world the benefits that God hath conferred upon their families is it not most fitting that we endeavour to acknowledge in some manner the liberality of the Divine Majesty This act consisteth in three things First in the Memory which represents to the Understanding the benefit received and this Understanding considers the hand that gives them and to whom and how and wherefore and by what ways and in what measure Thereupon an affectionate acknowledgement is framed in the Will which not able to continue idle spreads it self into outward acts to witness the fervour of its affection To practise this well it is requisite to make a catalogue of the benefits of God which are contained in three kinds of goodness and mercy The first is that whereby he drew this great Universe out of the Chaos and darkness of nothing to the light of being and life for our sakes creating a world of such greatness beauty profit measure order vicissitude continuance and preserving it as it wereby the continual breathing of his spirit affording to every thing its rank form propriety appetite inclination scituation limits and accomplishment But above all making man as a little miracle of Nature with the adornments of so many pieces so well set to bear in his aspect the beams of his own Majestie The second bounty is that whereby he hath decreed to raise in man all that is natural to a supernatural estate The third that whereby he hath raised the nature of man being fallen into sin into miserie into the shadow of death to innocence bliss light and eternal life This is the incomprehensible mystery of the Incarnation of the Word which comprehends six other benefits that is the benefit of the doctrine and wisdom of Heaven conferred on us the benefit of our Saviors good examples the benefit of Redemption the benefit of Adoption into the number of Gods children the benefit of the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ the benefit of the blessed Eucharist Besides those benefits which are in the generality of Christianity we are to represent in all humility often to our selves the particular favours received from God in our birth nourishment education instruction in gifts of soul and body in means and conveniences in friends allies kinred in vocation estate and profession of life in continued protection in deliverance out of so many dangers in vicissitude of adversities and prospeâ—ity in guidance through the degrees of age wherein every one in his own particular may acknowledge infinite passages of the Divine Providence All this pouring it self upon the soul with consideration of the circumstances of each benefit at last draws from the Will this act of acknowledgement which maketh it to say with the Prophet David Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me bitherto 2 Sam 7. 18. The seventh SECTION A Pattern of Thanksgiving HEreupon you shall give thanks for all benefits in general and particularly for those you have received at present which at that time you are to set before you that may season this action with some new relish The Church furnisheth us with an excellent form of Thanksgiving to God in the hymn Te Deum or else say with the blessed spirits O God power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and blessing be unto thee for ever and ever O God glory be to thee on high and on earth peace good will towards men I bless thee I worship thee I give thanks to thee for thy great glory and thy benefits O Lord God heavenly King God the Father Almighty and thou also O Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour onely Son of the Heavenly Father perfect God and perfect man Thou that takest away the sins of the world and sittest at the right hand of God the Father And thou O Holy Gbost consubstantial with the Father and the Son most blessed Trinitie receive my prayers in giving thanks The eighth SECTION Of Offering or Oblation The third Act of Devotion REligion and Sacrifice had their beginning in the worlds infancy and ever since have been linked together by an indissoluble tie God who giveth all will have us give to him meaning we should take out of his store that which our Nothing cannot afford Observe here a thing remarkeable That as in the Law of Moses there were three kinds of Sacrifice that is Immolations Libations and Victims Immolations which were made of the fruits of the earth Libations of liquours as oyl and wine Victims of living creatures so likewise God requires that we give him our actions for fruits our affections for liquours and our selves for victims This is done by the act of Oblation or Offering which is a way of sacrifice by which we offer our selves and all that belongeth to us at the Altar of the Divine Majesty To perform this act well we must have first a pure apprehension of the power and dominion which God hath over us secondly an intimate knowledge of our own dependence upon him considering that we not onely have received being and all things annexed to being from his goodness but that we are also sustained perpetually by his hand as a stone in the air and that if he should let go never so little we should be dissolved into that Nothing out of which we are extracted From thence will arise an act of Justice in the will ready to give to God that which is his and as the Holocaust where the hoast was quite consumed in honour to the Divine Majestie was heretofore the noblest of all Sacrifices so will we imitate this excellent act of Religion by consecrating not onely our actions and affections but all that we are unto God wishing to be dissolved and annihilated for his sake if it might be for the glory of his Divine Majestie But if this annihilation cannot be real we must at the least form it to our mind in an extraordinary manner acquiring to our selves as much as is possible twelve dis-engagements wherein the perfection of the Holocaust consisteth The first is a divesting our selves of all affection to temporal things so that we no longer love any thing but for God of God and to God The second a dis-entangling from our own interest in all our actions The third an absolute mortifying of sensuality The fourth a separation from friendships sensual tural and acquired that they have no longer hold on our heart to the prejudice of virtue The fifth a banishing of worldly imaginations in such a manner that the meer representation of them may beget aversion and horrour in us The sixth a discharge from worldly cares not necessary to salvation The seventh a deliverance from bitterness of heart and discontents which ordinarily arise from eâ—cessive love to creatures The eighth a valiant flight from all kind of vanity of spirit The ninth a contempt of sensible consolations when God would have us to be weaned from them The tenth a renouncing of scruples of mind
greatest of all conquerours Charity drew her from home to seek health for her daughter because like a good mother she loved her not with a luxurious love but in her affliction feeling all her dolours by their passionate reflection upon her heart Her faith was planted upon so firm a rock that amongst all the apparances of despair her hope remained constant Humility did effect that the name of Dog was given her for a title of glory she making profit of injuries and converting into honour the greatest contempt of her person Her words were low and humble but her faith was wonderous high since in a moment she chased away the devil saved her daughter and changed the word Dog into the name of a Sheep of Christs flock as Sedulius writes Perseverance was the last of her virtues in the Combat but it was the first which gained her Crown If you will imitate her in these four virtues Love Faith Humility and Perseverance they are the principal materials of which the body of your perfection must be compounded Aspirations O Jesus Christ Son of David I remember well that thy forefather did by his harp chase away the devil from Saul And wilt not thou who art the Father of all blessed harmonies drive away from me so many little spirits of Affections of Appetites and Passions which trouble and discompose my heart This poor soul which is the breath of thy mouth and daughter of thine infinite bounties is like the Sun under a cloud possessed with many wicked spirits but it hath none worse than that of self-love Look upon me O Lord with thine eyes of mercy and send me not away with silence since thou art the Word Rather call me Dog so that I may be suffered to gather up the crums which fall from thy table Whatsoever proceeds from thy mouth is sacred and must be taken by me as a relique If thou say I shall obtain my desire I say I will have no other than what thou inspirest and I can be contented with nothing but what shall be thy blessed will and pleasure The Gospel upon Friday the first week in Lent S. John 15. Of the Probatick Pond AFter these things there was a festival day of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and there is at Jerusalem upon Probatica a Pond which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida having five porches In these lay a great multitude of sick persons of blind lame withered expecting the stirring of the water And an Angel of our Lord descended at a certain time into the Pond and the water was stirred And he that had gone down first into the Pond after the stirring of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he was holden And there was a certain man there that had been eight and thirty years in his infirmity Him when Jesus had seen lying and knew that he had now a long time he saith to him Wilt thou be made whole The sick man answered him Lord I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the Pond for whiles I come another goeth down before me Jesus saith to him Arise take up thy bed and walk And forthwith he was made whole and he took up his bed and walked And it was the Sabbath that day The Jews therefore said to him that was healed it is the Sabbath thou mayest not take up thy bed He answered them He that made me whole he said to me Take up thy bed and walk They asked him therefore What is that man that said to thee Take up thy bed and walk But he that was made whole knew not who it was For Jesus shrunk aside from the multitude standing in the place Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple and said to him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest some worse thing chance to thee That man went his way and told the Jews that it was Jesus that made him whole Moralities 1. ALl the world is but one great Hospital wherein so many persons languish expecting the moving of the water and the time of their good fortune The Angels of earth which govern our fortunes go not so fast as our desires But Jesus who is the great Angel of Counsel is always ready to cure our maladies to support our weakness and make perfect our virtues We need onely to follow his motions and inspirations to meet with everlasting rest It is a lamentable thing that some can patiently expect the barren favours of men twenty or thirty years together and yet will not continue three days in prayer to seek the inestimable graces of God 2. The first step we must make toward our salvation is to desire it That man is worthy to be eternally sick who fears nothing else but the loss of his bodily health Men generally do all what they can possibly to cure their corporal infirmities they abide a thousand vexations which are but too certain to recover a health which is most uncertain And as for the passions of the mind some love the Feavers of their own love and their worldly ambition above their own life They suck the head of a venemous aspick and are killed by the tongue of a viper They will not part with that which kills them and if you take from them the worm which makes them itch or the executioner who doth indeed torment them they believe you take away the chiefest of their felicity Happy is that soul which holds nothing so dear in this world but will forsake it willingly to find God and will spare nothing to gain Paradise 3. There is nothing more common nor so rare as man The world is full of vicious and unprofitable men But to find one very compleat in all good things is to find a direct Phenix There are more businesses without men than men without businesses For how many charitable employments might many lazy and idle persons find out So many poor mens affairs continue at a stand so many miserable creatures languish so many desolate persons long to find some man who with little trouble to himself would take some small care of their affairs and make up some little piece of their fortunes Jesus is the man of God desired of all Ages to him we must apply our selves since he is both life and truth By him we may come to all happiness by him we may live in the fountains and streams of life and in him we may contemplate the chiefest of all truths Aspirations WHat patience have I in committing sins and how impatient am I in my sufferings for them I am ever most ready to execute vice and unwilling to abide the punishment O good God there are many years in which I have retained an inclination to this disorder to that sin My soul is bound as it were with iron chains in this unhappy bed will there be no Angel to move the water for me But art not thou the Lord and Prince of Angels Then I most humbly
c. Et hi carnem quidem maculant dominationem autem spernunt majestatem autom blasphemant Hi sunt in epulis suis macule c. as are utterly impudent in words and Libertines in actions of whom the great S. Jude made a lively description Certain men are crept in among us reprobate and impious spirits who apply all talents of grace and nature to lust and to deny him that made them to wit our Lord Jesus Christ Master and sole Monarch of the whole world Then he addeth they are such as defile their flesh and revolt against lawfull powers such as blaspheme the Divine Majesty They are gluttenous cruel and arrogant who onely think to satiate themselves by others hunger clouds without water tossed with turbulent winds autumntrees barren trees trees twice dead trees rooted out of the territory of the Church They are waves of an enraged sea which foam nothing but confusions wandering commets to which God reserveth a tempest of darkness The Causes of Libertinism well observed by the Apostle S. Jude 3. NOte that this great Apostle doth here touch Jud. Epist Job 20. four sources of infidelity which are in this very considerable The chief and original of this corruption is a bruitish lust which with much infamie overfloweth as well in pleasures of the throat as sensuality which he was willing to express by these words when he said The impious not onely act impurities Hi sunt in epulis suis macula but are the impurities themselves For the Libertines are true Borborites so were certain hereticks called as one would say bemired because they naturally delighted in uncleanness they are dissolute people who have no other God but their belly good cheer and unbridled lust from whence it cometh their understandings clouded with bodily pleasures thicken and become wholly unable for things divine The people heretofore beloved is puffed up with Incrassatus est dilectus reâ—alcitravit deâ—eliquit Deum factorem suum Deut. 31. fat hath kicked against and forsaken its Creatour said Moses Tertullian very well termeth gourmandize the palsey of the understanding for as a body is deprived of sense and motion by the corporal palsey which obstructeth the nerves so the spirit oppressed by sensuality is wholly darkened without any feeling of Religion or any motion to works which concern salvation To live in fat is to shut up the gate of wisdom Opimitâ—â— sapientiam impedit exilitas expedit paralisis mentem prodigit pâ—isis servat Tertul. de anima c. 20. There is a palsey of corporal pleasures which wasteth the spirit and a ptissick which preserves it Nay Oecumenius discovereth somewhat more mysterious unto us when interpreting the word maculae according to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he saith They are certain rocks hidden under the waves which surprize Saylours and cause hydeous shipwracks This very well agreeth to Libertines and one may call them according to another translation rough rocks bollow Confragosa in mari saxa cavernosaâ— rupes tenias stones and shelves which are the causes of so many falls They are in feasts as gulphs in the Ocean and overtake ere aware spirits already possessed with the vapours of wine and meats at which time they are most Bos ductus ad victimam agnus lasciviâ—â—s ignoram quod ad vincula stultus trahatur donec transfigat sagitta guttur ejus Prov. 7. 2â— open to sottish mirth Ah how many young men deceived by these impostures after they have made shipwrack of reason in a tavern have thereunto added the shipwrack of their faith He was led as an ox to the slaughter or as a skipping lamb not foreseeing his captivitie before the mortal arrow had transfixed his entrails saith the Wiseman The second cause of infidelity is a certain barrenness of wit of judgement discretion of Christian virtues and namely of humility of good works and worthy employments and consequently a swelling of presumption of imaginary ability of vanitie of idleness which is much supported by wicked nature effeminate education too free conversation access of evil company which render a man absolutely barren A matter excellently well signified by these words They are clouds without water such kind of trees as we see in Judea unfurnished Nubes sine â—qua of fruits in Autumn and despoiled of leaves twice dead that is to say quite rotten Faith will be manured by the exercises of piety by presence at Divine Service by keeping of fasts by alms and frequentation of Sacraments Now these wicked ones employed in sensual pleasures and evil company forsake all the characters of their Christianity which maketh them by little and little fall into a great forgetfulness of God into disdainfull pride insupportable neglects and into the maledictions uttered by our Saviours lips against the unfruitfull tree Of these is understood the decree of Heaven Earth Jer. 22. 29. Terra terra terra audi sermonem Domtni Haec dicit Dominus Scribe virum istum sterilem virum qui in diebus suis non prosterabitur Fluctus feri maris despumontes confusiones suas earth earth hearken to the word of God Our Lord hath said Write down this man as a man barren who shall never prosper during his life The third source is a tumult of enraged passions which are waves of the sea that vomit up their confusions for these kind of spirits are in perpetual disturbances nor hath the sea so many waves as they anxieties pride puffeth them ambition precipitateth them hatred gnaweth them delights conquer them choller burneth them fury transporteth them hardness of heart makes them untractable and impudence insupportable And being unable to restrain their passions within themselves they throw them abroad as the froath of waves and scum of confusions That is it which Saint Ambrose said Tunc videbitur ignominia tua adulterium hinnitus alienatio fornicationis tuae supra colles Ambr. l. de Abra. interpreting a passage of Jeremie Then is it thy ignominie thy adulterie thy neighing and strangeness of thy fornication shall be seen to all the world on the mountains Lastly the fourth root which rendereth their evil very desperate is a perpetual inconstancy excellently compated in the passage of the Apostle to flying fires formed in the air from exhalations of the earth This sort of men perhaps may have qualities which may give them some Iustre according to the world and make them appear as stars in the firmament of worldly honour causing some to reflect on them with admiration of their wit their eloquence and behaviour But they are to speak properly stars of earth and smoke like unto that S. John calleth the Apoc. 8. star of worm-wood which being not of the stars enchased by the hand of God in celestial globes but flying flames enkindled by some gross exhalations proceeding perhaps from a dung-hill fall back again Crinemque volantia sydera ducunt on earth from whence they came
