water though it be boyled on burning coles returneth to its natural coldness honey assumeth not the nature of wormwood the Lion playeth not the Ape nor doth the Eagle become an Ostrich to trail her wings on the ground Now the nature of the spirit how much the more noble and elate it is so much the more it ought to transfer it self to the consideration of things divine to wit from whence it cometh whither it goeth what within it self it acteth This is saith the Oracle of Roman Philosophie an infallible Senec. praef l. 1. natur quaest Hoc habet argumentum Divinitatis suae quòd illum divina delectant nec ut alieniâ— interest sed us suis mark of a divine spirit when it pleaseth it self to discourse of things divine and is entertained in these contemplations as with her familiar and peculiar affairs Judge then what indignitie it is to bury this vigour and light of the spirit which God so freely hath communicated to you in frivolous employments and petty fopperies which discolour the lustre and honour of your name What a shame it is to say this Sovereign hand hath moulded man to be the King of creatures and he betraying his nature maketh himself the Comedian the mimike stage-player Man a Stage-player of the world of all creatures acting all sorts of personages but the good and that which his own excellency is obliged unto Which verily is the same the great Tertullian Tertul. de spect c. 2. Homo omnium flagitiorum actor non tantian opus Dei verumetiam imago est tamon corpore spiritu à suo discivit institutore deplored Man is the work and image of God who having apostatized from his Creatour as well in mind as bodie maketh himself an Actour of all the evil personages in the great Comedie of the world Yet that seemeth more tolerable in persons who are not eminent either in judgement learning or spirit but Great-ones whom God hath created advantageously to transcend all others and who should live and converse among men like Angels to play the Hogs and Monkeys abasing themselves to I know not what kind of childishness of spirit and to a life corrupted with the curious delights and voluptuousness of the bodie consider I pray whether this be not a thing as unreasonable in its own nature as prodigious in the effects Secondly It is to do a great wrong to ones self to live in such fashion yea it is a meer frenzy which is not made probable to any man but by the multitude of mad men See you not very well that to employ some rich and precious instrument to a base and sordid use is an act of a man who hath lost his wits If you see a great Monarch employ his purple A great indignitie in the abuse of the spirit robe to stop an oven with and his scepter to shake hay you would crie Out upon it and yet the soul which God hath given you incomparably more precious than the purple and scepter of Kings you suffer to wallow in the filths of flesh you apply it to perpetual idle discourses to vanities quarrels and revenges Is not this wholly to abuse the gifts of Almightie God It is said Nero took delight to dig Folly of Nero. the earth with a golden spade and when there was question about cutting the Isthmus of Corinth a design which long time troubled his brain he went thither led on with musical violins holding in his Mausonii dialog de Neronâ— hand the golden spade with which he began in the sight of the whole world to break the ground a matter which seemed ridiculous to the wisest living in that Age. For my own part I find it more strange that a noble spirit should amuse it self in things frivolous and impertinent For to dig the earth with gold was to bring back gold to its course since it first sprang from the entrails of the earth but for a heavenly spirit to delve in ordures stenches and dung-hils this is it which is wholly inexcusable especially in the Nobilitie In the third place I say that such manner of proceeding Sacriledge of fair souls is manifest sacriledge for two reasons the first is it retaineth wickedly and traiterously a thing sacred for a profane use S. Augustine in an Epistle Aug. Ep. ad Lucentium that he wrote to Licentius a young man of a noble spirit which a liltle too loosely he abused in the vanities of the world presseth this argument in these terms If by chance you had found a golden Chalice in Si calicâ—â— aurâ—m invenisses in terra denares illum Ecclesiae Dei. Accepisti à Deo ingenium spiritaliter cureâ—â— ministrâ—â— inde libidinibus in illo Satanâ— propinâ—â—â—eipsum the streets you would take it from the ground and give it to the Church otherwise it would be a sacriledge God hath given you a soul all of gold so excellent it is so delicately purified and you use it as an instrument of sensuality and make of it a vessel of abomination wherein you present your soul to Satan as a sacrifice Fear you not the anger of God The other reason is You not onely with-hold a vessel consecrated to the service of the Omnipotent but you attempt upon the image of God himself This fair spirit which he hath given you as the flower and quintessence of your soul is a true character of the Divinitie and you hasten to prostitute it to publick affections Remember I pray it hath Images of Emperours how much reverenced Senec. de benof l. 3. c. 26. heretofore been held a capital crime to carrie the Emperours picture into a place undecent or uncleanly and expresly Paulus a man of eminent qualitie as one who had been Pretour was accused and prosecuted as criminal under Tiberius for that he took a chamber-pot into his hand having a ring upon his finger graved with the Emperours form And can you think it will be lawful for you to carrie not a dead figure but the living Image of your Heavenly Father into the impurities and pollutions which your exorbitant passions extrude as the scummie froth of folly Is not the blame most formidable which God by the mouth of the Prophet Ezechiel pronounceth against an ungrateful Ezech. 16. 17. Et â—ulisti â—asa decoris tui de â—uro meo atque argento meo fecisti tibi imagines masculinâ—s fornicata es in eis olcum maâ—â—â— thymiama meum posuisti eoram eiâ— soul in such manner abandoning it self Ingrateful and wicked as thou art thou then hast dared to take away the most precious vessels framed of my gold and silver to make masculine idols and so to satisfie thy fornications Thou hast caused my oyl to burn and incense to smoke before their altars What ingratitude is like to this Alas what idols are daily made of the gold and silver of God when so many brave spirits
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
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
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms of me Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And he said to them That so it is written and so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day and penance to be preached in his Name and remission of sins unto all Nations Moralities 1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us when he is in the midst of our heart he watches over us and stretches out his divine hands for our protection Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence before his eyes and in his bosom An ancient Tradition doth observe that after our Lords Ascension the Apostles did never eat together but they left the first napkin for their good Master conceiving that according to his promise he was always with them Let us accustom our selves to this exercise of Gods presence It is a happy necessity to make us do well to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present If respect make him formidable love will teach us that he is the Father of all sweetness There can be no greater comfort in this world than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast 2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls and appeared suddenly as Spirits do S. Paul also saith in the second to the Corinthians that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh that is to say by the passions of a mortal body as S. Epiphanius doth expound it We must make little use of our bodies to converse with our Jesus who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit We must raise our selves above our senses when we go to the Father of light and the Creatour of sense He teaches us the life of Spirits and the commerce of Angels and makes assayes of our immortality by a body now immortal Why are we so tied to our sense and glued to the earth Must we suffer our selves to enter into a kingdom of death when we are told of the resurrection of him who is the Authour of all lives 3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits and immortal conversation suffers his feet and hands to be touched to prove in him the reality of a true body He eats in presence of his Apostles though he was not in more estate to digest meat than the Sun is to digest vapours He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth And yet he took them to confirm our belief and to make us familiar with him It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves and condescend to their inferiours So David being anointed King and inspired as a Prophet doth not shew his person terrible in the height of his great glory but still retained the mildness of a shepheard So Jesus the true Son of David by his condescending to us hath consecrated a certain degree whereby we may ascend to Heaven Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiours but are always so full of our selves since our Lord sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated by doing good works and giving liberal alms Let it appear by our feet that they follow the paths of the most holy persons Let it be seen by our nourishment which should be most of honey that is of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer And if we seem to refuse fish let us at least remain in the element of piety as fish is in water Aspirations THy love is most tender and thy cares most generous O mild Saviour Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness Thou returnest to thy children as a Nightingale to her little nest Thou dost comfort them with thy visits and makest them familiar with thy glorious life Thou eatest of a honey-comb by just right having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmercifull Cross It is thus that our sorrows should be turned into sweets Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles for I know well that thou onely canst pacifie and give them remedy I will govern my self toward thee as to the fire too much near familiarity will burn us and the want of it will let us freeze I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament I know that many there do chew but few receive thee worthily Make me O Lord I beseech thee capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory The Gospel upon Low-Sunday S. John the 20. THerefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight days again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Jesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a general peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darkness to enjoy an eternal light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifieth the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master
