circumstances of his crime Behold you not saith he a bruitish stupiditie to conspire against your father having as yet the bloud of your brothers before your eyes and all the assurances of the scepter in your hands Needs must you perpetrate a parricide to make your self possessour of a Crown which was acquired for you by so solemn and authentical a Testament Look you after nothing but the bloud of your father to set a seal upon it yea of a father whose life is so dear to all bonest men and of nature so indulgent to love his children that have never so little merit An ingratitude able to make Heaven blush and earth tremble under your feet An ingratitude worthy that all the elements should conspire to punish it This man ceased not to discharge against him words of fire with a masculine eloquence and the miserable Antipater prostrated himself on the ground and prayed God to do a miracle in favour of him to make manifest his innocency since he found himself so oppressed by the malice of men It is wonder saith the Historian that those who during their life have believed no God would yet acknowledge him at their death This man lived as if there were neither Heaven God nor Angels and now seeing himself in the horrours of death prayed the Divinity to excuse his crime Varus saith unto him My friend expect not extraordinarie signs from Heaven in your favour but if you have any good reasons boldly produce them The King your father desireth nothing more than your justification Thereupon he stood confounded like a lost man Varus taking the poison that had been before represented to the Councel caused it to be given to an offender already condemned who instantly died and all the assembly arose as it is said with manifest condemnation of Antipater His father esteeming him absolutely convicted required of him his complices he onely named Antiphilus who brought the poison saying this wicked man was cause of all his unhappiness It was a great chance Herod at that time had not caused the sentence of death to be executed upon him but according to his ordinary proceeding he resolveth to inform Caesar of all that had passed and to send him the whole process formally drawn to order all at his pleasure In the mean time Antipater is streightly imprisoned expecting hourly as a miserable victim the stroke of death Herod at that time was about seventy years of age Horrible state of Herod in his lattâ—r days and already felt through imbecillity of body the approach of the last hour It was a very hard morsel for him to digest Never man better loved this present life Very freely would he have forsaken his part of the next world eternally to enjoy this though he in effect was therein most unhappy Towards the end of his days he grew so harsh so wayward then so collerick and furious that his houshold servants knew not how to come about him they handled him in his Palace as an old Lion chained with the fetters of an incurable malady He perswaded himself he was hated of all the world and was therein no whit deceived as having given too great occasion thereof The people almost forgot their duty with impatience and could no longer endure him As soon as his sickness was bruited abroad Judas The golden Eagle thrown down and Matthias the principal Doctours of the Jewish Law who had the youth at command perswaded the most valiant of their sect to undergo a bold adventure which was that Herod having re-edified and adorned the Temple of Jerusalem and as he had always shewed himself for the accommodation of his own estate to be an Idolater of Caesars fortune to set upon the principal gate the Romane Eagle all glittering in gold This much offended the sight of the Jews who could not endure any should place portraictures of men or beasts or any other figures in their Temples so much they abhorred such monsters which their fathers had seen adored in Aegypt Behold why this Judas and Matthias who were the chief thinking the sickness of Herod would help them began earnestly to exhort the most valiant of the young men who every day frequented their houses to take in hand the quarrel of God according to the spirit of their Ancestours and to beat down this abomination which they had fixed upon their Temple That the peril was not now so great Herod having enough to do to wrastle with his own pain but if it should happen they lost their lives to die in so glorious an act was to be buried in the midst of palms and triumphs There needed no more to encourage the youth Behold a troup of the most adventurous came forth about the midst of the day armed with axes and hatchets who climbed to the top of the Temple and hewed in pieces the Eagles in the sight of the whole world Judas and Matthias being there present and serving for trumpets in this exploit The noise hereof instantly came to the Palace and the Captain of the Guard ran thither with the most resolute souldiers He much feared some further plot and that this defacing of the Eagle might prove a preamble to some greater sedition But at the first as he began to charge the people retired which the more encouraged him for pursuit Fourty young men of those who had done the feat were taken in the place Judas and Matthias who accompanied them deeming it a thing unworthy to flie away and that at the least they ought to follow them in peril whom they had brought into danger Being presented to Herod and demanded from whence this boldness proceeded they freely answered Their plot had been fully agreed upon among themselves and if it were to do again they would be in readiness to put it in execution in regard they were more bound to Moses than Herod Herod amazed at this resolution and fearing greater commotions caused them to be secretly conveyed to Jerico whither himself after though crazy was carried and assembling the principal spake to them out of his litter making a long narration of the good offices he had done in favour of the whole Nation of the Temple he had built for them of the ornaments with which he had enriched it adding he had done in few years what their Asmonean Kings could not perform in six-score And for recompence of his piety at noon day they had hewed down with notable boldness a holy gift which he had raised in the Temple wherein God was more interessed than himself for which he required a reason These now fearing any further to incense him declined the danger and put him upon their companions leaving them to the pleasure of the King At that time the High-priesthood is taken from Matthias and another Matthias who was held to have been the authour of the sedition burned alive that night with his companions at which time an eclipse of the moon was seen that made this spectacle
to advance Virtue and to beat down vice without reflecting on any of the Personages of these times no more than if I wrote under the reign of Charlemaigne or S. Lewis I must intreat these spirits of Application which know not how to behold a work without making it subject to their own fancies imagining every letter to be the Ecchoes of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make a gloss upon their own Dreams than on my Books We live not yet God be thanked in an Age so miserable that we dare not sacrifice to Truth without a disguise seeing it is the glory of our Grandees that we may openly make war against Vice as against an enemy and not of our party For to speak sincerely having laid my first Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I considered what great and glistering lights there were in all their Orders within his Court which might serve as Models for my Treatise but to avoid the affectation of all compliance with this world I did expresly forbear it my own nature and my long Robe having so far estranged me from all worldly pretences that it would be a disease unto me but to salute a man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to return me for it As concerning the manner of writing which I have observed I shall easily confess unto my Reader that it proceeded rather from my Genius than from Art and though I have been curious enough to observe whatsoever the Greek or Romane Eloquence hath happily brought forth yet I must acknowledge that there is a Ray of God himself which entering into our spirit and mingling with our nature is more knowing and effectual than all precepts whatsoever And this I can affirm for the instruction of youth to those who have demanded my advice concerning the qualities and conditions of stiles It is true I have perused variety of Books written in all Ages and I have acknowledged that the most sensible amongst them have been raised both in their conceptions and their words above the common reach and alwayes without affectation Others have been passionately taken with some fine niceties which are the capital Enemies to perswasion and above all to be eschewed in the Discourses which are made of Piety whose nerves they do infeeble and whose lustres they do foil we may see that those who from the chair do speak unto us either by account or by writing although it be with terms discreet enough yet they leave a less impression on our hearts and sometimes are so violently carried away to serve their own reputation that they forget their engagements to the Truth We may observe some who through too much spirit seek out by-ways of conceptions of common sense and extravagant words and so strongly adore their own thoughts that they can suffer none but themselves on their own paper which is the cause they seldom meet with the right use of humane understanding being the true Citizens of Plato's Common-wealth capable to controul all things but to perform nothing Others there are who glory in a sterility and are willfully angry against God because in some part of the Heavens he placed so many stars These can endure nothing that is generous without snarling or biting at it They conceive Beauty and Light to be blemishes because they are above their capacities Lastly there are some who in their continual Allegations do so lay forth themselves in the praise of others that they make their Discourses like those pictures of Helena which are all of gold There is nothing but Drapery to be seen you cannot distinguish the foot from the hand nor the eye from the ear But I will enter no further into the consideration of our times having learned rather to respect than censure the indifferent Works of our Writers But to speak soundly I never thought it expedient either to perswade unto or to follow the same fashions And as in this work I have not altogether renounced the learning and the ornaments which I thought to be convenient but have inchased them in it so I would not fill my papers with Quotations and strange Languages this Labour being undertaken rather to perswade the Great-ones unto Virtue than to fill the Extracts and Annotations of the Students I have so moderated the style without letting my self loose to the empty language of Complements which had been beneath my Subject that I conceive I have rendered it easie to be understood even to those apprehensions which make no profession at all of learning It is the onely Design that I have to speak so as to be understood perswading my self according to the saying of Philo That Word and Thought are two Sister germanes and that the youngest is born onely to make the eldest known I study more for weight of sentences than for ornament of words pretending nothing to the glory of mundane Quills which we see every day appear amongst so many Authours of this Age who would be more perfect if they would apply themselves to more grave subjects and in some fashion imitate the Sun who being admired thoughout the whole world doth not know how to admire it self Nevertheless it often comes to pass but not to the more lofty Writers who are ordinarily indued with more modesty but to certain men extreamly profane to idolize their own inventions to condemn all Treatises of worth and to esteem that one cannot be eloquent in our tongue if he writes not Vanity or Impureness Certainly if a question were made to judge of the French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite that they may stand in comparison with the beauties of Sion As long as letters and men shall continue there shall continue the praises of so many excellent Books which have come from the hands of so many Illustrious Prelates and other qualified persons nay and of the secular State who have exercised their style on chaste and honourable Arguments and worthy all commendation I speak this by the way having at this time no design to enlarge my self on the recital of the number of those able men who have now the pen in their hands nor praise those of my own Robe who have given their holy labours to the publick and who I know may be followed by a great number of excellent Spirits of the same society For that which concerns me I am acquitted of my promise and I conceive that I have sufficiently expressed in these two Volumes the whole reach of my Design for the rest I conceive that the Books of Devotion which are to be made publick ought to be rare and to be very well digested because there is already extant so great a number of them that the number of the Authours will suddenly exceed the number of the Readers Satiety will cast a cloud on the brightest Beauties and though a thing may be very good yet we ought not to surfet
in good works in the Church in the hospital with the sick at a Sermon who was most exact in not giving orders nor benefices but to persons very capable and of good life who never did any matter important without communicating it to the Pope and his Cardinals whom he as an Oracle honoured These are the words of this fore-mentioned Authour which seem to have very little bulk but much weight Is it not sufficient to make you undertake by necessity that which you cannot refuse without crime No longer think upon piety as a thing impossible and do not like ill Physitians who make the sick despair of health because they cannot cure them These latter Ages are not so barren of good men who are most excellent plants in the orchard of Almighty God but that it hath born and doth still produce plenty of good Prelates who honour their profession by the merit of their virtues If you cast your eye upon those whom the nearness of time doth make us as it were almost to touch you shall behold a Cardinal George of Amboyse who was marvellously potent but employed all his power to the maintenance of the Church and State and never sought to be great but to oblige inferiours nor approach to the Court but there most gloriously to serve his Prince A Zimenes Archbishop of Toledo who amidst the magnificence of Court retained the austerity of a Religious man who was such an enemy of pomp and ostentation that he hath been seen to visit his Diocess on foot without train or attendance who employed his ample revenues to make war against Sarazens build Monasteries found Universities imprint those admirable Bibles in many languages which are the treasures of all the Libraries in the world A Pool who was not onely free from the ambitions and avarice of the world but made as small an account of his body as of his shirt since he being violently persecuted by King Henry the Eight plainly said that for defence of the faith he would as willingly disarray himself of life as of his habit and would ever be as ready to enter into his tomb as into his bed to sleep You shall there behold the four Cardinals of Bourbon who have equalled their virtues to the bloud of Kings and the purple of their sacred Colledge The great Cardinal of Lorain who hath had the honour to anoint three of our Kings with his own hands to assist in their Councels to enlighten them with the rays of his spirit to defend them by his fidelity fortifying his hand from his tendrest youth for the conservation of the State In all these pomps he wore austerity under scarlet he preached and ardently cathechized the most simple of his Diocess he supported as an adamantine pillar the faith which was both in France and Germanie so shaken by the unspeakable disorder of the times he received the remannts of the English shipwrack with most pious liberality he instituted Religious Orders he raised Seminaries he on every side armed against impiety A Cardinal of Tournon who served four Kings to wit Francis the First Henry the Second Francis the Second Charles the Ninth and that in France and Rome in all the most important affairs being likewise Arbitratour of the great Potentates of the earth with a most remarkeable loyalty a prudence inestimable a courage invincible A Baronius who hath eternized himself by the endeavour of his hands a thousand times more honourable than all the Monarchs of Aegypt in their rich Marbles Pyramids and Obelisks But from whence think you have the large blessings of his labours proceeded but from a most innocent life which was as the Sun without blemish but from a most ardent charity which caused him for the space of nine whole years to visit hospitals morning and evening to help the necessities of the poor but from a most singular piety which wasting his life in the fervour of his prayers consumed also his revenues with good works in most sacred liberalities A Tolet a Religious man out of Order who raised to the dignity of a Cardinal employed the most part of the hours of day and night in prayer living on nothing almost but herbs and pulse fasting the saturdays with bread and water and adding a particular Lent besides the ordinary to the honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary as the Reverend Father Hilarian de Costa observeth in the Treatise of his life Cardinal D'Ossat writing to Monsieur Villeroy affordeth him the titles of sanctity learning prudence integrity worth fidelity and saith it is an admirable thing to see the handy-work of God in raising this great man for advancement of the affairs of France and absolution of the late King of most famous memory And the great Cardinal Peron in a letter he wrote to this triumphant Monarch dated the second of September in the year 1595. saith among other things speaking of the negotiation of Tolet upon this affair Besides that he hath renounced all worldly respects to embrace the equity and justice of your cause that he hath shut up his eyes from the natural obligation of his Prince Countrey Parents that he hath trampled under foot all sorts of menaces promises and temptations he hath also taken so much pain both of body and mind upon this treaty that we much wonder he shrunk not under the burden combating sometimes by writing sometime by conference with those who were opposite removing and animating such as were stupid and in sum carrying this business with such zeal and constancy that your Majesty could not hope for so many trials not to say so many master-pieces yea miracles from the most affectionate and couragious of all your servants Behold the testimony of a most untainted Prelate I say nothing of the excellent Bellarmine nor of that prime man among the learned the most illustrious Peron nor of the great light of sanctity my Lord Bishop of Geneva whose lives are printed I likewise behold most eminent personages on the Theater of France who as celestial bodies have sufficient height and lustre and are of ability to exercise a pen more powerfull than mine but since I have put my self upon limits not to speak here of any man now living I better love to resemble those who being not of stature able to affix crowns on the head of the Suns statue burnt flowers to it to make their odour mount to the Heavens So since I cannot crown their merit with humane praise I will offer up prayers and vows for their prosperities with all submission due to their eminent qualities As it is not my humour profusely to enlarge upon the panegyricks of the living so is it not my intention to insert all the dead in this little Treatise If you seek for those who speak and write purposely Greg. pastoral curae lib. c. 4. you will be overwhelmed with a main cloud of witnesses which will shew you men who have been greater than Kingdoms who have parallel'd the
say shall come to passe under thy Reign Behold a strange Prophecy and some body may wonder that Elisha did not cause that wicked man to be strangled that was to make all those tragedies for how many mothers are there that would have choaked their own children at their breast if they had foreseen that after they had sucked their milk they would one day assume the spirit of an hangmand to tyrannize over mankind Yet Elisha rejects not that Hazael but consecrates him King by his speech because that he knew that it was a disposition of God who would make use of him as of the rod of his fury to chastise the Idolatries of his Kings and the sins of his People All men of God have this property to submit themselves exceedingly to Gods will although it seems to will and permit things strangely lamentable In conclusion as Predictions are very ticklish and flatter the intention of those that promise themselves Empires and wonders they animate also the heart of those that have wicked undertakings and one ought never to permit any one to take consulations with Astrologers and Southsayers about the life and fortune of great men This Embassadour returning to the Court deceived his King giving him all hopes of a life and when he doubted least of death strangled him with a wet napkin paying himself with a Kingdome for a recompence of his wickednesse And although it was a disposition of God that Benhadad should be deprived of his Sceptre yet it failed not to be a crime in Hazael The last rancounter that Elisha had at Court was with King Joash who went to see him a little before his death and this Prince foreseeing that he would quickly depart out of this world said to him weeping that he was the Father the Chariot and the Conductour of his Kingdome and of all his People expressing that he was afflicted with the regret of his losse above all the things of the world But Elisha to comfort him made him take his bow and arrows and put his hand upon the Kings hand as to guide it after that he commanded the window to be set open towards Syria and caused the King to let flie an arrow which he accompanied with Propheticall words saying That it was the arrow of salvation whose feathers God himself did guide and that it was a messenger that prophesied to him that he should combate and destroy the Syrians enemies of his people After that he bad Joash again strike the ground with the point of a dart that he had in his hand which he did three times and the Prophet told him that he should carry away as many victories over the King of Syria but if he had stricken till seven times he should have ruined him even to the utmost consummation A little while after Elisha dyed with an high reputation of sanctity and an extreme regret of all the orders of the kingdome and was interred in a place where he raised afterward a dead man by the touching of his bones God rendring every thing wonderfull in him even to his very ashes It appears by all this discourse that this personage had not a Piety idle and fearfull amorous of its own small preservation without caring for the publick good but he had an heart filled with generous flames for the protection of his people and an incomparable security to shew to Princes the estate of their conscience He supported all the Realm by his prayers by his exhortations by his heroick actions and the losse of one such man was the overthrow of the prime Pillar of the State ISAIAH JEREMIAH ISAIAH THE PROPHET IEREMIAH THE PROPHET THe Prophet Isaiah hath engraved his spirit in his Book and cannot be commended more advantageously then by his works He that would make him great Elogies after so sublime a Prophecy would seem to intend to shew the Sun with a torch The things that are most excellent make themselves known by themselves as God and the Light and I may say all the words that this divine Personage hath left us are as many characters of his Immortality It is with a very just title that we put him amongst the holy Courtiers for he was born at the Court of Judea and some hold that he was the nephew of King Amasiah This birth so elevated and so many fair hopes which might flatter him to make him follow the course of the great ambitions of the world did no way shake the force of his spirit It was a soul consecrated to things Divine that sacrificed the first fires of his youth by the most pure flames of Angels Never did Prophet enter into that Ministery with more authority and disposition of heaven He had a sublime vision in which he saw the Majesty of God seated upon a Throne of Glory environ'd with Seraphims that were transported through the admiration of his greatnesse God in person created him his Prophet the Seraphim a messenger of the sovereign power purified his lips with a Carbuncle from whence proceeded a celestiall fire that if he had got any pollutions at the Court where tongues are so free they might be taken away by that sacred touch He offered himself to God with an heart full of chearfulnesse to carry his word before Kings and Subjects without fearing their menaces or their furies And he acquitted himself all his life time worthily of that duty and prophesied more then fourscore and ten years not ceasing to exhort to counsel to rebuke to instruct to comfort and to perform all the exercises of his charge His Eloquence is as elevated as his birth he speaks every where like a King with a speech firm lofty and thundering that passes all the inventions of man When he threatens and fore-tells the calamities of Nations it is so much lightning kindled by the breath of Seraphims that proceeds out of this Divine mouth that pierces the rocks that shakes the mountains that crushes the highest cedars into dust the nations into fear and the Kings into respect When he comforts they are rivers of milk and honey that flow from his tongue and spread themselves with incomparable sweetnesses into afflicted hearts When he describes the perfections and the reign of the Messias they are the amorous extasies of a spirit melted by the heats of Jesus that strikes burns and penetrates him more then seven hundred years before his Birth The holinesse of his Life marched alwayes hand in hand with his Doctrine He was a man dead to all worldly things that lived but by the raptures of his deified spirit He loved singularly the poor and comforted them in all their necessities He spake to Kings and reproved their sins with an heroick constancy worthy of his Bloud and Ministery At the same time as Romulus began the Court of Rome Isaiah saw that of Judea where he experimented great changes and strange diversities according to the revolutions of humane things He passed his youth under his uncle Amasiah who
meae fidem quà m formam irritamentum alienae libidinis esse malus in my face extinguishing with my bloud the flames of them that sought me For I loved better to seal my innocency as with the seal of voluntarie deformitie than to possess a beauty that served onely as a bait for anothers lust O thou Christian woman who dost paint thy self with an ill intention seeking to gain that by imposture which thou canst not attain by truth and not satisfying thy self with adulterating thy beauty sparest not to discover among company a scandalous nakedness to shew in thy breasts the impudence of thy forehead Consider a little what thou wilt answer to this Paynim with all thy curiosity when her bloud her wounds scars her beauty disfigured which served as a sacrifice to her chastity shall accuse thee before the inevitable tribunal Behold likewise Lycurgus is elected King of the Greatness of Lycurgus Lacedemonians if so his dead brother should leave no heir in his wives body The perfidious and unnatural Queen sendeth this message to the King new chosen SIR I am with child and according to the laws of the countrey it may fall out the fruit of my body may snatch the Scepter out of your hands I see the kingdom is a dainty morsel hard for them to disgorge who once have swallowed it If you will be wise in your own affair I know a means by a potion to put your crown in safetie and by anticipation taking away the life of this little creature settle your throne for ever Onely be mindful of me your faithful hand-maid who with loss of my own bloud tender this grateful office Hereupon Lycurgus detesting in his heart the treacherie of this ravenous she-wolf dissembleth and answereth MADAME Let the infant come into the world be it male or female it importeth not we alwayes shall find means enough whensoever we shall think good to dispatch it As soon as the child was born which proved a boy he took it in his arms he assembled the Magistrates and people and covering the little Creature with his royal Robe saith Sirs long live justice and loyaltie Behold your King I am but his vassal O Christian what sayest thou to this Pagan that would not purchase a Kingdom by the single sin of another Yet many times a little interest makes thee neglect all that which is divine in Faith Justice and Religion It is not required of thee thou shouldest be a S. Antony a Macarius an Angel of the desert It is demanded of thee that for Gods honour thou shew some small resistance of sin which these infidels have done for a shadow of virtue and it shall suffice Dost thou not behold that thou art enforced not onely for good fashion but for necessity to this Christian perfection which thou imaginest to be far separated from thy condition Conclude O ye Noble men out of this discourse that the obligation which you have to be perfect is most evident since you have JESUS CHRIST for a sharer the charges easie it consisting not but in loving a goodness which one cannot hate and which never any one can love if he offer not the homage of his proper interest to his divine Majesty Behold all perfection The second REASON Drawn from Nobilitie HAving in general declared the obligation all Christians have to become perfect let us in particular behold the reasons which invite Nobilitie to perfection I doubt not if you maturely ponder those which I have to propose you shall find them no less obliged to the solid eminencie of all Christian virtues than Hermits themselves and this by the right of their condition so as that which seemeth to enlarge their scope to a life of greater libertie rather serveth as a bound of their dutie and a bridle for their dissolutions Let us take the first reason which is their Nobilitie It is an argument that cannot proceed but from a low judgement or a spirit soothed with its own effeminacie to say he is Noble he is a Courtier he is a States-man his qualitie tieth him not to perfection his virtue must be measured by the ell of the world if he were over virtuous the excess of his sanctitie would be prejudicial to his fortune What an extravagant humour is it to fix ignominie upon the front of Nobilitie in the first beginning He is Noble he therefore should be the less devout and less virtuous Change the Gamuth and say He is Noble he hath therefore the more obligation to be perfect Nobilitie hath put the yoak of a happie necessitie upon him which he cannot shake off without much cowardize And to make you thereby behold that Nobilitie is a bond of Christian virtue in all eminencie no man will deny but that by how much the more God giveth powerful and effectual means to man to arrive at a good end so much more obligation he hath to carry himself with fervency of affection and in case of failing his neglect is made the more faultie The servant to whom the Master hath given five talents to negotiate with ought much more to profit and bring gain home than he that received but one single talent Who can deny Nobilitie first gift of God Mihi Deorum immortalium munus primum videtur maximum in lucem statim felicem venire Panegyr Constant this if he will not belie the light of nature Now so it is Great men have many more talents of God for the traffick of virtues than others have and behold the first of all which is the happiness of their birth An Oratour making a solemn Oration in the praise of Constantine the Great in the Citie of Trier let fall these words The first and greatest gift of heaven was to be born happy and as soon to be in the lists of felicitie as of nature The Scripture it self recommendeth Nobilitie in the persons of the three valiant children held in the Captivitie of Babylon in that of Eleazar and others It is a wonder how S. Hierome in the Epitaph of S. Paula hath not omitted that she was descended from Agamemnon Which would never have been mentioned were it not that Nobility is valued amongst the temporal goods which are distributed to us by the providence of Almighty God Now that Nobilitie is a good instrument to conduct to perfection appeareth by an irrefragable reason which I intend to express I will not say what might be proposed and fortified by experience that the bodies of Noble and Gentlemen are ordinarily better composed and as it were more delicately moulded by the artful hands of nature that they have their senses more subtile their spirits more agile their members better proportioned their garb more gentile and grace more accomplished and that all these prepare a fair shop for the soul to exercise her functions with greater liberty Let us rather Nobilitie not tied to bloud Omnis propemodum sanguis est concolor sicubi forte alter altero
nature is to give and to do good as fire to heat and the sun to illuminate saith the eloquent Synesius And to speak unto you the richest word which ever came out of the mouth of a Paynim It is Plinie who after he had well wandred through all sects of Philosphers describing the essence of God pronounceth this goodly sentence That Deus est morteli juvare mortalem hoc ad aeternam gloriam via Plin. l. 2. c. 7. Cant. 5. Manus ejus globi aurei pleni mari Where our translation saith manus ejus tornatiles aureae plenae Hyacinthi HaÌ„ds of God a golden bowl full of the sea the greatest divinitie is to see a mortal man oblige his like and that it is the shortest way to arrive at eternal glorie We also see in the Canticles the hands of the Spouse compared to golden globes which in them hold the sea enclosed These hands are of gold to denote to us the munificence of God by this symbole of charity His hands are globes made round there is nothing rugged clammy or bowed nay they are smooth neat polite to pour his blessings incessantly upon men They always emptie themselves and are always replenished for they are filled with a sea of liberality which never will be exhausted God then having bounty so natural and intrinsecal in him will needs see it shine in his servants and therein establisheth salvation and perfection Which admitted who seeth not O you rich men you have a particular obligation above all others since God hath elected you to be the Stewards of his goods the messengers of his favours and the conduits of his liberality Religious men who have given the tree and the fruit all at once have nothing more to give The indifferently rich are ordinarily full of appetites and produce no effects You have power in your hands to discharge the duties of all the world you have met with the Philosophers stone you have the books of a heavenly alchimy in your coffers you have a golden rod which can turn the durty pelf of India into celestial substance Consider what greater ties of duty can you have what more pressing necessity to be perfect than to have the instrument of perfection in your full power Perswade your selves no longer that riches are impediments of glory and salvation for this unhappiness proceedeth not but from corruption and ill custom if you take them on a false byass they are of lead to drench and drown you if on a good they are feathers to bear and lift you up to Heaven Prophane Chariot of Sesostris applied to the rich Pharios currus regum cervicibus egiâ— Luc. l. 10. storie maketh mention of one Sesostris King of Aegypt who triumphantly rode in a chariot drawn by Kings he was so swoln with the success of his prosperities It was to take the way of hell in the chariot of pride so to triumph but you may in the chariot of charity all glittering with gold and silver harnessed out with poor men each person whereof representeth the Sovereign King who raiseth all Imperial scepters take the right way of Paradise August med Si ista terrena diligitis ut subjecta diligite ut famulantia diligite ut munera amici ut beneficia Domini ut arrham sponsi and that by the means of riches Then judge whether they lead to true felicity or no. If you love these terrene things you do well love them boldly but as the objects of your glorie as the instruments of your salvation as a gift of your friend as a benefit from your Master as the earnest-penny of your spouse as the pledge of your predestination The fifth REASON Drawn from perfections of the bodie IT is a lamentable misery to behold how sin hath so perverted the nature of things that it not onely giveth ill under the apparance of good but also sometimes evil effects to that which is good Behold for as much as concerneth the perfections of the bodie not speaking here of health or strength wherewith the Great-ones are not always the best provided beauty grace or garb which seem to be more connatural to them they are so cried down by the corruption of manners that one knoweth not what apt place to give them either among things good or evil S. Augustine speaketh with indifferency Lib. 15. cap. 21 de Civitat Dei Pulchritudo corporis bonum Dei domon sed proptereâ— etiam id largitur malis nè magnum bonum videatur bonis Beauty condemned by idolaters theÌ„selves Petrarch l. 6. de remed Dialog 2. Habes hostem tuum domi delectabilem blandum habos raptorem quietis tortoremque perpetuum Habes materiam laboris uberrimam discriminum causam fomentum libidinum nec minorem quaerendi odii quà m amoris aditum Habes laqueum pedibus velum oculis alis viscum super ficie tenus fulget decor multa faedà que tâ—gens horrenda levissimae cutis obtentu sensibus blanditur illudit in these tearms Beauty of bodie is a benign gift of God but he bestows it often on the bad that the good may not deem it a great good Not onely the writings of Saints and of most austere religious have made great invectives against beauty but even those who at other times have with passion praised it condemned it as soon as they became wise Petrarch that worthy spirit after he had adored a humane beauty doth suddenly cast down the Altars thereof under his feet and dis-avowed in ripe age that which foolish youth had made him vehemently commend For what saith he not in his book of the vanitie of the world which he entituleth the Remedies of Fortune You who establish your glorie in the beauty of the bodie know you have an enemie under your roof and which is worse a flaettering and with-delight-tempting enemie You harbour a thief who stealeth your repose and time two the most pretions things of the world You lodge an executioner who always will hold you to the rack and torture You entertain a subject of toil and affliction a motive of warfare and contention an incendiarie of sensual appetite which is no less capable of hatred than love This deceitful beauty putteth a snare on your feet a veil over your eyes and bird-lime on your wings It is a superficial grace which covereth with the smooth delicacie of the skin loathsom and horrible stenches so with her poison charming the drunken senses Another (a) (a) (a) Tab. d'inconst saith it is the nurse of love the spur of sin and that virtue lodged with beauty hath always a slippery foot as being in the house of a dangerous hostess S. Chrysostom (b) (b) (b) Chrysost homil de vanit pulchr musieb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Defence of beauty as the gift of God in an Homily which he made upon the vain beauty of women hath delicate observations not being able sufficiently to admire the sottishness
water though it be boyled on burning coles returneth to its natural coldness honey assumeth not the nature of wormwood the Lion playeth not the Ape nor doth the Eagle become an Ostrich to trail her wings on the ground Now the nature of the spirit how much the more noble and elate it is so much the more it ought to transfer it self to the consideration of things divine to wit from whence it cometh whither it goeth what within it self it acteth This is saith the Oracle of Roman Philosophie an infallible Senec. praef l. 1. natur quaest Hoc habet argumentum Divinitatis suae quòd illum divina delectant nec ut alieniâ— interest sed us suis mark of a divine spirit when it pleaseth it self to discourse of things divine and is entertained in these contemplations as with her familiar and peculiar affairs Judge then what indignitie it is to bury this vigour and light of the spirit which God so freely hath communicated to you in frivolous employments and petty fopperies which discolour the lustre and honour of your name What a shame it is to say this Sovereign hand hath moulded man to be the King of creatures and he betraying his nature maketh himself the Comedian the mimike stage-player Man a Stage-player of the world of all creatures acting all sorts of personages but the good and that which his own excellency is obliged unto Which verily is the same the great Tertullian Tertul. de spect c. 2. Homo omnium flagitiorum actor non tantian opus Dei verumetiam imago est tamon corpore spiritu à suo discivit institutore deplored Man is the work and image of God who having apostatized from his Creatour as well in mind as bodie maketh himself an Actour of all the evil personages in the great Comedie of the world Yet that seemeth more tolerable in persons who are not eminent either in judgement learning or spirit but Great-ones whom God hath created advantageously to transcend all others and who should live and converse among men like Angels to play the Hogs and Monkeys abasing themselves to I know not what kind of childishness of spirit and to a life corrupted with the curious delights and voluptuousness of the bodie consider I pray whether this be not a thing as unreasonable in its own nature as prodigious in the effects Secondly It is to do a great wrong to ones self to live in such fashion yea it is a meer frenzy which is not made probable to any man but by the multitude of mad men See you not very well that to employ some rich and precious instrument to a base and sordid use is an act of a man who hath lost his wits If you see a great Monarch employ his purple A great indignitie in the abuse of the spirit robe to stop an oven with and his scepter to shake hay you would crie Out upon it and yet the soul which God hath given you incomparably more precious than the purple and scepter of Kings you suffer to wallow in the filths of flesh you apply it to perpetual idle discourses to vanities quarrels and revenges Is not this wholly to abuse the gifts of Almightie God It is said Nero took delight to dig Folly of Nero. the earth with a golden spade and when there was question about cutting the Isthmus of Corinth a design which long time troubled his brain he went thither led on with musical violins holding in his Mausonii dialog de Neronâ— hand the golden spade with which he began in the sight of the whole world to break the ground a matter which seemed ridiculous to the wisest living in that Age. For my own part I find it more strange that a noble spirit should amuse it self in things frivolous and impertinent For to dig the earth with gold was to bring back gold to its course since it first sprang from the entrails of the earth but for a heavenly spirit to delve in ordures stenches and dung-hils this is it which is wholly inexcusable especially in the Nobilitie In the third place I say that such manner of proceeding Sacriledge of fair souls is manifest sacriledge for two reasons the first is it retaineth wickedly and traiterously a thing sacred for a profane use S. Augustine in an Epistle Aug. Ep. ad Lucentium that he wrote to Licentius a young man of a noble spirit which a liltle too loosely he abused in the vanities of the world presseth this argument in these terms If by chance you had found a golden Chalice in Si calicâ—â— aurâ—m invenisses in terra denares illum Ecclesiae Dei. Accepisti à Deo ingenium spiritaliter cureâ—â— ministrâ—â— inde libidinibus in illo Satanâ— propinâ—â—â—eipsum the streets you would take it from the ground and give it to the Church otherwise it would be a sacriledge God hath given you a soul all of gold so excellent it is so delicately purified and you use it as an instrument of sensuality and make of it a vessel of abomination wherein you present your soul to Satan as a sacrifice Fear you not the anger of God The other reason is You not onely with-hold a vessel consecrated to the service of the Omnipotent but you attempt upon the image of God himself This fair spirit which he hath given you as the flower and quintessence of your soul is a true character of the Divinitie and you hasten to prostitute it to publick affections Remember I pray it hath Images of Emperours how much reverenced Senec. de benof l. 3. c. 26. heretofore been held a capital crime to carrie the Emperours picture into a place undecent or uncleanly and expresly Paulus a man of eminent qualitie as one who had been Pretour was accused and prosecuted as criminal under Tiberius for that he took a chamber-pot into his hand having a ring upon his finger graved with the Emperours form And can you think it will be lawful for you to carrie not a dead figure but the living Image of your Heavenly Father into the impurities and pollutions which your exorbitant passions extrude as the scummie froth of folly Is not the blame most formidable which God by the mouth of the Prophet Ezechiel pronounceth against an ungrateful Ezech. 16. 17. Et â—ulisti â—asa decoris tui de â—uro meo atque argento meo fecisti tibi imagines masculinâ—s fornicata es in eis olcum maâ—â—â— thymiama meum posuisti eoram eiâ— soul in such manner abandoning it self Ingrateful and wicked as thou art thou then hast dared to take away the most precious vessels framed of my gold and silver to make masculine idols and so to satisfie thy fornications Thou hast caused my oyl to burn and incense to smoke before their altars What ingratitude is like to this Alas what idols are daily made of the gold and silver of God when so many brave spirits
under the false veil of courage Two things O Noblemen will make you exactly accountable before the justice of God The first to abuse this gift of courage with vanity The second to defile it with cruelty The one savours of childishness the other of barbarism What can one imagine Baseness of courage in certain Noble men more weak and childish than to have received a courage from God capable to conquer Heaven and to employ it in petty fopperies wherein the thoughts better part and the days actions are wasted to court a Ladie to gormandize a banquet nicely to quarrel upon the interpretation of a word to suck up wind to feed a fond curiositie with other affairs to buy plumes of feathers to censure mens apparel to dress himself up for dancing to play at dice to hold a racket in a Tennis-court to play the Buffon in a feast to utter a secret to forge a calumnie to envie one greater than himself to despise equals to baffle inferiours and a thousand other such like exercises which are the rust and moth of the spirit Behold into what these brave courages which should plant the Flower-deluces in the east are dissolved Is not this a shame Is any thing more punishable than so to abuse the gifts of God Is it not a goodly thing to behold in Poets a Jupiter A Jupiter painting goats on the clouds what it signifies Philost in Appolon lib. 21. cap. 10. who hath forsaken his fiery chariot and winged horses letting all go at random in the mean time to busie himself in painting upon the clouds sometimes Goats Apes and Centaurs Behold what Great men do when forsaking the duty of their charges and the obligation of their professions they vilifie themselves in inferiour actions bestowing therein a great part of their time and as it were their whole spirit Vanity would also be more tolerable were it not that it changeth into cruelty which is apparent in the beastly quarrel and bloudy duels that transform the nature of men into a brutishness absolutely savage and tyrannous We must draw iron out of Against duels the entrails of the earth to make it as it were first to blush with shame before it be ruddy with bloud to see it self employed to such a use to behold it self sharpened by the hands of men to cut and transfix men differences must be determined with the loss of life These miserable creatures sometimes for the interpretation of a word sometime through promptness of spirit provoke one another to single combat they send a letter of challenge the place of meeting is appointed they choose Godfathers as if they would make a baptism with a sacrifice of furies they procure Seconds who well see that to go upon cold bloud to hazard their lives in an unhappy combat against a man that never had offended nor known them is a sublimitie of folly notwithstanding on they go tyrannically led along by the laws of vain honour which hath no other foundation but the sottish brainsick-folly of men All of them have for the most part more outward shew than malice their hearts tremble with cold fear in the consideration of the peril to which they expose themselves yet their lips leave not to sound vain-glorious bravadoes They seek out solitary places like Sorcerers and sometime they go by Moon-shine to act this hateful outrage not seeing at all that God beholdeth them with as many eyes of vengeance as the firmament hath stars At the end Reasons of all this they think to do an act full of courage most Heroick and manly What shall we say here that this passion is a rage more than brutish which hath for inheritance the death of the bodie the eternal and irrecoverable loss of the soul the inevitable anger of God the indignation of Kings the thunder of laws the execration of the just the malediction of heaven and earth No this is not it which I now intend to speak For seeing I treat of generositie which obligeth the Nobilitie first to Almighty God who giveth it secondly to virtue which seeketh it as a most necessary instrument I must shew that in this action of duels pretended to be all courage there is nothing less than courage in it And although they were not liable to the vengeance of God for being infringers of laws both divine and human by this detestable manner of proceeding yet they would be ever greater culpable to blast and defile with this abject humour and remiss spirit the gift of courage which is particularly granted to them out of the treasury of Heaven I know not what false spectacles are clapt over the eyes of the Nobilitie by the spirit of lies forged in the shop of hell which oftentimes make them to take glass for Diamond and a Kestrel for a Faulcon Yes verily you have a certain bird in the mysterie of faulconry called the Hobby which coupleth with the race of Faulcons Goshawks and Sparhawks Yea Kestrels of Nobilitie this wretched bird doth also mix with the Saker and Lanaret she flieth after the Faulconers and hovering over the field if the dogs spring some little bird she sowceth upon it making boasts over this feeble creature seeing she hath neither heart nor resolution to grapple with the great ones Justly herein behold the model of a Gallant who maketh profession to present the letter of challenge to call others to duel he hath degenerated from true Nobilitie and real courage which is produced in goodly and great actions undertaken for the service of God and his King he hath no longer left in him ought but a little fierce rebellious spirit to peck at those whom his own temerity judgeth more weak than himself And shall then this man be taken for a man of courage O Noblemen see you not that true Duel is not an act of couage actions of courage are too high and eminent to impart their worth and honour to lackeys and horsboys Now it is so come to pass that there is not any inferiour foot-man nor petty groom of a stable that will not watch to take revenge by duel that will not endeavour to determine differences by some kind of single combat There is not any vain braggard descended from ignoble plebeyan parents under the pretence that he carrieth a pen in his ear which peradventure might be the sword and lance that his father or grand-father made boasts of upon a shread of parchment to gain 6 d. a day that striveth not to have a sword of a good temper to provoke his adversary to single combat and the more in famous he is the more audaciously he furnisheth himself out for this enterprise presupposing that this is a true means closely to cover his base condition Anciently in the wisest and most valorous Kingdom of Who entered into duels anciently the world those which engaged themselves in these duels were people gathered out of the dregs and lees of men slaves
understanding be it true or false from hence there glide into the condition of humane life a thousand extravagant illusions It is even at this day that Semblanâ—es the children of opinion and lying truth hath lost her garment falshood is clothed with it and Opinion in this Court-like habit hath really and actually produced little monsters but such as yet holding and retaining the malice of their father and levity of their mother attire themselves with certain veils which make them seem beautiful they flie up and down like little Cupids they make a trade of deceiving and practice with so much subtility that they ensnare even the wisest Behold our unhappiness The world the Island of dreams Verar Hist l. 2. we are in this world as in the Island of dreams whereof Luctan speaketh We dream broad-waking and such dreams which are by so much the more perillous by how much we the less look into the danger A man who hath dreamed all the night as soon as he beginneth to open his eye-lids mocketh at his own fantasies and saith they were dreams we dream all the days of our life and say they are verities We run after the false imaginations as children after butter-flies When the great night of our death draweth near we begin to discharge our selves from this waking sleep and from this sleeping vigil we find we have death at hand And as for the butter-flies which we so eagerly followed after we have broken our heads and shins in their pursuit we neither have their legs nor wings in our hands Behold one of the greatest impediments of perfection Alas Noble spirit thou wouldst be truly noble if thou couldst shake off this golden yoak the opinion whereof hath so surcharged thee consecrating thy bondage thereunto by a precious imposture But who will do it Had not he anciently a notable subject Mercur. Tris Souls in the torrent of opinion hereon who said when he considered the estate of the world the souls of men seemed to him to be all thrown headlong from the Palace of verity into the torrent of opinion all of them tumbled into the mercy of the waves and few were to be found that would bravely settle themselves to row against the stream Seneca hath well observed and touched the true Senec. de beata vita Opinion the source of all corruptions source of the corruption which at this day reigneth upon the earth We live not according to reason but by relation to the life of another and from thence cometh Non ad rationew sedad similitudinem vivimus inde ista tanta coacervatio aliorum supraialos ruentium Against the life of opinion that we fall one upon another by heaps as blind men into a ditch To take away this confusion I produce onely three considerations which are very pressing and pregnant The first that this life which is so lead by opinion is very ridiculous The second that it is base and servile The third that it boweth under a cruel tyranny from whence it may with a little courage dis-infranchize it self And first I demand if it be agreeable to a noble and generous heart to forsake the gravity incident to his nature and to embrace idle toys and fopperies No man will consent hereunto but he that will betray his reason Now so it is that all the opinions which at this day intoxicate the world are not builded but upon the flying sand upon the giddy humours of windy brains upon the passions and affections of a debauched and corrupted multitude Where the sheep feedeth that goeth Cornel. Tac. hist 2. Multitudo vulgi more magis quam judicio post alius alium quasi prudentiorem sequitur Strange giddiness of opinion before they which follow must graze though they die for it Every one attendeth his companion as the wisest and he that venteth folly with the greatest confidence is the best welcom What monsters what prodigious fancies of scattered and uncollected spirits have not been received for laudable actions being favoured and authorized by opinion It is a thing ridiculous and almost incredible to see the chimerical conceits that it hath perswaded making them to be taken not by a particular man or one sole family but by a whole and entire Nation for maxims of wisdom The Mossins a people performed all the actions Apollonius 2. Argonaut vers 138. of most secrecy in publick yea even those which are ordained for the necessities of nature and treated the affairs of the Common-wealth in their houses constantly believing it was very requisite so to do The Tibarenes as soon as their wives were delivered Idem ibidem bound up their heads with a kercheff lay down on their bed and made themselves to be attended like the child-bed women The poor women in the mean time were up and about the house endeavouring to make ready bathes for their husbands and to dress and season their viands to tend and cherish them as if they had born all the pain of feminine travel Could you have any thing more ridiculous And yet opinion made it appear very reasonable There are such to be found who place all their honour and glory in drinking hard and eating freely to call a man a robber a thief an adulterer were in this Countrey nothing to say that such an one were not a great gourmandizer nor a great drinker would be to do him an unpardonable injurie Others placed all the excellency and dignity of man Aruncani Lips politic in carrying a huge log of wood a great distance and by this tryal chose their Kings The greatest burden-carriers and porters were there great Lords Others did kill and eat their aged parents for a ceremony of Religion And opinion made this good What also do not those people of India and other parts discovered in our days Some think it is honourable to turn their back to salute one Others thrust their finger to the earth and after lift it to heaven to do reverence Others gather up the spittle of their Prince and speak to him through a hollow trunk Others offer to their gods their old shoes in sacrifice A man would laugh when he heareth speech of it and yet we see that the proudest Monarchs of the world who supposed they had shut up all wisdom in their laws and customs trampled virtue under their feet and placed Dragons Bats and Quartan-agues on their Altars Behold what opinion can do These follies you will say are not now in practice He that would well examine all the fantastick humours of apparel all the giddy conceits of sports and pastimes the folly of complements which at this time reign amongst men should find things as ridiculous as these as it were to adore an humble poor crucified God and yet to be mad after greatness riches and curiosities To believe that one perpetually liveth under the eyes of God yet to behave himself like a wild colt at his own fantasie neither
knowing God nor man To expect a judgement and to live in continual injustice To know that we must return naked to the earth and yet to dispoil the whole world to cloath our selves To build as if one should always live eat and drink as if we should never die some men to trace up and down the streets with a plume of feathers on their head and fetters on their heels women to bestow a fourth part of their life time in dressing and besmearing themselves to make themselves gross on one side and little on another to raise turrets on their heads to put shackels on their heels to be transported with so much sollicitude about a ruff as if they had a Venetian Common-wealth to mannage Others to confound with curtesie whom they would gladly eat with salt Others to kill one another about the interpretation of a word and a thousand such like things which are indeed most impertinent Notwithstanding opinion disguiseth them opinion besotteth them and opinion giveth credit to all this Do you then think it a matter worthy of your generositie to serve follies under the shadow that fools approve them Do you not behold for the second reason that you being free of condition and not having the power to disgest some reasonable service you notwithstanding undergo the basest servitude that may be imagined A young Lacedemonian whom fortune had made a slave rather chose death than to carry a chamber-pot to his Master saying it was unworthy of his condition and yet opinion maketh us to bear a fools bable opinion maketh us carry not in our hands but in the prime piece of man the head a sink of old dotages amassed altogether by light idle fantastick spirits afterward confirmed by laws by the tyranny of custom What shall we call slavery if this be none I call your consciences to witness if you sometimes shall begin to breath in a more free air and see the bright day of the Children of God you in your selves will blame all these inventions of the worldly life which enforce you to feel tormenting racks in your attires in your recreations in the complements of conversation O how often are verified those sayings of the sage Roman inserted by S. Augustine in the sixth book of the Citie of God When you shall come to consider all the trayn of ceremonies A notable saying August l. 6. de Civitate Dei c. 10. Si cui intueri vacet quae faciunt quaeque patiuntur invenient tam indecora honestis tam indigna liberis tam dissimilia sanis ut nemo dubitaturut fuerit furere eos si cum paucioribus furerent nunc sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba Abderites Caelius l. 30. c. 4. and hypocrisies of Court you will find them ill agreeing with honest minds unworthy of free men and not different from fools and in effect you will confess that no creature should doubt to term them follies if the number of sots were less the best veil they have is the multitude of fools Do you not behold a goodly pretext as if moles were the less blind because they have companions in their darkness Behold a point of servitude extreamly unworthy of a noble spirit to say that one condemneth in his conscience an act which he putteth in practice that he instantly may obey a vain opinion of the world It is said the Abderites after they had beheld the tragedie of Andromeda and Medusa became all frantick even from the least to the biggest and ceased not to sing to clap their hands to crie to whistle through the streets and to have no discourse nor thought of any thing but Medusa and Andromeda If then you had entered into their citie you had played the fool for fear to be despised by fools Is not this an intolerable weakness of spirit in a well-composed soul to have good lights and knowledges of Almighty God which incessantly beat upon our understanding and yet to play the fool and to comply with anothers humours For the third reason I say this belief which is given 3. Reason Tyranny of opinion to opinion passeth into a wicked and scandalous tyranny over Christians for by the force of cherishing and fomenting these maxims in the heart of the world they are transferred into nature Vices are not contented to be vices but by this tyrannical law of opinion formed in the ideaes and lives of persons of quality they make themselves to be adored under the colour of virtue Cardinal Jacques de Vitry relateth that a Countrey-fellow A pretty observation of Cardinal Jacques de Vitry carrying one day a young sucking pig to the market certain pleasant wits who had agreed upon this sport every one of them severally encountering him in divers cross ways of the streets and asking him what was his purpose to carry a dog to the market did so intoxicate his brain that beaten out blow after blow with such like interrogations he absolutely perswaded himself that to be true which he first supposed was begun for sport and cast his pig with shame upon the pavement and thinking it a true dog gave the other opportunity to gain by this sleight Behold what the tyrannie of opinions redoubled one upon another can do They made this poor man believe that this pig was a dog although all his senses suggested the contrary And I leave you to think what this torrent of the false Maximes of the world doth not falling with unresistable furie upon a dul and half dead faith It weakeneth all that which is Christian in a soul and planteth a wicked Idol of humane respects which causeth that all actions are measured by the rule of vulgar opinions And if there be yet any reliques of a good conscience this tyrant smothereth them as a Pharao and wholly perverting the nature of things giveth boldness to sin and shame of well-doing to virtue Behold a mean to drench all mankind in the gulf of confusion Is not this then abominable If these considerations of the folly servitude and tyranny of this life which are spun according to the web of the opinions of the world cannot serve for an antidote for our ill at the least think the day will come when truth shall take place and vice vanish into smoke It will happen unto you as to Tigers for whom hunters when they have taken away their whelps affixe looking-glasses in the ways to amuse the savage beasts and in the mean time they save their own lives by the help of flight The Tigers Illusions of Tigers forthwith most affectionately stay thinking they shall draw their little captives from the reflection of this mirrour and set them at liberty in the end they strike it till it is broken loosing together both their young ones and the instrument of their deception These opinions which you now adore these dreams these fantasies which you behold in the specious glasses of the world shall be lost at the hour of