to obey thy Commandments and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour In the time of Plague LEt thy anger cease O Lod and be appeased for the iniquity of thy people as thou hast sworn by thy self O holy God holy and strong holy and immortal have mercy upon us For the Clergy ALmighty and everlasting God who by thy Spirit dost sanctifie and govern the whole body of the Church graciously hear our prayers for all those whom thou hast ordained and called to the publick service of thy Sanctuary that by the help of thy grace they may faithfully serve thee in their several degrees through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Citie COmpass this Citie O Lord with thy protection and let thy holy Angels guard the walls thereof O Lord mercifully hear thy people For the sick O God the onely refuge of our infirmities by thy mighty power relieve thy sick servants that they with thy gracious assistance may be able to give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church through Jesus Christ For grace LOrd from whom all good things do come grant unto us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same through our Lord Jesus Christ For the afflicted O Almighty God the afflicted soul the troubled spirit crieth unto thee Hear O Lord and have mercy for thou art a merciful God For friends I Beseech thee O Lord for all those to whom I am indebted for my birth education instruction promotion their necessities are known unto thee thou art rich in all things reward them for these benefits with blessings both temporal and eternal For enemies O God the lover and preserver of peace and charity give unto all our enemies thy true peace and love and remission of sins and mightily deliver us from their snares through Jesus Christ our Lord. For travellers ASsist us mercifully O Lord in our supplications and prayers and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation that among all the changes and chances of this mortal life they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help through Christ our Lord. For a Family ALmighty and everlasting God send down thy holy Angel from heaven to visit protect and defend all that dwell in this house through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the dying FAther of spirits and God of all flesh receive the souls which thou hast redeemed with thy bloud returning unto thee For the fruits of the earth O God in whom we live and move and have our being open thy treasure in the due season and give a blessing to the works of thy hands For women in travel O Lord of thy goodness help thy servants who are in pains of child-birth that being delivered out of their present danger they may glorifie thy holy name blessed for ever Against temptation ALmighty God which dost see that we have no power of our selves to help our selves keep thou us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul through Jesus Christ For misbelievers and sinners ALmighty and everliving God who desirest not the death of a sinner mercifully look upon all that are deceived by the subtility of Satan that all evil prejudice laid aside they may return to the unity of thy truth and love For Prisoners O God who didst deliver S. Peter from his chains and restoredst him to liberty have pitie upon thy servants in captivity release their bonds and grant them freedom and safety for his merits who liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy Ghost ever one God world without end For temporal necessaries REplenish those O Lord we beseech thee with temporal nourishment whom thou hast refreshed with thy blessed Sacraments Against tempests DRive spiritual wickedness from thy house O Lord and preserve it from the malignity of tempestuous weather A Prayer of Thomas Aquinas before study O Unspeakable Creatour who out of the treasure of thy wisdom hast ordained Hierarchies of Angels and hast placed them above the highest heaven in a wonderfull order and disposed them sweetly for all parts of the world Thou the true fountain and incomprehensible principle of light and wisdom vouchsafe to illuminate the darkness of my understanding with a beam of thy light remove the darkness wherein I was born sin and ignorance Thou who makest the tongues of infants eloquent loosen my tongue and pour forth the grace of thy spirit upon my lips give me acuteness to apprehend capacity to retain subtility to interpret aptness to learn readiness to speak direct my beginning further my progression and perfect my conclusion THE PENITENT OR ENTERTAINMENTS for LENT And for the first day upon the Consideration of Ashes THou art Dust and to Dust thou shalt return Genes 3. 1. It is an excellent way to begin Lent with the consideration of Dust whereby Nature gives us beginning and by the same Death shall put an end to all our worldly vanities There is no better way to abate and humble the proudest of all Creatures than to represent his beginning and his end The middle part of our life like a kind of Proteus takes upon it several shapes not understood by others but the first and last part of it deceive no man for they do both begin and end in Dust It is a strange thing that Man knowing well what he hath been and what he must be is not confounded in himself by observing the pride of his own life and the great disorder of his passions The end of all other creatures is less deformed than that of man Plants in their death retain some pleasing smell of their bodies The little rose buries it self in her natural sweetness and carnation colour Many Creatures at their death leave us their teeth horns feathers skins of which we make great use Others after death are served up in silver and golden dishes to feed the greatest persons of the world Onely mans dead carcase is good for nothing but to feed worms and yet he often retains the presumptuous pride of a Giant by the exorbitancie of his heart and the cruel nature of a murderer by the furious rage of his revenge Surely that man must either be stupid by nature or most wicked by his own election who will not correct and amend himself having still before his eyes Ashes for his Glass and Death for his Mistress 2. This consideration of Dust is an excellent remedy to cure vices and an assured Rampire against all temptations S. Paulinus saith excellently well That holy Job was free from all temptations when he was placed upon the smoke and dust of his humility He that lies upon the ground can
nothing but God and It God who was in it with eternall contentments It which was in God with reciprocall and wholly ineffable affections This heart of Jesus resembled the Halcions nest which cannot hold one silly fly more then the bird it self So he knew not how to lodge one creature in himself to the prejudice of the Creatour but could tell how to lodge them altogether to uâ—ite them to their Head O it was properly his businesse to give us this lesson which he afterward dictated by one of his Oracles He loveth thee not August â—olil Minà s tâ— amat qui tâ—cum aliquid amat quod propter te non amat Apoc. 8. enough whosoever loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee From solitude he entred into the silence which Synesius calleth Beatifick Silence and which S. John placeth in heaven in the peacefull condition of the Blessed It was properly the calm and repose which the holy soul of Jesus took with his heavenly Father in his divine Orisons which he many times continued the space of whole nights watching and weeping for us and dwelling as it were in the fire of love It is that silence which the Canticle calleth the Cantic 3. Bed of Solomon encompassed with threescore valiant ones but of that great Host of Angels From silence he passed to the suspension whereof Job speaketh Job 7. 15. Elegit suspendium anima 〈◊〉 where his soul felt it self totally pulled up by the root from earth but not as yet placed in heaven because he was corporally in this transitory life We verily find three admirable suspensions in Nature That of water in the clouds of Heaven above the clouds and of earth under the clouds and two ineffable suspensions in the Humanity of Jesus The first is that of his blessed soul which was alwaies hanging at the heart of God and the second of his body on the Crosse to purifie by his death all the regions of the world both above and beneath above by the exhalation of his spirit beneath by the effusion of his bloud After suspension he mounted to insatiability which Daâ—iâ—â— Cardi. â—â— Hymno dâ— Paradiso Avidi semper plâ—ni quod habent de â—â—â—â—rant caused him that drinking those eternall sources by long draughts in the delighrs of Contemplation which streams upon him from heaven he slaked his thirst in his own bosome not quite quenching it therein retaining the condition of those who see God of whom it is said That they are still replenished yet still greedy incessantly desiring what they possesse From insatiability he came to the degree of Indefatigability which caused him perpetually to spend himself in most glorious labours for the redemption of the world measuring and running over the earth as the sun doth Heaven and fowing virtues and benefits every where to reap nought but Ingratitude From thence he proceeded to that Inseparability which tied him for the love of his heavenly Father not onely to the punishment of the Crosse but to so many scorns and miseries as he embraced for us and he made so much account of this mortall flesh which he took of us that he associated it unto himself with an eternall band and hath transmitted it into the bosome of Immortality placing his wounds which were the characters of his love and of our inhumanity even in the sanctuary of the most blessed Trinity From this Inseparability he suffered himself to slide into languours extasies and transanimations which make up a Deified love such as was that of Jesus Languour dried him up with the zeal he had for our salvation exhausting all the strength of his body and to speak with Philo he seemed as if he would have transformed his flesh into the nature of Mark 3. 21. his spirit causing it to melt and dissolve under the ardours of ineffable affection as we see a Myrrhe-Tree which distilleth the first fruits of its liquour under the lustre of the sun-beams Extasie which bare this great soul with a vigorous violence to the heart of God made a truce in all the actions of sensitive nature and as it happeneth that the Ocean extraordinarily swelling up upon one shore forsaketh the other So the spirit of our Saviour already divinized amassing together the whole multitude of his forces to serve his love and satisfie the passion he had towards his celestiall Father overflowed in the heart of the Divinity with so immeasurable a profusion that all his inferiour Nature seemed to be forsaken and despoiled of the presence and government of his soul In the end he entred into that transanimation which Orig. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anima ilia quasi scrâ—um in igne semper in verbo semper in sapientia semper in Deo in convertibilitatem ex verbi Dei unitate indesinenter ignita possidebat so powerfully united him to God that onely retaining the property of two natures Divine and Humane he made an incomparable commixtion of heart of love of affections and conformities which made Origen say This soul like unto Iron which is on burning Coles was alwayes in the word alwayes in wisdome ever in God and took an immutable constancy from the ardour wherewith it is enkindled in the union of God If you find this love too sublime for you behold it as it were tempered and reflected in so many saints as were S. Paul S. Augustine S. Bernard and so many other §. 13. A notable Example of worldly love changed into divine Charity I Will give you a very familiar one in a man of the world a man of the Court and one who is at this present a treasure hidden from many who was hated by the envious persecuted by the proud condemned by the Ignorant and yet a great servant of God It is the learned and pious Raymundus Lullus as it Vitae Patrum Occid l. â— Ex Carolo Bovillo appeareth by his life faithfully written in the Tome of the lives of the Western Fathers This man flourished above three hundred years ago and was born in the Island of Majorica of a notable extraction which gave him passage into worldly honours and caused him to be bread in the Court of his King by whom he afterward was made one of his prime Officers Never was there a man more inclining to love for he loved transportedly and spent all his youth in this vanity having no employment more acceptable then to write amourous verses to expresse his passion In the end he fell into the snare of a violent affection that long turmoiled him which was the love of an honourable Lady endowed with an invincible chastity Here ordinarily love which delights to pursue what it cannot arrive unto finds most admiration for the eyes and food for its flame He was so on fire in this quest that he thought he should lose his wits suffering himself to fall into unbeseeming and extraordinary actions so farre as being one day on horse-back
it not these poor miserable creatures desire nothing more than to give me my last Farewel and I am confident my Sister Elizabeth would not have refused me so small a courtesie seeing the Honour of my Sex demandeth that my Servants should be present I am her near kinswoman Grandchild to Henry the eight and Queen Dowager of France besides I have received the Unction of Queen of Scotland if you will not grant this courtesie to one of my quality let me have it at least for the tenderness of the heart of men On this consideration five or six of her ordinary Servants were permitted to accompany her to the place of Execution to which she now was going This Divine Queen whom France had seen to walk in such state and Triumph at the pomp of her marriage when she was followed with all the glory of that Kingdom doth now alas go with this poor train to render her neck unto the Hangman She came into the Hall hung round about with blacks and ascended the Scaffold which was covered with the same livery to accomplish this last Act of her long Tragedy What eyes of furies were not struck blind at the aspect of this face in which the dying Graces did shoot for the last light of their shining Glories As soon as she was sate in a chair prepared for that purpose one Beal did read the Command and the outragious Sentence of her death which she heard very peaceably suppressing all the strugglings of Nature to abandon her self to Grace in the imitation of her Saviour At last Fletcher the Dean of Peterborough one of her evil Counsellours did present himself before her and made a Pedantical Discourse on the condition of the life passed the life present and the life to come undertaking according to his power to pervert her in this her last conflict This was the most sensible to her of all her afflictions at the last minute of her life to hear the studied speech of an impertinent and audacious Minister wherefore she oftentimes interrupted him and besought him not to importune her assuring him that she was confirmed in the saith of the ancient Catholick and Roman Church and was ready to shed her last bloud for it Nevertheless this infamous Doctour did not cease to persecute her with his Remonstrances unto the shades of Death She looked round about the Hall if she could discover her Confessor to demand of him the absolution of her sins but he was so busie that he could not be found A poor Maid belonging to her having thrust her self with all her force into the Croud as soon as she was got through them and beheld her Mistress between two Hang-men did break forth into a loud crie which troubled those who were about the Queen to assist her But the Queen who had a spirit present on all occasions made a sign unto her with her hand that she should hold her peace if she had not a mind to be forced thence The Lords then made a semblance as if they would pray for her but she thanked them heartily for their good will saying that it would be taken as a crime to communicate in prayers with them Then turning to the multitude who were about three hundred persons she thus expressed her self It is a new spectacle to behold a Queen brought to die upon a Scaffold I have not learned to undress to unveil my self and to put off the Royal Ornaments in so great a Companie and to have two Hang-men in the place of the Grooms of my Chamber But we must submit to what Heaven is pleased to have done and obey the Decrees of the Divine Providence I protest before the face of the living God that I never attempted against the Life or Estate of my Cousin neither have I committed any thing worthie of this usage If it be imputed to my Religion I esteem my self most happie to shed even the last drop of my life for it I put all my confidence in him whom I see represented in this Cross which I hold in my hand and I promise and assure my self that this temporal Death suffered for his Name shall be a beginning to me of eternal Life with the Angels and most happie Souls who shall receive my bloud and represent it before the face of God in the Remission of all my Offences There was now a floud in every eye and amongst all her Enemies there were not above four who were able to contain their tears The Hang-man clothed in black velvet fell down on his knees and did demand her pardon which she most willingly granted and not to him onely but to all her persecutours After these words she kneeled down her self praying aloud in Latin and invoked the most holy Mother of God and the triumphant Company of Saints to assist her She repeated her most servent prayers for the Church for her Kingdom for France for her Son for her cruel murtherers for England for her Judges and for her Executioner recommending into the hands of the Saviour of the world her spirit purified as well by love as by affliction The last words of her Pravers were these As thy arms Lord Jesus were stretched forth on the Cross so receive me into the stretched forth arms of thy mercie She uncessantly kissed a Crucifix which she had in her hand whereat one that stood by being offended at the honour which she gave unto the Cross told her That she should carry it in her heart to whom she suddenly made answer Both in my heart and in my hand After this she disposed her self to the Block The Executioner would have taken off her Gown but she repelled him and desired that that office might be performed for her by her own maids who approched to her to prepare her for the stroke of Death And she her self did accommodate them in it as diligently as she could and laid open her neck and throat more white than Alabaster and too much alas discovered for so lamentable a Subject This being done she signed her own Attendants with the sign of the Cross kissing them and with a short smile did bid them farewel to shew that she died as comfortably as constantly making no more resistance than the flower doth against the hand that doth gather it Those poor creatures did weep most bitterly and with their sighs and sobs could have cleaved the rocks when the Queen reproved them saying Nay What do you mean Have I answered for your constancie and that your grief should not be importunate and do you suffer your selves to be thus transported with lamentation when I am going to exchange a temporal Kingdom full of miserie for an everlasting Empire filled with fellcitie It was discovered that she had a Cross about her of great value which she intended to have bestowed on one of her nearest friends promising the Executioner to recompence him some other way but this enemy of the Cross did force it from her to satisfie