and seeing this his well-beloved to go into a Church to do her devotions he spurred hard and in such manner entred into the holy place not minding Church Priest Altars or Sacraments He had no eyes but for this creature before whom he delighted to manage his horse with his usuall grace But instantly a lowd clamour was raised by the people who thrust him our of the Church and handled him like a mad-man The Lady was so much displeased and ashamed at his exorbitant importunities that she resolved to cure his love by a stratagem which she could not vanquish by flight She called this passionate amorist to her by her husbands permission and having shewed him the wrong he did to her reputation so to resign himself over to such a grosse indiscretion as also the disasters he might draw on his own person she bared her neck and discovered her bosome all eaten by a maligne Cancer which at first caused some aversion in him but the more to fortifie the act the Lady thereunto added prevalent words reproching him with simplicity to imploy so many hours to seek after an unhappy lothsomenesse and take away his love from God to conferre it on a Creature who so little deserved it Poor Raymond was astonished at this speech dividing his soul between the horrour of this ulcer and the admiration of the wisdome of the virtuous woman when instantly this cancer of the body cured that of the mind He in a moment found himself to be changed as if all his passion had expected this period of sinne and as if on a sudden his soul had been freed from a charm He could not wonder enough at his frenzy passed He deplored the losse of so much time he put forward for the future to consecrate the remainder of his dayes to penance It seemed to him he perpetually heard the voyce of the Crucifix which said unto him Raymond follow me and his heart burnt with a generous flame to augment the number of so many good servants of so worthy a Master He would not by halves perform so important a businesse he disposed of his whole estate for the benefit of the poor and threw himself all naked between the arms of the Crosse Behold how it importeth to begin the great work of the love of God by some remarkable Act and to give ones self freely to him who hath not for us spared his own sonne Thence he retired into a little Hermitage where attending to prayer fasts and contemplations he was so illuminated that being before unlearned in any science but in that of worldly love he became as knowing as the greatest Doctours yet still austere as the most rigorous Hermits His love towards God began first by great tendernesse All this is observed in Blaâ—uâ—rnas book and continuall familiarity adoring this most pure spirit throughout the great Theatre of nature If he looked on the rising sun he out of Extasie sung and said From the chaste bosome of the morning went forth the desire of eternall mountains wherein there are no more blemisheâ— then there is darknesse in the Sun If he considered the sea he took occasion to enter into the secret abysses of the judgements of God wherein he remained wholly absorpt If he cast his eye on the fields so many flowers as he there observed were as many little eyes of his well-beloved If he heard a bird sing in his conceit it spake to him of the love of his incomparable lover and he used to say there was a certain language of love which he understood in all creatures If he saw a butterfly flying and a little child running after it he thereon frames sublime meditations of the Philosophy of love His solitude seemed to him all environed with Intelligencies and when any one came to interrupt him and blamed him for being alone Nothing lesse answered he I was in good company but found my self alone after your coming He was so transported that he walked throughout the streets chanting the praises of his Jesus and when some who knew him while he was in high place demanded of him whether he had lost his wits verily you are in the right replyed he my well-beloved hath taken away my will and I have given him my understanding there is nothing left me but memory to remember him He many times caused his eyes and memory to dispute touching the possession of his Divine love to see who might vaunt the most right His eyes said sight surpassed all but memory answered remembrance was much stronger because it made water mount into the eyes and fire into the heart One while he caused his understanding and will to run after this his dear spouse and he found the understanding was the more able but the will better held what it embraced He was many times seen to be in such a manner that being ready to sleep he bitterly with scalding tears wailed that he in sleep had forgotten his Creatour having then no power over his dreams nor thoughts His passion became so violent when he to himself presented the state of this world wherein we are separated from the sight of God that he thereby fell into fainting fits and was sick of it almost to the death A Physician on a time visiting him in these fits and throughly understanding his grief held much troublesome and tedious discourse with him after which he said this man had cured him for that he had made him suffer throughly and that taking this punishment patiently for Gods sake he thereby was infinitely comforted He commonly said love was a Tree the fruit whereof was To love and that tribulations and languours were the flowers and leaves of it the proof whereof daily appeared in the motions of his soul wherein he felt most sensible afflictions when he within himself reflected on the contempt was done to his crucified love One day he had a revelation that of a thousand there were not a hundred who had any fear or but an indiffeâ—ent affection for their Saviour and that of those hundred ninety feared him out of their apprehension of the torments of Hell and that of those ninety there were not two who loved him for the hope of heaven and that of a thousand scareely could one be found who loved him for his goodness his nobleness and his worth whereat he powred forth so many tears that he was not to be comforted He was often heard to groan and sigh in the open fields as if he had lyen in an irksome prison and had sought to break his fetters when being in these agitations he came to a fountain-side where lay an Hermit asleep whom he awakned and asked if he could tell how one might get out of prison The other who was a man of God understood him and replyed he was in the same prison that he was as well sleeping as waking but it was a prison of love where his desires his thoughts his hopes his joyes were chains upon which
for us we shall soon see one another and re-enter into the possession of those whose absence we a while lament It is not absence say you which most afflicteth me but to see my self destitute of a support which I expected that is it vexeth me Enter into thy heart lay thy hand on thy thoughts and they will teach thee that all thy unhappinesse cometh from being still too much tied to honours ambitions and worldly commodities I would divert thee as much as I might possibly from despair but I at this present find that the remedy of thy evils will never be but in a holy Despair of all the frivolous fair semblances of the world O how wisely said Vegetius That Despair is in many a necessity of virtue But more wisely S. John Climachus Veg. l 4. c. 5. Necessitas quaedam virtutis est desperatio Clym gr 3. peregrinatio vera est omnium protsus rerum desperatio who defining the life of a perfect Christian which he calleth the Pilgrimage did let these words fall True and perfect Religion is a generall Despair of all things O what a happy science is it to know how to Despair of all to put all our hope in God alone Let us take away those deceitfull and treacherous props which besiege our credulous minds and cease not to enter into our heart by heaps Let us bid adieu to all the charming promises of a barren and lying world and turning our eyes towards this celestiall Jerusalem our true countrey let us sing with the Prophet All the greatest comfort I have in this miserable life is that I often lift Levavi oculos meos in montes unde veniet auxilium mihi Auxilium meum à Domino qui fecit coelum terram Psal 120. up mine eyes to the mountains and towards heaven to see if any necessary succour comes to me from any place From whence can I hope more help or consolation then from the great God omnipotent who of nothing created this Vniverse and hath for my sake made an infinity of so many goodly creatures Should I see armed squadrons of thunders and lightnings to fall on me I would have a spirit as confident as if there were no danger Were I Si consistant adversùm me castra non timebit cor meum Psal 263. c. to passe through the horrours of death being in thy company I would fear no danger Moreover I hold it for a singular favour and it shall be no small comfort to me when thou takest pain lovingly to chastise me for my misdeeds and to favour me with thy visits Happy he who hath raised his gain from his losses his assurance out of his uncertainties his strength out of his infirmities his hopes out of his proper Despairs and who hopes not any thing but what is promised by God nor is contented but with God who satisfieth all desires and crowneth all felicities The ninth Treatise Of FEAR § 1. The Definition the Description the Causes and Effects thereof FEar is the daughter of self-love and opinion a Passion truly horrid which causeth The nature of Fear and the bad effects of it all things to be feared yea those which are not as yet in being and by making all to be feared hath nothing so terrible as it self It falleth on a poor heart on a miserable man as would a tempest not fore-seen or like a ravenous beast practised in slaughter and confiscateth a body which it suddenly interdicteth the functions of nature and the use of forces It doth at first that with us which the Sparrow-hawk doth with the Quail It laies hold on the heart which is the fountain of heat and source of life it seizeth on it it gripes it it tortureth it in such sort that all the members of the body extremely afflicted with the accident befaln their poor Prince send him some small tributes of bloud and heat to comfort him in his sufferings whereby the body becomes much weakned The vermillion of cheeks instantly fadeth and palenesse spreads over all the face destitute of the bloud wherewith it was formerly coloured the hair hard strained at the root with cold stares and stands on end the flames which sweetly blaze in the eyes fall into eclipse the voyce is interrupted words are imperfectly spoken all the organs and bands are loosened and untyed quaking spreads it self over all especially the knees which are the Basis of this building of Nature and over the hands which are frontier-places most distant from the direction of the Prince who is then toiled with the confusion of his state This evill passion is not content to seize on our body but it flieth to the superior region of our soul to cause disorder robbing us almost in a moment of memory understanding judgement will courage and rendring us benumm'd dull and stupid in our actions This notwithstanding is not to be understood but of an inordinate fear And that we may see day-light through this dark passion to know it in all The sorts of Fear Clavus animae fluctuantis Amb. de Paradis Tertul. de cultufoemin O necessarius timor qui tim et arte non casu voluntate non necessitate religione non culpa S. Zeno. the parts thereof I say first in generall that there are two sorts of Fear Morall and Naturall Morall which comprehending filiall and servile is not properly a Passion but a Virtue which S. Barnaby according to the report of Clemens Alexandrinus called the Coadjutrix of Faith S. Ambrose the rudder of the soul And Tertullian the foundation of Salvation Of this very same it was S. Zeno spake so eloquently O necessary fear which art to be procured by care and study and not to be met by chance voluntarily not out of necessity and rather by overmuch piety and tendernesse then by the occasion of sin which brings a guilty soul vexation enough Naturall fear is properly an apprehension of a near approaching evil framed in the soul whether it be reall or seeming to which one cannot easily make resistance It is divided into six parts according to the Doctrine of S. John Damascen to wit Pusillanimity Bashfulnesse Six sorts of naturall Fear Shame Amazement Stupidity and Agony Pusillanimity feareth a labour burthensome and offensive to nature Bashfulnesse flyeth a foul act not yet committed Shame dreadeth disgrace which ordinarily followeth the sinne when it is committed Amazement which we otherwise call admiration is caused by an object we have of some evill which is great new and not expected the progressions and events whereof we cannot fore-see Stupidity proceedeth from a great superabundance of fear which oppresseth all the faculties of the soul And Agony is the last degree which totally swalloweth up the spirit in the extreme nearnesse of great evils and greatly remedilesse Forasmuch as concerneth the causes of this passion The causes of fear if we will reason upon it we shall find that the chief and most