a most irrefragable motive of detestation of any vice when the baseness and ignominie thereof is discovered for that is it which hath most power over generous spirits Now so it is this hypocrisie which maketh you O Noblemen always to live disguised is quite contrary to the condition of a brave and generously elated spirit Because if it be impressed with a good stamp it naturally loveth the liberty and freedom which unavoidably is oppressed in these palliations crouchings and counterfeitings They are the tricks of Apes and Foxes and in no sort are suitable to the nature of a generous Lion Besides seeing God openeth unto us the great Hypocrisie confuted in the great book of the world book of the world as a piece of parchment guilded and traced with his pencil for us therein to read that which is for our instruction if we will consider diligently the most sublime things we shall find they naturally strike at this vanity which maketh you to display apparences to the eyes of men outwardly having nothing solid within It seemeth that all the master-pieces of this celestial and elementary world as it were by a common consent do hide all what they have of most eminency and worth bearing for devise I hide the better part It is true Parte sui meliore latent that Heaven sheweth it self wholly relucent in stars and brightness but covereth his powerful influences which by their secret extent give motion to this great house of nature It is true the air maketh his meteors to appear to the view of the whole world but this secret virtue which doth penetrate us even to the heart and bringeth life and refreshment to us upon its wings who can tell me what colour it is of The fire unfoldeth his flames to us but this commanding heat which conquereth and softeneth the hardest mettals do we behold it The caim sea delighteth us with his smiling countenance at that time especially when it becometh as it were frizled and curled by some gracious and gentle gale and coloured with the beams of a bright Sun which beat upon it but this lustruous beauty what is it in comparison of the treasures which he concealeth in the store-houses of his abysses The earth it self likewise maketh her boast in the spring varied and enameled with her natural pieces of painting and sparkled with a thousand petty flowers which stand as the eyes of the meadows but these do eclipse each evening and morning Quite contrary the mettals which the earth encloseth and as it were engulfeth in the entrails after they are wrought and polished by the artful hands of Lapidaries retain a lustre of a long date which resplendently shine upon cup-boards of Kings and the Great men of the earth What lesson of nature is this to hide all which it hath of greatest value And what corruption of nature in man to hold in the bottom of his heart stench and dung-hills and to plaister it over with a vain hypocrisie God hath not onely imprinted this verity of Hypocrisie condemned by the laws of heaven Sport of God and what 1 Cor. 1. Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus ut confundat sapientes infirma mundi elegit Deus ut confundat fortia ignobilia mundi contemptibilia elegit Deus ea quae non sunt ut ea quae sunt destruereâ— which I speak in the great book of nature but he hath as it were engraven and stampt it with his hand in the monuments of the old and new law The pastimes of Great men are Theaters Tilt-yards and Amphitheaters and the sport of the Divine wisdom in this Universe is to hide treasures under the bark and mantle of some persons base and abject in apparence In the old law a stammering shepheard is chosen to carrie the word to a Monarch to shake and overturn with a poor wand the pillars of his Empire to divide seas to calm billows to open the bowels of rocks to command all the elements and fill the world with wonders In the new law simple fisher-men almost as dumb and mute as the fishes themselves are chosen to catch in their nets Philosophers Kings Cities Provinces and Empires Behold the ordinary custom of God to hold pearls in shels sweet perfumes in very abject boxes The true mark of greatness in the judgement of God is at first blush externally not to appear great On the contrary it is the act of a flat ridiculous and benummed vanity to be desirous to furprize the eyes with a counterfeit and captious beauty which afterward appearing in its native colours makes the deformity thereof the more disfigured What a shameful thing it is to a heart which hath Deformity of hypocrisie never so little resentment of nobility to erect a resplendent sepulchre to boast exteriourly marbles guildings characters titles and to have nothing within but bones put refaction and ashes to cast a certain lustre through the ignorance and obscurity of an Age become bruitish and then to be in effect but a silly worm to live in the world as a snail to make long silver traces and to be nothing else but froth to have the back covered with velvet like a cushion and the belly stuffed with hay to make ostent of leaves and verdure like a wood and to be replenished with serpents Is it possible that a noble heart when it hath no other super-visour but its own conscience can suffer these shames A gentile spirit said to an old man who caused his grisly hairs to be painted with the lustre of green youth Poor fool although thou couldst deceive the whole world with thy hair yet death well knoweth they are gray So when Scit te Proserpina canum an hypocrite shall happen to conceal his jugling from all those who accompany him which indeed cannot be done men now being endued with penetrating eyes yet one cannot deceive the eye of his conscience quick-sighted to pierce such falshoods with bright reflection I say nothing of the shame and ignomie that must be undergone after it is discovered and taken with the manner like a cut-purse I speak nothing of the racks tortures affrightments and perplexities in which they live who desire to entertain these seemings A great wit hath well said that such Stephanus Edvensis in Reg. 3. 18. people are the oxen of Baal who are cut for sacrifice in little gobbets but notwithstanding receive not fire from Heaven these miserable creatures macerate and kill themselves to sacrifice themselves to the appetites of the world without ever tasting the consolations of God which they have renounced Let us lay their pains apart let us admit that with these laborious endeavours they might always live cloked always hidden from the eyes of the world yea even from the all-piercing eye of their own conscience It is most manifest and considerable for the second 2. Reason reason that it is impossible to deceive God whose eye replenished
and all delights in the peace of my heart An Infidel to say and do all that yet we after so many precepts of the eternal Wisdom so many sermons so many exhortations so many supports so many helps so many examples so many promises so many recompences so many obligations and so many necessities which force us thereunto still to be curious and not to be able to tolerate one silly disgrace May we not well say we have great need of afflictions which might a little instruct us to imitate the lives of Saints For it is undoubted we putrifie with long prosperities as in a dead sea which produceth nothing It is necessary that God strike and then as Jonathan we shall open our eyes and suck in honey from the end of the rod which scourgeth us when in the chastisement of a father we shall find the consolation of true children The ninth OBSTACLE Carnal love IF at any time the powerful and health-giving hand of the Angel Raphael were necessary in the world not to cure the eyes with the gall of a fish but to tie and bind up in the deserts this loose and wanton spirit of carnality which the Scripture calleth Asmodeus it is principally in this Age that we have great need thereof wherein dishonest and intemperate vice reigneth so prodigiously that it seemeth not willing to make of the rest of this whole Universe but one element of fire Asmodeus at this time triumpheth and Triumph of Asmodeus boasteth his Chariots covered with laurel to the weeping eyes of chastity his horses curvett and bound without bridle and with unspeakable insolence he daily transporteth an infinite number of souls to hell If you desire to know the equipage of his detestable Chariot Saint Bernard will Bern. ser 29. Cantica de cuâ—ribus Pharaonis tell it you and you in his discourse may observe the causes which produce and cherish luxury that you may hereafter apply profitable and convenient remedies The Chariot of Asmodeus is a chariot of fire from His chariot whence on all sides the sparkles of concupiscence flie to enflame unchaste hearts This is not a common fire but a fire enkindled with the flames of hell the very image of that which devoureth damned souls ceaselesly burning without diminution and giving nourishment to its ardours with its proper damages The first wheel of the Chariot saith this great Saint His wheels is called gourmandize the second titillation of the flesh the third excess in apparel the fourth idleness which undoubtedly are the four vices that serve as principal instruments to this loathsom devil and very well are termed the wheels of his Chariot It is said the Chariot of War is moved with two arms one of iron and the other of silver but this of Asmodeus rouleth about the arms of Ceres and Bacchus Gourmandize is attended by the wanton pleasures of the body these pleasures then which should be stifled with hayr-shirts and sack-cloth are involved in linnen and scarlet in stead of ready shaking off these sparkles they are fomented and wasted in a lazie and idle life Behold how sin passeth along To His horses this chariot horses and Coach-man are necessary S. Bernard appointeth onely two whereof one is called prosperity the other abundance From this time forward Asmodeus becomes a much greater Lord he augmenteth his train harnessing also two other horses wherof the one is called liberty and the other impudence Prosperity always smiling doth nothing but daily breath out and evaporate new delights Abundance supplieth him with all which is needful for the entertainment of this ravenous beast although she cannot discharge all the expences thereof so insatiable she is The liberty of entertainments and conversations ceaseth not perpetually to blow the fire If there be any shread of the veil of shame-fac'dness His Coachman Sap. 4. Dei immemoratio animarum inquinatio as yet hanging about the brows impudence teareth it away All this equipage is lead along by a wicked Coach-man which is called the forgetfulness of God Then good leisure is had to run with full speed into the bottomless abyss Certain brave spirits of the world pursuing as it Of inconstancy l. 2. were this way of Saint Bernard to figure out a spiritual thing by corporal representations have built the Palace of false love the plague and frenzie of the soul with admirable art This Palace is all built on hopes the stairs are of ice made in such manner that he who most ascendeth most descendeth the halls chambers and wardrobes are all furnished and hanged with idleness dreams desires and inconstancies the seats and chayrs are made of false contentments It hath affliction torment and fraud for enginers uncertainty fear false opinion and distrust for Guard All this Court is composed of Court of Asmodeus heartless soft and effeminate men which are and are not His Chancellour surmize his Councellours lying and deceit the Steward of his houshold suspition his viands apparences his drink forgetfulness his Chamber-waiters laughter and babble his musick sighs despairs and revenges Do you not behold a brave Prince But without amuzing our selves with all these inventions of the brain I say the greatest obstacle which may be imagined to seclude us from the happy access to life eternal is to resign our heart as a prey into the power of this bruitish passion The reason is most evident because it is a true mark of Sin of the flesh a mark of reprobation reprobation and we see by experience the souls which addict themselves to the sin of the flesh not so much by frailtie as by profession become wholly carnal stupid beastly and ordinarily pass out of this life through the gate of some notable disaster I will here produce two or three causes of the undoubted condemnation of this sin which seem to me very powerful to imprint in the heart of man a perpetual aversion as it were with a branding-iron of fire The Iujurious to the incarnation of the Word first is that it is injurious to the incarnation of the Son of God Consider well what I say This mysterie of the incarnation wherewith God put on our weakness took servile flesh made himself our brother transplanted our nature from a barren and cursed soil into the delicious habitation of the Divinitie is so great so majestical so marvellous that it enforceth silence and admiration in the four quarters of the world adoration in Thrones trembling in the Seraphins bowing in the Heavens darkness terrour and amazement in all nature Now this mystery being as it is in all its height greatness latitude inexplicable profundity is personably betrayed and dishonoured by the sin of the flesh Wherefore Because as S. Paul saith other sins make their sallies out of the body but this reposeth and subsisteth Quo altiùs carnem attolleret non habuit August de praedestinat Sanct. c. 15. in the body in the same specifical nature
which God so puissantly and highly hath exalted that he therein hath confined his whole power and greatness not being able to create any thing greater than Man-God Judge what a sacriledge it is to do a personal affront to the most immaculate and most virginal flesh of Jesus sitting on the right hand of his Father Eternal August de verbis Apost Serm. 18. Parâ—â— in te Christo cognosce in te Christum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the habiliments of glory and yet carnal impurity would if it might carry thither the effects of its malice Before the incarnation of the Son of God the sins of the flesh were simply sins but after this ineffable union of the Divine nature with the humane they became monsters And you see likewise that the holy Fathers call some by this name and by other tearms full of execration The second reason which much augmenteth the Ancir Concil can 17. Fury of lust Tertul. de pudic enormity of this sacriledge is that not onely it debaseth a nature which God hath exalted even to God but also engulfeth it in an action sordid blockish bruitish reputed so unworthy that the Scripture disdaineth to name it S. Epiphanius searching out the Epiphan beres 55. 67. cause why the Holy Text maketh no mention of the Genealogie of Melchisedeth bringeth a reason from the Hebrews which affirms this eminent man to be born of unchaste parents as a rose from thorns and that the Scripture useth not to name such men in detestation of their sin And verily you see the practice hereof In Genesis Noe abstained from naming Cenes 9. Mâ—ledictus Chanaan of Cham though it were to curse him it seemeth this name of a son marked out by these deportments of filthy sin would defile the malediction it self if it had been pronounced For the same reason the Tribe of Simâ—on is not numbered when question is made of blessing the Patriarchs in Deuteronomie because from this Line issued that wicked Deut. 33. Prince who sinned with the Midianitess In the new Testament in the Genealogie of the Son of God Num. 25. 6. Bathsheba is not called by her own name but by her Eaque fuit Utiae husbands Magdalen in the time of her sin had no Matth. other name but of a sinner It seemeth Isaiah hath Isaiah 14. 20. truly prophesied of such voluptuous people The race of the wicked shall be buried in perpetual oblivion Non vocabitur in aeternum nomen pessâ—morunt Luxury the sin of the heel Some other Interpreters subtilizing this passage of the 48. Psalm Iniquitas calcanei circundabit me say luxury was called the sin of the heel which was not improper yet not for that reason which some in my opinion have without ground invented affirming there is a vein which answereth to the heel that serveth as a fiery match and an incentive to lust but because this sin is low and debased amongst other vices as the heel under other parts of the body and in respect it is tied to the heels which is to say that leaving high and elevated objects onely worthy of the love of men as are virtues and graces it applieth it self to baseness and beggary to a dung-hill covered with snow to a beauty passing away like a dream and which hath no other character of its merit but the judgement of a mad man So the pantables of Judith bewitched the eyes of Judith 16. Holofernes This Ladie was beautiful as a star and adorned as a Temple yet notwithstanding this blind lover suffered himself to be inconsiderately surprized with the heels of a woman to shew that lust is base in all its objects and pretences Behold why some sage Hebrews have written that certain Sandalia râ—puerunt ocules ejus infernal spirits remembring themselves of their ancient nobilitie abhor to tempt men with the sin of luxury as a thing unworthy their thoughts and industrie giving this commission to some other more gross devils and more terrestrial Alas what shall we say if we go about to plant upon the forehead of a nature honoured with the hypostatical union of the Word a sin which maketh even the devils themselves to be ashamed May we not well say if there be a mark in the world which plainly discovereth a reprobate soul it is this seeing it is so impudently opposed to the venerable mysterie of mans redemption The third reason which maketh us believe this Hell of love dishonest sin hath great alliance with hell is that it carrieth already the marks thereof in this world What are they Darkness fire stench the worm disorder Behold the principal liveries of hell all which are to be found in the sin of luxury Darkness because it maketh the soul dark gross clouded with black vapours of folly which extinguish all the radiance of judgement and very aptly it is said of those infamous fire-brands who sollicited the chaste Susanna that they turned away their eyes that they Daniel 13. Declinaverunt oculos suos nè viderent solem Hier. l. 1. adversus Jovinian The fire of it might not see the Sun Saint Hierom hath very well relished this passage of Seneca (a) (a) (a) Amor insaniae proximus foedum minime conveniens animo sospiti vitium turbat consitia omnibus inutilem ipsi novissimum amori facit Si digito aâ—â—gero incendam syloam simul omnem Noysomness Love and folly go hand in hand it is a passion which never lodgeth at the sign of health it turneth the spirit up-side down it maketh man bruitish unprofitable to all and in the end to love it self Fire All those unfortunate lovers speak of nothing else but of their flames they are always in fire like the Salamander they perpetually have the mount Aetna upon their shoulders one of them saith he will do nothing but touch a forrest with his finger thereby to burn and wholly waste it And verily it is a hell-fire which hath gluttony for fewel pride for flame unclean words for sparkles infamy for smoke ordure for ashes hell for center as saith S. Hierom. Noysomness and dishonesty are inseparable companions of the sin of the flesh The voluptuous cannot endure their like and when passion hath cast its fire they are troublesom and insupportable to themselves Which well is witnessed by the many nasty and shameful diseases which never had been known in the world if they had not entered by the gate of this infamous sensuality The worm This sin is no sooner committed but it It s worm hath its executioner attending thereon it hath the worm of damnation which diveth and pepetrateth even into the bottom of the heart of him that committeth it and then especially when he findeth as yet some reliques of a good conscience remaining in his soul remorse to have lost the incomparable treasure of purity perplexeth it perpetually Concupiscence of Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est
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
inability is vanquished by the grace of God and virtue of fortitude which warranteth courage to undertake and strengtheneth it to bear what reason dictateth And Sufferers more couragious than undertakers although to undertake seem a thing very glorious it is notwithstanding the hardest task to endure a temptation to oppose it with unmoved foot to wrastle with it to trample on it and in the end by virtue to erect tropheys over it Saint Thomas very judiciously yieldeth the reasons S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 123. 1. Because he who is assaulted seemeth ever in worse state than he that assaulteth for encountering he always presupposeth himself to be stronger Now it appeareth he who undergoeth some brave action of courage is the assailant and he who withstandeth a temptation is opposed and sometimes shaken without thinking thereof which is far more troublesom and hard and therefore draweth after it much more resolution in case a good and generous resistance be made against it 2. The assailant beholdeth the peril as future and he who is tempted seeth the temptation even almost within his gates in his heart in his bowels 3. The assailant often dischargeth his pistol like an harcubusier before he have leisure to know the danger and readily retireth The other who suffereth burneth as with a gentle fire and in the mean space if he be patient he long time stayeth with a reposed rest yet not striking at all which is a thing worthy of an eternal crown The Alexanders the Caesars who flew like Eagles to the conquest of worlds oftentimes yielded themselves up to the least temptation Their strength was disguised not real The seventeenth SECTION The arms against temptation contained in twelve Maxims THe means to resist temptations is not to frame The means to resist temptations to your self a spiritual insensibility which feeleth nothing It is hard to obtain it so sensible self-love is and when one hath it he rather is a stone than a man It is not to drive away one temptation by another and do one mischief to be freed of another For to pursue such courses is like washing ones self with ink It is not to hide one from all kind of encounters and never to do well for fear to have occasion of a combate against ill but to resist it couragiously in that sort as I will shew That great fore-mentioned John Picus Mirandula hath collected twelve notable maxims the practice whereof is most profitable to enable your self in spitual combate against impotency I. Maxim That you must be tempted on what Thesal In hoc posui sumus Temptation our trade side soever it happen It is our profession our trade our continual exercise The Eagle complaineth not of her wings nor the Nightingale of her song nor Peacock of her tayl because it is by kind and it is as natural for man to be tempted as for a bird to flie to sing to prune her feathers If you forsake not the way of spiritual life fearing to be tempted and turn head to worldly contentments hold it for an infallible verity you therein shall be much more engaged and which is worse without comfort honour merit or recompence you shall leave a paper-Cross which if you knew well how to mannage would load you no more than feathers do the bird you will forsake it say I to take another hard uneasie and bloudy which would invest you in the Confraternitie of the bad thief That great Prelate of France Sydonius Apollinaris relateth Sidon Apol. l. 2. c. 1. that a certain man called Maximus being arrived at the height of honour by unlawful and indirect ways much grived from the first day and breathing out a great sigh spake these words O Damocls I esteem thee most happy to have been a King onely A remarkable speech of Maximus Foelicem te Damocles qui non uno longius prandio regni necessitatem toleravisti Travel of worldlings the space of a dinner time It is now a whole day that I have been so and can no longer endure it II. Remember that in the affairs of the world we fight a longer time we travel more painfully we reap more fruitlesly The end of one toyl is the beginning of another In pains taking there is no hope but ever to labour A temporal toyl draweth after it an eternity of pain III. Is it not a meer folly to believe a Paradise an eternal life a Jesus Christ who made unto himself a ladder of the cross to ascend to the throne of his glorie and you in the mean while to be desirous to live here with arms a-cross To see the Master open Indignity of curiosity the way of Heaven through so many thorns and the servant not to be willing to tread but upon flowers To see under a head all wasted and worn with suffering delicate members as one should make to a Colossus of brass feet of flax IV. Were there no other fruit in temptation but Greatness of temptation conformity to Iesus Christ the conformity which we thereby have with Jesus Christ the sovereign Wisdom it would be highly recompenced A brave Captain said to a souldier who died with him Although thou hadst been unknown all thy life time it is no small honour for thee to die this day with thy Master And who would not hold it for a great glory to have the Son of God for Captain for companion for spectatour for theatre for guerdon in all his afflictions and tribulations Who would not account it a great dignity to be daily crucified with him To distend his hands and arms upon the Cross in withholding them from violences rapines ruins wherewith the spirit of lying transporteth us To fetter your feet and hinder them from running after the unbridied desires of your heart To make bitter your tongue in subduing the pleasures of tast To cover your body with wounds in suppressing the incitements of flesh by a holy mortification To lessen your self by the contempt of honour according to the example of him who being able always to walk upon the wings of Cherubins would creep amongst us like a little worm Galat. 9 Ego stigmata Domini Jesu in corpore meo porto Distrust of ones self of the earth What a glory were it to say what Saint Paul said I hear the marks of my Saviour Jesus on my body V. Not to confide in humane remedies when you undertake to overcome a temptation It is not a thing which dependeth meerly upon us It is necessary God go before and we thereto contribute our free will If he watch not over our heads it will be a hard matter for us to keep centinel No creature is so feeble as he who holdeth himself for strong being onely armed with his own confidence Many Concilium Arausicanum Multa in homine bona siunt quae non facit homo bona Nulla vero facit homo bona quae non Deus praesiet ut faciat
willeth us to take moderate pleasure in creatures which he hath made for our content and ease that we may enjoy them in time and place every one according to his condition profession and rule of wisdom Synesius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pleasure lays hold of the soul Somnus balnea dolorem mitigant S. Thom. 2. q. 138. Date siceram merentibus vinum iis qui amaro sunt animo Prov. 2. the Creatour hath given the feeling of pleasure to sense to serve as an arrest to the soul and to hold it in good quarter with the body Saint Thomas among the remedies of sadness prescribes sleep and bathing The Scripture it self counselleth us to give wine and other fitting draughts for them to drink who have their hearts oppressed with bitterness If one think to make a great sacrifice to God resting perpetually stretched and involved in a pensive austeritie of spirit as being desirous to avoid all pleasures of life he deceiveth himself It hath happened that many running in their own opinion to Paradise by this path according to peculiar fancie have found themselves on the borders of hell Fourthly to remember our life is a musick-book Our life is a musick-book seldom shall you find there many white notes together in the same line black are mixed among them and all together make an excellent harmonie God gives us a lesson in a little book which hath but two pages the one is called Consolation the other Desolation It is fit for each of them to take its turn In the day of adversity think of prosperity In the day of prosperity remember your self of adversity That great Prelate of Cyrenum Synes in hymno said that the Divine Providence hath mingled our life as one would do wine and water in a cup some drink the purest some the most compound but all tast a commixtion Fifthly if you exactly compare our condition to that of an infinite number of miserable creatures who groan in so many tedious and disastrous torments you will find your fardel but a dew But we have a certain malignity of spirit which ever looks back on the good it hath not to envy it and never considers the evil from whence it is freed to render thanks to God Behold some are in the bottom of a dungeon in fetters others are bowed in painful labours from the rising to the setting Sun to get their bred Some have the megrim in their head the gout in their feet and hands the stone in their kidneys Others are overwhelmed with business loss misfortunes strange and portentous accidents yet carry it out with courage Your heart is nipped with a little sadness and behold you despair what effeminacie of spirit is this It is said hares seeing themselves pursued on every side had one day resolved to drown themselves but coming to the brink of a river and beholding frighted frogs who cast themselves at all adventure in the water to escape Courage said they we are not yet the most miserable treatures of the world behold those who are more fearfull than we Ah how often should we say the same if we saw the miseries of others Sixthly is it not a goodly thing to behold a man Unworthines of sadness who probably speaking is in the favour of God who is here nourished with Sacraments with Christs body and bloud with the word of his Master who liveth among so many helps and comforts spiritual and temporal who expecteth a resurrection a Paradise a life eternally happy and happily eternal in so beautifull a societie of Saints to frame pensiveness and scruples to himself of his own head to afflict himself like a Pagan or a damned soul that hath no further hope It is related that God one day to give an antipast of beatitude to a holy man turmoiled with sundry cogitations caused an unknown little bird to chant in his ear in so melodious a manner that instantly his troubled spirit became clean and pure and held him rapt many years in the most tastfull delicacies may be imagined O if you often had strong imaginations of Paradise how your melancholy would melt and dissolve as snow before the Sun-beams Lastly sing spiritual canticles labour employ Noble tears your spirit without anxiety and if needs you will weep lament your imperfections bewail the miseries of the poor sorrow for your curiositie lament the passion of your spouse grieve and sigh at your impatience after this glory of Paradise weep over the deluge on the earth look back like a chast dove on Dulces lachrimae sunt ipsi fletus jucundi quibus restrintur ardor animi quasi relaxatus evaporat affectus the ark of your good father Noe the father of repose and consolation Then will I say of such tears with S. Ambrose O the delicious tears O the pleasing complaints which extinguish the fervours of our mind and make our affections sweetly to evaporate The two and twentieth SECTION The third combate of the spiritual man against impuritie ALl impuritie of life ariseth from three sources whereof S. John speaketh concupisence of Joan. 2. Three sources of impietie the flesh concupiscence of the eyes and pride of life Let us now see the practice of virtues which oppose these three sorts of impurities Against concupiscence of the flesh temperance chastitie modestie do wage war Against the concupiscence of eyes to wit the unbridled desires of temporal blessings povertie justice charitie mercie gratitude Against pride of life humilitie obedience magnanimitie patience clemencie The three and twentieth SECTION Practice of Chastitie CHastitie is a virtue which represseth the impure lust of the flesh a celestial virtue an Angelical virtue which maketh heaven and Angels descend upon the earth and in this kingdom of mortalitie planteth the image and titles of immortality Clemens Alexandrinus maketh mention of certain Clemen Alex. strommat enchanted mountains at the foot whereof was heard a voice as of people preparing themselves for battel a little further the encounter and conflict and on the top songs and triumphs Behold as it Three sorts of chastitie were the condition of three sorts of chastitie With some it beginneth with labour and uncertaintie there is at the first toil and resistance against lust but the even thereof is not known With others it is become more manly as being already practiced in combats With others it triumpheth after a long habit yet notwithstanding whilest here on earth it abideth it is never absolutely secured The acts thereof are Acts. I. To renounce all unlawfull voluptuousness of the flesh II. To abstain from carnal acts not onely those which are unlawfull but sometime such as are permitted among married folk upon just occasion or for some certain time which is very ordinarie or perpetually which is singular and remarkable in the lives of some Saints So Martianus lived with his wife Pulcheria and Henry the Emperour with the Empress Chunegundis III.
to the abilitie of his person It fell out this cruel creature who had done this mischievous act sickened of a languishing maladie and found himself enforced to be carried to that fame place where he was whom he had bereaved of sight His heart said within him he would never endure him but for revenge would put out his eyes On the contrarie the blind man made earnest suit to do this act of charitie to him withall the most fervent endeavour as if he had sought some great fortune from the hand of a Prince Behold he prevailed he is deputed to the service of the sick man and he dedicated to him all the functions of his bodie except the eyes which the other had pulled out Notwithstanding saith the Cardinal he wanted not eyes having those of supreme charitie and patience You would say this good blind man was all eyes all arms all hands all heart to attend this sick man so much consideration vigour diligence and affection he used And what should they here say who upon the least affronts burn with a revengefull spirit V. Not to have a lazie and languishing charity which is onely in idea but to be diligent cordial strict not for particular ends but the taintless maximes of virtue It was a great folly in those Philosophers called the Contemplators who placed perfection in sitting with arms a-cross without doing any act to assist in the society of men Witness the prime Prince among them named Pirrho who beheld the stars whilest his companion Axaquus falling into a ditch cried out for help They both were found the one Laert. l. 6. in this misery despairing and the other contemplating It was said to the Master What do you here my friend Why endeavour you not to draw your companion Stupidity of Pirrho Sine mediter ut bonus sim Plin. l. 2. Deus est mortali juvare mortalem haec ad aeternam glorian out of this ditch No other answer would he make Let me alone I meditate how to become an honest man And behold him a lazy truant without any further search in giving aid to this miserable man In the whole history of Pliny the best word is this It is a Divinity for one man to do good to another and behold the most assured way of eternal glory VI. For this purpose you ought to know not onely at your finger ends but to have both in heart and hand the works of mercy spiritual and corporal You must dispose your selfe with especial endeavour to Almes alms-deeds There is the school of rich men it is their lesson their philosophy their heavenly Alchimy their justification their salvation their glory The practise of almes is not now to be required It is easily found There are as many waies of mercy as there are miseries in mankind which are every day exposed to our eyes A thousand fold happy are they who seriously bend themselves to comfort such every one to the proportion of his power How many brave and noble spirits are industrious in that kind Some as the Emperour Titus thought they had lost a day wherein they had obliged no man Others daily fed some poor creature in whom they acknowledged the person of Jesus Christ Others went up and down into publike streets to find out the necessities of men to relieve and consolate them Others humbled themselves continually to the services of the sick and indigent Others taught this practise to their little children almost from the nurces breast as soon as they began to stutter out words they were made oratours for the poor Others distributed their revenew in equal portions to Churches needy persons and for their own maintenance Others gave the first fruits of all their increase of profits Others founded and instituted a thousand excellent works of piety Behold good life herein fair hope and generous charity And is it not to be the scorn and scandal of mankind Ista verò injustitia magna ut egeat Dominus habeat unde luxurietur filius tuus August l. de disciplina Christiana Val. 4. c. 8. to amass riches for worms for moths for children many times wicked drunken loose Libertines who will play and disport upon their parents tombs It were a notable inscription if one should put these words upon your monument which Valerius gave to one called Gillias QUOD GILLIAS POSSIDEBAT OMNIUM QUASI COMMUNE PATRIMONIUMERAT HIC IPSIUS LIBERALITATIS PRAECORDIA HABUIT ET DOMUS EJUS QUASI QUAEDAM MUNIFICENTIAE OFFICINA What Gillias had was the possession of all mankind This man had his heart and entrals composed even of Charity it self His house was a shop of bounty Of Virtues that oppose the third impurity which is pride of life The thirty first SECTION The practice of humility and magnanimity TO say that Noble men and persons of quality have no need of the virtue of humility is to say that sick men have no need of health Humility is the element and orb of virtues It is the gate of Christianity saith S. Cyprian and we ought not to Primus Religionis introiâ—us Ciprian de Nativitate Christi Humility of great men Mâ—gna virtus est humilitas honorata think that man will be loyal to faith who is unfaithful to the virtue of Jesus Christ to wit humility It is necessary for all men but especially great ones who are more roughly assaulted by the storms of pride And if this virtue be a contempt of it's own excellency where shall you find out this excellency to find out the contempt thereof Shall it be in mean and inferiour spirits They naturally are in their own way of baseness but not therefore in the path of humility The most exact humility is that which hath more of honour and less of the sense of honour saith S. Bernard The stars are beheld in the bottom of a pit and profound humility maketh the most radiant splendours appear in greatness The sun dispelleth the grossest vapours and draweth the thinnest and subtile to himself How much the more you lessen your self so much the nearer you shall approach to the Sun of true glory If you desire to practice this celestial virtue behold the actions I. Do not intoxicate your brain with a mad vanity Acts. Pride of Nobility reprehenlible of noble race which causeth many to dig out and disentomb their Grand-sires as it were from the ashes of old Troy and as Ausonius saith in so carefully searching out uncertain parents they many times give occasion to think they have none certain Nobility is not to be blamed since it is the happiness of good extraction but to be vauntingly puffed upon this occasion is a meer folly He that should revolve and rifle the whole mass of mankind saith Plato should find there is no King which commeth not from servitours nor servitour who commeth not from Kings II. Not to affect nor seek after humane praises flattery complacence ticklings of reputation
so much advanced the power of Satan as the making of sinfull gods The young man looking on the statue of Jupiter soothed his own lust and drew the nourishment of his sin even from Altars So doth the son who beholds himself in the vices of his father and takes paternal authority for pledg of his wickedness I leave you to think if in Exodus 22. He who unawares suffered a silly spark to flie into his neighbours corn be guilty of the fires hurt as we heretofore told you what will it be with a father who in his house shall enkindle the torch of iniquity to enflame his whole family First then lay the foundation of piety and consequently find employments for your children lest they consume in idleness which is the seminary of all vices Charlemain soon put his sons to exercises and commanded his daughters to sow or spin that the gate might be shut up against lazy sluggishness of spirit wherewith the soul suffers it-self insensibly to slide into all sorts of corruptions Yea great discretion must beused in this point not to enforce children to undertake vocations wholy disproportionable to their humours and qualities to make them thereby row all the rest of their life against the stream Saint Basil in the Epistle to Eudoxus praiseth the Athenians who tried the nature of their children before they put them to any profession proposing unto them sundry instruments of all kind of arts and easily admitting that to which they most inclined As for accommodation you must therein reasonably provide according to your estate and not according to the extrauagant ideas of this insatiable Age. It is an admirable thing to see to what a height these offices and huge marriages are mounted I think they will flie into the Kingdom of the Moon The time hath been when a man was thought rich who had fifty crowns of yearly rent We find when the marriages of the daughters of France exceeded not six thousand crowns payd down Nay which is more daughters were bought and now they purchase husbands with prodigious sums This is it which wasteth spirits which renders instructions unprofitable and throws all our evils into the despaire of remedy If you knew well how to order this matter you would find repose and facility in the rest of the government of youth and when you have done that which belongs to you leave the rest in the hands of the divine providence who well understands how to handle the web of our lives and to apply every one to what is fittest for his salvation If all I have said O fathers and mothers be not sufficient to instruct and perswade you I would draw hither out of the other world Hely the High-Priest severely punished by the revengeful hand of God for negligences committed in the education of his children He would cry aloud unto you I am that Hely heretofore the prime man amongst the people of God that Hely from whose lips passed so many brave oracles that Hely who with the winck of an eye made the people obedient that Hely who shined as a pharos in the Tabernacle of God and in the mean space for permitting youthful follies and indiscreet libertie to my children see me become the object of the most enflamed anger of God which may be imagined against one of my profession Behold me cast from the High-Priest hood as a rotten member my house everlastingly deprived of that honourable dignity all my posterity condemned to die under the scourge of God and not any one of them ever to attain to mans estate another enriched with my spoils which my Nephews shall never see but to wither with grief in consideration of the felicity of their rival my two sons sensual and voluptuous slain in one day my daughter in Law dead in child-bed but above all through my sin the Ark of God taken away by enemies and dishonoured by Infidels and lastly my self buried under the ruins of my countrey as the last victim of Gods justice O Sovereign Creatour of Heaven and earth how terrible thou art nay how just nay how severe to chastise parents for the sins of their children but how reasonable in this their punishment Fathers and mothers fear fathers and mothers shake under the hand of the Omnipotent fathers and mothers be satisfied with your own sins and carry not your childrens into the other world instruct them so that in their education you may find the discharge of your consciences they good doctrine and you rest and comfort to have well bred them The fourtieth SECTION Advice to children concerning the duty they should render to their fathers and mothers contrary to the contumacy of irregular youth THe Wiseman said it was a hard matter to Funiculus â—â—plex difficile rumpitur break a triple coard A triple law divine natural and civil hath straightly bound children to the honour and duty they ordinarily yield to parents He is forsaken of God an enemy of nature and an infringer of publick tranquility who would be exempted First I say nature distilleth with the soul those amorous infusions of amity which children have towards their fathers and mothers The beam belongeth to its sun the river to its fountain the branch to its tree and the child to his progenitours They are not Storks alone who have taught us the law of reciprocal love Lions though of nature untractable of life savage even in their roring moods which make woods and mountains tremble give us a lesson of this charity Lions whelps whose paws itch and bloud boileth in their veins go chearfully a hunting to seek out food for their fire now worn with age And hunters have often observed an old Lion lying in the entrance of a cave and a young one to come laden with booty putting it into the paws of the other who expected it He received the prey making shew of a thousand thanks to his whelp which freely divided the prize according to the law of nature These inclinations are found even in birds of rapine who pull the prey one from another to feed those with it who begat them Albertus Magnus noteth that fowlers seeking for goshawks found one in a vast wilderness perched upon a tree not offering to stir from them but seeming wholly immoveable They wondring why this bird flew not away at the sight of men as well as others of her kind perceived she was weak blind lame and wasted with decrepit age whereupon they hid themselves expecting the coming of other goshawks when instantly behold two hastened thither laden with meat which they pulled in pieces and thrust into the beak of the poor old one They made no doubt but these were the young who fed the dam. O what charms of nature Nay rather what providence of God! Is not he an Apostata to the great Law of the world who violateth charity due to fathers and mothers As for humane Laws what have they in them more noble or Religious than the
her hair saith It was a lamentable thing that she of all the world should be persecuted for being onely faithful to her brother Herod knew not what to think and sighed in his heart beholding the dissentions of his house and in the mean time saw not that his own ill example was the influence of all these maledictions He did nothing else to Pheroras but sequester him for a time for although he seemed much moved with anger he was not exasperated against any in good earnest but those whom he thought would practice against his state and such Pheroras appeared not to be for he was a libertine who had married his own servant attracted by dalliances refusing the daughter of a King and all his designs aimed at nothing but sensualitie It was thought this was not sufficient satisfaction in Pheroras for such a crime and that this might still feed a distrust between the father and son Behold the Anâ—ipater son of Herod calumniateth his brothers cause why the pernicious Antipater who ever was gracious with Herod making use of this opportunitie beginneth his battel more furiously than ever and having perceived some familiarity between Alexander and three Eunuches the most intimate of Herod's chamber he under-hand giveth notice that the conspiracy of Alexander against his father was now absolutely contrived and that the chief Eunuches of the chamber and privacy of Herod had a hand therein Behold them presently apprehended and put to the torture These bodies corrupted with ease and delicacy feeling themselves so roughly racked spake what they knew and what they knew not and in the end delivered nothing but boasts and vain-glorious bravadoes of youth which had escaped the mouth of Alexander that is to say That those Eunuches were very fools to be so affected to this old man who caused his hair to be painted like a spruce yonker He had done all well enough His time was past theirs was coming the Kingdom could not forsake them having justice force and credit in their hands and so many valorous men who would not in time of necessity forsake them and such like things speaking nothing of that which Antipater pretended yet too much for a jealous spirit It was a pitifull thing then to behold how this miserable Court was dis-membred It was nothing but calumniations threatnings summons distrusts examinations tortures All men looked upon one Court of a Cyclops another and every one supposed there was no other securitie but in preventing his companion A thousand sottish things were daily deposed that were of no effect There were found not past one or two who extreamly racked upon the torture to free themselves said Alexander had dishonoured his father at Rome as much more enclining to amitie with the Parthians than with the Romanes and as torments were incessantly redoubled in favour of Antipater they spake at random whatsoever they would have them to wit That Alexander and Aristobulus had conspired to kill Herod by poyson then to go to Rome to demand the Kingdom which had no probabilitie And when it was asked where this poyson was they replied it was in the Castle of Ascalon and the whole matter searched into there was nothing to be found Alexander notwithstanding is arrested he generous Alexander son of Mariamne imprisoned and much offended to see so many tortures said stoutly to Herod bitterly scoffing To what end is it to make all these slaughters seeing you will have it that you are deceived I have conspired and if you desire to know with whom with Pheroras your brother and Salome your sister and Ptolemy and Saprinius your Counsellers Kill all the world and you alone shall reign He spake too much to be believed and delivered it He is delivered by Archelaus in an accent which sounded nothing less Howsoever he was for certain days imprisoned until such time as Archelaus King of Cappadocia his father in law advertised of this disaster came to the Court of Herod He took great care not to affront him nor tell him that he wronged himself to be so credulous this was not the manner to treat with a man who extreamly desired to justifie his actions The Cappadocian striketh sail seeming to have great compassion to find him in such trouble saying His children had done ill to disquiet him in that manner that be came not to excuse his son in law but to chastise his daughter if she were found blame-worthy Herod was so comforted to hear him speak in this sort that the tears stood in his eyes and Archelaus seeing he had found the ready way of perswasion began by little and little to declare unto him that in truth the Princes his sons had shewed a little too much insolence but that their facility was much abused and it would be good to take heed thereof He did so well that at the last he dissolved the calumny and Glaphyra being there present with her eloquence and tears obtained whatsoever she would for her husband so that the poor prisoner was instantly released Herod in the mean time lived like a Cyclop in his Cave perpetually in the obscurity of an infinite number of distrusts still upon the point of acting new cruelties and being observed to be capable of all sort of suspitions the wicked Antipater failed not to furnish him with matter enough to foment his jealousies and by the same means advance his fortunes A wicked Grecian came to the Court of Judea named Last endeavour of calumny Eurycles who took upon him to be a Prince and gave presents to Herod to insinuate himself into his friendship The unhappy King relished this man and ranked him in the number of his intimate friends He was lodged with Antipater and observing that he at that time bare the greatest sway in affairs he endeavoured by all means to win his favour which he did familiarly conversing with Alexander and undermyning him that afterward he might carry truth and falshood to the ears of Herod who gave him much credit Three years were not fully past but behold calumny casteth the rest of her venome Two souldiers of Herod's Guard cashiered for some sleight offence were afterward indiscreetly entertained in the house of Alexander who loved them seeing them sufficient men and capable of good employments Behold them accused of conspiracy immediately apprehended and put to torture The vehemency of torment made them say that at the solicitation of Alexander and Aristobulus they had a plot upon the person of Herod to kill him in hunting At the same time the governour of the Cittadel of Alexandrina which was one of the strongest Fortresses of the Kingdom is accused to have been willing to deliver it into the hands of these young Princes which he denied strongly and stoutly But his son provoked against the father for some disgrace said the deposition was true and at the same time produced false letters of Alexander which seemed to confirm the same held notwithstanding to come
what game his sister meant to play having never hitherto known any such levity in her He presently hasteneth into Pulcheria's chamber And what devise saith he is this Where is my wife The poor prisoner stretched out her hand to him Pulcheria opposed it and sheweth she was hers to buy and sell and dispose of at her pleasure And as the Emperour admired much these so extraordinary proceedings in a person of his sisters humour she caused him to read the writing signed with his own hand then adding good counsel Behold saith she most Sacred Majesty the goodly order precipitation negligence bring to affairs The holy Emperour took this advertisement in good part and promiseth he never more would sign dispatches at this rate But Eudoxia was vexed at this Honours change manners sport in good earnest She was in an estate wherein she would no longer be over-awed she knew the power she held over her husbands heart having already given him pledges of her fruitfulness to wit a daughter named Eudoxia who was afterward married to the Emperour Valentinian It much troubled Athenais a poor maid preferred by Pulcheria could not brook her her that Pulcheria still retained some small predominance over her and shewed a spirit of command she resolved with herself that her person at this time required another consideration that such tricks had heretofore been well enough accepted in that estate she was in but not as now she is It is too great a game to play upon diadems These petty resentments of the point of honour easily creep even into the purest souls and who seasonably stops them not findeth his heart drencht in the gall of certain aversions which weaken charity I know not what cooling-card this goodly game cast between the two Princesses but from that time the one would no longer be commanded and the other pursued her ordinary course which was to command These hearts formerly united were now upon breach which notwithstanding never outwardly appeared so retentive they were on both sides God would exercise both and put them into the surnace of tribulation to purifie them and take away some dross which by long prosperities is easily contracted He first began with the Empress Eudoxia to whom he suffered a most sensible accident to happen the narration whereof behold which verily is pitifull But who will think it strange to see Eudoxia fallen into the sinister opinion of Theodosius seeing the same hath chanced to many Saints yea to her who hath born the standard of all sanctity the most Blessed Virgin Upon the day of Epiphany as the Emperour returned Sinister accident from Church with great pomp and magnificence a certain countrey man a stranger and unknown brake through the press accosteth Theodosius who was of most easie access and presenteth him with an apple of an extraordinary size esteemed at that time as a rare fruit The Emperour receiveth it gratefully and commandeth to give the good man presently about the value of one hundred and fiftie crowns As soon as he was returned to the Palace he goes to visit the Empress and full of joy giveth her this fair present which he had taken of the peasant for a great rarity Out alas this verily was the Apple of discord apple of discord infected with the breath of the serpent which horribly rent asunder this poor Court The good Empress having understood that Paulinus a great favourite of Theodosius was in bed sick of the gout to please and comfort him sent him the apple not mentioning from whom she had received it Paulinus was seized with so great joy seeing such a courtesie from a person so eminent used towards him that the contentment he received at that time charmed the pain of his gout He so admireth this goodly fruit that he judgeth it worthy of Imperial hands and without delaying resolved to send it to the Emperour excusing himself through indisposition of health that he was not himself the messenger Theodosius knew the apple which he had very lately put into the Empresses hand he turned it on every side and judged it to be the same thereupon a furious jealousie as if it had been breathed from hell began to lay hold on this gentle spirit all the objects of what was past returned to thicken this black vapour to frame a cloud thereof and resolve it into a storm It is true the Empress loved Paulinus with a most chaste and innocent love one must have had the heart of a Tiger not to love him He was a Lord very much affected by her husband it was he who partly had drawn her from the obscurity of Gentilism by his learned and friendly conferences he that had procured her Baptism he that had wrought her marriage he that yielded most faithfull service to their Majesties in the chiefest charge of the Empire wherein he had been most nobly employed all which made him worthy of great respects besides that he was of a very royal conversation which had great power over all those who treated with him The good Lady who ever had her pen in hand to work some piece of her invention to the glory of Altars which she affected was pleased to communicate her labours to Paulinus and discourse with him of holy things All these conferences which ever had been for the honour of an entire reputation and which before yielded nothing but honey were all turned into gall in the heart of Theodosius by this lamentable jealousie wherewith he was possessed He instantly sendeth for Eudoxia the more deeply The evil of a sleight lie to sound her heart demanding what was become of that fair apple he had given her The poor Princess was overtaken and seeing herself between the hammer and the anvile I know not what gesture appeared on the brow of her husband but she well perceived this fair soul was not in its ordinary situation She therefore declining suppliant intreaty thought to under-prop her innocency with a lie and said she had eaten the apple Virtue hath nothing to do with the veil of untruths to cover it self it is not her custom Had she freely told what she did with the apple as her intention was most sincere all the malignity of suspition would have been diverted But this sudden surprizal a little altered her judgement and all she did was to remedy the passion she saw to be enkindled in the heart of Theodosius by the eyes which are as the mirrours of our soul The Emperour urged her upon this answer She who already was involved tumbled herself further into the snare and that she might not seem a lier sware by the life and health of her husband she had eaten the apple He to convince her of this impudence drew this fatal fruit out of his Cabinet It is then flown from your stomach into my chamber without corruption behold I have found a wonder The Empress at the sight of this fruit endured the same symptoms in innocency
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
