarling or biting at it They conceive Beauty and Light to be blemishes because they are above their capacities Lastly there are some who in their continual Allegations do so lay forth themselves in the praise of others that they make their Discourses like those pictures of Helena which are all of gold There is nothing but Drapery to be seen you cannot distinguish the foot from the hand nor the eye from the ear But I will enter no further into the consideration of our times having learned rather to respect than censure the indifferent Works of our Writers But to speak soundly I never thought it expedient either to perswade unto or to follow the same fashions And as in this work I have not altogether renounced the learning and the ornaments which I thought to be convenient but have inchased them in it so I would not fill my papers with Quotations and strange Languages this Labour being undertaken rather to perswade the Great-ones unto Virtue than to fill the Extracts and Annotations of the Students I have so moderated the style without letting my self loose to the empty language of Complements which had been beneath my Subject that I conceive I have rendered it easie to be understood even to those apprehensions which make no profession at all of learning It is the onely Design that I have to speak so as to be understood perswading my self according to the saying of Philo That Word and Thought are two Sister germanes and that the youngest is born onely to make the eldest known I study more for weight of sentences than for ornament of words pretending nothing to the glory of mundane Quills which we see every day appear amongst so many Authours of this Age who would be more perfect if they would apply themselves to more grave subjects and in some fashion imitate the Sun who being admired thoughout the whole world doth not know how to admire it self Nevertheless it often comes to pass but not to the more lofty Writers who are ordinarily indued with more modesty but to certain men extreamly profane to idolize their own inventions to condemn all Treatises of worth and to esteem that one cannot be eloquent in our tongue if he writes not Vanity or Impureness Certainly if a question were made to judge of the French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite that they may stand in comparison with the beauties of Sion As long as letters and men shall continue there shall continue the praises of so many excellent Books which have come from the hands of so many Illustrious Prelates and other qualified persons nay and of the secular State who have exercised their style on chaste and honourable Arguments and worthy all commendation I speak this by the way having at this time no design to enlarge my self on the recital of the number of those able men who have now the pen in their hands nor praise those of my own Robe who have given their holy labours to the publick and who I know may be followed by a great number of excellent Spirits of the same society For that which concerns me I am acquitted of my promise and I conceive that I have sufficiently expressed in these two Volumes the whole reach of my Design for the rest I conceive that the Books of Devotion which are to be made publick ought to be rare and to be very well digested because there is already extant so great a number of them that the number of the Authours will suddenly exceed the number of the Readers Satiety will cast a cloud on the brightest Beauties and though a thing may be very good yet we ought not to surfet
it self in a bloudie tempest of three Ages in the contradiction of a thousand Sects From whence it proceedeth that the crueltie of Tyrants hath served for encouragement to the faithful and the bloud of Martyrs for seed to posterity Where can a Religion be found which with such innocency and purity of life such humility solidity sanctity and which is more with the arms of disgraces poverty despicable contempt austerity and torments hath changed the estate and face of the world hath planted the Cross in the capital Citie of the Empire above the thunder-bearing Eagles of the Emperours and the ashes of a poor fisherman massacred for this law above the Diadems of Kings What would the ancient Caesars say if they rose again from their graves to behold in Rome where all the Monarchies were established and incorporated where all the devils and furies were cantonnized as in their last and strongest fortress in Rome from whence came all the fulminating thunders and bloudy Edicts against Christians where the sword of persecution was sharpened to reap a harvest of heads where was a Pantheon the magazin Wonderful proceeding of all their false Deities to see there the state of the supream * * * Alii nec minùs Christiani a liter sentiunt Bishop of Christians to see there a Church erected to Peter the fisher-man much more magnificent than ever was the Pantheon Say human wisdom if the SAVIOUR of the world at the age of twelve years when he began publickly to testifie he was come to redeem the Kingdom of his Father from violent and unjust usurpers had asked counsel of you touching the proceedings which ought to be held in this business what had you advised him Had you not demanded of him where are your treasures Have you not inexhaustible riches to oppose an Empire which hath a hundred and fiftie millions of revenew No I pretend to have no other riches but poverty Have you some five hundred thousand men in pay for ten years to maintain one army on Nilus another on Euphrates one on Rhene another on the Ocean another within the entrails of the Romane Empire No I purpose not to levie for execution of this design but twelve poor men sea-faring men without strength without industrie arms or so much as a staff Have you a thousand brave Oratours men of great learning eminent eloquence who will endeavour by the charms of their flowing tongues to attract the people and dispose them to their wills No I have none but simple ignorant people ideots that go out to preach the Cross What would you have said thereupon O folly how do you think to come to honour by ignominie to riches by povertie to greatness by the infamious punishment of the Cross to immortalilitie by a bloudie death And yet behold it is done What say you Is there in all this process any thing that is human Must we search out other miracles for confirmation of faith Adde hereunto that the devils craftily counterfeited Sanctitie an irrefragable argument wisdom power force by deceitful violent and bruitish ways but never could they constantly feign humilitie patience purity sanctity Sects which have taken this dissembled mask have not been able long time to keep it they all have shivered and broken with pride presumption private and publick impurities with ordures of execrable sacriledges The spirit onely of Christianitie hath always appeared as a true spirit of piety humility patience charity continency chastity mansuetude contempt of the world virtues so noble so elate so heroick that the life alone of a Christian being with conformity directed fairly to the doctrine of our SAVIOUR is a perpetual miracle able to convert worlds All that which the great Philosophers of this Universe could not attain with the flight of their feathers the Christian toucheth with his hand he hath demonstrated more in his works than they have said in their books they have built Common-wealths on paper and our religion hath raised Monarchies of real virtues And if the wicked who stagger in their belief had addicted themselves to the exercise of good works never would infidelity have made prey upon their understandings but for that they suffered themselves to be transported with the overflow of pride presumption curiositie of toys vanities and carnal sensualities of the world God in just vengeance suffereth them to fall into a reprobate sense Oh lost soul which givest way to this faintness and remisness in thy religion consider a little attentively all that I have said hereupon And if truth content thee not thou mayest well hereafter expect the lot of Cain the absence from the face of God perpetually frightful anxiety terrours and menaces from heaven the indignation of the sovereign Judge the hatred of men the ill success of thy affairs extraordinary maladies desolation the life of a sad howling wolf a tragick death and detestation of thy posterity Even Atheists amongst the confusions of Paganism have seldom or never found assurance therein some have been sacrificed to flames as Diagoras others Diog. laert Paulus Diac. l. 15. eaten up with lice as Pherecydes others devoured by dogs as Lucian others thunder-shot in a hath and turned to ashes in the twinkling of an eye as Olympias others have suddenly lost human speech and have bellowed like bulls and in this roaring have yielded up their souls as Simon Thuvan a wicked pedant Polydor. l. 5. in the year 1201. others have burst in pieces in an infamous privie infecting the sinks and publick sewers with their souls much more stinking as did the wicked Arius others have lost their scepter and eyes as a King of the Bulgarians who was deprived and blinded by his own father Trebellius as soon as Sabel l. 6. Lun 85. he returned from a Monastery where he had retired himself with armed power to chastise the Atheism of his son We are not yet in an Age so caytife where brave and couragious Magistrates are wanting to bridle the impudency of those who would advance these detestable Maximes of impiety We have seen in fresh memory the Decree of that great and illustrious Parliament of Paris that condemned to the fire the Authours of such abominations which powerfully stayed the violent course of black and beastly impieties that dispread themselves under the mask of goodness which shewed an heroick zeal both of the glory of God and general integrity and maintenance of laws for which God hath reserved to them a crown of immortality This Decree hath been attended with favours from heaven which even in an instant hath sweetened notably these punishments and invited the blessings of all good men that have with thanksgiving lifted their hands to heaven We had seen a little before the ashes of some to flie in the wind perhaps into the eyes of those which Picus Mir. Ep. 1. Magna insania Evangelio non credere cujus vevitatem sanguis Martyrum clamat Apostolicae resonant voces prodigia
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
sufferings of Jesus Christ the one hasteneth to a neighbour and the other abideth in God the one hath exercise the other joy the one conquereth the other possesseth the one knocketh at the door the other entereth in the one despiseth the world the other enjoyeth God Finally the spiritual man is a man covetous of eternity prodigal of life little careful of the present certain of the future A man who seems no longer to have any commerce with the world and who hath nothing so familiar as a life that is as it were buried in death and who flieth above sepulchers like an Angel who holdeth not of the earth but by the slender root of natural necessities and already toucheth heaven with a finger A man who is as yet in flesh though he hath made an eternal divorce with flesh who is under-foot to all the world by humility and above all the greatness thereof by contempt of it who binds himself to be at liberty who crucifieth himself to combat who mortifieth himself to be the more vigoroue who withereth to flourish again and daily dieth that he may never die The third SECTION Of the first monster which the spiritual man should resist to wit Ignorance and of the practice of virtues by which it is subdued THe greater part of men have dexterity in delving From whence our evils come the ground like moles (a) (a) (a) Oculis capti fodere cubilia talpae Virgil. Geor. and have no eyes to behold the Sun Yet all evils proceed from ignorance and the want of the knowledge of God (b) (b) (b) Primae scelerum causae mortalibus aegris Naturam nescire Dei Silius l. 4. This is the first Monster which we must assault the first obstacle we must take away And for this effect observe a wholesom doctrine to wit that God is the Sun of all the Intelligences and that from this Sun five (c) (c) (c) Five rays of the soul Dignity of faith Aug. apud Gulielm Lugdunens rays of a lively and quickening light are diffused over the darkness of our understandings These five rays are faith understanding counsel wisdom and prudence The first and most excellent light is faith because the other rays do well enlighten the soul in those operations of which it is as it were the fountain but faith alone raiseth him above himself to his beginning which is God (d) (d) (d) Fides res est audax atque improba perveniens quo non pertingit intelligentia ipsa ascendit super Cheruban volat super Seraphim senas alas habens Faith is a virtue bold and urgent which attains to that the understanding cannot reach unto mounteth above Cherubins and flies above Seraphins though they have six wings A man without faith is as the Pilot of whom it is spoken in the Proverbs (e) (e) (e) Prov. 21. that fell asleep and lost his rudder What virginity is to the body the same is faith to the soul It is the first-born of virtues the beginning of spiritual life the life of the understanding as charity is the life of the will the pillar of the cloud (f) (f) (f) Et erat nubes tenebrosa illuminans noctem Exod. 14. 30. which hath two faces the one dark because it believeth the things which are not apparent the other lightsom for that it believeth with an infallible assurance The fourth SECTION Practice of Faith THat you may well practice the acts of faith What faith is Hebr. 12. 1. Sperandarum substantia rerum argumentum non apparentium you must know the nature object and motive thereof Faith saith S. Paul is the foundation of hope and the proof of things not apparent The foundation of hope in regard all whatsoever we hope in matter of Religion is grounded upon faith as the statue upon its basis the proof of things not apparent because it is an infallible argument of truths whereof we have not as yet evident notice S. Bernard Voluntariae quaedam certa praelibatio nec dum propalatae veritatis Bern. de consider It s object S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 1. How we should believe addeth that it is a first-tast certain and voluntary of truth yet not manifested The Gold-smith laboureth upon gold silver and precious stones as upon his proper object and the object which employeth faith are the mysteries revealed unto us by God and proposed by his Church Such mysteries ought to be believed for no other motive but for that God the eternal Truth hath revealed them The arguments which are drawn from the prophesies miracles numbers of Martyrs purity of the evangelical law from the correspondency thereof with reason from the admirable success and consent of all the mysteries from the conversion of the world from the means which the Church hath used to establish it self from her firm constancy amidst persecutions from the wisdom sanctity of the professours of our law and such like things which I have produced in the first obstacle of the second book are most powerful considerations to introduce us to faith and to make easie and familiar to us the acts thereof but they are not properly motives of faith In the same manner How faith works A fine comparison as the soul draweth knowledge from sense and yet notwithstanding is above sense so faith though she serve her self with these considerations which are able to command the most contumacious spirits yet is she admirably raised upon a more supereminent sphere and will abide no other touch but of the eternal Verity which darteth a forcible lightening-flash into the soul able to dazle enlighten and surprize the most prosperous liberty that may be imagined Thence the soul cometh to believe not by Wherin faith consisteth humane discourse by miracles by doctrine by sanctity but because God speaketh inwardly unto it and giveth it so powerful a touch that she judgeth infallible whatsoever is revealed and proposed unto her by the Church Behold to what point the good S. Elzear Count of Arian was arrived when he said he tasted matters of faith with such certainty and resolution of understanding that when Monsieur Miron held for a prodigie of knowledge in his time and all the most famous Doctours would have perswaded him the contrary of what he had embraced in the simplicity of his heart all their subtilties could not be able to give the least shock to his spirit This admitted the acts of faith are I. To submit proper judgement to God with all Touch-stone to know whether one have faith simplicity and humility of spirit who speaketh unto us by his Church by Scriptures by Traditions by Councels by Canons of the sovereign Pastours of the Church II. To believe firmly all the Articles of faith which are proposed to us as well those concerning the Divinity as the humanity of our Saviour those which concern the Sacraments and ceremonies as those which appertain to the order and