clarior inventus sit non id nobilitas efficit sed sanitas Petrarch l. 1. de remediis dialog 16. The souls of men different in qualities say with Petrarch If Nobilitie were not tied but to flesh and bloud it were a small matter since it is very difficult to distinguish between the bloud of Caesars and Porters Nor yet will I touch what might pertinently be disputed that the souls of men extracted from the treasures of Heaven though they be all cast in one mould and be of the same kind may notwithstanding be created by God with qualities very different as we behold in the flowers of a beautiful meadow which are of the same name and nature a very great dis-proportion in figure colour and other accidents semblably between the stars and precious stones which are of the same substance one will have a lustre more sparkling another more dull and blunted This maketh us probably believe that the souls of men when they are infused into bodies although they be essentially marked with the same stamp may have some accidental perfections one above another and that this great diversitie which we observe therein making one man appear of gold another of lead doth not onely depend on the varieties Mercur. Trismeg in Cratere sive Monade Cup of spirit of Organs Mercury Trismegistus was of this opinion when under the bark of a fable he represented souls unto us which before they entered into the bodie drank in the cup of spirit not all of them but those which happily encountred that fortunate success For he feigneth according to the inventions of his brain that God sendeth a messenger upon the earth to wit one of his Angels who placeth a large cup as big as it is to be supposed that of Semiramis was which as Aelian reporteth weighed a thousand and four-score pound and this cup is full of a celestial liquor of power to make men subtile and spiritual the messenger maketh his proclamation and saith to every soul Up soul drench thy self deeply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and drink with all thy force in this cup of spirit Thereupon they drink some more some less which maketh a great diversitie of understandings Some wholly abstain who when they have entered into the bodie have no other share but the gifts of reason which necessarily is a prerogative of their nature but as for spirit they are deprived as being absolutely stupid and extreamly shallow It is a wonder how these ancient Sages have pleased themselves in these fabulous discourses Needeth there so much outward cover to give us this maxime that all souls have not one and the same relation to accidental qualities though as Aristotle teacheth us they are in their own essence as unchangeable as numbers in Arithmetick This diversitie of spirits presupposed one may say that great and noble men are more priviledged from the time of their birth and that with some probabilitie Double understanding So Philo hath given to Kings and Potentates a double understanding the one for the rule of themselves and the other for the government of their estates But not to sooth the Nobilitie with feeble Mens ista aurea quam de communi Deo plusquam unus hausisti Auson in panegyri Gratian and superficial reasons it behoveth they know that although one should admit this accidental diversitie in the Oeconomie of humane spirits yet would the consequence not necessarily ensue that they always thereby should be the better provided God maketh no difference of persons in this distribution There are spirits that have come into the world from among the cobwebs of a nasty cottage who have filled Ages with admiration of their greatness Others have been clothed in golden glitter and purple who have been miserably stupid and dull and although fortune doth still hold to the oar who deserve to be at the stern yea and some be at the stern who merit to be at the oar yet the providence of God doth mannage it as best pleaseth himself for certain ends which our foresight cannot penetrate with the best light What infallible motive shall we then derive to establish the obligation which tieth the Nobilitie to virtue above others since we rather seek weight of reason than colour Behold one Shamefac'dness of women which cannot well be denied by a well-rectified judgement It is that as God hath given to women I know not what instinct of shamefac'dness which enforceth them as it were with a sweet violence to the defence of their honour and this in them is so powerful a touch from Heaven that they cannot discharge themselves thereof rather they feel it in every part unless they be wretchedly insensible Plinie affirmeth the same who saith their Plin. lib. 7. bodies after death float in such posture upon the waters Pronae fluitant pudori carum parcente natura Where is the motive of virtue in the Nobilitie that they hide the nakedness from humane eyes whereof nature during life hath been so careful Even as God hath ingrafted the love of modestie upon this sex so likewise he hath affixed a spur of honour upon the spirit of Noblemen This is the pourtraict of Phidias which cannot be taken away without breaking the Minerva This is the character wherewith God will imprint virtue in them They are all naturally sensible in the points of honesty or else degenerate from their Nobilitie Behold I pray you the force and power of this spur which God hath used for the good of Nobilitie They would flie if it were possible to Heaven and penetrate the depths to avoid the least stain of dishonour What flames actually would not they go through to what breaches assaults musket-shots to what images of death which make nature to tremble with cold fear do not they expose themselves to conserve or acquire reputation The spirit of lies seeing they cannot be altered in this spur of the inseparable honour of their condition what doth he Not being able to wrest it from them he rebateth the point nay rather he rebateth the brain and makes them place the point of honour in infamie knowing very well that this is an effectual means to ruin them without discoverie A wonder They rather will become Apostates from Christianitie than from the spur of honour They meet in the field cut one anothers throat and emptie their quarrels through the channels of their bloud for that they think the thing is honourable Judge now and conclude what I am to say if they would suffer this spur to pursue that course which God hath begun in their souls perswading themselves what is most undoubted that the most ignoble act which a Gentleman can do is to serve sin would not they quickly become perfect would not they be invincible against all vices and ever in possession of virtue This argument is very strong and will admit no evasion Noble spirit thou naturally lovest honour more than thy life and therein
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
much more dreadfull Herod in few days after he had tried in vain and worn out all humane remedies was reduced to that horrible state of maladie which is rightly described Fearful maladie of Herod by Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea God would have him in this life tast in long draughts the cup of his justice wasting that caytife carkass with lingering torments Behold the cause why he was touched with a manifest wound from Heaven and assaulted with a furious squadron of remediless dolours He who from his young days had been enflamed with a desperate ambition felt at his death a fire which devoured his marrow and entrails with a secret and subtile flame He who all his life time had an enraged hunger to heap up treasures even to the opening of David's and Solomon's sepulchers to extract booty from thence was afflicted with dog-like hunger both horrible and shamefull which caused him day and night to crie out for meat yet never was satiated He who had made so many voyages and gone so many paces to make himself great saw then his feet swoln with bad and phlegmatick humours He who in his life had caused so many tortures to be inflicted felt outragious and intollerable collicks which racked him He who had taken life away from so many men was seized with an Asthma which hindered his breathing He who esteemed prudence and humane policy for the sinews of his estate felt in his body cramps and convulsions of sinews which gave him many shakes He who shed the bloud of the poor Mariamne who slew her sons to make the kids as saith the Scripture boyl in the milk of their damme briefly he who wallowed in the bloud of about fourteen thousand innocents of purpose to involve therein the Saviour of the world died in his own bloud afflicted with a cruel fluxe He who abused his body with prodidigious luxuries had dying his secret parts filled with lice and vermine with an ignominious Priapism a maladie not to be named Shall we then say the Divine Providence of God hath no eyes to be wakefull for the punishment of the wicked This desperate wretch in stead of adoring the justice of God at his death and kissing the rod which had chastised him dreameth of new slaughters publisheth an Edict by which he sendeth for the principal of the Jews of every Province to Jerico whither he caused himself to be carried and shutting them up in a Theater calleth his sister Salome and her husband Alexas and then speaketh to them in these words It troubleth me not to die and tender the tribute Notorious crueltie which so many Kings have paid before me but I am afflicted that my death shall not be lamented as I desire if you assist not Know then for this purpose I have sent for all the Nobilitie of Judea whom you have in your hands As soon as my eyes are closed put them all to the sword and let not my death be divulged till first the fortune of these same people be known to their friends by this means I hope to fill Judea with tears and sighs which shall make my soul leave my bodie with the more contentment The wretch in saying this with many scalding tears besought his sister by all that which she esteemed in the world most glorious most sacred as if he had asked Paradise of her and that necessarily she must promise it to content him at that instant with oath though afterward it were never executed In this act alone he well declared he had the spirit of a ravening wolf in the skin of a man and that the thirst of humane bloud was become natural to him As he was framing this notable Testament letters Death of Antipater were brought him from Rome written by Caesar's command which certified him that Aâ—me a Jewish Ladie of Livia's train the wife of Augustus had been condemned for sinister intelligence with Antipater and for that cause punished with death as concerning his son he wholly left him to his disposition This man in the very point of death still sucked vengeance with marvellous sweetness Vpon this news he taketh courage again and calls for an apple and a knife busying himself in the paring of it But in these employments as his pains redoubled he waxed weary of life which he so much had loved and at that instant one of his Grand-children named Achiabus who stood near to the bed perceiving he roled his eyes full of rage and made a shew as if he would have stabbed himself with the knife he had in his hand which much affrighted the young Prince held back his arm as well as he could and began to make a terrible out-crie as if his Grand-father had yielded up the Ghost whereupon the whole Palace was in an uproar Antipater who from the prison heard all this tumult supposing Herod was at the last cast his feet itched in his fetters and did not as yet despair of the Crown offering as one would say mountains of gold to his Keeper to set him at liberty But O the judgement of his God! his Goaler in stead of giving ear to all his rewards went directly to his Father and relateth to him how Antipater used all possible means to get out of prison and take possession of the Kingdom Herod houling and knocking his head How saith he will the parricide murther me in my bed I have yet life enough left to take away his Then lifting himself up and leaning on his pillow he calleth one of his Guard Go you immediately saith he to the prison and kill this parricide and let him be buried in Hircanus castle without funeral pomp This was incontinently executed and such was the end of this wicked wretch who had disturbed earth and hell to place himself in his fathers Throne according as certain Mathematicians had foretold him Few days after his death Herod having declared Archelaus for Successour of the Kingdom contrary to his first will which was disposed in the behalf of Antipater after he had accommodated his two other sons with such shares as seemed good to him and given End of a Politician most disastrous large legacies to Augustus Caesar yielded up his wicked soul in rage and despair in the LXX year of his age and XXXVII of his reign A Prince saith Josephus who all his life desired to be Master of his laws and a slave of his passions and who notwithstanding all his great felicities ought to be reputed the most miserable on the earth Behold in what tearms this Authour a great statist speaketh it to teach humane policie there is no prudence wisdom counsel greatness nor happines where God is not present For laying aside eternal torments of the other life wherewith this barbarous man dying in punishments was encompassed I assure my self there is neither peasant nor handi-crafts man if he be not mad would give one day of his life for the thirty seven years of Herods reign which