her the news thereof The Empress saluted him very courteously and disposed her heart to speak to him touching a certain sum of money she desired to give for the entertainment of his Monks but the good man divining the thoughts of her heart saith to her Madame trouble not your self for this money there are other affairs which more concern you know you very shortly must depart out of this world and now you ought to have but one care which is to entertain your soul in that state you desire it should part out of this life Eudoxia at the first was amazed at this discourse It seemeth souls as Plato saith go not but with grief out of fair bodies but this was too much disengaged to do in the end of those days any unresigned act After she had a long time talked to Euthymius as one would with Angels she gave him the last adieu full of hope to see him at the Rendez-vous of all good men Returning into Ierusalem she had no other care but to set a seal upon all her good works then distributing whatsoever she had to the poor she expected the stroke of death freely and resignedly her soul was taken out of her body throughly ripened for Heaven as fruit which onely expects the hand of the Master to gather it She was about threescore years of age having survived Theodosius her husband and Pulcheria Flaccilla Marina Arcadia for all of them went before her into the other world she was married at twenty years of age she spent twenty nine in Court and as it were eleven in Jerusalem she deceased in the year of our Lord 459. the 21. year of Pope Leo and the 4. of the Emperour Leo Successour of Martianus A woman very miraculous among women who seemeth so much to have transcended the ordinary of her sex as men surpass beasts More than an Age is required ere nature can produce such creatures They are born as the Phenix from five hundred to five hundred yeare yea much more rare A great beauty great wit great fortune a great virtue great combats great victories to be born in a poor cottage as a snail in his shell and issue out to shew it self upon the throne of an Empire and die in an hermitage all is great all is admirable in this Princess But nothing more great nothing more admirable than to behold a golden vessel with sails of linnen and cordage of silk counterbuffed by so many storms over whelmed and even accounted as lost in the end happily to arrive at the haven Behold her Potraicture and Elogie AVGVSTA EVDOXIA EUDOXIA AUGUSTA THEODOSII JUNIORIS CONJUX EX HUMILI FORTUNA IN MAGNUM IMPERIUM TRANSCRIPTA SCEPTRUM VIRTUTIBUS SUPERAVIT CELESTIS INSTAR PRODIGII FOEMINA INGENIO FORMA VITA SCRIPTIS ET RELIGIONE CLARISSIMA CUM VICENIS NUPTA ANNOS XXIX EGISSET IN IMPERIO ET UNDECIM FERME IN PALESTINA HIEROSOLIMIS RELIGIOSISSIMO EXITU VITAM CLAUSIT ANNO CHRISTI CDLX AETATIS LIX Upon the picture of EUDOXIA Fortune unparallel'd beauty her own A spirit that admits no Paragon Divine immense although it seem to be 'T was but the Temple of the Deitie HEr example drew an infinite number of great Ladies to contempt of pleasures and vanities of Court to seek the Temple of repose in the deserts of the holy Land Among others Queen Eudoxia her Grand-child who as we have said was married into Africk treading the world under foot with a generous resolution came with her Crown to do homage at the tomb of her Grand-mother kissed her ashes as of a holy Empress and was so ravished with the many monuments of virtue she had erected in the holy Land that there she would pass the residue of her days and choose her tomb at the foot of that from whence she derived her bloud and name It is a great loss to us that the learned books written by this Royal hand have been scattered for those varieties of Homer which are extant are not Eudoxia's Photius much more subtile than Zonaras to judge of the works of antiquity maketh no mention thereof in the recital of the writings of this divine spirit but of her Octoteuch which he witnesseth to be a worthy heroick and admirable piece Behold that which is most remarkeable in the Court of Theodosius And verily for as much as concerneth the person of the Emperour he did enough to make himself a Saint by living so mortified in his passions in the delights of a flourishing Court It is a meer bruitishness a very plague of mans soul to make no account of Princes but of certain braggards vain brain-sick and turbulent spirits who fill histories with vain-glorious bravadoes whoredoms murders and treacheries these are they of whom the spirit of flesh an enemy of God proclaimeth false praises and such an one seemeth to himself sufficiently great when there appeareth a power in him to do ill A calm spirit united docible temperate though he have not so many gifts of nature is a thousand times to be preferred before these vain-glorious and audacious who are onely wise in their own opinion valiant in rashness happy in vice and great in the imagination of fools It is good to have the piety of Theodosius and to let over-much facility work in praying and pray in working to have the beak and plumage of an Eagle and the mildness of a Dove to lay the hide of a Lion at the feet of the Stature of piety As for Pulcheria she was the mirrour of perfection among the great Princesses of the earth yet not without her spots but still giving water to wash them away And for Eudoxia you find in her what to take what to leave many things to imitate few to reject but an infinite number to admire Behold in the end the Fortunate Pietie which I have set before your eyes as a golden statue not onely to behold it in passing by but to guild your manners with the rays and adorn your greatness with the glory thereof Who will not admire the prosperity of the Empire of Constantinople in the manage of Theodosius of Pulcheria of Martianus under the rule of piety and not say Behold the world which trembleth in all the parts thereof under the prodigious armies of Barbarians who seem desirous to rend the earth and wholly carry it away in fire and bloud from the center Behold the Roman Empire which hath trodden under foot all Scepters and Crowns of the earth ruined dis-membred torn in a thousand pieces in the hands of a vitious Emperour who buried it under the shivers of his Scepter and behold on the other side God who preserveth his Theodosius his Pulcheria his Martianus among these formidable inundations which cast all the world into a deluge as heretofore he did Noe in the revengefull waters which poured down from Heaven to drown the impurities of the earth What nurse was ever so carefull to drive a flie from the face of her little infant while
answered their desires For in this second Volumn I treat of the Courts of Constantine the Great the two Valentinians Gratian Theodosius the Elder Theodorick in Boetius his cause Clodoveus Clotilda Levigildus Hermingildus and Indegondis in such sort that I have selected the principal sanctities of Great-ones in the first six Ages of Christianity which will not be sleightly valued by those who better love to finish a Work than unboundedly distend it Moreover also to be better than my promise in my first Volumn having taken the Court in general I here descend into particulars and there being four sorts of persons which compose the life of Great-ones that is to say the Prelate the Souldier the States-man and the Court-Ladie I have made a brief Table of the conditions necessary in every state couched in four discourses pursued with as many Books of Histories which contain excellent models of virtues proper to all orders and states of life in persons most eminent I can assure my Reader these Summaries of Precepts which I have so contracted in so few words it being in my power to enlarge them in divers Volumns are not unprofitable and the Histories are so chosen that besides their majesty which unfoldeth the goodliest affairs and passages of Empires in the beginning of their Christianity they have also a certain sweetness which solid spirits shall find as much to transcend fables and modern eloquence as the satisfaction of truth surpasseth the illusions of Sorcerers You shall perpetually therein observe a large Theater of the Divine providence wherein God himself knoweth I have no other aim but to dignifie virtue and depress vice without any reflection upon the persons of these times no more than if I wrote in the Reign of Charlemain or St. Lewis I heartily entreat all those spirits of application who cannot hold their nose over a piece of work unless they find it to suit with their own fantasies imagining that all literature is the eccho of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make glosses upon their own dreams than my Books We are not as yet God be thanked in so miserable an Age that we dare not offer sacrifice to truth without a disguise since it is the glory of Great-ones openly to wage war against vices as their greatest enemies For to speak truly after I had presented my First Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I likewise considered in his Court rich and resplendent lights in all orders which might serve as models for my Treatises but to avoid affectation of all worldly complacence I have purposely declined it my nature and habit having already so alienated me from all worldly pretences that it would prove painfull to me to court any man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to give me for reward For so much as concerneth the form of writing observed by me in this Second Volumn I will truly confess to my Reader that I have therein proceeded rather guided by my proper Genius than art or cunning And although I heretofore have been curious enough to read and observe all what ever Greek or Roman eloquence hath produced of worth yet I confess there is a certain ray of God which encountering with our spirit and mixing with nature is more knowing than all precepts and I may affirm this for the instruction of youth which hath asked my opinion concerning the qualities and conditions of stile True it is I have handled many books written in all Ages and have found the wisest of them to be elevated in conceits and words above the ordinary strain but always free from affectation Others are so passionately enamoured of certain petty courtships of language which are capital enemies of perswasion and which we most especially ought to avoid in discourses of piety the nerves whereof they weaken and blemish the lustre since even those who speak to us out of Chairs by word or writing although in terms discreetly modest make the less impressions on our hearts and many times so seek after their own reputations as they forget how much they are engaged to truth We see some who through over-much wit search out strange ways conceptions different from common understanding words extravagant and in all other things so vehemently adore their own imaginations that they cannot endure any but themselves in paper which is the cause they very seldom meet with the habit of humane understanding as being true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth of ability to controle all and to do nothing Some glory in barrenness and would willingly be displeased with God that he hath more plentifully sown stars in some parts of the Heaven than in others They can brook nothing that is generous without snarling at it and taxing it supposing beauties and splendours are defects because they surpass their capacities Finally there are some who so furnish themselves with the worth of others ceaseless allegations that they frame discourses like to those Helena's all of gold where we can behold nothing but drapery not being able to distinguish the hand from the foot nor the eye from the face I enter not into the consideration of our times having learned rather to regard the Works of the meanest Writers than censure them But to speak sincerely I never thought it fit to advise or pursue such courses And as in this Work I have not wholly declined learning nor ornament of language which I supposed apt for the purpose endeavouring many times to enchase them with seemly accommodation so have I been unwilling to replenish my leaves with Authours and forreign tongues this being undertaken rather to perswade virtue among men eminent than to fill the common places of young Students I likewise have so intermingled my style that not descending into a petty language of complement which had been below my subject I thought to make it intelligible yea even unto those who make no profession of arts or study My onely aim is to speak and to be understood perswaded thereunto by the saying of Philo That speech and thought are two sisters they youngest whereof is created that the eldest may be known I have more laboured upon the weight of sentences than ornaments of words not at all pretending to the honour of earthly pens which we daily behold to grow in so many Authours of this Age who would be much more absolute did they apply themselves to graver subjects and in some sort imitate the Sun who affording admiration to the world hath none himself Notwithstanding it often happeneth not with the most eminent Writers who ordinarily are endowed with much modesty but certain extreamly profane wits to idolatrize their own inventions to condemn all treatises of worth and value that it is impossible to be eloquent in our language but in the expression of vanities and impurities Truly if question were made to judge of French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite as
trust to be planted by the hand of God to serve as a prop for the house of God to be the seat of glory for the Lord of Hosts to carry the moveables riches and greatness of the Church on his shoulders Finally for a third reason to conduct the Nobility to Ecclesiastical dignities is to bring it into its house All things willingly return to their source The waters cease not to glide along to render themselves to the Ocean The rays of the Sun touch the earth not forsaking their star the branches of the tree offer the homage of their verdure leaves and fruit to the root he goeth well that hasteneth to his beginning Now so it is that the greatest part of Church endowments came from the Nobility who then despoiled themselves to cover the Altars and now many unveil the Altars to cloath themselves If you O Noblemen desire to enjoy the patrimony which your Ancestours have left to the Church you ought not to seek it by unlawfull mischievous and tyrannical ways but by means proportionable to the intentions of those who laid those rich foundations And what intentions had they but to cut the trees Ezech. 17. Quercus Basan dolata in remos navis Tyri divites saeculi Ecclesiae appliciti Hieron super Ezech. of Basan to make oars for the vessel of S. Peter but to lay their wealth at the feet of God who according to the Prophet made himself a foot-step of Saphirs to serve as a ladder for glory but to entertain on earth an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem to grant to the Church men of science and conscience men of courage and fidelity for the ornament support and maintenance thereof If you approach thither with such an intention I am of opinion the gates ought to be opened unto you and that you should enter into your self to govern the house of Jesus Christ and not destroy it We have thanks be given to God a great King all whose inclinations dispose him to goodness as lines to the center as much love as he hath for justice so much zeal hath he for the glory of Altars As God is pleased to sow the stars on the azure of the firmament so hath he a sensible delight to furnish the Church with good Prelates because they are the stars of the earth Merit under him is in possession of good hopes and hope is not far distant to be consummate in fruition He is pleased to gratifie the Nobility with the goods of the Church but he will his intention be seconded by the merit of those that shall enjoy them Take the ways of wisdom and virtue to enter into your inheritance which ever are most assured and the most honourable The time hath been when one must as it were have done evil to receive good if now good be offered to those who do it who would willingly be vitious and sow crimes to reap miseries The second SECTION That the Nobility should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices but by lawfull ways PRophane Lucian spake truer than he thought Lucian in Jov. Trag. when he feigned Gentilism was filled with gods whereof some were made of wood and stone subsisting by the prerogative of antiquity which age and time gave them the other much more lately formed were of gold and silver resenting the profuse prodigality of the latter Ages This caused a divorce in the Temples the gods of earth were still willing to hold their ranks shewing besides the antiquity of their original that they were framed by the confident hands of admirable work-men and had lineaments excellently polished The gods of gold and silver dignified by the riches of the stuff of which they were composed spake proudly and needs would have priority since the mettal whereof they were made transcended much in the estimation of men The matter was put into deliberation in the great Parliament of Olympus and the golden gods carried it not by merit but by authority of their riches Should this scoffing spirit be raised again in these our days to make a Satyre on the manners of these times he could not be better fitted For to speak not universally of all Ecclesiastical Nobles since thanks be to God there are many who most happily have linked to Nobility all the other qualities requisite to their condition but considering in gross the disorder and corruption we may well say the gods of gold at this day have the upper hand We heretofore saw divers spiritual men extracted from low condition who arrived to dignities by the degrees of labour integrity knowledge and were finally crozier'd and mytered by the strength of much merit These men appeared in the Church of God as those ancient Statues made by the hand of Policletes Phidias and Sysippus there was not a lineament in them which spake not But when gold and silver began to sway more than ever the rich allured with the wealth of the Church brake a way through by the help of contentions authority and command which silver gave them over the courses of human things they maugre industrie and virtue have made golden gods which banish as it were all the gods of the earth notwithstanding the excellent forms and all the gifts of nature and grace they could possibly acquire It seemeth for these men the Church is at this day become a great Oak over-turned where men hastily on every side run for prey there is not a hand so little that will not become outragious to bear away some spoil thereof But you noble and generous spirits who in your minorities dedicate your selves to the ministeries of the Church behold the first step you must tread Be carefull herein as your lives and salvation are dear unto you aim well your carrier enter by the gate of honour to free your self from the disturbances of life and troubles of death Be ye assured it is the abomination of the desolation foretold by the Prophet Daniel Daniel 9. 27. Act. 8. 27. the gall of bitterness and perplexity of sin declared by the Apostle S. Peter to enter into an Ecclesiastical benefice by unlawfull and strained ways without vocation The reasons hereof are evident First the Saints have called this vice the iniquity of Libanus alluding to these words of the Prophet Habacuck The Iniquity of Libanus shall cover thee Habac. 1. Iniquitas Libani operiet te where the text spake to those who despoiled the holy Land because the mount Libanus is a holy hill of Palestine all covered over with fair Cedars much renowned in the Scripture from whence it cometh it mystically signifieth the Church and those are truly covered with the iniquity of Libanus who surcharge themselves with the weight of inexorable justice for attempting on the highest pieces of the patrimony of God which are the offerings of the faithfull left for the maintenance of Ecclesiastical state This iniquity of Libanus is the sin of Zeb Zebeus and Salmana who are branded with perpetual infamy for
who is pleased to take the pain to look into the deportments of men Ecclesiastical who are of eminent extraction shall perceive you are in the Church as an unprofitable burden (d) (d) (d) Principatus sine meritoris sublimitate bonorum titulus sinehomine dignitas in indigne ornameÌ„tum in luto Salvia l. 1. ad Eccles Cath. to disgrace the charge which honoureth you and that all those that name you when you happen to be mentioned in honourable assemblies will wish a cloud of darkness at noon-day to cover the shame of their foreheads Adde that the Church stretcheth out her arms and intreateth you would not suffer her laurels to wither in your hands to defile her victories nor eclipse her lights She hath seen many miseries many hath she born many vanquished but never felt any wounds more dolorous than those which fell upon her by vice (e) (e) (e) Nescio criminum an numinum turbam Tert. advers Valentinianos de eorum diis cap. 8. ignorance and the negligence of her Prelates That is it which hath opened the gate to heresies which hath fomented infidelities enlarged impiety disposed the brows of the wicked to impudence the tongue to slander the hands to rapine which hath darkened the present times with horrible confusions and which vomiteth upon the times and Ages of posterity Will you increase these calamities and with your corruptions make a bridge for the faithless to ruin Christianity For that perhaps shall be the last scourge which God will use to punish the abuses of ill Prelates and the sins of the people in general For conclusion I demand what will become of you in the end at the last judgement of God under which the Angels tremble who govern the world What will become of you when you shall be accused to have been a viper in the Church a scandal to the simple an ill example to the most corrupt a fiery torch that would enflame the house of God Where may one find punishments sufficient to inflict on you and where can you get members enough to furnish out so many punishments when the stones and marbles of those places you have possessed will crack in pieces to flie into your eyes On the contrary if you take the right way which I propose you shall lead a peaceable life in the security of a good conscience rich in honour and ability honourable in reputation terrible to the wicked reverenced by honest men fertile in good actions abundant in infinitie of fruits fruitfull in recompences prosperous in successes glorious to posterity attended on earth with the odour of virtues and crowned in Heaven by Eternitie The tenth SECTION The examples of great Prelates are very lively spurs to virtue TO come to this effect often represent before your eyes the lively images of so many worthy Prelates who have flourished through all Ages and behold them as stars which God with his own hand hath planted in this great firmament of the Church as well that he there might make his glory shine as here to prepare a way for our direction Think sometime within your self what a spirit one S. Nilamon Martyrol Rom. ad 6. Januar. had who died with terrour as they bare him to the Throne of a Bishop for which so many other pine away with ambition he forgoing life with apprehension he should loose his innocency What humility in S. Peter of Alexandria who being the lawfull Baronius Successour of S. Mark would never mount to his chair but contented himself to sit the residue of his days on the foot-stool until after his death the Chron. Alexandr people having attired him with his Pontifical habit did carry his body to the seat which he never had possessed A man truly humble whose death must be expected to honour his merit as if honour were incompatible with his life What zeal in Eustatius Bishop of Epiphanium whose heart was so surprized with onely notice of the prosanation of a Church that he fell down dead in the place making himself a tomb furnished with the triumphs of his own piety a thousand times more pretious than gold and richest diamonds What liberality in Saint Exuâ—erius Bishop of Tholouse to give away the gold and silver of his Church for the necessities of the poor yea even to the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament in a little basket of osier What charity in Saint Paulinus who after he had in alms spent his whole patrimony which was both very rich and abundant sold himself and voluntarily became a slave to redeem the son of poor widows What faith in Saint Gregorie Thaumaturgus to remove mountains and command over elements with as much liberty as a Master over his servants What power in S. Leo and S. Lupus to stay Attila and make head against an Army composed of seven hundred thousand men drawn from the most dreadful Nations of the earth What confidence in S. Martin to submit his shoulders to receive the fall of a huge tree on condition he might thereby banish the Idols Let us lay aside all other actions which are miraculous behold the lives of those who have traced a more ordinary way Imitate the contemplation of a S. Denis the fervour of a S. Ignatius the constancy of a S. Athanasius the contempt of the world of a S. Hilarie the generosity of a S. Cyprian the austerity of a S. Basil the mildness of a S. Augustine the majesty of a S. Ambrose the vigilancy of a S. Gregorie the vigour of a S. Cyril the wisdom of a S. Remigius Propose to your self the acts of S. Vedastus Herculanus Eleutherius Medardus Lucipinus Nicerius Romanus Sulpitius Pretextatus Germanus Amandus Claudius Lambertus Woâ—phranus Swibertus and many such like Consider the deportments of S. Thomas of Canterbury S. Lewis of Tholouse and above all let not your eye pass over Saint Charles Boromaeus whom God hath made resplendent in our days to teach us that no Age is secluded from sanctity A man is powerfull to perswade virtue when in one and the same instant he alledgeth three-score thousand reasons each of which weigh a Crown of gold hath one of the best Writers of this Age said and so did S. Charles forsaking three-score thousand crowns of yearly rent for one mornings Mass He was a Bishop who often fasted with bread and water even in the time of feasts who every day said his Breviary on his knees and moistened it with his The Reverend Father â—inet tears who celebrated Mass every day with a majesty more than humane who had two retirements in the year to attend to spiritual exercises who read the Bible on his knees sheading brinish tears who gave alms above his ability who in person waited on the infectious who wore hair-cloth under his scarlet habit who slept on the bare boards who stirred not out of his Diocess who visited it on foot who in his charge made himself indefatigable who ever was the foremost
passed Ages edified the present enlightened the future and upheld great fortunes by a much greater sanctitie All these will tell you we have nothing immortal in us but the riches of the mind and all this exteriour lustre of the world which charmeth the eyes of men is but a cloud in painting a petty vapour of water a fable of time a dyal which we then onely behold when the sun of honour reflecteth on it and which must in the end be buried in an eternal night of oblivion Let us now see the great S. Ambrose whom we among thousands have selected to serve as a model for this first discourse You therein shall observe a man of a most noble extraction endowed with admirable parts and who by necessity of duty and considerations of charity was conversant in the Courts of Emperours and in the infinite perplexity of many affairs which he with all manner of prudence and courage handled shewing in his deportments a vigorous sanctity chosen by the Divine Providence to make as it were the whole State of Christendom most eminent E C DOCTORIS AMBROSII St. AMBROSE The first SECTION His Calling THe first mark of perfection which we require in a good Prelate to wit Divine calling is in great S. Ambrose so manifest that were it written with the rays of the Sun it could not be made more perspicuous We may in some sort speak of him what he said (a) (a) (a) Amb. l. 1. Comment in Lucam cap. 1. Vngebatur quasi bonus athleta exercebatur in utero matris amplissimo enim virtus certamini parabatur of S. John Baptist That it seemeth God began to prepare him from his mothers womb to exercise his virtue one day in main battels First it is a thing remarkeable that seeing resolution was taken in Heaven to make this Prelate one of the most couragious and eloquent men of the world he should be extracted from the Nobility which is ordinarily full of generosity being derived from a father honoured with one of the chief charges of the Empire which was the Lieutenancy over the Gauls Besides he came into the world first breathing French air which hath been esteemed according to S. Hierom (b) (b) (b) Hieron adversus Vigilantium Sola Gallia monstra non habuit sed viris semper fortissimis eloquentissimis abundavit the Countrey of the most noble and learned spirits of the earth and Sidonius (c) (c) (c) Sidonius Apol. carm 1. Invicti perstantanimisque supersunt Jam prope post animam another Prelate hath said the valour of a French-man extendeth further than his life for he liveth even then when the soul and body are divided Secondly as we have observed before God many times declared the calling of infants by sundry presages It was a great sign of the eloquence of Saint Ambrose to behold a swarm of bees (d) (d) (d) The cradle of S. Ambrose all together settle on his cradle which was at that time brought out into a court of his fathers Palace that the child might thereby take a little fresh air The nurse seeing these little honey-creatures buzze about him much nearer than she could have wished coming and going to his lips was affrighted and thought to drive them away but the father who walking in the same place with his wife and daughter beheld this pretty sport made a sign she should hold her hands lest by exasperating these little creatures she might provoke their stings In the end they peaceably forsook the place and soared away so high that they lost sight of them At that time Ambrose father of our great Prelate spake aloud as with the spirit of prophesie This infant shall be great And verily these bees much better alluded to S. Ambrose than to Plato who is said to have had the like hap in his infancy For we must affirm the eloquence of Plato had honey in it and no sting but this of S. Ambrose besides the exceeding sweetness thereof in peaceable arguments had when there was occasion of combate stings that pierced to the quick We may well say he was the most elaborate in his style of all the Doctours of the Church especially if we speak of the Latins For many as S. Hierom and S. Augustine oftentimes dictated with much vehemency of spirit what came to their mind but S. Ambrose did not so much accustom himself to dictate to a writer for he in composing ever had his pen in hand (e) (e) (e) Ambros Epist 65. ad Sabinum Nobis autem quibus curae est similem sermenem familiari usu ad unguem distinguere lento quedam figere gradu aptus videtur propriam manum nostro effigere stylo c. to polish his works at leisure and as we say lick his own bear Adde hereunto another sign of his vocation in the childish sports he exercised without consideration as did heretofore Saint Athanasius being then as he an infant which was to cause his sister and the children which attended her to kiss his hand as the hand of a Bishop he therein taking much pleasure It seemeth God sometimes sheweth children as with his finger the way they should pursue It is an admirable thing that therâ— was in Paris found a young begger called Mauritius so far transported in his own fancy that he one day might become Bishop of Paris that many offers being jestingly made unto him in his infinite necessity to move him to renounce the right he pretended to the Bishoprick of this ample Citie it proved meerly impossible which a wealthy man perceiving he so furthered him in studie as in the end he came to the degree which to himself he had prefigured What shall we say God unlooseneth even the tongues of mothers to speak prophetically touching the state of their children Witness a most honourable Ladie named Ida mother of three sons Baldwin Godfrey Eustace who one day sporting with her and hiding themselves under her gown and many times shewing their heads with diverse pretty childish dalliances the father casually coming thither in the midst of their play as they were all covered with their mothers garment demanded Who have we there The Ladie readily answered not knowing what she should say It is a King a Duke and a Count. So it proved Baldwin was King of Jerusalem Godfrey succeeded in the Dutchy of Lorrain to his father the great Godfrey of Bouillon and Eustace was Earl of Boloigne God made use of this womans tongue as of the hand of a dyal which pointeth out the hours as the great wheel guids it leaving no memory where it touched Ambrose did the like at that time directed by the spirit of God He made himself Bishop in his own imagination but when he pursued the way of his proper reason and natural judgement he therein used all resistance not thinking he was called thereunto In the third place his calling was altogether extraordinary and miraculous in
of Curiositie which ordinarily fixeth it self on the fairest Spirits as it is said Cantharides rest on the beautifullest Roses A great train of vices is ever waited on by a great curiositie and he that can well know them shall find that to be Curious is to forsake innocencie to draw near to sin according to the eloquent S. Zeno Curiositie maketh Curiositat reum efficit non peritum S. Zeno 2. de aeternâ Filii generation◠Curiositie the description thereof more offenders in prison than learned in schools and ever the desire to know what God would have hidden is paid with ignorance of ones self Were I a Painter or Pourtrayer to represent to youth the vanitie of this passion I would make the statue thereof on a moving globe what can be more inconstant I would give it wings what is lighter I would sprinkle it all over with eyes what more watchfull I would fill it with ears what more industrious in the discoverie of so great a diversitie of things I would give it a mouth perpetually open for it is no sooner filled by the ear but emptied by the mouth I would lodge it at the sign of Vacuum for what is more vain I would afford it spiders webs for attyre what is more frivilous For table and viands smoke what more slender and hungry I would ordain for officers many lyers and impostures for such people are its favourites Before it a certain itch of generall knowledge should go for it is the ordinarie messenger thereof at the right hand Opinion for it is it which deceives her at the left Tattle it is that which instructs her after it I would set disturbance of Spirit ignorance and miserie for it is its inheritance in the end Augustine as it were from his most tender years made himself tributarie to this false Deitie and instead of taking the way of true Religion by the paths of holy simplicitie needs would he dive into it by reasons and humane subtilities which alienated him as far from truth as they were of power to encline him to vanitie He had a great wit as it were like a prodigie and The wit of S. Augustine it seemeth that Africk which produced him would then bring forth nothing which was mean It must still bring forth huge monsters or mightie men He notwithstanding was over-sharp being not as yet in his consistence but resembled the glass of a mirrour which cannot render forms till it be leaded So this admirable wit through want of the virtue of humilitie which is in men as lead in the mirrour sparkled with a vain presumption which bringeth with it no other profit made more illusions in eyes than it left good examples in manners Now to specifie the qualities of this excellent nature we must consider it from his tenderest years since the disposition makes it self soon appear in children as the rose in his bud Augustine began almost as soon to studie as to live His inclinations for he burned from his younger dayes with a thirst of knowledge so eminent that he surmounted his age And for a note of his curiositie which alreadie rather aimed at splendour than utilitie young though he were he resembled the children who make themselves Preachers before they can read Nothing was he pleased with the elements of Grammar which he reputed too low for his spirit He would climb without a ladder and scorned to learn of a Grammarian how the name of Aeneas was written but rather readily disputed whether Aeneas had been at Carthage or not Greek to him was a pill which he swallowed not but by constraint and better loved he to speak Latine by custom than the rules of Donat. All his delight was to know fables and histories to weep over the disastrous loves of poor Dido and to be angrie with Juno with so good a grace that composing thereupon certain imitations of Virgil he ravished his Masters and companions in the school which made it well appear he one day should become more fruitfull in strong imaginations which are the principal pieces of eloquence than religious in choice of words and polished in periods His father who discovered the riches of this wit had an ardent desire that he might swim in a large water for he as yet studied at Oran a pettie village of Africk having not the means to go to Carthage Want of enablements is many times a counterpoize to the height of the understanding but in depressing it he crowned it since generous studies according to Plines saying are lodged at the sign of povertie and ever sciences are refined by necessity Augustine not then knowing what God would do with him sought to make a fortune and such likewise was the will of Patricius his father who more desired to see him eloquent than chast Behold why the good man who had much courage and little means strove beyond his abilitie to send his son to Carthage the most famous Universitie of Africk As great fishes are found in great seas so Augustine had there wherewith to satisfie the passion of his curiositie and measuring his own strength with that of others saw matter enough how to make his wit be held in esteem to which he alreadie had sufficient inclination He was not contented to exercise himself in eloquence which in all Ages hath had much reputation among arts as the fullest of noise and that which unfolds it self with most ostent but he throughly studied Philosophy and all other sciences which are of power to make an able man in such sort that there was not then a book which he had not with undefatigable industrie perused The poor young man went like a torrent whither passion transported him and where the blast of ambition breathed having the feeling of Christianitie in him very faint for much better he loved to measure the world in his vanitie than possess it in the love of God not as yet considering the difference between a good countrey swain who at full ease enjoyeth the fruits of his tree whereof he knoweth no other secrets and a Philosopher that observeth the ten Categories and remains almost famished not tasting of any one fruit His curiositie failed not to transfer him to judicial Astrologie Astrologie wherein he imployed much time still thinking to discover some secrets in this labyrinth of fools which better knoweth how to involve minds than give them satisfaction He happeneth one day to confer with an old Physitian a man grave and of great capacitie who seeing him passionately in love with these books of Astrologie said Son if you desire to transcend others in any profession of the world rather take eloquence in which as far as I can see you have greatly profited than to stick on vain sciences unworthy of your judgement Verily I will herein confess the ignorance of my youth I have been as much addicted to judicial Astrologie as ever was any man of my condition for I not onely sought the
doctrine made as many slips as steps he roundly said his curiosity had never born him so far that way and that he better had loved to contemn such things than study them As for the rest the doctrine of Manes depended not upon the knowledge of eclypses since never had it been eclypsed Augustine perceived his Doctour was not Non usquequequâ— imperitus erat imperitiae suae Confes 4. c. 7. wholly ignorant since he understood at the least how to acknowledge his own ignorance but was otherwise absolutely distasted with the divinity of the Manichees seeing so little support in Faustus who was the primepillar of the faction and the snare which he would make use off to stay him was the beginning of his liberty It was to make a banquet of flowers and songs for one almost famished to seek with words to give him satisfaction In the end after a long abode in Africk he resolved to go to Rome not so much to find verity in its source which as yet he proposed not to himself to be in the Church of Rome as to dissolve the irksomness of teaching Rhetorick at Charthage the youth whereof was extreamly insolent His friends propounded unto him for his aim a far other air much different successes from his former labours and another recompence for his merit adding besides it was a sweeter climate where young men held within the lists of good discipline yielded their Masters full satisfaction It was the strongest bait could therein be found for the sweetness of his spirit was incompatible with the boldness of the schollars of Carthage which was the cause that secretly stealing away from his good mother who could not with her tears hinder the voyage he set sail for Italy and came to Rome Behold him in the chief Theater of the world where he began to shew himself and entertain an Auditory in his Chamber to be known and forthwith appear in publick Courts where he learned the students of Rome gave their Reader good words but the time of payment being come they inconsiderately many times forsook the Teacher to exercise elsewhere the like deceit which infinitely displeased him and seeing that by good fortune a Rhetorician was sought after for Milan he handled the matter so by the assistance of some Manichees whom he yet courted for his own ends and by the favour of Symmachus Pretour of the City that this charge was stayed for him Behold him then at Milan where the providence Hidden passages of divine providence in reclayming souls of God had marked out his lodging Behold him in the field of battel where he was to be assaulted Behold him in the Amphitheater where he should be disarmed Behold him in the sphere where he must be illuminated As we have beheld the strong oppositions which stopped up the way in the salvation of this great soul let us now see the means God used for his conversion Here is an admirable spectacle and worthy the consideration of noble spirits since of all the works which God doth out of himself nothing hath so much manifested his wisdom bounty mercy and power as the conversion of men We observe in the effects and experiences of nature that one thing draweth another in foure special manners to wit sympathy motion heat and secret atraction Sympathy say I or natural conformity so the stone tendeth downwards into the bosom of the earth because it there finds reposes Motions so the hammer drives the nail and one man leads another by the hand Heat so the sun raiseth up the vapours of the earth after it hath subtilized and heated them Secret atractions so amber draws the straw and the adamant wyns the iron The spirit of God ingenious and powerful in our conversions makes use of these same four attractions to draw us to him Attractions which are able to gain the harshest disarm the most savage heat the remissest and startle the stupid Attraction of sympathy consisteth in good nature and sweet inclination which the Master-workman giveth us for virtue Attraction of Motions is seen in the conuersion of good company where examples of piety sweetly stir a soul to that which is its good Attraction of heat is insinuated by the word of God which is a sword of fire to make strange divisions between the soul and flesh Secret attraction is a most particular touch from God who taketh men by ways hidden interiour and extraordinary So many times we see conversions infinitely strange Such was that of S. Paul Notable conversions who felt a blow in the bloud of S. Stephen when he shed it by so many hands as he gave consents to the furie of his executioners Such was that of the Jugler Genesius under Dioclesian who in a full Theater scoffing at the ceremonies of Christians at the same time became a Confessour of the faith and Martyr of Jesus Christ Such was that of Mary neece of Abraham the Hermit who was gained to God in a supper which she had made in a bourdel Such likewise was that of Irais a poor maid-servant of Alexandria who Martyrol Rom. 16. Martii 22. Septemb. as the Samaritan going to draw water left her pitcher to run to Martyrdom and joyning her self to Christians which were led to execution bare away the first crown Such was that of a thief who forsook his wicked life beholding a yound Monk that ate wild roots and another converted having seen Paphnutius the Hermit drink a glass of wine who never Joannes Aegid de doctrina Patrum titul Charit num 6 had drunk any before and then onely did it by a resignation of his own judgement and proper will into the hands of another who commanded it The thief at that instant thus concluded That if this holy man were so enforced by virtue for an action so contrary to ordinary life he himself might well by the help of resolution undertake the same predominance over his passions and of an ill man become a Saint as he did Briefly such was the conversion of Parentius a man of quality who exercised a place of judicature in a City of Italy For having seen a young swyn-herd who taught his companion a trick to make his hogs readily run into into the Sty which was to say to them Enter hogs into the sty as wicked Judges into Hell and then perceiving that these beasts readily obeyed this word he laughed heartily but presently changing all his mirth into serious actions he set himself to ponder on the difficulties he found of salvation in the great corruptions of justice and was so touched that he tooke the habit of Franciscans where he so far proceeded in Chronic. Minorum virtue that he became General of the Order and visited bare-foot all the houses of S. Francis It must be confessed there are great priviledges of Gods providence in such affairs I am willing briefly to recite examples of these secret attractions because they are very famous and I set
came from Afrik to Milan through so many perils both of sea and land such travels and sufferings to conclude her deliverance She found her son much already shaken by the shocks which the eloquence of S. Ambrose had given him Soon the holy woman knew it was this great Bishop whom God had chosen to set a seal upon this work of the conversion of a man so important and her son relateth that from that time she esteemed S. Ambrose as a very Angel of Heaven (a) (a) (a) Diligebat illum virum sicut Angelum Dei In Ambrosii ora suspendebatur ad fontem aquae salientis in vitam aeternam Conf. 6. in c. 1. She was still in the Church to behold him ever she hung on his lips as the sources which distil from the Paradise of God Here is the attraction of heat or rather the sun that must on high exhale this cold vapour after so much resistance it had made against the spirit of God Augustine himself very particularly deciphereth how being at Milan he saw the Bishop Ambrose known through the whole habitable world (b) (b) (b) In optimis notus orbiterrae as one of the best men upon the earth who ceased not to administer to his people the word of God which in it bare corn oyl and the wine of sobriety This man of God saith he at my arrival imbraced me as a father would his son and shewed he was much pleased with my coming to Milan obliging me with many charitable offices Behold the cause why I began to affect him very much not so much yet as a Doctour of truth for I expected it neither from him nor any other Catholick but as a man who wished me well I continually was present at his sermons in the beginning for curiositie to espie and sound whether his eloquence were equal to his great reputation I was very attentive to his words little caring for the matter and I found he really had a stile very learned and sweet but not the cheerfulness and quaint attractions of Faustus c c c Sermonis erat eruditioris minùs tamen hilarescentis atque mulcentis quà m Fausti though for substance of discourse there was no comparison For Faustus recounted fables and this man taught most wholesome doctrine Behold the first apprehensions that Augustine had touching the abilitie of S. Ambrose In the end he continuing to hear him for delight truth entered through his ears which were onely opened to eloquence and he found in the beginning that our Religion had not those absurdities which the Manichees obtruded and were it not true it might at least be professed without impudence which he could not hitherto be perswaded unto The old Testament which with the Manichees he so much had rejected seemed to him to have a quite other face after the learned interpretations of S. Ambrose The chymeraes and fantasies which environed his imagination were dissolved at the rising of some pettie rays from him Notwithstanding it was yet neither day nor night in his soul Errour was below and Religion had not yet the upper hand His spirit over-toiled with so many questions by the wiles of Satan propended to neutralitie being neither hot nor cold as it happened to those who forsake truth through the despair they have how to know it The eighth SECTION Agitations of spirit in S. Augustine upon his conversion BUt God still enflaming his chast desires he bent himself to consider S. Ambrose whom he perpetually had for object and seeing how this man was honoured by the chief Potentates of the earth how he flourished in such glorious actions all appeared compleat in such a life but that it went on without a wife he thinking at that time the want of a great burden to be a main miserie He as yet proceeded but to the bark of S. Ambrose observing onely what was exteriour and not penetrating into those great treasures of lights virtues contentments and heavenly consolations stored up in the bottom of the conscience of this holy Prelate He had vehement desires to speak to him somewhat more familiarly to understand his opinion to ask questions at large to discover his heart all naked and unfold the miseries of his passed life And because saith he I stood in need of a man full of great leasure to receive the ebbe and flow of thoughts which were in my soul now I found all in Ambrose except time to hear me not that he was difficult of access for he was ever in his Hall exposed to the service of the whole world but my unhappiness was to be like the Paralitick of the fish-pool still out-gone by others more strong than my self What diligence soever I used I found Ambrose environed with a large troup of solicitous men whose infirmities he comforted to my exclusion and if any little time remained for him it was imployed either in repast which was exceeding short or at his book The good Prelate studied in his Hall in sight of all the world where I oft beheld him and saw that in reading he onely ran over with his eye one page of a book then ruminated it in his heart not at all moving his lips whether it were that he would not engage himself to discourse upon his reading to all there present or whether it were he did it to preserve his voice easily weakened with much exercise of speach or for some other cause I thought time was very precious to him and seeing him so serious I supposed it a kind of impudency to interrupt him After so long a silence I went away with the rest not having opportunity to speak to him Verily this discourse sheweth a mervellous repose of spirit in S. Ambrose and as it were over much modesty in S. Augustine for it was a wonder that he who ordinarily lived at Milan in the reputation of a great wit and was already known by the Bishop to be such brake not the press at one time or other to gain some hours of audience in affairs of so great importance I should think either that he used a forbearance too shame-faced and irresolute or that S. Ambrose would not enter into disputation with a young man as yet so well perswaded of his own abilities before he had suffered him to ripen and to be throughly seasoned by the resentments of piety However it put the mind of S. Augustine into great disturbance Behold saith he almost eleven years that I have sought the truth and see I am arrived at the thirtieth year of my Age yet still perplexed To morrow infallibly it must dissolve stay yet a little perhaps Faustus will come to Milan and tell thee all But how will he tell that which he shall never know Let us hold with the Academicks and say all is uncertain for every man mantaineth what he list It is the property of man to imagine and the nature of God to know But the Academicks behold gallant men do
arms the Masters who had trained him up confessed he had dainty passages inimitable for any practice The Pagans who would blame him for diversity of Religion have never said ought else of him but that he was to good an Archer and over-fervent in hunting of wild beasts That notwithstanding set him in the estimation of warlike men and as he was singularly affable and liberal so was there nothing to be found in the world more charming than his nature Saint Ambrose having understood his spirit much affected him and endeavoured to joyn the most solid virtues to so many fair natural parts and above all perceiving that among so many Pagans and Arians who stretched out their snares on every side to surprize him it was necessary to prevent them he laid in his Royal soul deep foundations of faith and most chaste grounds of Religion to which Gratian shewed himself from the beginning much enclined There is also a letter found written in his proper stile and with his own hand where when he had heard the learned instructions of his Prelate he demands them in writing and because it is an excellent monument of his spirit and Religion I will here insert it The Emperour GRATIAN to Ambrose the Religious Bishop of God Omnipotent I Have a vehement desire to see my self united to you Apud Ambros in praefat I. de fide by corporal presence as I ever have you in my memorie and as I cohabit with you in the better part of my self which is the soul I beseech you most holy and Religious Bishop of the living God hasten unto me to teach me what I believe before I have sufficiently learned For it is not my purpose to argue upon matter of faith better loving to lodge God in my heart than conclude him in my words My desire onely is to open my soul at large to the Divinitie to receive its lights the Excellent faith and modestie of the Emperour more abundantly God will instruct me if it shall please him by your words since I confess and reverence his most Sacred Majestie well observing not to call Jesus Christ a creature or to measure him by the weakness which I acknowledge in mine own person but rather I avow our Saviour to be so great that our thoughts which are almost infinite can adde nothing thereunto For if the Divinitie of the Son could increase I would dilate my self in it for augmentation of his praises supposing I could not better gain the gracious favour of the Celestial Father than in glorifying the Son Eternal But as I fear no jealousie on Gods side so for my part I make no account to esteem my self so great an Oratour that thereby it may be in my power to adde any thing to the glory of the Divinitie by my words I acknowledge my self to be infirm and frail I praise God proportionably to my forces and not answerably to the measure of his greatness As for the rest I beseech you to afford me the Treatise of faith of which you heretofore gave me a tast adding thereunto the Disputation of the Holy Ghost in such sort that you prove his Divinitie by the Scripture and reason Hereupon I pray God dear Father and true servant of God whom I adore that he many years preserve you in safetie This Letter he that will consider it shall find to be full of much sense and verily Saint Ambrose was so ravished herewith that he confesseth never to have seen nor read at that time the like This good Emperour saith he wrote to him with his own hand as Abraham who himself prepared the dinner for Genes 18. his guests not giving commission thereof to his own servants He wrote holy words unto him as if he had an ear in Heaven and which is more remarkeable it was in a time when he was upon the point of a journey to resist Barbarians and therefore he purposely took the arms of faith from this great Bishop For observe this young eaglet from the second year of his Empire found business enough For Athanaricus King of the Goths entered into Thracia with a formidable Army and as Gratian amassed together all his Eastern troups to make head against him the Baâ—barians imagining with themselves that the Western Empire was unfurnished fell upon the Gauls whither the Emperour went with admirable expedition to succour them and it was at the time when he wrote this letter and most particularly recommended himself to Saint Ambrose taking the standard of faith from him to bear it in the front of his flourishing Legions This was not without Triumphant victory very notable success for by relation of Ammianus Marcellinus he bare himself most valiantly in this journey although very young undergoing toyls and ever appearing in the head of the army to encourage the souldiers by his presence which so enkindled them that they resolved to confront the enemy as soon as might be and defeated them at Strasbourg with so horrible a slaughter that of seventy thousand Barbarians threescore and five thousand covered the field with their massacred bodies leaving young Gratian to make a harvest in the chief field of Mars moistened with the palms of his own sweats but above all blessed by the prayers of great S. Ambrose As the Emperour returned from this conquest he received letters from the holy Prelate where among other things excusing himself that he had not accompanied him he saith It is not the want of affection Most Christian Emperour Affectionate words of S. Ambrose to the young Emperour for what title can I give you either more true or more glorious It is not I say the want of affection hath absented me from your person but modestie joyned to the decorum of my profession yet at your return I present my self before you if not with bodily steps at the least with the whole affections of my heart and all the vows wherewith I could charge the Altars and in this the dutie of a Bishop principally consisteth But it is mistaken to say that I came before you as if I had been separated from you having perpetually attended you in mind marching along with you in your thoughts heart and good favour which is the most noble presence I can desire I measured your journeys I went along with your Armie I was in your camp day and night with all my cogitations and with all my cares I stood centinel with my prayers and those of my Clergie at your Imperial Pavillion How much I was little in merit so much the more did I raise my self in diligence and assiduitie And rendering this dutie for you I did it for the whole Church herein do I use no flatterie for you love it not and well know it to be far from my nature and the place which I hold but God is a witness with us both how much you have comforted my heart by the sinceritie of your faith to whom he hath afforded such
understanding these propositions went to find out the noble Bayard in his lodging and made a long discourse to him of the evil disposition of Pope Julius and the enterprises he had both on his life and of the Frenchmen of purpose to enkindle him for revenge Then he pursued his opportunitie and made overture to him of the treason of this wicked Gerlo Bayard beheld him and said How Sir I could never have imagined that a Prince so generous as you would consent to such a mischief and had you done it I swear by my soul before night I would have given the Pope notice of it How answered the Duke he would have done as much either to you or me It is no matter replieth Bayard this treacherie displeaseth me The Duke shrugged up his shoulders and spitting on the ground Mounsieur Bayard saith he I would I had killed all mine enemies in this sort but since you dislike it the matter shall rest and you and I both may have cause to repent it We shall not if it please God replyeth the good souldier but I pray you put this gallant into my hands that would do this goodly piece of service and if I do not cause him to be hanged in an hour let me supply his place The other excused it saying he had given him assurance of his person Behold you not a brave spirit See you not a man of a Royal conscience and of an honestie in all things like to it self Where are these pettie spirits of the abyss more black than specters and infernal furies who have neither loyaltie for their Prince nor Common-wealth but as it may concern their own interests who swallow treasons as big as cammels to gain a flie They would make truth it self to lie were not their issues ever tragical abominable and hideous The ninth SECTION Short and notable Instructions MY souldier follow the precepes which the great S. Augustine gave to Captain Boniface August ep 80. Observe faith and virtue in Arms which never will be prosperous on earth if they be not fortified with blessings from Heaven Beg of God with David to deliver you from your necessities which are your passions he doth nothing to overcome visible enemies that have power over bodies who surmounteth not the invisible bandied against the health of our souls Make use of the world as a thing borrowed do good with its goods and become not bad They are goods since they come from God who extendeth his power over all things both celestial and temporal They are goods since God gives them to good men but they are not also great goods since he affords them to the wicked He takes them away from the virtuous to trie their virtue and from the perverse to chastise their crimes It is true strength health victorie honour wealth are indifferently the portion of all men but conquest over passions virtues salvation of soul immortalitie of bodie glorie honour beatitude are the proper inheritance of Saints Love these goods desire them seek them with all your endeavour do alms-deeds to get them fast as much as your forces will permit all here below passeth away but good works Think when you go to the wars that the strength of your bodie is a gift of God that it is not fit to arm against your sovereign Masters proper benefits Keep promise even with your enemies make peace with all the world voluntarily and war for necessity to acquire the good of peace Be peacefull even in Arms for such men are called the children of God If it be necessarie to kill an enemie in fight let mercy be always exercised in the latter end of the combat principally when there is no further fear of rebellion Adorn your manners with conjugal chastitie sobrietie and modestie It is a ridiculous thing to conquer men and be vanquished by vices to escape the sword and be overthrown by wine If you want means seek it not on earth by wicked practices but secure rather in Heaven that little you have by the exercise of good works Flee these rocks of Nobilitie which we have hitherto spoken against and above all bridle presumption choller the tongue and sensuallitie They are slaves who cannot keep in the mean between servitude and Empire where either chains must be had to master them or a Throne erected to honour them Pesumption if you afford it enterance will make you of a man a baloon filled with wind a scare-crow of honour a temerarious thing void of courage an undertaker without successe a phantastick without shame which in the end shall become burdensome to it self and odious to all the world Choller and folly are two sisters which have in all things the same qualities or if there be any difference it is that the one with more furie maketh havock in an instant and the other produceth her effects with more leisure and cheerfulness whilest you are subject to this passion no man can confide in you in matter of judgement no more than to weather-cocks in the point of stabilitie you will have all other vices in-seed and perpetually live in the sorrow of time past disturbance of the present and uncertaintie of the future As for the tongue it is that which containeth all the good or evil of man It is the needle of the great dial of the soul that must shew all the hours It is the truche-man of our thoughts the image of our actions the interpreter of our wills and the principal key of conversation He that will now adays live in the world saith the famous S. Nazianzen must have a veil over his Nazianz. in Iamb eys a key on his ear a compass on his lips A veil over his eyes not to see or in seeing to dissemble many things a key on his ears to shut them up against so many follies and ordures which proceed from bad mouthes and a compass on the lips to measure and square out all his words with discretion So many secrets unnecessarily discovered so many infamous slanders so many inconsiderate tales so many frivolous promises so many impudent lyes such perjuries and execrable blasphemies so many disasters which oft happen for a sleight speech daily teach us that words have no handles to hold them by and better it is to trip with the foot than the tongue Sensualitie if you powerfully resist it not from the first reflections which reason may present will make you a thing of nothing The three spirits wine love and game will fetter you with a prodigious slavery You will become a living sepulchre a tomb of surphets and slaughters a gulf of calumnies a meer hobgoblin without repose which shall continually handle cards and dice to bereave you of your purse and understanding so to make a spoil of your goods a frencie of your reason and a perpetual feaver of your life Your condition ought not to make you pretend power over men if you seasonably enterprise it not over your own passions
