extream love Jesus the most supream and redoubted Judge who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world fire and lightening streaming from his face and all things trembling under his feet was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminal person Every thing is most admirable in this judgement The Accusers speak nothing of those things which they had resolved in their counsels but all spake against their consciences As soon as they are heard they are condemned justice forsaketh them and they are wholly possest with rage Pilate before he gave judgement upon Jesus pronounced it against himself for after he had so many times declared him innocēt he could not give judgement without protesting himself to be unjust The silence of Jesus is more admired by this infidel than the eloquence of all the world and Truth without speaking one word triumpheth over falshood A Pagan Lady the wife of Pilate is more knowing than all the Laws more religious than the Priests more zealous than the Apostles more couragious than the men of Arms when she sleepeth Jesus is in her sleep when she talketh Jesus is upon her tongue if she write Jesus is under her pen her letter defended him at the Judgement-Hall when all the world condemned him she calleth him holy when they used him like a thief She maketh her husband wash his hands before he touched that bloud the high price of which she proclaimed She was a Roman Lady by Nation called Claudia Procula and it was very fit she should defend this Jesus who was to plant the Seat of his Church in Rome All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his bloud he reconciles Herod and Pilate by the loss of his life He sets Barrabas at liberty by the loss of his honour he speaks not one word to him that had killed S. John the Baptist who was the voice And the other to revenge himself without thinking what he did shewed him as a King He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours that he might become for us the King of glories But what a horrour is it to consider that in this judgement he was used like a slave like a sorcerer like an accursed sacrifice Slavery made him subject to be whipped the crown of thorns was given onely to Enchanters and that made him appear as a Sorcerer And so many curses pronounced against him made him as the dismissive Goat mentioned in Leviticus which was a miserable beast upon which they cast all their execrations before they sent it to die in the desart He that bindeth the showers in clouds to make them water the earth is bound and drawn like a criminal person He that holds the vast seas in his fist and ballanceth Heaven with his fingers is strucken by servile hands He that enamels the bosom of the earth with a rare and pleasing diversity of flowers is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns O hydeous prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowfull darkness Behold what a garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head to expiate the sins of both Sexes It was made of briars and thorns which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us and which the virtue of his Cross took away All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins while we live in delicacies and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts to which though he that spake it gave the swiftness of wings yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts that it getteth leaden heels which make it continue there fixed Aspirations ALas what do I see here A crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns A man of dolours who burns between two fires the one of love the other of tribulation both which do inflame and devour him equally and yet never can consume him O thou the most pure of all beauties where have my sins placed thee Thou art no more a man but a bloudy skin taken from the teeth of Tigers and Leopards Alas what a spectacle is this to despoil this silk * * * Ego sum vermis non home Psalm 21. worm which at this day attires our Churches and Altars How could they make those men who looked upon thy chaste body strike and disfigure it O white Alabaster how hast thou been so changed into scarlet Every stroke hath made a wound and every wound a fountain of bloud And yet so many fountains of thy so precious bloud cannot draw from me one tear But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross who hath put thee within these thorns to make so great harmonies onely by thy silence O holy thorns I do not ask you where are your Roses I know well they are the bloud of Jesus and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns if they had any feeling of that which you have Jesus carried them upon his head but I will bear them at my heart and thou O Jesus shalt be the object of my present dolours that thou mayest after be the Fountain of my everlasting joys Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of JESUS CHRIST MOunt Calvarie is a marvellous scaffold where the chiefest Monarch of all the world loseth his life to restore our salvation which was lost and where he makes the Sun to be eclipsed over his head and stones to be cloven under his feet to teach us by insensible creatures the feeling which we should have of his sufferings This is the school where Jesus teacheth that great Lesson which is the way to do well And we cannot better learn it than by his examples since he was pleased to make himself passible and mortal to overcome our passions and to be the Authour of our immortality The qualities of a good death may be reduced to three points of which the first is to have a right conformity to the will of God for the manner the hour and circumstances of our death The second is to forsake as well the affections as the presence of all creatures of this base world The third is to unite our selves to God by the practise of great virtues which will serve as steps to glory Now these three conditions are to be seen in the death of the Prince of Glory upon Mount Calvarie which we will take as the purest Idea's whereby to regulate our passage out of this world 1. COnsider in the first place that every man living hath a natural inclination to life because it hath some kind of divinity in it We love it when it smileth upon us as if it were our Paradise and if it be troublesom yet we strive to retain it though it be accompanied with very great miseries
doth not this capon seem good meat to you He comming as it were out of a trance How is this capon then Sir I pray you pardon us for we took it for cabbage else verily none of us had touched it X. Not to out-run the hours of repast through impatience not to be so addicted to serve our curiosities and delights that thereby we leave not a good dinner to do a good work Is it not a shameful thing of one Hugucchio who lost two towns as Hugucchio lost two cities for a dinner Jovius relateth for fear he should loose a good meal so that it being at the same instant in his power to give order for a revolt which was plotted he rather chose to sit out his dinner and by this means forsook a fair opportunity XI To content ones self with a little upon occasion as the young Theodosius who thought he had made a good meal when he had eaten certain fops of bread steeped in water within the Cell of an Hermit The wise Hebrews have a proverb which saith Man is known by three things by anger by his purse by his glass It is a note of a well mortified spirit Man known by 3. things when complaints are never made of wants that happen in service for the mouth XII To speak willingly of sobriety yea even in a feast like the Persians or frame some other honest discourse which may give refection to the soul while the body taketh his and beg perpetually of God to deliver us from the necessities of the body and that he weaken in us these base concupiscences of the flesh that we may preserve for him this his tabernacle in all purity The five and twentieth SECTION Practice of Modesty MOdesty is a branch of temperance a goodly Modesty is important and eminent virtue which seemeth as it were to incorporat our soul and make her visible in her actions whose office is to guid the motions gestures words mirth habit gate and garb and all that which appertaineth to the exteriour ornament of the body Her actions are I. To govern the tongue to speak truth in time To speak what and place roundly and freely without deceit palliation boasts impostures detractions II. Never to have a bitter and furious silence prying into anothers words nor to use a tattle unmannerly clamorous and tiresome catching the word out of another mans mouth as little chickens do who snatch bits one from another It was the comparison which father Gontery of happy memory used III. Not to be magistral with a counterfeited gravity nor riotous haughty fierce rude no buffon nor loud laugher A fool saith the wiseman crackleth in laughing as thorns in the fire IV. Not to have your tongue either of too high Tone of voice or low a tone but moderat distinct in sweet honest ordinary intelligible accents V. To have the composition of your countenance Countenance pleasing gratious modest without crabbedness or affectation the carriage of your body native comely free from extraordinary gestures Not to have a giddy head like a linnet always shaking no wrinkled brow nor crumpled nose no perplexed visage nor eyes wandring wanton or proud VI. The apparel neither superfluous fantastik nor Habit. dissolute without too much affecting new fashions nor peremtorily out of your own conceit tying your self to the old but to attend your own condition and remain in the lists of the modesty which is most practised by the wisest Above all let women beware they set not to sale to carnal eyes that nakedness of their