you deign to know me who am but a poor forraigner What ought you to say IV. That it is as the humble Esther before Ahasuerus Esther 7. 3. Quae est petitio tua Esther ut â—etur tibi Et quid vis fieri Etiamsi dimidiam partem regni mei petieris impetrabis and that it kisseth the golden rod and moreover that it understandeth these words What is thy demand Esther Tell me to the end it may be granted Whae wouldst thou have me do If thou askest me the moity of my Kingdom thou shalt have it Answer you would have nothing but the King and that he alone sufficeth you V. That it is as Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan Mephibosheth 2 Reg. 9. Et tu comedes panem in mensâ meâ semper Quis ego sum servus tuus quoniam respexisti super me canem mortuum 1 Reg. 1. Jonathan to whom David spake these words My meaning is you shall eat at my table all the days of your life What answered this little son of the King thereupon Alas Sir who am I your poor servant that you please to cast your eye upon me a dead dog such as I am VI. That it is as Jonathan who extreamly tired dipped the end of a wand which he carried in his hand into an honey-comb and lifting it to his lips at that instant behold his eyes before heavy and oppressed became clear again and his body reassumed new and fresh vigour There needeth but a little consideration to a well composed spirit both to cast it presently down by humility into the center of nothing and to raise it by love even above the emperial Heaven One may likewise every time he receiveth Other considerations prepare divers meditations to entertain himself more at large either before or after the mysterie I. As meditation upon the history considering 1. The eating of the lamb 2. The washing of feet 3. The institution of the Blessed Sacrament II. The names as Eucharist Communion Sacrifice Bread Viaticum and other such like practising your self to search out the reason of every one with application of spirit to derive from thence things agreeable to the name which one meditateth As upon the name of Communion the resolution of peace concord and charity III. The figures as the bread and wine of Melchisedech the Paschal Lamb Manna the bread of Elias meditating upon the histories and conformities which they have with this Divine mysterie and the fruits we ought to draw from thence IV. The causes of the institution 1. As to serve us for a memory of the Passion 2. An incitement of love and charity 3. For spiritual nourishment 4. For Sacrifice 5 For a pledge of beatitude considering whether we answer to the intention of the Son of God in this action After receiving you must rest upon the two last leaves of the lilly which are thanksgiving Fifth and sixth leaf of the lilly What you are to do after Communion and renovation of spirit You then must adore this great guest whom you have in your heart with all the powers of Heaven and creatures of the earth to play your part as if you were a little string of the great harp of the world To offer to God the whole world as a votive-table hanged on his altar collected in the perfections of his onely Son who is wholly yours being so freely given to you so solemnly so irrevocably as he whose Divinity soul life flesh and bloud you have in this incomprehensible Sacrament To give him thanks for the infinite riches he hath placed in this sacred humanity which you enjoy and for that he hath given you his Son for father brother Master Leader Redeemer for the good he communicateth to all faithful people by the means of this inexhaustible fountain of grace for the special favours he hath done to you and yours for the natural talents with which he hath adorned you and likewise for the various change of comforrs and discomforts with which he hath enterlaced your life Briefly for the present visit which he hath made in the house of your heart so ill prepared After adoration and thanksgiving followeth petition for the faithful and unfaithful whose conversion we desire For the Church and all the Prelats which govern it namely him whom he hath appointed to be our Pastour For the person of the King and all the Realm For his kinred friends benefactours living and dead To ask for your self seven gifts which a holy Virgin by the relation of S. Bonaventure daily begged of God 1. Effectual grace Bonavent 1. 6. med c. 3. to accomplish the law of love 2. To love all that God loveth 3. To hate all he hateth 4. Humility chastity obedience contempt of the world garnishment of all virtues 5. That God would make his true Temple of our soul and body 6. That he would give us his vision in beatitude 7. That he may be divinely served in this place where you receive the Blessed Sacrament and in all the other parts of Christendom To conclude to make in the end a renewing of the oath of fidelity which we have sworn to our great Master and to employ our time in his service with more diligence than ever and since we are upon the palm-tree let us gather the Fruits of Communion fruits which are spiritual food strength against temptations heavenly alacrity light of understanding flames of charity union with God augmentation of virtues hope of glory renovation in all our faculties and functions and namely let us often stay upon some particular object of virtue which we would ask of our guest in favour of this celestial visitation The thirteenth SECTION * * * Parcè haec in transcursis tantian delibet Lector ut Canis è Nilo The practice to hear Mass TO hear Mass is verily one of the most serious actions of all spiritual life Had one all the understanding and reverence of Angels to be present thereat it would never be enough Saint Dyonys the Areopagite saith that exactly to discharge Dyonis de Eccle. Hierarch c. 6. Vspue ad extramas imagines An excellent saying of S. Bonaventure Cum fueris tous alteratus t divinus effectum ita ut nihil videas nisi Deum tunc accede this duty we must purifie our heart Usque ad extremas imagines so dispoiling it that it may be free from all imaginations and humane representations and that is it which Saint Bonaventure hath more clearly expressed principally speaking of Priests who celebrate That the time when they ought to approach is when they feel themselves wholly changed and become divine in such sort that they behold not any thing but God Philo the Bishop addeth that the Sacrificers are as the ivory neck of the spouse which must serve as a chanel for the Holy Ghost to make his graces distil upon the rest of the members that are present at this Sacrifice The
light and Article 3 assistance of the holy Ghost that he would be pleased to direct this act to his glory and that you have framed to your self a lively thought of the presence of God and that actually you may meditate to select the points and articles proposed sweetly attentively affectionately and not to want matter for every point it is good to weigh the causes the effects the tenents and utmost limits of the mystery we meditate on As in the first point of the knowledge of your self Seven ways to dilate ones self in meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts contained in this third article What man is according to nature A reasonable creature intelligent capable of the knowledge of God Who made it God himself He would that his Divine hands saith S. Basil should serve him as a womb What are the essential parts thereof A soul a body an understanding a memory a will What are the accidentals A general mass of so many little parcels as have their names and entertainments O the powerful hand which hath composed such a master-piece Where was it made In the earth and not in Heaven to teach him humility And to what end made To praise God and serve him and to save himself in praising and serving him Who hath concurred to its creation God Hath he made use of Angels No He would attribute the honour of such a work to himself And how did he make it He was not content with one single word as in the creation of the world but he put his hand thereto to shew it was a more supream effect of his power And when did he make him After other creatures to prepare the world for him as a cradle as a Temple as a Hall to banquet in and such like things You see these circumstances who what where what help wherefore when and how in every subject of what kind soever will lead you along The second manner to dilate your self when you meditate history is to represent the divers persons with their words actions and passions As in the mysterie of the Resurrection The souldiers shivering for fear the Person of our Saviour all enlightened with splendour saying Courage I have overcome all power is given to me in Heaven and earth I come to wipe away your tears to make your faces bright-shining to put you into possession of an eternal felicity and such like things On the other side Magdalene who seeketh her Master and not content to behold the Angels speaketh these words which Origen prompteth her All these goodly comforters Onerosi sunt mihi omnes consolatores quaero Creatorem ideò mihi gravis est ad videndum omnis creatura Ego non quaero Angelos sed etam qui secit me Angelos are burdensome to me I seek the Creatour and therefore I cannot see any creature without anxietie I seek not Angels but him who hath made both me and Angels The third to represent things to your self by certain images figures and similitudes as Hermas cited in the Bibliothec of the Fathers who meditating on the joy of worldlings imagined to himself a delicious meadow enameled all over with flowers where certain fat and plump sheep cropped the grasse and skipped to and fro with many jumps in the delights thereof And in an instant this meadow became vast plain drie lean parched and barren and the same sheep appeared starven scabbie and full of botches a rude surly shepherd driving them to feed among thorns and brambles Afterward he applied all that to the voluptuous and made to himself a perfect representation of their life to avoid their unhappiness The fourth to extend your self by comparing of one thing to another as did Saint Gregorie Nazianzen S. Gregory in his Hymns meditating upon the love of God Tell me confidently O my soul what thou desirest for I will please thee Thou wouldst perhaps have Gyges his enchanted ring to gain a kingdom Thou wouldst have all that which is in thy hand changed into gold the desire of the fabulous Mydas Thou wouldst covet palaces stuffed with gold and silver rich possessions curiosities boundless honours Poor distracted man dost thou not see thy God is all that and above all that and incomparably more than that Thy God is the true riches the true glory the true repose without him all thy blessings would be curses and with him all thy afflictions may be turned into felicities The fifth to make sometimes a dialogue God and the intellectual creatures sensible insensible enterchangeably speaking as did S. Aug. meditating upon Aug. Solil 31 Circuibam omnia quaerens te propter omnia derelinquens me Interrogavi terram si esset Deus dixit mihi quòd non Tu quis es unde hoc tale animal Domine Deus meus unde nisi â—â—u the perfections of God He went wheeling round about the world and asked in heaven in earth sea and depths addressing himself to every one in particular Are you God And these creatures answered No those have lyed who deified us And after he had run all over the world he entereth into himself and saith to himself Who art thou From whence cometh this creature my Lord and my God from whence but from thee By these ladder-steps he mounteth to the knowledge of his Creatour and plungeth himself in the abysses The sixth to make sometimes a gradation ascending from degree to degree as in meditating on these words of S. John God so loved the world that he Joann 3. Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut filium suum unigenitum daret gave his onely-begotten Son If God should onely appoint a bird to bring the news of thy salvation would it not seem to thee to deserve many thanks But what if a reasonable creature What if a man endowed with all manner of excellencies What if an Angel What if an Archangel a cherubin a Seraphin What if all the angels and all the blessed spirits But all these in comparison of his Son are but as a little drop of water to the vast Ocean And he hath given thee his Son O prodigie O superabundance of love The seventh easie and fruitfull is to ponder that which you meditate on with application to your self attentively considering the actions and words of our Saviour to form ours To examin carefully your deportments and see how oftentimes they wander from this rule of perfection to repeal them to square them to level them as much as you can according to the model which is set before your eyes After the discussion of every point the lights follow 4 Article of the manner of meditation in the fourth place which are maxims and conclusions drawn from the discourse we have made As if we have meditated upon the knowledge of our selves to derive this fruit from thence That we have nothing of our selves but ignorance weakness Lights vanity misery That we are wholly Gods That it is a
Wandals in sect an Arian reigning in dffrick to make a voyage into Italie which he did with a huge Army by means whereof he easily possessed himself of Rome where all was in disorder And as he thither came rather led by his unquencheable avarice than any motive of justice or piety he riffled all that which was rich and excellent even to the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem whereof some had still been preserved at Rome ever since Vespasian Maximus after he had reigned two moneths is knocked down and rent like a sacrifice He who in all charges had well thrived with honesty when he began to practice treachery found that which a great Prelate had said Sidon Apol. lib. 3. Ep. 13. Vt scorpius ultimâ parte percutis in his history That great mens fortunes like sâ—orpions carry their venom in their tails The Empress Eudoxia who to satisfie her feminine passion had made all this goodly innovation in the sight of the great Pope S. Leo who was spectatour of all these calamities mended not her market for she with her two daughters were by this Barbarian carried into Africk one of which bare her name and was married to the son of Gensericus who afterward possessed the scepter and the other was Placidia sent in the end with her mother to Constantinople after the death of Martianus Behold terrible accidents Eudoxia our pilgrime after recital made to her of Conversion of Eudoxia all this tragedy be gan seriously to open her eyes and laying her hand just upon the wound acknowledged so many disasters had befallen her for that she had strayed from the true faith Thereupon to settle her wavering spirit she deputeth an Embassadour to holy Simeon Stilites near the Citie of Antioch This Simeon was a prodigie of man who lived in a Stilites body as if he had been but a spirit For figure to your self a pillar fourty foot high and on this pillar some little shroud fixed there as a birds nest open and exposed on all sides to the injuries of weather there this great man to raise his body to God as well as his heart placed his abode It was a strange lodging where he could neither lye nor sit in any fashion but ever stood bolt upright without roof without coverture his hairs being somewhat whitened with snow and his beard full of ysicles sometime roasted with the boiling heats of the Sun and in the midst of all this he passed his days and nights in contemplation eating but once a week and that very sparingly To this famous Hermit then who was the Oracle of Christendom Eudoxia sendeth Anastatius a trusty Bishop who in much secrecy laboured her conversion to consult with him upon doubts of faith Simeon answereth in these terms Poor Princess the malice of the evil spirit who saw the great treasures of thy rare virtues would needs winnow and sift thee Theodosius the false Monk a minister of Satan hath corrupted thy fair and glorious soul But courage my Daughter thou shalt die in the true faith consult no more with me thou seekest water far off having the fountain near at hand It he hoveth to address thee to Euthymius who will serve as thy directour in a happy way This answer being related to Eudoxia she caused this Euthymius to be sought out on all sides who should undertake this business He was a venerable Hermit having become hoary in the exercises of a long penance and one who was hard to be found out so much he avoided light and the conversation of men Notwithstanding God permitted him to be found and brought as it were by force to the place where the good Empress was She seeing this blessed old man prostrated herself at his feet saying Father I have lived long enough since I have the honour to behold you it is from your hand I expect the remedy of all my evils The holy man raising her with much sweetness Daughter saith he the evil spirit hath too much abused your credulity It is time you open your eyes to see the scourges of God All your ills have proceeded of nothing but infidelity And if now you desire to be cured there is but one word Stand no longer upon disputation but follow the Councels of Nice and Constantinople Behold the rule of your faith which you shall learn of John Bishop of Jerusalem Euthymius after he had thus spoken to her returneth to his Cell and she goeth directly to the Temple of Jerusalem attended by an infinite number of Religious lifting their hands to Heaven in thanksgiving for this conversion She abjureth the heresie of Eutyches between the hands of the Bishop and absolutely reconcileth herself to the Catholick Church with so much fervour and zeal that she ceased not all the rest of her days to extirpate impiety amplifie the church in all parts of the East where her power extended The good Empress then led a life wholly celestial Worthy life and glorious death of Eudoxia her soul being purged in the furnace of painful tribulation afterward purified more and more in the love of God held not of the body but by a slender thread Her heart was an incense daily dissolved into the flames of her charity sending to Heaven its fragrant exhalations Her two eies were the conduits by which penance with a powerfull expression distilled tears which are as the nectar of the love of God her hands like those of the Spouse true globes of gold replenished with an ocean of bounty poured through the cities and deserts of Palestine In every place nothing was to be seen but Churches and Hospitals but houses for the poor built at her cost so that an Authour named Cyrillus who lived in her time assureth it was a thing impossible to number them God being willing to dispose her passage out of this life by the exercise of so many good works And being upon the confines of her last year she went to visit a magnificent Church of S. Peter which she had founded and one day reposing near to a cestern where she laboured for the good of the said Church she began to cast her eyes upon a great number of Monasteries all near one to another which were in the charge of her good father Euthymius then fetching a deep affectionate sigh she spake these words of the 24. Numeri O Jacob Numb 24. Quam pulchra sunt tentoria tua O Jacob habitationes tuae O Israell how fair are thy pavillions O Israel how excellent thy tabernacles Then turning herself to a gentleman of her train Go saith she seek out Euthymius and intreat him to do me the honour that I once again may speak to him If he shall say he speaketh not with women tell him I no longer know what sex is and that I converse onely with Angels Euthymius in his cell had by revelation that this Saint should quickly pass to a better life and he came directly to bring