the deluge which after it had born the whole world in the bowels thereof amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of universal nature reposed on the mountains of Armenia So S. Monica when she so long time had carried in her entrails and heart a spirit as great as this universe among so many tears and dolours so soon as she was delivered of this painful burden went to take her rest on the mountains of Sion A little before her death beholding Heaven from a high window which opened on a garden she seemed there already to mark out her lodging so much she witnessed resentment and extasie towards her son Augustine who at that time made this admirable colloquie with her couched by him afterward in his Confessions The conclusion was that she said unto him My son I have now no more obligations to the world you have discharged all the promises of Heaven to me and I have consummated all the hopes I might have on earth seeing you a Catholick and which is more resolved to perfection of the life you have embraced When it shall please God to call me I am like fruit ripe and falling that holdeth on nothing Soon after she betook her to her bed being surprized with a feaver which she presently felt to be the messenger of her last hour Behold the cause why she being fortified with arms and assistances necessary for this combat took leave of Augustine and his brother there present affectionately entreating them to remember her soul at the Altar onely meditating on Heaven and neglecting the thought of the land of Africa which she had seemed at other times to desire for the sepulcher of her body And as her other son said unto her Madame my mother we as yet are not there we hope to close your eyes in our own countrey and burie you in the tomb of your husband this holy woman seeing this man would still tie her to the present life and divert her from cogitation of death which to her was most sweet beheld him with a severe eye and then turning her self towards her son Augustine Hearken saith she what he saith as if we absent from Africa must needs be further from God She often cast her dying eyes towards this son who was her precious conquest and who in her sickness served her with most particular assistances affirming that Augustine had ever been a good son towards her and though he had cost her many sorrows he never had forgotten the respect due to a mother Verily there was a great sympathie between the soul of such a mother and such a son which was infinitely augmented after this happy conversion and therefore we must give to nature that which belongs to it The child Adeodatus seeing his Grand-mother in the last agony as possessing the affections of his father threw out pitifull out-cries in which he could not be pacified And S. Augustine who endeavoured to comfort them all upon so happy a death withheld his tears for a time by violence but needs must he in the end give passage to plaints so reasonable The Saint died as a Phenix among Palms and they having rendered the last duties to her pursued the way begun directly for Africk Behold how the conversion of S. Augustine passed and though many cooperated therein yet next unto God S. Ambrose hath ever been reputed the principal Agent and for that cause his great disciple said of him (b) (b) (b) Aug. contra Julianum Pelagianum l. 1. c. 6. Excellens Dei dispensator quâ—m veneror ut patrem in Christo enim Jesu per Evangelium ipse me genuit eo Christi ministerio lavacrum Regenerationis accepi Ambrose is the excellent steward of the great father of the family whom I reverence as my true father for he hath begotten me in Jesus Christ by the virtue of the Gospel and God hath been pleased to make use of his service to regenerate me by Baptism Whilest stars and elements shall continue it will be an immortal glory to the Bishop Ambrose to have given the Church a S. Augustine of whom Volusianus spake one word worth a thousand (c) (c) (c) Volusian Epist 2. Vir est totius gloriae capax Augustinus In aliis sacerdotibus absque detrimento cultus divini toleratur inscitia at cum ad Antistitem Augustinum venitur Legi deest quicquid ab eo contigerit ignorari Augustine is a man capable of all the glorie of the world There is much difference between him and other Bishops The ignorance of one Church-man alone prejudiceth not Religion but when we come to Bishop Augustine if he be ignorant of any thing it is not he but the law which is defective because this man is as knowing as the law it self The eleventh SECTION The affairs of S. Ambrose with the Empeperours Valentinian the father and Gratian the son LEt us leave the particulars of the life of S. Ambrose to pursue our principal design which is to represent it in the great and couragious actions he enterprized with the Monarchs of the world Let us not behold this Eagle beating his wings in the lower region of the ayr but consider him among lightenings tempests and whirl-winds how he plays with thunder-claps and ever hath his eye where the day breaketh The state of Christianitie stood then in need of a The state of Christendom brave Prelate to establish it in the Court of Great-ones The memory of Jâ—lian the Apostata who endeavoured with all his power to restore Idols was yet very fresh it being not above ten years past since he died and yet lived in the minds of many Pagans of eminent quality who had strong desires to pursue his purpose On the other side the Arians who saw themselves so mightily supported by the Emperour Constans made a great party and incessantly embroyled the affairs of Religion Jovinian a most Catholick Emperour who succeeded Julian passed away as a lightening in a reign of seven moneths After him Valentinian swayed the Empire who had in truth good relishes of Religion but withal a warlick spirit and who to entertain himself in so great a diversitie of humours and sects whereon he saw this Empire to be built much propended to petty accommodations which for some time appeased the evil but took not away the root He made associate of the Empire his brother Valens who being a very good Catholick in the beginning of his reign suffered himself to be deceived by an Arian woman and did afterward exercise black cruelties against the faithfull till such time as defeated by the Goths and wounded in an encounter he was burnt alive by his enemies in a shepherds cottage whereunto he was retired so rendering up his soul in the bloud and flames where with he had filled the Church of God The association of this wicked brother caused much disorder in the affairs of Christendom and often slackened the good resolutions of Valentinian by coldness and
all other consideration This good husband who had so much affection for his dear spouse suffers himself to be won by the ambition and easiness of his nature which bowed much to the wills of those who seemed to wish him well and by the lustre of the purple presented to him Maximianus would needs play the Tyrant aswell over loves as men and plotting marriages placeth his daughter in the conjugal bed of Constantius to plant him in the Throne of Caesars S. Helena of more worth than an Empire understanding Virtue of S. Helena the news bare this alteration with great constancy not complayning either of the chance force or disloyalty of Constantius but accounted it an honour that to refuse her no other cause was found but the good fortune of her husband She more feared than envied Scepters and was hidden in her little solitude as the mother of pearl under the waves breeding up her young Constantine in such sort as God should direct her Constantius touched with this admirable virtue lived in body with Theodora and in heart with his Helena He gave contentment in the East to a man Imperious and served the times to have his will another day But he was in the West in the better part of himself Besides when he was absolute and that he must needs divide the Empire with Galerius his Colleague he voluntarily resigned the rest of the world unto him to have France Spain and his I le of England where the moity of his heart remained It is a very hard matter long to restrain an honest Love of Constantius and S. Helena and lawful love It is said when Sicily was torn from Italy by an arm of the Sea which interposed it-self a-thwart palm-trees were found by the violence of waters rent asunder which in sign of love still bowed the one to the other as protesting against the element which had separated their loves The like happened to Constantius and Helena the torrent of ambitions and affairs of the world having parted their bodies could not hinder the inclinations of their hearts Constantius returned into Great Britain there to live and make his tomb for he in the end died in the Citie of York And as he being on his death-bed was asked which of his children he would have succeed him since besides Constantine he had three sons by Theodora at that time forgetting his second wife and her off-spring he answered aloud CONSTANTINUM PIUM I will have no other successour but the PIOUS CONSTANTINE which was approved by all the Army Thus God the Master of Scepters and Empires willing to reward the modestie of the virtuous Helena laid hold of her bloud to give it the Empire of the world in the end leaving the sons of Theodora to whom Maximian promised all the greatness of the world The third SECTION His Education and Qualitie A Great Oratour hath heretofore said speaking Gregor epist 6. l. 5. ad Childebertum Quantò caeteros homines regia dignitas antecellit tantò caeterarum gentium regna regni profectò vestri culmen excellit of Constantine that he appeared as much above Kings as Kings above all other men It is the Elogie which afterward S. Gregorie gave to our Kings Verily he was accomplished with a spirit and bodie in so high a degree of perfection that there needed no more but to see him to judge him worthy of an Empire Nature sometimes encloseth great souls in little bodies ill composed as fortune hath likewise placed Kings in Shepherds Cottages It is an unhappiness deserving some compassion when a great Captain is of so ill a presence as to be taken for one of his servants and be made to cleave wood and set the pot over the fire to prepare his own dinner as it heretofore happened to Philopaemen Constantine took no care for falling into such accidents Beautie of Constantine It seemed as Eumenius saith that nature from above had been dispatched as a brave harbinger to score out a lodging for this great soul and to give him a bodie suteable to the vigour of his spirit so well was it composed He was of a stature streight as a palm of an aspect such that the Oratours of that time called it divine of a port full of Majestie his eyes sparkled like two little stars and his speech was naturally pithie sweet and eloquent his bodie so able for militarie exercises that he amazed the strongest and so sound that he had no disease In these members so well proportioned reigned a vigorous spirit very capable of learning if the glorie of Arms had not wholly transported him into actions of his profession His father well enformed of his fair qualities caused him to come into the East where he took a tincture of good letters at the least so much as was needfull for a warlick Emperour and applied himself seriously to the exercise of Arms wherein he appeared with so much admiration that he was alreadie beheld with the same eye one would an Achilles or an Alexander were they alive again Diocletian who had not as yet forsaken the Empire would have him at his Court to work him from apprehension of Christianitie to which he might be alreadie much disposed and draw him to the hatred of our Religion It was a most dangerous school He was bred in the Court of Diocletian for this young Prince for education ordinarily createth manners and we are all as it were that which we have learned to be in our younger dayes Constantine notwithstanding gathered flowers in this garden-bed not taking the breath of the serpent which was hidden there-under He soon learned from Diocletian militarie virtue prudence to govern souldiers good husbandrie in revenews authoritie to become awfull but he took nothing either of his impietie or malice This Barbarous man in the beginning passionately loved him and would perpetually have him by his sides but when he saw that passing through Palestine and other parts of his Kingdom the young Constantine was more respected than himself so much his carriage especially compared to the harsh countenance of the Emperour had eminence in it he began to grow into suspicion and as it is said desired secretly to be rid of him But Constantine prevented the blow retiring under an honourable pretext to the Court of Galerius the associate of his father Constantius who most willingly left this son with him in pledge thereby to hold some good correspondence with him This Galerius was a creature of Diocletians who Constantine at Court of Galerius had heretofore declared him Caesar yet still retained such power over him that when he had displeased him he made him run on foot after his coach not deigning so much as to look upon him He in the beginning very courteously entertained the son of his faithfull friend affording him all manner of favours but in process of time he conceived a strong jealousie beholding in this young Mars more excellent parts than
of his valour and the trust he had in God he first of all appeared in the head of his Army and with many paces set forward before the rest making his horse curvet in a martial manner It was an easie matter to know him for his arms shined all with gold and his helmet was set with precious stones His enemies began to fall roundly upon him but the Captaines of Constantine seeing their Emperour so generously to out-brave danger followed him with such fervour as if every one of them expected an Empire for recompence They fell like lightning upon their enemies who were much amazed at this first charge yet they notwithstanding made good resistance but maugre all their endeavours those of Constantine brake through and defeated them Maxentius beholding his Cavalry in which he Maxentius defeated reposed all his hope to be so ill handled resolved upon a retreat to make use of his bridge and drown Constantine engaged in the pursuit of those that fled But oh the justice of God! The wicked man as saith the Royal Prophet falleth into the ditch which he himself had digged It is not known whether those besotted engineers failed in their design or whether the great numbers of those that fled caused this ruin but the bridge brake under Maxentius his feet and threw him into Tiber all bloudy like another Pharaoh in the red sea with all the principal of his Empire who environed his person He amazed at so violent a fall hoped yet to recover the other shore being excellently mounted where he was seen to wrestle a certain time with the waves which in the end swallowed him up There was in the begining a great slaughter of those who made resistance but in the end seeing their Emperour drowned they yielded all to the mercy of Constantine who stayed the victorious sword in the hands of souldiers to consecrate it to clemency He did well to search for the body of Maxentius in Tiber to take off his head which was fixed on the point of a lance and born to Rome and Africk to satisfie justice for the enormous forfeits he had committed when he was alive From thence this brave Conquerour is received in the City of Rome as an Angel descended from heaven for the deliverance of the world Never was triumph so highly valued as his because in the tropheys of other Emperours they triumphed for the gaining of some far-distant Province but in this lost Rome recovered it-self The Queen of Nations ceased to be the prey of Nations breathed now a sweeter ayr of ancient liberty If ever Prince saw a glorious day in all his life this was it which shined then over the head of Constantine They came from all parts of Italy to behold him and those who had seen him thought they had lived long enough supposing it unfit to behold any other humane thing Amongst so many notable spectacles at that time in the City none was looked upon but he his face was the object of all their admirations and his valour the matter of all discourses The Senate to witness the joy they conceived for this victory prepared him a triumphal Arch all of marble one of the stateliest monuments that ever had been raised to the honour of a Conquerour wherein this Inscription was engraven IMP. CAES. FL. CONSTANTINO MAXIMO P. F. AUGUSTO S. P. Q. R. QUOD INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS MENTIS MAGNITUDINE CUM EXERCITU SUO TAM DE TYRANNO QUAM DE EJUS OMNI FACTIONE UNO TEMPORE JUSTIS REMPUBLICAM ULTUS EST ARMIS ARCUM TRIUMPHIS INSIGNEM DICAVIT This said that the Senate and people of Rome dedicated this triumphal Arch to Constantine Emperour and Great Pontifice happy Prince and Augustus because by an instinct of Divinity and an admirable greatness of courage he had with his Army freed the Common-wealth from a Tyrant and all his faction by the justice of his arms Where in the Arch on the right hand were read these words Liberatori Urbis on the left hand Fundatori Quietis which clearly declared him the Freer of the Citie and Founder of Repose There was likewise inscribed on it the number of years in which they desired to render vows for this glorious victory Observe as you pass along that the Senate was as yet Pagan yet knowing the devotion which Constantine bare to the Saviour of the world though he were not then a declared Christian they abstained from the mention of Gods and spake onely of one Divinitie The sixth SECTION The death of Diocletian and feats of Arms performed by Constantine against Lycinius SInce I have undertaken to represent the famous warlick Acts of Constantine to shew his arrival to Monarchy I will here insert the end of Diocletian and Lycinius When Constantine caused his Standards to march against Maxentius there remained no more of so many Caesars but Lycinius who was created a little before the death of Galerius The brothers of Constantine would alter nothing Diocletian remained in his retirement There was none but this Lycinius who was an old souldier a man raised from nothing but advanced by arms and who had done so good services to Galerius the creature of Diocletian in the war which he had against the Persians that out of meer respect of his valour he was chosen Emperour In all other things he was of a rude and gross spirit as derived from Peasants and who all his life had done nothing else but handle iron either for tillage or war not having acquired any neatness of a civil life Behold the cause why being ignorant and proud he extreamly hated learning which he called the poison of the Empire and had it been in his power he would have banished all knowing men that there might be none able to reproach his ignorance Constantine as wise as he was warlick saw well he must mannage this spirit who might much trouble him in his design against Maxentius for which cause following this counsel he promised him a share in the Empire and his sister Constantia in marriage It is held this marriage was solemnized at Milan a little after the defeat of Maxentius where many treaties passed between Constantine and Lycinius touching their principalities and from that time a most favourable Edict was made for the re-establishment of Christians the honour of Christianity which Lycinius although a Pagan refused not to sign Victor addeth that Diocletian was sent for to the wedding of Lycinius For it was much desired to hear him speak and see what he had upon his heart his spirit being very able to give cause of distrust to two Princes who were desirous to establish themselves in all security The subtile Hermit on the other side who feared to be overtaken made an answer in which he besought their Majesties to give him leave to live in his Hermitage and affoord him that for delight which others commonly tooke for punishment That he had not for the time to come any mind upon
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