breasts which may serve for baits for sin The Scripture saith Whosoever shall cause sparkles of fire to flie into another mans corn shall be acountable for all the dammage which the flames shall make VII To acquire modesty it is good to represent Means to acquire modesty to your self often before your eyes our Saviour conversing upon earth and to pray him he will give us a soul pure and radiant like a star which impresseth his rays upon the body as the Sun on a cloud in and through all to edifie our neighbour The six and twentieth SECTION Practice of prudence and carriage in conversation HAve you observed a fish in the natural history Isidore Uranoscope which the Grecians call Uranoscopus as one would say the beholder of heaven This admirable creature contrary to the nature of others hath but one eye which is as it were a vertical point fixed directly in the top of his head ever elevated and perpetually open to discover so many labyrinths of snares and treacheries as commonly are in the sea Some will say it is Tobias his fish a notable creature which not onely contributeth his gall to illuminate the eyes of the body but his example to enlighten the eyes of the mind It is a true Hierogliph of prudence which telleth us we should at this day converse in the world as in a sea full of monsters tempests rocks perils surprises and that we must have the eye of prudence throughly awakened and purified to preserve and maintain it among so many hazards This prudence in a word according to S. Bernard S. Bernard serm de Vâ—lico is nothing els but the knowledge of good and evil which sheweth how we should demean our selves and the ways we should tread in the course of our life and affairs It is one of the principal virtues because Importance of prudence all our actions depend on it Yea prudence holdeth them as it were enfolded in the plaits of her robe and unfoldeth them according to place time persons occasions which to know is to know all It is said a French King enquiring one day of a man who was held in great reputation of wisdom after divers instructions to govern himself and guide his Kingdom this wise man took a fair large sheet of paper and for an infinite number of precepts which others use to produce upon this subject he onely wrot this word Modus Measure or Mean All wisdom reduced to one word thereby inferring that the whole mysterie of our wisdom and felicity consisteth in doing things with grace fashion and measure and that is it which prudence teacheth We speak not here in particular of the Religious oeconomical military politike monarchical but in general of the direction of life in ordinary conversation For that seemeth annexed to the virtue of modesty Imagine to your self that prudence as antiquity hath presented it unto us Prudence a hand sprinckled with eyes Five fingers of prudence in their Hierogliphs is a hand enchased with eyes which hath five remarkeable fingers wherein all discreet actions are contained These five fingers are memory understanding circumspection fore-sight execution which is to say that for the practice of this virtue I. A good memory is necessary to remember things Memory passed as well what one hath read in books as those which are observed by proper experience for that much
house he used her not in the quality of a Queen nor a wife but of a poor sacrifice which he caused to be shut up commanding to murder her as often he he fell into any danger of his own life for fear some other should enjoy her after his death shall find the Ladie had most just cause to make him this answer Herod notwithstanding who would not afford such liberty was so moved with these words as it was a great chance he had not laid violent hands upon her shewing by his eyes sparkling with anger his shrill voice and hands lifted up he would proceed to force And as he stamped up and down transported with rage acting his anger like a fencer without Mariamne's reply to any one word the perfidious Salome thought it was now high time to strike her stroke She sent a trusty servant Strange mischief whom she a long time had suborned to cause him to depose a calumny as wicked as ridiculous to wit that Mariamne having a purpose to give Herod a love-drink had addressed her self to him who was cup-bearer to the King to corrupt him with many promises to which he never had given ear For the rest he had such instruction given him that if perhaps Herod should ask what this potion was he should answer without further difficulty it was the Queens invention and that herein she onely required the service of his hand This wicked fellow entered into the chamber in cold bloud and very seriously makes oath hereof whereupon Herod who was already enkindled becoming more enflamed than ever thought within himself he must no longer wonder from whence these his impatiences in love proceeded At that instant he caused an Eunuch to be laid hold on one of the Queens most trusty servants supposing nothing was done without his knowledge He putteth him to the torture causing him to be most cruelly tormented of purpose that his body very feeble not being able to endure the violence of tortures and on the other side having nothing to say against his good Ladie in whose conversation he had never perceived any thing but honour and virtue should for a long time remain in very great perplexities In the end he let a word fall saying he had seen Sohemus talk a long while in secret with Queen Mariamne as framing some relation to her and that after this very time he well perceived she was troubled Herod had no sooner heard this word It is enough said he take him from the torture and let Sohemus be called Sohemus knew nothing what had passed and lived in great contentment having very lately obtained a good government by the Queens recommendations He was wholly amazed they laid hold upon him and would enforce him to confess the discourse which he had with Mariamne during this specious imprisonment But he persisting in denial is massacred in the place Herod retired into his cabbinet Death of Sohemus drinking in deep draughts the gall and poyson of his deadly choller and contriving in his heart the fury which he soon after was to shew in publick For without giving any truce to his spirit he assembled his Prive-Counsel and sendeth for the Queen who expected nothing less than such proceeding This monster who always endeavoured to give colour of justice to his most exorbitant actions beginneth a long speech which he had prepared at leisure and while every one was in horrour and silence not knowing what would be the catastrophe of the Tragedy except the couragious Mariamne who was armed with an invincible constancy against all exigents he speaketh unto them in such like words SIRS It seemeth God will counterpoize the prosperities Oration of Herod against his wife of my state by the misfortunes of my house I have found safety in winds and tempests in so many painfull voyages as I have undertaken so many thorny affairs which I have ended to find a storm in my own Palace You are not ignorant how I have cherished the whole family of Hircanus within my bosom in a lamentable time when it was in decay and confusion for recompence whereof as if I had hatched the egs of a serpent I have got nothing but hisses and poyson God knoweth how often I have dissembled and how often I haue cured my self by patience Notwithstanding I cannot so harden my heart but that it may be softened and ever become penetrable to a new wound Behold the Queen my wife who following the steps of her mother is always ready to disquiet my repose As soon as I was returned from the voyage so full of danger as you know I brought her news of the happy success of my affairs She shewing the little account she made both of my state and person at that time heard me with so great disdain that what endeavour of courtesie soever I used never could I extort from her pride one good word And afterward not contenting herself therewith she proceeded to very bloudy injuries which I love better to conceal for the honour of yours ears and come to deeds Behold one of my faithful servants who testifieth she would have suborned him to give me a love-potion to wit a poyson of purpose to turn my brain or take away the life which God reserveth for me to acknowledge the many good offices which you all in general and each one in particular have afforded me Thus you see how I am returned my head crowned with lawrel honoured and courted by the prime men of the world to serve as a sport for the malice and a mark for the treachery of a woman whom I cannot reclaim by the force of love nor benefits no more than if she were a Lyoness Consider what you ought to do I deliver her into the bands of your justice not willing to direct my self herein by my own advise to the end posterity may know that my proper interests are ever seated beneath the truth Herod speaking these words would seem less passionate putting all tortures upon his natural disposition plyable enough But he notwithstanding so vehemently fretted that all the Counsel knew well he was in heat of choller and that his purpose was no other but to ruin the poor Queen She is summoned to answer at that instant without an Advocate The glorious Amazon Grand-child of the Machabees Admirable modesty of the poor Queen and Inheritrix of their patience being presented before this wicked tribunal 28. years before the coming of the Son of God did then what he afterward taught us most remarkably by his example Never from her mouth was heard one syllable of impatience never did she use one sole word of recrimination and being able to declare to the Counsel a thousand and a thousand outrages received by herself and the persons of her nearest allies she swalloweth all these bitternesses with a patience more than humane Onely saith she that as concerning the essential Article of this accusation to wit The love-potion which was objected against