They had chosen for Successours Galerius and Constantius Clorus father of our Constantine Galerius had made two other Caesars Severus and Maximinus Maxentius son of Maximian violently drew upon himself the Purple by main force Lycinius furiously opposed him to gain it Constantius Dalmatius Hannibal brothers of Constantine by the fathers side beheld this goodly game and might well hope to have some part therein as being legitimate sons of Theodora whom Constantius Clorus had espoused when he rejected S. Helena Constantine saw himself the furthest off through the disgrace of his mother yet did the anointment of God make choice of him dispersing all the rest by such and so divers ways as we shall afterward behold to place him in the throne onely absolute and independent and to establish him with a long continuance of years and a large posterity had it pursued the way which he traced Consider what then was the state of the Church The state of the Church under Diocletian and view the wonders of the powerful hand of God Dioclesian had undertaken to raze from the memory of men the name of Christianity and being an imperious man who would as it were that the Heavens and elements should observe no other course but according to his will and engaged very far in this affair bare himself with such excess of cruelty that for about three hundred years that the Christians were persecuted there had nothing been like the persecution raised under his Empire Then was the time when in full assembly of publick games which ordinarily were presented at Rome the cries of an innumerable multitude were heard who to flatter the design of the Prince loudly proclaimed two and twenty times Christiani tollantur Auguste Christiani tollantur Let the Christians be taken away O Emperour let the Christians be rooted out Then was the time that dreadful Edicts of persecution were affixed on every place that the earth was covered with bloud and massacres and slaughters dispersed as it were in all the parts of the habitable world Christians were accounted as the dregs of mankind the scorn of the earth and object of all cruelties Some were shut up in caves not daring to appear in publick excluded from commerce and society of men deprived of necessities which nature would have to be common to all the world they not being permittted to draw water from wels or to buy a handful of herbs in the market unless they presented incense to Idols purposly fixed in publick places Others crept up and down in the deserts among wild beasts and sometimes roasted with heat of summer and sometimes congealed with cold of winter tearing up with their nails the grass which they mingled with their tears before they are it Others were led into Theaters Amphitheaters and Tribunals of Judges where old men of four-score and an hundred years of age were seen Ladies very honourable most tender maidens and little children brought into the flaying house there to die before they knew what it was to live All the tortures which the Busiris and Mezentiuses knew not were then invented and exercised on the bodies of Christians there was no speech but of racks combs of iron moulten lead boiling cauldrons but how to crush men under presses as in the time of vintage but of shutting bodies up in vessels armed within with counterpointed nails and rouling them in this moving prison down the descent of hils but of annointing them with oyl and honey and exposing them to wasps in the boiling ardours of the sun but of hanging women by the feet in their nakedness to serve as a spectacle for lustful eyes It is not credible such horrours could enter into the hearts of men without some particular impression of malign spirits yet Diocletian thought it was a great point of state and the true means irrecoverably to banish Chistianity Behold the cause why he spared none yea not pardoning even his neece Susanna nor his wife Serena whom he caused to feel the edge of the sword for professing Christianity It was desired the Martyrs should be numbred but this was impossible for when it appeared that one moneth reckoned up seventeen thousand and the rest carried the like proportion the Christians prepared themselves rather to die than to keep any further record of them The Emperour also caused all holy books to be exactly sought out to commit them to the flames thinking it was a singular policy to suppress our Religion but it is a thing extreamly prodigious and an invincible argument of the Divinitie of our faith that notwithstanding all these endeavours the Church was like the burning bush which derived glorie from its proper flames She increased under the sword of persecution borrowing her ornaments from ignominy her riches from losses and life from her tomb It seemed that every drop of bloud which distilled from the bodies of Martyrs was a grain of seed to make others spring which in the end wearied executioners blunted the edge of swords wore out all the instruments of torture yet was Diocletian for all this nothing mollified A man would wonder from whence he should Conditions of Diocletian conceive such hatred against Christianity but he that will consider his nature and ordinary proceedings shall find that besides the suggestions of Hell he had inclinations disposed to such cruelties He was born of very base birth nursed up in bloud addicted to the Religion of the Gentiles so far as to make himself the most superstitious Whilst he abode in France as yet a young souldier a Druid who much intermeddled with divination foretold him he should arive at the Empire when he had killed the fatal bore He being of a spirit ambitious and credulous went purposely a hunting and ordinarily chased bores to see if a Crown would spring from their bloud But that was not it which the evil spirit pretended There was at the Court a Lord named Aper as much as to say the bore father-in-law to the Emperour Numerianus a man powerful factious who after some years possessed himself of the Roman Empire by crime and treachery Diocletian adventured to kill him not so much for hatred as he said as for desire to fulfil the prophesie of the Druid and he having thrust his sword through his body being already arived to the highest degrees of warfar and well beloved of the souldiers was proclaimed Emperour This election made him greatly esteem the false Religion of Pagans and to take deep roots in his superstition which was much augmented by the Priests of Idols mortal enemies of Christians who perswaded him the Gods that had given the Empire demanded of him in requital the extirpation of Christianity and that his hand was fatal to cut and burn the heads of the Hydra which his Predecessours could never destroy This afforded him matter of vanity which he very easily apprehended and it being also softly whispered in his ears that the Christians had a plot upon his state and
a myne wherein poor slaves are made to labour that they may hit upon the veins of gold and silver And Tertullian had the like conceit when he said The first man was clothed with skins by the hand of God to teach him he entered into the world as a slave into a myne Now as these hirelings who cease not to turn up the earth with sweat on their brows tears in their eyes and sighs in their hearts no sooner have they met with the hoped vein but they rejoyce and embrace one another for the contentment they take to see their travels crowned with some good event So after such combates such rough temptations so many calumnies so many litigious wranglings such persecutions such vexations and toils which chosen souls have undergone in the thraldom of this body when the day comes wherein they by a Isaiah 38. In laetitia egrediemini in pace deducemini montes colles cantabunâ— coram vobis laudem Apoc. 21. Absterget Deus omnem laehrymam ab oculis eorum mors ultra non erit neque luctus neque clamor neque dolor erit ultra quia prima abierunt ecce nova faciâ— omnia most happy death meet the veins of the inexhaustible treasure whereof they are to take possession they conceive most inexplicable comfort Then is the time they hear these words of honey Go confidently faithfull souls go out of those bodies go out with alacritie go out in full peace and safetie the Eternal Mountains to wit the Heavens and all the goodly companie of Angels and most blessed spirits which inhabit them will receive you with hymns of triumph Go confidently on behold God who is readie to wipe away your tears with his own fingers There shall be no more death no more tears no more clamours no more sorrows behold a state wholly new what repose what cessation of arms what peace Do you not sometimes represent unto your self these poor Christians of whom it is spoken in the acts of S. Clement men of good place banished for Acta Clement the faith who laboured in the quarreys of Chersonesus with a most extream want of water and great inconveniencies when God willing to comfort their travels caused on the top of a mountain a lamb marvellously white to appear who struck with his foot and instantly made fountains of lively water to distil What comfort what refreshment for the drowthie Psal 35. Quoniam apud tefons vitae in lumine tuo videbimus lucem multitude But what is it in comparison when a brave and faithful Christian who hath passed this life in noble and glorious actions great toyls and patience beholds the Lamb of God Omnipotent which calleth him to the eternal sources of life What a spectacle to see S. Lewis die after he had twice with a huge army passed so many seas tempests monsters arms battels for the glory of his Master What a spectacle to see S. Paul the Hermit die after he had laboured an hundred years under the habit of Religion The second condition of this death is great tranquility for there is nothing at that time in all the world able to afflict or by acts unresigned to shake a soul firmly united to its God But what say you Just men if they be rich do they not bear in this last agonie some affection to their riches and possessions Nay so far is it otherwise that they with alacrity go out of all worldly wealth as a little bird from a silver cage to soar in the fields at the first breath of the spring-tide I pray tell me that I may pronounce before you an excellent conceit of S. Clement the Roman Clemens Rom. Recognit in the third of his Recognitions If a little chicken were shut up in an egg the shell whereof were guilded and set out with curious and delicate paintings and had reason and choice given it either to remain in this precious prison or enjoy day-light with all other living creatures under Heavens vault think you it would abide in a golden shell to the prejudice of its liberty And imagine with your self what are all the brave fortunes which have so much lustre in the world they are guilded shells no way comparable to the liberty of Gods children A good rich man dieth as Abraham who says in Origen My Dives fui sed pauperi extorris patria domus nescius ipse omnium fui domus patria sciens me non incubatorem sed dispensatorem divinae largitatis God if I have been wealthy it was for the poor I went out of my house to become a house for those who stood in need of it and am perswaded that thou hast made me a Steward of thy goods to distribute them and not to brood them as the hen her eggs But if the Just man die poor he is by so much the better pleased to forsake wretched lodgings of straw and morter to go into an eternal Palace But doth it not trouble him to leave a wife children and allies He leaves all that under the royal mantle of the eternal Providence and firmly believes that he who hath care of the flowers in the field birds bees and ants will not forsake reasonable creatures so they rest in their duty But if they must suffer in this world he will make of their tribulations ladders and footstools of their glory What shall we say of the body Doth not the soul ill to leave it The body is to the soul as the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the Moon See you not how this bright star which illuminateth our nights seemeth to be unwillingly captived in the dark but sparkleth to get aloft and free it self from earthly impressions So the faithfull soul readily untwineth it 2 Cor. 5. Scimus quoniam si terrestris domus nostra hujus habitstionis dissolvatur quod aedificationem ex Deo habemus domum non manufactam sed aeternam in caelis Job 29. 18. In nidulo meo moriar sicut Phoenix multiplicabo dies self from the body well knowing it hath a much better house in the inheritance of God which is not a manufacture of men but a monument of the hands of the great Workman Represent unto your self Job on the dung-hill a great anatomy of bones covered with a bloudy skin a body which falleth in pieces and a soul on the lips ready to issue forth as a lessee from a ruinous dwelling Think you he is troubled to leave his body Nay rather he dieth as a Phenix on the mountain of the Sun in the odours of his heroick virtues But that which maketh this death more sweet and honourable than any thing is the hope of beatitude whereof I will speak in the nineteenth Maxim Note that worldlings die here some like unto swallows others as spiders the evil rich pass away as swallows who leave no memory of them but a nest of morter and straw for such are
gate against all hopes and opens it to all despairs Ask of S. John (b) (b) (b) Lacus ira Dei magnus sâ—agnus ignis Apoc. 14. 20. what hell is he will tell you aloud and plainly hell is the great lake of Gods anger It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent And what do the damned there (c) (c) (c) Life of the damned Horreo verutem mordacem mortem vivacem horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis vitae morientis Gulielm Paris de univ p. 1. c. 55. Locus purâ— felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati They burn and smoak On what live they On the gall of dragons What air breath they That of burning coals What stars and lights have they The fire of their torments What nights Of palpable darkness What beds The couches of aspicks and basilisks What language speak they Blasphemies What order have they amongst them Confusion What hope Despair What patience Rage O hell O hell Avant O gnawing worm avant O living death avant death which never dies avant life which daily not dying dies I speak not here of the pain of sense excercised by this pittiless element which worketh upon souls as I have shewed you in the beginning of this discourse I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures gibbets tortures snakes burning pincers and all the instruments of terrours I onely speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God Imagine within your self a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris who in a Treatise he made of the universe pertinently sheweth that as Paradise is the house of all felicity so hell must be the receptacle of all miserie and calamity Now the blessed besides beauty of the glory of their bodies the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God which is the period of their essential felicitie So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournfull incomparably dolorous and according to its nature infinite which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities And what is this object Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire and horrid legions of divels That truly is horrible but that is not yet the top of their supream miserie What is it then I do assure my self you will at first be astonished with what I shall say and will hold it as a paradox but it is undoubted The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intollerable evil and that with just cause Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned and heigth of their notable calamities is light I say light of science and knowledge To understand this you The souls of the damned tormented by their lights Aspectus Christalli terribilis must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts who prepareth to chastise the wicked he representeth him unto us like a hydeous christal mirrour that is to say God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature as of a mirrour of Christal and a terrible light in which and through which it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God and the evil incurred by drenching it self into the sad habitation of the reprobate It seeth how in loosing God it hath lost a good delicious fruitfull infinite everlasting incomprehensible a good for which it was created and formed by the hands of God A good which is meerly and absolutely lost by its infidelity ingratitude wickedness perverse obstinacy in sin A good which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacitie And that which is also more terrible is that as God is replenished with a full and most plentifull felicitie because he hath all his contentments assembled together so the damned soul by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years and hath them all as present in thought From these two lights and two knowledges in the damned soul spring as it were two snakes fastened both to the one and other side of its heart which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juyce and marrow of its substance The holy man Boetius the eye of the Roman Senate Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer c. and ornament of the Church lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is when he saith there needeth neither wheels tortures nor gibbets to punish the wicked He who might onely shew them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash and say unto them behold wretched creatures behold what you have lost by your folly the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible that no keen raisour devouring flames gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment Now I leave you to think if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse what may a damned soul that sees in this hydeous chrystal not for a moment but through all moments of eternity the infinite good it hath lost the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees it self involved Then is it yea perpetually gnawn torn and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause it to break into furies and unprofitable frenzies O Palace of God saith it which I have lost O ugly dens of dragons whereinto I am head-long thrown O brightness of Paradise which shalt be nothing to me O hydeous darkness which shalt eternally be my inheritance O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls with whom I should eternally have lived had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes O infernal countenances of enraged divels which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions O torrent of delights which pourest thy self upon those blessed spirits how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch sulphur and scortching flames enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger O couch of King Solomon how have I given thee away for a bed of coals O God O God whom I have lost and whom I cannot loose I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains O eternity It is then true that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world thou wouldest rather feel these torments than
