their pains Hearken to them and be not so cruel as to refuse them a word of consolation At least let there be some sweetness in your eyes and believe not that this were to abase your self and to forget your Rank to regard the afflicted and to permit them to lament before you Deal with God as his Slave Congregationi pauperum affabilem te facito magnati humilia caput tuum Eccl. 4. With the Simple as your Brother With the Proud as your Master Keep your Rank by these Raise your selves above the insolence of men but abase your selves under the powerful and Divine Majesty Be humble before him who hath made you great adore the hand that can destroy you Have pitty of the miseries that may be common to you And do not despise the Tears which you see run from eyes that resemble yours Be you not in your Province or in your Land as a Lyon Noli esse sicut leo in domo tua evertens domesticos opprimens subditos Eccl. 4. which tears what he meets there Be ashamed that your Family should perish because you live That your House should be unhappy because you are the Master and that those who dwell with you should not dwell there but as the damned and were not there but to suffer the furies and follies of a Devil that possesses you and acts you Live after that manner that a man of honour and vertue ought to live in a perpetual evenness of spirit present to your self attentive to your business at peace during the several motions of fortune equitable and courteous towards your Domesticks officious towards your Friends charitable towards the Poor obliging towards all the World See you nothing more fine in your riches and dignities then being able to serve a greater number of persons and judge that the services and submissions that men pay to you and the friendships which all companies express to you are no honour to you and they are unjust if you endeavour not to do more good then they do you and if you love not at least asmuch as you are loved IX MAXIM A mans pride shall bring him low but honour shall uphold the humble spirit Prov. 29. PARAPHRASE GLory seeks humble spirits and though they hide themselves it will find them The ambitious who seek it shall be humbled Whosoever would raise himself by pride shall find nought but what he flyes he shall fall into reproach and there he shall perish REFLECTION IN this there hath not been excepted neither Men or Angels The most lovely are the most despised and hated assoon as they become proud Insolence mixed with their perfections and their vertues form thereof and I know not what that is intolerable That which in a dead man is rotteness and stink pride is in immortal spirits they are every where insufferable they are not at all regarded in Heaven and on Earth but with horrour both the one and the other World conspire to scorn and to hate them The conspiration is not less common to honour humility The admiration of men the friendship of the Angels the favours of the Son of God all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and all the honours of time and eternity are for the humble There are not now amongst us others Predestinate then these we shall see no other happy in Paradise Grace and Glory are their lot The only and true secret to be honoured is to abase a mans self Spiritum humilem suscipiet gloria To think meanly of your self learn and know well what you are You shall not learn it in reading of Books nor in hearkning to Masters Your Conscience must tell it you and make you to comprehend it Ask it You shall be humble assoon as you hearken to it and that you give your self the leasure to consider what it knows thereupon and what it will oblige you to believe and confess Humility wholly consists in saying from the heart and with a devout and sincere sentiment that you are of your self nothing but sin frailty and corruption and all the rest which is in your person comes from the Creator And if you had in your birth any advantage above others and any natural qualities These laudable qualities were not the price of your vertue nor the work of your hands but the gifts of his providence and of his love but in truth he hath done you many favours which increase yet every day and your sins increase asmuch as they And that these are the two most remarkable things in your life The one that your miseries have not hindred God from loving you tenderly and heaping of good things on you The other that so many kindnesses and so much love has not hindred you from being unthankfull but have been so ever since you knew that he loved you Say that from the Heart think it sincerely and let your humble and respectful looks your gestures and motions and all that appears outwardly of you carry the mark of this lowliness and of this inward contempt of your self Have in your conversation a modesty which were the image of your innocent and humble Soul have it in your Conduct at every occasion and with every body In any place that you are live and speak as a man who evidently knows his own unworthiness When that you are near God at the time of Prayer and the Exercises of a devour life if you would please him and deserve that he should chuse you to glorify you in his power let your principal devotion be to represent to him how much you deserve that he should contemn you In contemplation of his truths confess yours See your darkness in his Light confound your self tremble and lament Unto what condition soever you may be raised by his Grace never cease