suitable to the greatness of this Mysterie Another having lived free from the bands of marriage caused to be set on his tomb Vixit sine impedimento Brisson for He lived without hinderance which was a phrase very obscure to express what he would say Notwithstanding it was found this hinderance whereof he spake was a woman This may well happen through the vice and misery wherein the state of this present life hath confined us but to speak generally we must affirm had it been the best way to frame the world without a woman God had done it never expecting the advise of these brave Cato's S. Zeno homil de continent Aut hostis publicus aut insanus and whosoever endeavoureth to condemn marriage as a thing not approved by God sheweth that he is either out of his wits or a publick enemy to mankind The great S. Peter in whose heart God locked up 1 Pet. 3. Vi qui non credunt Verbo per conversationem mulierum sine verbo lucriâ—iâ—nt the Maxims of the best policie of the world was of another opinion when he judged the good and laudable conversation of women rendered it self so necessary for Christianity that it was a singular mean to gain those to God who would not submit themselves to the Gospel Whereupon he affordeth an incomparable honour to the virtue of holy women disposing it in some sort into a much higher degree of force and utility than the preaching of the word of God and in effect it seemeth this glorious Apostle by a spirit of prophesie foresaw an admirable thing which afterward appeared in the revolution of many Ages which is that God hath made such use of the piety of Ladies for the advancement of Christianity that in all the most flourishing Kingdoms of Christendom there are observed still some Queens or Princesses who have the very first of all advanced the Standard of the Cross upon the ruins of Infidelity Helena planted true Religion in the Roman Empire Caesarea in Persia Theodelinda in Italie Clotilda in France Indegundis in Spain Margerite in England Gysellis in Hungarie Dambruca in Poland Olga in Russia Ethelberga in Germanie not speaking of an infinite number of others who have happily maintained and encreased that which was couragiously established Reason also favoureth my proposition for we must necessarily confess there is nothing so powerfull to perswade what ever it be as complacence and flattery since it was the smoothest attractiveâ— which the evil spirit made use of in the terrestrial Paradise to overthrow the first man setting before him the alluring pleasures of an Eve very newly issued out of the hands of God Now every one knows nature hath imparted to woman a very good portion of these innocent charms and it many by these priviled ges are also powerfull in actions so wicked why should not so many virtuous souls generoully employed in the service of the great God bear as much sway since he accustometh to communicate a grace wholly new to the good qualities that are aimed to his honour I conjure all Women and Ladies who shall read this Treatise to take from hence a generous spirit and never permit vice and curiosity may derive tribute from such ornaments as God hath conferred on them it being unfit to stuff Babylon with the gold and marbles of Sion The second SECTION That women are capable of good lights and solid instruments SInce I see my self obliged by my design to make a brief model of principal perfections which may be desired for the complishment of an excellent Ladie and that this discourse cannot be throughly perfected without observing vicious qualities which are blemishes opposite to the virtues we endeavour to establish I will make use of the clew of some notable invention in so great a labyrinth of thoughts the better to facilitate the way I remember to have heretofore read a very rare manuscript of Theodosius of Malta a Greek Authour touching the nuptials of Theophilus Emperour of Constantinople and his wife Theodora which will furnish us with a singular enterance into that which we now seek for so that we adde the embelishment of so many Oracles of wisdom to the foundations which this Historian hath layed He recounteth that this Theophilus being on the Anno 830. Zonoras saith that she was onely step-mother and relateth it somewhat otherwise but let us follow our Authour point to dispose himself for marriage the Empress his mother named Euphrosina who passionately desired the contentment of her son in an affair of so great importance dispatched her Embassadours through all the Provinces of the Empire to draw together the most accomplished maidens which might be found in the whole circuit of his Kingdom And for that purpose she shut up within the walls of Constantinople the rarest beauties of the whole world assembling a great number of Virgins into a chamber of his Palace called for curiositie The Pearl The day being come wherein the Emperour was to make choice of her to whom he would give his heart with the Crown of the Empire the Empress his mother spake to him in these terms MY LORD AND SON Needs must I confess that since the day nature bound me so streightly to your person next after God I neither have love fear care hope nor contentment but for you The day yieldeth up all my thoughts to you and the night which seemeth made to arrest the agitations of our spirit never razeth the rememberance of you from my heart I acknowledge my self doubly obliged to procure with all my endeavours what ere concerneth your good because I am your mother and that I see you charged with an Empire which is no small burden to them who have the discretion to understand what they undertake It seems to me since the death of the Emperour your father my most honoured Lord I have so many times newly been delivered of you as I have seen thorny affairs in the mannage of your State And at this time when I behold you upon terms to take a wife and that I know by experience to meet with one who is accomplished with all perfections necessary for your State is no less rare than the acquisition of a large Empire the care I have ever used in all concerns your glory and contentment is therefore now more sensible with me than at any other time heretofore It is true O most dear Son that the praise-worthy inclinations which I have observed in your Mujestie give me as much hope as may reasonably by conceived in the course of humane things yet notwithstanding the accidents we see to happen so contrary to their proceedings do also entertain my mind in some uncertaintie That you may take some resolution upon this matter behold in the Pearl of Constantinople I have made choice of the most exquisite maidens of your Empire to the end your Majestie may elect her whom you shall judge most worthie of your chaste affections I beseech God
eyes in a bason full of glew having observed a huntsman who washed his with fair water and he who being desirous to bathe a little infant in imitation of its nurse hastened to plunge it in a boyling cauldron How many do we daily see in the seemings of affected piety who so well act all countenances as if with such merchandize Paradise were to be purchased And in the mean space they are altogether devoid of true virtues so that he who could penetrate into their hearts should find they were like to those pearls which in stead of a solid body have nothing but the husk Some take devotion as a slight pastime others as a light complement others bend that way for complacence to the humours of another others for glory and although they have consciences as rude as those of the Countrey they would willingly draw Seraphins out of Heaven to govern them to the end that although they cannot have devotion they may at the least gain the reputation to seek after the perfectest others are thereto transported for some slender cloak of liberty and certain accommodations of their own proper interest I do not say but that there are a great number who have intentions most pure and proceed very piously but we must affirm that the defects whereof we speak may craftily slide into the infirmity of our sex For what may we say of a creature to whom ten years of devotion twelve hundred communions and a thousand exhortations have not yet taken off one hair of vanity What may we think of her who eateth the immortal Lamb twice or thrice a week and daily on all occasions becometh a Lioness in her house What may we judge of her who so many times layeth the holy Eucharist on her tongue as a seal of the Spouse not being able to bridle or restrain it so far as to forbear so many indiscreet and evil words what may one presume of her who makes a scruple to drink cool in sommer and to behold a flower with delight yet feeleth no remorse of conscience to have spoken more slanders in one dinner than she hath eaten morsels Verily we betray devotion which is of it self fair and glorious when we use it in such sort and we give matter to exorbitant souls how to justifie their sins by our deportments to which they ever have but too much inclination and think that in depainting us with a coal they make themselves as white as snow There are others who desire devotions extatike and ravishing disguised in strange words in fashions never heard of in ceremonies not accustomed All that which is just prudent and moderate tasteth too much of common other paths must be found to Paradise new habits must be cut out for God under the mould of their fancy to make him known I am not ignorant that there are in Religious Orders souls purified from the dregs of the world which have apprehensions of God most elate nor would I for any thing condemn such blessings But when in ordinary life they speak to me of fashions so extraordinary I ever go along with a leaden pace so much do I feare lest for a strong piety I find a body of smoke I add also others who make to themselves a devotion hydeous pensive melancholy which amazeth those who behold it with the onely sight thereof they voluntarily resigning themselves to as it were perpetual tortures of the mind This virtue hath but too much slander in the world we have nothing else to do but to hide its beauty and to give it a mask of terrour to affright those who have business enough to free themselves from their sensuality I esteem the devotion most proper for our sex is that which hath least of affectation most of effect Every one will be able to direct the prayers she ought to make Confessions Communions according to her own capacity profession and leisure using therein the counsel of some that govern her conscience but let her assure her self she shall never tast devotion at the fountain head but in the practise of virtues and the constancie of good resolutions The sixth SECTION Modestie AFter the interiour is directed by the motions of piety followeth the virtue of Modestie which proclaimeth us exteriourly It is the needle of the dyal which sheweth how our souls circumvolveth times and the hours of the day it which witnesseth the power we have over our passions it which formeth us after the model of great souls it which causeth us to appear in conversation in a manner not onely regular but sweet honest and examplar It is the virtue which S. Peter the Apostle required In incorruptibilitate quieti modesti spiritus 1 Pet. 3 4. of our sex when he advised us to hold the inward man in the incorruptibility of a spirit peaceable and modest This is seen in the carriage gestures and countenances but especially in speech and habits We cannot believe how wise we are in simplicity and how powerfull in mildness It is the strongest armour we have from nature When we mannage a spirit and govern an affair by these sweet and peaceable waies we astonish the most confident we disarm the stoutest and triumph over conquerours We have nothing to do but to hold our peace and our silence speaketh by us But when divesting us of this spirit of sweetness modesty and docibility we put on a fashion haughty scornfull turbulent we are onely able in loud noises which render us contemptible to those who are more powerfull than we troublesome to our equals intolerable to our inferiours and hatefull to all the world With this mild temper of spirit Hester changed King Ahasuerus into a lamb with the same Abigail was much stronger than the arms of David and Jesabel with her natural cruelty having slain Innocents ruined Cities disturbed States was thrown out of a high window on the pavement to be trampled all bloudy under the feet of horses But as concerning Modesty which regardeth the comliness of body attire it is a strange thing how many complaints are made against us upon this point We have already served for the space of so many Ages as a common place to Preachers matter of censure for Edicts a fable for Cities and laughter to our selves In the mean time this love of bravery is so throughly engrafted in our spirits that we will not despoil us of it but with our skin It is an original sin which all women carry with them from their mothers womb for which there is no Baptism to be found he that should go about to wash us from this stain we would have an action against him Yea were this onely usual among great Ladies for whom earth rivers and seas seem to produce wherewith to satisfie their curiosity it would appear less strange but all women are born with this passion they so heartily hug it that there will be almost no distinction made in orders since there is
being in the agonies of that fatal hour which took from us this great Queen she embraced my brother and me beseeching you by your chast loves and inviolable faith of marriage to be unto us both father and mother We were then of an age wherein we could not as yet either feel or bemoan our losses Notwithstanding seeing you bowed over the bodie which yielded up the ghost with weeping eyes we gave our infant-tears to her memorie as a just tribute of Nature but you taking your little orphans into your bosom forbade them to mourn which you could hardly do and wiping away their tears promised you hereafter would become to us a father for protection and a mother for indulgence I then grew up under your eyes spinning out the course of my innocent years and am come to an age capable to bear some share in your hopes Had you any thing at that time in the world more dear unto you than your Hermingildus Dignities were for him for him Empires wars were made by him and peace concluded in his name Hermingildus was the object of your thoughts the entertainment of your discourse the contentment of your heart Your Majestie then resolved to marrie me although very young you found out for me a wife daughter of a King sister of a King neece of a King but such an one as by her virtues surpassed all titles of Kingdoms Ah poor maid who would have said then that thou wast reserved to be the subject of so lamentable a Tragedie I was reputed the most happie man of the world since for me were born so many singular virtues and perfections admired by all men I must confess I loved this Princess not so much by the ways of an ordinarie love as a certain admiration of her virtues For I have received the faith by her pietie her example and her doctrine holding in her soul the rank of a husband a disciple and as it were of her own son Thereupon Goizintha began to possess your heart and to gain superemtnence in your affairs so changing your will by her ordinarie practises that she hath turned all your ancient favours into disdain your confidence into suspition your resolution into disturbance and your mud temper into command This woman hath so persecuted me that in your Court I neither enjoyed watchings rest recreation nor affairs without danger But I have willingly passed under silence all that which touched mine own person until she fell upon an action so barbarous which were sufficient to justifie the Scythians and Tartars I have no words to speak it having so much sorrow to feel it Enough is said when there hath been seen a daughter of so many Kings trampled under the foot of a woman whose birth I will not reproch because indeed I well know it not a Princess most innocent beaten even to bloud by a mother-in-law a Ladie replenished with honour disarayed of her garments by unworthie servants and plunged by little and little into a pool in a cold season to consummate a Martyrdom such as the ancient Tyrants never invented more cruel for women contenting themselves to impose oftentimes onely nakedness for a punishment Had I revenged my self of such inhumanitie with sword and fire no man could have thought my proceeding unjust nor my thoughts unreasonable notwithstanding I have still endeavoured to cure my self by the remedie most ordinarie with me which was patience I in silence retired unto a Citie which your Majestie gave me for lively-hood resolved there peaceably to pass my days with my wife whilest we beheld the face of this Court so adverse to our hopes But your Goizintha as if we had committed a great sin in not enduring her to thrust a sword through our throats hath sounded an alarm in your Palace and afterward in all the Province declaring me an enemie to the countrey an usurper of the Crown of my father a Parricide a creature excommunicate and adding thereunto words much more injurious against me and my wife For my part Sir I wish you had rather hearkened to our innocencie than served her passion all then had succeeded better But after strange Levies were made you came thundering upon Sevil to besiege me with a huge Armie so that you seemed to stir all the elements against me I confess it I then followed the instinct which God giveth creatures even the most bruitish to defend their own family and fortune I took arms not to offend you but to safeguard my self and my wife against the furies of a step-mother who makes use of all arrows for our rain Yet seeing my armies reduced to that point that I had no means to escape without giving battel which must necessarily be fatal to both parts I renounced for your sake the laws of nature and am come to render my self up to your discretion I call to witness the Altars holy fire and the Angel-guardians which have seen me prostrated before them of the sinceritie of my intentions and of the tears I have shed for you having not leisure then to bemoan my self Afterward your Majestie sent my brother unto me to give me assurance of your love you called me forth I am come I have suppliantly intreated you have received me I prostrated my self at your feet you have raised me with so many favours and so many tokens of good will that I could require no more for my safetie I ask who hath changed your affection who hath tarnished our joys and withered the olives of peace but she who being not able to ruin me with weapon in hand seeks to have my bloud by form of justice Behold my accusation and crime behold all that which hath made me to be clothed with sackcloth and chained with fetters ordained for Galley-salves The father who was of an ardent spirit interrupteth him hereupon and demandeth where his wife was whether he had not sent her into Africk to pass from thence to Constandinople The Prince answered He had onely projected this in his mind not for any other purpose but to advise upon the safetie of her person not knowing as then how matters would stand and that accidents had taught him he was wise enough in his counsels but less happie than he imagined The King insisteth and interrogateth whether he had not treated alliance with the Emperour Tiberius He thereunto replied that he had never practised any other correspondence but to draw from him some Troups for the defence of his life and that so soon as he saw some overture of peace he had dismissed them resolving to make no further use of them He then was pressed upon divers questions to which he made most pertinent answers shewing very evidently to the miserable father the colours and pretexts which they made use of to ruin him unless passion should cast a film over his eyes In the end seeing he could not convince his son to have practised any thing since the accord was made between them both he made a