Beware how you enter into the list among so many noble spirits there to discover your weaknesse and to adde nothing to the lustre of the honour of so many worthy Ancestours but to render your own crimes the more remarkable Shew your self herein a reasonable man and endeavour that all your actions may be as lines which grow from the centre of wisdome to be produced with all felicitie Remember things past rectifie the present foresee those to come Above all learn to set a true estimation upon every thing in the world and suffer not your self to be surprised by the illusions of so many objects which when they have charmed the eyes and overthrown reason leave nothing behind them but sorrow to have done ill and impotencie of doing well In conversation take the measure of your self and the like of those with whom you deal to husband and accommodate your self reasonably to all the world yielding to every one the respect which his merit seems to require The exercise of devotion will not hinder you from the endeavour how to become an able man in your profession from being honest civil discreet affable liberal obliging stout couragious patient which are the principal qualities of a Courtier It is not desired that to be devout you should have a spirit drowzie sluggish overwhelmed not that through overmuch simplicitie you make profusion of your self in an Age where bountie seemeth to be the prey of insolent spirits Wisdom will teach you neither to intrude nor pour out your self to dissemble through virtue that which ought to be concealed to adapt your self to companies and affairs to believe nothing lightly nor to promise nor decide any thing without consideration to persevere in certain things not ill because you have begun them not to be harsh nor too much complying since the one tasteth of brutishness the other inclines to flatterie To propose to your self good and evil which may arise from an affair to moderate the one and tollerate the other Above all honour the King next after God as the source of all greatness and the fountain of the most noble lights which reflect on Nobilitie Honour him with profound respect as the lively Image of God Love him sincerely serve him with all fidelitie If you be employed in affairs and governments endeavour to persist therein with conscience and honour which are the two mansions of a great soul If you have merit without employment and recompence say not therefore that all is lost It is a good business to be well at rest to manure your spirit to enable your self with reading and peaceable conversion to govern your house Learn nothing but what you ought to know Search that onely which you may profitably find desire nothing but what you may honourably wish for And be not conceited to run after a spectre of imaginarie favour nor to mount to a place where you cannot stay without fear nor fall without ruin So many great Monarchs so many Princes Lords and valorous men who are come from Courts and the profession of arms to enter into the Temple of pietie assure us this life is capable of Saints and that no man ought to despair of virtue but he who renounceth it If the brevitie of this Treatise would permit I would willingly set before you a David a Josias an Ezechias a Charlemaign a S. Lewis a Hermingildes a Henry a Stephen a Casimire a Godfrey of Bovillon a Wenceslaus an Edward an Elzear an Amideus I would make you see flourishing Squadrons of Martyrs drawn from warfare amongst which you would admire a Maurice an Exuperius a Sebastian a Marius a Mennas an Olympiades a Meliton a Leontius a Maximus a Julian an Abdon a Sennen a Valens a Priscus a Marcellus a Marcellinus a Severinus a Philoromus a Philoctemon and so many such like Finally I would shew in the latter Ages men worthy of all honour eminent in arms and enobled with singular pietie but I now content my self to draw from Eusebius Theodoret Nicephorus Zozimus Socrates Sozomenus Cedrenus and above all Cardinal Baronius the life of Great Constantine who hath been the very prime man amongst Christian princes and hath witnessed especially after his Baptism a masculine pietie and a great example of sanctitie IMP. CAES. FLAVIVS CONSTAN AVG. CONSTANTINE The first SECTION The Providence of God over Constantine I Will shew to Christian Nobilitie its source in the life of the prime Gentleman of Christianitie If we respect antiquitie greatness and dignitie we shall not find a Prince either more anciently noble than he who first of all among Emperours deserved the title of Christian or more truly great than he who so happily engraffed the empire of the universe on the tree of the Cross or more justly honourable than he who cemented his honour with the bloud of the Lamb. It is the admirable Constantine Greatness of Constantine who so perfectly allied valour to pietie Monarchy to humilitie the wisdom of the Cross to the government of the world the nails and thorns of the passion to the Diadem of Kings and delights of the Court that he hath left matter of meditation for the wise of profit for Religious of imitation for Monarchs and of wonder for those who admire nothing vulgar Behold a marvellous Theatre of the providence of Theatre of Divine Providence God whereunto I would willingly invite all those spirits repleat with humane policie and devested of heavenly Maxims who are onely great by the greatness of their ruin to see how the breath of God demolisheth the Towers of Babel to raise the walls of Sion how the subtil are surprized in their subtility how the science of men becometh blind in its proper lights how the vigour of the world is slain by its own hands how stabilitie is overturned by the supports it chooseth how the spirit of flesh at unawares contributeth to plant the Gross on the top of Capitols and heads of Monarchs by the same ways wherewith it promised to over-cloud them with darkness and abysses I here produce a Constantine beed up very young in the Court of Diocletian who had an intention to become a scourge to Christianitie but God surprized him therein as Moses in the Court of Pharaoh to stop the stream of persecution to calm the tempests of the time confound Idols and raise the Church on the ruins of Gentilism Reader stay a little on the frontispice of this history and behold how the Eternal Providence led this young Constantine by the hand like another Cyrus to humble the Great-ones of the earth before his face and to give him hidden treasures to take Isaiah 49. from him so many bars and impediments to open for him so many gates of iron and to cause so many Kings to turn their faces and afford him their place There was at that time twelve heads which alreadie either wore the diadem or thought themselves capable of it Diocletian and Maximian held the highest place
to these Embassadours of Diocletian who were much amazed thereat But the brave Prince after their departure restored all had been presented unto him saving he loved better to see riches in the coffers of his subjects and to retain their loves for himself than to have all the treasures of the Indies in his house without friendship It was verily a fair and generous lesson which he taught the Great-ones of the earth who through excess of avarice heap together all that which they must forsake and in great abundance of wealth have a main want of two things which ought to be eternall to wit Love and Truth Constantius did all this by ways of moral virtues for although he had very good inclinations to Christianitie he was no Christian by profession being as yet straitly associated to the great persecutours thereof yet because the accidents of time and place might permit it he freely made use of Christian Officers judging those would be most loyal in his service who were most constant in piety And to this purpose Eusebius addeth that he being one day desirous to make trial of the faith of Christians which were of his train commanded them to sacrifice to Idols which the most faithful constantly refused resolving rather to forsake Court and life than to be traitours to the character of their Religion Others yielding to the stream of the times and hope of worldly favours shewed themselves somewhat To be faithful to the King one must be loyal to God more pliant to his will which he having perceived dismissed them all supposing they might well be perfidious to their Prince since they had been disloyal to their God And as for the rest having highly commended them he afforded them extraordinary preferment One would wonder from whence such sincere affections Helena should arise in so ill education as he found among Persecutours of the faith But for my part I think we ought to impute this change next after God to the holy and couragious Helena whom he espoused in his first marriage and who was mother of our admirable Constantine This incomparable Lady that sought the Cross with more industy than others do Empires hath engraven her praises with an adamantine pen in the memory of all Ages It is strange why certain modern Graecians as Nicephorus and others have been so desirous to attribute to Greece this creature so that striving to make her a Grecian they have made her an out-cast I have not so much leisure in this treatise as to amuse my self in recounting and refuting their fabulous narrations being naturally an enemy of men affectedly eloquent who have no other profession but to lye in good terms I speak that which is the more probable agreeing It is the opinion of Polidorus lib. 10. Of Radulâ—h in his Poly. chron l. 4. cap. 29. Of Hunter lib. 1. Of Oâ—â—â— in the Treatise of Roman Emperours Of Harpsselaius in his histor Eccles of England Lipsius is of another opinion with what is written by Cardinal Baronius whose opinions are ordinarily most sincere Helena was an English woman by Nation daughter of one of the best qualified men of this great Iland who lodged in his house the Lieutenant of the Roman Empire Zosimus the historian who could neither love Constantine nor his mother morally hating Christianity reproacheth her that she was no Lady and speaketh as of a woman of base extraction but we may well say that his history when he speaketh of faithful Princes hath mingled much gall with his ink Certain it is that Helena being a stranger could not be in the Roman Empire of reputation equal to so many Princesses of the Court from whom Constantius might at that time expect alliance yet was very honourable in her own Country not so much by Nobility of bloud as that of faith wherein in my opinion she already was instructed there being many Christians in England under the Empire of Diocletian For I hold with S. Paulinus that she was the first Mistress of her Son in the faith and that we should not have had a Constantine if God had not given us an Helena Princeps Principibus Christianis esse meruit non tam suâ quà m Helenae matris fide saith this great Bishop Constantius at that time Governour in great Britain Beauty and grace of S. Helena for the Roman Emperour being lodged in the house of her father did cast his eye upon Helena who was endowed with an absolute beauty by reason whereof as we may conjecture she was afterward called Helena in the Empire this name being not otherwise familiar with the English With this eminent comlines of body she had modesty and a singular grace which was a ray imprinted by God upon her forehead as he did heretofore to the virtuous Hester to make her amiable to all the world It is true which Eustatius a Greek Bishop said that beauty which hath no grace is a bait floating on the water without a hook to be taken and to catch nothing but when these two things do meet they exercise much power over hearts And at that time Constantius felt the eyes of Helena had made more impression upon his soul than could the sword upon his body and being a Prince of a singular continency so highly praised by the Pagans themselves he would not require the daughter of his host by any other means than those of a lawful marriage which Zosimus hath not wholly denied in this point more respective than some Graecians of Christianity The father seeing the honour His marriage done him by his host made no difficulty to resolve upon it and the prudent Helena with as much ease condescended to the will of those to whom she owed her being She entred into marriage for the universal good of the Church to which she should bring forth a Constantine Her first care was to soften the warlick humour of her husband by the temper of sweetness and goodness which she gave him in such sort that in so great a rage of shedding of Christian bloud which than reigned he kept his hands the rest of his days most innocent This marriage was as the sacrifice of Juno where the gall of the offering was never presented There was so much love on both sides that the spirit of Constantius lived onely in that of Helena and Helena as the flower of the sun perpetually followed the motions of this bright star together with all the good dispositions of her husband The young Constantine born in the same Britain seemed also more firmly to knit the knot of these chast loves when behold an obstacle which interposeth Constantius is sent to succeed in the Empire and is Inconstancy of men declared Caesar by the Emperour Maximianus on this condition that he should forsake Helena his wife and marry Theodora the daughter-in-law of the same Emperour An Empire is a mervellous flash of lightning in the eyes it dazleth and shuts them up from
to wit Severus and Maximinus he dispatcheth Severus with all diligence to suppress Maxentius and as this Severus was now gone out of Milan bending towards Rome with Legions of African souldiers Maxemins prevented him defeats him as well by treason as force takes him and causeth him to be unworthily strangled Galerius desperately incensed with this outrage would needs fall upon the West all full of lightenings and flames but the distrusts of the safety of his territories stayed him and made him create another Caesar named Lycinlus after whose nomination he survived not long for he died of an incurable ulcer Heaven revenging his misdeeds by a horrible maladie and an enraged death After his decease these two Caesars who were both of his faction Lytinius and Maximinus beheld one another wich a jealous eye and made shew of concestation but Maximinus dying at Tharsas of a very sudden death decideth the difference by an irrevocable resignation In the mean time Maximian who despoiled of Maximiâ—â— the ancient companion of DiocletiaÌ„ would needs return to the Empire his Oration upon that subject the Empire before he had a will to resign it as yet retained bloud sparkling in the veins like a young man and seeing they had lifted his son to the Throne whom he had ever reputed a man of no worth burnt with jealousie and burst with anger He therefore hastened to find out his old Hermit Diocletian in his grot (a) (a) (a) At Carâ—ntium a little village of Sclavoniâ— which Zosimus maketh to pass for the Citie of Charters by a notable equivocation reading Carmuti for Carunti and endeavoured to perswade him by all means possible to reassume the Empire Shall we endure saith he Great Augustus this youngster so proudly to insult over the patrimonie of the universe and make sport with the majestie of the Roman Empire Your authoritie transperted me to a resolution to which that I may speak freely I never had any great inclination but I patiently bare it whilest I saw Galerius and Constantius in the government of the Empire who seemed two heads very fit for a Crown But now behold my Maxentius to whose trust I would not have committed the house of a filly Burgess of Rome to govern it behold a young Britan and another I know not who true mushromes sprung up in a night that would divide between them Europe Asia and Africa God knoweth what I speak is not through ambition but seeing the house of our fathers and our own all on fire it is very good reason we bring water to quench it What do you here in this miserable grot You are not made for it the Eternal Providence which should have fixed you on the government of the world so necessarie are you for it is ashamed to see you among heasts and peasants To speak freely you do amiss and it is very ill interpreted your great courage hath ever better hitherto loved to erre than avow a fault and I still was of your opinion while time permitted but at this present when the world runs all into confusion expecting no reparation but from your hands with what water can you wash the stains of the bloud not of one man nor of two but of a whole world which shall stick upon your forehead and of all posterity if to obey a fantasie of spirit you suffer the Empire to be lost Think you when these young men shall be Masters you shall enjoy this grote in safety You have too much courage and Tyrannie hath too much distrust to leave you so much as life when it can uncontrollably take it from you Let us go presently and reassume the Diadem we shall no sooner stamp with a foot but we shall make all the world follow us in arms for our service If you still affect this kind of retirement you shall thither return again when we have pacified all but believe me an Empire is a shirt never to be put off but with life These perswasions were very moving notwithstanding Diocletian who concluded all his wisdom in the obstinacie of his resolutions replyeth Maximian I absolutely renounce all the friendship which is betwen us if ever you speak to me of such affairs What levitie have you observed in my proceedings to perswade me to this change I protest before the A brave reply of Dioclesian Gods immortal I will never return to the government of the Empire no more than into my mothers womb Miserable man that you are have you yet so little experience of the vanitie of worldly things as to prefer a rag of purple before your libertie I do not know what contentment you may take in government but for my part I protest I then slept on thorns and fed on gall I neither enjoyed day nor night either rest or travel nay not sleep ambition depriving me of things which criminals find under fetters and which nature is pleased should be common to all the world I must live by exteriour shews countenances and smoaks and if others once did what I would have them they made me a thousand times do what I would not It is said a Planet which hath its exaltation in one sign finds ever its counterpoize in another If I had any good success on the one side I was ever paid on the other with some discontent My desires were infinite and though I seemed very potent I never had the hundredth part of what I wished and verily I knew not my self what I would have so many things desired I which daily taught me mine own impotencie What a goodly delight have we to cover the earth with arms and the Sea with vessels and fetch a great circuit to seek out a felicitie which we never find What libertie to live a slave of the world to possess the world What riches to beg even from the sweat of a peasant to entertain riot What tranquilitie to live perpetually in torment Your conscience knows this to be true which I say When you and I would intermeddle with affairs according to the obligation of our charges what care must there be for revenews what travel for militarie matters what watching for justice what noise upon the complaints of so many Provinces poured out at our feet what fear of surprizes what distrust of friends what deadly sweats for treason what anxieties and what apprehensions of so many lamentable events which would happen to others before our eyes If we resigned the care of affairs to two or three men of our cabinet they disturbed one another and sold us to their ambition under colour of service In the end they caused us to carry the seeming Scepter of all their follies and made us accountable for all the havock injustices and miseries of humane kind Is not here cause enough to desire such slaverie If you and I had bodies of whales to clothe and stomacks to be fed with huge sums of gold every hour in the day I would say that needs we
any man stood more eminent than himself Let us now see the good government of his son The fifth SECTION His prowess against Maxentius MAxentius had reduced the City of Rome into Constant 7. such a condition that there was no forrest of theeves wherein the lives of Citizens were not more safe than in their houses He who held his advancement from souldiers for recompence gave them the priviledge of all crimes so that in the brave orations which he made to them no words were more frequent in his month than these Fruimini dissipate prodigite Enjoy riot spend and what he said in words he first of all taught by example What ever avarice could do in rapines prodigality in profusions cruelty in massacres luxury in adulteries a barbarous life in all kind of bruitishnes returned upon the great Theater of the world in the person of Maxentius Whē he had caused houses to be rifled and unworthily massacred the best qualified Senatours he betook himself to the honour of Ladies which he endeavoured to taint with all sorts of artifices Among other things it is recounted that Strange Tragedy having cast his eyes upon a Lady a Christian by profession and wife of a Senatour of an honourable rank he dispatched villains who served him in such like ordures to attach her with sword and violence in their hands The timorous husband said to the Emperours Guard he would refer this matter to be treated at the will of his wife She understanding what was practised went presently out and shewed to these wicked messengers that she was not now in a fit state to be presented before the Emperours eyes and prayed they would give her a little time to put on her attyres which they most willingly condescended unto The couragious woman inspired as it was thought with a particular instinct from God cast her self at the feet of our Saviour holding a ponyard in her hands and thereupon began to say What shall we do O holy chastity which I with so much Simil. S. Ambros l. 3. de virginibus loyalty have preserved in the conjugal bed never having admitted a forrain love to enter into my heart Shall we now abandon thee to the pollutions of a Tyrant forsaken both by God and men Let us rather die Die It is one of my great desires but to die by my own hands is a sin Yet the inspiration of God dictateth to me he will not be offended with the remedy which is onely left me to decline my happiness I will follow the spirit and leave nothing to the flesh wherewith to displease God If there be a fault in it my hope shall smother it and my bloud shall wash it away Upon these words interrupted with sighs she thrust the ponyard into her bosom giving end to her life to enternize her honour The Bauds who expected her at the gate wondering much at the length of time she bestowed in dressing entred into the chamber and found her drenched in her own bloud wherewith they were so amazed that fear gave them wings to flie and make relation to the Emperour of what had passed but the wretched Pharaoh was not for all this any thing mollified still continuing his sacriledges with magick and horrible witchcrafts until such time that Constantine came to awaken him Behold one of the noblest acts of valour which hath ever been among all the Emperours that either have preceded or succeeded the great Constantine For having sought peace by all manner of reasonable wayes and seeing Maxentius would by no means hearken unto it but that he caused his images and statues to be broken and dragged over dunghils he resolved to assault him with a just war in which he began although not publickly to abandon the false Gods and resign himself into the hands of the Saviour of the world thereunto invited by that excellent vision of the Cross and other circumstances which I reserve for subsequent Sections where I intend to speak of his calling to Christianity It was from this time he took the fatal banner called the Labarum wherein the name of our Saviour was written in certain cyphers The Army of Maxentius was composed by the report of Zosimus of an hundred threescore and ten thousand foot-men with eighteen thousand horse forces so terrible that they were able to stop the most adventurous Constantine amassed together Gauls and from England and France it-self in the name of inhabitants upon Rhein all the forces he could get and put into the field about ninety thousand foot-men with many horses of service which onely amounted to eight thousand It is the supputation of Zosimus although others sufficiently declare the troops were far less He who by relation of Eusebius was then about thirtie years of age although others make him younger shewed in the manage of this Army all the qualities which might be desired in the most accomplished Captain For he marched from the Rhein unto the wals of Rome with singular order and unparalelled dexterity When he entered into Italy he found many resistances both of men and Cities who endeavoured to stop his passage in such sort that needs he must give two or three battels which he most couragiously won forcing the rebellious Cities and very courteously using those who rendered themselves into his hands In the end he resolved to besiege the City of Rome Maxentius who might have tyred him out with long delays resolved to oppose and with all expedition joyn battel considering in the vast multitude of his forces which were very fresh to set upon an Army already wearied with so great a journey Besides he had many notable works over Tyber on the bridge Milvius which the Romans now call Ponte-mole His enginiers promised him that with certain buckles of iron they would build and demolish the bridge as he should think good So that when his Army was to pass it should go upon firm ground and when Constantine with his troups set foot upon it they were but to let a certain engin loose to drown the bridge and cast it into the river It seemed to Maxentius he had two strings to his bowe either to overthrow Constantine in the field with a huge Army or entrap him with the stratagem of this bridge when he was engaged in the battel and that he had given him a tast of pursuit Upon this resolution he passed the Tyber with his Army Constantine most glad to have drawn him out of the wals of Rome arrangeth his battalions with marvellous dexterity and disposed his souldiers to the fight Behold two dreadful Armies which looked one upon another like to huge clouds full of storms readie to pour down upon the heads of many mortals The lot is cast and the quarrel of the Empire of the world must be determined in few hours The brave Constantine resolved with that small proportion of horse he had yet men most daring to assail the Cavalrie of Maxentius and for a singular testimony
sea where the tempest handled the vessels of Lycinius so ill that an hundred and thirty were lost and the rest put to flight Whilest these things were in doing Constantine very streightly besieged the Citie of Byzantium having raised plat-forms that were like huge mountains which at the least equalled in height the walls of the Citie from whence he battered it and endammaged it with much facility Lycinius seeing it was not the securest way for him gaineth Bithynia where he trieth his utmost endeavour making arrows of all wood but all succeeded so ill with him that of an Army which exceeded an hundred thousand men there scarce remained thirty thousand He who could not yet find in his heart to give over shuts himself up in the Citie of Nicomedia where Constantine furiously assaulteth him so that seeing himself upon the extream despair of his affairs he went out of the Citie and cast himself at the feet of Constantine laying aside the purple robe and Diadem and onely demanding a place of safety where he might pass the rest of his days which could not much longer continue for he was fully three-score years of age A certain Priest of Nicomedia who lived at that End of Lycinius time there and who set hand to this History saith that Constantine sent him into France to bewail his sins but the more probable opinion is that he put him to death being weary of his disturbances and having much distrust of his spirit notwithstanding that Constantia still lived and begged of her brother the life of her husband Constantine cannot be excused to have used most severe punishments even against his nearest kindred having still in his head the fire of war and ambition and not being reconciled but very late to the mildness of Christianitie Behold how so many Emperours being removed he remained sole Master of the world making afterwards divisions to his brothers the sons of Theodora as he thought good He that would attentively consider this arrival of Constantine to Monarchy and the reign of more than thirty years which God gave him shall see more clear than day that all these favours came not to him but by the virtue of true Religion whose Altars he the first of all Emperours exalted The seventh SECTION The vices and passions of Constantine before Baptism with the death of Crispus and Fausta I Will not here present unto you a Constantine in outward lineament as Eusebius hath done to cover his faults and onely expose beauties to view It is no wonder that he had vices before Baptism but it is the miracle of Christianity to change Lions into Lambs sinks into fountains and thorns into roses and tulipans The ice of winter makes the beauty of the spring darkness contributes to the lustre of light nor ever is the sun more bright than after an eclipse So grace which is the splendour of eternal light makes it self to be seen with more triumphs in arms where it hath subdued most iniquities It is certain that this warlike humour of Constantine transported him into vanities ambitions jealousies and in some sort into a bloudy disposition which was greatly fomented by the education he received in the Palace of Diocletian Behold a prodigious accident which happened in his house by a precipitation ill ordered the death of his poor son Crispus poisoned by the commandement of his father upon a wicked and sinister calumny raised upon him by his step-mother Verily my pen shaketh with humour being to touch upon this history and I know many Grecian flatterers either have passed it over in silence or been willing to disguise it in favour of Constantine but the holy Martyr Artemius freely avoweth before Julian the Apostata who reproched him with it forbearing to deny a fact which was very notorious yet desirous to sweeten it by intervening circumstances Cardinal Constant 19. Bar. Baronius is much displeased with Eusebius who hath spoken nothing of it as if it were a thing very strange that a man who wrote to the son the life of his father in form of a Panegirick should not charge his writings with crimes and furies which men then endeavoured to suppress by all means Great men have Alban animal Albertus their judgements too tender for such like histories and ordinarily resemble that creature which bears his gall in his ear They cannot hear a true Historie in any thing which toucheth them without offence they must sometimes understand their own lives in the rumours of people where the one unlimittedly takes the liberty of speaking all since the other takes licence of doing all The vices of Constantine about these times cannot be concealed But he having caused his son Crispus to be put to death and thereunto added the death of his wife Fausta who had raised the calumny against the innocent this distick was affixed to the gates of his Palace attributed afterward to Consul Ablavius Saturni aurea saecla quis requirat Sunt haec gemmea sed Neroniana It was an allusion to the humour of Constantine who much loved pearls and precious stones as also to that which passed in the matter of Crispus and Fausta the substance whereof is this Let us not seek any more for the golden Age of Saturn Behold one all of pearl but the Age of Nero. Let us speak what we think most probably to have happened in this affair We have already mentioned how Constantine in the prime of his youth was espoused in his first wedlock to Minervina upon The first marriage of Constantine which the Writers of his time have much praised him as a Prince very chaste who to avoid wandering and unlawfull pleasures willingly tyed himself to a legitimate marriage and from that time took upon him the spirit of a husband It is an easie matter to believe that this Minervina whom he married had taken the name of Minerva because of the Minervina wisdom grace and beauties resplendent in her person It seemeth these great perfections of mind and body ever draw along with them a certain fate which affordeth them no long continuance but rather the lives of roses that in the evening make a tomb of the scarlet whereof in the morning they made a cradle The poor Princess quickly died after she had brought forth to Constantine at one birth which was her first and last two twins to wit a son named Crispus and a daughter who from the name of her Grand-mother was called Helena and afterward married to Julian the Apostata This Crispus was verily the most accomplished Crispus and his qualities Prince of that Age for he at the very first sucked in piety with his milk having the most glorious S. Helena for his first Mistress in Christianity From thence being initiated in the study of good letters he had for Tutour that famous man Lactantius Firmianus one of the most eloquent and ancientest Authours of Christianity who being the instructour of Caesars notwithstanding lived in such
drew from the City and made them so like their lodgings they had at Rome that they were so ravished therewith as it seemed their houses by miracle had been transferred from Rome to Constantinople The two chief Churches were those of the Apostles and of S. Sophia to whom Constantine gave beginning but the greatness of the work is due to the Emperour Justinian Our great Monarch who had his eye open over all forgot not to establish a good Colledge in his City whereunto he drew the choise of learned men in all professions dignifying and adorning it with immunities and great priviledges in such sort that Aurelius Victor called him the nursing-Father of learning and pursuing this design he took a particular care to erect a good Library and above all to furnish it with good store of holy books well written the superintendency whereof he gave to Eusebius of Caesarea Behold the estate of his Constantinople which he by Edict commanded to be called New Rome and Sozomen assureth that in multitude of people in abundance and riches it surpassed the ancient which is not very hard for any to believe who will consider Rome in the absence of Emperours being then but as a Palace disinhabited yet could not Baronius endure S. Gregory Nazianzens speech who said Constantinople as much in his time excelled the other Cities as Heaven surpasseth earth This would suffice to shew the politick prudence of great Constantine but it shineth also in other points of which I think this to be most considerable that he held for the space of thirty years an Empire so great in a time wherein the Emperours had ordinarily so short a reign that they resembled those creatures which enjoyed but one day of life in an age when the people were so apt to revolt that the sea had not more agitations than all Kingdoms had vicissitudes in an establishment of Religon very new wherein commotions are commonly most dangerous We may well say this Prince had something in him above all that which is humane to cement together an Empire of so long continuance in affairs so discordant It is true that he tolerated the sects of Pagans for meer necessity otherwise he must have killed the whole world to make a new of it The wise Prince well saw it was a thing impossible to annihilate superstition in an instant which had taken such deep root for a thousand years about which time Rome was built but in this civil peace which he gave to all the East he insensibly undermined the foundations of impiety and verily by little and little it perished in his hands His spirit sparkling like a fire could not rest but seeing the Magistrates of the Empire were moreover busie yet not discharging the duty of their places and that by the greatness of their power they made themselves too absolute he altered the whole government dividing their charges and multiplying the offices of the Empire For which Zosimus blameth him not considering it was the policy of Augustus Caesar reputed one of the most ablest Princes of the world and that he who will consider the state of the Empire established by Constantine shall find so much order in this great diversity so much wisdom in inventions so much courage in executions so much stability in continuance that he shall have more cause to admire the deep counsels of the Emperour than find what to blame in his government The same Zosimus as a Courtier and a Pagan extreamly displeased with great liberalities which Constantine exercised towards the Churches furiously taxeth him upon the matter of tributes Tributes saying He invented new and exacted them with much violence And yet notwithstanding there are no tributes under Constantine the use whereof is not observed to have been in the Age of the former Emperours For concerning the impost of a certain sum of gold and silver paid by merchants from four years to four which the Grecians called Chrysargyros although the name were then new the manner of it could not be so since the Historiographer Lampridius in the life of Alexander Severus makes mention of the gold of merchants And as for that which was also imposed upon prostitute women it was likewise under the reign of the same Alexander So that he who will compare that which is done before Constantine and that after him in this article shall there find much moderation in his proceedings For so far was it from him to surcharge the people that he gave a relaxation of the fourth part of tributes which is so much as if a King after the space of four years passed should free his people for a year from ordinary subsides which would be no small liberality Now concerning the violence whereof this man complaineth the Edicts of Constantine testifie that he would not have any man to be so much as imprisoned for monies due to his coffers True it is he had Cod. Theod. l. 2. de exactionibus a list of the names of men of quality in the Empire with a taxe of their revenews to enforce them to publick necessities and by this means discharge the poor Otherwise it is well known this Prince was Cod. Theod. l. 2. tit 2. Victor so zealous for justice that he would not suffer even the letters of favour obtained from him should have any power to the prejudice of ancient laws And that if any of his favourites had a process and would beg of him to interpose his authority for him he would leave him to justice willing rather to afford him coin out of his coffer than one sole word of favour which might dispose the Judges to bend the ballance more to one side than another He had his eye upon his Officers and retained them in their duties discovering and chastising corruptions and banishing with his whole endeavour all crimes that were against the law of God and publick tranquility He was much seconded in the administration of affairs by the diligence of Ablavius the greatest favourite of the Prince and Superintendent of Justice who was verily a man of Judgement had he not blemished the gifts of God with unfatiable avarice He was surnamed The Baloon of fortune for the many changes which happened in his person For it is held that he was of very base extraction born in Constantinople then called Byzantium and that a Mathematician arrived in this City upon the instant the mother of Ablavius was to be delivered This man weary of his way and very hungry went into an Inne where he cals for dinner his hostess was very busie to provide it for him at which time one came to entreat her to assist a neighbour of hers in her child-birth for she practiced the office of a Midwife This made her forsake her guest to help the poor creature who was said to be in great danger if she gave not remedy The business being dispatched she returned to her guest who was very angry and murmured with much
become powerfull in the minds of subjects by strong hand whereas such as are of race noble and illustrious cannot have so few other parts but that they may easily enter into hearts as into a house which the virtue of Ancestours hath beforehand wholly purchased for them And though this seem expedient in all places yet is it much more necessary in a State where is a great number of noble men and generous spirits and where every one thinks himself sufficient enough to perform that which another doth Presumption equalleth them all in ability at the least according to their imaginations were it not that the uncontrolable supereminencie of houses makes them yield to reason And although base nobility be very shamefull yet is it much more tolerable than a servile spirit which hath power in its hands without any moderation There are four things saith the Wise-man which cause earth-quakes here below A servant imperious Proverâ— 30. a rich fool a woman scornfull when she is married and a maid-servant become the heir of her Mistress that is saith he the fourth thing which the world cannot endure Education maketh manners and every one is readily that which he hath learned in youth were it not that through a great strength of courage ill inclinations are resisted Boetius who in his excellent Nobility was endowed with so sweet a temper of spirit seemed to be created of God to govern men On the other part his family which was rich and powerfull gave also much increase to his command as that which alienated him from the corruptions that easily fasten on a necessitous fortune A man who feareth poverty is ever to be feared and a rich innocent cannot meet with any thing more dangerous than a hungry judge Saint Thomas hath said very well that a poverty Lib. 4. cap. 15. de rogim Princip virtuous and free from covetousness is an admirable quality for a States-man but where shall we now adays find such a poverty in a time when riot is so exorbitant that the greatest houses are therewith impeached The innocent riches of our great Consul fell out to be much to the purpose so that they might be employed for aid of the poor in a time which happened in one of the sickliest Ages of the world ruined by so many incursions of Barbarians not naming the other scourges which then fought against the sins of men The second SECTION The eminent wisdom and learning of Boetius EXperience the wisest Mistress of the world hath sometimes caused the saying of Plato to be questioned who thought Common-wealths happy when they fell into the hands of Philosophers or of men who sought to become Philosophers For in effect it is observed that those so knowing men meet not always with the bent of common understanding having their spirits more estranged from civil life They please themselves with great Ideaes as if they conversed in the Common-wealth of Plato with demy-gods not at all yielding to infirmities of nature And although they use some endeavour to render themselves conversable yet doth the sweetness of repose inebriate and withdraw them from affairs but if they force themselves to attend them noise amazeth them diversitie of humours not always suitable to their understanding distasteth them labour somewhat painfull overwhelmeth them and the heap of so many incident occasions confoundeth them Adde hereunto that there is much malice in the manners of men not found in books and that their actions being very innocent when they come to measure others by their own level they find themselves deceived Besides the sedentary and retired life spent in the entertainment of their books rendereth them very timorous and softeneth their brow which should always be as it were of brass to endure the shock of strong impudencies which may insinuate themselves into the corruptions of the times This may be confirmed by the example of Theodates King of the Goths who with all the Philosophy of Plato wherein he was exceedingly studious very ill mannaged his affairs As also by Michael the Emperour surnamed of the Grecians Parapanicius as who would say The Schollar for he perpetually had table-books and pens in his hand to compose Orations Verses and Histories resigning the whole government of his affairs to an Eunuch named Nicephorus who through his insatiable avarice drew much hatred upon the head of this Emperour I verily affirm if you take learning in these excesses one may very well say that it would not onely become unprofitable but also dangerous to principality It is not my intention to prove learned men are capable of the mannage of great affairs for the onely consideration of the advantage they have in letters for then Governours of Provinces were to be taken out of the Regencies of schools but I say that sciences well mannaged adde a marvellous lustre to one in government For first they vindicate him from stupidity and a savage life which maketh a man without sight or knowledge of virtue to be in a State as was Poliphemus made blind by Ulysses in his den Besides they cleanse refine and store the soul made to know great and divine lights Afterwards they open the understanding by the reading of so many excellent books and even unloose the tongue which is an instrument very necessary to mannage hearts Finally they make a man more mild civil and courteous and I could say also more awfull and worthy of credit For if some unhappy Princes were produced who being unfurnished of other talents have made ill use of letters by abusing them through want of judgement as one may all the best things in the world this nothing at all in substance lesseneth the truth of our proposition since we may oppose against them a large list of Law-makers Princes and Governours who have exceedingly well made use of the knowledge of learning For if we make account of the policie of God which is ever the most assured know we not that he having chosen Moses to constitute him the Governour of so great a State was willing he might have a good tast of all the sciences then in request among the Aegyptians And Philo saith that he there learned Arithmetick Geometrie Musick and all the greatest secrets of their Philosophie contained in their Hieroglyphicks Know we not that Solomon had a heart as large as the sea wherein God lodged so many knowledges of things both divine and humane that he penetrated whatsoever the understanding of man enlightened with rays from God might comprehend Are we so little versed in History that we cannot reckon up the names of all the greatest Princes who have been very learned as Alexander Julius Caesar Augustus Adrian Antoninus Constantine Theodosius Gratian Charlemaigne Alphonsus yea even Solyman the great Turk What a could of witnesses should we have did we now collect all the names and histories of learned States-men For if letters give ornament to such as are wholly eminent in military profession by a much stronger
than the executioner they retained in their own proper entrails We oftentimes in this point more bewail our own interests than the offence done to God and it is no strange thing that she who loveth ill should be deprived of what she affecteth When there is sin in it let us deplore it let us endeavour to remedie it by prayers by discretion by patience by all the most holy industries we may use therein We shall find our selves strong in silence and hope and not in ceaseless complaints which have no other effect but to fret wounds and renew disasters The tenth SECTION The care of children TO hide nothing from you women who are called to the Sacrament of Marriage ought to be very perfect because they have as it were in their mannage the most precious interest of posteritie they being chosen out to bring forth and educate Children which are to be members of the body of State It hath often been questioned from whence proceeded the good and evil nature of men and I find that many have attributed it to the divers aspects of Planets as by a fatal necessity But to say truly this Astrologie of fools and webs of spiders are as it were but one thing both being fit to catch flies and not deceive understanding men I hold opinion good mothers make the good nature of children and it hath ever been observed that great personages who have flourished in some eminencie of virtues have taken from thence as it were generally the first impressions of sanctitie If chast daughters chance to be born of incontinent mothers it is almost as rare as to see nettles bear gilliflowers Let us preserve our bodies as temples to bring forth more virtues than flesh for the publik and when God affordeth us issue let it be one of our chiefest cares to train it up in his service My heart bleedeth when I consider how now adaies many children of quality are bred which are stifled with servile indulgences under the shadow of dandling them God sends them as creatures with which he intendeth to support the world govern Common-wealths people heaven and adorn even the conversation of Angels but to see how they are used it seemeth that pieces of flesh are ingendered which are onely to be licked as bears to give them true perfections They are loaden with fat and the kitchin they are entertained in the full fruition of all the desires of their hearts they are observed like little Kings who are not as yet many times above five years of age and already exercise a Monarchy in the houses of their parents Jesus Christ banished Idolatrie from the world with so much sweat and bloud and it is again daily renewed when children are set up as certain little Idols to whom all hearts respects hopes fears and homages are sacrificed I beseech you let us not cause them to learn that which we should make them forget let us not accustom them to mimick affectation of words to pomp of habits to liberty to pleasures Let us attire them for the service of God and exercises suitable to their sex and condition and above all let us take heed they be not poysoned by the ear in the frequent conversation of such bad company who seem to be born for nought else but to infect purity The eleventh SECTION The conclusion of the discourse THe Emperess held ears and hearts suspended with this her discourse when seeing the hour approch wherein choice should be made of a wife for the Emperour her son Behold the time saith she my Lord and son when your Majestie must consign the golden Apple into the hands of her whom you shall judge to have the best portion of those excellent qualities which I have recited And saying that she caused a goodly room to be opened whereupon one side were seen pictures of Ladies who flourished in the more elder Ages in sanctitie in spirit in courage and in all virtues mentioned by us which composed a triumphant Court There was Sarah Rachel Lea Deborah Abigail Susanna Esther Judith Mariamne S. Agnes S. Cecilie S. Helena S. Monica S. Faelicitas the ten Sybils Zenobia Amalazunta Placidia Pulcheria Eudoxia Theodora Marcella Paula Eustochium Victorina Clotilda Radegundis and very many other not comprizing those who have flourished within these eight hundred years which much amazed me and made me say that such as affirmed women of honour were so rare to be found would perhaps have some trouble to find leaves on trees and water in the river All these pourtraits appeared with lights of glory in a most pleasing manner having enchasements all enriched with pretious stones Behold saith Euphrosina O virgins how precious us the memorie of holy Ladies Then turning her self to the other side she shewed with her finger the figures of such as had forsaken honour and virtue which were pale pensive cloudie and encompassed with flames as if they came out of hell There was Semiramis Phedra Thisbe Phillis Hellen of Greece Clitemnestra Cleopatra Agrippina Julia Messalina Calirrhoe Thais Phryne Rhodope Flora and in perspective so great a quantitie that it seemed to equal the sands of the sea not accounting those therein who afterward had a share in their miserie The Emperour having observed them entered into the room called the Pearl where he saw so many pearls selected from all the provinces of his Empire There was nothing to be seen but stars lightening and rays so much these beauties on every side mingling their lights afforded lustre which gave him much difficultie how to resolve There was among others one named Icesia a maid of much knowledge to whom the Emperour Theophilus spake a Greek verse to which she replied with an admirable promptness notwithstanding he relished not this spirit finding it too curious for his humout but after information taken from his eyes his ears and the mouthes of those who bred these creatures he gave the golden apple to one named Theodora a Paphlagonian by Nation whom I notwithstanding cannot think to come near her whom I here represent for a model S. CLOTILDE I.R.C.D.E.F. CLOTILDA The first SECTION Her Birth and Education THE number of Ladies eminent in sanctitie Ex Greg. Turonensi Ammonio Hincmaro Philippo Bergonensi Baronio c. is so great that it rebateth the point of wit to think thereon and the virtues are so resplendent that in the commixtion of their lights they dazle all eyes in such manner that it is a hard matter to speak of it unless we put some limits upon the discourses of so many singular subjects who set none on their merits And that is the cause why out of a great number of Princesses some of those whose names I have produced I here undertake one raised upon the most perfect idaea's which is the first Christian Queen of France I mean the most glorious Clotilda wife of our great Clodovaeus who verily is much bound to Heaven to have been chosen out for the advancement of the
being in the agonies of that fatal hour which took from us this great Queen she embraced my brother and me beseeching you by your chast loves and inviolable faith of marriage to be unto us both father and mother We were then of an age wherein we could not as yet either feel or bemoan our losses Notwithstanding seeing you bowed over the bodie which yielded up the ghost with weeping eyes we gave our infant-tears to her memorie as a just tribute of Nature but you taking your little orphans into your bosom forbade them to mourn which you could hardly do and wiping away their tears promised you hereafter would become to us a father for protection and a mother for indulgence I then grew up under your eyes spinning out the course of my innocent years and am come to an age capable to bear some share in your hopes Had you any thing at that time in the world more dear unto you than your Hermingildus Dignities were for him for him Empires wars were made by him and peace concluded in his name Hermingildus was the object of your thoughts the entertainment of your discourse the contentment of your heart Your Majestie then resolved to marrie me although very young you found out for me a wife daughter of a King sister of a King neece of a King but such an one as by her virtues surpassed all titles of Kingdoms Ah poor maid who would have said then that thou wast reserved to be the subject of so lamentable a Tragedie I was reputed the most happie man of the world since for me were born so many singular virtues and perfections admired by all men I must confess I loved this Princess not so much by the ways of an ordinarie love as a certain admiration of her virtues For I have received the faith by her pietie her example and her doctrine holding in her soul the rank of a husband a disciple and as it were of her own son Thereupon Goizintha began to possess your heart and to gain superemtnence in your affairs so changing your will by her ordinarie practises that she hath turned all your ancient favours into disdain your confidence into suspition your resolution into disturbance and your mud temper into command This woman hath so persecuted me that in your Court I neither enjoyed watchings rest recreation nor affairs without danger But I have willingly passed under silence all that which touched mine own person until she fell upon an action so barbarous which were sufficient to justifie the Scythians and Tartars I have no words to speak it having so much sorrow to feel it Enough is said when there hath been seen a daughter of so many Kings trampled under the foot of a woman whose birth I will not reproch because indeed I well know it not a Princess most innocent beaten even to bloud by a mother-in-law a Ladie replenished with honour disarayed of her garments by unworthie servants and plunged by little and little into a pool in a cold season to consummate a Martyrdom such as the ancient Tyrants never invented more cruel for women contenting themselves to impose oftentimes onely nakedness for a punishment Had I revenged my self of such inhumanitie with sword and fire no man could have thought my proceeding unjust nor my thoughts unreasonable notwithstanding I have still endeavoured to cure my self by the remedie most ordinarie with me which was patience I in silence retired unto a Citie which your Majestie gave me for lively-hood resolved there peaceably to pass my days with my wife whilest we beheld the face of this Court so adverse to our hopes But your Goizintha as if we had committed a great sin in not enduring her to thrust a sword through our throats hath sounded an alarm in your Palace and afterward in all the Province declaring me an enemie to the countrey an usurper of the Crown of my father a Parricide a creature excommunicate and adding thereunto words much more injurious against me and my wife For my part Sir I wish you had rather hearkened to our innocencie than served her passion all then had succeeded better But after strange Levies were made you came thundering upon Sevil to besiege me with a huge Armie so that you seemed to stir all the elements against me I confess it I then followed the instinct which God giveth creatures even the most bruitish to defend their own family and fortune I took arms not to offend you but to safeguard my self and my wife against the furies of a step-mother who makes use of all arrows for our rain Yet seeing my armies reduced to that point that I had no means to escape without giving battel which must necessarily be fatal to both parts I renounced for your sake the laws of nature and am come to render my self up to your discretion I call to witness the Altars holy fire and the Angel-guardians which have seen me prostrated before them of the sinceritie of my intentions and of the tears I have shed for you having not leisure then to bemoan my self Afterward your Majestie sent my brother unto me to give me assurance of your love you called me forth I am come I have suppliantly intreated you have received me I prostrated my self at your feet you have raised me with so many favours and so many tokens of good will that I could require no more for my safetie I ask who hath changed your affection who hath tarnished our joys and withered the olives of peace but she who being not able to ruin me with weapon in hand seeks to have my bloud by form of justice Behold my accusation and crime behold all that which hath made me to be clothed with sackcloth and chained with fetters ordained for Galley-salves The father who was of an ardent spirit interrupteth him hereupon and demandeth where his wife was whether he had not sent her into Africk to pass from thence to Constandinople The Prince answered He had onely projected this in his mind not for any other purpose but to advise upon the safetie of her person not knowing as then how matters would stand and that accidents had taught him he was wise enough in his counsels but less happie than he imagined The King insisteth and interrogateth whether he had not treated alliance with the Emperour Tiberius He thereunto replied that he had never practised any other correspondence but to draw from him some Troups for the defence of his life and that so soon as he saw some overture of peace he had dismissed them resolving to make no further use of them He then was pressed upon divers questions to which he made most pertinent answers shewing very evidently to the miserable father the colours and pretexts which they made use of to ruin him unless passion should cast a film over his eyes In the end seeing he could not convince his son to have practised any thing since the accord was made between them both he made a