of water God made his birth and education singularly to Extraction of Theodosius contribute to the sanctity of his life He was descended from Trajan called the good Emperour by supereminence of worth his Grand-father was the great Theodosius a man who in wariness had no superiour that preceded him and in piety no better second than his Grand-child The Emperour Arcadius was his father a most generous Prince who in the very beginning of the fifth Age to wit the year after the Nativity of our Saviour four hundred and one saw this infant rise as a bright star at that time when he ended the course of his life as the Poets feigned the Sun reareth himself from the bed of aged Tython to illustrate the world His nativity was foretold His birth foretold by the mouth of Saints his most tender infancy consecrated by the destruction of idols God at one and the same time putting him in the number of the living and in the rank of Protectours of the Church by a most remarkeable act of which behold the narration Saint Procopius an Hermit endowed with admirable Prophesie of S. Procopius sanctity illumined with the spirit of prophefie living in the Isle of Rhodes praying daily for the destruction of some remnants of idolatry which reigned in the Roman Empire when by good chance two holy Prelates Porphyrius and John the one Bishop of Gaza the other of Caesarea in Palestine sayling for that purpose to Constantinople went to lodge in the Hermitage of this holy man He having received them with all respect answerable to their qualities and entertained them according to the poverty of the Cell understanding they travelled to the capital Citie of the Eastern Empire of purpose to obtain an Edict from the Emperour absolutely to destroy the Temples of idols and bridle the insolencies of Pagans who stirred with so much the more boldness as the drouping faintness of the government of those times promised them impunity he was infinitly comforted to see so great personages undertake so worthy a work and God then prompting him these words he saith Courage Fathers the glory of this conquest is due to your pietie Go stoutly to Constantinople and acquaint the holy Bishop John Chrysostom with this design resolving to execute what he shall think fit For the rest know the Empress is nine moneths gone with child and that which is more she beareth an Emperour in her womb upon the mother and the son who is to be born depends the expedition of this affair They very glad of this prediction left the good Hermit Procopius and in ten days arrived at Constantinople where presently they visited S. John Chrysostom who received them with much respect and very great contentment The affair being put into deliberation the Bishop of Constantinople saw well that the Empress might therein much assist and that God ordinarily useth the pietie of women to advance the affairs of Religion Notwithstanding he durst not present these two Prelates to her fearing his recommendation might be prejudicial for he very lately had a sharp difference with the Empress It was Eudoxia a woman Eudoxia mother of Theodosius of a great spirit and who naturally loved virtue as milk in her infancy but she had a heart extreamly haughty and quickly would be offended if any thing of great consequence were undertaken against her authority Behold wherefore S. Chrysostom who was of no pleasing disposition as one who had a spirit alienated from ordinary complements sometimes towards those of his own coat reprehending her openly at many meetings in the point of glory wherein she most desired to be soothed raised her indignation to the clouds She was as yet in the height Her humour of her passion against him and therefore he judging it to no purpose for him to sollicite her caused the two Bishops to be presented by the means of one called Amantius an attendant of Eudoxia's chamber a very wise man and of great credit with his Lady She who knew her child-bed time at hand gave very free access to religious men as hoping all good success by help of their devotions and seeing these two Bishops Bishops treat with the Empress were very particularly recommended to her by Amantius in quality of persons endowed with a very eminent sanctity she was unsatisfied till she had seen them and having most courteously saluted them excusing her bigness with child to have hindered her passage to the door of their reception according to the usual practice towards persons of their worth she forbear not most affectionately to conjure them to employ their most fervent prayers to obtain of God a happy delivery for her The holy Bishops after they had wished her the child-birth of Sarah of Rebecca and Saint Elizabeth began to declare the cause of their voyage unfolding in very express terms the indignity of this Idolatrie the insolency of Pagans the contempt of things sacred the oppression of people the lamentable mischief it would be to behold the worshipping of idols still to flourish which to abolish the Saviour of the world had so much sweat so much wept and shed so much bloud and to see it predominate as it were in the eyes of a most magnificent Emperour and a most religious Empress who had all the means to extirpate it That in such a field the palms of eternal glory should be gathered and that better they could secure their estate than by destroying the work of Satan to erect the tropheys of Jesus Eudoxia taketh fire being thereto otherwise well Zeal of Eudoxia enough disposed and promiseth to recommend the business to the Emperour to obtain the dispatches they required for their better contentment The Bishops retired expecting the effect of this promise The Ladie faileth not to offer her requests and strike the stroke with her best dexteritie But Court affairs proceed not always on the same feet which the desires of the zealous move upon she findeth the Councel engaged in these retardations who think it to no purpose to roul such a stone That idolatrie should Judgement of Arcadius his Councel be left to bury it self and at leisure dress its own funerals That the means to ruin it is to remove the heads of the sect from all kind of honours and publick dignities to forbid the exercise of superstition and Conventicles which they make in private houses to subdue Idolaters and burn them as it is said with a soft fire That the demolishment which should be made of those great Temples of Idols which yet remained would make much noise and yield little fruit that this might thrust rebellious spirits into manifest despair and in a word it was feared it might be a means to turn the coyn of the Emperours coffers another way who drew a good round revenue from the Citie of Gaza which even at that time was in hand The consideration of interest which ever holdeth as Porphyrius unfoldeth the
leave a spirit in perpetual dotage Let us rather set our feet on the steps of Catholick Religion where we planted them from our tender age It is not so cloudy as the Manichees suppose it Ambrose hath already much freed me from errours let us pursue the rest I but Ambrose hath not leasure for thee Let us read where shall Disturbances of mind in S. Augustine we find necessary books and where have fit time Thy schollars busy thee all the mornings take at least some hours after noon to enjoy thy self But when shall I admit the necessary visits of friends that must be entertained and when the preparations for my lectures and when my recreations Let all be lost so I may gain my self This life as thou seest Augustine is most miserable and death uncertain If it catch thee upon a surprise in what estate wilt thou leave this world And where dost thou think to learn that which here thou hast neglected But how if death also should conclude the faculties and life of the soul It is a madness to think onely on it since all the greatness and choise of Religion wisdom and sanctity fights for the immortality of the soul We should never so much employ the spirit of God in so great advantages as he hath given us if we had no other life but that of flies and ants Augustine thy evil is thy sensuality If thou wilt find God thou must forsake thy self and from this time forward bid a long adue to worldly pleasures Thou art deceived when thou hast left them thou wilt have the repentance to have done that too soon which thou oughtest not to do nor canst thou any more make an honourable retreat into the world Let us live we have good friends we may in the end have an office a wife means and all sort of contentments There are too man◠miserable enough through necessity that consent not to it by any act voluntary To conclude a wife and the truth of the Gospel are not things incompatible Behold how this poor spirit turmoiled it self in the retirement of his cogitations as himself hath declared in his Confessions He beheld the life of Saint Ambrose and his chastity with an eye yet benummed and surcharged with terrestrial humours and it reflected some rays upon him but he found it so high mounted in the throne of its glory that the sole aspect affrighted him he measured continency by his own forces not by the grace of God Behold why he Confes 6. 11. Amans beatam vitam timebam illam in sede suâ despaired of a single life and thought a wife was a chain sometime unhappy but ever necessary He lived at that time with Alipius and Nebridius two noble Africans his intimate friends who followed him charmed with his doctrine and sweetness of his conversation and from this time they proposed that life to themselves which they afterward led He often put them upon the intention to establish a good manner of life to pass the rest of their days in the study of wisdom Alipius who was very chast maintained this could not be done in the company of women according to an ancient saying of Cato who affirmed If all the world were without a woman it would not be exempt from the conversation of gods Augustine that was less chast than Alipius and much more eloquent prepared himself to dispute this question strongly and firmly against him so that it seemed saith he that the old serpent spake by his mouth so much he connected together reasons and allegations to maintain his opinion The good Alipius was much amazed to behold such a great spirit so tyed to flesh and as he attributed much to all his opinions respecting him as his Master it was a great chance he had not drawn him into voluptuousness through a simple curiosity of experience This miserable snare stayed all his good purposes and needs must he break them to put this great soul into full libertie The ninth SECTION Three accidents which furthered this Conversion IT happened either by the industry of holy Saint Monica who failed not to observe opportunities for the salvation of her son or by a secret inspiration of God that the woman whom he had brought with him from Africk and with whom he had always lived in fair correspondence preserving to him inviolable faith as if she had been his lawfull wife resolved to leave him saying That she had now fulfilled the measure of her sins That it was time