not be possible to God he being Omnipotent Immense Infinite How according to the confession of ancient Philosophers can he replenish all the world with his Divnity and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery in a quite other fashion than the Spirit of God is with the world I admit it For the union of it is truely personal But must it not be confessed the Word in this divine Essence as under title of efficient cause it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world and as under title of final cause it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures so under title of substantial bound it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions Is it not a shamefull thing that man will estimate and set a value upon the Divine Essence If God please not man he shall not be God Should we say man is incapable of this communication And how is it that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God to the prejudice of his own exaltation since it is found as soon in the union of the Word as in the possession of Essence See we not in nature that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth and incorporated with them do create Meteors in the air not any one making resistance to his exaltation What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said This union of God with man might be very fit and Plutarch also Plutarch in Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the communication of the Creatour with the creature pronounced these words That God was not a lover of birds nor other living creatures but a lover of men and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves and delights But this would seem to abase the Divinity Hear what Volusianus said I wonder that he to whom this whole Volusianus Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latetâ— cui parva putatur universilas c. universe is so small can be shut up within the bodie of a little child having a mouth open to crie as others What uncomeliness is there if God be united to a little body Have not Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est and Seneca (b) (b) (b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit Deus à se non decessit August said That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies and that it was a slavery in Great-ones to be unable to be little I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature From whence proceedeth this amazement but from the baseness of our thoughts If we said God being made man ceased to be God and were despoiled of his Empire Greatness Essence there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy not leaving himself when we say humane nature is received into the Word as a small source into a huge river and not loosing its Essence is fixed upon the personality of the Word it self is it not to honour the power majesty and wisdom of God 5. In what were the Divinity abased Can it be in doing a work so noble so singular so divine that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels through times and eternity What is more specious and more sweet than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature to wit of God and man verily say I one composed of an unheard-of composition to render the majesty of his father palbable and visible to the hands and eyes of mortals What dignity to behold in the world a Man-God become a part of the world to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity who proposed this person as the end of his communications the bound of his power the first-born of all creatures who held all Ages in breath for him all hearts in desires all minds in expectation all creatures in prophesies The Book of God hath written me In copite libri scriptum est de me Psal 39. 8. in the beginning of its first page said the Word with the Psalmist All creatures of this great universe all predictions and conceptions of these two great books the world and the Bible tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent sensitive and vegetative All creatures were but leaves and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth The fruit of earth sublime Isaiah 4. 20. We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard Religiose dicendum reverentér audiendum est quis propter hunc hominon gloris honâ—re coronandum Deus omnis creavit Rupert l. 13. de glor Trinit proces Spi. Sancti with reverence It is for this incomparable man that God created the world and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory which covereth his head What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp to praise and declare unto men the Name of God to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort and every one of them to honour this first Essence by so many distinct perfections notwithstanding all to confess their ability cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate which passing through all the spheres of nature grace and glory enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father he manifesteth them to men and making himself an adoring God a loving God an honouring God he adoreth he loveth he honoureth God so much as he is adorable amiable and honourable through all Ages for evermore Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge and love of the Word revealed Let us adore this great sign this eternal character of the living God for whom all signs are Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life wherein we afford him not three things due to him by titles so lawfull Homage Love Imitation Homage by adoring him and offering him some small service directed according to times in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him by an entire comformity of our wils to his Love
August serm 19. de verbis Apost Inhonestos amatores â—stendite Siquis amore foeminae lasciviens vestis se aliter quà m amatae placet illi dixerit nalo te habere tale birrhum non habebit si per hyemem illi dicet in lacinia te amo eliget tremere quà m displicere Numquid illa tamen damnatura est Numquid adhibitura tortores Nunquid in carcerem missura Hoc solum ibi timetur non te videbo faciem meam non videbis of our love towards God pertinently maketh use of the practise of prophane loves Behold saith he these foolish and dishonest Amourists of the world I demand whether any one surprized with the love of a woman attyreth himself any otherwise than to the liking of his Mistress If she say I would not have you wear such a cloke he puls it off I command you in the midst of winter to take a sommer garment he had rather shiver with cold than displease a miserable creature But yet what will she do if he obey not Will she condemn him to death Will she send him executioners Will she thrust him into a dungeon Nothing less she will onely say if you do not this I will never see you more This word alone is able to make a man tear himself in pieces in the endeavour of complacence and service O foul confusion of our life and prostitution of spirit A God who makes a Paradise of his aspects and a hell in his separation from us promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his commandements nor can his menaces but be most effectual since he hath sovereign authority in his hands He deserves to be served above all things service done to him is not onely most pleasing but after this life gaineth recompence In the mean time we rather choose to live the slaves of creatures and dwell under the tyranny of our passions than to embrace the yoke of God Were it not fit we hereafter order the small service we do to God as well in our prayers as actions in such sort that there be neither work word nor thought from morning till night which hath not all its accommodations and is not squared within the rule God desireth of us with intentions most purified and indefatigable fervours Finally the last character of love is to suffer for 3. To suffer Satiabor cum apparuit gloria tua Psal 16. Satiabor cum affâ—ictuâ— fuero ad similitudinem tuam Jesus the father of sufferings and King of the afflicted The Kingly Prophet said I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear to me Another translation importeth I shall be well pleased when I shall behold my self marked with the characters of thy sufferings Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of Ages supplyes the person of a great Bishop putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours a heart drenched in acerbities a tongue steeped in gall Round about him are all the most elevated and couragious souls who all wear his livery and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model of dolours Would we at the sight of so many brave Champions lead a life lazy languishing and corrupt Know we not all creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all elements are in travel and in a ceaseless agitation The air it self say Philosophers is perpetually strucken with the motion of heaven as with a hammer or whip that this benummed mass may not hatch any poyson Rivers are cleansed and purified by the streaming current of their waters The earth is never in repose and the nature of great things is generously to suffer evils The clock goeth on by the help of its counterpoise and Christian life never proceedeth in virtue but by counter-ballance of its crosses Our souls are engaged by Oath to this warfare Animas nostrâ—s authorati in has pugnas accessimus Tertul. ad Scap. so soon as first we enter into Christianity said the noble Tertullian Suffering is our trade our vow our profession Love which cannot suffer is not love and if it cease to love when it should bear it never was what it professed A lover said in Olympius that when he was onely Olympius Te sine vâ— misero mihi lilis nigra videntur Pallentesque rosae c. some little moment absented from the creature he most loved in the world all the best seasons were irkesome all discourses troublesome and the greatest delights turned into bitterness Flower de-luces seemed cole-black in the meadow when he beheld them in his pensive solitude roses the most vermillion grew pale gilli-flowers lost their lustre the very bay-trees which resist winters cold could not withstand the sadness caused by this absence but in a moment they all appeared quite withered to him Viands with him had no rellish wine tast nor sleep repose But so soon as this creature returned all was animated by her presence Flower-deluces became white again roses resumed their vermillion gilli-flowers their beauty lawrels their verdure wine and viands their tastfulness and sleep its contentment But if there happened any harsh and painful accidents which he must bear for her sake they seemed a Paradise All worldly loves speak the same yet are we unwilling to say or do any thing for this excellent Word of God which is endowed with a beauty incomparable exalted above all the beauties of the sons of men This Jesus who maketh a Paradise spring from his eyes This Jesus who distilleth honey from lips of roses for the comfort of his elect This Jesus who causeth Nations to tremble under the force of his word as under flaming arrows and is attired with the conquest and tropheys of souls Behold him on the bright empyreal Heaven crowned with a diadem of honour and revested with celestial purple who regardeth us who beholdeth us and never ceaseth to draw us unto him So many brave spirits have followed him amongst torrents thorns and flames which they found replenished with a sweetness that charmed their pain in the sight of their best beloved It is this sweetness turned the stones of S. Stephen into flower-de-luces and changed the burning coles of S. Lawrence into roses For it S. Bartholomew despoiled himself of his skin as freely as of a garment and S. Catharine hastened to the wheel armed with keen rasors S. Tecla to Lyons S. Agnes to the wood-pile S. Cicely to the sharp sword and S. Appollonia suffered her teeth to be torn out with as much ease as the tree suffers his leaves to fall away from him O the sweetness of Jesus who makes all the valiant and knoweth how to turn doves into eagles of fire Shall we never understand what it is to love him towards whom all generous hearts sigh and for whom all charities are crowned with immortal garlands The eighth EXAMPLE upon the eighth MAXIM Of the admirable change of worldly love Drawn from the Ecclesiastical history
rebellion of Core Dathan and Abiram this earth which is the foundation and basis of the universe changed its nature shook with frightful tremblings opened its wide and gaping bosom to swallow these disastrous creatures Where shall we lodge this sin On the waters Behold the waters could not endure one sole disobedience of Jonas All the air is on fire all the winds in blusters all the sea in rage and fury whilest it is under the weight of this poor sinner He must be cast into the belly of a whale although unable to digest shevomit him up God himself Laboravi sustinens Job 1. God Omnipotent in whose hands all this great world is but a drop of dew complains he cannot endure sin Where shall we place it then but in the pit of hell But if at least this pain had some end And see you not sin hath neither end nor limits in its eternity Alas he who would understand this who would Ducunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descendunt Job 21. 13. open his eyes to behold what I am about to say and what I conceal had rather put himself into the arms of hell being in innocency than among imaginary felicities in crime and sin If you know it not O Christians it is an infinite evil because it striketh at the head of an infinite divinity and it is an horrible thing to think on for that as much as is possible it annihilateth God and the whole fountain of essences felicities and mercies Do you not consider a transgression Enormity of a sinner increaseth according as the person interessed is of great and eminent quality It is one thing to offend a peasant another thing a Merchant another thing a Judge another a King But he who offends all Kings and all Judges of the earth or should thrust a knife into the throat of a million of men would he not seem very criminal Nay were all the greatness grace and majesty of a hundred thousand worlds poured and quintessenced in one body what would it be in comparison of God but one grain of sand And then to invade God in his will to infringe and annul the Divinity O abyss of confusion To say unto God Omnipotent all good and all holy You will give me a law and I will play the unbridled colt I will take it of my self I will admit no Law-maker you created me for your Irritam quis faciens legem Mosi sine ulla miseratione moritur quanto magis putatis deteriora mereri supplicia qui Filium Dei conculcaverit sanguinem Testamenti pollutâ—m dunerit Heb. 10 self and I will live for my self and be the sovereign good of my self you created a world for my use and I will people it with monsters which shall be my sins You redeemed and reconciled me by the bloud of your Son and I will contemn and trample it under-foot I should not presume to use these words had not S. Paul prevented me You will be a Judge to chastise me and I make as much account of all your thunder-stroaks as of broken rushes To despise God as a Law-maker as a Creatour as a Father as a Redeemer as a Judge as God as all and then say God did you wrong in making a hell 5. Behold there his justice purged now see its effect in the quality and condition of pains of the damned What is Hell It is called Silence to shew we cannot speak of it but by silence All is said of hell is less than hell The holy history of Aegyptian Quality and condition of the pains of the damned Anchorites written by Palladius recounteth an accident very prodigious happened to the great Macharius which is that one day this admirable man Strange narration of Palladius commonly called the God of Monks for his speech was an oracle and his life a perpetual miracle this excellent man I say travelling through the hideous and savage desarts of Aegypt alwaies fixed and bent both with eye heart upon the contemplation of a future life met with the head of a dead man by the way and ere he was aware set a palmers staff which he had in his hand upright upon it and behold at the same instant as it happened in other occasions he heard to come from the head of this dead man a sad and frightful voice able to have astonished the most couragious But the holy Saint being wholly made for these apparitions of spirits and armed to the proof against all illusions of Sathan stood still and asked Whose art thou It answered I am the head of one damned He replied What threw thee head-long into this wretched miserie Two things said the dead misbelief and vice Then being demanded concerning the torments he endured he replied The soul makes hell the soul suffers hell and the soul cannot well comprehend what hell is What have you on the earth more odious than horrible darkness and not to speak of our coals nor of any of the rest of our greatest calamities behold our greatest ease The unhappy spirit cutting off his words held his peace and the holy man lifting the head up from the ground took it in his hand then deeply sighing with fobs of lively and penetrating grief he said O what ease O what ease what eternal darkness blind world prostituted world desperate world oh wouldest thou know wouldest thou know but thine unhappiness hath put a scarf before thine eyes I would here conclude this discourse and substitute in my place this blessed old man the eye and honour of these desarts holding this dead mans head between his hands I would intreat him to ask of it again what have availed the damned their honours reputation riches riots pleasures delights those wretched lime-twigs which entangled the wings of the soul and plunged it into an abyss of infelicities I would intreat it to tell us what a monster mortal sin is since to punish it such dreadful dungeons must be built such racks and tortures It would tell this with a voice of thunder accompanied with flouds of tears and you would be appalled tremble and weep at it with all the just who never think of hell but with terrour and tears O bruitish and sensual men who live in a continual Definition of hell contempt of Gods anger Ask the great Tertullian what hell is And he will answer hell is a treasury of fire enkindled by the breath of God for punishment of the damned hell is an ugly and deep sink Arcani ignis subterrâ—nâ—â— ad panam thesaurâ— Abstrusa in visceribâ— terrae profunditâ—â— c. Tertul. deanimâ— and a sewer wherein all the ordures of Ages are thrown Ask of Hugo of S. Victor (a) (a) (a) Profundum sine fundo whi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali Hugo victorius l. de anima what hell is and he wil reply a bottom without bottom which shutteth the