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
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
the tongue From thence it cometh to pass that children are framed to this exercise almost from their cradle Women yea they who make account to refine in devotion keep now adays shops of counterfeiting the Dissimulation reigneth every where great-ones think it is their trade the mean who are as their shadows take the same course The world becomes a Theater of fictions where truth hath much ado to be known so many false visages are put upon it To speak truly one would say the earth had changed its nature and were now become a Sea where the simple like poor creeping worms are abandoned to the malice of the most subtile It was a worthy speech of the Prophet who said to God Alas Lord have you then made so many mortals like silly Habac. 1. 14. Facies homines quasi pisces maris quasi reptiles fishes and wretched worms which have no government Deceit hath sowed its subtilities every where it hath every where spred nets and snares and never ceaseth to drive take and entrap and it seems would catch the whole world with its book It rejoyceth at its own crime as if it were a virtue and maketh sacrifices with the instruments of mischief It judgeth of happiness by the multitude of preys and acknowledgeth no other God but it s own good fortune 2. Now as for you who are perswaded in this Maxim that to prosper in conversation with men and affairs of the world necessarily the foxe's skin must be put on simplicity being too sottish and disarmed to bear any sway in humane life I pray at leisure 1. Reason against counterfeiting the blemish of truth consider some reasons which I intend to present and rather weigh them in the ballance of judgement than of Passion First know that in the instant you resolve to be crafty to be a lier a deceiver you proclaim war against a great Divinity which will follow you step by step all your life time which will discover you when you shall not know it even to the bottom of your thoughts which will overthrow all your pernicious intentions and hold the sword of God's vengeance over your head even to the gates of hell This puissant adversary against whom you undertake The power of truth resistance if you as yet know it not is truth the most ancient and admirable of all virtues which hath ever been and which shall never end nay could you make your thoughts penetrate into an abyss of time and could you flie through ten millions of Ages there should you find truth But if you say it was not before Heaven and earth and that in pronouncing this word you had some reason which cannot be at the least denying verity and speaking truth yet must you find truth so necessary is its being It runs through time saith S. Augustine not August l. 2. de liber arb Non peragitur tempore non migrat locis nec nocte intereipitut nec uâ—bra includitur nec sensibus corporis subjacet omnibus proxima omnibus sempiterns c. being under the laws of time it passeth through all and shifteth not place it is hidden in night not obscured by night it is in the shadow not shut up in shadows it is not subject to sense since it swayeth over understandings It is always near us nay let us rather say It is within us or we live in it and although it do not occupie place it possesseth all place in its Empire It exteriourly giveth notice it appeareth inwardly it turneth all into the better and is not changed by any into worse Of it unless belied one cannot think ill and without it unless by flattery of self presumption we cannot enough discern What then shall we say more since God himself is Truth verity of Essence verity of Reason verity of Speech as Theologie teacheth us All virtues are truly for him but he is not called by their names as he is by the title of truth (a) (a) (a) Ego sum via veritas vita Joan. 14. 10. It is the apple of his eye his heart his solace his delight his power his wisdom his throne and dignity All what God is is nothing but verity It penetrateh all virtues as fire and light do all the parts of the world There is not any thing so victorious or triumphant in all greatness for it never ceased since the beginning of the world to crush heads which rebel against light It hath untwisted so many webs scattered so many wyles overthrown so maÌ„y lies brought to nothing so many sects destroyed so many humane powers trampled under foot so many dragons And you who pretend to be the cunning and refined spirits of the time renounce it you take up arms against it and are not afraid of it you think to avoid it but it will avoid you and the first of your afflictions shall be to loose sight of it O my God what a bold enterprize is it to draw a strong adversary upon us and to provoke thy justice when we may enjoy thy Clemency Remember you the son of Cyrus who closely attempted A notable Act or a King of Aethiopa Herod l. 3. on Aethiopia with his arms and prepared to make war against it But the King thereof to stay him was pleased to send him his bowe and caused to be said unto him Adbunc venus that is you come against the Master of this bowe He was so amazed at the sight of this armory that he surceased from the temerity of his counsels to provide for the safety of his person Now had you seen the arms of truth which from so many Ages have quailed so many monsters and gained so many victories you would fear to contest with such a Princess She will never forsake you if you renounce untruth and if you do it not on earth you will be enforced to do it in hell Hyppocrates gave the eyes of a star to truth but should Hippoc. ep 10. he have seen her face more uncovered he had said it was a Sun which illuminateth by its light animateth the best spirits by its vivacity as it dissipateth the mists of lies by virtue 3. Besides not content with this when you in this Reason 2 manner undertake discourses of silk and promises of Dissimulation ruineth humane faith wind to reveal a secret to lay snares for the simplicity of a man to satisfie yovr passion or serve your ends you commit another crime most pernicious to humane society for you seek by these sleights to ruin all belief and fidelity The Ancients made so much account of humane saith which is constancy and stedfastness of words consonant to the heart and performance of promises that the Romans placed it in their Capitol close by the side of their prime Divinity and one of their Poets durst say Faith was Excellency of fidelity Cato Censorius Silius Ante Jovem generatum est tantum in pectore Numen before Jupiter
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
Monarch chusing rather to suffer with his Brethren as saith S. Paul then to taste any more the sweetnesses of a temporall glory It is an act of prudence to steal away from the fury of a wicked Prince who holds for enemy all that there is of virtuous and to hide ones self as those Rivers that go a long way under ground without being seen of any one and then unexpectedly produce themselves to water the meadows to bear boats to serve for a knot to the commerce of men and to make Islands and Beauties for the ornament of Nature These retirings have been advantageous to many whom they have hid for a time with an intention to set them afterward in bright day The fire which devours every thing hath no more to do with the ashes and the rage of Tyrants that swallows up every thing thinks no more on those that enter while they live as it were into the sepulchre of a life unknown to all the world Moses passed from one extremity to another without the middle when forsaking the Court after a stay of fourty years he went to range himself in the life of shepherds and remained as one lost in the world to find himself with God He withdrew himself into the countrey of the Midianites where he had at first approach a pleasing encountre that made him find a commodious dwelling and a marriage according to his heart The sacred History sayes that Jethro a Priest and Shepherd in that Region had sent seven daughters whereof he was the father to draw water at a fountain for their flocks to drink and that having met with other shepherds insolent enough that taking a pride to insult over the infirmity of that sex ceased not to harry them and to hinder them from the use of an Element that nature had made to slide for the commodity of the publick Moses that had the quality of Plato's Magistrate whom he would have to be zealous and courageous for the defence of Justice could not endure the insolence of those wicked men and takes the maidens part whom he defended against oppression with so much successe as that he chased away their adversaries and gave them free liberty to draw water For which they thought themselves very much obliged and failed not to make a large relation to their father of the courtesie of that Egyptian that had taken them into his protection Their father received him into his house and took so much pleasure in his conversation that he gave him one of his daughters in marriage and allied him to his family by an indissoluble amity This new son-in-law accustomed himself to a countrey life and practised the laborious exercises of shepherds so true it is that able men bend their spirit whither they will and are good at doing every thing habituating themselves to persons and to places where their lot hath ranged them bearing equally want and abundance and shewing by their example that there is no life in the world so strange that may not serve for matter to virtue But without speaking yet of the great secrets that God kept hidden in this ordering of Moses I find