to think upon a retreat that she should die with this onely grief not to have tears enow to wash the offences of her youth so unthriftily wasted For the rest never man should possess her after him and that all her loves should be from this time forward for him who made her onely she recommended unto him a son which she left praying he would shew himself as a father and mother unto him Augustine was much amazed at this speech It seemed his heart was pulled away from him to see himself separated from a woman he so faithfully had loved and on the other side he was full of confusion to behold that she shewed him the way which he sought he not yet feeling himself strong enough to follow her example It was not in his power to stay her any longer nor to approve what she did His spirit was pensive and divided not knowing upon what to resolve After the departure of this woman the mother who as yet knew not the will of God speaks to him of marriage and he cast his eyes upon a young virgin of a very good house which much pleased him who though she were two years younger than the lawfull age of marriage permitteth he resolved to stay for her but in the mean space he found out new loves taking another unlawfull woman in the place of her whom he had forsaken Yet for all that he desisted not from the enquiry of truth feeling none of all those engagements more than that of love which made the sharpest resistance against him and seeing he could not accost S. Ambrose in his great multiplicity of affairs with that facility he wished he made his address to Simplicianus Holy Simplicianus Priest of the Church of Milan He was one of the most venerable men that was then in Europe endowed with infinite piety and excellent literature For this consideration he was delegated by his holiness to serve as a spiritual Father to S. Ambrose Otherwise he was so humble and modest that to give his Bishop the upper-hand he very often counterfeited ignorance in questions which he right well knew consulting with S. Ambrose as an Oracle because of his dignity and giving a perfect example to all of the duty we ow to the Prelates of the Church Besides these ornaments of virtue and science this holy man had strong attractives in the facility of his conversation and sweetness of entertainment so that a certain particular grace
factious to be herein opinionative and in the mean time when they came to bear arms where they must witness true valour for the service of their Prince such encounters have happened that they so despairingly ran off that they have passed through forrests two leagues over and not seen a tree so much affrighted they were It is not necessary to name them happily they are already too much renowned in the Histories of the times And yet you will make much account of these goodly swaih-bucklers Assure your self the most part of those who shew Courage of duel like to that of the possessed such boyling fury in these barbarous acts are as Lunaticks possessed with an evil spirit You would be amazed to see a little girle so strong that there must be twenty men to hold her From whence I pray hath she this force but that she hath the devil in her body And tell me a young Gentleman who many times hath father mother wife children honours riches pleasures in his life would he go upon cold bloud to deprive himself of all this Would he contemn the sacred Edicts of his Prince now very lately renewed by the zeal of our great Monarch Would he descend with open eyes into hell if he had not some black spirit of the abyss which dreggeth him to the last mischief He doth that for a cold countenance an extravagant word and a caprich of spirit which he would not either for God the King or the whole world We may well say this is the malady of inferiour houses and you take it for valour A poor cocks-comb forsooth called a second who putteth into compremise at the discretion of a crack't brain all that which is most dear unto him in this world and what he hopeth in the other going to be the victim of death or the murderer of a man whom he never saw or knew or if he have seen or known him so far as to love or honour him would he play all this goodly prize if he were not possessed with an evil spirit Yet you admire this Why do you not rather wonder at the countenances the twindges and distorted mowings of the possessed I begin to perswade you to reason say you my Gallant You are an enemy of this race of Cadmus derived from the teeth of serpents and think not these petty wranglers of the times with all their letters and challenges have any valour But if a brave spirit be urged to fight by such kind of men should he refuse it Verily there are main differences in duels in the causes which make them and the proceedings of such as execute them If you must needs go to duel pass thereunto as David in sight of an Army with permission of your Prince or your Captain against some Goliah who hath defied you Go thither with intention to defend the honour of your Nation and to weaken the contrary faction Behold who is worthy If you must go to duel go thither when your King or Lord shall command you to accept the combat to end some notable war and stay a great effusion of bloud but by the hazard of two Champions Behold who is glorious But if you hasten thither upon some chimera of spirit which you call by the name of honour upon some ambiguous word to which you frame an interpretation against your self for a cold countenance a surly brow for a desire which you have to become pledge of the follies of some fellow witless and a slave to his own passions if you hasten thither for the love of some unchaste woman to whom you sacrifice humane bloud how can you be excusable For if you tell me your honour is more precious unto you than your wealth and life and therefore that as the law of nature permitteth you to defend both your riches and body at the point of your sword against a robber and a homicide from whom you cannot otherwise dis-engage your self you have the same right for the defence of your reputation which is in man as the apple in the eye I answer that being so surprized upon the sudden by some assailant who provoketh you threatneth you and thrusteth his sword into your sides if you use not a lawfull defence it is not then said that you are bound to flie with some kind of ignominy Nay I will say besides that if true honour were interessed in refusal of a challenge he that should accept it might likewise according to the laws of conscience seem somewhat tollerable But from whom ought we to derive this estimation and judgement of true honour Is it from certain sleight braggards and witless people who have sold themselves to passion eternally to renounce prudence Behold goodly Judges of honour Behold who well deserveth to prescribe unto us the rule and price of the most precious thing in the world If we desired sincerely to establish the judgement to be made of the point of honour we ought to search into the resolutions of the Church and Civilians but these kind of people are suspected by you as being alienated from the profession of arms Let us enquire it in the mouthes of warriours Was there ever a braver souldier than the late King of most famous memory And hath there likewise ever been a Prince more dexterous in arms and more fortunate than he that now reigneth Since their Edicts condemn duels both in those who challenge and such as are challenged although much different in their proceedings what do we need any other judgement to decide the point of honour But Kings and Princes sovereign say you notwithstanding their Edicts approve those by word of mouth who shew courage in such like actions Who dare reproach them with this Who dare tell them to their faces that they bely their Edicts by their particular judgements Who sees not such words are purposely invented by those men who seek for pretexts to their false liberties Why these Edicts dictated by reason agreed unto with judgement supported by justice provoked by piety to the writing of which Jesus Christ would contribute his own bloud to spare the bloud and with it the souls of so many as are lost and whom to save he gave up his own life Where should we learn the rule of honour the judgement and will of the Prince but in Oracles and virtues which he hath consigned to the memory of all Ages I intreat you trouble my head no more with these dastardly combats and detestable massacres let this be no longer but for the infamous and melancholy bloud-thirsters One Bachet understanding that a Turkish Captain had called his companion into duel What saith he are there no more Christians And have not we cause to say Are there no Saracens nor Moors and other Infidels to turn thâ—â—dge of the sword against our entrails The sixth SECTION Against the ill mannage of Arms. FRom hence it is likewise that you are taught in time of war to play the little Cannibal in arms
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
Charls of Anjou much fearing this young Lion forgat His sentence and death all generosity to serve his own turn and did a most base act detested by all understandings that have any humanity which is that having kept Conradinus a whole year in a straight prison he assembled certain wicked Lawyers to decide the cause of one of the noblest spirits at that time under heaven who to second the passion of their Master rendered the laws criminal and served themselves with written right to kill a Prince contrary to the law of nature judging him worthy of death in that said they he disturbed the peace of the Church and aspired to Empire A scaffold was prepared in a publick place all hanged with red where Conradinus is brought with other Lords A Protonotary clothed after the ancient fashion mounteth into a chair set there for the purpose and aloud pronounceth the wicked sentence After which Conradinus raising himself casting an eye ful of fervour and flames on the Judge said Base and cruel slave as thou art to open thy mouth to condemn thy Sovereign It was a lamentable thing to see this great Prince on a scaffold in so tender years wise as an Apollo beautiful as an Amazon and valiant as an Achilles to leave his head under the sword of an Executioner in the place where he hoped to crown it â—e called heaven earth to bear witness of Charls his cruelty who unseen beheld this goodly spectacle froÌ„ an high turret He complained that his goods being taken from him they robbed him of his life as a thief that the blossom of his age was cut off by the hand of a hang-man taking away his head to bereave him of the Crown lastly throwing down his glove demanded an account of this inhumanity Then seeing his Cousin Frederick's head to fall before him he took it kissed it and laid it to his bosom asking pardon of it as if he had been the cause of his disaster in having been the companion of his valour This great heart wanting tears to deplore it self wept over a friend and finishing his sorrows with his life stretched out his neck to the Minister of justice Behold how Charls who had been treated with all humanity in the prisons of Sarazens used a Christian Prince so true it proves that ambition seemeth to blot out the character of Christianity to put in the place of it some thing worse than the Turbant This death lamented through all the world yea which maketh Theaters still mourn sensibly struck the heart of Queen Constantia his Aunt wife of Peter of Arragon She bewailed the poor Prince with tears which could never be dried up as one whom she dearly loved and then again representing to her self so many virtues and delights drowned in such generous bloud and so unworthily shed her heart dissolved into sorrow But as she was drenched in tears so her husband thundred in arms to revenge his death He rigged out a fleet of ships the charge whereof he Collenutius histor Neapol l. 5. c. 4. 