their affairs they have very few good friends But there are some among them who are endowed with so eminent virtues affabilitie and bounty that they win affections and find friends who would willingly offer themselves up as a sacrifice for their glory Amity desireth equallity If it find it not it makes it and although one cannot alwayes exact it in an Arithmeticall proportion and that two friends of divers qualities cannot be in all kinds equall in offices rendred one to another yet it is ever necessary therein to observe some proportion which many great ones do not thinking all is due to them and that having usurped the bloud and sweat of men they are but victimes born to be sacrificed to their magnificence Which made the great Aristotle say That if of two friends the one should become a God he would cease to be a friend In Arist 8. 9. Moral which he spake as a man and a man ignorant of the Divinity For he figured to himself a god of a luskish and proud humour wholly busied within himself and disesteeming all whatsoever under himself But had he Tertull. contra Marcionem Nihil tam Deo dignum quam salus hominis known the ineffable sweetnesse of the divine Bounty he would rather with Tertullian have said that there is nothing so worthy of God as the salvation of man Secondly it is most certain that those who love too much are not very proper for great and strong amities Who loves too much loveth little for with over much eagernesse to love all they love nothing You find men of honour in the world who are extremely endearing and who create amities innumerable Men too endearing incapable of amity their heart resembleth the weathercock on a steeple which turns with every wind they no sooner see one but they oppresse him with favours promises and courtesies but such amities resemble those bubbles of water which rise upon a river during the time of a shower and break as soon as they grow Birds which have yet the shell on their backs are taken with the sweetnesse of their bait and think they have gotten their favour upon the first acquaintance but the prudent well see that they say to all the world is not spoken to them They do as Plato who in the beginning thought The Judgement of Plato Seneca lib. 6. de Benefic c. 18. Negavit illi jam apud Platonem positum officium One must not adhere too much to ones self to be a good friend himself much obliged to a Ferriman that courteously without asking ought had wafted him imagining this was done in respect of his merit but when he afterward perceived he thus entertained persons of the meanest condition He then could well say Friend I ow thee nothing Moreover we may truely affirm that such are never good friends who too much adhere to themselves and rest fully satisfied with themselves For amity being a certain transportment of a friend to a friend it loveth to go out and readily succour such as stand in need of its help but the man who is fast tied to his own interests captived by his own employments irrevocably squared out to his own hours is a piece not to be stirred Unequall spirits but with many engines Adde also to those the fantasticall suspicions and unequall spirits who daily at least have some fit of folly and infinitely vary both in manners and visage which maketh poor Amity to fare ill in their hands But prudent and patient friends who have need of them strive to find out the folds of their hearts to observe their good fits and the lightsome seasons of their mind Lastly I would banish out of the temple of Amity Men banished from the Temple of amity all wicked lives and evil humours weak brains and indiscreet tongues which are not retentive of a secret the over-curious the light the exorbitant flouters Buffons the sad mischievous murmurers great talkers and the Ceremonious To choose a friend well it is necessary he be honest The choice of a friend prudent of a good disposition cordiall obliging faithfull and patient Honesty is the foundation of all the most eminent amities without which there is not any thing can be of a solid subsistence Prudence is the instrument for every thing and the Rule of all the actions of mans life Good disposition seasoneth the greatest pleasures of conversation Cordiality makes a commixion of hearts and minds which is the principall scope of Amity Obligations maintained by mutuall offices straightly knit affections Fidelity which is an unmoveable rock against all the assaults of men and time which tend to the division of hearts and Patience in the defects of a friend is that which crowneth the perfections of Love §. 4. Of Amity between persons of different Sex I Hold my self obliged by the necessity of the subject to speak here of the Amity of different Sexes especially between people of the world as also because many complain that men of our profession would willingly handle them as Hermites of Thebais and wholly forbid them the conversation of women I will deliver what conscience and civility permit in this It is often asked whether women be capable of good Amity and whether it may be tyed between sex and sex out of wedlock-bands This is a very hard question for me to resolve because having all my time been employed according to the laws of my profession to court wisdome and virtue and having had little practice but amongst the sagest and most virtuous women it is not so easie for me to judge of the humours of such as are bred otherwise If we consult with Histories we see millions of Lovers who complain of the infidelity of their Mistresses On the other side women wage warre with men ceasing not to accuse their inconstancy and all your feigned Romans eternally chant forth the same song which were able to tire spirits any thing serious but it is evident that these vices with which they reproch one another chastising with severity that which they commit through idlenesse proceedeth not so much from sex as from the nature of a shamefull passion of love which hath no more stability then the wind in the Spring and the sea in a Calm It is certain that evil love hath its disloyall ones every where but since we are insensibly engaged to treat of Amity after so many excellent pens who have handled the same subject we are rather to observe what is commonly done in virtuous love then that which is acted out of the madnesse of Concupiscence Some have thought women were not so proper for Reasons for which women seem lesse capable of Amity Amities because they resemble a cloud in the Rainbow which receiveth the impression of all colours in their naturall diversified forms besides for that according to Pliny they are imaginative more then any creature in the world which suggesteth to them infinite many
preserve it to the end remedies opposed the evils may with the more lustre appear I hold that among all the stains which Amity may The eight stains of Amiâ—y 1. Forget fulnesse of friends contract there is not any more blemisheth it then Forgetfulnesse Negligence Scorn Dissention Distrust Inequality Impatience and Infidelity We see so many Amities daily do disolve by Forgetfulnesse and want of frequentation that it seems divers friends especially when they be of eminent condition make their way to the Elyzian fields by the river of forgetfulnesse They no longer remember those whom they had courted then a nightly dream nor know they so Qualem eupisut mittamus imaginem â—ibi â—errent hominis an coelestis S. Paulinus ep 8. ad Severum much as whether they be in the world or no and whether they yet have any part among the living Severus demanded of S. Paulinus his picture to preserve his memory but he asked him whether he desired the image of a terrene or celestiall man shewing we must rather remember friends by the figures of the mind then the lineaments of the face Others want not memory but they have a certain 2. Negligence carelesnesse which many times proceedeth from a nature lazy and indifferent that cannot take a litle pains to quicken the memory of a friend another-while it cometh from a narrow-streightned heart which vouchsafeth not to oblige it self in an occasion wherein it hath full power Some are not content to scorn but doe also make 3. Contempt their scorn appear by preferring men of no worth and who were before unknown to them in ancient Amities They think a friend who is yet to be made is ever better then he who is already wholly endeared This is it that causeth sharp convulsions in a generous heart Attalus Jucundius amicum facere quà m habere Nec tamen Aeneam quamvis-male cogi tet odi which sees it self neglected and abandoned in need by one from whom all possible help was expected Then arise loud out-cries exclamations and complaints Yea there are of them who hide their wounds yet fail not to love in the midst of these disfavours which I suppose doth either proceed from a strong virtue or from a great abjectnesse of mind If it come from virtue it is an action truly Christian But if from abjectnesse of mind then it is a lamentable thing to see a silly soul so profuse of love the greatest treasure in the world as to conferre it on the ingrate disdainfull as if one took delight to feed and flatter owls And were a man able to give us the heavens and stars if he have not Amity and affection for us must we make our selves slaves to a proud spirit which is wholly employed within it self which can never distinguish what virtue or Amity is Disdain is a thing not hard to be learned when he whom we honour most giveth us a lesson of it in his ingratitude One may pay scorn with scorn and set a value upon nothing but God who gives estimation to all things There are others who begin the breach of Amity by 4. Dissention diversity of opinions and judgements they build but upon one ground in the exercise of the holy virtue their understanding inclineth to one side their will seems to propend to another but in the conclusion it is gained by judgement and the continuall diversity of reasons causeth the dissention of hearts I doe not say one should play the Chameleon in Amity and without foundation Chameleontis bestiolae vice quae de subjectis sumit colorem Aulon ep 32. Ezec. 3. 13. take upon him all colours which are presented for that would be rather to become a flatterer then a friend The Seraphins of Ezekiel though they clap themselves with the tips of their wings yet faile not to make a heavenly Harmony So good friends who at first somewhat differ in opinion upon subjects offered and propose their reasons with sweetnesse and modesty thereby alter not concord but when this dissention is very frequent and captious it is an evident token love is strucken at the heart Others are easily transported with suspicions and 5. Suspitions and distrust Distrust and open their ears very wide to tale-tellers who are the most dangerous plagues which the evil Genius can vomit forth to disturb concord Antiquity telleth Rabbi Solomon us that friends sent ear-rings to their dearest correspondents on their birth-day to consecrate their ears to Amity and preoccupate them against slander We must judge saith Seneca before we love but when Post amicitiam credendum ante amicitiam judie andum est â—en ep 38. once we have begun to love we must beleive a friend We must not open a heart byhalves he is made faithfull by the power of believing him to be such and there are not any so worthy to be deceived as those who upon all occasions fear to be deceived It is an act proper to a spirit stupid and unworthy of the manage of affairs to be ready at the first to give credit to the venemous tongue of a calumniatour opposed against the life and innocency of a friend or of one in prime place without sifting diligently all the circumstances of his accusation And what assurednesse may we hope for in humane things if all ears should become as credulous as tongues are licentious Came not thence the frequent subversions of States and calamities of Mankind Is it not that which irrecoverably ruined the Roman Empire under Valentinian the third when as Maximus relateth who was his Capitall enemy he with his own hand slew his chief Generall Aetius the pillar and prop of his Empire We must not believe any thing against an Amity long settled unlesse the proofs thereof be written with the raies of the Sun Alexander rather chose to put himself upon the hazard of swallowing poison then to believe one who made him Quintus Curtius l. 3. a report against the loyalty of his Physitian He with one hand took the goblet without further information and with the other gave the accusers Letter to the accused the one smiling drank down an apparent death whilest the other implored heaven and earth against the calumny which was notably refelled by the generosity of the great Monarch Lastly they do not long preserve Amity who are Unequall and Impatient and as Moses makes no mention 6 7 Inequality and Impatience of the air in the history of the Creation because it is inconstant according to S. Gregory Nyssen's conceit So we must let their names paste under silence in the Greg. Nys in Hexam Temple of Amity They grow weary of all they are displeased with a slight word spoken at randome with some innocent freedome they enter into Labyrinths of suspicions and perplexities whence they never come forth and Amity which is the most delightfull of all things becomes their punishment All which hath pleased them
woven by flesh bloud and bowels cannot be untied but by making a rupture remedilesse Out of this second degrée oft-times a melancholick Hatred sprouteth which the Grecians call man-hating Melancholy hatred Man hatred which is an Hatred bred in feeble black ugly and ulcerated souls in the world who to be revenged of their mishaps extend as it were their aversions over Totall Nature You see men pale meagre hidrous who being unable to endure a reasonable yoke which God hath put about their necks or finding themselves to be disfavoured in their ambitions endeavours and pretentions Plin. l. 18. cap. 1. Homines quidam ut venena nascuntur atra ceu serpentium lingua vibrat tabéque animi contracta adurit culpantium omnia ac dirarum alitum modo tenebris quoque suis ipsarum noctium quieti invidâ—â—tium steal out of all amities out of all companies hiding themselves not in those glorious Hermitages of Religion where heavenly souls are but in shamefull solitudes where they busie themselves to feed on gall and gnaw some heart in imagination since they have not been able to transfix it with iron Others grow up like poisons with the tongue of a serpent which is ever in action They have a Pthisick of spirit that gnaws burns and consumeth them so that they have no other profession in their life but to blame all which is done becoming like unto those ill presaging night-birds which cast forth boading scrietches in the dead time of night as if they envied us darknesse and the sweetnesse of repose Such was the disease of Dioclesian and Tyberius when they retired from the Court to hide themselves in solitary places as serpents among thorns Lastly this Hatred ever fomented if it fall upon men powerfull and factious it maketh tyrants of them who passe to the degree of brutishnesse and execrable Barbarisme which causeth some to eat hearts stark raw others to disentomb the dead and to exercise cruelty on those who have nothing common with the living Others to invent torments never seen heard nor imagined others to make themselves goblets of the heads of their enemies therein still to drink revenge as often as they do wine as did Alboinus a monster worthy of the horrour and execration of all men See here somewhat near the essence qualities division causes and effects of hatred § 2. That the consideration of the goodnesse of the heart of God should dry up the root of the Hatred of a neighbour LEt us now dazle the eyes of this fury by the contemplation of the goodnesse of our celestiall Father who is the prime model whereon we ought to reform the exorbitancy of our passions Let us learn from him to hate nothing or if we Diligis enim omnie quae sunt nihil odisti corum quae fecisti nec enim odiens aliquid quod constituisti aut fecisti Sap. 11. 21. must hate at all let us enter into the participation of a hatred fit to rest in the heart of God The sovereign Creatour hates not any thing in the world for he made in all the world and as his wisdome is free from errour so his works are void of repentance Whence is it think you that Antipathies are to be found in Creatures But that their essence being limitted to certain conditions and particular qualities they commonly meet with other objects of natures quite contrary to that wherewith themselves are endowed which causeth countre-buffs and resistance in encounters But if a creature might be found which eminently had all the qualities and perfections that are observed throughout the whole latitude of essences and which had thereof made a good temperature within it self it would not hate any body but rather within it self accord all contrarieties Now that which we cannot give to creatures piece-meal no not in our * * * Simplicity of Divine Essence exempt from Antipathy imagination God possesseth in grosse from all eternity For within a most simple essence and one sole form of Divinity he involveth all essences all forms and perfections of creatures which in him are exalted and deified which is the cause he hated nothing that he made he despiseth nothing he accounts nothing unworthy the care of his Providence even to the least worm of the earth He is not like those nice and curious men who are distasted with all that is not for them As he is all he loveth all and communicateth himself to all creatures according to their disposition O God! what say we when we speak of the †††Omnia unum sunt in Deo cum Deo nec enim aliunde justus aut sapien quam unde magnus bonus nec aliunde denique simul haec omnia est quam unde Deus Bern. ser 8. in Cant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Greg. Orat Natal S. Zeno ser x de gener verbi Soluâ— ante omnia quoniam in ejus manuinclusa sunt omnia ex se est quod est solus sui conscius Essence of God All things are in God the same form of the Divinity which makes him great maketh him by the same means good wise just and all he is by his proper Essence The great Divine S. Gregory sirnamed the Divine saith It is onely in him to comprehend in his bosome all the Essences whereof he is the source of Origin And S. Zeno addeth That he alone is before all things because all things are contained in his hands he of himself is what he is and there is none but he who knoweth himself in all the dimensions of the perfection which science may have All the Attributes of God make in him but one perfection all creatures which are in the heavens the air on the earth and in the sea are but one Essence He united all in himself and for this he loveth all and regardeth all things created as rayes of his light and tokens of his bounty Hemlock aconite and aspicks and so many other mischiefs in nature are evils but in appearance and benefits in substance as S. Augustine very pertinently discourseth August de moribus Manich. There is not so much as poison in the scorpion which is not good although it be not good for us it is so much a good for the scorpion that take away his poison you take away his life It is the disproportion of our nature it is sinne which hath in us changed so many excellent blessings into great mischiefs and which daily maketh us to hate and curse them but God hateth nothing nor curseth any thing but what Onely sinne hared by God he is not and he is all except sinne It is that alone which he esteemeth worthy of the hatred of his heart which he chastiseth and which he with an armed hand pursueth to the gates of hell and beyond the gates of hell He presseth continually upon sin he convinceth it he fights against it with no other arms then his Justice