birth under your favour It is the third Part of a Court absolutely holy which not unlike the Citie S. John saw in his profound comtemplations cannot ascend from our manners to Heaven unless it descend from Heaven into our manners I likewise endeavour to fashion it in Books by the model of things celestial to imprint it on lives and I now undertake the defence of truth which constituting your salvation and composing your happiness well deserve to be the most serious employments of your mind It is true Sir all Maxims of State that depend not on the Maxims of God are effects of carnal prudence which end in flesh and all fortunes that rest not on him who with three fingers supporteth the globe of the earth rather pursue the way of precipices than the path of exaltation The wisdom of the world loves nothing so much as that whereof it is most ignorant it runs after honour not knowing what honour is ever hungry and still needy nor having any other aim but to make it self a Mistress over giddie spirits to become the slave of all passions Which maketh me say there are none but the blind who seek after it the miserable who find it the sottish who serve it and the forlorn who tie themselves to its principles But the wisdom of Heaven which I in these Maxims present you is so transcendently sublime above all humane inventions as the light of stars surpasseth the petty sparklings and slitting fires of the earth It is that which leisurely marcheth by holy paths to the sources of day-light and as being present before the throne of God beholdeth glory and felicitie unfolded in his hands It is the element of great souls such as yours and when they once are throughly settled therein they find tastfulness which turneth into nutriment and nutriment which passeth to immortalitie Your prudence may read in your own experience what I express in my Treatises nor need you go any further than your own life to meet with the proofs of these excellent verities You know Sir how the Divine Providence in the first flower of your age drew you from ill ways and snatched you out of the hands of infidelity as a Constantine from the palace of Diocletian to serve as a Buckler for the Church whereof impietie would have made you a persecutour This Providence knew so well how to separate bloud from manners that it caused you to demolish what your Ancestours had raised and preserving their dignity without touching their errours to make of the unhappiness of their judgement the beginning of your felicity From thence you see with what success the hand of God hath conducted you to the height of this most eminent glory wherein France at this present beholds you as a Prince accomplished in the experience of affairs and times the Father of good counsels the undertaker of great actions endowed with a spirit which seems an eternal fire and to be parallel'd by nothing but the goodness of your own heart You live peaceable as in the right sphere of true greatness where you perpetually reflect on two Poles God and the King You seek for the one in the other and you walk to the God of life by the most lively of his Images His Arms are beheld to prosper in your hands as well as his Edicts in your mouth You have born thunder and Olives throughout France under your protection awfull at one time and amiable at another but ever prosperous in both Yea fully to crown your happiness the Divine goodness hath afforded you a house flourishing in riches and honours which comprehendeth in its latitude two Princes of the bloud to serve as pillars for the State It gave you a wife who hath made of her fruitfulness the trophey of her virtues and entered by love into an eclipse to become the Mother of lights and bring forth children to bear the hope of Flower-de-luces The eldest Son whom your Excellency hath committed as a sacred pledge to our Colledge at Bourges would trouble us to tell you from whence he hath taken such and so many splendours and sparkling flames of wit which dazle the eyes of those who have the honour to be near him were not you his Father He is a Pearl who maketh it appear by the equality of his Orient that if Nature have equalled his birth to the greatest on earth he will equal his virtues to his extraction SIR I speak this ingeniously that you may both behold in your own Person what I treat in my books as also understand that true piety soweth the seeds of the most solid greatness But besides the relation this Design seems to have to the pleasure of God over you I find much obligation to offer it you as a slender testimony of a singular gratitude in our Superiours and our whole Societie which would willingly suffer their affections to pass through my pen if it had as much eloquence as the main body tenders respect and zeal to your service You have been pleased to make it known by your good purposes to love it by election defend it by justice honour it with your opinion encrease it with your liberalities and if your benefits be ornaments unto it your judgement serve for Apologies I received a notable portion in your favours whilest you resided in Bourges where your Excellency called me to deliver the Word of God and to confess your virtues in my discourses as I must acknowledge my discourses to proceed from your virtues It was by your conversation I perceived that as there is nothing too high for your understanding so there is not any thing too low for your bounty God hath bestowed on you the gift which the Scripture attributeth to the Patriarch Joseph to oblige hearts with sweetness not unlike the Engines of Archimedes which made water mount in descending so yours causeth not your humility to descend but to make it re-ascend to the source of the prime sublimity Which done not presuming any thing in regard of your Excellency but daring all through your courtesie I present these MAXIMS of the Holy Court of which many will make their reading others their precepts but you will I hope frame your virtues of them on earth to make them your Crowns in Heaven So wisheth SIR Your most humble and most obsequious servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Design and Order of the BOOK I Find Courteous Reader my Works do insensibly encrease under the savour of thy good opinion as plants sprout under the aspect of the most benign stars I had confined my self to that which concerneth the Historie of Courts and still rest in the same resolution But saw a piece verie necessarie in these times wanting in my Work which was the Treatise of MAXIMS and majestie of our Religion I almost durst not undertake it so much the subject seemed to require judgement preparation and abilitie But God having inspired me with a strong conceit I might be
Son of the Father celestial to bear the testimony of all creatures for the homage of his Divinity Of the revelation of the WORD INCARNATE and how all creatures bear witness of his Divinitie THe great God whom the Prophet Isaiah called the hidden God and who according to the saying of the Psalmist had spread round about his throne a veyl of darkness impenetrable to mortal eyes was unscarsed in the crib in the first of his days in such sort that you need lift up but simple clothes to know him The Word Incarnate so visibly replenisheth all the world with its knowledge that a man must be blind not to see its lights and stupid to resist its love We will content our selves at this time to express three proofs The one drawn from the voice of insensible nature the other from reasonable nature and the third from divine reasons It is an admirable thing to see that Heaven and the Voice of nature elements have been willing to bear a part in the great harmony which hath manifested the Word Eternal to the world involved in times and the increated Wisdom included in the body of an infant If we Oros. l. 6. c. 20. Suet. in Aug. c. 95. Senec. l. uat qq Dio. l. 45. will look into signs from Heaven I may say that at the approach of this Nativity the Sun appeared encompassed with a marvellous rainbow willing thereby to give notice the time of reconciliation was near and that the great Mediatour who should reunite all things in his Person came to sanctifie the world by a universal peace I might alledge what was witnessed by Eutropius Three suns in his sixth book and by Eusebius in his Chronicle how three Suns were seen to shine at one time afterward united and incorporated in one sole globe in my opinion so to denote three substances to wit of the Word the soul and flesh conjoyned in the sole person of our Saviour I could say how at that instant Plin. l. 2. c. 31. the Sun was environed with three circles the one whereof bare a coronet of ears of corn to testifie the plenty which the Word Incarnate should bring into the world I could adde what Albumazer the Chaldaean wrote in his Introduction sixth Treatise and first Definition touching the apparition of a Virgin in the first aspect of the sign Virgo But let us rest satisfied that Heaven spake aloud making use of a new star as of a tongue to declare the living God and that this apparition became so famous that even Infidels had authentick testimonies thereof as we may see in the narration of Chalcidius a Platonick Philosopher And it is strange that Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. c. 25. l. 2. â—it candidus coâ—etes argenteâ— crinerefulgens ut vix contâ—eri liceat specie humanâ Dei effigiem in se ostendens himself speaketh of a certain star with silver rays infinitely resplendent which shewed God in a humane figure If we speak of the air know we not it was illustrated with a great and divine light which S. Luke called (b) (b) (b) Gloriâ— Domini circumfulsit eos the glorie of God If we speak of waters tradition teacheth us a fountain was seen to spring in a poor stable which was honoured first with the birth of the Son of God (c) (c) (c) Baronius If we speak of the earth hath it not contributed to the revelation of the Word when it made some of its trees bow to adore the Saviour (d) (d) (d) Sozomen l. 5. c. Rovillius de plantis Joan. 1. 32. Matth. 17. 27. Agnovit bos possessorem suum asinus praesepe Domini sui Isaiah 1. Did it not bear flowers visibly imprinted with the most noble characters of the living God as Rovillius depainteth the Granadil The birds of the air have rendered their homage by the means of a dove which appeared in the Baptism fishes in that which served as a Steward and Cashmaster to Jesus Christ Four-footed beasts were remarkeable in the crib because we have learned from the Prophet Isaiah the Ox hath known his Master and the Ass the crib of his Lord. 2. (e) (e) (e) Voice of prophesie If we pass from the voice of nature to voices divinely humane as are predictions what is there more admirable than the universal consent of prophesies He who should tell us that a most beautifull statue of white marble had been seen in a Temple all framed of pieces laid together made by sundry artizans in divers Ages in such sort that one began the head of this statue having no other determinate design the other not seeing the head which was made nor knowing it to be done made a body another an arm another a hand another a leg another a foot in the end every one made his part pursuing the same course none of these excellent Masters knowing ought of his companions works Notwithstanding that all these pieces wrought in sundry Ages by so many several hands and in Provinces so far distant one from another being set together it was found every piece was so curiously composed and fitted to the entire body of the statue that it might be said All these Sculptours had long agreed together for the accomplishment of such a work If then this discourse in the Idaea's of men have any place in the truth of Histories as many have thought must we not say some Intelligence governed the minds of all these Artizans to cause them insensibly to consent in all the dimensions of this Master-piece so excellent and exact Let us here say the like when we behold the great model of the Word Incarnate which God placed in the frontis-piece of his works to be admired and adored by all intellectual Nature We find Prophets divided one from another the distance of many hundred years different in age humour condition style invention order and connexion who could neither see one another nor agree together in any kind as were David Daniel and Isaiah yet all without mutual knowledge laboured in the History of the great Saviour of men one speaketh of his birth another of his life another of his doctrine another of his manners another of his miracles another of his death another of his victories and triumphs When we take pains to gather together and consider all these pieces we find them measured and fitted with such proporrion that we are enforced to affirm it is not a work of mortal hands but an enterprize of the Spirit of God Who inspired the Patriarch Jacob that prophesied Excellent prophesies touching our Saviour 49. Genes Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda c. Donec veniat qui mittendus est so many years before all Prophets that the Messias who was the hope of all Nations should come when the Scepter of Judea was taken out of the hands of Judah's race which was fulfilled punctually in the time of Herod who put the true
not be possible to God he being Omnipotent Immense Infinite How according to the confession of ancient Philosophers can he replenish all the world with his Divnity and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery in a quite other fashion than the Spirit of God is with the world I admit it For the union of it is truely personal But must it not be confessed the Word in this divine Essence as under title of efficient cause it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world and as under title of final cause it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures so under title of substantial bound it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions Is it not a shamefull thing that man will estimate and set a value upon the Divine Essence If God please not man he shall not be God Should we say man is incapable of this communication And how is it that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God to the prejudice of his own exaltation since it is found as soon in the union of the Word as in the possession of Essence See we not in nature that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth and incorporated with them do create Meteors in the air not any one making resistance to his exaltation What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said This union of God with man might be very fit and Plutarch also Plutarch in Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the communication of the Creatour with the creature pronounced these words That God was not a lover of birds nor other living creatures but a lover of men and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves and delights But this would seem to abase the Divinity Hear what Volusianus said I wonder that he to whom this whole Volusianus Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latetâ— cui parva putatur universilas c. universe is so small can be shut up within the bodie of a little child having a mouth open to crie as others What uncomeliness is there if God be united to a little body Have not Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est and Seneca (b) (b) (b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit Deus à se non decessit August said That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies and that it was a slavery in Great-ones to be unable to be little I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature From whence proceedeth this amazement but from the baseness of our thoughts If we said God being made man ceased to be God and were despoiled of his Empire Greatness Essence there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy not leaving himself when we say humane nature is received into the Word as a small source into a huge river and not loosing its Essence is fixed upon the personality of the Word it self is it not to honour the power majesty and wisdom of God 5. In what were the Divinity abased Can it be in doing a work so noble so singular so divine that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels through times and eternity What is more specious and more sweet than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature to wit of God and man verily say I one composed of an unheard-of composition to render the majesty of his father palbable and visible to the hands and eyes of mortals What dignity to behold in the world a Man-God become a part of the world to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity who proposed this person as the end of his communications the bound of his power the first-born of all creatures who held all Ages in breath for him all hearts in desires all minds in expectation all creatures in prophesies The Book of God hath written me In copite libri scriptum est de me Psal 39. 8. in the beginning of its first page said the Word with the Psalmist All creatures of this great universe all predictions and conceptions of these two great books the world and the Bible tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent sensitive and vegetative All creatures were but leaves and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth The fruit of earth sublime Isaiah 4. 20. We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard Religiose dicendum reverentér audiendum est quis propter hunc hominon gloris honâ—re coronandum Deus omnis creavit Rupert l. 13. de glor Trinit proces Spi. Sancti with reverence It is for this incomparable man that God created the world and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory which covereth his head What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp to praise and declare unto men the Name of God to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort and every one of them to honour this first Essence by so many distinct perfections notwithstanding all to confess their ability cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate which passing through all the spheres of nature grace and glory enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father he manifesteth them to men and making himself an adoring God a loving God an honouring God he adoreth he loveth he honoureth God so much as he is adorable amiable and honourable through all Ages for evermore Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge and love of the Word revealed Let us adore this great sign this eternal character of the living God for whom all signs are Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life wherein we afford him not three things due to him by titles so lawfull Homage Love Imitation Homage by adoring him and offering him some small service directed according to times in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him by an entire comformity of our wils to his Love
by loving all he loves and hating all he hates Imitation by ever bearing some mark of him upon our flesh according to the Apostles precept who said Glorifie and bear God upon your bodie And to conclude let us often say Feed O Lord thy poor begger with continual influences Blosiâ— of this Divinitie I ask and desire with all my heart thy love may penetrate replenish and transform me wholly into thee The seventh EXAMPLE upon the seventh MAXIM The triumph of JESUS over the Enemies of Faith JULIAN the Apostate ALl those who forsake the Word of God are Recedentes a te in terra scribentur Hier. 17. wretched men blotted out of Heaven to be written on earth and whose names the earth it self being unable to preserve abandoneth to forgetfulness or contempt and very often to execration This is manifested by many sensible proofs in the examples of the Emperour Julian who betraying his Religion and dishonouring the character of Christianity made himself one of the most miserable Princes that ever was under Heaven leaving his soul as a prey for devils his enterprizes to ill success his life to a most bloudy death his person to the scorn and hatred of men and his memory to the detestation of all Ages Notwithstanding he wanted no eminent qualities Qualities of Julian which shew that without true Religion all is unprofitable which might have raised him had he not forsaken the source of height and glory Birth gave him Constantius brother of great Constantine for father Besilina a most noble Princess for mother an Emperour for uncle three for cousin-germains Constantinople for his native soil and to serve for a Theater of great actions He had a good wit strong body tongue eloquent conversation pleasing and courage masculine There was not any science in the world whereof he had not some tincture he most prosperously mingled arms with letters and appeared as couragious in the front of Armies as in learned Schools He very little esteemed his body so much was his soul divorced from his flesh worldly riches were nothing at all in his hands nor did he value them but to give them He said It was for those who had no spirit to beg praise from the body that he was ever handsom enough who was chaste and that if Painters made fair faces chastity beautifull lives His counsel was to avoid love as an enraged Master according to the saying of Sophocles to live in the command over proper passions and free enjoying of himself The Gentlemen of his chamber and all domesticks who most nearly looked into his life gave assurance never was any thing more chast He slept little fed very soberly continually afflicted his body accustomed it to travel in such manner that he was seen in the snows of Germanie and broyling ardours of Persia perpetually in the same state After indefatigable toyls of the day he betook himself by candle-light to studies of the night He almost never lay but on the bare boards and waked at an hour prefixed not needing any one to give him notice He expected so little service about his person that being at Paris which he called His well-beloved Citie in the time of a sharp winter when the Seine was frozen scarcely would he suffer a fire to be made in his chamber so discourteously he used himself He hated riot superfluities Bals and Comedies and if needs he must sometime permit them it was more to reprove than behold them He afforded good and speedy justice his heart was patient and temperate towards the people whom he freed what he could from tributes making his impositions accord with the ability of particulars and saying He would leave his treasures to be kept by his good friends which were his subjects Is it not a lamentable case that so great a man was so miserably lost with so many excellent parts For want of preserving the best which is piety It is true that almost all our Historians have written of him with much rigour dissembling what was good in him to render him the more odious but for my part I am of opinion the greatness of Christianity more appeared therein if having shewed the ornaments of nature which this Prince had we make you plainly see all that very ill succeeded with him and that we cannot find any other source of his misery but his infidelity The judicious Readers shall here observe the cause The causes of his corruption of his ruin and consider the first education of children is an impression very tender which being not well mannaged in the beginning filleth the whole life with disorders Tutours are the fathers of spirits said Tutours are fathers of spirits S. Irenaeus as having more influence over the resemblance of souls than carnal fathers over bodies Ill luck would have it that little Julian being left young in the guardianship of his uncle Constantine was recommended to Eusebius of Nicomedia to be instructed in faith Now this Eusebius was a wolf in a lambskin who counterfeiting to be very Catholick ceated not by his credit to advance Arianism so that this young Prince fashioned at first by so ill a hand could not entertain belief and reverence towards the Person of our Saviour Heresie is the key of Atheism and when a soul is disposed to contempt of its gracious Mother on earth it easily learns no longer to acknowledge a Father in heaven He being so ill grounded in the elements of faith Ecebolus an hypocrite was put under the discipline of a Rhetorician named Ecebolus who turned with all winds and admitted Religion according to the times For when he saw Christian Emperours reign he for ceremony seemed a Christian If Pagans swayed there was none more insolent than he If Empire returned again to Christians he placed himself in Church-porches beseeching every one to tread on him as a thing contemptible He above all hearkened to and honoured Libanius one of the greatest Sophisters of his time but a Pagan till death He had a spirit mild and very indifferent upon articles of Religion he equally received Christians and Pagans into his school and permitted S. Basil himself to preach to his schollars but omitted not silently to contrive the means how to re-establish the Altars and Temples of the Gods He reflected on Julian as the Palladion of Gentilism and bound him fast to his own person by the charms of his eloquence to apply him to his counsels All the little piety which Julian might have learned School of Julian from a man who had none began to wither away in a school where all was known but God Apollo there possessed the name of Jesus Diana of Mary Aristotle Plato were the Prophets Isocrates the Preacher and the names of Tritons were there better understood than of S. Peter and S. Andrew the fisher-men This new disciple took such a tast of eloquence that it made him forget devotion he would have given a whole Province
their means their abilities their capacities their wits and dispositions They accommodate all to their own pretensions they pull a feather from one a wing from another they flatter promise charm and descend even to slavery to mount up to the honours they aim at no more afterward regarding their fortune who holp them than a nightly dream The world is replenished with ungratefull and barbarous souls who cannot so much as endure the sight of those who formerly spent themselves in their service thinking their presence a reproach of their crime and there are such to be found who will make no scruple to sacrifice the bloud of their best servants at the Altar of their Fortune Others Kingdom of particular interest who cannot reach to the height of worldly ambition bend themselves with all their strength to money whereof they make a Deity and run with full speed to the gain full hopes of houses For this friends dissolve the most stable amities for this allies tear one another families divide Cities and houses burn and when I more nearly consider it I find it is a blessing from God that women do not often bring forth twins for they would perpetually contend in this world yea in their mothers bellies who should have the most land even before they enjoyed air to breath in Of so many noble sciences manured by our Ancestours there almost remains nothing for us but wretched images There is an industry esteemed in the world above all other called the sleight of hand which shews how to draw all to ones self to be enriched with the spoils of others and to devour many little serpents to become a huge dragon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as saith the Greek sentence Now observe here three principal points which conclude the perverseness of this Maxim the first whereof is tyranny the second sacriledge and the third disaster First it is a manifest thing that tyranny which Reasons against this Maxim and first its tyranny invadeth the state and jurisdiction of the living God is most impious and audacious yet the sect which makes profession now-adays to serve God with exteriour ceremonies and proper interests in the interiour of the heart tyrannically usurpeth a right upon the eternal power of the Sovereign Master which is to reflect upon ones self in all things as his end and sovereign good From whence you may very well conclude his undertakings cannot be but tyrannical Yet more to enlighten our thoughts and strengthen reason know there is an axiom of Divinity that God as he can know nothing beyond himself love nothing but in himself so he doth nothing but for himself For in doing for himself he doth all for us since we have not any thing which tendeth not to him as to the scope thereof which subsisteth not in him as on its basis which reposeth not in him as in its center So doth S. Thomas understand that notable word of Trismegistus Unitie hath produced unitie that is to say God onely Sovereign and absolute created one world not many and thence reflected his fervour upon himself making all for his love and glorie Wherein he ceaseth not to oblige us since we have neither love grace glory greatness or contentment which cometh not from him I find the interpretation of this passage much more reasonable than theirs who made Mercurie more skilfull in the Trinity than all the Prophets which is confirmed by the Authour of the Aegyptian Divinity who in the fifth Book fifth Chapter hath an excellent Maxim The first Agent acteth not for any end Agens primus propter finem non agit quòd â—o nobilius non sit propter quod possit agere having nothing more able than himself for which he can act It is not so with man For if he will well rectifie his actions he must act for an end and for the Sovereign End which as saith the worthy Boetius in Quod non est ex hoc sed tantum est hoc illud vere est id quod est Boet. l. 1. de Trinit the first Book of the Trinity is not composed of This or That but is simply what it is without any dependence and pursuing this end it is necessary he proportion the means to the butt he aimeth at for from thence resulteth that which they call good election which is a science the most rare and necessary of the whole world Now this wretched Maxim overthrows order so divinely established and mortifieth what it may in the mind of man the consideration of the dependance he hath on God It will enjoy that it ought to use never to enjoy the Divinity It diverteth all creatures from the mark to which Divine Providence directeth them and draws them from the use agreed upon in Heaven to appropriate them on earth to the prejudice of the Creatour All which is most excellent in creatures is not for creatures who possess it Light is in the Sun but not for the Sun waters are in the Ocean but not for the Ocean God who gives brightness to the one and rivers to the other would that both tend to the commodity of men thereby to pass on to the glory of the Sovereign Being The Creatour said an Ancient made all the most noble creatures for to give themselves so much hath he banished worldly avarice Kingdoms are not so much for Kings as Kings for Kingdoms for they are made to do them good and to preserve them as the goods of God himself So soon as one is born with fair and worthy parts he is born for the publick and he who would retain to himself what Providence gave in common commits a sacriledge in the great Temple of the God of nature if he perpetually reflect on himself in all things and draw all to himself as if all were made for him he opposeth his Judge and makes himself a corrival to Sovereign Majesty Besides ponder here the greatness of this first Being which is invaded the better to understand the violence of this tyranny To whom would you compare Qui appendit tribus digitis molem terrae libravit in pondere montes colles in staterâ c. Isaiah 40. God saith the Prophet Isaiah God who graspeth the vast extent of seas in his fist God who weigheth Heaven with all its globes in the hollow palm of his hand God who supporteth the heavy mass of earth with three fingers of his power God who poizeth mountains in his ballance God before whom the world with all the huge diversitie of its Nations is no more than a drop of dew or the cock of a ballance in the hand of a gold-smith God before whom all Monarchies are but dust and men but silly grashoppers Were all mountains like to Lybanus on fire and turned into victims for his sacrifices it would be nothing in respect of his Majestie Since then you little worldling you politick spirit will side against God divide his Empire
France had not in former time seven thousand O insatiable avarice the Cerberus and gulf of mankind whither hast thou transported our manners and understanding No no there is not any man truly poor who is furnished for necessities without which life is into lerable to nature and that which affrighteth say you is the gnawing care of house-keeping which shorteneth your days and drencheth your life in gall and tears Weak and faithless that you are towards the Divine Against the pusillanimous Providence do you not yet behold your distrust your humane respects your impatience is the source of all the evils which engulf you Little birds that flie in the air and clouds silly butter-flies which flutter through the meadows painted with the ennamel of flowers and flowers themselves which are but hay repose with all sweet satisfaction under the royal mantle of the great Providence that covers all Birds by his help find grain fit for them Butter-flies suck out the dew and juice of flowers and flowers which live but one day unfold themselves with beauties that nothing yield to Solomon's magnificencies There is not any creature so little in the world which lifteth not up its eyes to the paternal hand of God distilling dew and Manna and is never frustrated of its hopes There is none but you O wretched creature who having a reasonable soul stamped with the image of God suffer your discretion to contribute to the excess of your miseries do you not well deserve to be poor since God is not rich enough for you Whose are the children which give you occasion of so much care Is it you O mothers who have stretched their sinews spun out their veins numbered and knit their bones in your entrails God hath made them God will direct them God will bear them on the wings of his providence God will dispose them where you imagine not But you would not have them suffer any thing why then did you produce them into the number of men if you be unwilling they should participate in the burdens of men If you and they falâ—ing from a flourishing estate Resolution of great courages in poverty should be reduced to beggery could you imagine you might be forsaken by the providence of God yea although you under-went the strokes of warfare which his beloved Son did here on earth What shame would it be for you if even those who have been in the world as great as Monarchs are come to this estate Belisarius who thunder-struck three parts of the world by the lightening of his arms who had possessed all which a great virtue might deserve all which a great fortune might give having seen himself engraven on gold silver almost equal to the Emperour Justinian his Master came to that pass through extream disfavour as to stretch out his hand for alms yea did it couragiously braving his unhappiness by an abundance of virtues And you who are much short of his quality deject your spirit in a slight humiliation befallen you Rusticiana wife of Boetius one of the most glittering beauties of Rome in publick miseries saw her self reduced to such poverty that she was clothed as a countrey woman no whit therewith dismayed yea appeared before the face of Kings in defence of her husband massacred you cannot endure to be seen at the Church in a modest habit or a plain neck-kercheff Alas your opinion and your curiosity is the greatest part of your evils Were it not better to undergo all the miseries of the world in the fidelity we offer to God than through disordinate love of proper interests to become a devil For what fitter title deserves he who doing all for himself looks on himself as a Divinity accounts other men who are under him as flies and catterpillers tyrannizeth over inferiours tormenteth equals striketh at superiours breaketh laws both divine and humane to hasten unto gain or honour and to anticipate his punishments makes to himself an hell in his own conscience If these truths perswade you not sufficiently the way of duty consider a man of interest in the following example and see by his success that there is no greater unhappiness in the world than to be fortunate contrary to the rules of a good conscience The tenth EXAMPLE upon the tenth MAXIM Of liberalitie and unhappiness of those who seek their own ends by unlawfull ways ANTIOCHUS the GOD. I Resolved to present unto you in this History Antiochus Drawn from the Prophet Daniel 11. S. Hierom upon Daniel Polyenus Appian the God who made a God of himself a man as much perplexed as unhappy in his aims to oppose him against Ptolomeus Philadelphus who was free and generous to the end these Princes as contrary in qualities as different in their successes may make you the more sensibly see the truth of this excellent Maxim When a great fortune and a prompt will meet together they produce excellent effects of liberality This Ptolomey of whom we speak had one by nature the other from love For he was naturally disposed to magnificence and the greatness of his condition seconded his purposes The revenue he received Magnificence of Ptolemey from Aegypt might then amount to fourteen thousand eight hundred talents which were the matter of his bounty but the form rested in his heart He thought nothing to be his but what he could give and was willing gold should be drawn from his treasures to relieve mens necessities as water out of the streams of his Nilus To know how to give well is a great science It belongs not to all said Socrates to mannage Socrat. apud Stobaeum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Graces well There are some who give so ill and to such as merit so little that the Graces being Virgins by condition are made prostitutes through the sottishness of their usage But this Prince was as wise in choice of persons as liberal to distribute favours He willingly did good to those who made profession It is very dangerous to disoblige pious and learned men of true piety and loved learning well knowing it was to sow seeds in a land not ungratefull It is observed in all times that Princes and men of quality who have disobliged the Religious and learned have had ill success in their affairs and given their reputation as a prey to posterity That is it which lost the miserable Antiochus surnamed the Illustrious for though his father had shewed him an example to oblige the Hebrews who then stood most eminent in religion and divine knowledges he unhappily engaged himself to torment them and by this means heaped after his life a thousand disturbances and darkened his name in an eternal History Much otherwise Ptolomey favoured the people of God with al sorts of courtesie For not satisfied to have graÌ„ted liberty to more than a hundred thousand Iews who were in his Territories even to the redeeming slaves at his own charge from Masters who possessed them he
father which was done he remaining unknown in the Citie of Sydon But that he was now returned as from the gates of death to demand his right as being the indubitate and lawfull heir of the Kingdom This Impostour had gained a subtile fellow a servant of Herod's houshold who taught him all the particulars of the Court the better to colour his counterfeiting He led the Bear through all the Citie with good success and great applause of the people who embraced this false Alexander as a man returned back from the other world For besides that the Jews were credulous enough in any thing which flattered them they were ever much inclined to the race of poor Mariamne whose son this man counterfeited to be under this pretext he was very welcome into all the Cities where there were any Jews and the poor Nation freely impoverished themselves to afford some reasonable support to this imaginary King When he saw himself strong in credit and coyn he was so confident as to go to Rome to question the Crown against Heroa's other sons there wanted not those whereof some countenancing him by credulity others through the desire they had of alteration bare him to the throne He failed not to present himself before Augustus Caesar the God of fortune and distributour of Crowns shewing he had been condemned to death by his own father through false rumours but was delivered by the goodness of the God he adored and the mercifull hands of the ministers of execution who durst not attempt on his person beseeching him to pitie a fortune so wretched and a poor King who threw himself at his feet as before the sanctuary of justice and mercy Every one seemed already to favour him But Augustus a Monarch very penetrating perceived this man tasted not of a Prince for taking him by the hand he found his skin rough as having heretofore exercised servile labours Hereupon the Emperour drew him aside saying Content thy self to have hitherto abused all the world but know thou art now before Augustus to whom thou must no more tell a lie than unto God I will pardon thee on condition thou discover the truth of this matter but if thou liest in any one point thou art utterly lost This man was so amazed with the lustre of such majesty that prostrating himself at his feet he began to confess all the imposture Augustus perceived by the narration he was none of the most daring in impostures and said Friend I give thee thy life on condition thou ransom it in my Galleys thou hast a strong body and canst well labour the Scepter would have been too full of trouble I will have thee take an Oar in hand and live hereafter an honest man without deceiving any As for the Doctour who had been Tutour to this counterfeit Alexander the Emperour observing him to be of a spirit more crafty and accustomed to evil practises caused him speedily to be put to death One might make a huge Volume of such Impostours as have been entrapped in their tricks but satisfie your self with experience of Ages and if you dare believe me take in all your affairs a manner of proceeding noble free sincere and true throughly perswading your self what the Wise-man said That he who goes forward with simplicity walketh most confidently XII MAXIM Of REVENGE THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That it is good to reign over men like a Lion and take revenge not permitting fresh favours to abolish the memorie of old grievances That mildness and pardon is the best revenge THis maxim of the prophane Court more properly proceeds from the throat of Tygres and Lions than the lips of men but being harsh in execution it is ever direfull in it's effects The experience How this maxim opposeth common sense of Tiberiuses Caligulaes Neroes Domitians Herodes and so many other who have pursued this with events so tragical and lives so monstrous are fit lessons to convince a heart which yet retaineth some humanity All power imployed onely to hurt is ever pernicious Notable verities and having made havock it resembleth the ruins of buildings which overwhelm not any but such as they oppress by falling on them Man is a creature more tender than any other and must be handled with much respect Nor is there any bloud so base which ought not to be spared as much as justice and reason may permit The most part of men in these miseries and weaknesses of nature seldom hit upon innocencie but by passing through many errours He who cannot tolerate some one banisheth all virtue He must necessarily excuse many things within himself who pardons nothing in another If he think himself a God his nature ought to be mercie and if a man the experience of his own faults should render him more favourable to the like in another It is a strange folly to think greatly to prosper by rigour For all done through fear being forced cannot be of long lasting unless the course of humanity fail The savage beast is then much to be dreaded when he sees the knife on one side and rails on the other There is no strength so feeble which becomes not fierce upon the defensive within the limits of necessity A man who menaceth every one with blows of a cudgel sword or fire should remember he is not a Briareus with an hundred hands and hath but one life Now becoming cruel and inexorable he makes himself an enemy of all mankind which hath so many hands and so many lives Such an one thinks he is well accompanied in revenge who shall find himself all alone in peril Then let us here say there is nothing so Sovereign The scope of the discourse for the government of men as the love of a neighbour clemency and pardon and that the character of an excellent nature is to forgive all other so much as reason may permit and to pardon nothing in himself Love is the first law of nature and last accomplishment Excellencie of love of our felicity Love from all eternity burneth in the bosom of the living God and if he breath with his Word as he doth with a respiration substantial he breaths nought but love He respiteth this love by necessity within himself he inspireth it by grace out of himself and lastly draws all to himself by love The worthy S. Dyonisius in the book of Divine attributes Division of love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dyoni distinguisheth three sorts of love one is called circular the other love in a right line and the third oblike Circular love properly is that which carrieth the soul with full flight into the bosom of God and there holds it as in a sweet circle of ravishing contemplations which transport it from perfection to perfection never finding end or beginning in the Divinity Love in a right line is that which tends directly to creatures by wayes not onely lawful and lawdable loving them for God of God and in
I say O God how little is the world Is it for this we deceive we swear and make a divorce between God and us But admit we were not interessed in this action must we not rest on the law of God who maketh life and ordaineth death by the juridical power of his wisdom ever to be adored by our wills though little penetrable to understanding Will you I pronounce an excellent saying of Tertullian The world is the Vterus naturae An excellent coÌ„ceit drawn from the words of Tertullian belly of Nature and men are in it as children in the mothers womb the birth of men are the world 's child-bearings death its lying in and deliveries Would you not die to hinder the world from bringing forth and unburdening it self by the way the Sovereign Master hath appointed it We have seen Tyrants of all sorts some invented exquisite torments and tryals others forbade eating and drinking some to weep some caused children to be taken from the teat to strangle them and cut their throats as Pharaoh and Herod But never was there any amongst them who forbade women with child to be delivered The world hath for a long space been big with you and would not you have it to be delivered at the time God's counsels have ordained Were it a handsom thing think you to see an infant presently to have teeth and articulate speech and yet if it might be would stay in the mothers womb using no other reason but that there is warm being Judge now and take the even ballance if the world be the belly of nature if this good mother bare us the time Gods providence appointed if she now seek her deliverie that we may be born in the land of the living in a quite other climate another life another light are not we very simple to withstand it as little infants who crie when they issue out of bloud and ordure at the sight of day-light yet would not return thither from whence they came 4. Behold the Providence of God in that which Providence in the death of the vicious Boet. l. 4. de consol Cum supplicis carent inesâ— illis aliquid alteriuâ— mali ipsâ— impunitâ—s S. Eucher in paraenesi concerneth death in the generality of all men Let us see in this second point the like providence towards the wicked the vicious rich and proud Great-ones who spit against Heaven We must first establish a most undoubted maxim that there is nothing so unhappy as impunity of men abandoned to vice which is the cause the paternal providence of God arresteth them by the means of death dictating unto them an excellent lesson of their equality with other men Mortals circumvolve in life and death as Heaven on the pole artick and antartick from east to west the same day which lengtheneth our life in the morning shorteneth it in the evening and all Ages walk that way not any one being permitted to return back again Our fore-fathers passed on we pass and our posteritie follows us in the like course you may say they are waves of the sea where one wave drives another and in the end all come to break against a rock What a rock is death There are above five thousand years that it never ceaseth to crush the heads of so many mortals and yet we know it not I remember to this purpose a notable tradition of the Hebrews related by Masius upon Josuah to wit Masius in Josuah Notable action of Noah that Noah in the universal deluge which opened the flood-gates of Heaven to shake the columns of the world and bury the earth in waters in stead of gold silver and all sort of treasure carried the bones of Adam into the Ark and distributing them among his sons said Take children behold the most precious inheritance your father can leave you you shall share lands and seas as God shall appoint but suffer not your selves to be intangled in these vanities which are more brittle than glass more light than smoke and much swifter than the winds My children all glideth away here below and there is nothing which eternally subsisteth Time it self which made us devours and consumeth us Learn this lesson from these dumb Doctours the relicks of your grand-father which will serve you for a refuge in your adversities a bridle in your prosperities and a mirrour at all times Moreover I affirm death serves for a perfect lesson of justice to the wicked which they were never willing throughly to understand for it putteth into equality all that which hazard passion and iniquity had so ill divided into so many objects Birth maketh men equal since they receive nought else from their mothers womb but ignorance sin debility and nakedness but after they come out of the hands of the midwife some are put into purple and gold others into rags and russets some enter upon huge patrimonies where they stand in money up to the throat practise almost nothing else throughout their whole life but to get by rapine with one hand and profusely spend with the other Some live basely and miserably necessitous A brave spirit able to govern a large Common-wealth is set to cart by the condition of his poverty Another becomes a servant to a coxcomb who hath not the hundreth part of his capacity It is the great Comedie of the world played in sundry fashions for most secret reasons known to Divine Providence would you have it last to eternity See you not Comedians having played Kings and beggars on the stage return to their own habit unless they day and night desire to persist in the same sport And what disproportion is there if after every one have played his part in the world according to the measure of time prescribed him by Providence he resume his own habit I also adde it is a kind of happiness for the wicked to die quickly because it is unfit to act that long which is very ill done And since they so desperately use life it is expedient not being good it be short that shortness of time may render the malice of it less hurtfull If examples of their like who soon die make them apprehensive of the same way and how seasonably to prepare for death it is a singular blessing for them But if persisting in contempt they be punished it is God's goodness his justice be understood and that it commandeth even in hell 5. But if at this present you reflect on the death of the Just which you should desire I say God's Providence there brightly appeareth in three principal things which are cessation from travels and worldly miseries the sweet tranquility of departure and fruition of crowns and rewards promised First you must imagine what holy Job said That The sweetnes of the death of the just Iob 3. Qui expectant mortem quasi effodientes thesaurum Tert. de pallio Homo pellitus orbi quasi metallo datur this life is to the just as
whereof the poor have too much been frustrated to establish thy vanities and fatten thee in pleasures Where is thy liberality Where are thy alms toward miserable creatures who die in affliction in the streets Observe justice and take example by my disasters Husband it is thy wife so beloved that speaks to thee saying Ah my dearest friends where is the faith plighted in the face of the Church Where are the faithful loves which should have no limit but eternity Death no sooner absented me from thy eyes but forgetfulness drew me out of thy heart I complain not thou livest happy and fortunate in thy new affections for I am in a condition wherein I can neither envy nor malice any but I complain that not onely after my death the children which are pledges of our love were distastful to thee but thou hast wholly lost the memory of one who was so precious to thee and whom thou as a Christian oughrest to love beyond a tomb Open yet once unto her the bowels of thy charity and comfort by thy alms and good works a soul which must expect that help from thee or some other The seventeenth EXAMPLE upon the seventeenth MAXIM Apparition of Souls in Purgatorie HIstories tell us the apparation of souls in Purgatory are so frequent that he who would keep an account may as soon number the stars in the sky or leaves on the trees But as it is not fit to be too credulous in all may be said thereupon so a man must be very impudent to deny all is spoken of it and to oppose as well the authority of so many great personages as the memory of all Ages He who believes nothing above nature will not believe a God of nature How many extraordinary things are there the experience whereof teacheth us the effects and of which God hideth the reasons from us The Philosopher Democritus disputing with Solinus Polyhistor the Sages of his time concerning the secret power of nature held commonly in his hand the stone called cathocita which insensibly sticketh to such as touch it and they being unable to give a reason of it he inferred there were many secrets which are rather to humble our spirits than to satisfie our curiosity Who Jul. Scal. A Porta Caâ—eraâ— can tell why the theamede which is a kind of adamant draweth iron on one side and repelleth it on the other Why do the forked branches of the nut-tree turn towards mines of gold and silver Why do bees often die in the hives after the death of the Master of the family unless they be else-where transported Why doth a dead body cast forth bloud in the presence of the murderer Why do certain fountains in the current of their waters and in their colour carry presages of seasons as that of Blomuza which waxeth red when the countrey is menaced with war Why have so many noble families Diâ—â—arus Petrus Albinus certain signs which never fail to happen when some one of the family is to die The commerce of the living with spirits of the dead is a matter very extraordinarie but not impossible to the Father of spirits who holdeth total nature between his hands Peter of Clugny surnamed the Venerable and esteemed in his time as the oracle of France was a man who proceeded in these affairs with much consideration not countenancing any thing either frivolous or light Behold the cause wherefore I willingly make use of his authority He telleth that in a village of Spain named the Star there was a man of quality called Peter of Engelbert much esteemed in the world for his excellent parts and abundant riches Notwithstanding the spirit of God having made him understand the vanity of all humane things being now far stepped into years he went into a Monastery of the Order of Clugny there the more piously to pass the remnant of his dayes as it is said the best incense cometh from old trees He often spake amongst the holy Fryers of a vision which he saw when he as yet was in the world and which he acknowledged to be no small motive to work his conversion This bruit came to the ears of Venerable Peter who was his General and who for the affairs of his Order was then gone into Spain Behold the cause why he never admitting any discourses to be entertained if they were not well verified took the pains to go into a little Monastery of Nazare where Engelbert was to question him upon it in the presence of the Bishops of Oleron and Osma conjuring him in the virtue of holy obedience to tell him punctually the truth touching the vision he had seen whilest he led a secular life This man being very grave and very circumspect in all he said spake the words which the Authour of the historie hath couched in his proper terms In the time that Alphonsus the younger heir of the great Alphonsus warred in Castile against certain factious dis-united from his obedience he made an Edict that every family in his Kingdom should be bound to furnish him with a souldier which was the cause that for obedience to the Kings commands I sent into his army one of my houshold-servants named Sancius The wars being ended and the troups discharged he returned to my house where having some time so journed he was seized by a sickness which in few dayes took him away into the other world We performed the obsequies usually observed towards the dead and four moneths were already past we hearing nought at all of the state of his soul when behold upon a winters night being in my bed throughly awake I perceived a man who stirring up the ashes of my hearth opened the burning coals which made him the more easily to be seen Although I found my self much terrified with the sight of this ghost God gave me courage to ask him who he was and for what purpose he came thither to lay my hearth abroad But he in a very low voice answered Master fear nothing I am your poor servant Sancius I go into Castile in the company of many souldiers to expiate my sins in the same place where I committed them I stoutly replied If the commandment of God call you thither to what purpose come you hither Sir saith he take it not amiss for it is not without the Divine permission I am in a state not desperate and wherein I may be helped by you if you bear any good will towards me Hereupon I required what his necessity was and what succour he expected from me You know Master said he that a little before my death you sent me into a place where ordinarily men are not sanctified Liberty ill example youth and temerity all conspire against the soul of a poor souldier who hath no government I committed many out-rages during the late war robbing and pillaging even to the goods of the Church for which I am at this present grievously tormented But good Master if you loved me
rebellion of Core Dathan and Abiram this earth which is the foundation and basis of the universe changed its nature shook with frightful tremblings opened its wide and gaping bosom to swallow these disastrous creatures Where shall we lodge this sin On the waters Behold the waters could not endure one sole disobedience of Jonas All the air is on fire all the winds in blusters all the sea in rage and fury whilest it is under the weight of this poor sinner He must be cast into the belly of a whale although unable to digest shevomit him up God himself Laboravi sustinens Job 1. God Omnipotent in whose hands all this great world is but a drop of dew complains he cannot endure sin Where shall we place it then but in the pit of hell But if at least this pain had some end And see you not sin hath neither end nor limits in its eternity Alas he who would understand this who would Ducunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descendunt Job 21. 13. open his eyes to behold what I am about to say and what I conceal had rather put himself into the arms of hell being in innocency than among imaginary felicities in crime and sin If you know it not O Christians it is an infinite evil because it striketh at the head of an infinite divinity and it is an horrible thing to think on for that as much as is possible it annihilateth God and the whole fountain of essences felicities and mercies Do you not consider a transgression Enormity of a sinner increaseth according as the person interessed is of great and eminent quality It is one thing to offend a peasant another thing a Merchant another thing a Judge another a King But he who offends all Kings and all Judges of the earth or should thrust a knife into the throat of a million of men would he not seem very criminal Nay were all the greatness grace and majesty of a hundred thousand worlds poured and quintessenced in one body what would it be in comparison of God but one grain of sand And then to invade God in his will to infringe and annul the Divinity O abyss of confusion To say unto God Omnipotent all good and all holy You will give me a law and I will play the unbridled colt I will take it of my self I will admit no Law-maker you created me for your Irritam quis faciens legem Mosi sine ulla miseratione moritur quanto magis putatis deteriora mereri supplicia qui Filium Dei conculcaverit sanguinem Testamenti pollutâ—m dunerit Heb. 10 self and I will live for my self and be the sovereign good of my self you created a world for my use and I will people it with monsters which shall be my sins You redeemed and reconciled me by the bloud of your Son and I will contemn and trample it under-foot I should not presume to use these words had not S. Paul prevented me You will be a Judge to chastise me and I make as much account of all your thunder-stroaks as of broken rushes To despise God as a Law-maker as a Creatour as a Father as a Redeemer as a Judge as God as all and then say God did you wrong in making a hell 5. Behold there his justice purged now see its effect in the quality and condition of pains of the damned What is Hell It is called Silence to shew we cannot speak of it but by silence All is said of hell is less than hell The holy history of Aegyptian Quality and condition of the pains of the damned Anchorites written by Palladius recounteth an accident very prodigious happened to the great Macharius which is that one day this admirable man Strange narration of Palladius commonly called the God of Monks for his speech was an oracle and his life a perpetual miracle this excellent man I say travelling through the hideous and savage desarts of Aegypt alwaies fixed and bent both with eye heart upon the contemplation of a future life met with the head of a dead man by the way and ere he was aware set a palmers staff which he had in his hand upright upon it and behold at the same instant as it happened in other occasions he heard to come from the head of this dead man a sad and frightful voice able to have astonished the most couragious But the holy Saint being wholly made for these apparitions of spirits and armed to the proof against all illusions of Sathan stood still and asked Whose art thou It answered I am the head of one damned He replied What threw thee head-long into this wretched miserie Two things said the dead misbelief and vice Then being demanded concerning the torments he endured he replied The soul makes hell the soul suffers hell and the soul cannot well comprehend what hell is What have you on the earth more odious than horrible darkness and not to speak of our coals nor of any of the rest of our greatest calamities behold our greatest ease The unhappy spirit cutting off his words held his peace and the holy man lifting the head up from the ground took it in his hand then deeply sighing with fobs of lively and penetrating grief he said O what ease O what ease what eternal darkness blind world prostituted world desperate world oh wouldest thou know wouldest thou know but thine unhappiness hath put a scarf before thine eyes I would here conclude this discourse and substitute in my place this blessed old man the eye and honour of these desarts holding this dead mans head between his hands I would intreat him to ask of it again what have availed the damned their honours reputation riches riots pleasures delights those wretched lime-twigs which entangled the wings of the soul and plunged it into an abyss of infelicities I would intreat it to tell us what a monster mortal sin is since to punish it such dreadful dungeons must be built such racks and tortures It would tell this with a voice of thunder accompanied with flouds of tears and you would be appalled tremble and weep at it with all the just who never think of hell but with terrour and tears O bruitish and sensual men who live in a continual Definition of hell contempt of Gods anger Ask the great Tertullian what hell is And he will answer hell is a treasury of fire enkindled by the breath of God for punishment of the damned hell is an ugly and deep sink Arcani ignis subterrâ—nâ—â— ad panam thesaurâ— Abstrusa in visceribâ— terrae profunditâ—â— c. Tertul. deanimâ— and a sewer wherein all the ordures of Ages are thrown Ask of Hugo of S. Victor (a) (a) (a) Profundum sine fundo whi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali Hugo victorius l. de anima what hell is and he wil reply a bottom without bottom which shutteth the