5. recommended to Roger de Loria to assail Charls the second Prince of Salerno the onely son of Charls of Anjou who commanded in the absence of his father The admiral of the Arragonian failed not to encounter The son of Charls of Anjou taken him and sought so furiously with him that having sunck many of his ships he took him prisoner and brought him into Sicily where Queen Constantia was expecting the event of this battle She failed not to cause the heads of many Gentlemen to be cut off in revenge of Conradinus so to moisten his ashes with the bloud of his enemies Charls the Kings onely son was set apart with nine principal Lords of the Army and left to the discretion of Constantia Her wound was still all bloudy and the greatest of the Kingdom counselled her speedily to put to death the son of her capital enemy yea the people mutined for this execution which was the cause the Queen having taken order for his arraignment and he thereupon condemned to death she on a Friday morning sent him word it was now time to dispose himself for his last hour The Prince nephew to S. Lewis and who had some sense of his uncles piety very couragiously received these tidings saying That besides other courtesies he had received from the Queen in prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on the day whereon Christ died innocent This speech was related to Queen Constantia who was therewith much moved and having some space bethought her self she replyed Tell Prince Charls if he take contentment to suffer An excellent passage of clemency death on a Friday I will likewise find out mine own satisfaction to forgive him on the same day that Jesus signed the pardon of his Executioners with his proper bloud God forbid I shed the bloud of a man on the day my Master poured out his for me Although time surprize me in the dolour of my wounds I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him and it shall not be my fault that he is not at this instant in full liberty This magnanimous heart caused the execution to be staied yet fearing if she left him to himself the people might tear him in pieces she sent him to the King her husband entreating by all which was most pretious unto him to save his life and send him back to his Father Peter of Arragon who sought his own accommodation in so good a prize freed him from danger of death yet enlarged him not suddenly For his deliverance must come from a hand wholly celestial Sylvester Pruere writes that lying long imprisoned in the City of Barcellon the day of S. Mary Magdalen aproaching who was his great Patroness he disposed himself to a singular devotion fasting confessing his sins communicating begging of her with tears to deliver him from this captivity Heaven was not deaf to his prayers Behold on the day of the feast he perceived a Lady full of Majesty who commanded him to follow her at which words he felt as it were a diffusion of extraordinary joy spread over his heart He followed her step by step as a man rapt and seeing all the gates flie open before her without resistance and finding himself so cheerful that his body seemed to have put on the nature of a spirit he well perceived heaven wrought wonders for him The Lady looking on him after she had gone some part of the way asked him where he thought he was to which he replied that he imagined himself to be yet in the Territory of Barcellon Charls you are deceived said she you are in the County of Provence a league from Narbon and thereupon she vanished Charls not at all doubting the miracle nor the protection of S. Mary Magdalen prostrated himself on the earth adoring
composed a brief form of Confession making the penitent say thus Father I accuse my self That I have been disquieted with anger exasperated with envy puffed up with pride and have thereupon fallen into an inconstancy of mind scoffings slanders and excesses of speech I accuse my self That I have been more ready to judge my superiours than to obey them That being reprehended for my faults I have murmured and shewed my self refractory in matters of duty I accuse my self That I have preferred my self before my betters vaunting and boasting with much vanity and presumption of all that belonged to me and despising others with mockery and derision I accuse my self That I have neglected the duty of my own charge and ambitiously aimed at others I have neither had respect to obedience nor modesty in my words nor government in my carriage but much self-opinion in my intentions hardness in my heart and vain-glory in my words I accuse my self That I have been a Hypocrite stiff in hatred and aversion from my neighbour biting in speech impatient of subjection ambitious of honour covetous of wealth slothfull in works of Charity and Devotion in conversation unsociable and many times uncivil I accuse my self That I have been ready to speak of the actions of others rash in censuring contentious in arguing disdainfull in hearing presumptuous in informing others dissolute in laughter excessive in pleasures of tast and in gaming costly in apparel burthensom to my friends troublesom to the peacefull ungratefull to those who have done me any good harsh and imperious to such as were under my charge I have boasted to have done that which I did not to have seen what I saw not to have said what I said not and on the contrary have dissembled and denied to have seen what I have seen to have said what I did say and to have done what I did do I accuse my self of carnal thoughts impure rememberances dishonest motions which I have not soon enough resisted They who live more dissolutely shall find as Hamartolus a Greek Authour saith that they have great accounts to cast up at the audit of concupiscence wherefore they may examine themselves concerning kisses touchings softness pollutions fornications adulteries abuse of marriage and other sins called monstrous adding also impieties sorceries divinations false oaths perjuries blasphemies calumnies contentions disobediences injustices oppressions falsehoods thefts usuries sacriledges and the like You must not think that there can be made a Form of Confession like a boot fit for all legs consciences are as faces every one hath its diversity what Saint Bernard hath said in general may serve for a direction yet must it be particularized with the circumstances expressing the intention quality manner and continuance of the vice The twentieth SECTION An excellent Prayer of S. Augustine for this exercise taken out of a Manuscript of Cardinal Seripandus O God behold the stains and wounds of my sin which I never can nor will bide from the eyes of thy Majesty I feel the smart of them already in remorse of my conscience and other sufferings ordained by thy providence for my correction but all that I suffer cannot equal my demerit I onely wonder that feeling the pain of sin so often I still retain the malice and obstinacy of it My weakness boweth under the burden yet my iniquitie remaineth immoveable My life groaneth in languishments yet is not reformed in its works If thou deferre the punishment I deferre my amendment and if thou chastise me I can no longer endure Whilest thou correctest I confess my offence but after thy visitation I remember my sorrows no more As long as thou hast the rod in hand to scourge me I promise all But if thou withdraw it I perform nothing If thou touch me I crie out for mercy and if thou pardon I again provoke thee to strike O Lord God I confess my miseries and implore thy clemency without which there is no salvation for me O God give me what I ask of thee though without any merit of mine since without any merit of mine thou hast taken me out of nothing to ask it of thee The one and twentieth SECTION Of Communion the chiefest of all acts of Devotion with a brief Advice concerning the practise of it AS for Receiving remember the six leaves of the Lilly which it ought to have I mean desire and purity before you present your self at it Humility and Charity in presenting your self thanksgiving and newness of spirit after you have presented your self And if you desire to know the qualities whereby you may discern a luke-warm Communion from a fervent I say that a good Communion ought to be light som savoury nourishing effectual Lightsom in illuminating you ever more and more with the light and truth of faith which begets in you an esteem of divine things and a contempt of the worldly fading and temporal Savoury in making you to relish in will and sense what you know by the light of understanding Yet if you have not this last in a tender and sensible devotion be not discomforted at it for sensible devotion will often happen to those that have least charity as Richardus observes upon the Canticles Affectuosa dilectio interdum officit minùs diligentem It is sufficient that you have good habits of virtue in the upper region of your soul Nourishing in keeping your self in a good spiritual estate in good resentments of Heavenly things in good affections towards the service of God free from driness leanness and voluntary barrenhess Effectual in applying your self immediately to the exercise of solid virtues humility patience charity and the works of mercy for that is the most undoubted mark of a good Communion It is good to present your self with sincere intentions pondered and fitted to occurrences communicating as Bonaventure observes sometimes for remission of sins sometimes for remedy of infirmities sometimes for deliverance out of some affliction sometimes to obtain a benefit sometimes for thanksgiving sometimes also for the help of our neighbour And lastly to offer up a perfect praise to the most blessed Trinitie to commemorate the passion of Jesus Christ and to grow daily in love toward him To this end before you communicate you may say this Prayer of Thomas Aquinas O Most sweet Jesus My Lord and Master O that the force of thy love subtiler than fire and sweeter than honey would engulf my soul in an Abyss drawing it from all inordinate affections to things heneath Heaven that I might die with love of thee since out of love thou didst vouchsafe to die on the Cross for me And after Communion make these Petitions of S. Augustine O God let me know thee and let me also know my self Let the end of my desires be ever where thou art O god let me hear no hatred but to my self nor love but to thee and be thou the beginning progress and the end of all my actions O God let me humble my self
instructions to those that are in office and government whereof in part I present you here with the quintessence and marrow desiring you to tast of it He gives his Seraphin six wings The first is Zeal of Gods honour which you shall exercise in observing four things that is 1. Neither to do nor shew to those under you the least shadow of evil or sin 2. Not to give way to it in any kind notwithstanding allurements on one side and importunities on the other 3. Never to be pleased that an evil act be done though without your knowledge for that were to betray your own conscience 4. To correct and take away disorders as much as possibly you can The second wing which you must have is The spirit of compassion to help the sick the aged the weak the faint-hearted the afflicted for these are poor Porcupines laden with prickles and a cerbities to whom you must be a Sanctuary and Rock of refuge Petra refugium Herinaceis The third Patience in the many labours and cares as are in a manner inseparable from offices and governments Patience in ill success of business which doth not always answer our endeavours and wishes Patience in bearing with the ungratefull who often throw stones at those that give them honey like the Atlantes who shot arrows at the Sun Patience in occasions of speech and dealing with such as easily take distast and are galled with their own harness It is a great virtue to soften them with a peacefull still and charitable sweetness as if we cast oyl into the raging sea It was said long since He that can bear an injury is worthy an Empire His very silence will disarm the passionate man and lay him prostrate at his feet who seemed to thunder over his head The Fourth wing is Example which is observed in three things 1. In putting in practice the good counsel and precepts which we give others 2. In managing your dignity in such a way as is neither harsh imperious nor arrogant but mild affable and communicative 3. In retaining withall a decent and moderate gravity that the stamp which God sets on those he calleth to offices and commands may not be debased The Fifth and principal Wing is called Discretion without which all virtues become vices For the honour of great actions lies not so much in doing good as in doing well This Discretion consisteth in four things To govern the good with good judgement To correct the bad To administer well the temporal affairs of your charge To uphold and preserve your self amidst these encumbrances like fresh water in the salt sea The ordering of good is maintained in Three principal Acts. The first to cause those under us to observe strictly such things as are necessary and cannot be omitted without disorder or scandal The second To invite and sweetly attract every one according to his condition capacity and judgement to works of most perfection whereunto they have no formal obligation The third To dispose charges and burthens with a good Oeconomy according to their inclinations and strength of mind whom you are to govern For correction Either they are sleight faults of well conditioned persons which you are to correct such are to be handled very gently Or they are hidden vices of some evil conscience which you neither must nor can make known and there you must use much industry patience and wisdom to dislodge vice and to draw the crooked serpent out of his cave obstetricante manu as the Scripture speaketh Job 26. 