to adore him by all nullitys proper to a nullity that hath sinned and rendred himself worse and more miserable then he was eternally when he was nothing When that you are in business during the exercise of your Authority among the multitude of those who seek after you and honour you if you would that they should do it sincerely shew them that you well know your self In like manner let it appear on your countenance and by the Conduct of your words and actions that you are not ignorant that in the midst of felicities and honours of fortune as in the middest of the richness of a stately Tomb you are nothing but a shadow or a little ashes hid there under that you hold before them the Rank of a Judge or a Master but that before God you have no other but that of Nothing and Sinner Do not say it with your mouth it is enough to believe it but perfection is what I have said to believe it and think it so well that the thoughts of your Soul appear visibly marked in the modesty of your eyes These are in effect those thoughts mark'd in that manner which have rendred great men so
and your own judgement but don't trust all sorts of persons False Maxims and evil Councils enter easily and sweetly into the spirit Fear them and leave not your self to be lead by men who go out of the common way There are paths in the spiritual life which appear fair one sees therein many things that make men believe that they are shortest to arrive to holiness but it is dangerous to follow them and they are ordinarily those which lead soonest and most certainly unto death REFLECTION ONe ought not to be astonished at finding here below such paths as these since one finds there proud Men and Hypocrites The unavoidable blindness and common to all proud men is to perswade themselves that they see spots in the Sun errours in the Doctrine of the Church and abuses in its Conduct And that which is yet worse is That driven by the zeal that the illusion inspires them with they undertake to wipe out these spots and to correct those errours Nothing which the hand of God has made seem to them finisht but when they have changed somthing or that they have given the last stroaks thereto 'T is thence that all the changes in the exercise of Devotion comes that we so often complain of and from thence all these particular ways of repentance and salvation where each one runs drawn by the splendor of novelty and where each seeks to wander and to perish There doth not appear presently in those ways but of footsteps holy and right seemingly marked by the rules of the Gospel and by the actions of the Apostles But Novissima ducunt ad mortem Novelty is a way that leads to the eldest sin that is Apostasy and to the last of evils which is impenitence and despair The cause why so many fine people are seen in this way so fatal is that the Devil has always gone there first All Devil as he is he hath I know not what which pleases the Woman when he counterfeits the devout one although Heaven and Earth could tell her she must run after him And when the Woman is seduced she has I don 't know what that bewitches the man Each man does what Adam did The wisest run after her And when wise Men begin to wander and to loose themselves there is then neither blind nor fool that follows them not and that believes not that it is Wisdom to imitate them and to perish with them One sees people run from far to enter into this dangerous way and to go where example and hypocrisy draws them Our Souls are tyed to one another by certain invisible chains and it is thereby That the poison of the Serpent without being able to be seen or stopt spreads it self in the hearts and that it carries throughout corruption and death All the new fashions of saving ones self are the inventions of him who would that the Saints should be damn'd Est via quae videtur homini recta novissima autem ejus ducunt ad mortem VII MAXIME Inquisition shall be made into the Councils of the ungodly Wisd 1. PARAPHRASE AS the ungodly fear Men although they fear not God When they have any doubts to propose on the mysteries of Religion they propose them to themselves they ask secretly their spirit from whence he knows that the World has been made by a Creator and that after Death there is a Judgement a future Life an Hell an Eternity c. REFLECTION THe little questions of worldly Philosophy are not far from great It is by these that one suddenly learns to render himself a Master in Impiety and to propose to his heart and to his disciples boldly doubts scandalous and against eternal truths The Maniche who askt his friend If it is God who made the Flyes is very near asking if it is God who hath made Man One Frederick who asks of the Societies and Philosophers of his Court if the Birds are living will quickly ask himself if the Angels are so and if there are immortal Souls It is fine in an assembly of the curious to do towards the souls of Bulls and Elephants what they do about stones when they burst them and to shew that under the false appearance of the Unity they are but multitudes of grains of sand and of heaps of dust But at the rebound of these academic conversations it is that the Democritus's and Metrodorus's have in their solitudes proposed to their Conscience other prouder questions and to maintain to it That all the great things of the Earth and even those of Heaven dreaded so much by people are not great Bodies nor great Spirits nor great Divinities but great assemblies of