own tears and that in the same manner they are produced to beatitude by Plin. 21. 5. Lilium lachrymâ suâ seritur their proper afflictions but it is to see themselves in a state of power to loose the grace of God and to be able to be separated from the first of lives by an action of death That is it which made Job being on the dunghil like to the dunghil it self as on the throne of patience to deplore his condition and say Why hast Quare me posuisti contrarium tibi sum mihimetipsi gravis thou made me seeing I am contrary to thy divine Majesty That is it which renders me in supportable to my self Now there shall be in beatitude an impotencie of sin because in full sight of Sovereign good it will be impossible to propend to the least evil or least disorder without which there can be no sin Moreover as our knowledges are here wretched Excellency of beatifick science and starven there is not a man so knowing in the world who for one drop of knowledge hath not a tun of ignorance and who in the little he knoweth hath not ever many errours which stick to science as the worm to the tree or the moath to the cloath Now there above the ray of increated light which shall appear in full lustre will dissipate all the weakness of understanding all inconsiderations all faults and shall fill us with a most resplendent verity So that our In lumine tuo videbimus lumen soul shall be like to that Aegyptian pyramid which perpendicularly reflected on by the Sun cast no shadow Lastly we see our love is ill guided in this way-faring Beauty of beatifick love compared to the weakness of wordly love life it sticks upon so many frivolous objects which are foolish fires that often lead it into precipices It is taken by the eys with blessings which have nothing more certain in them than their loss blessings which we ever shall leave by death if they forsake not us by misfortune Being surprized it tumbleth therein and perpetually bendeth to all which feedeth its dolours and drives away content All it least can do is that thing it most desires all it seeks is many times the good it escheweth It looseth labour to run after a flitting phantasm and if it stay it is not but through despair not to overtake all which kils it But if it come to possess what it loves it is instantly turmoiled with its happiness and not having need to labour any more in desires it grows mouldly in proper fruition It is willing to be resisted to enkindle its flame and resistance thrusts it into rage as possession into distast That is it which maketh me say the earth being made for us we are not made for the earth and that we should seek the place where love suffers neither offence nor interruption I say offence for it hath an object which contents all the world and offendeth none I say interruption for if we cease to love in Paradise it must proceed from God or from our selves If it be by the commandment of God we cease to love we shall cease in loving and in ceasing we shall incessantly love since we shall cease through love This cessation cannot come from us for we shall love without obstacle and of necessitie that Sovereign good which for its infinities will not be beloved but in infinitum O what pleasure to have but one pleasure and what joy to derive all joys from their source Why say we not with S. Augustine O fountain of life O vein of living waters when shall I come to thy delights and eternal sweetness I here on earth sigh after thy beauties O holy Hierusalem in a land scorched with fervours of sensuality O when will it be that I shall come before the face of my God! Think you I shall see that fortunate day that day of comfort and triumphs that day which God hath made and which takes its eastern rise from his eys O bright day which hath no evening nor knows what the setting Sun is When do you think I shall hear that word Enter into the joys of thy Master enter into a joy inaccessible to sorrow wherein is all good with an eternal banishment of all evil There it is where youth waxed not old where life hath no limits where beauty decays not where love knoweth not what it is to be cold nor health to impair O dear Citie With weeping eyes we behold thee afar off we thy poor exiles but yet thy children redeemed with his bloud who makes thee happie by his aspects Stretch out thy arms unto us O mild Saviour cast an eye on us from the haven in these storms of life and give us leave to walk in so undoubted paths that we may come to the place where thou livest and reignest for ever The nineteenth EXAMPLE upon the nineteenth MAXIM Of the Pleasures of beatitude THe joys of Paradise are without example and as they are here above our experience so they pass beyond our imagination Yet well may we conceive raised bodies shall have some manner of contentment in the perfect use of their senses and beauty of objects which shall satiate them with everlasting delights When after a long winter which covered us in darkness and buried us in snow we behold a new world arise under the benign favour of the spring and consequently the golden days of summer we feel our heart dilate seasonably taking in some antipast of the repose of the blessed What sweetness is it to enjoy delights in a body sound and a spirit well purified What contentment to behold those goodly Palaces where is seen an admirable consort of art and nature so many Hals so well furnished within such rich hangings such most exquisite pictures such marbles such gildings and without mountains which make a natural theater tapistred without art to surpass all workmanship forrests which seem born with the world hedges and knots curiously cut alleys and mazes where both eyes and feet are lost rivers which creep along with silver purlings about gardens enameled with most fragant flowers cavernes replenished with a sacred horrour grots and fountains which gently gliding contend with the warble of birds and so many other spectacles which at first sight astonish spirits and never satiate All this is but a little atome I do not say of the essential pleasure of the blessed which is ineffable but of the sole content of the senses of a glorious bodie which may in some sort be expressed S. John to accommodate himself to the weakness Apoc. 21. and 22. of our understanding hath made a description of it in the Apocalyps where he depainteth this goodly Cittie of the blessed with singular curiosity It is a pretty thing to consider how Lucian an excellent wit though a bad man intruding into our mysteries hath set out in his idea's to the imitation of it the life of
adhere to silly inventions of their own spirit and you would almost say the Father the Holy Ghost and the Word of God it self were nothing with them in comparison of particular devotions of some Saints or some slight observances which they practise according to their own fancie But if one happen to reprove them upon it they are uncivilly offended therewith and think such as speak with reason are not within the compass of the upright judgement of faith I affirm these kind of proceedings are not according to the order of the Church the which honoureth all Saints yea and the blessed Virgin in a degree infinitely beneath the Divine Majesty nor doth it honour them but to honour God in them and by them But if some abuse mysteries must we therefore overthrow Altars If some popular spirits ill instructed grow superstitious must one therefore become a Libertine Must innocency be forsaken the more to hate the guilty It is a pittifull thing to see good spirits who make profession of Catholick Religion and have in some things good apprehensions of piety to take such liberty of words to themselves that we know not what to make of them Ought not they to consider that a popular errour is one thing and a position of the Church another If some particulars introduce exorbitant devotions let them reject blame and condemn them We neither undertake to defend nor justifie them But when we speak of the invocation of Saints of their Reliques Canonizations Indulgences of the authority of our Holy Father of the Institution of Religious Orders and so many such like which are authorized by general Councels and by the belief of all antiquity doth not a good judgement see that to go about to oppose these Maxims is to do that which S. Augustine speaketh To suffer ones self to run into a folly which hastneth to the height of insolencie He who admitteth a leak in a ship drowns it who divideth Religion hath none at all who resolves to believe this and reject that believes nothing All that which cometh from one same authority ought to be believed with like equality Our faith is not grounded upon natural judgement upon wit and discourse but on the submission we ow to God and the Church which is the Interpretess of his counsels He who abideth therein abides in true wisedom who goeth out of it shall find nothing but an Ocean of disturbances and the shipwrack of his faith The second order of Libertines is of Neuters wavering and distrustfull who are almost upon the indifferencie of Religions and hold their faith as a hawk without leashes It quickly flies a way and leaveth them to replenish more setled brains and more capable souls In this number you have many squeazy stomachs who affect to be Masters in matter of Religion and are extream greedy of all sorts of innovations And if there be some bold spirit who with sensual reason censureth the mysteries of our Religion that man is according to their tast a brave fellow and his books deserve to be bound up in gold and purple The Bible is not wise enough for them their spirit of rebellion findeth faults and contradictions therein They are in search of hidden mysteries as were the Argonautes who went out to win the golden fleece And could they lay hold on Mahomets Alcoran they will not spare to read it the more to confound themselves in the labyrinth of their errours After they have run all over sounded all quoted all they find themselves empty and have nothing so assured as incertainty nothing so undoubted as the loss of their faith which they have almost wholly transformed into a cursed Neutrality the head-long descent of a horrible precipice The third order comprehendeth idle loyterers and people of the throat and kitchen who bear in their ensign for devise that which is said to have been inscribed on Sardanapalus his tomb Drink eat fill thy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self in the ordures of flesh and think thou hast nothing but that which thou affordest to thy sensualitie They all say with Epicurus As for my self I cannot understand any felicitie unless it be in palates in lips in ears in the belly and all that which is common to us with beasts These kind of men have not so much to do as other they are not sollicitous concerning the secrets of nature curious books mystical Cabals the Gospel not Turkish Alcoran they have found their God in themselves and indeed will acknowledge no other but the belly Their continual employment is to furnish out tables for it which are its Altars and to offer unto it dishes and sauces in sacrifice The fourth region containeth the malign covert and narrow observers who yet still retain some fear of the smoke of the faggot behold the cause why they dare not declare themselves in open manner They enter into the fold as wolves clothed in a sheeps skin and tell the sheep they are much affected to their conservation but that the dogs must be taken away which do nothing but deafen their ears with barking both day and night These are such as sow propositions with a double meaning and have ever a back-shop to hide themselves in such as say Catholick religion is good if it were purged from so many superstitions such as deceive young men under colour of doctrine and when they have hit upon a curious spirit whom they esteem retentive of a secret recommended they draw the curtain aside and reveal the mysteries of iniquity to him They are such as make disguises and differences which no man imagined and make truth combat against A theism with so feeble arms that it were much better defended to be left to its own nakedness such as have a store-house of evil books more impure than the stable of Augaeus out of which they derive all their profanations cloying the ears of the simple with a thousand objections ever made in the name of a third person who never dreamt of them Lastly such as silently build the Babylon of execrable confusions The fifth rank comprehendeth all those who have sold their souls to ambition and particular interest and have nothing of religion but seeming and ceremonies They are such as would make no scruple to set a foot upon the throat of their best friends to raise their own fortune higher Such as live fattened up with the Altar being many times enemies of the Altar Such as lift their children aloft with an arm of silver through all the ways of injustice above the heads of men and make the Church a prey to their ambition Such as are present at Divine Service with postures of a puppet-player Such as go to Gods word as to a Comedy to see and to be seen more for Adonis than Jesus and who in conclusion turn all piety into scoffs retaining nothing of it but a fantasm to serve their own ends The sixth manner is of such Vt introierunt quidam homines
in grace and enjoy in the other thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glorie So be it The fourteenth SECTION Of the time proper for spiritual reading BElieve me you shall do well at this time of the morning when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts to use some spiritual reading sometimes of the precepts sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences He that will live in the exercise of God's presence must pray and read frequently When you pray you speak to God and when you read God speaks to you Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue Observe you not how colours as Philosophie teacheth have a certain light which in the night time is obscured and buried as it were in matter But as soon as the Sun riseth and diâ—playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness he awakes them and makes them appear in their true lustre So may we truly say that we have all some seeds of knowledge which would be quite choaked as it were with the vapours arising â—rom our passions did not the wisdom of God which speaketh in the holy Scripture and in good spiritual books stir them up and give them light and vigour to enflame the course of our actions to virtue Always before you take a book in hand invoke the Father of light to direct your reading Read little if you have but little leisure but with attention and make a pause at some sentence which all that day may come into your memory You will find that good books teach nothing but truth command nothing but virtue and promise nothing but happiness The fifteenth SECTION An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ to be used at the Communion JOhn 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 30. For my yoke is easie and my burden is light Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets John 15. 12. This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you 13. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you 45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Luke 5. 35. Be ye mercifull as your Father also is mercifull 23. Judge not and ye shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned forgive and it shall be forgiven 30. Give and it shall be given unto you Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Luke 12. 36. Let your loyns be girded about and your lights burning 37. And ye your selves like unto men that wait for the Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately Luke 21. 34. Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this life John 5. 28. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice 29. And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation The sixteenth SECTION What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament AT the Celebration of the Sacrament you shall endeavour to stir up in your self a great reverence of this incomparable Majestie who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence and say O God dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy well-beloved Son At this present I offer up to thee in the union thereof my understanding my will my memorie my thoughts my words my works my sufferings and consolations my good my life all that I have and all that I can ever pretend unto Afterwards at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God or when the Angelical Hymn called by the Ancients Trisagion is pronounced may be said as followeth being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom TO thee the Creatour of all things visible and invisible To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings To thee the Fountain of life and immortalitie To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world be given as is due all praise honour and worship Let the Sun Moon and Quires of Stars the Air Earth Sea and all that is in the Celestial Elementarie world bless thee Let thy Jerusalem thy Church from the first-born thereof alreadie enrolled in Heaven glorifie thee Let the elect souls of Apostles Martyrs and Prophets Let Angels Arch-Angels Thrones Dominations Principalities Powers and Virutes Let the dreadfull Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glorie Save us O thou that dwellest in Heaven the palace of thy Majestie O Lord Jesus thou art the everlasting Son of the Father When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou clothedst thy self with flesh in the Virgins womb When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father and shalt judge both the quick and the dead O Lord help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud
on thy part what ingratitudes on mine Preserve me in what is thine and wash away with the precious bloud of thy Son what is mine Shelter me under the wings of thy protection from so many shadows apparitions and snares of the father of darkness and grant that though sleep close my eys yet my heart may never be shut to thy love Lastly fall asleep upon some good thought that your night as the Prophet saith may be enlightened with the delights of God and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep supply it with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of heart as the just did of old called for this reason The crickets of the night Thus shall you lead a life full of honour quiet and satisfaction to your self and shall make every day a step to Eternity The marks which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination are eleven principall 1. Faith lively simple and firm 2. Purity of life exempt ordinarily from grievous sins 3. Tribulation 4. Clemency and mercy 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth 6. Humility 7. Charity to your neighbour 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament 9. Affection to the word of God 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue which you have upon occasion exercised You will find this Diary little in volume but great in virtue if relishing it well you begin to put it in practice It contains many things worthy to be meditated at leisure for they are grave and wise precepts choisely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers Though they seem short they cost not the less pains Remember that famous Artist Myrmecides employed more time to make a Bee than an unskilfull workman to build a house EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY In the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5. 3. Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Psal 184. 22. My dayes are like the dayes of an hireling Untill the day break and the shadows flie away Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6. Beginning a good work In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal 40. 7. 8. In good Inspirations The Lord God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious neither turned away back Isaiah 50. 5. At Church How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts Psal 84. 1. Before reading Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Samuel 3. 9. Speaking My heart is inditing a good matter I speak of the things which I have made touching the King Psal 45. 1. Eating Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Psal 145. In Prosperity If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth If I prefer not thee above my chief joy Psal 137. 6. Adversity The Lord killeth and maketh alive 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glorie Luke 24. 26. Troubles Surely man walketh in a vain shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 6. Calumnies If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Praises Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glorie Psal 115. 1. Against vain hope As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image Psalm 73. 20. Pride Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased Luke 14. 11. Covetousness It is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20. 35. Luxury Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ 1. Cor. 6. 15. Envy He that loveth not his brother abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. Gluttony The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 14. 17. Anger Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. Sloth Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48. 10. Rules of Faith God cannot be known but by himself What is to be understood of God is to be learned by God Hilar lib. 5. de Trin. God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions In simplicity must we seek him in piety profess him Idem lib. 10. Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set Prov. 22. 28. Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholick Church Consent of people and nations Authority begun by miracles nourished by hope encreased by charity confirmed by antiquity August lib. De utilitate credendi To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance is insolent madness Idem Epist 118. Let us follow universality antiquity consent Let us hold that which is believed every where always by all Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus Acts of Faith Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Marc. 9. 24. I know that my Redeemer liveth c. Job 19. 25. Hope Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal 24. 4. I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him Psal 90. 15. Charity Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 25 26. Feed me O Lord thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity This I request this I desire that vehement love may throughly pierce me fill me and change me into it self Blosius PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions For the Church WE beseech thee O Lord graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church that she being delivered from all adversitie and errour may serve thee in safety and freedom through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the King WE beseech thee O Lord that thy servant CHARLS by thy gracious appointment our King and Governour may be enriched with all encrease of virtue whereby he may be able to eschew evil and to follow Thee the Way the Truth and the Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Friend ALmighty and ever-living Lord God have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternall salvation that through thy grace he may desire those things which please thee and with his whole endeavour perform the same through Jesus Christ our Lord. For Peace O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give that both our hearts may be set
Come O my adored Master walk upon this tempestuous Sea of my heart ascend into this poor vessel say unto me Take courage It is I. Be not conceited that I will take thee for an illusion for I know thee too well by thy powers and bounties to be so mistaken The least thought of my heart will quiet it self to adore thy steps Thou shalt reign within me thou shalt disperse my cares thou shalt recover my decayed senses thou shalt lighten my understanding thou shalt inflame my will thou shalt cure all my infirmities And to conclude thou onely shalt work in me and I will be wholly thine The Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent S. Matthew 4. Of our SAVIOUR's being tempted in the Desart THen Jesus was led of the Spirit into the Desart to be tempted of the Devil and when he had fasted fourty days and fourty nights afterward he was hungry And the Tempter approched and said to him If thou be the Son of God command that these stones he made bread Who answered and said It is written not in bread alone doth man live but in every world that proceedeth from the mouth of God Then the Devil took him up into the holy Citie and set him upon the pinacle of the Temple and said to him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down for it is written That he will give his Angels charge of thee and in their hands shall they hold thee up lest perhaps thou knock thy foot against a stone Jesus said to him again It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Again the Devil took him up into a very high mountain and he shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said to him all these will I give thee if falling down thou wilt adore me Then Jesus saith to him Avant Satan for it is written the Lord thy God shalt thou adore and him onely shalt thou serve Then the Devil left him and behold Angels came and ministered to him Moralities 1. JESUS suffered himself to be tempted saith Saint Augustine to the end he might serve for a Mediatour for an example and for a remedy to work our victory over all temptations We must fight on his side Our life is a continual warfare and our days are Champions which enter into the lists There is no greater temptation than to have none at all Sleeping water doth nourish poison Motion is the worlds soul fighting against temptations is the soul of virtues and glory doth spring and bud out of tribulations Virtue hinders not temptation but surmounts it Jesuâ— fasted saith the ordinary gloss that he might be tempted and is tempted because he did fast He fasted fourty days and then was hungry he did eat with his Disciples the space of fourty days after his resurrection without any more necessity of meat than the Sun hath of the earths vapours to make us thereby know that it onely appertained to him to teach that great secret how to mannage want and abundance by which S. Paul was glorified 2. The first victory over a Temptation is to know that which tempts us Some temptations are gay and smiling at their beginning as those of love and pleasure which end in terrible and bitter storms Others are troublesom and irksom Others doubtfull and intricate Others rapide and sudden which seize upon their prey like an Eagle Others are close and catching These are the snares of Satan who fomes like a Bore roars like a Lion and hisseth like a Serpent We should always have an eye ready to mark from whence the Temptation comes whither it tends what is the root of it what the course what the progress and what power it may have over our spirit 3. Solitude of heart fasting prayer the word of God are weapons of an excellent temper which the Word Incarnate teacheth us to use in this conflict These things are to be used with discretion by the counsel of a good directour to whom a man must declare all his most secret thoughts and bear a breast of chrystal toward him with a firm purpose to let him see all the inward motions of his heart It is also good to note here that our Lord would expresly be tempted in that Desarr which is between Jerusalem and Jericho where the Samaritane mentioned in the Parable did pour wine and oyl into the sores of the poor wounded man to teach us that by his combat he came to cure the wounds of Adam and all his race in the very place where they were received 4. Sin is killed by flying the occasions of it Absence resistance coldness silence labour diversion have overcome many assaults of the enemy Sometimes a Spiders web is strong enough to preserve chastity and at other times the thick walls of Semiramis are not sufficient God governs all and a good will to concur with him is a strong assurance in all perils and it will keep us untoucht amidst the flames of lust 5. Since it imports us so much to fight valiantly let us bring the hearts of Lions Where is our Christianity if we do not give testimony of it to God both by our fidelity and courage How many Martyrs have been rosted and broiled because they would not speak one ill word What honour can you expect by yielding at the first enterance to a temptation Look not upon the violence of it but contemplate the Crown which you should gain by conquering it think at your enterance how you will come off and know for certain that he who truly considers the consequence of a wicked action will never begin it 6. Lent is the Spring-time for sanctified resolutions it mortifies the body that the spirit may triumph it is a time of grace which tends to salvation and mercy It imports extreamly to commend all to God at the beginning to sanctifie this fasting which is part of our devotion we must abstain from flesh and be content with one meal at seasonable hours without making over large collations except age infirmity or weakness labour or necessity of other functions shall dispence with our diet for those who are unable to fast suffer more by their disability than others do by fasting It is good to follow the counsel of Athanasius who adviseth to eat late and little and at a table where there is but one sort of meat We must also fast by abstinence from vice For to weaken our body and yet nourish our naughty passions is to fast as the devils do who eat nothing and yet devour the world by the rage of their malice Sobriety is a stream which waters all virtues Our soul and body are as the scales of a ballance if you pull down the one you raise up the other and if you tame your flesh it makes the Spirit reign and govern Aspirations O Most mercifull Lord Father and Protectour of all my life how great are the temptations and snares whereunto I am subject when
alms and bounty which are the steps which God left imprinted in this world If you must rise to honours and dignities take them as instruments of holiness and be not powerfull but to be more obliged to do good by so being Aspirations O God which didst conceal thy self how comes it about that I desire so much to be seen and make my self known to the world What can I discover if I shew that which I am but onely sin vanity misery and inconstancy which make the four elements of my life To what serves this itch of seeing but onely to receive into our eyes the seeds of curiosity Why do we covet to be so much seen but to expose our selves to vanity and to carry a Torch in a blast of wind Alas O Mercifull Lord I have very long lived for my self and for the eyes of the world when shall I begin to live for thee Shall I never see those happy moments of my life which will receive light onely from the day of thy face Let me O most beloved of my heart be blind to all the world so that I may have eyes for thee If the condition of my estate must needs shew me to the world let it be to give it part of thy light without receiving any part of that darkness which covereth it Let me be in the world to do good but let me dwell in thee as within the Fountain of all goodness The Gospel upon Wednesday the fifth week in Lent S. John 10. The Jews said If thou be the Messias tell us plainly ANd the Dedication was in Jerusalem and it was in winter And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomons Porch The Jews therefore compassed him round about and said to him How long dost thou hold our soul in suspence If thou be Christ tell us openly Jesus answered them I speak to you and you believe not The works that I do in the Name of my Father they give testimony of me But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them life everlasting and they shall not perish for ever and no man shall pluck them out of my hand My Father that which he hath given me is greater than all and no man can pluck them out of the hand of my Father I and the Father are one The Jews took up stones to stone him Jesus answered them Many good works I have shewed you from my Father for which of these works do you stone me The Jews answered him for a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemie and because thou being a man makest thy self God Jesus answered them Is it not written in your Law that I said You are Gods If he called them Gods to whom the word of God was made and the Scripture cannot be broken whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world say you That thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God If I do not the works of my Father believe me not But if I do and if you will not believe me believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in the Father Moralities 1. THe Wolfs encompass the good shepheard counterfeiting Lambs to draw truth out of his mouth which they would persecute They resembled a certain plant which carrieth the name and shape of a Lamb but hath a contrary substance and different qualities for it is ravenous as a wolf and devours all the herbs which grow about it So are there many who do insinuate themselves into the friendship of good men by fair but counterfeit respects to the end that afterward they may be made the object of their cruelty Those men look after the Messias in the Porch of Solomon as Herod sought after him in the Manger not to adore but to kill him Their mouth carries honey when their heart hatcheth poison but nothing is unknown to God from whom hell it self hath not darkness enough to hide it self 2. Jesus knows his flock and his flock reciprocally knows him and in that consists all our happiness to know God and to be known of him The chiefest of all wisdom is to know him and to be known by him and to be written in the Book of life which is the last and chiefest of all felicities It is true that he knows all things by the knowledge of a clear intelligence which serves the wicked onely to discover plainly their crimes whereas he knows the just by a science of favour and approbation which indeed is eternal predestination If we be unknown to God we must make our selves known to him by some good virtue which doth not depend onely upon us The first beam is of prevenient grace and our vocation to Christianity which is part of our predestination and is not all within our power We have not been elected because we have believed in God by our own forces but we believe because we have been elected The first knowledge comes purely from God but it is in us by his grace to pursue this first light and to advance our predestination to glory by forcing our selves to know him perfectly who hath known us so liberally 3. Jesus will not be known singly by his words but by his works Our words must agree with our good actions as the needle of a clock agrees with the springs When we have heard or read some good doctrine that Sermon or reading must pass into our manners It is surely a strange thing that many employ their leisure to know much and yet will not spend some considerable time to make themselves good Christians We must be Philosophers more by imitating the example of God than by any curious enquiry of his greatness Our Christianity teacheth us that we should be more knowing and skilfull in the practise of our life than of our tongue and that we are rather made to perform great actions than to speak them We must have a special care that our hands do not give our mouth the lie What can we gain in the judgement of God by being like those trees which have a fair outside garnished with leaves yet good for nothing but to give a shadow and to make a little noise when the wind blows God requires of us fruit since he is the Father of all fertility and nothing is barren in the land of the living Aspirations O My God I know thee because thou was first pleased to know me Thou hast known me by thy goodness and I will do my best to know thee that I may obtain all happiness O that I might know that my name is written in the Book of life and also know the life which I may possess within the heart of Jesus in which so many lives do live O how should I then find my spirit ravished in those beautifull Idaeas of glory Fix thine eyes on me O Lord and thou shalt