danger like a wanton victim which leaps and skips between the ax and the knife God is my witness I write these lines with a spirit of compassion for so many who dissolutely abuse the gifts of Heaven and if any one happen upon the reading of this I beseech him by the love of his salvation not to despise a pen which tendereth so sincere affection for the good of his soul A man who hath never so little reason should he not argue within himself and say Verily the harmonious consent of so many Ages which have upheld and reverenced a Religion innocent pure and holy is not a matter of sport The horrible punishments of such as sought to disengage themselves from the homage due to the Divinity of Jesus Christ are no fables since we still behold the foot-steps of their ruins The lights and reflections of the Divinity which beset me on every side are speaking tongues the consent of so many Ages and holy personages yet alive on the earth are no small testimony These kind of men who seek to sow dangerous maxims in our minds are creatures of little authority evil manners and of a conversation either insolent or covert They are neither Apostles nor Prophets It is not credible truth should so long be hidden to be discovered to them amidst their abomination They have neither sanctity miracles nor reason They are not rich but in libertinous words and blasphemies All they can promise me is nothing else but a slight contentment of nature in this life yet cannot they give it me For amidst these unlawfull pleasures I feel my conscience much disturbed and perplexed with remorse If I feared God I should find this fear would banish all other affrightments from my heart Now have I that both of men and laws yea even of beast It seemeth at every accident which happeneth to me each creature becomes a sword and an arrow of God to punish my evil thoughts and inordinate actions If that be not true which these men promise as they make no clear proof of what they say behold me then convinced of the most horrible crime which hath ever been behold me the object of all the execrations that have fallen on their heads who bent themselves against God Behold me fettered in eternal and inexplicable pains which I shall escape neither alive nor dead Every understanding man always inclineth to the surest way I see that following the opinion my Ancestours had in matter of Religion there can happen no other evil unto me buâ— to be an honest man to replenish my heart with good desires my thoughts with pleasing hopes my hands with works of justice and to waste my self like a torch of aromatick wood in a life satisfied with it self and laudable to posterity whereas going along with these I walk on thorns and ice in the depth of night not knowing who pursues me behind Avaunt novelties avaunt cursed impieties farewel infamous atheisms adieu execrable liberty you shall never be ought with me O youth if thou didst well tast these words what repose what contentment what glory shouldst thou acquire O unhappy youth which adherest to these impious and licentious companies what wilt thou say when time shall have taken from thee the scarf which now veileth thine eyes and that thou shalt see the chastisement of God which shall follow thee in all thy undertakings misery by thy sides torments and pains before Against toleration thee and peoples execration over thy head But you meek ones and you men to halves who endure with soft and flexible ears unworthy blasphemies against God under the shadow of wit and pleasant entertainment if you have yet any vein of Christianity in all your body ought it not to bownd and leap against these criminals who in the heat of wine and banquets flout in your presences at the truth of a Religion which your Ancestours left you with so much sweat such virtues and so many good examples If you who be men of quality and authority persecute even to the gates of hell such as once have offended you when you do negligently suffer them to dishonour him who hath imprinted the ray of majesty with his finger on your faces do you not render your selves guilty of all the crimes committed through your coldness and neglects God hath preserved since so many Ages doth and will preserve this Kingdom by the piety of our great King by the zeal of his Clergie by the prudence of his Councel and good Officers and by the devotion of people which are as sincere in France as in any place of the world enlightened with the rays of faith But it is for impiety that Crowns are broken that Scepters flie in pieces and Empires have in all times passed from Nation to Nation It is I saith the great God who make Councellours fools and Judges stupid I who Adducet Consilarios in stultum finem change the golden girdle of Kings into a coard I who throw confusion on the brow of Priests I who supplant the greatest when they seek to overthrow true pietie The Edict of Darius a Pagan King which he made in favour of the Hebrews Temple hath astonishing words when he saith What man soever shall be so Omnis homo qui hanc mutaverit jussionem tollatur lignum de domo ipsius erigatur configatur in eo domus ejus publicetur Esdras hardie as to change and alter my commandment for the building of the Temple of God let a gibbet be erected for him of the same wood of which his house is built let it be raised in the street let him be affixed thereunto and his house confiscated This teacheth you it is a great unhappiness to build your house at the expence of Gods houses Rafters and beams of such edifices have many times served for instruments of punishment to such as raised them The favours of great men fortunes of ice inexhaustible riches reputation friends companions factours lackeys buffons all have forsaken them as butter-flies which escape the hand of a child they are fallen through the sin of impiety which hath made an eclipse of their fortune and life in the brightest lustre of their greatness That the Remedie of our evil consisteth in the Zeal of our Faith 6. THe Remedie of evils which turmoyl us is wholly in our own hands and the cure of our wounds dependeth on our own wills Good examples and strong laws may do all on spirits which have not yet totally renounced their own good nor is there any one so desperate who is not taken either by the hands of virtue wholly made of adamant or feareth not to fall into the chains of justice Let Ecclesiasticks whom God hath entrusted with his bloud his word and his Sacraments begin first of all to dart rays of sanctity in the firmament of honour where God hath placed them Let secular men in dignities and eminent fortunes affect zeal in Religion Let such as are
of the law and yield your souls up for the testament of your Ancestours Children will you not answer what the holy Machabees did by the lips of their elder brother Let us die in virtue for our brethren and not defile our glory by any crime which may be objected against us Let war be proclaimed against Libertines and blasphemers who will still persevere with deliberate malice in their impiety Let these infernal mouthes be stopped and condemned to an eternal silence Let the standard of the Cross be adored by all Nations and the enemies of Jesus dissolved as wax melted on the flames of burning coals as smoke scattered in the air Let a chast and sincere worship of God flourish every where and sacrifices of praise mount to Heaven to obtain benedictions on earth But you SIR who most near approch to the Kings person having given so many testimonies of your prudence your courage and fidelity seem to speak unto him with the same tongue which holdeth ears enchained by the charms of your eloquence and say what France pronounceth 7. GReat King for whom our Altars daily smoke An Apostrophe of France to the King in Sacrifices and for whom our lips cease not to send forth thanksgivings of prosperitie to Heaven The monsters are not all as yet vanquished Behold the last head of Hydra which God hath reserved to this triumphant sword which the Cross guideth valour animateth justice moderateth and the stars crown Needs must impietie be crushed under those feet which have already trampled on so many Dragons and be fettered with an hundred iron chains under the Altars we daily charge with our vows When Libra the constellation of your birth ariseth the Ram falleth It is not time O Monarch of flower-de-luces that appearing on the throne of justice with Ballance in hand all sparkling with the rays of glorie which environ you after so many battel 's concluded by your victories you humble the horns of this Ram of insolent impiety which dares so confidently oppose both by words and actions the Religion which crown you the spirit which possesseth you and the power which directeth you Alas Alas SIR To what purpose were it to have walked on the smoking ruins of so many rebellious Cities What would it avail to have thrown down in one Rochel so many surly rocks with the help of so great so faithfull and happy counsel and opening one gate there at your enterance to have shut up a thousand against factions and civil wars What contentment could your Majesty have by wiping away the sweats on the Alps you had gotten on the Ocean and to have gathered palms perpetually verdant for you as well in the frozen ice of winter as the scorching beats of summer if you must again behold at your return that Religion you so often defended trodden under the feet of impiety wounded by slanderous tongues outraged by blasphemies and contaminated by insolent spirits who know not God but to dishonour him It now at this time presenteth it self to you with sighs in the heart and tears in the eyes It sheweth unto you the robe which Clodovaeus Charlemaigne and S. Lewis your Predecessours gave you with so much splendour now torn in pieces with such violence it imploreth your assistance it expecteth your power it breaths an air much the more sweet in the confidence conceived of your zeal and courage I call to witness that great Angel which hath led you by the hand to so many conquests and triumphs making you dreadfull to your enemies helpfull to your Allies awfull to your subjects and amiable to all the world it is not here where he will limit your actions and fix the columns of your memorie We still hope quickly to see the day which shall drie up the tears of the poor shall ease their burdens shall sweeten their pains shall â—our oyl on their yokes And from whom should we expect all this but from a Prince so pious so benign We promise our selves to see a Clergie which shall speedily put it self into so good a way under your favour entirely purified from the dregs of simonie ignorance and the liberty of evil actions Who can give us this happiness but a King who hath under his heart a Temple for true piety We sigh for that great day that day which shall for ever wash away the stains of bloud impressed on the foreheads of French Nobilitie which shall dissipate disorders shall stop the current of so many dissolutions and what can assure us of it but the certainty of your Edicts We most earnestly desire to behold an absolute regularitie in justice and in all Officers that a golden Age may shine again which hath so often been varnished through the corruption of souls set at sale And who shall do it but a King that from his most innocent years so much hath cherished the title of Just that be for it contemned the name of a Conquerour which his valour presented him and of Most Sacred which the veneration of his virtues afforded him Impiety vanquished beareth the keys of all these hopes nor shall we have any thing more to fear or desire when that shall be throughly suppressed throughout all the parts of the Kingdom Dear delight of Heaven is it not for this God drew you the last year from the gates of a sepulcher and restored you to life to render us all to our selves Alas Great God what a stroke of thunder was the news of this maladie What a terrour to all Cities What astonishment in all Orders What a wound in the heart of the whole Kingdom Your poor France remembered the 27. day of September made sacred by your royal birth It considered this nativitie had done to your state what the infusion of the soul into a bodie and saw you almost taken hence at the same time that your Majestie entered It beheld all that greatness and those comforts readie to be shut up within your tomb The Queens drenched in their deep sorrow could not speak but by their tears and sobs Your good Officers dissolved in lamentations at the foot of your bed which was become at the Altars of grief All humane hopes were cut off by the violence of the maladie Nothing was expected but the fatal blow which all the world deplored and which no man could divert But who knoweth not SIR God permitted it to let us see your virtues by their bright reflection The lustre of beautifull paintings must be suffered a little to mortifie before we can judge of them We could not sufficiently know your Majestie in the bright splendours of fortune and such good success of arms Needs must we have a character from God of men afflicted and a mark of the Cross of Jesus to consummate so excellent qualities And what heart was not then seized with admiration when we saw a young King so great so flourishing so awfull to look death in the face with a confident eye to expect it with
leave us nothing but that which we have given for God The seventh SECTION The way to become perfect TO this end you must keep a perpetual watch over your actions and be like a Seraphim beset all over with eyes and lights as Bassarion said you shall perceive your progression in virtue when you begin purged from greater sins to be fearfull of the least when you feel your self loosed from ardent desires of interest and honour when your tongue is restrained from slander and vanity when your heart is more purified in its affections and that you draw near to indifferency The means to make your self thus perfect is first to be enflamed with a fervent desire of perfection secondly not to neglect the extirpation even of the slightest imperfections thirdly to have a good directour who may be to you as the Angel Raphael was to young Tobias and withal to confer very often with spiritual men and to be warned by their good example fourthly to make as it were a nose-gay of flowers out of the lives of Saints to take from it odour and imitation fifthly to become constant in good purposes and to offer them up to God as by the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ The eighth SECTION How we must govern our selves against temptations tribulations and Obstacles occurring in the way of virtue FInally seeing in the practise of virtue we must ever be ready armed to overthrow the power of our adversary and to further our own affairs of salvation call to mind these twelve maxims which I propose against such obstacles as may happen The way to resist temptation is not to frame your self to a spiritual insensibility unmoved with any thing that is hard to attain so sensible is self-love and to have it were to be stone not man it is not to expel one temptation by another and to do one evil to be delivered from another for to take that course were to wash your self in ink It is not to hide your self upon all occasions and never to do good for fear of fighting with evil but to resist stoutly as I shall shew you The great Scholar Joannes Picus Mirandula hath collected twelve remarkble Maxims the practise whereof is exceeding profitable when we address our selves to spiritual combat against weakness The first Maxim That you must be tempted on what side soever it happen In hoc positi sumus It is our profession our trade and continual exercise The eagle complaineth not of her wings neither the Nightingale of her voice nor the Peacock of his train because these are natural to them and it is as natural to a man to be tempted as to a bird to flie to sing to prune her feathers If you desert the course of spiritual life through fear of being tempted and turn about to worldly delights assure your self you will be much more engaged and which is worse without comfort honour or recompence you forsake a cross of paper which if you knew well how to carrie would be no heavier burthen than feathers to a bird you forsake it I say to take up another which is hard toilsome and bloudy and will make you of one confraternity with the bad thief Sidonius Apollinaris relateth how a certain man named Maximus arriving by unlawfull and indirect means at the top of honour was the very first day much wearied and fetching a deep sigh said thus Foelicem te Damocle qui non longiùs uno prandio regni necessitatem tolerasti O Damocles how happy do I esteem thee for having been a King but the space of a dinner I have been one a whole day and can hear it no longer The second Remember that in the affairs of the world we fight longest we work hardest and reap least the end of one labour is the beginning of another in pains taking the onely hope is ever to take pains and temporal labour doth many times pull after it eternal punishment The third Is it not direct folly to believe there is a Paradise an eternal life and a Jesus Christ who of the Cross made a ladder to get up to his throne of glory and yet to desire to live here with folded arms to see the master open the way to heaven through so many thorns and the servant unwilling to tread on any thing but flowers to see a fresh and tender limb to a head worn away with sufferings like a brazen Colossus with feet of flax The fourth Were there no other fruit in tribulation but conformity with Jesus Christ who is the Sovereign wisdom yet were it a high recompence A famous captain said to a souldier dying with him hadst thou been obscure all thy life yet art thou not a little honoured to day in dying with thy master and who would not glory to have the Son of God for his leader his companion his spectatour his theatre his reward in all afflictions and Tribulations who would not account it a great honour to be crucified daily with him to stretch his hands and arms upon the Cross by restraining them from violence rapine and ruin whereunto we are carried away by the spirit of lying to fetter his feet by hindering them from running after the unbridled desires of his heart to embitter his tongue by overcoming the pleasures of the taste to annihilate himself by despising honour after his example who when he might have walked upon the wings of the Cherubims would rather creep amongst us like a little worm of the earth what a glorie were it to say with S. Paul I hear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Gal. 6. 17. The fifth Not to put any trust in humane means when you undertake to subdue a temptation It is not a thing depending wholly upon us God must go before and we contribute our will for if he watch not over us to much purpose is it for us to keep centinel None is so weak as he that thinks himself strong Multa in homine bona fiunt quae non facit homo Nulla verò facit homo bona quae non Deus praestet ut faciat homo saith the councel of Orange Many good things are done in man which man doth not But man doth not any good which God doth not He that thinks to resist temptations without his aid is like one that would go to the wars and stumbles at his own threshold And therefore an effectual means in this combat is to insist much on prayer especially at the first assault of a temptation The sixth When you have overcome a temptation take heed of unbending and softening your courage as if you had no more enemies to encounter As distrust is the mother of safety so security is the gate of danger If the enemy goeth up and down continually like a roaring Lion be you on the other side a watchfull Lion in the centinels of the Lord of hoasts and take for your word super speculam Domini ego sto I stand upon the watch-tower
God will they are always heard if not according to the wishes of their own nature yet according to the greater profits of his grace He is always happie who hath that which he would because he knows how to wish what is fitting and finds means to obtain what he desires by reason of his abstinence from coveting that which cannot be had 5. We must not offer to limit our goodness but as it comes from an infinit God we should make it as near being infinite as we can He gives the lie to virtues who will reduce them to a certain number We must never be weary of well doing but imitate the nature of celestial things which never make any end but to begin again Aspiration O God what spots are in my soul and how little do I look into my own imperfections Wilt thou never shew me to my self for some good time that I may cure my self by horrour of seeing what I am since I do so often wound my self by being too indulgent to my own naughty affections It is a great offence to break the glass which representeth me to my self by brotherly correction and to think I shall commit to more sins when no body will take liberty to reprove me I will humble my self to the very dust and mount up to thy glorie by contempt of my own baseness Alas must my soul be always so far in love with it self that it cannot suffer the remonstrance of a friend how will it then endure the tooth of an enemy what can she love being so partial to her self if she do not love most ugly darkness O my redoubted Master I fear thine eyes which see those obscurities which the foolish world takes to be brightness If I cannot be always innocent make me at least acknowledge my self faulty that I may know my self as I am to the end thou mayest know me for an object capable of thy mercy The Gospel upon Wednesday the third week in Lent S. Matthew 15. The Pharisees asked Jesus Why do thy Disciples contradict ancient Traditions THen came to him from Jerusalem Scribes and Pharisees saying Why do thy Disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients For they wash not their hands when they eat bread But be answering said to them Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition For God said Honour father and mother and he that shall curse father or mother dying let him die But you say Whosoever shall say to father or mother The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me shall profit thee and shall not honour his father or his mother and you have made frustrate the commandment of God for your own tradition Hypocrites well hath Esaiah prophesied of you saying This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me And in vain do they worship me teaching doctrines and commandments of men And having called together the multitudes unto him he said to them Hear ye and understand Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man but that which proceedeth out of the mouth that defileth a man Then came his Disciples and said to him Dost thou know that the Pharisees when they heard this word were scandalized But he answering said All planting which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone blind they are guides of the blind and if the blind be guide to the blind both fall into the ditch And Peter answering said to him Expound us this parable But he said Are you also as yet without understanding Do you not understand that all that entereth into the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast forth into the privie But the things that proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and those things defile a man For from the heart come forth evil cogitations murders adulteries fornications thefts false testimonies blasphemy These are the things that defile but to eat with unwashen hands doth not defile a man Moralities 1. THe spirit of man is wretched and makes it self business by being disquieted with petty little things and tormenting it self with formalities whiles it lives in a deep neglect of all that which is most essential to her salvation The Pharisees did place their perfections in washing themselves every hour of the day in bearing writs of the Law upon their foreheads and thorns upon their heels but made no scruple to take away the honour due to fathers and mothers from their children to make spoil of the world by a ravenous avarice which took upon it the appearance of piety and to give up innocent bloud under shew of justice The world doth now furnish it self with such like devotions Some make it a sin to look upon a fair flower with delight to eat with a good appetite to drink cool wine in hot weather to burn a paper upon which the name of Jesus is written to tread upon two straws that lie a cross But to set money to usury to remember injuries for ever to keep a poor workmans wages to oppress the weak to accuse the innocent to spoil miserable persons These are the little sins which pass for virtues in this world Assure your self that such proceedings are abominable before God and there can be no better devotion in the world than to have a true and right feeling of God and to live in honesty not sophisticated but such as is produced out of the pure lights of nature The conscience of hypocrites is a spiders web whereof no garment can ever be made Hypocrisie is a very subtil fault and a secret poison which kils other virtues with their own swords 2. Jesus is our great Master who hath abridged six hundred and thirteen Precepts of the old Testament within the Law of love Do but love saith Saint Augustine and do what you will but then your love must go to the right fountain which is the heart of God It is in him you must cherish and honour your nearest friends and for him also you are bound to love even your greatest enemies Be not afraid to shew him your heart stark naked that he may pierce it with his arrows for the wounds of such an archer are much more precious than rubies You shall gain all by loving him and death it self which comes from this love is the gate of life If you love him truly you will have the three conditions of love which are to serve him to imitate him and to suffer for him You must serve him with all fidelity in your prayers and all your actions you must imitate him what possibly you can in all the passages of his life And you must hold it for a glory to participate with a valiant patience all the fruits of his Cross Aspirations O Great God who judgest all hearts and doest penetrate the most secret retirements of our consciences drive away from me all counterfeit Pharisaical devotions which are nothing but shews and cannot subsist but by false
honour of God and the reverence of sacred things shall not accompany all your pretences For if you ground your piety upon any temporal respects you resemble that people which believes the highest mountains do support the skies 2. There are no sins which God doth punish more rigorously nor speedily than those which are committed against devotion and piety He doth not here take up the scourge against naughty Judges usurers and unchaste persons because the Church is to find remedy against all faults which happen in the life of man But if a man commit a sin against Gods Altar the remedy grows desperate King Ozias felt a leoprofie rise upon his face at the instant when he made the sume rise from the censor which he usurped from the high Priests Ely the chief Priest was buried in the ruins of his own house for the sacriledge of his children without any consideration of those long services which he had performed at the Tabernacle Keep your self from simonies from irreverence in Churches and from abusing Sacraments He can have no excuse which makes his Judge a witness 3. Jesus was violently moved by the zeal which he bare to the house of his heavenly Father But many wicked rich men limit their zeal onely to their own families They build great Palaces upon the peoples bloud and they nothing care though all the world be in a storm so long as they and what belongs to them be well covered But there is a revenging God who doth insensibly drie up the roots of proud Nations and throws disgrace and infamy upon the faces of those who neglect the glories of Gods Altars to advance their own He who builds without God doth demolish and whosoever thinks to make any great encrease without him shall find nothing but sterility Aspiration O Most pure Spirit of Jesus which wast consummate by zeal toward the house of God wilt thou never burn my heart with those adored flames wherewith thou inspirest chaste hearts Why do we take so much care of our houses which are built upon quick-silver and roll up and down upon the inconstancies of humane fortunes while we have no love nor zeal towards Gods Church which is the Palace which we should chuse here upon earth to be as the Image of heaven above I will adore thy Altars all my life with a profound humility But I will first make an Altar of my own heart where I will offer sacrifice to which I doubt not but thou wilt put fire with thine own hand The Gospel upon Tuesday the fourth week in Lent S. John 7. The Jews marvel at the learning of Jesus who was never taught ANd when the festivity was now half done Jesus went up into the Temple and taught And the Jews marvelled saying how doth this man know letters whereas he hath not learned Jesus answered them and said my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me If any man will do the will of him he shall understand of the doctrine whither it be of God or I speak of my self he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glorie but he that seeketh the glorie of him that sent him he is true and injustice in him there is not Did not Moses give you the Law and none of you doth the Law Why seek you to kill me The multitude answered and said thou hast a Devil who seeketh to kill thee Jesus answered and said to them One work I have done and you do all marvel Therefore Moses gave you circumcision not that it is of Moses but of the Fathers and in the Sabbath ye circumcise a man If a man receive circumcision in the Sabbath that the law of Moses be not broken are you angry at me because I have healed a man wholly in the Sabbath Judge not according to the face judge just judgement Certain therefore of Jerusalem said Is not this he whom they seek to kill And behold he speaks openly and they say nothing to him Have the Princes known indeed that this is Christ But this man we know whence he is But when Christ cometh no man knowerh whence he is Jesus therefore cried in the Temple teaching and saying Both me you do know and whence I am you know and of my self I am not come But he is true that sent me whom you know not I know him because I am of him and he sent me They sought therefore to apprehend him and no man laid hands upon him because his hour was not yet come But of the multitude many believed in him Moralities 1. IT appears by this Gospel that Jesus was judged according to apparences not according to truth It is one of the greatest confusions which is deeply rooted in the life of man that every thing is full of painting and instead of taking it off with a spunge we foment it and make our illusions voluntary The Prophet Isay adviseth us to use our judgement as men do leaven to season bread All the objects presented to our imaginations which we esteem are fading if we do not adde some heavenly vigour to help our judgement 2. To judge according to apparences is a great want both of judgement and courage The first makes us prefer vanity before truth the second gives that to silk and golden clothes which is properly due to virtue We adore painted coals and certain dark fumes covered outwardly with snow But if we did know how many great miseries and what beastly ordure is hidden under cloth of gold silk and scarlet we would complain of our eyes for being so far without reason It is a kind of Apostacy and rebellion against Gods providence to judge without calling God to be a president in our counsel or to take in hand any humane inventions without the assistance of his Spirit 3. God is pleased to lodge pearls within cockles and bestows his treasures of wisdom and virtue many times upon persons who have the most unfashionable outsides to countercheck humane wisdom He makes his orators of those who are speechless and numbers of frogs and flies to overthrow mighty armies He makes Kings out of shepherds and serves himself of things which are not as if they were The most pleasing Sacrifice which he receives upon earth is from the humble and when we despise those we divert the honours of God We offer Sacrifice to the worlds opinion like the Sages of Egypt who did light candles and burn incense to Crocodiles The Jews lost their faith to follow apparences and there is no shorter way to Apostacy than to adore the world and neglect God 4. An ill opinion make folks many times pass a rash judgement They mount into Gods chair to judge the hearts of men The chaste doves are used like Ravens and Ravens like Swans Opinion puts false spectacles upon our eyes which make faults seem virtues and virtues crimes Yet nevertheless we should think that virtuous persons will not conceive an ill suspition of their neighbour without a very sure
of Angels who say that he is alive And certain men of ours went to the Monument and they found it so as the women said but him they found not And he said to them O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all thing which the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so enter into his glory And beginning from Moses and all the Prophets he did interpret to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him And they drew nigh to the Town whither they went and he made semblance to go further And they forced him saying Tarry with us because it is toward night and the day now far spent and he went in with them And it came to pass while he sate at the table with them he took bread and blessed and brake and did reach to them And their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight And they said to the other Was not our heart burning in us whiles he spake in the way and opened unto us the Scriptures And rising up the same hour they went back into Jerusalem and they found the eleven gathered together and those that were with them saying That our Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon And they told the things that were done in the way and how they knew him in the breaking of bread Moralities 1. IT is a strange thing that God is always with us and we are so little with him We have our being our moving our life from him he carries us in his arms he keeps us as a nurse doth her dear child and yet all this while we scarce know what he is and use him so often as a stranger He is in our being and yet we keep him far from our heart as a dead man who is quite forgotten And Enoch walked with him and for that he was taken from the conversation of men and reserved for Paradise To speak truth our soul should always be languishing after her Jesus and count it a kind of Adultery to be separated from him so much as by thought Let us learn a little to talk with him we commonly have that in our tongue which we keep in our heart Let us sweeten the sadness of our pilgrimage by the contemplation of his beauties Let us look upon him as God and man the God of gods the Man of men our great Saviour and Prophet powerfull both in word and work for if his word be thunder his life is a lightening He hath been here doing good to all the world and suffering hurt from all the world doing good without reward and enduring evil without impatience We all pass here as Torrents into valleys the onely question is of our passing well whether we look on worldly goods as on waters which pass under a bridge and as upon the furniture of an Inn which is none of ours If we be embarked in the Vessel of life let us not amuse our selves to gather Cockles upon the shore but so that we may always have our eyes fixt upon Paradise 2. Two things do hinder those Pilgrims from knowing Jesus as they should The one is their eyes are dazeled and the other is the little account they make of the Cross which drives them into the mistrust of the Resurrection And this is it which crosseth us all our life and so oft diverts us from the point of our happiness Our eyes are dazeled with false lights of the world they are darkened with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of their day Worldly chains have a certain effective vigour and pleasure which is onely painted but they have a most certain sorrow and a most uncertain contentment They have a painful labour and a timorous rest A possession full of misery and void of all beatitude If we had our eyes well opened to penetrate and see what it is we should then say of all the most ravishing objects of the world How senseless was I when I courted you O deceitfull world thou didst appear great to me when I saw thee not as thou art But so soon as I did see thee rightly I did then cease to see thee for thou wast no more to me but just nothing We run in full career after all that pleaseth our sense and the Cross which is so much preached to us is much more upon our Altars than in our hearts We will not know that the throne of Mount Calvarie is the path-way to Heaven and as this truth wanders from our hearts Jesus departs from our eyes Let us at least pray Jesus to stay with us for it is late in our hearts and the night is far advanced by our want of true light We shal not know Jesus by discourse but by feeding him in the persons of his poor since he gives the continual nourishment of his body Aspirations O Onely Pilgrim of the world and first dweller in the heart of thy heavenly Father what a pilgrimage hast thou made descending from Heaven to earth and yet without forsaking Heaven Thou hast markt thy steps by thy conquests made visible thy way by thine own light thou hast watered it with thy precious bloud and paved it with thy wounds O what a goodly thing it is to walk with thee when thou openest thy sacred mouth as the opening of a temple to discover the beauties and mysteries of it O that is most pleasing to understand that mouth which distils so much honey through lips of Roses But wherefore My good Lord art thou pleased to hide thy self from a soul which languishes after thee Take away the vail from mine eyes and suffer thy self to be seen in the vesture of thy heavenly beauties If I must bear the Cross and pass by the throne of Mount Calvarie to come to Heaven I most humbly submit to thy divine pleasure that I may possess all that thou art The Gospel upon Tuesday in Easter week S. Luke the 24. ANd whiles they spake these things Jesus stood in the midst of them and he saith to them Peace be to you It is I fear not But they being troubled and frighted imagined they saw a Spirit And he saith to them Why are you troubled and cogitations arise in your hearts See my hands and feet that it is I my self handle and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and feet But they yet not believing and marvelling for joy he said Have you here any thing to be eaten But they offered him a piece of fish broiled and a honey-comb And when he had eaten before them taking the remains he gave to them And he said to them These are the words which I spake to you when I was yet with you that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written
corruptible matter of Earth but after he became a Christian he lived upon the most pure influences of heaven S. Gregory Nazianzen saith he more breathed S. Basile then the aire it self and that all his absences were to him so many deaths S. Chrysostome in banishment was perpetually in spirit with those he most esteemed S. Jerome better loved to entertain his spirituall amities in little Bethelem then to be a Courtier in Rome where he might be chosen Pope And if we reflect on those who have lived in the light of nature Plato was nothing but love Aristotle had never spoken so excellently of friendship had he not been a good friend Seneca spent himself in this virtue being suspected by Nero for the affection he bare to Piso Alexander was so good that he carried between his arms a poor souldier frozen with cold up to his throne to warm him and to give him somewhat to eat from his royall hands Trajan brake his proper Diadem to bind up the wound of one of his servants Titus wept over the ruines of rebellious Jerusalem A man may as soon tell the starres in the heavens as make an enumeration of the brave spirits which have been sacrificed to amity Wherefore great hearts are the most loving If we seek out the causes we shall find it ordinarily proceedeth from a good temperature which hath fire and vigour and that comes from good humours and a perfect harmony of spirit little Courages are cold straightned and wholly tied to proper interests and the preservation of their own person They lock themselves up in their proprieties as certain fishes in their shell and still fear least elements should fail them But magnanimous hearts who more conform themselves to the perfections of God have sources of Bounty which seem not to be made but to stream and overflow such as come near them This likewise many times proceedeth from education for those who fall upon a breeding base wretched and extremely penurious having hands very hard to be ungrasped have likewise a heart shut up against amities still fearing lest acquaintance may oblige them to be more liberall then they would contrariwise such as have the good hap to be nobly bred hold it an honour to oblige and to purchase friends every where Add also that there is ever some gentilenesse of spirit among these loving souls who desiring to produce themselves in a sociable life and who understanding it is not given them to enlighten sands and serpents will have spectatours and subjects of its magnificence Which happens otherwise to low and sordid spirits for they voluntarily banish themselves from the conversation of men that they may not have so many eyes for witnesses of their faults So that we must conclude against the Philosophers of Indifferency that Grace Beauty strength and power of nature are on their side who naturally have love and affection §. 2. Of Love in generall LOve when it is well ordered is the soul of the universe Love the soul of the universe which penetrateth which animateth which tieth and maintaineth all things and so many millions of creatures as aspire and respire this love would be but a burden to Nature were they not quickned by the innocent flame which gives them lustre as to the burning Bush not doing them any hurt Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris Eccl. 43. at all I may say that of honest love which the wise man did of the Sunne That it is the superintendent of the great fornaces of the world which make all the most Love the superintendent of the great Fornace of the world Faber ferrarius sedens juxta in eodem considerans opus ferri vapor iguis uret carnes ejus in calore fornacis concertatur c. Eccl. 29 38. Pieces of work in Nature Have you ever beheld the Forge-master described by the same wise-man You see a man in his shirt all covered over with sweat greace and smoke who sporteth among the sparks of fire and seemeth to be grown familiar with the flames He burns gold and silver in the fornace then he battereth it on the Anvil with huge blows of the hammer he fashioneth it he polisheth it he beautifies it and of a rude and indigested substance makes a fair piece of plate to shine on the Cup-boards of the most noble houses So doth love in the world it taketh hearts which are as yet but of earth and morter it enkindleth them with a divine flame It beats them under the hammer of tribulations and sufferings to try them It filleth them by the assiduity of prayer It polisheth them by the exercise of virtues lastly it makes vessels of them worthy to be placed above the Empyreall heaven Thus did it with S. Paul and made him so perfect Act. 9. that the First verity saith of him that he is his vessel of election to carry his name among nations and the Kings of the Earth and that he will shew him how much he must suffer for his sake The whole nature of Pigri mortui oetestandi eritis si nihil ametis Amare sed quid ameris videte August in Psal 31. Hoc amet nec ametur ab ullo Juvenal Seven excellent things the world tendeth to true love every thing loves some of necessity other by inclination and other out of reason He who will love nothing saith S. Augustine is the most miserable and wretched man on earth nor is it without cause that in imprecations pronounced over the wicked it is said Let him not love nor be beloved by any The ancient Sages have observed in the light of Nature that there are seven excellent things to be esteemed as gifts from heaven which are clearnesse of senses vivacity of understanding grace to expresse ones thoughts ability to govern well Courage in great and difficult undertakings fruitfulnesse in the productions of the mind and the strength of love and forasmuch as concerneth the last Orpheus and Hesiodus have thought it so necessary that they make it the first thing that came out of the Chaos before the Creation of the world The Platonists revolving upon this conceit have built us three worlds which are the Angelicall nature Vide Marsilium Ficinum in convivium Platonis An exâ—ellent conceit of the Platonists the soul and the Frame of the universe All three as they say have their Chaos The Angel before the ray of God had his in the privation of lights Man in the darknesse of Ignorance and Sinne The materiall world in the confusion of all its parts But these three Chaoses were dissipated by love which was the cause that God gave to Angelicall spirits the knowledge of the most sublime verities to Man Reason and to the world Order All we see is a perpetuall circle of God to the world and of the world to God This circle beginning in God by inestimable perfections full of charms and attractives is properly called Beauty and
who restored his grand-father to his estate and was the honour of his family O good God! A man of the world to speak and do all this for worldly amity to command over himself in all the great aversions of nature to content a friend To act all these admirable prodigies in fight of all the world for the satisfaction of a morall virtue And can it become us to play the nicelings and so much to give way to our aversions to forsake the law of God Nature and our own salvation Will we never understand the saying of Saint Justine That to live according to the propensions of Nature is not to live like a Christian The fifth Treatise Of DELECTATION § 1. That Delectation is the scope of all Nature Its Essence Objects and Differences GOd seemed to have made all things for Delectation since even Creatures which have no God hath made all creatures to have Delectation soul nor reason have a dead Delectation applyed to the place and end for which they were made Had fire sense it would triumph for joy to see it self in an eminent place and a stone would receive contentment to be below the Iron would smile to feel it self enchained by the charms of the Adamant and a straw to behold it self caught by the Amber Now for as much as these things are without judgement all their joy consisteth onely in the cessation of their motion which is done when they are arrived at their proper elements Creatures the most eminent have a sensitive knowledge of things agreeable to them and do infinitely rejoyce in their possession and fruition But man who worketh by more powerfull and exalted engines of reason is created to participate in Joy not by a dead Action but by an understanding and a reasonable fruition And that you may the better conceive wherein the joy of a reall Man consisteth you must know it is composed of four things the first whereof is that to receive one must have an object Four things compose the solid delectation of man pleasing and delightfull which is as the basis of rejoycing and secondly a facultie capable to conceive and know this object which in it self naturally disposeth to Delectation from whence it cometh to passe that a Beast will hear the bravest and best Lutenist in France without any pleasure because it hath not ears to judge of it thence we must go to a third degree which is an affection toward this object otherwise had it all the perfections in the world there is no contentment taken therein from whence it cometh that devils albeit they have a certain presence of the sovereign of all objects which is God and have a certain knowledge of him they cannot find any repose therein because they love him not To conclude the accomplishment of pleasure is the presence possession and fruition of the good which is known to us and which we love For from thence proceedeth a sweetnesse vitall lively and delicious which poureth it self forth into the bottome Why devils love not God whom they know to be so amiable of our souls and diffuseth it self upon our senses as a gentle dew falling on plants See what joy doth if you have never well tryed it which is indeed nought else but a satisfaction of the soul in the enjoying what it loves But now at this present to expresse all the objects and particular causes thereof is a discourse which rather Three sorts of joy extendeth in length then establisheth any solid verity Yet I think one may undertake to affirm there are three sorts of joy some are wholly divine and inspired as those of holy Confessours Virgins and Martyrs who rejoyce in the practice of virtues in austerities and torments others are indifferent partly humane and civill as are the pleasures we take in the beauty and diversitie of naturall things honest amities and sciences in honour and estimation in the successe and prosperity of affairs and in the exercise of great charges Others come from the Base Court and from animall nature as are the pleasures of eating and drinking of feasts of banquets of love of dancing of sports of playes and of jeasting Every one measureth his likings by his own nature Contentments â—â— rather in the will then in pleasing objects and condition and one may truly say that pleasure is not properly in things exteriour but in the interiour of our wills and appetites See we not that all colours have no lustre in the night-time and that necessarily light must awaken and put them in possession of being coloured so all objects in the world are of the same nature they are dumb dead and insensible unlesse the ray of our will reflects on them to actuate them to set them a-work and of them to make matter of our delight If pleasure sprang from the quality of creatures it would be alike in all hearts and never would any thing which is pleasing to one be irksome or distastfull to another but sith we see so many diversities in the contentments of particulars and that one self-same man is sometimes displeased with that he hath most affected we may well say there is some secret in joy which is not derived from any thing else then it self Chiron could not endure to be a feigned God because he daily saw the same things Polycrates was impatient to have Felicity fixed upon him and sought of his own accord to become unfortunate as one glutted with his own happinesse There are a thousand fantasticall tricks in a spirit over-much contented with worldly blessings needs must our appetite in the same tone meet with objects to accomplish our felicity Wherefore it much importeth to habituate it in delight which ariseth from things good and laudable to purchase its joyes at a low rate to have them continually within ones self without begging them from elsewhere which will never happen but by flight from unlawfull lusts and by the application of our minds to things divine For which purpose I will here represent unto you the reproach of evil pleasure that you may adapt your selves to the sources of the delights of God § 2. The Basenesse and Giddinesse of sensuall Voluptuousnesse VVIcked pleasure is an inordinate delight in The essence of this Passion sensuall things proceeding from a soft nice and effeminate soul which adhereth to its flesh and excessively loveth it and which also oft proceedeth from a spirit become cold in the love of God and darkned in the knowldge of the blessings of the other life from bad education and from many vitious habits contracted in youth strange is the dominion of flesh and admirable the sway of pleasures Figure unto your self that you in a Table see that Delubrum voluptatis Isa 13. 21. Edifice which the Prophet Esay calleth The temple of pleasure It is a house of delight where one entrethin by five gates which are all crowned with Roses and carry the badge of youth and
discourses of Philosophers There is question how to help the soul by the body hundred shillings are of more worth then a hundred reasons to a poor wretch who hath need of sustenance and refreshment to solace his pains A little good usage meat apparel a Crosse upon gold or silver remedieth many Crosses of needy people If they to whom God hath given worldly wealth took the pain to imitate so many honourable personages and to accustome themselves to visit the shamefaced poor they would dayly do miracles they would drive away the devils of Melancholy bad humors spectres despairs and maladies they would pull millions of souls out of the hands of their evil fortunes and would be more to men then were the demy-Gods of Antiquity How many herbs simples compositions of physick how many lenitives what powerfull effects of Chyrurgery being well ordered do cure strange infirmities and do pluck one from out of the gates of death But as the cure and easing of the senses is neither present nor efficacious with all the world what should a man do who hath never so little heart but try to cure himself by reason It is it which God hath given unto The comfort derived from reason man instead of so many offensive and defensive armes born with other creatures why should we not use its help It is it which teacheth us that grief is nothing else but an apprehension of division and that Aug. l. 3. de liber at bitr cap 23. Quid est enim aliud dolor nisi quidam sensus divisionis vel corruptionis impatiens as we are out of excesse tyed to all pleasing things in the world so the want of them becomes very sensible in such sort that our Sadnesses ordinarily proceed from our love Experience sufficiently shewing that all such spirits as most are in love with themselves are the most tormented but if we come to lessen thoser geat affections which straightly tie us to conceits and account as lost all which may be lost there is no doubt but we shall begin to find a wholesome medicine for all the afflictions of life A mother greeved for the death of her Amabam misera periturum We most ardently love the things we most lose sonne said in Quintilian That all her evil came from loving too much what she might lose and that our passions are insensibly most ardent for things which must quickly be taken from us as if our grief were to take revenge upon the exorbitancy of our love It is reason that weakneth the opinion of evils which many times torment us more then their effect It which giveth light to things obscure order to confused vigour to languishing and resolution to despair there is nothing for which it finds not a lenitive if poverty make How it remedieth all humane accidents you sad why complain you Ignorant of thy self saith it unto us it is not poverty it is thy fancy which tormenteth thee No man is ever so poor as he is born Hast thou brought gold in thy veins and pearls Poverty in thy entrails that thou complainest of the change of thy condition why dost thou set thy self upon the rack for a thing whereof Jesus made boast and so many wise-men make vows Expect a little Death will make thee as rich as Croesus If thou thinkest thou art poor for that thou hast not what thy covetousnesse desireth it is an Illusion If thou wantest necessaries for life after thou hast lived commodiously and happily it is somewhat pitifull but make thy self a good poor man since God will have thee such suffer a while without murmuring and the divine Providence will not fail to raise for thee the mercy of some rich man to become thy steward Pray be patient endeavour take paines live meanly thou shalt become A suit rich by learning to live contented If a suit be lost what cares what apprehensions what pains what toils are in the same instant lost If it be according to Justice endure it if angainst Justice those who have lost their conscience in making thee lose thy cauie have more cause to be sorry then thou If thou hast lost much in game it is a lesson of wisdome to cure a folly If thou Losse of money hast lost all give thanks to God that thou shalt never lose any more so basely and that thou hast meanes to purchase a little in this occasion If fire and water winds and tempests harpies and theeves take away thy goods what wilt thou do against chance violence and iniquity but preserve submission and innocency The whole masse of worldly wealth is a torrent which swellerh now upon one side and then upon another let that go with patience which thou canst not hold by force If slander assail thy renown and condemne thee perhaps it doth that thou oughtest to do hadst Slander thou more virtues Many by despising themselves have prevented all contempts Tongues cannot hurt thy conscience we stand before God such as we are and all the teeth of calumny take not from us one sole atome of perfection Others have but one tongue to say and thou hast two hands to do Perfect thy life since it hath censures verity will force light through those vapours of maligne spirits derive glory out of thy proper confusion If thou beest discountenanced by great ones put thy self into the good favour of Disgrace God who is above all greatnesse and after thou hast made thy self a slave to men live a while a master over thy self Thou shalt find envy will have consecrated thee and that thy punishments will make a part of thy felicities If thou enterest into sadnesse for being frustrated of some expected good wherefore art thou so earnest in thy desires and so credulous in thy hopes and wherefore makest thou crosses to thy self out of thy own thoughts If it be for the absence Absence of friends of a beloved friend thinkest thou he must continually be tied to thee as if he were a second body It is in absence where our imaginations oftentimes render all that we affect most present we enter into the bottome of our soul and there find the images of our friends despoiled of matter and body we practise the best amities in mind where the envious watch us not the jealous observe us not and the troublesome interrupt not our discourses If this good friend be gone into the other world we every moment run after him and each hour draw near to him Let us be satisfied that his death is the cause that death hath nothing Death terrible for us and that for him we begin to desire what we most fear If we in body must suffer chains imprisonment Bodily pains maladies sharp pains hunger thirst the sword fire and all the hostility of nature we must needs say all which toucheth the skin toucheth us very near and that there are few charming words that can well cast
to save himself in a Region of nothing O poor soul thou fearest the poverty which thy Jesus Resolution against fear hath consecrated in the Crib and in Clouts Thou fearest the reproaches which he hath sanctified in the losse of his reputation thou fearest the dolours which he hath lodged in his virginall flesh thou fearest death which he overcame for thee thou fearest the false opinions of the world And what fearest thou not since thou dreadest fantasies which are lesse then the shadow of an hair There is but one thing which thou fearest not to Nulla metuendi causa nisi ne quod amamus aut adeptum amittamus aut non adipiscamur speratum Aug. q. 33. 83. lose innocency and sanctity which thou exposest to so many liberties and alluring occasions so prodigall thou art of a good which thou hast not O thou welbeloved of God although the most ungratefull to the love of God! wilt not thou dresse thy wounds wilt not thou apply some remedies to those vicious fears which gnaw thee and daily devour thee If thou wilt follow my counsell thy first resolution shall be to regulate the love of thy self not to have so indulgent and passionate a care of all things which concern thee as if thou wert an onely one in the species and that thy death were waited on by the Sepulchre of the world Thy aim should be to unloose thy self as much as thou mayest from so many ties and dependencies which multiply thy slaveries Thou must as it were live here a life of Nabatheans which were people of Arabia who neither planted nor sowed nor Diodor. l. 6. built but by expresse laws flew from delicious and fruitfull Countreys for fear that Riches might subjugate them to Passions the Commands of great ones But if we cannot come to this heighth at least let us have our heart well devested from these ardent affections which we have towards worldly enablements and behold them as one would an inconstant moving of shadows and spirits which glide before our eyes with a swift course and which ever move with the step of time and of the Sun to account as already lost whatsoever may be lost to cast your immortall cares upon an immortall soul and to place it in the first rank of your affections But if naturall love do yet tie us to health to life to honour and to slight pleasures to the preservation of our own person to whom should we entrust all this but to the Divine Providence with whom so many just have deposited their goods their reputation their life their bloud and hove loft nothing by this confidence but have transmitted Qui te tibi committis melius te potest servare qui te potuit antequam esses creare Aug. serm 8. de verbis Apostol their purchases and conquests to the bosome of Eternity In all which happeneth to us let us look towards this eye of God which perpetually beholdeth us this puissant hand of God this amorous direction Let us behold it as our Pole-starre as our flaming pillar as our great intelligence which manageth all the treasures of our life Let us learn to repose us in his bosome to slumber upon his heart to sleep between his arms Upon the first accident which befalleth us let us readily bend our knees in prayer let us adore the ordinances of our sovereign Master Let us behold with a confident countenance all which is happened or may happen Let us say God knoweth all this God permitteth all this God governeth all this He loves me as his creature he wisheth me well as one who hath given himself to him he can free me from this affliction if it be his holy will He is all good to will it he is all potent to do it Nay he is all wise to will and to do all that which is best Let us not meddle with the great current of his Counsels He maketh light in the most dusky nights and havens in the most forlorn shipwracks Were we with him in the shades of death what should we fear being between the arms of life Secondly let us not be corrupted by opinions which invade Nullus est miseriarum modu◠si timetur quantum potest Sence ep 13. us with a great shew of spectres and terrours and make us so often to fear things which are not and which shall never be It is to be too soon miserable to be so before the instant and if we for some time must be so let us consider that all the blessing and evils of the world are not great since they cannot long time be great Let us take away the mask from these fears of Poverty of Sicknesse and above all from humane respects as one would from him who goes about to affright children Why fear we so much such and such accidents which they who are made of no other flesh and bones then we do daily despise The acquaintance with perils hardneth to perils and there is nothing so terrible as the ignorance of reall truths Lastly let us hold for certain that a great part of our tranquillity dependeth upon our conscience Let us settle in Anchora mentis pondu◠timoris S. Gregor it repose by a good Confession let us constantly undertake the fear of God who will cure us of all our fears since the Anchor of the floating understanding is the Honour of the Divinity The tenth Treatise Of BOLDNESSE § 1. The Picture and Essence of it BOldnesse is very well depainted in the bosome of power shewing a heart in its The picture 〈◊〉 Boldness hand all encompassed with spirits and flames its visage is replenished with confidence its habit altogether warlike and countenance undaunted It looketh upon good all invironed with dangers as a Rose among thorns or as the golden fleece among dragons and is no whit amazed but it is on fire to flie through perils and to beat down all obstacles which oppose its conquest Good hap walketh before it by its sides innocency benignity piety strength experience and other good qualities which excite courage The presence thereof dissipateth a thousand petty Fancies which are lost in the obscurity of night not able to endure the sparkling of its eyes All this natively representeth unto us the nature and It s essence condition of Boldnesse which is properly an effect of good hope and a resolution of courage against dangers It is no wonder if Power hold it in its bosome since all the Boldnesse a man hath comes to him from the opinion he conceives to be able enough not to yield to the accidents which may assault him This heart of fire in which so many vigorous spirits sparkle is a token of the bold who commonly have more heat and vivacity from whence it comerh that young-men have herein more advantage then old were it not that they derive more assurance from some other part then from the weaknesse of their age The