little Nothings and that there are not in the universe three things truly united as those of Atoms and Nothings arrived to the last estate of an indivisible smallness Have a care dangers are pleasant to youth and folly Be Wise and follow not Masters who to go establish their School on the brink of praecipices Withdraw your self as far from thence as you can and although this brink seems firm remember there are none but blind men who will stay on a place where there needs but one puff of wind to drive them to the bottom of an abyss It is true that those who lead others into these dangers when they explain themselves publickly have expressions and terms which are like choice colours and proper to paint innocence and truth on the gate of a House where they are not But their Philosophy is no better To be wise and bold Philosophers or for us not to be Criminals is very little less then to speak correctly and not to speak any thing that one can accuse the point is to do in such sort as that our innocent and unreprovable propositions may not give cause to believe that our thoughts are worth nothing It is of Sciences as it is of words The most dangerous are the chastest and the most modest when that under the vail of their modesty they find themselves the properest to convey corruption into the heart and to make them understand that they may think well of things of which the Teacher durst not speak Have not the curiosity to know the way of your ruine and go not to School to learn to perish nor to learn there to forget what you have learnt and known from the Cradle Have the happiness to bear the evident mark of a Soul well made and of a Wit well brought up which is not to be pleased with any Doctrine but that which serves you to know God and helps you to love him VIII MAXIM The way of a Fool is right in his own eyes but he that hearkeneth to Council is wise Prov. 12. PARAPHRASE THe senseless Man believes that his Conduct is good and he will have no other Judge than himself The wise Man distrusts his own judgment As he learns what he ought to believe from the sentiments of the Church so he learns what he ought
of innocence the passions raised not themselves but by the orders of reason In the state of wisdome and of Christian holyness the same passions rayse not themselves but under reason but in a state of licentiousness they raise themselves above it These tempestuous darknesses cover the whole man and spread trouble and obscurity even to the highest region The passions are strong so are you much stronger then they I can say at least of the wise man of all great men that they have in their persons three powerfull helps against these domestic enemies three benefits of the Orator Sanctified by Grace Good nature Courage and wisdome III. MAXIM I had a good spirit came into a body undefiled Wisd 8. PARAPHRASE I have found in me saith Solomon from my youth all the bounties of an excellent nature They are not the fruits of my pains nor the gifts of fortune God who governs the accidents of our birth and life hath given them me t is the work of his hands and a present of his love more ancient then my selfe REFLECTION AN excellent and fine nature is no other thing Sortitus sum animam bonam veni ad corpus coinquinatum then the excellency and the beauty of a noble soul communicated to the Passions As souls of that rank possess their nobility and greatness from the birth when they enter into the body they have the power to help nature to compose their temperaments and these are they Tabernarulum pro habitu suo fingunt who by the impression of their force and sweetness do form the imagination give the Character to the organs They shed out of themselves their qualities and all they can of their divine fire and heavenly inclinations to mingle it among the bloud and the corrupted passions and by this happy medley they weaken the poyson of the corruption and the mortal violence of the malady that it finds there These pure starrs have influences which insinuate themselves secretly among the flames of lust and there tempers that which is most burning in their fury and most unruly in their motions One sees in many persons a moderation and a purity which makes one think that there remaines not any spot of the sin of Adam in them There appears nothing but what is handsom in their passions nor any thing which seems not to agree with the spirit and to have spiritual inclinations That comes here from that this spirit sublime by priviledge common to all perfect Beings hath a secret power of which that of the Loadstone is a shaddow to draw from the earth all that it toucheth and to draw it unto its Pole The passions touched by the vertue of a noble soul turn themselves towards Heaven and aspire not but to laudable and honest ends Vir sapiens fortis est The spirit of Man is wise and strong because that there is nothing in his person which opposeth it self unto its elevation and which refuseth to follow them IV. MAXIM He that is slow to anger is better then the mighty and he that ruleth his spirit then he that taketh a City Prov. 16. PARAPHRASE COurage and the love of true honour is enough to render a man Master of his lusts and desires Courage contains two vertues force and patience And these are as the two parts which compose it and distinguisheth it from the other perfections of our nature By force we resist Men and our enemies that are strangers by patience our passions and domestick enemies