her to be valued with whole Books Another while he descendeth into particulars he recounts unto her his voyages his adventures his comforts his discomforts He omits nothing of the condition of his health of the disposition of his body of his chamber of his habit of his ordinary exercises in this ugly place whereunto he is banished He protesteth he is much troubled he sees her not he assures her all his pains are nothing in comparison of the want of such an one whom he so tenderly loved which he confirmed unto her by the example of S. Paul who challenged S. Paul tender in holy affections Angels and Devils who mocked at all persecutions who was ready to carry all hell on his shoulders had it been possible out of the desire he had to suffer And yet the separation of Titus his well-beloved Disciple afflicted him so much that he could not give his thoughts any repose He dilates much upon this affection of S. Paul to excuse his own which shewed it self at the height when the news was brought him of the sicknesse of the same Olympias For then it was when the winters of Scythia the countenances of Barbarians the hideous roughnesse of some place where it seemed Nature had never been the noise of warre and the incursions of souldiers fleshed in massacres and spoils are nothing in comparison of the affliction he feels for the indisposition of this dear Virgin He conjureth her by all things the most precious to tender her health he sendeth her to skilfull Physicians he teacheth her medicinall drugs which help himself he promiseth her long letters which she infinitely loved so that she take care of her health he assureth her as it were in the spirit of prophecy that he must visit her again to comfort his cares wipe away his tears and replenish his heart with satisfaction What can be more lovely what more affectionate then this whole discourse Saint Jerome is in the same passions for Saint Paula Great affection of S. Hierom toward Sancta Paula S. Hierome in Epitaph Paulae All the splendour of Romes greatnesse all the riches of the earth are nothing with him in comparison of his little Bethleem made resplendent by the virtues of this noble Lady He telleth us that Pilgrims who come from the remotest confines of the world cannot see any thing in all the affluent wealth thereof comparable to her When he goes about to praise her he wisheth all the members of his body were changed into tongue and that he were nought but voyce to be throughout the whole Universe the Trumpet of her praises He describeth her life and death with extasies he playes the Poet in his old age to make her an Epitaph and fetcheth out a pedigree for her from the ashes of old Troy and the conquests of Agamemnon He formerly had made himself a Secretary to her and her daughter enditing their letters for them to invite Marcella their companion into the solitudes of Bethleem When he thinks of her coming all the holy land is turned topsie-turvey the hillocks leap for joy the fields deck themselves in their best beauties the rivers carry the news thereof to the meadows squadrons of religious and virgins go before there is nothing but salutations and transportations and rejoycings incomparable Out of which we may conclude Saints have very lively affections towards all they love That blessed Prelate the Bishop of Geneva had The affectionare â—etter of my Lord Bishop of Geneva the same spirit for his Philothea For behold how he speaks of her in the first letter of his second Book When you unfolded your self to me more particularly it was an admirable joy to my soul that I might more and more comfort yours which made me believe that God had given me to you not imagining any thing might be added to the affection I felt in my mind and especially when I prayed for you But now my dear daughter there hath upon it succeeded a new business which to my seeming cannot benamed but the effect of it is onely a great interiour sweetnesse which I have to wish you all the perfections of the love of God and all other spirituall benedictions In the 16 Epistle he saith It is a dew which moistneth his heart without blow or noise I speak before the God of my heart and yours every affection hath its particular difference one from another That which I bear you hath a certain particularity which infinitely comforteth me and to say all it is infinitely available for me Account this as an irrefragable verity and do not you doubt it at all Then he adds when many particular persons recommended to him come into his mind she is alwayes the first or the last who there longest abideth See how the wayes of the just are hidden and leave no prints to follow them by the tracks An ill informed Censurer would here have wrinckled the brow he would have said with a supercilious countenance a severe aspect in the words of Cato That it must needs be a manifest snare of Satan to have a womans face in his mind in the midst of his prayers and yet we know this worthy man lived in most perfect purity in imitation of immateriall Angels This teacheth us Necessitudo Christi glutine copulata quam non utilitas â—ei familiatis non subdola palpans adulatio sed Dei timor divinarum scripturarum studia conciliant S. Hierom. there may be amity between Sex and Sex purre and ardent as the flames which enlighten stars But this onely belongeth to persons infinitely prudent and absolute in virtue who are therein more worthy of admiration then imitation yea indefatigable circumspection must be used to contein them within their limits And then is the time that they produce chast and strong delights when two spirits perpetually look one upon another as the Cherubins of the Ark having continually the Propitiatory of the living God in the midst of them or when they resemble the Sunne and Moon who for these six thousand years have courted each other and never touched § 5. Of the enterteinment of Amities AMity in the world wherein we are is a fire out of its sphear which properly is heaven where knowledges are without darknesse joyes without discomforts and love without blemish For which cause Mollis est animus diligentis ad omnem sensum doloris argutus si negligentiuâ— tractes cito marcet ut â—osa si durius teneas livet ut lilia Sâ—nthacus ep 34. it stands in need of precaution to defend it self and of strength to abide in a place where constancy is rare change ordinary errours naturall assaults violent and resistance weak The mind of a Lover is delicate nice and sensible in injuries if you handle it slightly it withereth like a Rose if roughly it fadeth like a Lilly I then will briefly glance at those things which alter Amity and shew you likewise the Antidotes that
displeaseth All which hath contented them discontenteth one knows not into what posture to put himself to give satisfaction Good words vex them services distast them submissions torment them contradictions make them mad It seemeth Sauls devil possesseth them and that they 1 Reg. 18. 10. know not themselves they hate by humour as if they had loved without consideration of merit But we must say that of all the plagues of Amity there is none so fatall to it as the discovery of a secret by Treason and Infidelity That is it which Petrus 8. Infidelity Petrus Blesenfis l. de amie c. 6. Plutarch in Julio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blesensis called the blow without noise under the shadow of Amity It is that which Brutus gave to great Cesar and which was the cause that the valorous Emperour long tumbled to and fro among his murderers and defending himself from every blow they gave him covered his eyes with his garment not enduring the treachery of a man whom he had loved and obliged above all other But saying Ah son art thou then one of these He suffered himself as a victime to be butchered ashamed to behold the day light which made him see so black a mischief And what is there more to be deplored then to behold a generous heart which dilates it self in the presence of a pretended friend and powreth out unto him all he hath in his soul whilst the wretch shooting back envenomed shafts against all the raies of Amity maketh a prey of his goodnesse and a trophey of his sincerity abandoning him to the discretion of such as persecute him There are some who suffer themselves to fall into these Infidelities by the surprizall of some wicked spirits who wholly govern them and who draw out of them all they have in their hearts either by craft or power which rendreth them lesse culpable but not innocent Others run to it with the malignity of a Devill and joyfully triumph Sient novatulla acut◠fecisti dolum propterea Deus destructte when they have prospered in an Act so base and barbarous Do not these kind of people deserve to be accounted the horrour of nature the scorn of Ages the execration of mankind And shall we not believe that if Pythagoras Metempsychosis were in being their souls would put on no other bodies but of Hyena's Rats or Owls to fly in an eternall night and never to be illustrated with one sole ray of the bright day of Amity Now if you desire to know the things which are Psal 51. 4. Six perfections which preserve Amity of power perpetually to uphold Amity I must tell you it subsisteth in honesty good disposition communication Bounty Patience and Fidelity Assure your self you will not long be a good friend if you study not to be ever virtuous The heart of a wicked man saith the Prophet is a Cor impurum quasi mare servens Isa 57. turmoyled sea which never rests it hath as many changes as the waves in the Ocean as many agitations as Tempests which with Amity is incompatible of its own nature peacefull and which enterteins the mind in a constant situation What is the cause the blessed are never weary of loving but that they perpetually find in God new beauties and perfections The body is finite and quickly thrusts forth all its qualities which with time rather fade then flourish but our spirit is profound as an abysse and our soul tendeth in some sort Dum unusquisque se sub umbra alterius obscurare volebat tan quam res percussa claritas utrumque radiabat S. Hilar. In Honorat to Infinity Hence it comes that two friends seriously disposing themselves to perfection daily receive some new lustre which rendreth them lovely so that increasing in goodnesse by degrees they insensibly love some better thing Saint Hilary of Arles said of two good friends that they sought to hide themselves in the shadow of one another but that thence their humility was reflected as from a solid bottome which made its lights the more resplendent Yet would I not that your virtue should be austere Humour and unmanaged but seasoned with a good disposition and a certain cordiality which is the best temper of Amity There are some who love so coldly that their love is as a day in winter when the Sun is involved in grosse vapours and shews nothing but sadnesse which is extreamly troublesome for it is better to receive a manifest Correction then to endure a hidden Amity to speak with the Wiseman Melior est manifesta correptio quam amor absconditus Prov. 27. and you shall find many women who better love harsh men then such as are neither one nor other He is no good friend who rejoyceth not at the presence of his friend who is not sorry for his absence yet not opposing the conformity we should have with Vid. Chrys ep p. 715 716. 1 Thes 2. 3. the divine Providence S. Chrysostome in the letters he wrote to his dear Olympias observed these sensible affections in S. Paul for he was much troubled at the absence of his best friends and desired to see their faces as he saith where this great Prelate insisteth upon Tertul. de velandis c. 12. Quis audebit oculis suis premere faciem clausam faciem non sentientē faciem ut ita dixerim tristem on the word face and sayes it is good right that we desire the face of our friend because it is the place where the soul sheweth it self in all its senses There is not any man saith Tertullian unlesse he hath little to do delighteth to hold long discourse before a face shut up a visage sensible of nothing and which to say truly cannot but be melancholy in this posture This hindreth not but that the use of veils is very laudable in time and place among religious women who make profession of penance and the fore-alledged Authour who ardently urgeth virgins to this observance gives them an example of Arabian women who were so veiled that they had but one eye free to guide them and to Contente sunt dimidiatâ fruiluce quà m totam faciem prostituere Idem de velandis Virg. cap. 14. receive a half light which caused a Roman Queen to say that they were miserable women who went so because they might take in love but not give it out again But contrariwise they were most happy to be delivered from a thousand importunities of wanton eyes which do nothing but court beauties Howsoever true amity is necessarily accompanied with some tendernesse and sensibility which causeth one to be perpetually anxious for such as he loveth Love in the heart is an exhalation in a cloud it cannot continue idle there It daily formeth a thousand imaginations and brings forth a thousand cares It findeth out an infinity of inventions to advance the good of the beloved It openeth it self in his prosperities it shuts it self up in
the heart by the Garb the Humour the smiles the speech the silence the courage the discretion of a man layes a plot with her passion to betray her reason The poison of love by little and little spreads it self throughout all the veins the presence of the object begins to cause blushing palenesse unquietnesse disturbance of the mind so that she cannot tell what she desireth nor what she would have Absence awakeneth the Imagination which makes an Eccho of all the discourses of all the actions that past in presence This man is presented unto her in a thousand shapes there is not a lineament a word a gesture but is expressed The understanding quickly creates to it self too many ill lights the will too much fire and the soul wholly propendeth to the thing beloved Yet the fire of God awakeneth her and suffers her to have good respites which makes her ashamed to tell her own thoughts to her proper heart Conscience and Honour make some resistance and glimmering flashes and if there be found some good directour who may help them in this first battell they many times get the victory But if a soul be deprived of good counsel abandoned to it self and which is worse soothed in its malady by some soft and complying spirit it is an unhappinesse which cannot sufficiently be deplored Reason is weakned shamefac'tnesse flies away passion prevaileth there is nothing left but wandering of the soul a feaver a perpetuall Frenzy a neglect of works of affairs of functions sadnesse languour Impatience Confidence and affrightment Shall she say so shall she do so God forbids it the law menaceth it and honour cries vengeance The pleasure of a dream and beyond it nothing but Abysses Love notwithstanding urgeth and strikes at all considerations they impute to starres to destiny to Necessity what is nothing but folly They think businesse is done when it is but thought on that they must be audacious and that there are crimes which are sanctified in the worlds opinion by the good hap of their succestes They come Prosperum ac foelix seclus viâ—tus vocatur Senec. Diversities of Love to that passe that they no longer sinne by method but through exorbitancy In some Love is sharp and violent in others dull and impetuous in others toyish and wanton in others turbulent and cloudy in others brutish and unnaturall in others mute and shamefac't in others perplexed and captious in others light and tradsitory in others fast and retentive in others fantastick and inconstant in others weak and foppish in others stupid astonished in others distempted in some furious and desperate It enflameth the bloud it weakens the body it wanneth Moechia affinis Idololatriae Tertul. de pudicitia the colour it halloweth the eyes it overthrows the mind it hath somewhat of being possessed and witchcraft something of Idolatry For you behold in those who are entred farre into this passion flouds and Ebbs of thoughts Fits and Countenances of one possessed and it is in all of them to deifie the creature of whom they are so passionately enamoured and would willingly set it in the place where the Sun and starres are yea upon Altars All which proceeds from it is sacred chains and wounds are honourable with them if they come from this beloved-hand They would die a hundred times for it so it throw but so much as a handfull of flowers or distill but a poor tear on their Tombe It is to deceive to say that love excludeth all other passions it awakeneth them and garboileth them and makes them all wait on it it causeth Aversion Hatred Jealousie envie hope sadnesse despair anger mirth tears scorn grief songs and sighs and as it is thought that evil spirits shuffle in storms to stirre up lightning flasks and make the thunder-stroke the more terrible and pernicious So is it likewise true that the Evil Angels intermeddle in the great tempests of love angell of darknesse involveth himself in these great tempests of love many times making use of the abominable minestery of Magicians and acteth Treasons furies fierings poysonings murders and ransackings And how should it spare its enemie since it Cruelty of love on the persons of lovers is cruell to it self It maketh some to sink in the twinkling of an eye drinking their bloud and insensibly devouring their members It confineth others into regions of Hobgoblins and darknesse It kils and murdereth those who have the most constantly served it It sharpned the sword which transfixed Amnon It shaved and blinded Samson It gave a Halter to Phyllis A downfoll to Timagoras A gulph to Caleazo and caused Hemon to kill himself on the tomb of Antigone Volumes would not be sufficient for him who should write all the Tragedies which daily arise from this passion all pens would be weak words be dryed up and wits lost therein § 8. Remedies of evil Love by precaution I Leave you now dear Reader to argue within your self whether one who hath never so little humane judgement for his comportment and quiet ought not to bend all his endeavours to banish the fury which plungeth his whole life in so great acerbities and such horrible Distrust ofones self recourse to God calamities But if you desire to know the way the first thing I advise you while you are yet in perfect health is seriously to consider that one cannot be chaste but by a most singular gift from God as the wise-man saith and therefore it is necessary to have a particular recourse to the most blessed Trinity which according to S. Gregory Nazianxen is the first of virgins humbly beseeching it by the intercession of the most pure among creatures and by the mediation of your Angel-guardian to deliver you from the reproches of the spirit of impurity in such sort that you may passe Love is sometimes the punishment of pride Climachus de castitate your life innocently and it may become inaccessible to the pollutions of flesh If you feel your self free from this vice yet enter not into any vain complacence of your self as if it proceeded from your own forces and not from heavens benignity Above all take heed of pride for the most illuminated Fathers have observed that God oft-times permitteth arrogant spirits to fall into carnall sinnes to abate the fiercenesse of their courage by the sensible ignominy of the stains of luxury and this is so proper to quail the exorbitance of humane arrogance that God had not a better Counterpoise to make S. Paul humble in such heighth of revelations then the sting of the flesh Pardon not your Et ne magnitudo revelationis extollat me datus est mihi stimulus earnis meae Angeâ—us Satanae qui me colaphizet Cor. 2. 12. self any thing no not so much as the shadow of this sin but onely excuse such as fall through some notable surprisall or pitifull frailty Think if you have not experienced the like falls you are beholding to