23. Or they are known sins of desperate people who offend without hope of amendment infecting a multitude and here you must set your self with all your strength to take away both the fault and the faulty For temporal affairs manage them as we have already shewed and take heed of entangling your mind in them like a fish in a net depriving your self of the liberty of Gods children to serve the earth But above all continually look into your self as the first piece of your government Let your conscience be pure firm and peaceable speaking and doing every thing with much consideration and never despising the counsel of those who are able to advise you Lastly your sixth wing is Devotion which is divided into three kinds the common the singular the continual The common consisteth in performing exactly those duties of piety which are within the bounds of your profession and to do them by way of imitation of that celestial Militia which is always employed in praising God and by way of edification of those to whom you ow this good example Singular devotion obligeth you to seek your principal refuge in the tabernacle following Moses steps for the necessities of your charge Continual devotion ties you to a most fervent exercise of Gods presence which you testifie by a desire to please him in all places occasions and actions by dedicating all your works to him before you begin them and when you end them always to set upon them the seal of thanksgiving due to his Divine Majesty Engrave deeply in your heart this saying of S. Bernard in his first book of Consideration Chap. 5. Cum omnes te habeant esto etiam tu ex habentibus unus Quid solus fraudaris munere tui Usquequò vadens spiritus non rediens If you are one full of business and that all the world share in you take a part as well as others in your self Deprive not your self of a good so justly yours and be not one of those that are ever travelling yet never return home THE FOURTH PART OF THE CHRISTIAN DIARY The first SECTION RECREATION how necessary AS concerning Recreation used in company at meals in lawfull games in taking the air in good conversation it is necessary to divert the mind and refresh the strength Cassian in his 24. Collation chap. 21. relates how an Archer finding S. John the Evangelist playing with a Partridge wondered that so renowned a man could pass the time with so slight a recreation The Saint looking towards the bow in his hand asked him why he did not always carry it bent who answering it would spoil it the Apostle replied so it is with the mind of man which must sometimes be unbent that it may shoot the better The second SECTION Of the Pleasures of the Taste MArk that our minds must onely be unbent not unstrung Avoid those excesses which make men now adays as gluttonous in the eye as the belly It is a strange vanity to affect the repute of a good taste to set the whole mind to serve that part of the body which hath least of the mind and to nourish an esteem which is fed onely with the steam of the kitchin Treat not your belly as Caligula did his horse for he allow'd a Beast for whom nature intended nothing but oats and hay Princely delicacies and attendance And you do the like if you bestow so much cost and pains to feed your most
my discourse put any prejudice upon the virtuous and civil Amities which may be between persons of different sex who are endowed with singular and excellent virtues and who manage their affections with admirable discretion which although rarely may be done and if there be any who abuse it it is not fit by reason of blasted members to blame sound parts and suspect them of corruption nor to censure the actions of many great Saints who being obliged by duty to converse with other sex then their own have therein comported themselves with so much prudence and charinesse S. Augustine in the fourth Book of the City of God saith The Ancients had three Goddesses of Love one for the irregular another for the married and a third for Virgins We must not think the kingdome of hell perpetually swayeth upon the earth to speak with the Wise-man and that one cannot look on a woman not take in the fire of evil love How many be theâ—e who wholly are estranged from all tender and affectionate inclinations Briars and thorns are as full of courtesie as their greetings and the ice of Scythia is not more cold then their conversation How many do we find who having their spirits wholly possessed by other passions one of Ambition another of Avarice another of Revenge another of Envy another transported by the sollicitude of a suit and the turmoil of a family who think very little upon love How many other are there from whom study affairs and charges wherein they strive supereminently to transcend free their minds from all other thoughts And how many Ladies see we in the world with a countenance ever smiling of a humour chearfull and conversation most pleasing who make love to wits and spirits as Bees to flowers but have with the body no commerce at all But if this may sometimes proceed from humour by a much stronger reason we must think great souls that are powerfully possessed by the love of God which replenisheth the whole latitude of their hearts and who live in continuall exercises of prayer and mortification may converse with women for the affairs of salvation by a conversation sweetly grave and simply prudent not changing the love which they bear to the virtue of chastity It is an act of a base or maligne spirit to measure all by ones own self and to think that what he would do in a slippery occasion must be done by all such who are farre otherwise eminent in grace and virtue then are the ordinary sort of men The Authour of the theatre of Nature holdeth The Basilisk cannot be enchanted that the Basilisk alone among serpents cannot be enchanted and I dare affirm there are men who have the like priviledge and have their eyes love-proof and their hearts shut up against all the assaults of concupiscence whether it proceed from singular habits of virtue or whether it be some very extraordinary gift from God Democritus voluntarily made himself Tertul. Apologeticuâ— blind by looking stedfastly on the beams of the sun to free himself from the importunities of the love of women He perhaps shut up two gates against love to open a thousand to his imagination Origen deprived himself of the distinction of sex to rebate the stings of sensuality which bred him much mischief Grace and the gift of God doth more then all the endeavours of men it forsaketh not those who by obligation of their charge and out of the necessity of their profession converse with women within all the limits and due proportions of decorum The Ecclesiasticall History assureth us that the glorious The extraordinary practice of S. Athanasius S. Athanasius seeing himself persecuted by the Arrians with rage thirsty of his bloud and not knowing whom to trust hid himself in the night-time in the house of a devout Virgin where he was long concealed and protected against the fury of his persecutours Whosoever will weigh this shall find it an extraordinary Soz. l. 5. c 6. Palladius act for the history saith the Virgin was a miracle of beauty and being not fully twenty years of age had made a vow to preserve a perpetuall virginity to God It much amazed her at first seeing the great Prelate had chosen her little habitation for the place of his retreat but he assuring her it was the will of God she enterteined him with an open heart and served him with so much purity obedience and reverence that she seemed to have lodged an Angel not a Man in her house She furnished him with all necessaries for life she washed his feet yea she borrowed Books for him with singular heed that he might entertain time in this his imprisonment Cardinall Baronius calleth this history into question and thinks it an invention of Arrius his side but there is very little apparence seeing the Arrians of that time never objected it to S. Athanasius as being a matter out of their knowledge And although this great man in his Apology hath said nothing of it where he speaketh of his flights and retreats this notwithstanding nothing at all lesseneth the truth of it since there are many things may very innocently be done by prudent men which are not necessary to be published to all the world And needs must he have had little judgement to have vaunted this accident before his enemies whereof they would have taken but too much occasion to calumniate him And as for that which Baronius saith that it onely belonged to widows to wash the feet of Saints it is true according to the ordinary proceedings of the Church and the liberty of its functions but here the question is of an outrageous persecution and of an act out of common practice and there is not any reason which can essicaciously prove this history to be invented seeing it is faithfully set down by Sozomen and Palladius two great admirers of the virtues of S. Athanasius whereof the one giveth so evident proofs that he witnesseth he had seen the same Virgin when she was seventy years old and saith this relation was confirmed to him by Priests of Alexandria I hold it more admirable then imitable and that although the Hebrew Children were once preserved in the fornace by miracle one must not therefore desperately throw himself through imprudence among coles but ever confesse the hand of God is able to safeguard those in perils who have not despaired in the peril but who by necessity become therein engaged What shall we say of S. John Chrysostome Is Lusiaca Amity of S. John Chrysostome with a Lady named Olympias there a man more austere in his life and more vehement in the matters of virtuous Amities It is a strange thing to reade the letters he writes from the place of his banishment to his dear Olympias He saluteth her with opennesse of most ardent affections he calleth her his Saint and his venerable Lady sometimes he instructs and encourageth her by sublime grave discourses addressing Epistles to
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