that it was the means to make a great States-man of him because that Philosopher which hath deserved the title of Divine sayes that a good King is nothing else but a shepherd of a reasonable flock and that he ought to take his first Rudiments from the manner of ordering sheep to succeed well in the Government of Kingdomes that he ought to see the tender love the cares and the toils of the true shepherds to learn how he ought to demean himself towards his Subjects Moses had all leasure to lay those grounds tarrying as many years in his Countrey life as he had before passed at Court and ceasing not to play the Philosopher and to contemplate in that great School of Nature where God spake to him and taught him lessons through the veil of all the Creatures O how little did the pompous pride of the Pharaoh's then seem to him O how contemptible then did seem all those beauties of dust and those fortunes of wind that are at Court His heart dilated it self in the greatnesses of God and became every day wiser then it self This long solitude having purged him from the impurities of the earth rendred him capable of the visits and commerce of God and the time destined to the deliverance of his people being now at hand as he went along entertaining his thoughts he was got farre into the desert and perceived that miraculous Bush all crowned with innocent flames that gave it a delightfull beauty and the fire that consumes every thing seemed rather to dresse then to offend it God meaning to signifie by this the estate of his chosen people for whom the burning coals of Persecution prepared an high lustre of glory Moses charmed with this Vision draws near and hears a voyce out of the middle of the Bush that calls him and having commanded him to put off his shooes through reverence speaks with him and declares to him its will about the going out of Egypt which the Israelites were to enterprise and execute under his command To speak truth this was one of the greatest Colloquies and one of the highest Discourses that was ever under Heaven wherein the Sovereign Master seated upon a Throne of Fire talked with the most excellent man of all Ages touching the means to break the chains of six hundred thousand men besides women and little children that groaned under an horrible Captivity and drowned every day a part of their life in their tears Moses that was now totally accustomed to the sweetnesse of his solitude refused at first to be the Negotiatour of a businesse of so great importance and to betake himself again to the Court of Egypt to treat with Pharaoh alledging his inability the incredulity of the people and the impediment of his speech to free himself from that Embassage But God having assured him that he was He that is that is to say The absolute Being the Independent and the first Originall of all Essences that would be with him and would give him for a companion his brother Aaron who was eloquent enough and in fine having confirmed him by prodigious Miracles that he caused to be done in his presence wan him and made him consent to his will Aristotle in the fifth of his Politicks hath said That of all the things that cause the subversions of Kingdomes and of Empires there was not any more pernicious then Injustice and Oppression of the innocent which may be observed clearly in this proceeding For behold the ruine of a great Realm procured by the cruelty of the Ministers of Pharaoh who by his consent and orders turmoiled incessantly a people miserable and afflicted above all measure Their piercing clamours so many times redoubled clave the clouds and were carried by the Angels even up to the Heaven of heavens represented before the Throne of
reveals to me nor speak any more in his name but then I selt a fire boiling in my heart that was shut up in the marrow of my bones and I fell into a swoon and could not endure the violence of my thoughts without unloading my self by the tongue and publishing that which you inspired into me And for this behold me reduced to irons And have I not good cause to say that which miserable men use to say That the day of my nativity in regard of originall sin and so many calamities that spring from that source is lamentable and cursed and that it were to be wished that the womb of my mother that bare me had been my sepulchre Wherefore did I come out of the bowels of a woman to be a spectatour of so many sorrows and so much confusion The Saints speak sometimes like men according to the sense of the inferiour part of the soul especially when they see themselves overwhelmed with great evils but God raises them up immediately and makes them resume the tongue of heaven As the Prophet was deploring his miseries in that dark prison God gave lights and remorses to his persecutour that came the next day to deliver him either through some compassion or because he had attempted that beyond the limits of his authority The prisoner instead of expressing some kind of weaknesse spake more boldly then before fore-telling even to Pashur that he should be led captive into Babylon and that he should die there the other not daring to enterprise any thing against him After that very time Jeremy betook himself to the Palace to speak with the King and with the Queen his wife to advertise them of the utmost misery that menaced their Crown if they did not make an entire conversion to God to give an example to their Subjects Besides this he gave some State-counsel and told the King that since God had permitted that he should be subdued by the Arms of the King of Babylon that had put him on the Throne and to whom he had promised Faith Homage and Tribute he should do well to keep his promises inviolable rather then to adhere to the King of Egypt and expect the assistance of his Arms. This was the most important point of State that concerned the safety of all the kingdome Neverthelesse King Zedekiah whose spirit was a little soft hearkned to the advice and took sometimes fire but it was but for a little time he being no way constant in his good resolves When he saw himself menaced with a siege by the King of the Babylonians he was affrighted and inclined a little to his side but assoon as he perceived that he diverted his arms another way he brake his promised faith being weary of the rigour of the Tributes that the other exacted of him Thereupon Jeremy ceased not to publish that it was an errour to expect that the army of Pharaoh King of Egypt which was reported to be upon its march to help Jerusalem should do any good that it should return upon its own steps without enterprising any thing that Nebuchadonozor was not so farre off but that in a small time he would render himself before the city to besiege and win it That it was a decree of God and although the Army of the Chaldeans should be defeated yet those that remained though wounded and sick should be sufficient to take Jerusalem abandoned of the Divine protection When he had spoken this publickly he resolved to retire himself for a time and to go into the countrey but he was taken at the gate of the city by Irijah that accused him falsly and said that he was going to render himself to the army of the Chaldeans whereupon he carried him under a good guard to the Magistates who having beaten and ill used him sent him to prison where he remained many dayes without consolation At last the King having heard of what had happen'd to him caused him to come secretly to him and spake to him to conjure him to tell the truth whether those Predictions that he ceased not to sow in the ears of all the world were Revelations from God whereof the Prophet assured him again and gave him some good incitement to incline to the most wholesome counsels Poor Jeremy seeing this Prince use him kindly said unto him Alas Sir what have I done and in what have I offended your Majesty to be used as a rogue by those that usurp your authority What crime have I committed by telling you the truth Where are your false Prophets that said that there was no need to fear the coming of Nebuchadonozor and that he had other businesse to dispatch is he not at length come to verifie my Prophecies Since you do me the honour at present to hear me My Lord and my Master hearken to my most humble request and grant me a courtesie that I desire of you in the Name of God which is that I may no more return into the prison out of which your Majesty hath caused me to be drawn for the continuation of the evils that I have suffered there is able suddenly to tear my soul from my body and it will be but a grief to you to deliver me to death for having given you counsels of life and safety The King was softned by the words of the Prophet but he was so timorous that he durst not take the boldnesse to cause a prisoner to be delivered by his absolute authority fearing the reproaches and out-cryes of those that would have the upper end in all affairs He caused onely the goaler to be bid to use him a little kindlier taking him out of the black dungeon to give him a place more reasonable and to have a care that in that great famine of the city he should not want bread This was executed and he staid some time at the entrance of the prison with a little more liberty during which he spake again to those that visited him and said freely That there was no way to escape the sacking of the city but by rendring themselves to the Chaldeans This made Pashur and his complices incensed again with a great wrath and speak insolently to the King that Jeremy might be delivered to them publishing that he was worthy of death that he was a seditious fellow that did nothing but make the people mutiny and separate them from their obedience to him The miserable Zedekiah that had let these men take too high an ascendent upon his person had not strength of spirit enough to resist them but against his conscience abandoned his poor Prophet to them although it was with some regret These wicked men having taken him let him down with cords into a deep pit of the prison which was full of mire and filth where he expired the remainder of his deplorable life and had dyed there of miseries if God had not raised him up a protectour of whom he never so much as dreamed There was in