Conquerors of Men are admired and crowned upon earth Conquerors of themselves Violenti capiunt illud are so in Heaven and it is for them that all the triumphs and immortal Crowns are there prepared The vigour of those is worth much and it deserves the reputation that it hath in the World The Patience of these although the World prize it less is much more worth it is the most necessary and ought to be most honoured The one and the other have been always put in the first rank of the moral vertues and they are those that have given the name of Great to the Constantines and the Charlemains and which have made the Heroes of old adored But if you cannot aspire but to one of the two chuse that which wise Men have preferred and mark that amongst your Maxims the words that one has seen written upon some Princes Standards and that all great Souls find graven in themselves as a device of natures chusing Melior est patiens viro forti qui dominatur animo suo expugnatore urbium REFLECTION ONe demands what this Courage is Every body answers It is easy to deceive ones self therein and to take appearance for truth Many do ill to put it in the number of feavers and the heats of their corrupted nature and to believe that it is no other thing then an inflammation of choler which unexpectedly kindles it selfe at the meeting of some object of Anger and which heating the imagination and troubling the humours of the body pusheth the man inconsiderately into dangers Courage is not of the number of the passions it is their Master nature keeps it in the middle of them not as a Criminal amongst its Accomplices but a Conquerour amongst his Slaves to keep them in duty and subject them to labour Their fires are different from his but they are fit to serve him Some perfwade themselves that this which we call true Courage is a Military Angel who during combats enters into the soules of the Heroes and there produceth the Marvels that we admire Others That t is only the inspiration or the breath of this Angel which pusheth on the hearts of souldiers and gives motion to armies The most wise have very wisely said that it is a spiritual flame kindled by the Creator in the highest part of our Soul as a starr in the highest part of the Firmament A peaceful and regular flame sublime incorruptible ardent pure and fruitfull alwayes fastned to Heaven and busy on earth by an inexhaustible emanation of influences necessary for the conservation of the repose and life of the people But whatsoever Courage may be do not you believe that to be couragious you are obliged to take arms and go seek enemies in far Countreys Abide where you are and make warr against your passions you shal do saith Solomon more than those who wear the sword When that you pardon injuries and by a generous patience you suffer slanders and calumnies you are better then the souldier that revengeth them And it is more honourable to you to stop in you any transport of anger or to repell in you any thoughts which flatter you and draw you to sin then to destroy an Army and to take Cities Your greatness and your glory is not to abase others before you but to be great in your selfe and to have above those an elevation independent on their fall or misery When you overcome your irregular impatience and you resist
neither learned Men nor Artists but when they shall not find it True Philosophy is not to enquire and in questions where one must of necessity say I know nothing on 't those who say it soonest and who do not study twenty years to say it are the most wife and most happy IV. MAXIM Thou shalt not trust to thy own Prudence PARAPHRASE WHen you seek the truth believe not your own sentiments nor do not rely on your particular thoughts Fear what comes from you and which is new and take heed of making thereof rules of Philosophy and Maxims of Conduct Draw from your Prudence what Light you are able but try it by Lights more shining and sure then yours When it shall enlighten you have other Torches to enlighten that first and never go in the dark and near to praecipices with it alone REFLECTION NE innitaris prudentiae tuae A Lyar doth not always lye but it is always imprudence to trust to his word Although our reasoning somtimes doth not deceive us we never fail to be blame worthy when we hearken to it and that we take for certain truths What we know not but from it alone This particular reasoning is not in man but to betray him and to lead him to his ruine 'T is it that produces ignorances errors impieties false Religions false Philosophers and that forms these by paths and deceitful ways where we see many people to wander Some enter into these ways by simplicity but most by pride They believe that Wisdom Justice would that they went on that side because their own reasoning leads them there But they follow a strange guide Beasts are lead by their passion Fools by their arguing and wise Men by reason None will profit by the misfortunes of others Although each Philosopher during the disputes cry with all the endeavours of his voice to warn his friends that their reasoning deceives them each will believe that his will not deceive him and each hears it as his Master there is no authority that overweighs their own nay even of the Gospel nor experience The Proud respect nothing but this unhappy prudence and it happens more then once in an age that a little Philosopher undertakes to examine Religion or to reform the Elements and overturn the