Moses lifted up his hands to Heaven and Joshua his Arms upon the head of the enemies of God the one combated with the lipps and the other with the sword the one poured out oyl and wine upon the Altars the other shed the bloud of the wicked to make a sacrifice to the justice of the Sovereign Monarch He was inclined to war by the disposition of God himself he received the sword as from his hands and wore it fifty seven years alwayes in assaults alwayes in defenses alwayes in various encountres and in bloody battels for the safety and the glory of his Nation He hath reaped more Palms then heaven hath stars he made as many combats as journeyes and gained as many victories as he gave battels Happinesse never deliberated whether she should follow his undertakings She was under him as a souldier in pay and whither one carried his Standarts the other incontinently displaied her wings to cover them They never brake asunder and hazard that hath often a foot so slippery found firm ground when it was covered with the arms of Joshua He affronted Gyants that seemed to have been born onely for the terrour of Mankind He tumbled down towers of flesh and trod under feet Monsters that the most valiant durst not so much as look on He took Cities whose walls and Citadels were so high that they seemed to be lost in heaven The Plains of Makkedah of Libnah of Lachish of Debir of Hebron of Gilgal of Gezer and of Jericho bear yet the seeds of his Lawrels Eglon and Ai preserve his Trophes which are yet standing after they have seen the ruines of the Pyramids of Egypt But Gibeon carries away the price of his victories seeing that it was it that saw the Sun stand still upon his Conquest Plato and Aristotle that hold the heavens and the Stars animated Julius Firmicus that believes them filled with sence and with prudence would not have failed to tell us here that it was the love and the admiration of the valour of that great Captain that tyed the Sun by insensible chains in the middst of his firmament and that he could not endure to set before he had seen the end of that famous battell he could see nothing amongst our Antipodes that came near this spectacle he esteemed his Light more noble and more precious for that it had shone that very Day even upon the Valour of the most rare Man of the whole Earth But the Scripture teaches us that the chief of the Luminaries of heaven stood for that time immovable not by any understanding that it had but by obedience that it rendred to its Creatour seeing the Creatour himself would obey the voyce of a man All the Militia of heaven desired to be of the Party the Moon and the Starres waited upon their King and would not move one step that was not troden according to his measures After this do we think it strange that the Rivers turned about their Passages to favour Joshua's and that the sacred Jordan was sensible of the foot-steps of a mortall man to whom the Heavens themselves gave some veneration Millions of men grew pale with fear when they saw one single man with his sword in hand The walls of Cities fell to the ground though he did not touch them but with his eyes The onely presence of one Joshua was worth an hundred Regiments The souldiers thought nothing impossible under him and by him the enemies esteem'd themselves vanquished as soon as seen What may one say of a Generall that subdued thirty and one Kings that brake so many Sceptres that saw so many Crowns and Diadems at his feet One sole Victory carried away upon a Monarch caused the Roman Captains to be seen in a Chariot of Ivory drawn by white Horses and sometimes by Elephants and Lyons Sesostres King of the Egyptians four Kings to be tyed to his Coach for that he had conquered them in battell But our Joshua a subduer of Pride as well as men desires no exteriour pomp to honour his deeds of valour It sufficed him that God Triumphed in him and would not have any other glory but to be under the feet of him that marches upon the wings of the winds and upon the head of Cherubins He was not onely a valiant Souldier and wise Generall but at last the Judge and Prince of his people Great in Arms and in Laws and accomplished in all sort of virtues The Israelites thinking one day that Moses their Conductour had been lost in the Wildernesse desired the High-Priest Aaron to make them a God to supply his default But after that Moses was dead and that they beheld Joshua seated in his place they desired no more any other Deity because they perceived in him the liveliest impression that man can have of God upon the earth Virtues that seemed most contrary were reconciled in him and made but one sole visage of perfection Piety made nothing soft in his Courage nor Courage any thing fierce in his Piety Heigth of Spirit found that she was compatible with Meeknesse Activenesse went the same pase with providence and the most Illustrious of glories reposed in him under the shadow of humility Justice in him did not offend Clemency He imitated the living God that is mercifull even as farre as Hell He punished Crimes with a zeal mixt with ardour and compassion and when he caused Achan that sacrilegeous man to dye at the time that his hand was stiffe to hold the ballance of Justice in an equality he felt in his heart a tendernesse that made him give death to the culpable as a benefit though others took it for a punishment But let us remember while we speak of Joshua that God hath covered him with the rayes of glory to teach us that we are constrained to cover his brave acts in silence To conclude He to whom nothing was wanting but immortality dyed as a setting Sun animating his people with the spirit that went out of his body and some hold that the Hebrews put upon his Tomb the figure of a Sun as if they would say that he was amongst men that which the Sun is amongst the stars and that there is nothing even as far as the shadow of death that hath not kindled for him lights of Immortality JUDAS MACCABEVS WHatsoever Virtue hath of Great whatsoever Valour hath of Generous met in the person of Judas Maccabeus to make a mervell of his life and an Immortall memory of his Name God caused him to be born in a deplorable age in the time that King Antiochus surnamed the Illustrious raised that horrible persecution against the Jews that made the heavens to weep and the earth to blush with bloud It was a sport to that Barbarous man to profane holy things and a continuall exercise to flea and roast Men or to throw them into boyling Caldrons without having any other crime but dying for the true Religion The cruelty of the torments overcomes the weak
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
did frequent her house Seneca was named amongst the foremost Calumny against Julia and Seneca and by calumny invelopped in the same accusation whether it was suspected that he had treated of love with her or whether it was thought that he was an accomplice in her excesses and had flattered her in her passion without giving her advice It is true that our Seneca was then in the flower of his age and was none of those fullen and stern Stoicks that had put the world into a fright He had a gentle spirit discreet and agreeable to women but he was too advised to let his passions flie so high as to commit any loose act in the house of the Cesars Dion his greatest enemy doth justifie him in this businesse and doth confesse that all this accusation was most unjustly grounded and that Messalina was so depraved and so corrupted with the inordinatenesse of filthy lusts that no credit was to be given to her Neverthelesse she ceased not to bear down the innocent with the weight of her power she condemned the Princesse to banishment and afterwards to death as Dion and Suetonius do affirm It did much afflict her that Seneca was alive who by divers sentences in the Senate was allotted to death but the good Emperour Claudius was most unwilling to extinguish in that Spirit the Glory of Eloquence and of the Empire desired his life of the Senate and was contented that he should be banished into the Isle of Corsica where at the beginning he was touched with a melancholy amazement to find himself separated from the pleasures of the Court to live amongst the rocks and people as ungentle as the rocks but he imployed all his Philosophy to comfort himself and to temper the eagernesse of his fortune with the tranquility of his mind Here his spirit being delivered from the noise and the tumults of Rome and the servitudes of the Court did altogether reflect upon it self and found there those Lights and those Treasures which before lay undiscovered to him Tribulation is to men as a spurre to incite them to the production of brave works and of generous actions and this appeared in Seneca who in this Seneca benished to Corsica where he composed excellent works place of banishment did write most excellent Treatises neither did his conversation with those rude inhabitants alter the graces or the beauty of his language He treated there with the Intelligences and dived into the Contemplation of the World He took off the vail from Nature that she might the better be seen in her majesty Howsoever in that solitary place he had sometimes his hours of affection beholding himself severed from his mother whom he tenderly loved and whom in that affliction he comforted w th a letter which might pass for a good book He passionately desired the company of his brothers and some personages of Honour who loved him with as much sincerity as profession There was some that think it strange in Seneca that he should desire and endeavour his return and that in his consolatory letter to Polybius he did write the praises of the Emperour Claudius who did banish Seneca did well to desire and procure his liberty him But have not they somthing to do who exact more perfection in Seneca a man at that time of the world then is required in a Prophet where is the bird that doth not sometimes beat his bill against the cage to find out the door to his liberty Jeremy was exceeding patient and yet he humbly besought K. Zedekiah to draw him out of prison where he had suffered much and much feared that he should be committed again unto it Doth not S. Paul say that liberty is better then slavery that one is to be supported by necessity and the other to be procured by reason What fault hath Seneca done that in his exile he wrote unto Polybius a great favourite a letter consolatory on the death of his brother and inserted in it a few good words to appease the Emperour Should he have spared a period or two to deliver himself from a banishment where he had continued for the space of eight years I should no way approve him for bestowing flatteries on a wicked man which should be an act unworthy of a Philosopher for a generous spirit had better to endure the extremity of evil then praise a tyrant and give applauses to his person You may observe how carefull he is in that Tract to give not so much as one Complement to Messalina who was a very bad woman although she had the command of all he onely praised an Emperour who in that time wherein he wrote his Consolation to Polybius was in good reputation and made the face of the Empire look farre otherwise then it did in the Reign of Caligula his predecessour He is so discreet that all the praises he doth give him are no more then wishes Let the Powers of Heaven preserve him long on The excellent Complement of Seneca earth Let him surmount the years and the acts of Augustus and as long as he shall be mortall let there not any die in his house Let him give us a long sonne to be Master of the Roman Empire having approved him by his long fidelity And let him have him rather for his Colleague then for his Successour Afterwards he addresseth himself to Fortune speaketh unto her Take heed O Fortune how thou makest thy approaches to him Let not thy power be seen in his person but by thy bounties Let him redresse the calamities of mankind and re-establish all that which the fury of his Predecessour hath ruined and made desolate Let that fair Starre which is risen when the world was falling into the Abysmes continue alwayes to illuminate the Universe Let him pacifie Germany and let him open England Let him gain and surmount the Triumphs of his Father His Clemency which is the first of his Virtues doth promise that I shall not be a Spectatour onely and that he hath not cast me down to raise me up no more But why say I cast down he hath upheld me from the hour that I fell into my misfortune when they would have thrown me headlong down he interposed and by the moderation of his divine hands he laid me gently on the earth He hath entreated the Senate for me and not content himself to give me life he hath desired it of others that I might enjoy the Grant with more assurance Let him deal with me as he pleaseth I assure my self that his Justice will find my cause to be good or his Clemency will make it so It is all one to me whether I am judged not guilty by his Equity or whether I am made innocent by his Bounty In the mean time I rejoyce in my miseries with a sensible consolation to see the course of his Mercy which goes through the Universe and which every day doth call forth the Banished from this