resolve to examine the Processe himself The Saint was presented before one of the most corrupt Judges under heaven he was brother to Pallas a servant infranchized who in the Reign of Claudius was the God of the times and Felix as Cornelius Tacitus doth affirm being covered with the great power and favour of his brother did usurp the Authority of a King which he managed with a servile spirit making Cruelty and Lasciviousnesse to reign with equal power in his Government He was the husband or rather the adulterer of three Queens and she who then possessed him was called Drusilla who was the daughter of that Agrippa who was in chains by Tiberius of whom I have made mention in the Tome of the Maxims and descended from the bloud of Mariamna She was married to one named Azizus King of the Emmessaeans but because that Royalty was of no great extent she preferred the President above the King so that Felix courting her for her rare beauty she did willingly forsake her husband to espouse the brother to the great Favourite Pallas who lived then under a most high consideration She conversed with him according to the Law of the Jews and was almost as nice in the curiosity of Religions as of her beauties which was the reason that the more to gratifie her Felix did cause S. Paul to be brought before him He was brought in chains before the President and S. Paul before the Tribunall of Felix the Prince of the Priests failed not to make his appearance at Cesarea with the Antients of the Jewish Nation who brought with them an Advocate named Tertullus to plead against S. Paul which he performed coldly enough But the great Champion of Jesus Christ did defend himself with so great a vivacity of spirit that the Judge did clearly discover that he was not guilty of any fault which was the occasion that he used him with the more humanity and told him that at leisure he would decide that businesse himself in the mean time he permitted him to live at more liberty not hindering any to come unto him and administer things necessary for his life yet for all this he was still under a guard of Souldiers Not long after Felix called for him and his wife Drusilla comes to hear him Drusilla who was the cause of his more gentle usage did speak unto him in the presence of her husband and desired to hear him on his discourses of Faith which gave a fair occasion to our Apostle to speak who driving on his Discourse with vigour did so enlarge himself on the subject of Justice of Chastity and of universall Judgement that Felix was much afraid and interrupted his Discourse fearing that he should leave some Scruples on the conscience of his wife concerning their marriage It is easie to conjecture that this poor Princesse was much shaken at it although the chains of Love and of Ambition did so link her to the world that we do not reade that she was absolutely converted to the Faith and number of the Christians Felix stopping his ears to Judgement did open his eyes to money and having learned that S. Paul had brought great sums of Charity unto Jerusalem he oftentimes spoke with him and seemed to make much of him hoping to gain something from him but when he perceived that there was nothing to be had and that the time of his Commission was expired he left Saint Paul to the discretion of Festus his successour desiring in that to gratifie the Jews and to divert the accusation which they intended at Rome against him Festus being arrived at Jerusalem was invironed Festus renews the Processe S. Paul appealeth to Rome by the chief of the Jews who with importunity did demand that Paul might be sent to Rome to be judged there having a design to kill him by the way But the President did deny them and did command them to come to Cesarea where he would continue in the expectation of them Thither they did transport themselves violently to follow their Accusations which were all effectually answered and confuted by S. Paul who did demonstrate that he had offended neither their Law nor the Temple nor Cesar Festus to content the importunity of the Jews did demand of him if he would go to Jerusalem to decide the controversie there but he refused the Jurisdiction of those perverse people and said That he stood at the Tribunall of Cesar and would have no other Judge and that he appealed to the Emperour The Judge had some debate thereupon and it was resolved that he should be sent to Rome In the mean time the young King Agrippa the son The young Agrippa King of Judea with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of Paul of that Agrippa before specified came to Cesarea with his sister Bernice to complement the new Governour who received them with great courtesie and amongst other things he made a relation to them of his prisoner which possessed them both with a great curiosity to see him Festus did invite them to the Audience at which on the next morning they appeared with great pomp This was a great Theatre which God had prepared for the publishing of the Gospel where were present a King a Queen the Governour of the Romans the principall of the Nation of the Jews and an infinit number of people who did attend the successe of that action S. Paul having received commandment to speak made a long discourse couched in the Acts of the Apostles where he rendred a reason of his Faith and spake most worthily of the Resurrection of the dead of his Conversion to Christianity of the Apparition of Jesus of the Publication of the Gospel and of the Prophecies that did forego it He declared himself with so much ardency that Festus the President who was a Festus touched with the words of S. Paul Heathen and found his Pagan conscience wounded by his truths was constrained to interrupt him and to tell him That much learning had made him mad but S. Paul replyed to him That he spoke the words of Truth and Sobriety and turning from him to King Agrippa he took him to witnesse it as being one who was not ignorant of the Prophets This young King was so ravished at it that he professed publickly to the Apostle that he had felt him in his heart and that he had almost perswaded him to be a Christian whereupon S. Paul made a great acclamation of joy wishing him that happinesse to be like him in all things his Bonds excepted not judging that this Prince was yet an object capable of the Crosse He was of a sweet condition but he had then great obstacles which hindred him from embracing the saving Truth Bernice who assisted at that Audience was a most lovely Princesse the sister of this Agrippa and Drusilla but not so happy in the reputation of her Honour as of her Beauty She was married first unto her uncle and
himself and gave all things The one lived in the Court of Nero the other in the Courts of Jesus Christ The one defied Persecutions in his Discourse the other did bear them engraven in his Body The one had a considerable estate the other had nothing yet possessed all things The life of the one was exposed to Honours and the Delights of the world the Life of the other was altogether composed of the Crosse To conclude all in few words Seneca had excellent The evill opinion of the Stoicks to trust altogether to themselves without acknowledging the Grace and the assistance of God Precepts of Virtue but he derived them from an evill Principle which was to hold fast to himself and to conceive that by his own power he was sufficient of himself without any need of assistance from above inasmuch that we may imagine that we hear him speak That a Wiseman may passe by God and take no great notice of him and live without him as contentedly as himself From this great Illusion proceeded Arrogance from Arrogance Ignorance of the Truth from Ignorance Feeblenesse from Feeblenesse a Confusion both in the life and in all the wisdome of the Stoicks From hence it came to passe that having braved it on the paper they found themselves too short for great actions and had their pens farre longer then their hands They made a flight but without one wing to virtue contenting themselves to have brought some weak lenitives to their malady and not endeavouring to rout it out And although that Seneca did live uprightly according to the Morall Virtues yet being forcibly tied to the world by his Honours Dignities Riches the Wherefore Seneca prevailed so little for the reformation of Manners at the Court. Cares of this life and his indeavours to preserve himself at Court he could not dispense any strong influence on the body of the Estate by reason of the defect both of Example and Practice The Sun and the Moon may both make a Rain-bowe in the front of heaven but that of the Moon will be feeble and obscure in comparison of that of the Sun which will be all luminous and immailed with Emerauds and with Rubies Seneca did make at Rome a Rain-bowe of the Moon which had in it much imperfection and clouds and darknesse But S. Paul made the Rain-bowe of the Sun visibly producing the brightnesse and the beauties of the eternall Wisdome As the Principles therefore of the Philosophy of The Grace of Jesus and the Crosse are the two Principles of S. Paul Seneca were to reduce all to himself and to study his own particular consent so the Principles of S. Paul were quite contrary to attribute all to the Grace of Jesus Christ and in the imitation of him to love desire and seek after the Crosse