World because 't is the dictate of his reasoning so to do A wise Man in reasoning with himself according to humane thoughts has never learnt any thing certain but that his arguing was blind and that he never drew any other profit thence then to say to himself Ne innitaris prudentiae tuae V. MAXIME Wisedom standeth in the top of the high places by the way in the places of the paths She crieth at the gates at the entry of the City Unto you O men I call and my voice is to the sons of men Proverb 8. PARAPHRASE WIsdom speaks upon the Mountains and in the high ways at the gates of Cities in the midst of the streets and in all places where it finds most people There it infuseth it self on the tongues of the people and it makes use of their voices to the end it might make it's self heard afar off and to speak more strongly Supra viam in mediis semitis It is there that the curious who would learn it's Doctrine and who aspire to be the Oracles of their Nation and Masters of Science in particular Universities ought to go O viri ad vos clamito O Philosophers 't is to you that I direct my words if you will be truly wise come and hearken to me when I teach truth in the assembly of men REFLECTION WHat one calls here the People is not a heap of little folk but a mixture of all men who speak naturally without study and without artifice and without a Conduct of any acquired Science and of any reflection The voice of this People and the voice of Wisdom in fused or to say better the voice of the instinct which is impeccable and which hath always been the true Master of Philosophers whereon consider the 3. following words 1. That our business during this life when God has given us the Wit is to study and to apply our selves to know the most hidden marvels of nature 2. That the business of the Creator from the day of our birth is to teach us himself and to engrave on the chiefest part of our Soul the first principles the chief and fundamental Truths of this natural Philosophy 3. That the business of the instinct is to make those so remote Truths to approach to our senses that we may be the better able to know them To put them on the tongue of people and to tell them to us by the general voice of all Nations What Nations say and what they have said by common consent in all ages they have said it being driven by this instinct and who makes it say nothing but what he finds written by the Spirit of God in the spirit of all Men. In one word it is the voice of the Holy Ghost in Christian Theology and the voice of the Conscience in the moral the voice of the instinct and of the people in the Physick 'T is it which pronounceth the decisions and decrees incontestible The people are ignorant and blind but well led It understands not what it says but it speaks Truth and our glory in studying or in teaching is not to correct it or to speak otherwise then it but to explain its words and to understand them better than it understands them it self It is on this public and universal voice that the wise Philosophers ought to support their Science Before arguing on any visible thing in the world they ought to interrogate this great Ignorant called The people and to hearken how they talk in the streets that they might know how they ought to speak in the Schools to the end that upon that Answer as on a Divine principle they might establish their propositions and the works of their particular Doctrine Follow this Council and stop at this Maxim whatsoever the bait may be that invites you to take others do not quit it If to be Author of a new invention instead of building on the Earth you would build in the Air you shall build nothing but follies and ruins If for the better setting of new thoughts in order that come to you and to form a wondrous Philosophy you think it necessary to give the people the lye and to say The fire has no heat nor the snow whiteness nor other quality That the Earth is not immovable That a Beast is no living Creature That the Soul of man is not immortal if you would that these should be the principles contained in the great Volumes of your marvellous Philosophy all your wonders shall be but dreams of impieties and ignorance VI. MAXIM There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death Prov. 16.25 PARAPHRASE MIstrust your self
to do on each occasion by the council of his friends REFLECTION THere are but these two Lights that are faithful and that we may be able to to follow safely amidst the darknesses which surround us The greatest Wits have gone astray in following themselves The meanest and most ignorant have never done it in following the Gospel When one hearkens to his own prudence for enlightned asmuch as can be one often fails of being happy in his attempts But in the hearkening to the council of friends one is always praise worthy Fortune may trouble the success of our actions wisely managed and with council but it cannot rob us of the honour of it It is success enough in a design to acquire the glory of having acted discreetly therein and the reputation of being wise IX MAXIM When he speaketh fair believe him not for there are seven abominations in his heart Proverb 26. PARAPHRASE WHen there is danger for Consciences in a City and that there runs any noise of a new contagious Doctrine don't leave your self to be deceived by its sweetness nor its lustre Distrust words that please you and devotions that astonish you much more A devout voice a pale and a