would be pleased to divert such a thought from thee lest thou become culpable of the anger of God which will fall on the whole Army if thou goest to this stranger It importeth not I will go Son if thou resolvest to sin then stay till night make a veil of darknesse further to cover thy wickednesse from the eyes of the world for fear lest thy example may serve for a rock of scandall to those who are yet novices in virtue Yet thou perversly sayest I will go in full day light I will enjoy my pleasures and who art thou that givest me a law Go Zimri Go impudent man thou in thy calamitie shalt know the salarie of thy sin You know the rest of the History he goes thither he accosteth the Madianite in sight of all the world At which time God raiseth a young Prince as courageous as a Lion grand-child of Aaron who followeth him armed with zeal and sword crying out aloud Ah Traytor Ah infamous man He finds him out in the throne of Lust in the bed of iniquitie in the heat of Crime and with his sword transfixeth him and the Madianite making the abominable Bed and their unchaste loves to float all in bloud O bloud horribly but justly shed which still cryeth out with a voyce of bloud and saith to all posteritie Men women children great little poor rich flie from Impudency flie from Impudency as the last of vices otherwise know there is a revenging sword and a Judgement of God inevitable to all the Shamelessnesse of Sinners The twelfth Treatise Of ANGER § 1. The origine of Anger its Nature Causes and Diversities FIre which is a Mean between Spirits and Bodies doth work very diversly according The marveilous effects of fire to the matter and disposition it meets withall In the heavens it enkindleth the stars with flames the most pure in totall Nature it diversifieth clouds with Gold and Rubies it maketh Bowes and Coronets in the air it enterteineth a heat of life in the bodie of living Creatures which being maintained in a good temperature cause all the harmonies of health but when it mounteth up into a tempestuous cloud when it boyleth in Fornaces and creeps into Canons which are as mouths of fire to pronounce war it maketh so strange devastations that it vanquisheth the most valiant beats down the most boysterous mollifieth the hardest and terrifieth the most daring In the same manner we may say heat which in our bodies is an admirable work-Mistresse multiplyeth its effects according to the diversitie of the stuffs and occasions it lights on it conspireth with our spirits to serve as an instrument for the soul in its great operations it exciteth the honourable flames of chaste loves it disposeth courage to generous resolutions it polisheth the mind to embrace worthy purposes It secondeth the Imagination in its apprehensions It makes it self the steward of the vegetatiue faculties for the generation and production of men But if it once meet with burnt blood and fuming Choler which is as it were in the hands of the imagination when it is touched with some displeasure it insinuateth it self thereinto as into a cloud swoln with storms and tempests which throws forth fires roareth with thunders shooteth with inflamed darts and practiseth nought but ruine This is it we call Anger which is properly an ardent What Anger is appetite of reuenge caused by an apprehension of contempt and injuries Now this opinion of Contempt springeth in some from disesteem or for that they are forgotten and neglected by those of whom they think they ought to be respected In others from being crossed in what they desire most as in their profession their ambition and especially their affections In others from being depressed in that wherin they imagine they excell and principally before such by whom they perswade themselves they are beloved and honoured In others from being derided for defects of nature aswel of body as of mind and extraction also In others from being injuriously disgraced and insolently outraged by base and abject people and such as they have obliged As the opinion of injury increaseth and as it meeteth with a nature disposed and matter prepared this ardour is inflamed and if it be accompanied with a great power it teareth down smoaking cities it desolateth Provinces it swims in massacres it raiseth scaffolds all sprinkled over with bloud and hung with black whereon it acteth horrible Tragedies The other passions are augmented by degrees but Dum incipit tota est Sen. de Ira. How Anger is formed this ariseth fully formed and appears perfect so soon as it beginneth The opinion of contempt no sooner entreth in by the eyes and eares but it striketh the imagination which promptly communicateth its influence to the irascible appetite and then as if fire were given to a Canon it becomes Thunder and Tempest which disfigureth the bravest bodies turmoileth the bloud and spirits and bendeth all the veins to vengeance You would say the heart is not at that time any other then Vulcans Forge where the thoughts like so many Cyclopes labour to make Hail-showrs Lightenings and Tempests It is not known in this countrey what kind of language Reason speaketh It is no better heard then words among the Catadupes of Nilus strength hath a hand lifted up to employ the sword and a thousand instruments of iniquity to commit outrages This passion resembleth the furious Martichora renowned among Indian wild beasts who teareth his members asunder to make of them the arrows of his vengeance It hath nothing so resolved on as to destroy all and to raise unto it self a Tombe in its own ruines Yet we cannot but say that there are Divers qualities of anger three very different sorts of Anger according to the offences and persons who either raise it or suffer it In some it is cold in apparence and more inward but these oftentimes have the aspect of Virgins who in conclusion throw forth the fire of dragons In others it is fervent and headlong In others haughty and scornfull In others dumb and malicious In others obstreperous and stormy In some it is frequent and sudden in others sticking and obstinate There are some who being offended for frivolous things cease not to persevere therein for fear some may think they began without reason in which the lesse the cause is the more passionate they become Others blame their greatest friends for having done them lesse good then they expected In some Anger is but yet in bloom in others it taketh great and deep root Some satisfie themselves with clamour and injuries others therein employ the hand others wood and Iron others would have lightening in their power for some time of purpose to prosecute their revenge with all advantage Lastly this passion thrusts forth Vir iracundus effodit peccata Caffiao de spirits irae c. 1. all that is hidden in the heart Which made Cassian according to the Septuagint to write that
Ordures which never are washed off miseries which are without end But this world wherein we live as it hath sanctities which are not without hazard and Felicities which cannot be without change so it hath sinnes waited on by pardon and miseries comforted by remedies yet against iniquities God hath given us penance and against calamities mercy Deum extra se effici creaturis omanibus providendo S. Maximus God in heaven produceth another God not in substance but in person and on earth a second image of himself which is this divine mercy It is an infinite goodnesse of the Father of Nature and grace to have here below seated this excellent passion to the end great maladies might not be without great medicines Of all living creatures there is none more miserable Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures so he is the most mercifull then man nor is there any likewise more mercifull then man whilest he is man and that he despoil not himself of that which God hath made him to do that which ought never to be so much as thought on And if he forget mildnesse and Compassion which is naturall to him our sovereign Creatour teacheth it him by his own miseries Alas How can one man harden his heart one against another on what side soever he look he seeth the tokens of his infirmities and scarce can he go a step but he finds a lesson of humility against his vanities If he consider what is above him he beholdeth the heavens and the air which so waste and change his life that yet without them he cannot live If he cast his eye round about him and under his feet he sees waters which in moistening him rot him and earth which being spread as a Table before his eyes fails not to serve him for a Tomb. It is a strange thing that even evils are necessary for him and that he cannot overslip things which kill him Smelling tasting meat and drink sleep and repose do with his life what Penelope did with her web what one houre makes another unmakes and the very sources of the greatest blessings are found to be wholly infected with mortall poyson But if man come to examine himself he finds he hath a body frail naked disarmed begging of all creatures exposed to all the injuries of elements of beasts and men and there is not a hand so little which strives not violently to pull off his skin Heat cold drouth moisture labour maladies old age exercise him and if he think to take a little repose idlenesse corrupteth him If he enter farther in to himself he meeteth a spirit fastned to the brink of his lips which is invaded by an army of passions so many times fleshed for his ruine And yet we must truly say that of all the evils of man there is not any worse then Man hath no greater evil then Man man It is he who causeth wars and shipwracks murthers and poysons he who burneth houses and whole Cities he who maketh Wildernesses of the most flourishing Provinces he who demolisheth the foundations of the most famous buildings he who rednceth the greatest riches to nakednesse he who putteth Princes into fetters who exposeth Ladies to dishonour who thrusts the knife into the throats of the pleople who not content with so many manner of deaths daily inventeth new to force out a soul by the violence of torments by as many bloudy gates as it receiveth wounds Good God! what doth not man against man when he hath once renounced humanity Novv vvhat remedy vvould there be in so great and horrible confusions vvhich make a hell of the earth vvere it not that God hath given us this vvholesome mercy vvhich it seems is come from heaven to unloose our chains to vvipe avvay our tears to svveeten our acerbities repair our losses and rebeautifie our felicities Mercy tilleth the fields of heaven and had it not descended on earth all which God did had been lost saith the golden mouth of the West Chry l. 1. 4. so § 2. The Essence of Compassion and how it findeth place in hearts the most generous GOd then hath caused Compassion to grow in our hearts as a Celestiall inspiration which stirreth The Essence of this passion up the will to succour the miseries of another and taketh its source as Theology observeth from a dislike we conceive out of the consideration of a certain dissent and disorder we see in a civil life when we behold a man like unto us according to nature so different in quality and so ill handled by the mishap of the accidents of life Thence it comes to passe that all good souls have tender hearts and especially such as know what worldly miseries are as learned men and those who have had experience of them and who think they may also feel them in the uncertainty of life and condition of humane things The bowels of mercy open with some sweetnesse in the evils which nearly touch us namely when we see persons innocently qualified delicate well disposed to fall into great calamities and ruines of fortune Honourable old men ill used young people snatched away in the flower of their age and beauty Ladies despised and dishonoured afflictions without remedies or remedies that come too late when the evil is ended And moreover when those afflicted persons shew constancy and generosity in their affliction it penetrateth into the deepest apprehensions of the soul Yet we still find among so many objects of miseries hearts which have no compassion and as if they were made of rocks or anviles are never mollified with the sufferings of mortals This proceeds in some from a great stupidity from a nature very savage in others from a narrownesse of heart caused by self-love which perpetually keeps them busied within themselves never going forth to behold the miseries of another in some from long prosperities which make them forget the condition of men in others from the nature of a Hangman who takes delight in bloud in fire and in all horrid things Such kind of men think nature did them wrong in not having given them the horn of a Rhinoceros Detestation of Cruelty the paws of bears the throat of a Lion the teeth of Tigers to crush to quail to devour and tear men in pieces They supply by a cursed industry that which by nature faileth them They make themselves mouths of fire by the means of flaming fornaces and boiling caldrons hands by the invention of Iron hooks arms with combs of steel fingers with scorpions and feet with the claws of wild beasts You would say these are men composed of the instruments of all torments or rather devils crept into humane bodies to create a Hell on Earth Such are those Tonoes of Japonia who study to saw to hack asunder to beat and bray in a morter the courage of Christians thinking the greatest marks of their power to be scaffolds and gibbets where are practised inventions
of devils to draw life drop after drop out of a miserable body But not speaking at this present of these extremities of Cruelty which arise out of Hell it is evident that the Hardnesse of heart and the harshnesse of a nature devoid of Compassion is a monster in humane nature All great souls have I know not what tincture of good nesse which rendreth them pliant to the afflictions of such as suffer It is a feeling which God hath poured into the masse of mankind and which he would have communicated by the prime men of the world to all posterity The tradition of the Hebrews holdeth that the Mildnesse of the first men Patriarch Noah recommendeth mildnesse even among beasts accounting it a capitall crime to tear off a member of a living beast And the most sage common-wealths Fab. Quintilian l 5. cap. 9. have walked in the same wayes since that of Athens condemned to death a young child who took delight to prick out the eyes of crows and having made them blind let them fly for his pastime It judged this heart was base and bloudy and practised its first apprentiship of crueltie upon birds to exercise it one day upon men The Carthaginians publickly condemned Plin. l. 8. c. 16. a very industrious Citizen for no other cause but for having made a lion tractable supposing that a man who had so great conversation among wild beasts would lose all he had humane in him and put on the manners of a tyrant What can those answer to this call of Nature who are ashamed to compassionate their neighbours seeing pity extends it self even to beasts They fear that by shewing compassion it may be thought their courage thereby is greatly effeminate and see not that to seem valiant they cease to be men Conquerours have wept over their Laurels as yet Compassion of great courages all verdant blaming the just rigour of their arms albeit they could not hate the glory Marcellus desired to quench the coals of the city Syracusa with his tears Titus seeing the city of Jerusalem all covered with dead bodies found his heart much softned therewith protesting it was an act of Heaven and not an effect of his own disposition There is some touch of Divinity in good natures and God hath alwayes been pleased that they who nearest approach to him should be the most humane The first Images of the Saviour of the world were ordinarily painted in the form of a Lamb and it was likewise a Lamb of God which represented him in Great Constantine's Font and which poured forth the water of Baptism to shew us that the fountains of his Bounty ran throughout the whole Church The holy Ghost hath never been seen Concil 6. in Teul can 82 Damasus in Pontifieibus qui est potius Anastafius Bibliothecarius in the form of an Eagle or of a Hawk but of a Dove to stamp on our manners the impressions of his bounty It is an insupportable thing when there is observed even among those who approach nearest to Altars and who consecrate the Lamb of God in their hands some to be of imperious spirits and wills inflexible who torment poor subjects and make them groan under Non dominantes in Cleris sed forma facti◠gregis ex animo 1 Pet. 5. 3. their Commands They resemble Semiramis who on her Banners bare a Dove which in its beak held a bloudy sword as meaning to say that under a vvomans face she had the courage and stem violence of tyrants So their name theircharacter and degree testifieth Revertamur ad populum nostrum à facie gladii columbae Hier. 46. 16 nought but mildnesse but their manners are full of rigour and acerbity which wound hearts even to bloud This happeneth to many out of a certain stupidity in such sort that it seems they entering into office at that instant drink of the water of forgetfulnesse which Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiasticall Its causes and differences in them blotteth out the memory of all they were to become that which they ought never to be They forget their inferiours are men who put their precious liberty to wit a good inestimable into their hands as a pledge and that they must very skilfully handle them there being not a creature in all nature more tender or more sensible then the King of creatures They consider not that the power of one man over another is a thing which is alwayes somewhat suspected by nature on what side soever it come and that it must be practised insensibly so that the flesh be rather cast into a slumber then irritated To others it comes from a most refined pride which being under the subjection of a superiour kept it self close in the interiour of the soul a serpent enchanted and fast asleep but so soon as he sees himself armed with a sword of authority he cuts with both edges not sparing any one as if the great mystery of making a dignity valuable were to encompasse it with all the ensignes of terrour Some are not Porta in Chao of a bad nature and do resemble the sea which is not by nature salt but the sunne stirreth up unto it vapours cold dry and terrestriall which being burnt by heat spread themselves on the superficies of the water and cause saltnesse so these lights of authority which environ a man raise smokes in him which being not wel tempered by prudence leave a bitter impression on manners communicating some haughtinesse to words and conversation It is gotten in others by a long assiduity of superiority which is the cause that beholding themselves perpetually with a head of gold and a breast of silver they consider not that being in some sort like to Nabuchodonozors statue they yet have feet of clay Others come thereunto by an indiscreet zeal and out of small experience of humane things who are no sooner raised unto some degree but they talk of reformation of correction of chastisements and to see them you would say they were so many Archimedes who seek for a place out of the world to set foot in of purpose to turn the world to psie-turvey Their power is not alwayes answerable to their purpose which makes them sad and dejected in their courage causing them to fall back to the other extremity from whence it cometh that they are one while harsh and another time gentle and by inequality in their manners thrust all into disorder That is it which Saint Gregory the great observed Gregor M. in epist ola ad Utbicum in Abbot Vrbicus saying that his Monastery was in distemper because he made himself unequall one while flattering some and another while reprehending the rest with immeasurable anger Lastly there are others who have a very good conscience and whose manners are rigid and they be not imprudent but they have such a desire to frame the whole world to their humour that out of the assiduity of their admonitions
woman well bred and of good courage Ishbosheth was offended thereat for that he had done this without telling him of it But Abner for one poore word spoken to in a very mild manner entred into a rage against The insolence of Abner his King and said that it was to use him like a dog to quarrel with him for a woman after so great services as he had done for the Crown reproching his Master for that he held both his life and his Kingdome of him But seeing that he used him in this manner he would take a course with him and would translate the government from the house of Saul to that of David Masters should not give too much authority to their subjects The poor Prince held his peace and durst not answer one word onely to this bold fellow which was a pitifull thing to see him thus devoured by his own servant The houses of Great ones are very often filled with such servants who having been honoured with an especiall confidence of their Master in the administration of their affairs whether they be their Receivers or Stewards of their families take upon them authority and not contenting themselves to govern the goods enter upon the right of their Lords leaving them nothing but a name and shadow of the Power which is due unto them Abner grew so hot with anger that he dispatched He treateth with David his Messengers to David to desire his friendship and promiseth him to bring the whole Kingdome of Ishbosheth into his hands David answered that he was content to make peace with him so that he would cause his wife Michol to be restored him whom they had married to another after his departure which was readily agreed to for him for they took her away from the hands of her husband that followed her weeping this woman with her lofty spirit had some pleasing behaviour wherewith Davids affection was taken In the mean while Abner powerfully sollicits the people of Israel to betake themselves on Davids side shewing them that God had committed their safety and rest into his hands and that it was he which should unite together all the families under his obedience for to compose a Monarchy which should become happy to his people helpfull to his friends and terrible to his enemies This discourse did very much shake the principall ones of the Nation which were not ignorant of the small hopes that were in the person of Ishbosheth which was disparaged both by nature and fortune This stout Captain following the businesse came to meet with David in Hebron who made him a feast hearkened unto his propositions and conducted him back with honour Joab who was at that time absent at his return quickly understood of the coming of Abner whereat Joabs Jealousie over Abner he entred into a furious jealousie fearing lest David should be of the humour of those which delight more in making of friends then keeping of those that are made and that the friendship of a man which seemed to draw a whole Kingdome after him might much prejudice his fortunes He enters roughly into his Kings chamber telling him that this was but a deceiver which came but to spy out his secrets and to do him some ill turn that he should lay hold of him seeing he was come under his power And for that David answered him nothing seeing him in a hot anger he went out furiously and without authority sent a message to the chief Captain Abner to intreat him to return to Hebron under colour of treating more fully with David The death of Abner He lightly believed it and came back the same way when as Joab that lay in wait for him took him treasonably and killed him at the gate of the city David was indeed very much perplexed hereat and David tolerates Joab in his fault upon necessitie uttered grievous curses against Joab and his whole race neverthelesse as the wisest did judge that there was a great interest in this death and that his chief Captain had become the executour thereof this made some to think that there was some design and though that suspicion was false David did all that he could to deface the blemish thereof assisting at the funeralls of Abner very near to the corps protesting against the cruelty of those that had taken his life from him and highly setting forth the praises of the dead yet he caused not processe to be made against Joab conceiving that he was not able to destroy him in such a time when it was dangerous to provoke him Neverthelesse he kept the resolution to punish him even to his death but Joab contemned all upon the confidence that he had that none could go beyond him and measured his own greatnesse by the impunity of his great offences It is hard to excuse David upon this treaty that he David cannot be excused upon the treaty made with Abner if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God projected with Abner traytour to his Master if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God or to the right that he pretended to have to the Crown in consideration of his first anointment made by Samuel He knew that the Edicts of his royall dignity were written in heaven and for this cause without endeavouring by any criminall way he expected the work of Providence and applyed himself to the events for without any thought of his Ishbosheth King of Israel was slain by two murtherers Rechab and Baana which killd him as he slept upon his bed at noon-day and brought his head to him at which this great King was so highly incensed abhorring this barbarous act that he condemned them presently to death and after he had caused their heads and feet to be cut off he made them to be hanged at the fish-pond of Hebron David absolute by the death of Ishbosheth son of Saul The death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul ended the difference which was between the two Royall houses and the other families yielded themselves to David by an universall consentment It was then that he began to reign absolutely and to make to appear as in a glorious light the admirable qualities and Royall virtues wherewith he was adorned And it is certain that of all the Kings of Juda there was none hath equalled him in all kind of perfections He was one that feared God without superstition religious without hypocrisie valiant without any sternnesse liberall without reproching it to any one a good husband without covetousnesse The Royal qualities of David stout without insolency vigilant without unquietnesse wise without subtilty courteous without loosnesse humble without cowardlinesse chearfull without too much familiarity grave without fiercenesse and kind without any complements He united all those things together which ordinarily His zeal to religion make Princes great and proved in each of them so advantageous as if he had been
trouble those spirits which have an inclination to mildnesse they say that Joab was his kinsman his faithfull servant the best of his Captains the chief Commander that had followed him from his youth accompanied him through infinite dangers and upheld the Crown a thousand times shaking upon his head He never medled in the factions that were raised against the King he was alwayes the first that dissipated them by the vigour of his spirit resolution counsell of his Arms and of his Sword If he slew Abner it was in revenge of his Brother which the other had slain If he stabbed Amasa it was the chief Captain of the Rebell Absolon whom they would have put in his place for to lay then great faults of the State upon him If he spoke freely to David it was alwayes for his good and for his glory in the mean time at his Death he recommended him to be punished after that in effect he had pardoned him all his life But to all this I say that the last actions of so great a King are more worthy of honour then censure The punishment of Joab proceeded not from a Passion but from a Justice inspired by God which would satisfie the voyce of blood the which cryed still against the murders committed by this Captain Further also there was a secret of State as saith Theodoret which is that this Joab shewed himself against the re-election of Solomon and was ready to trouble the peace of the Realm And as concerning Shimei to whom he had sworn that he would not cause him to dye he kept his promise to him faithfully abstaining from doing him any evil while he lived although he was in absolute power for to hurt him but as his oath was personall he would not extend it upon his sonne and tye his hands contenting himself to recommend unto him that he should do justice according as his wisedome and discretion should direct him It is very fitting that we should think highly of this Prophet and that we should rather search out the reason of many of his actions from the secret inspiration of God then from the weaknesse of humane judgement He lived near upon three-score and twelve years reigned fourty and dyed a thousand and thirty two years before the birth of our Saviour leaving infinite treasures for the building of the Temple and eternall monuments of his devotion and understanding It was a speciall favour to him that the Saviour would be born of his bloud and that his birth was revealed to him so many dayes before it was known to the world He hath often set it down upon the title of his Psalmes and was in an extasie in this contemplation by the fore-taste of that his happinesse Men are accustomed to take their nobility and their names from their Ancestours that go before them But David drew it from a Son which is the Father of Glory and Authour of Eternity The industrious hands of men have taken pains in vain to carve him out a Tomb Death hath no power over him seeing that he is the Primogenitour of life All things are great in his person but the heighth of all his greatnesse is that he hath given us a Jesus SOLOMON SOlomon was he that ordered the holinesse of the Temple and yet he can hardly find place in the Holy Court The love which gave Solomons entry into the Realm full of troubles him the Crown by the means of his mother Bathsheba hath taken from him his innocency The Gentiles might have made him one of their Gods if Women had not made him lesse then a man His entrance into the Throne of his father was bloudy his Reign peaceable his Life variable and his End uncertain One may observe great weaknesses at the Court at his coming to the Crown confused designs desperate hopes a Prophet upright at the Court a woman full of invention an old Courtier overthrown and little brotherhood where there is dispute of Royalty David was upon the fading of his Age and his Throne looked at by his Children which expected the dissolution of their father He had taken the authority upon him to decide this question by his commands not willing to be ruled therein by nature nor to preferre him whom she had first brought into the world but him which should be appointed by God and best fitted thereto by his favours Bathsheba a subtil woman Bathsheba fitly insinuares her self and procures the Crown for her son Solomon that had carried him away by violence of a great affection kept her self in her possession and had more power over the mind of the King then all his other associates Amidst the kindnesses of an affectionate husband which is not willing to deny any thing to her whom he loves she drew this promise from David that he would take her sonne Solomon to be successour in his Estates This was a little miracle of Nature in his Infancy Solomons infancy pleasing and it seemed that all the Graces had strove together to make a work so curiously polisht His mother loved him with infinite tendernesse and his father could not look upon him without amazednesse He was married at the age of nineteen years and David before he departed from the world saw himself multiplied by his son in a second which was Roboam Aristotle hath observed well that children which are married so young do seldome bring forth great men and this observation was verified in Roboam who caused as many confusions in his life as he had made rejoycings at his birth This strengthened Solomon at the beginning in his own and his mothers pretences But Adonijah his brother which immediately followed Absolon was before him in the right of Eldership and promised himself to have a good part of the Empire The example of that unfortunate brother which had Adonijah competitor of the Crown and his faction expired his life in the despair of his fortune was not strong enough for to stay him which treading as it were in the same steps went on infallibly unto his last mischance David endured too long for him and it seems to him that the greatest kindnesses that a rich father could do for his sonne when he is come to die is to suffer himself to die He had sufficiently well knitted his party together binding himself closely to the chief Priest Abiathar and to Joab It seemed to him that having on his side the Altars and Arms he was invincible But in that burning desire that he had to reign he The fault of Adonijah in his Counsel of State committed very great faults which put an end to his life by an event very tragicall He did not sufficiently consider the power of his father who governed himself by the orders of them in the disposition of their Royalty and saw not that to undertake to succeed him without his good will was to desire to climb to the top of the house vvithout going up by the stairs His
forasmuch as he was most Catholick and that they feared lest the Chamberlain and his favourite held yet some of the leven of Anastasius that was an Heretick The Cow-herd being then set upon the Throne of Constantine Amantius that had merchandized the Empire seeing himself so shamefully faln from his pretensions plotted a mischievous conspiracy against the new Emperour but he succeeded in it so ill that his design being discovered he lost his life together with his complices after he had lost his honour and his money Justin that was endowed with a great goodnesse did not grow proud and scornful when he was arrived to the top of honours but having married a woman very mean in her first condition he caused her suddenly to be crowned Empresse changing her salvage name of Lupicia into Euphenica He consecrated the beginning of his reign by the return of the Bishops and of all the honest men which he caus'd to be call'd back from the exile to which the Heretick Emperour had condemn'd them He caus'd Religion to flourish again on all sides and express'd a most ardent zeal to render justice to his people without sparing himself in the toyles of war though he was already very aged He enjoy'd the Empire eight or nine years and being a man extreamly humble he lov'd his kindred though of base condition and seeing he had no children of his own he chose his sisters son to make him his Successour and gave him even the Crown before he quitted the Sceptre and the world after a reign of nine years Behold the originall of our Justinian of whom Histories speak very diversly seeing that the admirers of his actions give him high commendations and the enviers of his great fortune who might perhaps have experimented the effects of his severity have scatter'd imputations on him in their reviling Histories that have pass'd even to this age But the most understanding men having well examin'd every thing put him in the rank of the most illustrious Monarchs of all Christendome And indeed it is a wonder how a spirit extracted from the life and condition of a Shepherds took so high a flight in the Temple of glory that having taken in hand all the great designs that may fall into the spirit of a Monarch he prospered in all with a merveilous successe He maintein'd his dignity against the most horrible conspiracies that ever set upon an Empire in the revolution of so many Kingdomes He made wars in Asia in Europe and in Africa which he ended by most eminent victories He recovered Africa out of the hands of the Vandals he powerfully pluck'd the Capitall City of the World out of the tyranny of the Gothes he publish'd eternall Books he erected buildings that remain yet after they have passed more then ten ages He encountred the greatest Captains and the most able States-men that have been ever in the world in the person of Bellisarius and Tribonian And although that when he took the government of the Empire he was five and fourty years of age yet he reigned thirty nine years God crowning all his good actions with a long continuance which serves infinitely for the accomplishment of all great designs I will tell you in few words his Nature and his Manners before I come to his deeds of valour according to the most true relation that I have been able to extract out of Histories without passion and not according to the Idea's of Procopius who hath horribly difigur'd him by a manifest hatred in his railing History This Prince was a man that feared God and firm in the faith of Christianity and although he was at certain times surpriz'd with some errours by the artifices of his wife the Empresse yet the Learned men of the West and Pastours of the East that have so highly praised him after his death testifie sufficiently that his spirit was purged of all the wicked beliefs that his Doctours had endeavoured to infuse into his soul and which he had approved by an excesse of a too credulove zeal Hereticks and Libertines were the object of his hatred and his choler but good Churchmen caus'd in his soul a certain veneration and he studied by all wayes to assist and protect the Churches and the Hospitalls his Liberalities were extended every where in works of piety by great buildings and magnificent alms He was most chast contenting himself all his life with her that God had given him for a companion and his most violent enemies have not been able to tell us one onely womans name that hath possessed his heart to the prejucice of his Bed He could not endure wantonnesse and especially that that brings a shame to nature which he chastised with most rigorous punishments He detested and punished by his laws all those that laid snares to the modesty of Virgins and of Women to corrupt them His manner of life was extream austere and Procopius himself the most cruell of his revilers acknowledges that he was most sober and that he would cause the table to be taken away when he had scarce touched the victuals seeking nothing exquisite therein but denying oftentimes to nature even her necessities He hath seen him he sayes fast the Lents with such an austerity that the devoutest of all his people could not reach it for he would be eight and fourty hours without eating or drinking and at the end of that he drank nothing but water contenting himself with a little bread and a sallade yet he was endowed with a body so well composed and so happily temper'd that after his long abstinencies he appear'd yet ruddy from whence it came that that Calumniatour instead of acknowledging the blessing that God gives in this extraordinarily to some of his servants said That he was a Devil and not a Man Further yet he slept very little and the same man adds that often an hours repose suffised him and that he bewailed the time that he allowed his body He made long prayers night and day and employed the rest of his time in his affairs without admitting any other recreation Those that have publish'd that he could neither write nor reade have abus'd the belief of men taking the name of Justinian for that of his Uncle Justine for the Historian his persecutour confesses that he wrote his Breviats and all his dispatches without troubling his Secretaries He was of a most easie accesse to all the world and was not offended at the importunities no nor at the incivilities that those that were ignorant of the fashions of the Court committed in his presence He heard willingly the differences of his people and he himself pronounced the sentence to determine them his patience was extream he never was mov'd in handling any businesses and decreed even the most rigourous punishments with a cold visage and a tone of a moderated voyce He was a true observer of order who manag'd in his closet with incomparable justice what ere should be produc'd in the whole
glittering stones and of all the most magnificent rich materials that were then to be found in all the world It is he that had a most tender care of all the Churches of his Empire He that every where enriched the house of God The Purveyour for the Hospitals the refuge of all necessitous persons and the Sanctuary of the afflicted It is he that governed the whole world by most holy Laws who hath revenged persecuted and punished those crimes that tended to the infection of the Publick It is he that warred all his life time against Hereticks and that upheld the Glory of the Roman Empire which since Constantine was faln into an horrible decay It is he that displayed his Ensigns in Asia Europe and Africa under the Name of Jesus Christ with a force incomparable and successes that could not but come from heaven It is he that banished from Christian society Sorcerers Immodest and Infamous persons and that planted every where good manners It is he that made Learning flourish that rewarded men of Merit that eternized Laws that bore Arms to the heighth of Reputation It is he that alwayes shewed himself a most ardent administratour of the Justice of God giving audience very often in person to parties with an indesatigable toil It is he that pardon'd injuries and received even into Grace those that had attempted upon his life He that God preserved from a thousand dangers and a thousand ambushes He whom God crowned with great age and an infinite number of blessings CHARLEMAGNE OR CHARES the GREAT IT is not flattery that hath given to our Charles the name of Great since that truth it self may attribute to him the title of three-times-thrice Great for his Piety for his Arms and for his Laws All that Persia respected in Cyrus all that Greece vaunted in Alexander all that Rome honoured in Augustus and in Trajan all that Christians have commended in the persons of Constantine and Theodosius is found included in our Charlemagne Ptolomie said that great Personages are never born into the world without a conspiration of the Heavens which collect their best Constellations and most favourable Influences to salute them as soon as they salute the day We cannot know the quality of the stars that ruled over this happy birth but we know that Providence which infinitely out-passes the effects of all the celestiall Globes hath taken the care of forming this incomparable Prince and of making him a Master-piece of her hands to shew him to all Ages Nature was employed to build him a Body capable to sustain the Impressions of that divine Spirit that God would lodge therein She made him a stature so advantageous limbs so well composed so handsome and so strong she engraved so much Majesty upon his countenance she sowed so much lightning and attraction in his eyes that they triumphed over hearts before his valour had laid hand upon the Empire It is not alwayes that Felicity is so prodigall of her benefits she contents her self in some to adorn the house with troubling her self for the inhabitant and if there be a fair appearance on the out-side there is little Sense within But in our Charles every thing was Great and his Soul never belyed the beautifull spectacle of his Body His understanding was quick and piercing his memory most happy his judgement clean and solid that discerned exactly good from evill and truth from falshood He that saw him in Letters thought that they were made for none but him and he that contemplated him in Arms perceived that he would be one day the chief of Conquerours He studied Grammar Rhetorick Poetry Philosophy Law Astrology and the rest of the Mathematicks He learned the Latine the Greek the Hebrew the Syriack He had some taste even of Divinity it self and succeeded in all Sciences so advantageously that he might have held the Empire of Letters if God had not destined to him that of the World He respected his Tutours all his life time as the Fathers of his soul he made his Master of Peter the Deacon when the Law of Arms might have made him his Slave He drew Alcuin out of England to learn of him the secret of the Arts honoured him with great benefits and at last founded by his Counsel the University of Paris His meals were seasoned with the reading of some good book or with the conference of the ablest men of his whole kingdome loving to refresh himself from businesse in their discourses without taking any other directions in his pains then the change of one labour into another That which spoils many great ones is that they cannot endure any serious thing for a long time and yet this King made his Recreations even of that whereof others might have made an hard study and the grace of it was that he did all this without pain and that his spirit was no more disquietted with Sciences then the eye with the most delightfull colours This occupation that he took in Letters by the orders of the King his father served extremely to the fashioning of his manners because he saw in Books and especially in History as in a true mirrour all the stains that flattery dissembles unto Princes that heed not to be in a resolution to wash them off since they are not in a condition to know them It is a marveilous thing to see how nature seemed to sport her self in reproducing Martel and Pepin in the person of Charles she moderated the fierce valour of the Grandsire by the sweetnesse of the father and made in him an heavenly temper by the happiest of mixtures His Devotion was not soft nor feminine neither was it large or lukewarm but it gently spread its divine Lights in the soul of this Monarch without deading the fire of his courage He had most sublime knowledges of God and apprehensions very Religious he offered to him his duties both in publick and in private with a very sincere Piety He burnt with a great zeal to carry his name into all places whither he could extend his Arms. He was ardently affectionate to the holy See to which he gave respects and incomparable protections he honoured the Prelates and filled the Church with Benefits He held that Justice was the Rampart of Kingdomes the Peace of the people the policy of manners the joy of hearts and that neither the gentle temperature of the air nor the serenity of the sea nor the fruitfulnesse of the earth were any way equall to its sweetnesse He made a manifest profession of it in the inviolable verity of his words in the sincerity of his proceedings in the duties which he gendered to God to the authours of his birth to his kindred to his countrey and universally to all the world He gave audience often in person to the differences of his people and even at his rising out of his bed he caused the Provost of his house to enter into his chamber with the parties that pleaded 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
a spirit full of labyrinths captious suspicious great in appearance and little in reality a lion in prosperity and an ape in adversity whose life was a perpetuall crime whose avarice was a gulf ambition an abysse and fortune a scandall and an injury to Providence Yet for all this he entred so farre into the friendship of the King that he saw not but by his eyes heard not but by his ears walked not but by his steps and governed not but by his counsels He called him his father and believed him the most excellent and the wisest man in his whole Kingdome commanding every one to acknowledge him for the second person of the Empire and to give him the greatest reverence This Court that was full of slaves carried many candles to this Idol some through fear as to a mischievous Devil and others through hope and expectation to be preferred The poor Mordecai felt a most bitter grief to see over the heads of men him that would bring the whole world under his feet and in that slavery so generall to all men he chose rather the losse of his life then of his liberty He would never bow the knee before that Baal and although his enemy persecuted him in that businesse by fury and his friends by importunities he remained unmoveable resolved to suffer much rather then to do any thing that was base Haman that was at the beginning giddy-headed by the fumigations of the incense that was presented to him on all sides and that regarded men but as the little gnats took no heed to it at first but when he was advertised by his flatterers that there was but one onely man at Court that refused to be an adorer of his fortune he was inflamed with choler and esteeming it but a small game for him to cause one man to die he made a resolution horrible and bloudy to root out a whole Nation He goes and tells the King that the Jews dispersed through all the Provinces of his Kingdome were divided by Religion and by Laws from the rest of all the world and by affection from his Person and his State That they were a people most pernicious to an Empire that alwayes sate abrood upon some poison and that if they seemed moderate it was not but through impotence being disposed at the first occasion to cast themselves into Rebellion and Insolence He added also that the great care which he had of the good of the State put these words into his mouth that would cause the universall quiet of all his Monarchy and that after consideration had of the great perils wherewith his Crowns and Life were menaced by that faction he hath found nothing better then to prevent them and to cut them off in time before they had fortified themselves to the prejudice of the publick That if the Treasurers of the Exchequer feared by this a diminution of the Tributes he would give with all his heart ten thousand talents of his proper goods to recompense the Levies so much he took to heart that businesse that concerned the safety of his King and the benefit of his people This Serpent plaid his game with so much artifice that he perswaded whatsoever he had a mind to in such a manner as that poor Ahasuerus who was of a mean and credulous spirit without examining any thing plucks his ring from off his finger puts it into Hamans hands with a full power to do as he in his discretion should think fit Behold the great confusion of the State of the Spirit and of the Conscience of Kings when they suffer themselves so easily to be lead away by evil counsels and will not so much as know what passes in the government of their people It is an horrible thing that in the turn of an hand this miserable Prince should abandon to the vengeance of a pernicious man so many millions of lives without making one sole reflexion upon what he sayes or what he grants He had no imagination whither that did tend and his ordinary idlenesse suffered him not to take any further cognizance of it which rendred him doubly culpable to permit so many murders and to be ignorant of it Seneca sayes that when Claudius was Turpiùs ignorasti quà m occidisti Sen. in Ludo de morte Claudii in the other world some men reproached him with abundance of murders done under his name and yet he knew not what they meant then Augustus rose up and said Thou miscreant we talk not here of the slaughters thou hast committed but of those thou hast not known for it is a more shamefull thing to a King to be ignorant of the evil that passeth in his Kingdome then to act it The sister of one of the Ptolomy's King of Egypt seeing that her brother as he was playing at dice caused some criminall Processes to be read to him to decide them in the last Appeal snatched the papers out of the Clerk of the Assise's hand and said to her brother that a dye fell otherwise then the head of a man One cannot bring too much consideration when there is a question of shedding a mans bloud be it in peace or warre Yet Ahasuerus trusts this proud Haman as one that would trust the wolf with the lives of his sheep He triumphs with joy for having obtained the Kings ring he relishes and digests his vengeance with ceremony He causes a great vessel to be brought him into which he throws twelve little billets which bore the name of every moneth and causes the moneth to be drawn out by lot in which he should execute his pernicious design The lot fell upon the last although it was cast in the first and he would not change it whether through an old superstition of his Countrey or through the great confidence he had that what time soever he took to make the projected Massaere the Jews could not possibly escape him so impotent they were and he thought to keep them as beasts shut up which one chases when one will It was a pleasure to him to shew them the glittering steel a year before they should die and to make them perish a thousand times by fear before their life should be once taken away by the sword He assembles all the Kings secretaries and dictates to them a bloudy letter whereof he causes a great many copies to be drawn to send into all the Provinces and the renour of them was That the thirteenth day of the last moneth which was that of February the Jews should be massacred in all the Cities and Provinces that were within the utmost limits of the Empire and that from the least even to the greatest without sparing either man woman or child all should be put to the sword without remission and that their goods should be confiscated and exposed to pillage The Letters marked with the Seal and Arms of the King flew as ill-boding Birds through all the extents of the seven and twenty Provinces of
make him yield to some other man that which every one conferred on him But the consideration of the publick good carried him away and made him load upon his shoulders a burden that might tire the Gyants It is true that Hugues the King of France his brother held the first rang by the highnesse of his House but counsell execution of great designs and experience compleated in all sorts of accidents gave to Godfrey the Managing of the Arms. Our Army was found to be three hundred thousand Foot and an hundred thousand Horse that seemed to carry away the Masse of the earth yet the Sarazins were not discouraged but assembled themselves on all sides with so prodigious a Multitude that it might as it seemed equall the veins of the Abysse and the sands of the Sea-shore The controversie was for Religion Honour and goods between two Nations that aspired to the Domination of the World and that esteemed all sharing inconsistent with their Greatnesse The one came thither moved by their superstition that had gained a mervellous advantage over spirits possessed by errour and enchanted by the charmes of a false Prophet The other was carryed by the true Religion perswading themselves that they had all Justice to pluck the Sepulchre of their Master out of the hands of Infidels and that it would be an immortall Glory to them to lose their Bloud in the same place that Jesus had honoured with his Mans Spirit is overwhelmed with the Number of Wonders that are read in the History of this Warre The Historians cannot follow them and we must averr that the Brave Godfrey having farre surpassed the deeds of Achilles and of Hector hath had the misfortune to want an Homer He gave more then an hundred Battels before he saw himself at the end of his design He fought with two Nations that seemed Furies which Hell had vomited upon the Earth he combated with Hunger Thirst Sicknesse and all the damnable Artifices of Negromancers that opposed his Valour The eternall snow of the Mountain Taurus the inaccessible Rocks the Rivers dyed with bloud the Seas armed with Tempests and with Monsters did never abate his ardour He was ready to enter for the love of his Saviour into Regions where Nature is nothing but a benummed masle where the Sun hides it self and the night reigns without a Peer where the most salvage Barbarisme makes us believe that it is ranged even as far as the Gates of Hell The City of Nicea that bore the name of victory it self was the first that presented Palms to this our Conquerour It was there that Solyman one of the most Illustrious Generalls of the Barbarians was beaten and quite vanquished all his Army being put into a Rout with an exceeding Massacre that filled Asia with the terrour of the Christian Arms. It was there that the Valiant Godfrey killed with his own hand a Rabshakeh that braved it upon the wals of Nicea with an immeasurable presumption of his strength The City was wonne and the vigorous storms of the besiegers beat down before them all the resistances of the besieged The proud Antioch followed quickly after and although that Corbanes was come to its reliefe with innumerable troops of Parthians Medes Assyrians he could not stop the current of the prosperities of this invincible Generall but augmented by the losse of all his Legions the terrour of that victorious arm that overthrew smoaking Cities and made in all places a deluge of the bloud of the Barbarians The Caliphe of Egypt that was now advanced to divert the Fatall Day of his Sect saw himself involved in the same ruines that he thought to have repayred All their attempts now remained but for the City of Jerusalem which was the Object and Desire of our heavenly Argonauts It was assaulted and defended with a vigour that never yet had its equall But in the end it yielded to the Armes of the Christians It was here that the Illustrious Godfrey was seen to combat upon an Ingine of wood that he had caused to be raised to enter into the City He appeared that day not as a Man but as a Demi-God all flaming in the brightnesse of his Arms whiles the Hail of Arrows flew about his Head and his Arm mowing the Turbans of the Sarazins made way through fire and sword He entred first of all in bright day in the sight of the Army into Jerusalem and pitched the the Standard of the Crosse in the place where Jesus had consecrated it with his Bloud What Acclamations What Congratulations What Palms and Lawrels The Turks fled as the pale Ghosts of Hell and the Christians erected on all parts the Trophies of our Redeemer upon their ruines It was then that all the Princes proclaimed him King of the conquered Countrey thinking that there was not any one more worthy of it in the rest of the whole world seeing that he had joyned to that prodigious Valour the virtues of Religion Piety Justice Prudence Liberality Magnificence Goodnesse Clemency and affability They failed not to offer him a Royall Crown richly adorned with Pearls and precious stones but this good Prince filled with the zeal of Devotion said What! should I bear the name of King in the place where my Master hath been covered with Reproaches Should I take the Sceptre in my hand where he hath taken the Crosse upon his shoulders Should I suffer a Crown of Gold to be put upon my head where he hath received one of Thorns Sure I should then hold my self for vanquished if such a vanity should be victorious over my heart It is God that hath inspired into us these designs it is he that hath conducted them and that hath Crowned them I pretend to no other honour then to hang all honours at the feet of his Crosse He contented himself with the name of Duke and set himself presently about labouring in the Civil Govemment to purge the Citie of all its Infamies to pull down the Mosqueta's to build Churches to give a lustre to the Clergie to cause the Gospel to be preached to found Hospitals to Administer Justice to order the Militia for the defense of his Conquest and in a word to do all the duties of a most accomplished Monarch But can we speak it without a Groan his Reign lasted but a year and so many fair hopes were mowed down in their flower by the pitylesse sythe of Death O impenetrable secrets of Providence There was nothing beyond Jerusalem there was nothing beyond Godfrey but God and Paradise that could limit his designs and bound his Conquests GEORGE CASTRIOT OYe Tombs of the Grecians whose Ashes seem yet to exhale Valour rejoyce now and hide not the names you bear for fear they should shame Posterity that hath degenerated from their Virtues Brave Ancestours the Glory of your Nation is not yet extinguished It is raised again in one sole Man who hath recollected in his Person whatsoever generosity had sowen in so many Hearts and