to save himself in a Region of nothing O poor soul thou fearest the poverty which thy Jesus Resolution against fear hath consecrated in the Crib and in Clouts Thou fearest the reproaches which he hath sanctified in the losse of his reputation thou fearest the dolours which he hath lodged in his virginall flesh thou fearest death which he overcame for thee thou fearest the false opinions of the world And what fearest thou not since thou dreadest fantasies which are lesse then the shadow of an hair There is but one thing which thou fearest not to Nulla metuendi causa nisi ne quod amamus aut adeptum amittamus aut non adipiscamur speratum Aug. q. 33. 83. lose innocency and sanctity which thou exposest to so many liberties and alluring occasions so prodigall thou art of a good which thou hast not O thou welbeloved of God although the most ungratefull to the love of God! wilt not thou dresse thy wounds wilt not thou apply some remedies to those vicious fears which gnaw thee and daily devour thee If thou wilt follow my counsell thy first resolution shall be to regulate the love of thy self not to have so indulgent and passionate a care of all things which concern thee as if thou wert an onely one in the species and that thy death were waited on by the Sepulchre of the world Thy aim should be to unloose thy self as much as thou mayest from so many ties and dependencies which multiply thy slaveries Thou must as it were live here a life of Nabatheans which were people of Arabia who neither planted nor sowed nor Diodor. l. 6. built but by expresse laws flew from delicious and fruitfull Countreys for fear that Riches might subjugate them to Passions the Commands of great ones But if we cannot come to this heighth at least let us have our heart well devested from these ardent affections which we have towards worldly enablements and behold them as one would an inconstant moving of shadows and spirits which glide before our eyes with a swift course and which ever move with the step of time and of the Sun to account as already lost whatsoever may be lost to cast your immortall cares upon an immortall soul and to place it in the first rank of your affections But if naturall love do yet tie us to health to life to honour and to slight pleasures to the preservation of our own person to whom should we entrust all this but to the Divine Providence with whom so many just have deposited their goods their reputation their life their bloud and hove loft nothing by this confidence but have transmitted Qui te tibi committis melius te potest servare qui te potuit antequam esses creare Aug. serm 8. de verbis Apostol their purchases and conquests to the bosome of Eternity In all which happeneth to us let us look towards this eye of God which perpetually beholdeth us this puissant hand of God this amorous direction Let us behold it as our Pole-starre as our flaming pillar as our great intelligence which manageth all the treasures of our life Let us learn to repose us in his bosome to slumber upon his heart to sleep between his arms Upon the first accident which befalleth us let us readily bend our knees in prayer let us adore the ordinances of our sovereign Master Let us behold with a confident countenance all which is happened or may happen Let us say God knoweth all this God permitteth all this God governeth all this He loves me as his creature he wisheth me well as one who hath given himself to him he can free me from this affliction if it be his holy will He is all good to will it he is all potent to do it Nay he is all wise to will and to do all that which is best Let us not meddle with the great current of his Counsels He maketh light in the most dusky nights and havens in the most forlorn shipwracks Were we with him in the shades of death what should we fear being between the arms of life Secondly let us not be corrupted by opinions which invade Nullus est miseriarum modu◠si timetur quantum potest Sence ep 13. us with a great shew of spectres and terrours and make us so often to fear things which are not and which shall never be It is to be too soon miserable to be so before the instant and if we for some time must be so let us consider that all the blessing and evils of the world are not great since they cannot long time be great Let us take away the mask from these fears of Poverty of Sicknesse and above all from humane respects as one would from him who goes about to affright children Why fear we so much such and such accidents which they who are made of no other flesh and bones then we do daily despise The acquaintance with perils hardneth to perils and there is nothing so terrible as the ignorance of reall truths Lastly let us hold for certain that a great part of our tranquillity dependeth upon our conscience Let us settle in Anchora mentis pondu◠timoris S. Gregor it repose by a good Confession let us constantly undertake the fear of God who will cure us of all our fears since the Anchor of the floating understanding is the Honour of the Divinity The tenth Treatise Of BOLDNESSE § 1. The Picture and Essence of it BOldnesse is very well depainted in the bosome of power shewing a heart in its The picture 〈◊〉 Boldness hand all encompassed with spirits and flames its visage is replenished with confidence its habit altogether warlike and countenance undaunted It looketh upon good all invironed with dangers as a Rose among thorns or as the golden fleece among dragons and is no whit amazed but it is on fire to flie through perils and to beat down all obstacles which oppose its conquest Good hap walketh before it by its sides innocency benignity piety strength experience and other good qualities which excite courage The presence thereof dissipateth a thousand petty Fancies which are lost in the obscurity of night not able to endure the sparkling of its eyes All this natively representeth unto us the nature and It s essence condition of Boldnesse which is properly an effect of good hope and a resolution of courage against dangers It is no wonder if Power hold it in its bosome since all the Boldnesse a man hath comes to him from the opinion he conceives to be able enough not to yield to the accidents which may assault him This heart of fire in which so many vigorous spirits sparkle is a token of the bold who commonly have more heat and vivacity from whence it comerh that young-men have herein more advantage then old were it not that they derive more assurance from some other part then from the weaknesse of their age The
thorns their repose but torment life but anxiety and death very often a tomb of water And yet holy Boldnesse reserveth to it self courages which it leadeth forth as it seems beyond the sun time and seasons to conquer souls to God Must we not say this passion is infinitely generous and that it mounted to a heighth of virtue almost prodigious All are not created to come to the most eminent degree of its excellencies Nature must therein have a part and verily in my opinion the divine Providence prepareth bodies greatly adapted to those daring souls which in them he resolveth to enclose Their temperature is hot their heart little in bulk but a true fornace of heat the members well composed the speech strong and the arm sturdy Education and Custome create another nature which hath alwayes been observed to be extremely necessary in the children which are to be trained up to valour Those people of India must in some sort be imitated who set them on the backs of certain great birds to carry them in the air whereat these little Cavalliers are at first astonished but in the end they so fashion themselves thereto that they despise all other perill The Romans daily made them to see lions and elephants in the Amphitheatre and the bloud of sword-players shed almost as ordinarily as wine others leade them out to the sea among monsters and tempests others practised them to combats where they quickly learn'd the art of giving and receiving wounds and to beat men down David Theseus and Brasidas began the profession of Warre very young The son of King Tarquin at the age of fourteen years slew an enemy with his own hand Scipio saved his father in the confusion of a battel being then but seventeen years old Probus was without a beard when he was made Tribune in the Army Alboinus very young in duel vanquished the son of Thorismond King of the Gepides which was the cause that his father Cranz l. 3. Daniae who before bred him amongst his servants did set him at his own table Some think that study and learning are very much Study lesseneth not courage opposite to Military Boldnesse and it is very little to be doubted if it be excessively pursued in the vigour of years which are proper for the exercise of arms but that it will endanger mens Courages to become timorous But it is of infinite use for Princes and young Gentlemen who are to be disposed to actions the most elate For by a laudable temperature it sweetneth all that which a warlike humour might have contracted of roughnesse and incivility it awakeneth wisdome it enlightneth counsel it renders Boldnesse intelligent and magnanimous it polisheth the tongue it gives authority in charges grace in conversation invention in the cabinet honour among the wise and glory with posterity After nature and education to become bold he Nec tristibus impar nec pro successu timid usspatiúmque morandi vincendique modum mutatis noscit habenis Claudianus must be sensible of Honour which enkindleth the most timorous he must vigorously exercise himself in the toils of Military discipline and the practice of brave pieces of service he must not be either vaunting scoffing captious or offensive but prudent reserved active and laborious he must very little fasten his affections upon things of the earth compose himself to the contempt of death make account one is not born but to die for his Prince and Countrey and to esteem no life in the world more precious then Glory § 4. That true Boldnesse is inspired by God and that we must wholly depend on him to become bold BUt besides this to raise ones self to something Why Boldnesse is not in God more excellent we must look upon the divine Virtues which ought to be the perpetuall sources of ours But if you now ask me wherein we may be aided by our first model to acquire Boldnesse I do not affirm we may properly say that Boldnesse is in God because this Passion is essentially conjoyned to a regard it hath towards a thing very difficult and encompassed with dangers Now we know that nothing can be difficult or dangerous before God by reason of his Sovereign Power and most accomplished Felicity God to speak Aristot â— Rhetor. Audaciore eos esse quo rectè se habent ad divina perspicuously can neither be timorous nor bold but it is he who makes all those who are truly bold within the limits and lists of virtue Certainly Aristotle saw much when he said That the most bold were such as were most in Gods favour I will make good this proposition in the first part of this discourse and shew a most manifest reason which teacheth us that every able man considering what he is cannot be hardy of himself by reason of the incapacity and weaknesse of humane nature and therefore we must say that if he have some Boldnesse it necessarily comes to him from above The Platonists said there are seven things able much Seven things able to humble a man to humble a man the First whereof is that his spirit is caitive thorny and light Secondly that his body is brutish and extremely exposed to all the injuries and impressions of exteriour violences Thirdly that being Apulei de Daemonio Socratis Homo levi anxiâ mente bruâ—o obnoxio corpore sui similis erroribus dissimilis moribus casso labore fortunâ caducâ tardâ sapientiâ citâ morte so inconstant in his manners he commonly is very constant in his errours Fourthly that his endeavours are infinitely vain and that many times being ready to enter into his tomb when he comes to behold and consider his whole life already past he finds it to be full of spiders webs which he with much labour and industry hath spun but to no purpose Fifthly that his fortune is of glasse and many times catcheth a crack when it is most resplendent Sixthly that if he find wisdome amidst so many errours it is but too late and when he scarcely hath time left to use it The seventh that wisdome coming so slowly death fails not to make haste and to surprise a man when his heart is embroiled with divers designs and with certain knowledges of having done ill with uncertainty of doing better Besides Reason doth not the Scripture in many places teach the weaknesse of man and the necessity he hath of Divine succour for his subsistence Behold you Isa 41. 24. Psal 143. 4. Isa 45. Jac. 1. Pro. 18. are but a nothing and all your works are as if they were not Man is the very image of vanity and a sherd of an earthen pot Hay that withers at the first rising of the hot sunne The name of God is a strong and most assured tower the just shall there have their refuge and there shall be exalted Hence we see how all those who have appeared in the world with some eminency have ever
all the miserable betook themselves unto him unto the number of 400. men which entrenched themselves in a fortresse going forth every day for to rob to maintain themselves thereby In the midst of all these misfortunes the good Prince kept alwayes in his heart a true love of his countrey and knowing that the Philistims had laid siege before Keilah he failed not to go to help it and to deliver it although this ungratefull city was intened to deliver him to Saul if he had enclosed himself therein the which he would not do having consulted with the Oracle of God but retired himself to the desert of Ziph whither Jonathan that The visit of Jonathan secret and and very profitable to David burned with a great desire to see him came to find him secretly and they were for some time together with unspeakable expansions of heart This good friend comforted him and assured him that he should be King after his father and for himself he would be content to be his second which sufficiently witnessed the wonderfull modesty of this Prince and the incomparable love that he bore to David But the Ziphims men for the time that would provide for their own safety sent their deputies to Saul to advertise him that David was retired into their quarters and if it pleased him to follow him they would deliver him into his hands At the which Saul was exceeding joyful and entred the chase to entrap him compassing him on every side and hunting him like a poor deer chased by men and dogs with great out cries The danger was very manifest and David in great hazard to be taken had it not been for a happy message it may be procured by Jonathan that advertised Saul that the Philistims had taken the field and made great waste upon his lands at which he returned to bring remedy thereto deferring his former design till another occasion In the mean while David ran from desert to desert The rudenesse of Nabal towards David with his troops and was hardly able to live which made him have recourse to Nabal a rich man and that had great means entreating him for some courtesie for to maintain his people which had used him with very great respect defending his house his flocks and all his family against the spoilings of robbers This Nabal that was clownish and covetous answered the deputies of David that he knew not the son of Jesse but that he was not ignorant that there were evil servants enough which were fled from their masters and that he was not in case to take the bread from his hired servants for to give it to high-way men This word being told to David incensed him so much that he was going to set upon his house for to rob and sack it But Abagail the The wisdome of Abigail his wife wife of Nabal better behaved and wiser without busying her self to discourse with her husband that was a fool and drunk caused presently mules to be loaden with provision necessary for the men of war and went to meet David to whom she spake with so great wisdome comelinesse and humility that she turned away the tempest and stayed the swords already drawn out of the scabbards for to make a great slaughter in her house David admiring the wisdom and goodnesse of this spirit of the woman married her after the death of her husband It is so true that a good deed bestowed on a high A good deed done to a great one afflicted is of much value person in time of his affliction and when he hath most leasure to consider it is a seed-sowing which in its time brings forth and bears fruits of blessednesse After that Saul had driven back the Philistims he returns to the pursuit of David accompanied with three thousand men with a purpose to take him although he should hide himself under ground or should fly through the air And indeed he crept up rocks unaccessible David furiously pursued by Saul which were not frequented by any but by wild goats and as he passed that way he entred into a cave for some naturall necessity where David was hid with a small number of his faithfullest servants which failed not to tell him that this was the hand of God which had this day delivered his deadly enemy into his hands and that he should not now lose time but to cut him off quickly whilst that he gave him so fair play and this would be the means to end all those bitternesses wherewith his life was filled by the rage of this barbarous Persecutour This was a strong temptation to a man so violently His generousnesse in pardoning his enemy very admirable persecuted and whose life was sought by so many outrages Neverthelesse David stopping all those motions of revenge resolved in his heart by a strong inspiration of God never to lay his hands upon him which was consecrated King and contenting himself with cutting off the skirts of his coat he went out of the cave after Saul and crying with a loud voice he worshipped him prostrate on the earth holding in his hand the piece of his casock and saying to him Behold my Lord my Father and my King the innocence of my hands and do not believe them any more which filled you with suspicions of poor David you cannot be ignorant at this time that God hath put you into my power and that I could have handled you ill by taking away your life have saved mine own But God hath kept me by his holy grace from this thought and hath preserved you from all evil I never yet had any intent to hurt your Majesty having alwayes reverenced and served it as your most humble servant and subject whiles that you cease not to pesecute me and to torment my poor life with a thousand afflictions Alas my Lord what is it that you desire Against whom are you come forth with so great furniture of Arms and Horses against a poor dead Dog a miserable little beast I beseech the living God to judge between us two and to make you to know the goodnesse of my cause One may avouch that great and glorious actions The greatnesse and benefit of clemency of Clemency do never hurt Princes but that often they do place or keep the Crown upon their heads God and Men concurring to favour that goodnesse that approches so near to the highest Saul was so amazed with this action that he ran to him and embraced him weeping and said to him This is a sure sign O David which I acknowledge at the present and whereby I know for certain that you must reign after me so great a goodnesse not being able to be rewarded but by an Empire I do pray and conjure you onely to have pity on my poor children after my death and not to revenge your injuries upon them hereupon he swore to him to deal with him afterwards peaceably But as this spirit was unequall