dejected countenance a simple and a reformed habit mysterious words mortifications exemplary and too apparent are vails proper to cover the poison of Hell when they are brought into company and distributed to the curious REFLECTION THe primitive Christians were excused when they suffered themselves to be deceived by appearances of holiness and perhaps we could excuse some innocent women this day when we see them admire the look of an Hypocrite that counterfeits the Reformer But since one has known by six hundred years experience that the archest Hereticks and Anti-christs of each age have begun their life of Seducers by a life of Alms and fasting and by an extatick Devotion there can happen nothing more shameful to Men of Wit and Judgment then to take a dogmatist or a cheat for a Prophet and although he preach manifestly against the Church of God to believe nevertheless that he comes from Heaven because he does Alms makes long Prayers and hath the secret of painting modesty on his countenance Ne credideris ei saith Solomon who ever he be that meddles with Divine mysteries were he one come out of the Caves and the greatest severities were he as saith St. Paul an Angel descended out of Paradise were he as sait Saint Cyprian a Martyr stretched on a wheel and suffering for the Name of the Saviour all the pains of a cruel and infamous death If from the top of this wheel he witnesseth that there rests in his Soul any thoughts or opinions contrary to the sentiments of the Church he is an Apostate and a Reprobate You are one your self if you render your self his disciple he damns himself in dying the death of the Saints and you damn your self in hearkening to this Martyr of Jesus Christ Nec perveniet ad Christi praemia qui relinquit Ecclesiam Christi Si occisus pro nomine Christi fuerit ab unitate divisas coronari in morte non poterit Whosoever believes not the Church is out of the Church and whosoever dies out of the Church although he die between the hands of Tyrants dies out of the number of the Predestinated ones he hath no portion among the Elect of the Son of God Alienus est profanus est hostis est habere non potest Deum Patrem qui Ecclesiam non habet Matrem In one word Fili mi saith the Wise man Si te lactaverint pecoatores ut acquiescas eis Whatsoever sweetness and whiteness there is in the Milk take heed of taking of it when they are poisoners that give it It would be an horrible phrenzie if because you are counselled to beware of this Milk so dangerous that you should desire to taste it and if in the same hour you should do it in despight to those charitable persons who prayed you not to do it and who would oppose this unhappy design 'T is nevertheless the strange and in conceivable fancy or the strange Devil of many Assoon as the Church declares to them that there is the poison of Hell mixed in any Doctrine and by an holy charity adviseth them to renounce and to avoid those who teach it from thenceforth they feel themselves drawn thither ward and there they run as to a precious Doctrine worthy to be known and maintain'd in despight to the Holy Spirit of God and in despight of all those who persecute and condemn it Be you not of their number but reflect young man as you are that its time for you to be wise since you judge it is time to speak of holy things and that you say your sentiments thereon in company and in the Schools At least respect the dignity of your Soul formed after the Image of the Wisdom and of the Holiness of God and profane it not so shamefully as to be willing to take for his Gospel or his Philosophy all the novelties that fools are pleased daily to invent and propose in their discourses X. MAXIM He that walketh uprightly walketh sure but he that perverteth his ways shall be known Prov. 10. PARAPHRASE He that walks plainly and sees where he will go marcheth with assurance but he who counterfeits or wipes out his steps shall be known In hiding his crafts one hides not himself Dissemblers and deceivers bear in their faces the character of their Genius It is sufficient to see a Traitor to make you distrust him and fear him Life is found in the public ways of righteousness and fidelity but crooked and hidden paths lead to death REFLECTION TAke good heed of entring into any of these paths and of following the company who walk in those dark and by-roads Banish from you craft dissimulation and lies have no vail upon your heart and engage it not in the intrigues of dangerous affairs and criminal parties where there is need of being cover'd Be you glad that nothing hinders it from being seen and remember that the fairest and most excellent of things have no better policy to gain men and to merit their esteem and friendship then to shew themselves If there be beauty in your Soul it cannot have too much day and you ought to assure your self that one will have so much the more respect and love for you as you shall have of freedom and sincerity It is true that silence is necessary on many occasions but you must always be sincere and courteous You ought to retain some thoughts but disguise none There are ways of holding ones peace without shutting up the heart of being discreet without being dull and silent of hiding some truths without covering them with lies of being faithful to his friends without deceiving others and without betraying his Conscience In fine it is a great advantage to thrive in the World and to have the reputation of telling nothing