fall from Heaven that since Egypt was in being there was never seen the like for it sustain'd it self upon the wings of the Lightning and the Fire and Ice agreed extraordinarily together for the punishment of those perfidious men He saw legions of Grashoppers that made an inundation upon the champains and made havock of the plants finishing to destroy that which the Hail had begun In fine all Egypt was covered with those palpable Darknesses that lasted for the space of three dayes during which the Egyptians remained as bound with the invisible chains of a night without repose which had nothing better in it then to take from them the sight of their disastre But that which terrified them above all the plagues was when the destroying Angel entring at midnight into all their houses killed the first-born from the child of the Millers wife to the Kings son and there was not an house wherein the first blossome of the Family was not lopped off by the pittilesse hook of Death The fathers were touched with a stupid grief the dissheveld mothers threw themselves down upon the bodies of their infants to gather from their mouths the remainders of their life the whole family sent out howlings rather then complaints and the evil was so universall and so pressing that there was neither consolation nor remedy Pharaoh sighed at every Plague and seemed to be willing to turn to God but as soon as he had the least release he returned to his obstinacy which was a mark of a Reprobate soul Yet his subjects sensibly touched with the last accident urged the Hebrews to be gone and would no longer oppose the counsels of God The day of departure is taken and the six hundred thousand combatants with an innumerable number of women and little children after the ceremony of the Paschall Lamb travell to the red-Sea loaden with gold with silver with suits of apparell and with all the richest spoiles of Egypt The pillar of cloud and of fire marched before them in the head of the Army to give signall to the twelve Tribes that beheld it visibly on all parts Notice is given in the mean time to King Pharaoh that those fugitives were already stoln away and gone enriched with the treasures of his People And although he had given some kind of consent to their going yet he enters again into his furies assembles his light-Charriots and all the flourishing Legions of Egypt to pursue the Israelities They failed not to overtake them quickly upon the Sea-shore so that the two Armies were in view of one another The one of which was filled with a great number of people badly prepared at that time for a combat valour forsaking their heart and their hands ready to throw away their arms The other was composed of sprightfull and well trained Regiments to whom choler and the hope of booty gave a new vigour The glittering of the Arms the Clouds of dust that were raised the shouts of the Souldiers mingled with the neighing of Horses gave mortall strokes to the hearts of that poor multitude which had now no other thought but to dye murmuring and to revenge their death on Moses by their murmures Alas said they What! were there no Graves in Egypt to bury our lives and miseries without leading us into the Wildernesse to deliver us for a prey to the sword of the Egyptians and to the Birds of rapine Did we not say well that we should have stayed peaceably in the bondage wherein God had ranged us without making these great provisions and shutting our selves all up as in a net to deliver our selves to the discretion of our enemies We have the sea on one side and on the other our incensed Masters that breathe nothing but fire and bloud on which hand soever we go we see nothing but images of death and infallible marks of the misery that threatens us All the Army was filled with fear and the sighs of the Wives and of the Children abated the courage of the Fathers and of the Husbands who expected nothing any more but to be the subject of an horrible butchery But the generous Moses although he had an heart pierced with grief to hear their blasphemies ran through the ranks of the Army encouraged the Captains animated the People and as long as he had any voyce or breath cried without ceasing Courage my friends ye are here assembled to see the wonders of the God of Hosts Behold them onely without troubling your selves and God shall fight for you See and consider those brave Egyptians your persecutours and believe that it is the last time that you shall see them for they shall be no more And after he had said this he spake to God with a silence that surpassed all clamours and therefore God answered him What hast thou to do any more to cry thus after me Lift up thy Rod stretch forth thine hand divide the floats of the Sea and make thine Army march through the fair middle on dry foot This was executed and all that great people of the Israelites animated by the spirit of God and the voyce of Moses that marched in the head of them descended with a firm footing and a secure countenance into those Abysles where the water of the sea retiring it self apart made them ramparts of Chrystall on each side and discovered to them in the middle a path that the hand of God seemed to have laid with tapistry for to make them passage The pillar of fire that was planted in the midst of the two armies furnished them with unparrallel'd lights to manifest the works of God and on that side which looked towards the Egyptians it was horrible and dark bearing already the presages of the funerals that attended them The Angel of God shut up in this engine of fire darted out Thunder-striking looks upon the Diadem of Pharaoh and upon all those that encompassed him Their courage failed them and nothing now was left them but a rage yet fuming after bloud They throw themselves desperately into the sea which they promised themselves to passe over on dry foot as advantageously as their adversaries But the waters returning into their bed with an impetuous course invelop'd those miserable men there was nothing now but a confusion of men and horses of Arms and Charriots of bodies pestering one another that disputed their life with the waves and dyed expiring out the remainders of their fury Pharaoh the King was drowned the assistance of his Captains had not the strength to save him whom the hand of God would destroy Nothing was to be seen but Bucklers and Turbans floating upon the water and death painted in a thousand faces that made a mervellous booty The Israelites being in an extasie at these wonders thundred out a song in the praise of God that hath since ravished the heart and ear of all Ages After that Moses had drawn his people out of the captivity of Egypt he imitated God that did not
little corner of the earth in which I am buried alive I have that hope that his Mercy will not come to me to go beyond me and to leave me to die in this place He knoweth the time in which he will relieve those whom he pleaseth and I must leave that to his Dispensation onely I shall endeavour not to render my self unworthy of his Benefits and I will provide in some sort that his Goodnesse shall not blush to have made its approaches to me How happy O Cesar is your Clemency under whom the Banished do live more contented then Kings did heretofore under your Predecessour Behold here the finest Complement that ever proceeded from the mouth of man and he who well observes it will find nothing of sordid flattery in it And that the Reign of Claudius compared to that of Caligula doth go so farre beyond it as silver surpasseth lead Yet for all those fair words Claudius did nothing for him as long as Messalina did manage the heighth of the Affairs and till after his Polybius who suffered himself to sink into that infamy as to be The revolution at Court and the return of the banished numbred in the List of the Adulterers with the Emperesse was disgraced and condemned to death not long after which this prostituted Woman having wearied both heaven and earth with her filthinesse did incense her husbands Patience into a Rage who caused her to passe under the edge of the sword Agrippina widow to Domitius the father of Nero returned then to the Court having absented her self long from it by reason of the misfortune of her sister Julia she knew so well to cajole the Emperour that he espoused her as I have mentioned before The first action she did and for which she was praised by all the world was her revoking of Seneca to Rome from the Isle of Corsica immediately afterwards she committed the charge of her son Nero into his hands who was then eleven years of age and finding him to be a man of a choice spirit she took a resolution to make one day use of his service in the management of Seneca returns into high repute the affairs of State To speak sincerely of the manners of Seneca he had a great and a gallant soul and dispositions to a The manners of Seneca high virtue he was neither guilefull nor wilfull nor malicious nor cruel nor voluptuous and I do strongly believe that of a Gentleman he was the best man of that Age. Also Cornelius Tacitus who concealeth no evil that he knows and oftentimes doth divine on that of the which he is not throughly informed doth never speak of Seneca but with honour as a wise and sober man and moderate in his passions And Saint Hierome himself doth witnesse that he was a most continent person which may suffice to disabuse those who suffer themselves to be amazed with the Rapsodies of Dion Without all doubt he had something in his soul as religious as it was great which did not contentent it self with words but did proceed to actions And this did easily appear in his youth for when so many gentlemen of Rome did resort to the Universities of the Philosophers some for the wantonnesse of sporr others to see fashions others to carry away some fine sentence in their Table-book and by that means to get some esteem in conversation Seneca addressed himself unto them to learn and to practise virtue When he intended to speak of Riches of Solitude of Chastity of Sobriety he found his heart inflamed and he would have lived altogether a retired life if the great qualities wherewith God had indued him had not imbarked him in the Affairs of the Court. It is a wonder that amongst so great a confluence at the Court he alwayes observed that austere life which he practised in his infancy He did never eat of any delicacies which do serve onely to flatter the appetite and did content himself with the most simple viands He never drank any wine he used altogether cold baths he did not care for perfumes he oftentimes would lie on the ground upon a poor matter as where no print of his body was to be seen so hard it was He also sometimes did abstain from food and he found it good for him and all his life time he had practised it if his father had not expresly commanded him to the contrary because in the Reign of Tyberius Epist 108. there was a sect of strangers condemned at Rome who made a profession of certain Abstinences Some are of opinion that he did speak of Christians but they were neither known nor persecuted under the Emperour Tyberius For the rest all his Train were carried in one caroach which oftentimes was out of order and instead of lovely Pages and Minions he was served by men onely and small was the retinue that attended on him He received all things that were given him with facility and complained not of any thing He took no offence at the reports and slanders of men and pardoned many other inconveniencies he had an honest heart and full of love to those to whom he professed love he was tender of compassion on the behalf of the poor and a hater of covetousnesse After he had satisfied the Affairs of the Empire he took no pleasures at all but in Contemplation and Study Books being unto him as necessary as his bread His table was moderate his discourse affable his life innocent and his conversation most attractive Amongst other things he would be angry with himself for not having professed Virtue openly enough and for reflecting his thoughts on the considerations of the world and in modesty he would say that he aspired alwayes to the heighth of Virtue and neverthelesse he still found himself to be in the centre of Vices Those who condemne him without knowing what he was would think that they themselves did great penance if they should live after the manner of Seneca He was with Nero five or six years before he was made Emperour and formed his Infancy with excellent Instructions in the mean time Agrippina did the fatall act as I have spoken and poisoned Claudius her husband to devolve the Empire on her son who was elected by the generall consent of all the States It is too true that Seneca found himself overcharged with joy at so great a change and at that time a little forgat the severity of a Philosopher when he composed a railing Book on the death of Claudius which he called Apocolocynthosis as if he should have said Divinity Seneca made a Libel against Claudius acquired by the means of a Drug alluding to that he was numbred in the catalogue of the Gods being preferred to heaven by poyson Some believe that he composed that Book as well to revenge himself for the death of his dear Benefactour Julia and for the affliction of his long banishment as to tejoyce his Scholar Nero who took great pleasure
Nature The Christians followed them melting into tears calling them their Fathers and their Pastours and besought them not to abandon their Flock But they with countenances as clear as are the smiles of the fairest morning did comfort them and did promise not to forget them in the other life They did exhort them to shew themselves courageous in Persecutions assuring them that they were the places of Pleasure where even the Thorns should grow into Crowns They both looked back upon Rome and beheld it as the field of their dearest Conquest And God did discover to them the effects of their Bloud how that Infidelity was subdued the Church was established in the capitall City of the Universe the Crosse was planted on the root of the Capitoll where they died as amongst palms and the odour of their Sacrifice did ascend to heaven As long as there shall be Intelligences and Stars above as long as there shall be Ages and Men below these two Apostles shall be beheld as the two Eyes of the Christian world The Fathers and the Doctours of Mankind the Gates of Heaven and Triumphers over unbelieving Rome which they have now converted into Rome the Holy At their Palmes all the Laurels of the Conquerours shall fade and the instruments of their Punishments shall obscure their Trophies The tongues of men can pronounce nothing more pleasing then their Name The Church hath nothing more precious then their Virtues nor more powerfull then their Examples nor more honourable then the Veneration of them The detestable Nero the year after these Martyrs suffered finding himself tormented with Furies invested with infernall Shades torn in his conscience by Vultures and wounded with sharp Razors being abandoned both by God and men understanding that Vindex from France and Galba was marching against him from Spain to revenge his Sacriledges he did fly away and killed himself it being impossible for him to die by a more polluted or a more execrable hand Queens and Ladies MARY STUART The most excellent Princesse Mary Queene of Scotland and Dowager of France IN the last place I will produce the History of the incomparable Queen Mary Stuart where in the height of its lustre I will represent unto you Innocence persecuted as much by the jealousies of love as State and that by a general combat of all passions on which she hath raised a Trophey by the invincible constancy at her death I have taken delight to peruse many Authours on this Subject and to draw out the truth from a confused Chaos where the malice of many passionate Historians had extreamly perplexed the Story and I have done it the more willingly because it is a service which I render to the first Truth which I adore To France which nourished and advanced that great Spirit To the King of Great Brittain who is honoured for his Bloud and Royal Virtues To Scotland who brought her forth and to England it self the sounder part whereof have alwayes detested the attempt which was committed on her person I must intreat the Reader to believe that there was never History more disguised by a knot of Hereticks never wickedness did carry more artifice nor calumny more fables or fables more colours or impiety more strength to crie down a poor Princess And this hath made so bold a noise that some Catholicks either too ignorant or too negligent not taking the pains to read and examine the reasons alledged were betrayed themselves to an indifferent belief of the defaming Libels of the Enemies of our Religion as if they would believe the History of Jesus Christ compiled on the reports of the Scribes and Pharisees A Calvinist of late the Authour of a Spanish History hath thrust into his Book many outragious reports against the Memory of Mary Queen of Scotland by a Digression stale enough which doth eclipse the light of the History and the Day of her passion If that man had any modesty he would have acknowledged his small abilities to be seen in print If he had any reverence he would have spared the person of a Queen If his heart had been touched with any piety he would have pardoned the Dead If he had in his soul any sence of honour being in the service of the King of England he would never have printed such insolent things to the disadvantage of his Majesty he would never have barked at the ashes of so great a Ladie Reader to make you the better to understand with what equity I will proceed in this Narration I will not alledge unto you either Sanders or Bosy or Florimond of Raymen or Father Hilarius of the Order of the right reverend Fathers of the Minims who have all wrote very worthily concerning this Subject I will derive the principal truths I shall produce from Cambden a Hugenot Historiographer of the Queen of England who hath wrote this Story not in Pamphlets running without authority but in authentick Memorials It hath pleased God that this person having a generous ambition to speak the truth should search into the Records and produce papers that had been buried which sufficiently do make appear the artifices of Elizabeth the innocence of the Queen of Scotland Reader Behold whither the abundance and the force of Right and Truth doth carry us that we take even our enemies for our Judges and Witnesses in this cause MARY STUART the onely Daughter of The Birth Education of this Queen Mary Stuart James the Fifth King of Scotland and Mary de Lorain Grand-child to the thrice virtuous Antonietta of Bourbon was a Queen who in my judgement hath equalled the excess of her disasters with the height of her glory and it seems her whole life was no other than a Theater hung round with blacks and covered with bloud where the revolution of humane affairs did act unheard-of Tragedies Never did Nature produce more beauties nor Grace more wonders in a personage of that high condition Never did Fortune deal more rigorously with a head which Heaven had made to support three great Crowns She was born in Scotland she lost her Father eight In the year 1542. on the 〈◊〉 Deâ—ember on S. Lucies Day dayes after her birth she was brought into France at the age of five yeares and was nourished in the Court of Henrie the Second and Katharine de Medicis who did love her most entirely She was yet but as the Bud of a Rose which within her first infancy did preserve her Graces undisclosed But as she began to lay them more open by the increase of age we might then behold a Princess descended from the bloud of a hundred Kings who had a body formed and fashioned by the hand of Beauty a fine and a clear spirit a deep and a sound judgement a high Virtue and an incomparable Grace in her expressions All which made Henrie the Second resolve to give Her marriage and widowhood her in marriage to his son Francis to whom she was espoused about the
one Babington who was descended of an Honourable family of a great spirit and of a knowledge above his age and very zealous on the Catholick Religion His example made many others to imbark themselves in that same dangerous design Some propounded to themselves the hopes of a great reward others were carried on by glory and some were transported to it by a hate to evil doers It is no way to be believed as I shall make it appear that the Queen of Scotland had any hand in the design For besides the tendernes of her conscience she had a wisdom exercised by long experience which made her easily to apprehend the weakness of that party who were young men heady and inconsiderable who had not learned to conceal a secret which is the first knot that confirmeth great affairs They carried their hearts on their lips and being not content to make a noise of their design in Taverns they caused it to be painted in a Table with devises to it as the Authours of liberty and in foolish vanity did show it to one another Babington could not contain himself from writing to the Queen in prison And the letter being brought to the hands of her Secretaries Nau and Curles they did not communicate it to their Mistress well knowing that the witness of her unblemished spirit would never sympathize with such violent Counsels But when they perceived that Babington in the said letter had given information of the conference he had with Ballard and that six Gentlemen were chosen to put the Tragical design in Execution and that one hundred more were to release the Queen from her imprisonment they thought they would not neglect the occasion and therefore they wrote an answer to the letter making use of the Queens name she having no knowledge of it In this letter they praised Babington for his zeal to the Catholick religion and to the sacred person of their Lady who was the supportress of it They did advertise him to take consideration with him in this enterprise and to make a strong association amongst them who were to be the Actours and the Authours and to attempt nothing before they had assurance of aid from forreign parts and withall to stir up some new troubles in Ireland before they gave this blow in England They advised him to draw unto his party the Earl of Arundel and his Brothers and others named in the letter they did also prescribe a means for the deliverance of the Queen either by overturning one of her Caroaches at the gate or by setting on fire some Rooms belonging to her Querries in the Castle or to take her away when she took horse to refresh her self in the conclusion they did exhort him to promise great rewards to the six Gentlemen and to all the rest Babington presuming it was the Queen who by this letter treated with him became most vainly glorious he incouraged his Companions shewing the letter to the most apparent of them and was inflamed with a desire to execute the design They were so transported with the vanity of it that though they did shut their eyes against the danger yet they did open their mouths to discover the secret which was communicated to so many of their accomplices that the multitude of the conspiratours did make abortive the conspiracy They declared it to one Gifford a pernicious and a luxurious man who being charged with a Commission to keep safe their letters did carry them all to Walsingham the Secretary to the Queen of England who opened them and founding the whole progress of their designs did with much dexterity make them fast again The last written by Babington with the answer of the Secretaries in the name of Queen Mary was carried to Elizabeth and to her Counsel who shewed an exceeding joy for the discovery She caused the conspiratours to be apprehended and Babington amongst the foremost who being demanded the Question did immediatly confess that he had treated with the Queen of Scotland on that subject in which he spoke truly as he thought though he did not speak the truth After they were all examined and condemned they were executed with most cruel punishments the extremity whereof did strike a horrour into those who did condemn them 13. It was so decreed that a passage must be made The Process against the Queen of Scotland through the entrails of many bodies to come unto Queen Maries bloud She that knew of nothing what was done did continue very quiet in the languishment of her captivity when behold she suddenly found her self confined to a close imprisonment her Guards doubled her Secretaries apprehended her papers taken away and her Coyn confiscated with a labouring expectation she did attend to know the reason of it when behold a letter from the Queen of England which imparted that she had given a Commission to her Counsellers of Estate to hear her in judgement upon Fact with which she was accused Having read it with a Majestick countenance and a spirit full of the height of understanding she spake to those that gave it her I Am much afflicted that my most dear Sister the Queen hath been so ill informed of me and that having been so many years most strictly guarded and withall nummed in my limbs the many fair conditions which I have offered for my liberty have been always neglected and my self abandoned I have sufficiently advertised her of diverse dangers and yet she never would believe me but hath always undervalued me although I am most near unto her in bloud I have too truly foreseen that any accident that did arrive either within or without this Kingdom would be interpreted to proceed from me and that I should be made guilty enough because I am so miserable As for his letter I do look upon it as a strange thing that any Queen should command me as her Subject to appear in judgement I am of my self an absolute Queen and will do nothing to the prejudice of Royal Majesty my courage is not yet abated nor will I ever stoop unworthily under my calamity Her answer was drawn up in writing which in these terms she had pronounced and the same day the Chancellour and the Treasurer came to her and declared what power they had given them in their Commission and desired her gently to hear the Facts with which she was charged otherwise they both could and would proceed against her for contempt To which she made answer That she was no Subject and that she had rather die a thousand times than by such an acknowledgement to bring a prejudice to Royal Majesty She admonished them if after having condemned her before hand they came now unto her to make a semblance of observing some formality in Justice to consult with their own consciences and to remember that the Theater of the world is of a larger extent than England The Commissioners did not cease to insist and represent unto her the Tenour of their
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
his avarice And as she had her eyes blinded and was applying her self to the Block she began the Psalm In te Domine speravi In thee Lord have I hoped and amongst those sacred words In manus tuas into thy hands which she again and again and divers times repeated the Executioner trembling and indisposed made one stroke with his Ax and in stead of her neck the Ax fell higher and cutting off some part of her Coyf it made a grievous wound on the hinder part of her head whereupon readily dispatching two strokes more the Executioner took up the head from the body and shewed it openly all pale and bloudy as it was yet still carrying in her eclipsed eyes the attractives of that brave Soul which now did cease to animate her body and with a horrible voice he pronounced Long live Queen Elizabeth and so let the Enemies of the Gospel perish which word the Dean repeated and the Earl of Kent applauded when all the world besides them were in tears The bloud was collected in silver Basons and the Corps was laid forth on the Scaffold Her poor Maids drew near unto her desiring that they might be permitted to divest her and to bury her with their own hands But the furious Earl did drive them out of the hall and caused the sacred body to be carried into a Chamber of the Castle where it was locked up He also ordered that the Cloath and boards should be burnt that were purpled with the bloud of this Martyr as if there were any Element in the world that was able to take away so celestial a tincture These two Virgins did not cease to follow with their eyes the body of their Mistress looking upon her as well as they could through the clefts of the door as she still lay bloudy and but half covered They waited there like two Magdalens at the Sepulcher until such time as she was interred in the Cathedral Church of Peterborough where all the best sort of men as long as it was allowed did repair to let fall their tears and lay forth their sighs upon her Tomb. The news being brought to London all the Bells did ring for joy to convey the tidings of it to cruel Elizabeth who did conceal her self rather for shame than grief although she counterfeited to be extreamly touched for the Death of her Kinswoman And in effects she often felt the Remorse of Conscience and had horrible Dreams which did make her to cry out in the night and to wake her Maids of Honour with her affrights 17. As long as Truth or Virtue or Men shall continue upon the earth that wound shall bleed as long as there shall be Eyes or Tears in this Vale of misery there shall be tears distilled on these Royal Ashes and the piety of the living shall never cease with full hands to strew Lilies and Violets and Roses on her Tomb. Marie whom Heaven absolvest doth now commence an eternal Process against Elizabeth she shall be brought before as many Tribunals as there are reasonable Spirits and shall daily be condemned without ending of her misery because she put no end to her injustice It seemeth that God did expresly give her a long life as to Cain to Herod to Tyberius and other Tyrants to fill up the measure of her iniquity to possess a bloudy Scepter amongst Jealousies Affrights and Defiances and to see her hell alive whom at last stooping unto the impotency of age and slighted by her own creatures she would often complain that all the world did abandon her and that she had not one left in whom she might repose her confidence God hath dried up her root on Earth and made her die childless He hath placed on her Throne the bloud of Mary who at this day doth hold the Crown of England and of Scotland Great GOD if it be permitted to enter into the cloud of thy great Mysteries and the Secrets which thou hast concealed from our Eyes Is it not from this bloud we shall one day see a flower to arise the most illustrious of the Posterity who between his hands shall bring forth the Golden Age who shall make the Ancient Piety to triumph and on his Royal shoulders shall carry it even into the Throne of Glory who shall render divine honours to the ashes of his Mother and about her Tomb shall make the Cypress trees to grow that shall advance unto the Stars her honoured Name which they shall wear engraved on their leaves Elizabeth shall then be but a Specter of horrour and her pernicious Councellers shall appear round about her as the pale shades in the center of Darkness England shall awake from her long Lethargie and with veneration shall look on her whom she hath dishonoured with so much fury Incomparable Marie we say no more that Providence hath been a Step-mother and that she hath used you with too much rigour and violence She hath caused you to enter in a garden covered with palms and laurels which you have bedewed with your tears manured with your afflictions enobled with your combats and honoured with your bloud She hath mounted you on a Scaffold where you have acted the last and most glorious Tragedie that was ever represented in the world by your Sex or in your condition The Angels O Divine Princess from the portals of Heaven did with admiration contemplate your Combat they encouraged your Constancy they sang your Praises and with emulation they prepared for you your everlasting Crowns The heart of a woman against a hundred leopards The heart of a Diamond against a thousand hammers which never turned for all their violence which never could be tempted with the glitterings of honour which always did temper with gall the most delicious contentments of this life to follow he JESUS her wounded JESUS her JESUS crucified for her The most Catholick Queen in the world who honoured nothing more than Churches and Priests and Altars to live twenty years as it were without a Church without a Priest and without an Altar to make in her self a Temple of her body an Altar of her heart and a Sacrifice of her bloud nay what shall I say in a Death so abandoned to be her self the Altar to be her self the Priest and her self the Sacrifice What Virgin hath seen the twentieth year of her captivity What Martyr hath sanctified so many prisons Who hath ever made experience of so many Deaths in one Who hath ever seen Death to come with a more willing foot And who hath indeer'd it with a greater joy who hath mannaged it with wisdom and who hath accomplished it with greater glory Your fair Name O Marie borne on the Wings of Triumph and Renown doth pass through Sea and Land is an object of Veneration to the people and of Ornament unto Heaven where your Soul with advantage doth rejoyce in the pleasures of eternal happiness Look down fair Soul and behold your Islands and your Realms with those
by our glorious Father S. Gregory the Great it is that which our Fathers have embraced it is that which they have defended by their Words their Arms and their Bloud which they have shed for the Honour of it Nothing is left for those to hope for who are separated from it but the tempests of darkness and the everlasting chains of hell It is well known that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince hath caused these reprocheable furies and the inundations of bloud which hath covered the face of England He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen wherefore those who have followed him in his Errour may also follow him in his Repentance The Peace the Safety the Abundance the Felicity of the Kingdom are ready to re-enter with the true Faith which if you refuse I see the choller of God and a thousand calamities that do threaten you Return therefore O Shunamite Return O fair Island to thy first beginning feign not to thy self imaginary penalties terrours and punishments which are not prepared but for the obstinate The Sovereign Father of Christendom doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience and hath delegated me as the Dove out of the Ark to bring unto thee the Olive Bough to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee This is the acceptable Hour this is the Day of thy salvation The Night which hitherto hath covered thee is at the end of her Course and the Sun of Justice is risen to bring light unto thee It is time to lay down the works of darkness and to take up the Armour of Light to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice that thou abborrest what is past embracest what is present and dost totally put thy self into the hands of God for the time to come This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly and the Cardinal being departed from the Councel the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition which was presently taken into consideration and it was resolved That the ancient religion should be established The Chancellour made this resolution known unto the people and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholick faith In the end he demanded that they would testifie their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal Legate of the holy See which incontenently was done the paper was presented and openly read their Majesties did confirm it both by their authorities and their prayers and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees and all the people demanding mercy whereupon an authentick absolution was given by the Legate the bels did ring in all the Churches Te Deum was sung All places were filled with the cries of joyes as people infranchised and coming out of the gates of hell After this King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders by reason of the retreat of the Emperour his father Pool was left chief of the Councellours with Queen Mary who did wonders for the good of Religion of the State It is true that Cranmer and other turbulent and seditious spirits were punished but so great a moderation was used that the Benefices and the Reveneues of the Church did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King without disturbing them on that innovation all things were continued that might any way be suffered not so much as changing any thing in marriages because they would not ensnare their spirits The heart of the Queen and of her ministers did think on nothing more than to establish Religion to entertain the holy See to render justice to comfort the people to procure peace and rest to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom They did begin again the golden age when after the reign of five years and odde moneths they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness which did oppress with grief all honest men and did bury with them in one Tomb the happiness and safety of that Kingdom O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason what vail hast thou cast on our Councels and our works What might we have not hoped from such beginnings What wisdom would not have concluded That felicity had crowned for ever the enterprizes of this Cardinal An affair so well conducted a negotiation so happy a business of State and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity Where are the fine plots of policy Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect The Chariots of the Romans which covered with Lawrels did march on the heads of Kings did not make their wayes remarkable but by stormings of Towns by Flames and Massacres But behold here many millions of men struck down and raised again with one onely speech so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment and made the happiest that any Ages have seen And after all this to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate and ruinate the house of God which should have reached to the imperial heaven O how true is it that there are the strokes of Fate that is to say an order of the secret purpose of God which is as concealed as inevitable nothing can divert nothing can delay it The counsels of the wise are here blinded their addresses are lost their activity troubled their patience tried and all their reasons confounded Poor Brittain God gave thee these two Great Lights not to enjoy them but as they passed by to behold them Thou art soiled with sacriledges and impieties thou art red with the bloud of the Martyrs The sins of Henrie are not yet expiated and the ignominious passions of his life are punished by the permission of the Errour The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God they will abate nothing of their periods if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority It pertaineth to God onely to know and appoint the times of punishment and Mercy and there is nothing more expedient for man than to submit to his Laws to obey his Decrees to reverence his Chastisements and to adore the Hand that strikes him FINIS THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES Written in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. And now translated into English Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCL The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes IF it be
monsters and hydeous sights He tried all sorrs of festival entertainments dancings and delights to divert this ill but it still augmented in such sort that he was enforced to abandon all the affairs of his Kingdom though he had been very eager and ardent in this employment and became in the beginning thereof doltish and dull not knowing what he did For often in the time of dinner he spake to his servants and commanded them to call the Queen as if she had been yet living they slipped aside without making answer and the whole Court was drenched in terrour and silence In the end not being able any longer to endure the walls of his Palace as if they had upbraided him with his cruelty he ran into the forrests like a mad man where he got a strange maladie of the mind and so horrible a frenzie that the Physitians were to seek saying freely it was a blow from Heaven God who yet reserved him for greater calamities would not at that time take away his life The wicked mother Alexandra who so outragiously had complained of her daughter upon the scaffold instantly died tasting the bitterness of death and loosing her glory Last of all followeth a plague which took away even many of Herod's Counsellers and all that was nothing but the scourge of Heaven in avengement of this death so deplorable and never sufficiently lamented Mariamne of her chaste wedlock left two sons to The sons of Mariamne bred at Rome Herod Alexander and Aristobulus who were very young able to suffer much in time to come but as then incapable of feeling their own miseries Herod to take from them the sense of this cruel tragedy and to raise them likewise by the degrees of good education to the glory of his scepter happily puts them aside and sends them to Rome to be bred in the Court of Augustus Caesar held at that time the Academie of Kings and prime school of the world Some years being passed he had a desire to make a voyage into Italie to salute Caesar and by that opportunity see his children whom he found excellently trained and so accomplished that he purposed with the good leave of Caesar to carry them back into Judea which he did These young Princes returning into Jerusalem with Herod ravished all the people with admiration They were of a gallant presence straight active quick-spirited couragious in the exercise of arms well-spoken affable as lovely as the person of the Father was odious Men looked on them as one would upon the two stars of Castor and Pollux after a storm they replenished all with alacrity and seemed already to win all hearts to approve their titles to the Crown Those notwithstanding who retained the memory of the usage of poor Mariamne their mother could not abstain from tears Pheroras brother of Herod and Salome his sister Calumnie is plotted against them who both had dipped their fingers in the bloud of the innocent Queen entered into affrightments and apprehensions unspeakable seeing the bloud they had shed should one day sway over their heads Wherefore they began silently to calumniate them and caused by trusty instruments many bruits to pass into the ears of Herod which intimated That the Princes his sons in consideration of their mothers wrong had a great aversion from the father and that they never seriously would affect him Herod who as yet in the heat of his affection and could never be satisfied with beholding them gave no credit to this calumny But rather seeing them now upon the confines of maturity sought to match them highly plotting for Alexander the daughter of Archelaus King of Cappadocia named Glaphyra which was assented unto and for Aristobulus he caused him to marry the daughter of Salome his cozen germain so plaistering over the domestick enmities which ever after found many factions Alexander and Aristobulus conversed together with great freedom and uttered whatsoever they had upon their hearts speaking of the death of their mother in such manner that they shewed a great resentment thereof Pheroras and Salome close-biting and watchfull ceased not to provoke them to speech and whatsoever they said either through vanity or sleight disposition to anger or in the liberty of secrecy was instantly by a third person related to the ears of Herod The subtile Salome holding still a power upon her married daughter who was a simple creature put her upon the rack to tell her all that her husband and her brother in law had spoken in the privacy of their mutual conversation She then recounted the words these poor Princes had through simplicity and bravery spoken to wit that Aristobulus vaunted himself The Kingdom belonged to the children of Mariamne as to the line of the true Queen as for Herods other sons who were spread abroad in very great number for he had nine or ten wives that he might make Registers of them in some petty Towns and that they should do well to learn to write and read She added that Alexander said in boasting he was a better man than his father notwithstanding that conversing with him and seeing him of a jealous humour he restrained himself as in a scabbard and durst not discover himself for fear he should give him some suspition of his power That hunting or walking with Herod he did as it were bow and contract himself together that he might not appear taller than his father that if he were to shoot in a bow he purposely made himself unskilfull thereby to take all occasion of envie from him It was a notable act of wisdom to do it but a great folly of youth to breath out many words as innocently spoken as treacherously interpreted and above all an infinite simplicity to commit their secrets to a woman whose heart is as fit to keep what it ought to conceal as a sive to hold water When Pheroras and Salome had a long time filled the ears of Herod with these trifling reports seeing the suspition began to take footing in his mind and that the affection of a father cooled towards his children they struck the iron while it was hot and wished him seriously to take heed of his sons for they spake big and had boldly said That all those who were embrewed in their mothers bloud should not carry the punishment into the other world for verily as they were vexed upon the remembrance of the dead such like words had escaped them Herod was much amazed at this liberty and thought he must repress their boldness by some counterpoize What doth he To humble the hearts of these Princes The young Antipater son of Herod exalted he selecteth among his children one called Antipater his son by Doris nothing noble and who had shamefully been hunted out of the Court he putteth this his son in the turning of a hand upon the top of the wheel not that he had a purpose to raise him but to use him to counterballance the children of Mariamne reputing him
an instrument proper for this end For certainly this Antipater was of a dark spirit close and mischievous much of his Father Herods disposition as it was presently to be seen When he was advanced he resolved fully not to descend but with loss of life and to hold that Kingdom as well as others by some notable trick Behold why he played the Proteus and changed himself into all forms to gain credit with Herod who then began to like him very well and he the more to fortifie himself spared not under hand to aggravate the calumny against the children of Mariamne and after he had thrown the stone withdrew his arm so cunningly that it seemed he had not touched it for he always was conversant with Alexander and Aristobulus with much respect as with his Masters yea when he made false tales to tickle the ears of his father then feigned he by a counterfeit modesty to take their cause in hand and defend them so discreetly for his own advantage that thereby he cast them further into suspition King Herod judged that to countenance him it were to good purpose to send him to Rome which he did allotting him a flourishing retinue and an infinite number of recommendations There it was that he much embroyled businesses writing to his father That he had discovered at Rome strange plots that he should take heed of his brothers Alexander and Aristobulus that they had practised ill dispositions in every place that their purpose had no other aim but to shorten his days and dispossess him of his Empire This had so much the more colour for that these miserable Princes galled with their repulse could not dissemble their discontent they ever casting forth some words which gathered by the spies of Pheroras and Salome never fell to the ground Herod sighed to see that he having pacified all abroad the fire should kindle in his own house and thereupon had some desire to arrest his sons but he would attempt nothing upon their persons without Caesars command referring all to him both for his ordinary complacence and safeguard of his own affairs After he had revolved this affair with a thousand anxieties in his heart wherein he bare the chief extent of his counsels he resolved in his own person to carry his sons to Rome and accuse them before Caesar In the whole course of this long way from Palestine to Italie he held himself close and reserved not making the least disgust against his children appear that he might not occasion in them any suspition Being arrived at Rome he learned Augustus Caesar was then in the Citie of Aquileia without delay he went thither conducting with him Alexander and Aristobulus who were received by the Emperour who was as their father with all demonstration of love In the mean time this miserable father spying his opportunity demands day of Caesar for an audience which he affirmed was of great consequence it was granted him and he came at the time appointed bringing these two poor delinquents who doubted nothing nor at that time sought any thing but to laugh and pass their time with their ancient acquaintance When they were in the midst of a brave assembly of Princes there present Herod breathing out a great sigh said Behold me GREAT CAESAR a happy King by your favour and an unfortunate father through the disgrace of my house If nature had denied me children fortune should see me without miseries all my disasters proceed from my own progeny It much troubleth me to defile your ears worthy Caesar with the recital of so great wickedness but necessity which hath no law enforceth me and your justice which establisheth all laws inviteth me Behold my two unnatural sons who after they had received the honour to be bred at your feet after they had obtained from me all the favours which could be expected froÌ„ a King by your gracious clemency sufficiently powerfull and from a father of his own nature most indulgent betraying the glory of the education they had at your hands forgetting even the nature and bloud they received from me have attempted a crime which I dare not name I live too many years in their opinion and too long enjoy a Kingdom which with so much labour I purchased I have opened to them the gate of honour that they may enter after that natural death shall close up mine eyes and they will pass through by the portal of parricide preparing ambushes for my life to snatch away the spoil steeped in my bloud Behold I prostrate them at your feet not willing to retain any right in mine own displeasure neither of King nor father but that which shall be decreed for me by your justice Yet notwithstanding O Great Caesar I would beseech you to bestow upon my old age which you have pleased so much to honour some repose in my own house and free me from the hands of these parricides So likewise I think it not expedient for children so ungratefull who have trampled laws both divine and humane under foot to live any longer and still to have the Sun in their eyes to serve as a witness and an upbraiding of their crime Herod spake this with a marvellous vehemency so that he put the whole assembly into an astonishment and these poor young men who had as much innocency as simplicity seeing themselves charged on the sudden with such a tempest of words made the apple of their eyes to answer and weep in good earnest They endeavoured to speak fearing least their silence might make them culpable but the more they strove so much the more the sobs choaked up their words Augustus Caesar who was a judicious and courteous Prince saw well by this their aspect these young men had more mishap than malice and casting a gracious eye upon them Courage my children be confident saith he answer at your leisure and be not troubled All those there present bare already much compassion towards them and Herod shewed even by his countenance he was moved so eloquent are the tears of nature Alexander seeing the eyes of the whole assembly very favourable took heart represseth his sighs being as he was eloquent speaketh in these terms MY LORD AND FATHER Your Majesty Apologie of Herodâ—s son before Augustus hath not brought us so far to the Altars of mercy to offer us up as a sacrifice to revenge we are at the knees of Caesar as in the Temple of Clemency whither being conducted by your warrant command it maketh us say your words are sharp but proceedings most sweet If calumny had so altered your excellent nature as to make you take resolution upon our lives to the prejudice of our innocency you might have done it in Palestine as a father and a King the sentence and execution were in your own hands But God permitted you to bring us to the Court of Augustus not to leave the head where the crown was designed but rather to return it back
of water God made his birth and education singularly to Extraction of Theodosius contribute to the sanctity of his life He was descended from Trajan called the good Emperour by supereminence of worth his Grand-father was the great Theodosius a man who in wariness had no superiour that preceded him and in piety no better second than his Grand-child The Emperour Arcadius was his father a most generous Prince who in the very beginning of the fifth Age to wit the year after the Nativity of our Saviour four hundred and one saw this infant rise as a bright star at that time when he ended the course of his life as the Poets feigned the Sun reareth himself from the bed of aged Tython to illustrate the world His nativity was foretold His birth foretold by the mouth of Saints his most tender infancy consecrated by the destruction of idols God at one and the same time putting him in the number of the living and in the rank of Protectours of the Church by a most remarkeable act of which behold the narration Saint Procopius an Hermit endowed with admirable Prophesie of S. Procopius sanctity illumined with the spirit of prophefie living in the Isle of Rhodes praying daily for the destruction of some remnants of idolatry which reigned in the Roman Empire when by good chance two holy Prelates Porphyrius and John the one Bishop of Gaza the other of Caesarea in Palestine sayling for that purpose to Constantinople went to lodge in the Hermitage of this holy man He having received them with all respect answerable to their qualities and entertained them according to the poverty of the Cell understanding they travelled to the capital Citie of the Eastern Empire of purpose to obtain an Edict from the Emperour absolutely to destroy the Temples of idols and bridle the insolencies of Pagans who stirred with so much the more boldness as the drouping faintness of the government of those times promised them impunity he was infinitly comforted to see so great personages undertake so worthy a work and God then prompting him these words he saith Courage Fathers the glory of this conquest is due to your pietie Go stoutly to Constantinople and acquaint the holy Bishop John Chrysostom with this design resolving to execute what he shall think fit For the rest know the Empress is nine moneths gone with child and that which is more she beareth an Emperour in her womb upon the mother and the son who is to be born depends the expedition of this affair They very glad of this prediction left the good Hermit Procopius and in ten days arrived at Constantinople where presently they visited S. John Chrysostom who received them with much respect and very great contentment The affair being put into deliberation the Bishop of Constantinople saw well that the Empress might therein much assist and that God ordinarily useth the pietie of women to advance the affairs of Religion Notwithstanding he durst not present these two Prelates to her fearing his recommendation might be prejudicial for he very lately had a sharp difference with the Empress It was Eudoxia a woman Eudoxia mother of Theodosius of a great spirit and who naturally loved virtue as milk in her infancy but she had a heart extreamly haughty and quickly would be offended if any thing of great consequence were undertaken against her authority Behold wherefore S. Chrysostom who was of no pleasing disposition as one who had a spirit alienated from ordinary complements sometimes towards those of his own coat reprehending her openly at many meetings in the point of glory wherein she most desired to be soothed raised her indignation to the clouds She was as yet in the height Her humour of her passion against him and therefore he judging it to no purpose for him to sollicite her caused the two Bishops to be presented by the means of one called Amantius an attendant of Eudoxia's chamber a very wise man and of great credit with his Lady She who knew her child-bed time at hand gave very free access to religious men as hoping all good success by help of their devotions and seeing these two Bishops Bishops treat with the Empress were very particularly recommended to her by Amantius in quality of persons endowed with a very eminent sanctity she was unsatisfied till she had seen them and having most courteously saluted them excusing her bigness with child to have hindered her passage to the door of their reception according to the usual practice towards persons of their worth she forbear not most affectionately to conjure them to employ their most fervent prayers to obtain of God a happy delivery for her The holy Bishops after they had wished her the child-birth of Sarah of Rebecca and Saint Elizabeth began to declare the cause of their voyage unfolding in very express terms the indignity of this Idolatrie the insolency of Pagans the contempt of things sacred the oppression of people the lamentable mischief it would be to behold the worshipping of idols still to flourish which to abolish the Saviour of the world had so much sweat so much wept and shed so much bloud and to see it predominate as it were in the eyes of a most magnificent Emperour and a most religious Empress who had all the means to extirpate it That in such a field the palms of eternal glory should be gathered and that better they could secure their estate than by destroying the work of Satan to erect the tropheys of Jesus Eudoxia taketh fire being thereto otherwise well Zeal of Eudoxia enough disposed and promiseth to recommend the business to the Emperour to obtain the dispatches they required for their better contentment The Bishops retired expecting the effect of this promise The Ladie faileth not to offer her requests and strike the stroke with her best dexteritie But Court affairs proceed not always on the same feet which the desires of the zealous move upon she findeth the Councel engaged in these retardations who think it to no purpose to roul such a stone That idolatrie should Judgement of Arcadius his Councel be left to bury it self and at leisure dress its own funerals That the means to ruin it is to remove the heads of the sect from all kind of honours and publick dignities to forbid the exercise of superstition and Conventicles which they make in private houses to subdue Idolaters and burn them as it is said with a soft fire That the demolishment which should be made of those great Temples of Idols which yet remained would make much noise and yield little fruit that this might thrust rebellious spirits into manifest despair and in a word it was feared it might be a means to turn the coyn of the Emperours coffers another way who drew a good round revenue from the Citie of Gaza which even at that time was in hand The consideration of interest which ever holdeth as Porphyrius unfoldeth the
prophesie it were the ascendent in the spirits of men transported at that time the belief of the Empress who would no further proceed in this pursuit She caused the Bishops to be assembled signifying to them how having treated this business with much fidelity and sollicitude she could not find the Councel disposed to this resolution that they must have patience and suffer the fruit to ripen before it be gathered Thereupon Porphyrius Bishop of Gaza the principal Agent as being the most interessed well perceiving the Empress had not used the utmost of her credit saith to her in a discreet and effectual manner Madame that your Majesty may not fear seriously to employ your endeavours in the business now in question I promise you in recompence that God will give you a son which you bear in your bodie and that quickly you shall see it to sway the scepter by your side Women desire nothing more than to conceive male children But if it concerneth establishment of houses they passionately love their sons Eudoxia who notwithstanding all the forcible words of Porphyrius had before not undertaken the affair but sleightly upon this promise made to her of a male child and of a son to be Emperour protesteth to employ herself wholly therein and in such manner that she not onely would cause the idols of Gaza to be thrown down to the ground and absolutely raze the Temple but which was not to be expected from her zeal she addeth she would build in the place of the Temple it being demolished a most magnificent church Porphyrius thanking her for so much favour taketh leave to retire to his lodging attending the effect of the good mans prophesie Eudoxia faileth not in few Birth of Theodosius days to be delivered of a fair son who is our Theodosius the Younger As soon as he beginneth to breath air behold him covered with royal purple declared Augustus with intention to associate him the year following to the Empire of his father All the world was poured into joy at the birth of this infant there was nothing but sports largesses and publick alacrity so much happiness they promised themselves for this little Theodosius in whose infancy already were seen all hopes of the publick to bud The Empress seven days after her delivery shewing herself very gratefull to God caused the Bishops to be called and received them at her chamber door then holding her little Theodosius covered with a royal garment in her arms Fathers saith she to them behold the fruits of your prayers bless the mother and her infant Then bowing her royal head under the hands and benediction of the Bishops she presenteth to them the fruit of her child-bearing to be marked with the sign of our Redemption which they presently did The good Empress having made them to sit down Dream of Porphyrius Well then saith she what shall we do for discharge of our promise Porphyrius taking the word relateth to her a dream he had the night before upon this subject which was that he seemed to be at Gaza a Citie of his Bishoprick in the temple of idols named the temple of Marna and that the Empress coming to him offered him a book of the Gospels entreating him to open it and read therein whatsoever he should first encounter and that upon the opening thereof he found these words couched in the Gospel of S. Matthew Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall have no power against it and that thereupon the Empress should say Courage in good time That saith she Pious stratagem of a woman very well accordeth with the design I have figured in my mind for the expedition of our affair In few days I hope the son whom God hath given me shall be presented at the holy font of Baptism In the mean time prepare some very ample request whatever you think good of and upon return from the Christening just at your going out of the Church present it confidently to my son I will instruct him that shall carry him in his arms to take it and do what then shall be needfull When he is returned to the house I will do the rest and hope so much from the mercifull hand of God that we shall have all we desire The Bishops assembled fail not to present their request causing therein to be inserted not onely the destruction of the Temple but also many priviledges and immunities in favour of their Churches The day of Baptism being come all the Citie is Baptism of Theodosius adorned and hanged in such sort that it seemed a little Heaven where the Sun and Stars smiled out of their houses The infant is carried in solemn pomp to the Font washed and regenerated with the water of Baptism by the hands of S. John Chrysostom who gave him the name of Theodosius his Grandfather and then adopted him for his spiritual child Baptism ended they went out of the Church in very good order The Princes and Lords of the Court glittered in robes of their degrees as stars the Court of Guard was in very good equipage the number of those who attired in white bare burning tapers in their hands was so great that they seemed to equal the lights of Heaven The Emperour Arcadius was there in person appearing that day with a most singular majestie as he who had given an Emperour to the world Near to the father the little Theodosius was carried who drew tears of joy from all the people The Bishops Porphyrius and John beheld this goodly procession to pass along and in the mean time spied their opportunitie They failed not to approach near as the Empress had instructed them and with a lowly obeysance presented their petition to the infant The Gentleman who bare him in his arms received it and opened it as if he would make the little Theodosius to read it afterwards skilfully guiding him with his hand he made him bow his head upon which he cried out aloud speaking to the Emperour who was near Sacred Majesty our little Master agreeth unto all whatsoever these good Prelates have asked of him and in speaking this held the petition upon his breast The people credulous and desirous to flatter the Emperour thinking the infant had made this inclination of his own motion began at that instant to thunder with loud acclamations of joy congratulating with the Emperour that he had a son who through forwardness of judgement already received petitions As soon as they were come to the Palace the mother who had contrived all this business made it to be read to her over and over as a thing she had never thought on before and straightways commandeth in the presence of the Emperour to open the petition once again There was to be read the destruction of the temple of Marna and many immunities which the Bishops earnestly demanded The Emperour knew not which way to turn him well knowing