and the Persecutions attending on it In those two Maximes he doth establish all the Greatnesse and the Glory of the City of God which he doth prove deduce and presse with instant importance in all his Epistles As for that which pertains to the Grace of Redemption never man before him spake more clearly or more divinely then he hath done in his Epistles to the Romans to the Galathians and to the Hebrews He is the thundering and the lightning Cherubin on the chariot of the God of Hosts who ceaseth not to shoot forth his inevitable and his flaming arrows against the head of the pompous Wisdome of this world He makes it apparent how all the antient Philosophers who were thought to be the Gods of Sciences and Letters do vanish away in their proud imaginations and how they are faln into a Reprobate sence blind and ignorant who have transformed the Divinity into hideous forms of serpents and monsters feeble and caytiffe who having filled their books with Precepts have abandoned themselves to base and shamefull actions and have overthrown all the order of Nature From hence also he makes another Battel against the Jews who tied their happinesse and salvation to a dying Law to feeble Elements to Shadows flying before the first Rayes of the law of the Gospel He prised nothing but the Incarnate Word he breathed forth nothing but his Jesus who is the Desire of the eternall Mountains the Splendour of the Glory of the celestiall Father the Character of his Substance who by the virtue of his Word doth support the Universe who is our Wisdome our Justice our Sanctification and our Redemption there being no Name either in heaven or earth or on or under the waters by which we may be saved but the Name of Jesus His second Principle is the love of the Crosse and he doth publickly and loudly protest both to the great and to the small to the proud and to the humble that there is no Knowledge but in the crucified Jesus and that he is not come to preach him to them with painted Words according to the Wisdome and the Eloquence of men fearing by that means to make void the mystery of the Crosse but with the Virtue and the force of the God of the afflicted He esteems of Sceptres of Empires of Nobility of Beauty of Strength of Valour of Wisdome of Industry of Eloquence of all things in this world from Heaven unto the Deepâ— but as dung in comparison of the Crosse of his beloved Jesus on which by love he had ascended and there did rest as on a Throne from whence he condemned whatsoever this world did honour By these two Principles he arrived unto a most great Perfection which did fill him as well in the Intellectuall S. Paul his Perfection part as the Affective As for that which concerns the former he was enlightned with a most high and a most excellent Wisdome with the knowledge of all Nature with all the mysteries of our Faith with whatsoever is in Man with whatsoever the World locks from him in her Treasuries with Grace in all her Virtues and with Time in all the Turns and the Revolutions of his Being According to the heighth that the river Nilus riseth His high knowledge the other rivers do decrease and accordingly as Saint Paul did increase in the Wisdome of God all humane Science fell down before him even into the Abysme It is he who with all humility can speak that which Lucifer did usurp by pride I sit in the Ezek. 28. Chair of God I have been in the heart of the Deeps He was in the Chair of God when he spake as if he had been inclosed in the Word as the Vicar of his Powers the Dispenser of his Mysteries the Oracle of his Thoughts and the Interpreter of his Will He was in the heart of the Deeps when he was abysmed in the profound knowledge of the Beauties and the Perfections of the Incarnate Word of whom he never did lose the sight What an Abysme of Patience was he what a Dion de Divin Nomin S. Hierom. Epist 6. ad Pammach Trumpet of the Gospel
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
〈◊〉 Sixtus in Biblioth PP De Deo etiam vera loqui periculum est Hesychius in levitic it is an ulcer that ever itcheth and which without ceasing is iterated by continual scratching it is as a hors-leech which draweth out all the bad bloud and filleth till it burst It is a magpy a byting worm which taketh men by the ears as well as dogs But above all it is most pernicious in matter of Religion Sixtus an ancient Authour cited in the Bibliotheke of the Fathers hath spoken a thing very remarkable When a man speaketh of God yea with all veritie we must always therein proceed reservedly as if we trod upon thorns It were better saith S. John Chrysostom not to know him than to know him ill Hesychius teacheth us one must approach to him as to fire too great a distance maketh us quake with cold and over near approches burn us Secondly judge whether any bodie would not Perverse proceeding of the wicked say it were a great weakness of understanding to be desirous to proceed in matter of Religion by such knowledges as are common with bruit beasts and forsake those of men And yet this is it which you do when leaving the eye of understanding and the light of a rectified judgement which God hath given man by priviledge of excellency you will hear see and touch begging a truth from bruitish sense which is absolutely to raise them above their reach See you not how the Moon by her interposition eclipseth the Sun and when you in matter of faith interpose sense you obscure the light of judgement the true sun of your soul which dictateth to you that it is a thing most reasonable the creature should submit himself to the Creatour that it carefully keep it self from daring to comprehend him in the universality of his nature and shut up this vast Ocean in a little cockle-shel It is a pitiful thing to hear that these curious spirits should suffer themselves to be surprized by a quack-salving impostour who casteth mists afore their eyes by force of delusions and to contend with God who giveth them as many obligations and assurances of his promises as there are letters in the Scripture This Deus tot tantis voluminibus cavet debitor non tenetur Chrys serm 25. is not onely to crack the eye-string of a reasonable judgement but also to pull out the eye of faith all pure and celestial as it is You demand proofs of your Religion frantick man look back upon the birth the progress and state of the Church This is the great sign the Ladie clothed with the Sun Apocal. 12. which one cannot be ignorant of without a prodigious blindness Admit it were nothing to have for proof so great Invincible proofs of pietie so universal so constant consent of all the Prophets to presage many Ages before the effect the birth life death of the Messias the establishment of the Church the conversion of the Gentiles so determinately and punctually that even the most diabolical spirits who had from all times these Scriptures in their hands seeing this consequently to happen which succeeded in the oeconomie of Christianity were enforced to yield to truth That it were nothing to have seen through all Ages a thousand and a thousand miracles in Heaven in earth on the sea done in confirmation of Christianity in the sight of the most wittie and malicious who bent all their endeavour to censure reject and contradict them Notwithstanding the evidence was so palpable so strong so invincible that Tyrants yea the most enraged bloudy executioners convinced with the proofs thereof let fall the sword which they had taken in their hand for the slaughter of Martyrs and stretched out their necks to the persecutours to be beheaded That it were nothing to tell what a good Authour upon account taken hath observed that there hath been eleven millions of Martyrs of all sexes ages and conditions who have sealed the Religion which we profess by effusion of their bloud and in this list an infinite number of persons of eminent quality who considerately proceeded in the least occasions that have abandoned the easeful accommodations of their fortunes their estates dignities yea their scepters and diadems to deliver as a prey to most enormous and exquisite torments a most precious life which they might have led in honour in reputation according to the world in pleasures in delights in wonders That it were nothing to say that after persecutions there sprung up an infinitie of brave spirits intelligent clear-sighted furnished with all sorts of human knowledges as the Justins Tertullians Cyprians Augustines and so many other of the same profession who after they had seriously and judiciously examined the state of Christianity have embraced it professed it defended it some with their pen some with sweat and some with their bloud The Heavers are not enameled with so many stars as the Church hath had great men the prodigies and lights of the world who by their learned writings have illustrated the verities of our Religion I leave you to think if among so many great Suns which have garnished Heaven and earth with brightness one should behold a ridiculous reeremouse to creep out of a hole and say it is not day and that all these suns are but darkness whether he deserve not to be burnt and stampt to power That all this which I have said being very strong and specious enter not into the list of account what may one answer to two things which are Great force in two points very eminent in Christianitie the consideration whereof is of power to settle the most wavering spirit to wit the marvellous proceeding which hath been held in the establishment of our Religion and the most pure sanctitie of the doctrine thereof What is there humane in this law which is established against all humane ways by a success so strange and admirable that it engulfeth all spirits in wonder Where were in these beginnings eloquence favour of Princes their revenues their estate their arms their souldiers Where were the promises of honour reputation Establishment of the Church dignitie Where were the moving allurements of sense and all that which useth to feed and foment sects From whence cometh it that the Church Sola Ecclesia persecutionibut stetit marlyriis coronata est Crudelitas illecebra est sectae plures efficimur quoties metimur à vebis semen est sanguis Christianorum Hier. in vita Mala Tert. in Apol. c. 50. alone hath encreased under tempestuous storms in persecutions in the slaughters of three hundred years during which time there was no engine which hell used not no torment which the devil invented not no inventions which the Great-ones of the earth with powerful hand conspiring executed not All the plaistered pretended sects which have seemed desirous to take this away are quite vanished From whence it cometh to pass that the Church alone hath maintained