Life those of Rigour He desires Peace and it is denyed him and sues for an agreement and is slighted His arrogance being sorely pricked vomits out nothing but whirlwinds of fire and comes to fall before Croye the Capitall City of the Valiant Castriot with an Army of two hundred thousand men The other defends himself with six thousand One onely place bayes that great Deluge the Storm is scattered the Siege raised the shame of it remains on the face of the Sultan with so lively a Tincture that the Shadow of death must passe over it to blot it out He that had lived with Glory dyes with the sadnesse of his Ignominy and carries with him into the other World the unability to revenge himself and an eternall desire of vengeance Mahomet his sonne the Scourge and Terrour of the Universe that overthrew two Empires took two hundred Cities killed twenty Millions of Men comes to split against the same Rock Was there need of so much blood to write upon Castriot's Trophies the Title of Invincible Who would Imagine that a mortall man should have gone so farre who should believe that those exploits were the Actions of a slave Truly we must avow that he lent his Name to God in all this businesse and that God lent his Arm to him It is said of him that he never refused Battell never turned his back never was wounded but once very Lightly He slew two thousand Barbarians with his own hand which he cleft ordinarily with his Coutelax from the head down to the Girdle Mahomet desired to see that Thunder-bolt that he bore in his hands and had it in veneration although so many times bedewed with his Subjects blood He saw the Steel but he never saw the Arm that gave it Life O brave Castriot If the State of Christians could have been delivered from the Tyranny of the Sultans it should have been by thy hands We must now acknowledge that our wounds are irrecoverable seeing that our divisions hinder us from enjoying the succour of so Divine an hand The Feaver that took thee hence in the City of Lissa in the Climactericall of seven and nine the most to be feared by old men extinguished all our hopes by the same burnings that consumed thy Body After thou hadst lived the most Admirable of Captains thou dyedst like a truly Religious melting the hearts of all those that beheld thee by a most sensible Devotion Thy victorious spirit soared up to the Palace of the Beautifull Sion after it had performed in the Body all that was possible for a most eminent Virtue and an Happinesse to which nothing was wanting but imitatours The most barbarous thy Enemies have kissed thy Sepulchre have Reverenced thy Ashes and shared thy Bones as the dearest Reliques of Valour And now thou hast no more to do with a Tomb seeing that thy Memory hath found as many Monuments as there are Hearts in all ages BOUCICAUT BAYARD BOVCICAVD BAYARD WE need not search the Catalogue of Saints and Martyrs for a Souldier Furnished before God and men with great and Divine virtues Behold one among a thousand I mean the brave Marshal Boucicaut who flourished in France under Charles the Sixth Those petty Rodomonts who boast of their Duels but indeed meer cowardise varnished with a glossy colour of valour durst not behold this most excellent Cavalier without doing that which was antiently done to the Statues of the Sunne that is to put finger on the mouth and admire For not to mention his other acts of prowesse it is he who was present at that daring Battell which the Turkish Emperour Bajazet waged against the King of Hungary the Duke of Burgundy then called the Count of Nevers with many other of the French Gentry being there in person The History relateth that the Turkish Emperour coming to fight with dreadfull forces began so furious a charge the air being darkned with a black cloud of Arrows that the Hungarians who were alwayes reputed good Souldiers being much amazed with this fierce assault fled away The French who in all Battels had ever learned to conquer or dye not willing to hear so much as the least speech of the name of flight pierced into the Turkish army notwithstanding a field of Pikes and stakes fastned in the earth did hinder their approch and attended by some other Troops brake the Vangard of the Turks by the counsell and example of this brave Marshall whereat Bajazet much amazed was about to retire but that at the same time it was told him that it was but a very little handfull of Frenchmen that made the greatest resistance and that it was best for him to assault them The Turk who kept his Battalions very fresh returneth and fell like lightning upon these poor Souldiers now extreamly wearied Never did an angry Lyon exercise more violent force against the Hunters Javelins then this generous Cavalier shewed prowesse which shined in the midst of the adventurous Pagans For seeing himself at last negligently betraied he having no other purpose but to sell his own life and those of his companions at as dear a rate as he could he with the French Cavalry and some other people that stuck to him did such feats of Arms that it was thought twenty thousand Turks were slain in the place At last this prodigious multitude able to tire out the most hardy although it had been but to cut them in pieces did so nearly encompasse our French that the Count of Nevers with Marshall Boucicaut and other the most worthy Personages were taken Prisoners The next day after this dismall Battell the proud Bajazet sitting under a Pavillion spread for him in the field caused the prisoners to be brought before him to drench himself in blood and revenge which he alwayes most passionately loved Never was seen a spectacle more worthy of Compassion A sad spectacle The poor Lords who had wrought wonders in Arms able to move Tygers were led to the slaughter half naked straight bound with cords and fetters no regard being had either to their bloud which was noble or youth which was pitifull or their behaviour which was most ravishing These Saracens ugly and horrible as Devils set them before the face of the Tyrant who in the twinkling of an eye caused their throats to be cut at his feet as if he meant to carouse their bloud The Count of Nevers with the Count of Ewe and the Count of Marche had now their heads under the Symiter and their lives hung as it were by a thread when Bajazet who had heard by his interpreters that they were near Kinsmen to the King of France caused them to be reserved commanding them to sit at his feet on the ground where they were enforced to behold the lamentable butchery of their Nobility The valiant Boucicaut covered with a little linnen cloth in his turn was brought forth to be massacred over the bodies of so many valiant men He being wise and in this
the images of the things which we have received in our senses and in our imagination when we were awake and is as the Eccho which brings a repetition of the actions of the day Our soul hath this mark of its immortality that it is in a perpetuall motion without any interruption after the manner of the heavenly Globes and of the intelligences When the body is laid fast by the charming sweetnesses of sleep and the night makes a league with all the actions of the day the soul makes not any with its operations it meditates it reasons it speaks it is in action it negotiates and without parting from its body flies beyond all lands and seas to enjoy a friend She opens her self with joy pricks her self with sorrow interesses her self in businesses and not being able to use the members of her body serves her self with her own members and her own faculties for the satisfaction of her desire And as sword-players cease not sometimes to fence without arms and to use gestures as if there passed a reall combate so our spirit whiles we sleep carries her self away and does every thing in Idea as if it were seconded by the body Such is the state and naturall condition of Dreams as Tertullian hath well explained it in his Book concerning the Soul But beyond this it is expedient to note that there is something in them of extraordinary and Divine which made the Stoicks say that Providence carefull of our preservation gave us Dreaming as a domestick Oracle to inform us of our good and evils This cannot be understood commonly of all Dreams the truth being such that there are five sorts of them which Macrobius following the Antients names the Phantasme the Raving the Vision the Oracle and the figurative Dream we ought not to relie much upon Phantasmes which are as shadows which present themselves to our imagination in the very first cloud of sleep nor of Ravings which follow ordinarily the state of the passions and affections of our soul and of our body as Artemidorus reasons in the beginning of his work but much on Vision which without following the paths trodden the day before by our senses make us see and discover things in our sleep which we experiment when we are awake to be the self same which we saw when we were asleep And as for Oracle which expresses to us apparitions of God and Angels or certain grave persons that seem to speak to us and to advertise us of what we have to do or not to do it cannot be but very considerable as also the Figurative Dream which shews us under Figures and Symbols the divers accidents of things profitable either to the common good or to our particular conduct I have been willing to clear this with more day to make us know the excellent gifts of the divine Goodnesse communicated to our Patriarch in that interpretation which he gave to Dreams To speak truth it was a kind of Prophecy which being properly a manifestation of Truths elevated above the ordinary knowledge of man clearly discovered it self in Joseph in the declaration which he made of things so hidden and so little penetrable to the understanding of the most learned men of Egypt Saint Thomas disputes touching the excellency of Prophecies and sayes That those are more sublime that are purely intellectuall then others that are made by similitudes But although those of our Joseph were revealed by Riddles and by Figures yet they mount for all that to an high point of excellency forasmuch as they were by this means more proportioned to the capacity of a Nation that loved them more when they were involved in the shadows and in the clouds of those Figures then if they had been naked and totally unmixt with corporall Idea's And I think that the great excellency of a master and of a teacher is to accommodate himself to the spirit of those to whom he would perswade the verities of his Doctrine Now it discovers to us at present that this first Courtier of the chosen people had something of Divine that prepared him to great actions inasmuch as from his little child-hood he was exercised by those mysterious Dreams and amorous of Heaven and of the Startes that enlightned him in the silence of a delicious night and brought him the presages of his future greatnesse God hath often spoken to his most faithfull servants by the means of Dreams as to Mordecai to the Wise-men of the East to Saint Joseph the spouse of the most holy Virgin and the observation of them is not bad when one perceives in them some extraordinary thing and which tends to a good end by lawful and commendable means It is true that Aristotle thought that Dreams came not from God because if that had any likelihood that favour would be for none but for the Philosophers and for eminent persons but we must pardon a wise worldly man if he knew not the admirable commerce and the sweet discourses that the Spirit of God is pleased to make with simple and innocent souls which being empty of themselves are filled advantageously with the Deity Such was little Joseph when he saw in a Dream his sheaf of corn that exalted it self above those of his brethren and when he beheld the Sun and the Moon with the eleven Stars that came to worship him and do him reverence This probably seemed to him a presage of a great happinesse seeing that according to the Maximes of Astrampsychus in his book of Dreams it is a mark of felicity to see the stars in ones sleep He had not been then refined at Court when he boasted of that Dream by a childish innocence and related it to his brothers who conceived so much jealousie from it that they resolved upon his destruction Here is a second work of Providence which pleases her self in doing the works of her trade and in conducting to the haven those whom she hath taken in charge by turning her back to them His brothers saith S. Gregory sold him for fear lest he should be worshipped according to his Dream and he was worshipped because he was sold Envy which is properly a sadnesse for the honour and welfare of another forasmuch as that it seems to us to tend to the diminution of ours finds objects in all places it enters into Jacobs family a family of Saints to teach us saith Saint Ambrose that the servants of God have not escaped Passions but conquered them He that in the Government of all Egypt found nothing but admiration amongst strangers meets with envy amongst his brethren and amongst those of whom charity should have been adored though she had been persecuted in all the habitable world There is not a more subtil poyson then that of asps nor a more deadly envy then that of brothers and especially of those that make profession of wisdome and of holinesse This animall Passion that makes at length a sinne of the spirit feels her self most conveniently
to tell the Governour of Egypt that they had yet another brother Whereupon they informed him that he himself had inquired particularly about the state of all the family and that they had no list to lye not being able to Divine that he would demand that child The necessitie of food and the love of a father combated at the same time in that afflicted heart and he knew not what to resolve on His sons seeing him a little stagger urge him eagerly as one does those that are slow and fearfull when one would wrest any thing from them Reuben offers him his two little sonnes in hostage and would have him kill them if he brings not back to him his Benjamin Judah engages himself for him upon his head and life The battery was too strong for him not to yield he orders them therefore to take some of the best fruits of their Land to make presents to that great Lord of Egypt and to carry their money double to restore that which had been put into their sacks lest it should have happened by an over sight and also to take their little brother seeing that such was the necessity When they came to a departure he felt great convulsions and said to them go then in an happy hour I pray my God the God Almighty which hath never yet forsaken me that he would render that great Governour of Egypt favourable to you and that you may quickly bring back that poor prisoner and my little Benjamin which I put now into your hands upon the promises which you have made to which I call heaven to witnesse Know furthermore that I am deprived of all my children and that I shall be as in the Grave till such time as the happy news of your return shall give me a Refurrection This being said they put themselves on the way arrive at Egypt and present themselves suddenly to their brother who perceived that Benjamin was there whereat he was wonderfully pleased and commanded his Steward to make ready a dinner because he would eat with those strangers They are brought into the house with much courtesie yet as an evil conscience is ever fearfull they perswade themselves that it is to put them in Prison and to keep them in servitude by reason of that money which they had found in their sacks They addresse themselves to the Cash-keeper of the house very much scared and beseech him to hear them they relate to him with great sincerity all that had happened to them protesting that that came not by their fault and offering all that they thought they were indebted to him The other made answer with great affability that he had received of them good money that he held himself satisfied and that if they had found any in their sacks it was their good luck and the God of their fathers that had a mind to gratifie them He gave them notice that they were to dine that day with their Lord who would suddenly return from his affairs to set himself at Table They order in the mean time their present and their brother Simeon is released who embraces them with a joy which was as the fore-runner of a greater They are made to wash and repose themselves and meat is also given to their Mules And when all this was dispatched Joseph enters to go to dinner they prostrate themselves before him with a profound reverence and offer him their presents He receives them with great courtesie and asks of them at first sight how their good Father did and whether he was yet alive To which they answered that God of his goodnesse had preserved to them that which they held most dear and that he was in a very good condition Then he fixt his eyes upon his brother Benjamin and said unto them Is this then your little brother of whom you have made mention to me To which they answer that they had brought him with them to obey his commands and to justifie the sincerity of their proceedings His heart was ravished at him and turning himself towards him My child sayes he to him I pray God to give your his holy Graces and to keep you in his protection Upon this speech he felt his heart very much moved and ran into his Closet not being able any longer to hold his tears and wept in secret so great an impression had bloud and nature and perhaps the remembrance of his Mother who had born them both made upon his Spirit When he had wiped his face he returns with a merry countenance he commands his men to wait He dined apart a little separated from his brethren and from another company of the Egyptians who were also at the Feast and had no communication with the Jews He gives charge above all that they use well the youngest of those eleven brothers which say that they are all the sons of one and the same father and that they should spare nothing on them After all he ordered that they should fill their sacks with Corn and that they should put again the money also in them as they had done at their first journey and spake to his Steward giving him charge to take the Cup in which he drank and to put it in the sack of little Benjamin which he did and after they had well dined they passed the rest of the day in all tranquility expecting the morrow to put themselves upon their way and to return to their father When the day began to dawn after they had bid their Adieus and given their thanks they depared from the City very joyfull for that they had had so happy Accidents But they were not very far before they see a man coming from Joseph that seems exceedingly to chase stops them and sayes to them that some body had stoln away his Masters Cup with which he serves himself to drink in and to Divine things hidden that this could not happen but from them and that they were very injurious after they had been enterteined in the house of the Governour of Egypt with so much courtesie to render him evil for good and to fly away after they had committed a Theft so base and so outrageous The brothers extreamly astonished answer that this cannot be and that they should be the wickedest men upon the earth if they had as much as dreamt of such an attempt That there was no likelihood that they that had brought back faithfully the money that had been put into their sacks would steal in the house of so high a Potentate Furthermore that there was no need of words but that he should come to proof and search every where and that if any one of them was culpable of that sacriledge they were content to deliver him up to death and to render themselves all the Governours slaves for reparation of that fault The condition is accepted with moderation that the faulty should be punished and that the innocent should go free They are all searched in order