of their flying arrows overthrown scattered torn into a thousand pieces by the enterprise of a Jewesse Judith gives not her self the praise of this work it was God that acted in her who was the direction of her hand the strength of her arm the spirit of her prudence the ardour of her courage and the soul of her soul O how great is this God of gods O how terrible is this Lord of hosts and who is there that fears not God but he that hath none at all What Colossus's of pride have faln and shall yet fall under his hands What giants beaten down and plunged even into hell for kindling fiery coals of concupiscence shall smoak in flames by an eternall sacrifice which their pains shall render to the Divine Justice HESTER THe holy Scripture sets before our eyes in this History Greatnesse falling into an eclipse and the lownesse of the earth elevated to the Starres Humility on the Throne and Ambition on the Gallows Might overthrown by Beauty Love sanctified and Revenge strangled by its own hands It teaches Kings to govern and People to obey great Ones not to relie on a fortune of ice Ladies to cherish Piety and Honour the Happy to fear every thing and the Miserable to despair of nothing All that we have to discourse of here happened in the Kingdome of Persia during the Captivity of the Jews in Babylon about four hundred and sixty years before the Nativity of our Lord and under the Reign of Ahasuerus But it is a great Riddle to divine who this Prince was to whom Hester was married and which is called here by a name that is not found in the History of the Persian Kings and which indeed may agree to all those high Monarchs signifying no other thing but The great Lord. Mercator sayes that it was Astyages grandfather of Cyrus and Cedrenus that it was Darius the Mede Genebrand is for Cambyses Scaliger for Xerxes Serrarius for Ochus Josephus and Saillan for Artaxerxes with the long hand The wise Hester that was so much in love with Chastity is found to have had fourteen husbands by the contestation of Authours every one would give her one of his own making she is married to all the Kings of Persia she is coursed up and down through all the Empire and her Espousals made to last above two hundred years But as it is easie enough to confute the Opinions of all those that speak of her so is it very hard to settle the truth of the Chronology amidst so great obscurities The Scripture sayes that Mordecai with Hester was carried away out of Judea into Babylon under the Reign of Nebuchadonozor and if we are of the opinion that marries her to Artaxerxes if we reckon well all the years that were between those two Kings we shall find that this young and ravishing beauty of Hester which caught so great a Monarch by the eyes was already an hundred and fifty years old which is an age too ripe for a maid that one would give for a wife to a King It is impossible to get out of this labyrinth if we do not say that Mordecai and Hester were not transported in their own but in the persons of their ancestours and that that passage means nothing else but that they issued from the race of those that were lead captives with King Jechonias destroyed by Nebuchadonozor so we will take Artaxerxes and not divide that amiable concord of Authours united in this point Represent then to your selves that from the time that the Jews were dispersed into Babylon into Persia into Medea and through all the States of those great Kings they ceased not to multiply in Captivity and that servitude which is wont to stifle great spirits produced sometimes amongst them gallant men Amongst others appeared upon the Theatre the excellent Mordecai a man of a good understanding and of a great courage who by his dexterity and valour delivered all his Nation from death and total ruine He then dwelt in Shushan the capitall city of all the Kingdome and bred up in his house a little Niece the daughter of his brother an orphan both by father and mother which was named in her first child-hood Edisla and after called Hester Now as those great spirits that are particularly governed by God have some tincture of Prophecie he had a wonderfull Dream and saw in his sleep a great tempest with thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake which was followed with a combate of two dragons who were fighting one against the other and sent forth horrible hissings whiles divers Nations assembled together stood and looked upon them expecting the issue of the combate thereupon he perceived a little fountain which became suddenly a great river which was changed into a Light and of a Light transformed it self into a Sun that both watcred and illuminated the earth He knew not what his Dream did mean but he learned the Interpretation of it in the great combates he had with Haman and in the exaltation of his little Niece that was promoted to so high a splendour as to give both evidence and refreshment to all the people of her Nation This Mordecai being a man of good behaviour and quality found means to advance himself to Court and to make his beginnings there in some inferiour office expecting some good occasion to make himself be known He had an eye alwayes open to discover all that passed without any bragging of it He considered the approaches of divers Nations that lived in that Court the humours the capacities the businesses the obligations the intricacies the credit the industry of every one omitting nothing of all that might advance the benefit of his Countrey-men He quickly discovered the spirit of Haman who was at that time a mean Cavalier of fortune but ambitious close crafty revengefull bloudy and capable to embroil a State He had an aversation from him although he had not yet been offended by him and began to distrust him fearing lest he be one day fatall to his people Neverthelesse Haman with the times took an high ascendant and Mordecai feared his greatnesse as one would do the apparition of a Comet It happened that two perfidious Subjects Thares and Bagathan ushers of the door made an abominable conspiracy against King Artaxerxes which Mordecai who was not a drowsie spirit soon perceived and began carefully to watch them observing their goings out and comings in their words and their countenances their plottings and their practices He gave notice of it very opportunely so that being taken arrested and put to the rack they acknowledged the crime and were led away to punishment The King gave hearty thanks to Mordecai commanded him to live in his Palace in a certain office which he bestowed upon him and caused the day to be set down in writing wherein he had been preserved from the conspiracy of those unhappy servants to recompence as opportunity should be offered the good services of his Deliverer
by causing him to be espoused to the daughter of an high Priest of the city of Heliopolis consecrated to the sun but he caused him to be called The Saviour of the world and commanded that he should be carryed through the capitall city upon his triumphant chariot and that the Herald of Arms should cause men to bend their knees before him that he might be acknowledged of all the people and that all the world might understand that nothing was done but by his orders Where are those admirers of the fortunes of glasse that happen to to the wicked where are those adorers of the Colussu's of dirt that appear by the help of some false guildings and are immediately reduced to dust Let them see and let them consider that the God of heaven and earth which we adore is the God of honour too whereof he gives a share to his when it pleases him with magnificences that surpasse all whatsoever one can imagine For a prison of three years Joseph is exalted to a principality of fourscore with an authority so absolute that it never yet had its equall since the foundation of the Monarchy of the Egyptians It now remains to observe for the instruction of Courtiers the deportments of Joseph in that Charge and although the Scripture sayes very little of that businesse enlarging it self principally upon the narration of his reconciliation with his brethren yet it omits not to give us something whereon to meditate and whereby to instruct our selves about his demeanour at the Court. In the first place he is greatly to be commended for having preserved through his whole life a piety inviolable in the Religion of his fathers without altering the service of the true God by any bad tincture of the superstition of the Egyptians Represent to your selves a child about seventeen years of age that was in a strange Nation as the Morning-star whereof the Scripture speaks in the midst of clouds without a father without a mother without a governour or a teacher without a Priest without a Sacrifice without a Law without Precepts and without example that saw himself allured and powerfully sollicited to quit his Religion by that complacency which he desired to give his Prince by the consideration of his fortune by the friendship of the great ones by the condition of his marriage and by the liking which he might aim at of a people extremely fastned to their errour that could not easily endure those that had any other opinion of their Gods then their madnesse did prescibe And yet in an age so tender he holds his own by constancy of mind against the mighty by reason against the sages of the countrey by warinesse against his own wife by sweetnesse and by prudence against the people He remains alone amongst so many millions of superstitious men an adorer of the truth in spirit without other sacrifices or ceremonies which were not lawful for him to use To speak truth he that shall weigh all these circumstances will find a marvellous weight of virtue and constancy in this holy personage We may see many of the young gentry sufficiently well educated at the first that coming to breathe the air of liberty amongst the Hereticks and having not the frequentation of the Sacraments so free as formerly easily forget their duty and without having any other corruptour to sollicite them corrupt themselves of themselves through the want of courage and wearisomnesse of virtue But if there be any baits of pleasure or of honour that allures them to the side of impiety they tread often times under foot all that there is of divine and humane for the satisfying of their sensuality But this young man that saw every day before his eyes a thousand stumbling-blocks in a Nation that was addicted to Idolatry above all the People of the World and that had often torn in pieces those that expressed any contempt of their Ceremonies preserves himself amidst these enticements and these furies as a fountain of fresh-water in the midst of the salt-Sea The true God alwayes returned into his thoughts when he was to combate against the passion of his Mistresse when he was to present himself to the King when he was to require an oath of his brethren it was by the true God and when he was ready to render up the Ghost he conjured his children not to let his bones rot in a land of Idolatry Yet some men may wonder that in so long a sojourning as he made in Egypt and in an authority so absolute he tooke care onely of the Politick affairs and advanced not the interests of his Religion Some may marvell at the alliance that he made with a daughter of a Priest of Idols which could not be without putting his conscience in great danger there being nothing more full of Artifice then superstition that is upheld with Love But to this I answer That all that he could do then was to preserve his Faith without pretending to ruine the contrary It was not expedient that the figure should incroach upon the Body and that Joseph should do the work of the Messias This demolition of the prophane Temples and this destruction of the Idols was not due but to Jesus Christ and to the Deifying operations of the Evangelicall Law after the coming of the Holy Spirit How should Joseph have been able to enterprise the conversion of the Gentiles seeing that our Lord would not permit no not his Disciples while he was yet on earth to make incursions and missions into the Countrey of the Heathens commanding them to stay for that spirit of fire and light that was to inflame the whole world with its ardours And as for that which touches his allyance there was not yet any Law that forbad the Mariages of the Jews with the Gentiles and he had but newly seen the example of his Father Jacob who had allyed himself with the house of Laban This was done indifferently enough in the Law of Nature by reason that God had not commanded any thing that was contrary to this practice and because that his People were yet but a little family in the middle of the world But this fashion was changed afterward as it is clear by the Scripture and those who produce the Examples of Abraham and of Jacob to perswade allyance with Infidels shew that they have little Reason and much Passion In the second Place I say that the Modesty of Joseph is of a rare Example and of a strength of mind almost incomparable Which will be easie enough to prove to those that know how seriously to weigh the change of humour and of spirit that honour ordinarily brings with it and especially when it is great and sudden and falls upon a person that is not accustomed to it There are some that are like the Thracians that make themselves Drunk standing about burning coals by the odour of a certain herb which they throw into the fire after which they dance
much onely as would load two mules to build an Altar to the true God with holy ground and not profaned by Idolatry expressing by this request that he desired to worship the true God in spirit and in truth though he received not Circumcision nor the other Ceremonies of the Jews He aded to his former suit the permission to accompany his master to the Temple of the Idols through a pure civility without rendring any inward adoration to the Gods of Syria which the Prophet granted him and sent him away in peace all full of blessing But Gehazi Elisha's servant was like to spoil all by a wicked cozenage for he ran after Naaman who seeing him come alighted out of his chariot and received him with much honour asking what he desired of him The other feigned that two children of the Prophets were come to see his master and that he desired to gratifie them with a talent of silver and to give to each of them a change of raiment Naaman thought himself obliged by this request and instead of one talent gave him two with two handsome suits of clothes causing all of it to be carried by two of his servants by reason that a talent of silver was a good load for one man Gehazi thought that he had succeeded bravely in his cheat but when he presented himself to his master he told him that he had been present in spirit at all that had passed and that he was not ignorant that he had at present silver from Naaman enough to become a great Lord and to buy lands and servants but for punishment of his crime the leprosie of Naaman should stay on him and should passe as an inheritance to all his race and at that instant he was stricken with the leprosie and retired himself leaving an horrible example to all those that betray their conscience to satiate their covetousnesse It happens that these bad servants extremely black the reputation of their masters that have not alwayes their eyes on their shouldiers as Elisha had to see that which passes behind them but when they imagine that they live very innocently and that they discharge their consciences in their charges one may find that a crafty wife or a corrupted Committee sell them by a thousand practices and devour the marrow and the bloud of men under the favour of their name Sigismond the Emperour made one of his officers named Pithon that had betrayed his affairs through covetousnesse of money drink up a glasse of melted gold 'T was but a bad potion but sutable for the chastisement of an overflowing avarice that hath no longer eyes for heaven having already given all her heart to the earth It is credible that Naaman was advertised of the untrustinesse of Gehazi and that this nothing blemished the high reputation of Elisha that was spread through all Syria After the cure of this Naaman Benhadad that was his Master and his King fell into a mortall sicknesse and when he had learnt that the Prophet Elisha was come as farre as his city of Damascus he dispatched Hazael one of the prime men of his Kingdome with fourty camels laden with great riches to consult with him about the hope that he might have of his recovery and to desire his help The Prophet was not like Hyppocrates that would cure none but Greeks and refused to go into Persia though he was invited thither by letters and by the offers of that great and magnificent King Artaxerxes But quite contrary the man of God thought that one ought not to limit the gifts of heaven and that he that opens the treasures of nature to all the Nations of the earth would not have one detain the marks of his power without communicating them to those that bear in any fashion his Image He cleansed the leprosie of Naaman but yet for all that cured not Benhadad because it was a decree of Providence that he should die of that sicknesse The Scripture tells us not expresly what became of those great presents but it leaves us to think that Elisha refused them as he had done those of Naaman and did nothing that belyed his generosity Although one may also believe that he accepted them as well to diminish the levies of the enemies of his people as to spread them amongst the poor of his own countrey He spake onely to this Hazael the Kings Embassadours a very short speech which was that he should die of that sicknesse and should never rise out of his bed again and yet in appearance he commands him to tell him that he should escape it and recover again his health Which causes here a question to arise thorny enough touching the permission of a lie and which hath made Cassian and other antient Divines say that there are some profitable lies which one ought to make use of as one uses serpents to make treacle But this opinion is no way followed but is found condemned by S. Augustine and the most renowned Doctours So that when Elisha said to Prince Hazael touching his King He shall die but tell him he shall escape we ought to take it as a command that authorizes a lie but as a prophecy of that which should be done For the Prophet foresaw these two things with one and the same sight both that Benhadad should die and that Hazael to flatter him should promise him health and life And therefore he addes Tell him that he shall escape which in a Prophets terms is as much as a future and means that although I declare to you his death yet I know you well and am certain that according to your politick Maxims you will not fail to promise him a cure It is just as God commaaded the evil spirit to lie and to deceive Ahab foretelling what he would do and not commanding that which ought not to be done according to the laws of a good conscience As Elisha was foretelling of that Kings death he felt an extasie of spirit and changed countenance notably and began to weep whereat Hazael was much astonished and had a curiosity to know the reason of a change so sudden But the Prophet continuing in the trans-ports of his spirit said unto him I weep and I sigh bitterly for I know the evils that thou wilt make my poor people one day suffer Thou wilt burn down the fair cities thou wilt make the young men passe by the edge of the sword thou wilt dash out the brains of the little infants thou wilt inhumanely rip up women great with child thou wilt sack my dear countrey for which I now pour out my tears by way of advance The Embassadour was amazed at a discourse so strange and said Why What am I should do all these outrages God forbid that I should ever ever proceed so farre I have in all this no more belief then hath my dog But Elisha insisting told him I know by divine Revelation that thou shalt be King of Syria and that which I