with much impudence and yet it seem modestie The malediction pronounced by the Prophet Ezechiel Vae qui consuunt pulvillos sub omni cubito manus against those who have little pillows of all sorts for the nice to lean upon may now well be renewed never hath there been so many flatteries seen The children of great men are soothed by all kind Flattery inebriateth great men from their cradle of tongues and made drunk with their praises before they be throughly awakened and seeing they are always bred in curiosity it seemeth when any truth is proposed them a Phenix is brought from the other world Servile souls which bend themselves like the fishers angling-line seeing their preferment dependeth upon their impertinent prating and that the Altars of this false greatness will be served with such smoke spare it no more than one would water in a river You shall find few or none that will tell the ape he is an ape this liberty of speech is extant in histories but not at all in our manners The gout seeketh out the houses of rich voluptuous men and flatterie the mansions of the eminent that is it which the Wise-man would say in the Proverbs according to the original translation Prov. 30. Simia manibus nititur moratur in domibus Regis Apes in the Court of So lomon The Hebrews literally understand it by the apes which Solomon caused to be transported by sea with those apes came flatterers and buffons to the Court of this great King which was the beginning of his unhappiness Those which flatter and those which willingly are flattered are much of the nature of the ape and all this tattle of Court is indeed a meer apishness Behold why that learned Prelate Faius Faius in manipulo whose manuscripts have very lately been extracted out of libraries doth most natively represent this verity unto us under the veil of a fiction He feigneth two men the one an extream flatterer A prety tale of an ape the other just and a truth-speaker came to lodge in the house of an old ape at that time encompassed with a plentiful race The ape asked of the flatterer what opinion he had of him This man accommodating himself to the time gave him many specious praises saying he was a vermillion rose and those that environed him were the leaves that he was a Sun and those that were about him were the rays that he was as valiant as a Lion and all his ofspring was a race of young Lions Behold saith the ape it is well and commanded a present to be given him When it came to the truth-speakers turn to say some what he revolved with himself that he could not tell a lie that his nature was always to be true that if his companion had a reward for telling a lie by much more reason he should be wellcome delivering the truth He thereupon freely said to him he was an ape and all those that attended him were apes like himself for which cause the apes provoked assailed him fiercely with their teeth and nails Behold the condition of this Age we cannot brooke a truth our ears being always stopped with perfumed words entertained with false praises and servile complacences Truth findeth no admittance and if happily she hit upon it her words are thorns they tear the skin The most indissoluble friendships in apparence are dissolved by a little freedom of a friend Then it is nothing strange if prating and intemperance of tongue be in such force since the soft temper of spirits of this time cannot endure any the least libertie of speech As we are excessive in praises so we hold no measure in reprehension Those who are absolutely sensible of the touches of honour and cannot tolerate a truth think that all other are insensible so prodigal they are of another mans fame They cut carve chop with the tongue on every side and you may find a feast where more raw flesh is devoured than either boyled or roasted Calumny Calumny doth at this present resemble the tail of the scorpion which either stingeth or ever is ready to transfix it hath never been seen more fiercely enflamed It is the wound of frogs described in â—xodus Et ascenderunt ranae operueruntque terram Aegypti Slander the wound of frogs It was a great scourge to behold these ugly creatures issuing out of Nilus to go crawling up and down the silken furnitures and golden plate of Pharao as well as over the poor cottages of beggars And a greater punishment it is at this day to hear these slanderous tongues pour forth their venom upon all sorts of persons and to assail as well the Miters the Diadems and Scarlet as the russet coat Every one sheweth the stroaks of calumny every one demanding oyl and balm for his wounds doth notwithstanding covertly hold a sharp lancet to wound anothers estimation The honour of Magistrates of Fabius declamat Pessimum humanarum mentium malum est quod semper avidiùs nefanda finguntur affirmationem sumit ex homine quicquid non habet ex veritate Two devils breath out calumny Ladies of young virgins many times most innocent is not spared most faithful servitours are traduced by the wills of calumny men are bold to speak any thing since many are willing to believe all Verily behold the greatest malignity that can be in the minds of men which is that they are pleased to dissemble an evil and that which hath no foundation of verity findeth colour and countenance from the mouth of a calumniatour Two evil spirits ordinarily breath out calumny the one planteth himself in the tongue of the detractour the other in the ears of the hearer They are two sundry winds whereof the one cometh from the gate the other from the window When they toss this tennis-ball one to another you see terrible sport After calumny cometh likewise scoffing with immodest and wicked words which are also put into the mouths of little children to make them witty and pleasing The little creatures doe not yet Scoffing the harbinger of Atheism know whether they have a tongue or no and we perceive they already are initiated in the work of Satan This spirit of scoffing and impurity which pleaseth it self with uncleanness of language is a harbinger of Athiesm that marketh him out a lodging and as it is said that the sea-rat goeth before the whale in the same manner gross and senseless impiety such as it is maketh use I know not of what kind of silly scoffing spirits which are taken to be the wise of the world under the colour that they can compose some bald sonnet whilst they themselves readily give the word when to laugh at it These are Buffons the flies of Aegypt Exod. 8. 27. the curiosities the entertainments the Idols of meetings Aaron striking the dust with his rod madeflies to spring up the greatest scourge of Aegypt I cannot tell who
not the hope of her husbands libertie having at that time prepared a new battery to dispose her father in law to clemency heard the tidings of the death of Alexander and withal of her own widdow-hood She a good space remained in a trance then mute as a statue last of all a little recollecting her spirits and casting out a sigh from the bottom of her heart Wo is me saith she I thought not Herod would have proceeded thus far Tell him the sacrifice of his cruelty is not finished for behold one part of the Victim is yet alive Alexander my dear Alexander who for ever in my heart shall survive needs must you end your innocent life by this infamous punishment Must you have him for executioner whom nature allotted you for a father At the least I might have been called to receive the last groans of thy pensive soul to embosom thy final words and enchase them in my heart Then turning herself to two little children which she had by her sides Poor orphans what a father have they snatched from you Alas you are timely taught the trade of misery The poor Ladie night and day disconsolately afflicted herself and being no longer able to endure the Court of Judea no more than a Lyons den she was sent back into Cappadocia to the King her father Herod kept with him the two sons under colour of their education but in effect to establish himself fearing least their name should serve for a pretext of some revolt O the providence of God! It seemeth you much slacken to fall upon guilty heads These young Princes sons of so virtuous a mother so well bred so well educated accomplished with so many excellent parts declared lawfull successours to the Crown these Princes who had been seen not above five years before to return in triumph from Rome to Jerusalem like the two twin-stars who guilded all Palestine with their rays these Princes that promised so many Tropheys so many wonders behold them in the sweetness of their years in the flower of their hopes at the gate of the Temple of honour for a small liberty of speech unworthily massacred in stead of a Diadem on their heads a halter about their necks and caused to be strangled by two Sergeants that so they might breath out their Royal souls under the