Monarch chusing rather to suffer with his Brethren as saith S. Paul then to taste any more the sweetnesses of a temporall glory It is an act of prudence to steal away from the fury of a wicked Prince who holds for enemy all that there is of virtuous and to hide ones self as those Rivers that go a long way under ground without being seen of any one and then unexpectedly produce themselves to water the meadows to bear boats to serve for a knot to the commerce of men and to make Islands and Beauties for the ornament of Nature These retirings have been advantageous to many whom they have hid for a time with an intention to set them afterward in bright day The fire which devours every thing hath no more to do with the ashes and the rage of Tyrants that swallows up every thing thinks no more on those that enter while they live as it were into the sepulchre of a life unknown to all the world Moses passed from one extremity to another without the middle when forsaking the Court after a stay of fourty years he went to range himself in the life of shepherds and remained as one lost in the world to find himself with God He withdrew himself into the countrey of the Midianites where he had at first approach a pleasing encountre that made him find a commodious dwelling and a marriage according to his heart The sacred History sayes that Jethro a Priest and Shepherd in that Region had sent seven daughters whereof he was the father to draw water at a fountain for their flocks to drink and that having met with other shepherds insolent enough that taking a pride to insult over the infirmity of that sex ceased not to harry them and to hinder them from the use of an Element that nature had made to slide for the commodity of the publick Moses that had the quality of Plato's Magistrate whom he would have to be zealous and courageous for the defence of Justice could not endure the insolence of those wicked men and takes the maidens part whom he defended against oppression with so much successe as that he chased away their adversaries and gave them free liberty to draw water For which they thought themselves very much obliged and failed not to make a large relation to their father of the courtesie of that Egyptian that had taken them into his protection Their father received him into his house and took so much pleasure in his conversation that he gave him one of his daughters in marriage and allied him to his family by an indissoluble amity This new son-in-law accustomed himself to a countrey life and practised the laborious exercises of shepherds so true it is that able men bend their spirit whither they will and are good at doing every thing habituating themselves to persons and to places where their lot hath ranged them bearing equally want and abundance and shewing by their example that there is no life in the world so strange that may not serve for matter to virtue But without speaking yet of the great secrets that God kept hidden in this ordering of Moses I find that it was the means to make a great States-man of him because that Philosopher which hath deserved the title of Divine sayes that a good King is nothing else but a shepherd of a reasonable flock and that he ought to take his first Rudiments from the manner of ordering sheep to succeed well in the Government of Kingdomes that he ought to see the tender love the cares and the toils of the true shepherds to learn how he ought to demean himself towards his Subjects Moses had all leasure to lay those grounds tarrying as many years in his Countrey life as he had before passed at Court and ceasing not to play the Philosopher and to contemplate in that great School of Nature where God spake to him and taught him lessons through the veil of all the Creatures O how little did the pompous pride of the Pharaoh's then seem to him O how contemptible then did seem all those beauties of dust and those fortunes of wind that are at Court His heart dilated it self in the greatnesses of God and became every day wiser then it self This long solitude having purged him from the impurities of the earth rendred him capable of the visits and commerce of God and the time destined to the deliverance of his people being now at hand as he went along entertaining his thoughts he was got farre into the desert and perceived that miraculous Bush all crowned with innocent flames that gave it a delightfull beauty and the fire that consumes every thing seemed rather to dresse then to offend it God meaning to signifie by this the estate of his chosen people for whom the burning coals of Persecution prepared an high lustre of glory Moses charmed with this Vision draws near and hears a voyce out of the middle of the Bush that calls him and having commanded him to put off his shooes through reverence speaks with him and declares to him its will about the going out of Egypt which the Israelites were to enterprise and execute under his command To speak truth this was one of the greatest Colloquies and one of the highest Discourses that was ever under Heaven wherein the Sovereign Master seated upon a Throne of Fire talked with the most excellent man of all Ages touching the means to break the chains of six hundred thousand men besides women and little children that groaned under an horrible Captivity and drowned every day a part of their life in their tears Moses that was now totally accustomed to the sweetnesse of his solitude refused at first to be the Negotiatour of a businesse of so great importance and to betake himself again to the Court of Egypt to treat with Pharaoh alledging his inability the incredulity of the people and the impediment of his speech to free himself from that Embassage But God having assured him that he was He that is that is to say The absolute Being the Independent and the first Originall of all Essences that would be with him and would give him for a companion his brother Aaron who was eloquent enough and in fine having confirmed him by prodigious Miracles that he caused to be done in his presence wan him and made him consent to his will Aristotle in the fifth of his Politicks hath said That of all the things that cause the subversions of Kingdomes and of Empires there was not any more pernicious then Injustice and Oppression of the innocent which may be observed clearly in this proceeding For behold the ruine of a great Realm procured by the cruelty of the Ministers of Pharaoh who by his consent and orders turmoiled incessantly a people miserable and afflicted above all measure Their piercing clamours so many times redoubled clave the clouds and were carried by the Angels even up to the Heaven of heavens represented before the Throne of
Queen in Vashti's place putting the Crown upon her head Mordecai was ravished at this choice and walked every day from the first beginning that she was brought to Court before the Seraglio to hear news of her having recommended her to a certain Eunuch his confident that had of her a very particular care He sent her very opportunely necessary advice to teach her how to behave her self and above all he was so wise as to recommend to her not to declare the Nation whereof she was and to make no discovery that she had any relation to him which he judged to be to the purpose for fear lest Haman who was in so great favour and who hated naturally the Jews should ruine her before she had taken rooting in the Kings heart Behold a wonderfull sport of Providence which tooke a little stone with an intention to beat down a great Colossus and makes in one instant of an earthen pot a vessel of gold Men stand now amazed to think what wind drove this poor Jewesse to the crown of the chief Monarchy that was at that time in the whole world They think that sure it was a great chance but God knew that it was a great counsel digested from all eternity in his thoughts For if command is due according to Aristotle to persons that are most accomplished there was some foundation in the excellent qualities of Hester on which to set a Crown for beside the beauty of her body and the ingeniousnesse of her mind she had great gifts of virtues that rendred her lovely to all the world and might serve for models to all Ladies She was not a lump of flesh or a body without a soul nor a worldly woman that had no other Idol but her Beauty nor other Deities but Pleasure and Ambition as it happens ordinarily to most women who seeing themselves elevated to the top of the grandeurs of the age strangely corrupt their manners and dishonour their condition Hesters chief and principall virtue that made a most pure source of pleasures flow into the rest of her life was That she was devout and that being young of age frail of sex high of condition in a Court of an Infidel King amongst so many other Pagan women she never forgat God but observed punctually as farre as it was lawfull and possible for her the exercise of her Religion making her prayers with an incredible ardour and retaining a faith inviolable in the midst of the Empire of impiety She brought the King her husband to the worship of God and to the love of her people as farre as she could perceive any disposition in him She erected a Temple in her heart having not yet the power to build one in her Kingdome and directed all her Devotions to the sacrificing of her self She was also greatly to be commended for the little care she had of her Body against the nature of that sex which often preferres their flesh before God and all Paradise This appeared evidently at that season when she was to present her self to the King the second time since that in an occasion so important wherein all other women would have had an infinite care of their habit and attire she contented her self with so small a thing and yet in her naturall grace just as a rose adorned with its own leaves she obscured all other beauties even the most tricked and pranked Her art was to have no art at all to take what nature had given her and to render all to God Furthermore she brought to Court a great Humility and a perfect submission which she never quitted being as obedient to her uncle when she had the Crown upon her head as in her lowest age she hearkned to his advice she put it in execution she despised no body but her own self The habit of a Queen was to her a burden almost insupportable and she never found more joy then in her solitude There are few women that are born without self-wilfulnesse and without opinions that augment themselves with age and increase excessively in high conditions which makes us admire this woman in contemplating nearer her deportments and seeing how little she relied upon her own self but although she was endowed with a rare wit yet she hearkned to reason and without much ado yielded to good counsel which rendred her demeanour very happy and all her negotiations most advantageous Besides all this as God had chosen her for great things so he gave her the prudence of the Saints accompanied with a good judgement with docility with providence with discretion with circumspection and with expeditnesse in the execution of affairs To this prudence was joyned a courage and an incomparable generosity even to enterprise by a motive of virtue actions so dangerous that she could expect nothing from them that was lesse then death And for to crown all these virtues she possessed farther an illustrious patience taking every thing from the hand of God and suiting her self to his will in all the successes and events of the businesses of the world Behold the principall qualities that adomed this Princesse and that may be seen in those women that God hath gratified with his favours In the sequel of this story he makes us see the brave employment that he gave her in that Court of Ahasuerus to bruise the head of a great Serpent and to deliver her Nation from a gulf of great and horrible calamities Princes and great men would be happy if without dying by procuration they might live in person They are born often enough with most excellent qualities they are calm seas and killed with riches that might do good to all the world if the winds would but let them runne according to their own nature But as the Beauties of women are courted by many Lovers so high conditions have their flatterers that under a shadow of themselves Adorers make themselves Masters and under colour of Service exercise an Empire even over those that think they command the whole Universe Their name by this means serves for a Passeport to all mischeifs their Authority for a sanctuary to crimes their Taxes for tinder to concupiscense their Power for an instrument to revenge and for a scourge to mankind This may be manifestly seen in the sequele of this History where it is said That Ahasuerus exalted Haman above all the Princes and Nobles of his Kingdome and took the wickedst man of the earth to make of him the most puissant that Crimes might have as much assistance as this Monarch had power and riches His goodnesse was seduced in this point and his too easie spirit was gained by great appearances that stole him from himself and left him nothing but a meer apparition of Dignity This Haman which he thought at first to be a Persian an honest man an able and affectionate to his service was partly an Amalekite and partly also a Macedonian a sonne of the earth that had neither God nor conscience
a spirit full of labyrinths captious suspicious great in appearance and little in reality a lion in prosperity and an ape in adversity whose life was a perpetuall crime whose avarice was a gulf ambition an abysse and fortune a scandall and an injury to Providence Yet for all this he entred so farre into the friendship of the King that he saw not but by his eyes heard not but by his ears walked not but by his steps and governed not but by his counsels He called him his father and believed him the most excellent and the wisest man in his whole Kingdome commanding every one to acknowledge him for the second person of the Empire and to give him the greatest reverence This Court that was full of slaves carried many candles to this Idol some through fear as to a mischievous Devil and others through hope and expectation to be preferred The poor Mordecai felt a most bitter grief to see over the heads of men him that would bring the whole world under his feet and in that slavery so generall to all men he chose rather the losse of his life then of his liberty He would never bow the knee before that Baal and although his enemy persecuted him in that businesse by fury and his friends by importunities he remained unmoveable resolved to suffer much rather then to do any thing that was base Haman that was at the beginning giddy-headed by the fumigations of the incense that was presented to him on all sides and that regarded men but as the little gnats took no heed to it at first but when he was advertised by his flatterers that there was but one onely man at Court that refused to be an adorer of his fortune he was inflamed with choler and esteeming it but a small game for him to cause one man to die he made a resolution horrible and bloudy to root out a whole Nation He goes and tells the King that the Jews dispersed through all the Provinces of his Kingdome were divided by Religion and by Laws from the rest of all the world and by affection from his Person and his State That they were a people most pernicious to an Empire that alwayes sate abrood upon some poison and that if they seemed moderate it was not but through impotence being disposed at the first occasion to cast themselves into Rebellion and Insolence He added also that the great care which he had of the good of the State put these words into his mouth that would cause the universall quiet of all his Monarchy and that after consideration had of the great perils wherewith his Crowns and Life were menaced by that faction he hath found nothing better then to prevent them and to cut them off in time before they had fortified themselves to the prejudice of the publick That if the Treasurers of the Exchequer feared by this a diminution of the Tributes he would give with all his heart ten thousand talents of his proper goods to recompense the Levies so much he took to heart that businesse that concerned the safety of his King and the benefit of his people This Serpent plaid his game with so much artifice that he perswaded whatsoever he had a mind to in such a manner as that poor Ahasuerus who was of a mean and credulous spirit without examining any thing plucks his ring from off his finger puts it into Hamans hands with a full power to do as he in his discretion should think fit Behold the great confusion of the State of the Spirit and of the Conscience of Kings when they suffer themselves so easily to be lead away by evil counsels and will not so much as know what passes in the government of their people It is an horrible thing that in the turn of an hand this miserable Prince should abandon to the vengeance of a pernicious man so many millions of lives without making one sole reflexion upon what he sayes or what he grants He had no imagination whither that did tend and his ordinary idlenesse suffered him not to take any further cognizance of it which rendred him doubly culpable to permit so many murders and to be ignorant of it Seneca sayes that when Claudius was Turpiùs ignorasti quà m occidisti Sen. in Ludo de morte Claudii in the other world some men reproached him with abundance of murders done under his name and yet he knew not what they meant then Augustus rose up and said Thou miscreant we talk not here of the slaughters thou hast committed but of those thou hast not known for it is a more shamefull thing to a King to be ignorant of the evil that passeth in his Kingdome then to act it The sister of one of the Ptolomy's King of Egypt seeing that her brother as he was playing at dice caused some criminall Processes to be read to him to decide them in the last Appeal snatched the papers out of the Clerk of the Assise's hand and said to her brother that a dye fell otherwise then the head of a man One cannot bring too much consideration when there is a question of shedding a mans bloud be it in peace or warre Yet Ahasuerus trusts this proud Haman as one that would trust the wolf with the lives of his sheep He triumphs with joy for having obtained the Kings ring he relishes and digests his vengeance with ceremony He causes a great vessel to be brought him into which he throws twelve little billets which bore the name of every moneth and causes the moneth to be drawn out by lot in which he should execute his pernicious design The lot fell upon the last although it was cast in the first and he would not change it whether through an old superstition of his Countrey or through the great confidence he had that what time soever he took to make the projected Massaere the Jews could not possibly escape him so impotent they were and he thought to keep them as beasts shut up which one chases when one will It was a pleasure to him to shew them the glittering steel a year before they should die and to make them perish a thousand times by fear before their life should be once taken away by the sword He assembles all the Kings secretaries and dictates to them a bloudy letter whereof he causes a great many copies to be drawn to send into all the Provinces and the renour of them was That the thirteenth day of the last moneth which was that of February the Jews should be massacred in all the Cities and Provinces that were within the utmost limits of the Empire and that from the least even to the greatest without sparing either man woman or child all should be put to the sword without remission and that their goods should be confiscated and exposed to pillage The Letters marked with the Seal and Arms of the King flew as ill-boding Birds through all the extents of the seven and twenty Provinces of