hand of a hangman Behold the brave apprentiship which Herod exercised three year together about the time of the birth of our Saviour to prepare himself for actions much more enormous It was said of Silla that if Mercy had come upon the earth in humane shape he had slain her But Herod did much worse There remained nothing for him after so many slaughters but to embrew himself in the bloud of fourteen thousand Innocents and attempt upon the Son of God himself which presently after happened and of which every one by relation of the Scripture taketh notice It is time to behold the recompence those wicked Antipater the son of Herod from the too of the wheel souls received for having dipped their fingers in so much bloud and so many tragedies to the end we therein may observe the proceedings of the Divine Providence which spareth not first sleightly to touch and assay by some visitation those which it afterwards reserveth for the eternal pains of hell The detestable Antipater who had directed all the passages of this wickedness seeing the two Heirs of the Kingdom removed quite away by his practises thought he had already a foot in the Throne He continueth his cunning and malice ever masking himself with the veyl of piety as if he had an unspeakable care of the life and state of his father while he in the mean time had no other aim but quickly to make himself absolute Master of all fearing lest the disposition of Herod which was very fleeting might alter and for this cause he went up and down daily practizing very great intelligences But he was hated by the people like a Tiger and the souldiers who saw him embrewed in the bloud of his brothers so beloved by all the Nobility could in no sort relish him Above all the people were extreamly touched with compassion when these little children of Alexander and Aristobulus were led through the streets who had been bred in Herods Court. All the world beheld these poor Orphans with a weeping eye and with sorrow remembred the disasters of their fathers Antipater well saw it was fit for him to withdraw himself and decline envy and not sindge his wings in the candle fearing his father in process of time who in such matters was subtile enough might discover his purposes Notwithstanding he was so secret that he avoided to ask leave of Herod to sequester himself for fear to minister matter of suspition to him But he caused letters closely to be written from Rome to his father by friends whom he had wrought for that purpose which imported all he desired to wit that it was necessary he should be sent to Rome to break the enterprizes which the Arabians plotted against the state of Judea Herod having received these letters instantly dispatched his son Antipater with a goodly train rich presents and above all the Will of Herod which declared him King after the death of his father Behold all he could desire in the world But as the eye of God never sleepeth and surprizeth the crafty in their own policies it happeneth the mischievous Pheroras who had acted his part as we have seen in this lamentable tragedy departed this life by a sudden death and poysoned as it is thought by the maid-servant whom he had married Herod being requested to come into the house of Conspiracy of Antipater discovered his brother to take examinations upon the fact unexpectedly learneth how his son Antipater had given poyson to the dead Pheroras at such time as he was out of favour to poyson the King his father whilest he was at Rome that he speedily might return into Palestine with a Crown on his head This was deposed even by the son of the Comptroller of Antipaters house and circumstanced with grounds and particulars so express that there was not any cause of doubt Herod demanded where this poyson was He answered it was in the hands of the widow of his brother Pheroras She being examined upon the fact goeth up into a higher chamber feigning to fetch it and being mounted to the top of the house she through despair fell down headlong with a purpose to kill herself But God suffered not the fall to be mortal they much heartned her and promised all impunity if she freely would deliver the truth She telleth that true it was her husband had received the poyson of Antipater and had some inclination to give the blow but that a little before his death he repented himself and detested such wickedness and with these words she drew out the poyson which afterwards was known in the death of delinquents to be very mortal At
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
Illud praecipuum â—t magis mores commendarent statum quà m statuâ— mores The greatest knowledge in the world is well to act your part It importeth not in what condition of life we are so that we discharge our conscience and the dutie of our places We must so use the matter that our manners may recommend our condition and not derive their worth from our dignities In the fourth place he used infinite care to maintain conjugal chastity in the lives of the married oftentimes shewing by pregnant reasons that lust (o) (o) (o) Luxu â—â— was a fire which burnt the garment of the soul and wasted mountains even to the bottom And because bravery is ordinarily the nest where dishonesty hatcheth he couragiously opposed profuseness in that kind using sharp reprehensions against women vain and dissolute in attyres One day amongst the rest he proved they were as in a perpetual prison loaden with punishments and condemned by their own sentence (p) (p) (p) Excess in apparel Hinc collum catend constring it inde pedes compes includit Nihil refert à uro cerpus oâ—eretur aut ferro si cervix premitur si gravatur incessus nihil pretium juvat nisi quod vos mulieres ne pereat vobis poena â—repidatis Quid interest aliena sententia an vestra vos damnet Hinc vos etiam miserabiliores quà m qui publico jure damnatur quòd illi optant exui vos ligari Lib. 1. de Virginib It is pity saith he to see a woman that hath upon the one part a great chain about her neck and on the other guives about her feet What matter is it whether the body be charged with gold or iron if the neck be alike bowed under a yoak and the gate bindred The price of your bands serves for no use but to give you cause to fear your torments Miserable that you are who condemn your selves by your own proper sentence yea more miserable than criminals for these desire nothing but their own liberty and you love your captivity In the end he much recommended charity justice government of the tongue flight from ill company and modesty in all deportments whence it came to pass that he wrote those admirable books of Offices which set out all Christian virtues with an eminent lustre The good Prelate was in his Bishopprick as the Pilot in the ship the soul in the body the sun in the world labouring in all kinds and having no other repose but the vicissitude of travailes The fourth SECTION His combates and first against Gentilism IT is time now that we behold our strong Gyant Evident danger of Christendom enter into the list against monsters for armed with weapons of light he enterprised sundry battails against Sects vices and the powers of darkness which sought to prevail I will begin his prowess by the encounter he had with Symmachus Governour of the City of Rome who endeavoured by his eloquence and credit to re-advance the prophane superstitions of Gentilism This combat was not small not less glorious for the memory of S. Ambrose with him that will well consider it the danger was very great for the name and design of Julian the Apostata as yet lived in the minds of many men of quality and of maligne spirits who had conspired with time to stifle Christianity making corrupt and imaginary Deities to re-enter into the possession of the world This Symmachus was the Ensign-bearer a subtile man well spoken and of great authority to whom the Emperours had caused a golden Statue to be erected with the title of The Prime man of the Empire both in reputation wisdom and eloquence and for that cause he promised himself he had power enough to set God and the devil upon one and the same Altar He practised to disguise Pagan Religion by his artifices drawing it from the ordures and bruitishnes thereof chanted by Poets to give it a quite other face and represent it with a mask which he had framed out of sundry Philosophers under the reign of Julian to render it the less odious And seeing the times favoured him by reason that after the death of Gratian a most Christian Prince Valentinian who was an infant under the guardianship of an Arian mother held the stern of the Empire he resolved therefore to fish in a troubled water and by surreption obtained certain Edicts in favour of Paganism against which S. Ambrose framed most powerful oppositions I will render you heer the two pleadings in those terms they were pronounced to confront the babble of a Politician with the eloquence of a Saint The understanding Reader shall heet observe two most rich peices of eloquence which I have rendred rather as an Oratour than a Translatour to give them the lustre they deserve I am desirous you may see in the Oration of Symmachus what a bad conscience can do which hath eloquence to disguise truth and how we must ever judge of men rather by their works than their words The Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger for the Altar of Victory exercise of Pagan Religion and revenue of Vestals SACRED MAjESTIES SO soon as this sovereign Court wholly possessed by Note that he feigneth Theodosius as present who knew nothing what had passed you hath seen vice subdued by laws and that you through your piety have tazed out the memory of passed troubles it hath taken upon it the authority which the favour of this happy Age hath afforded and discharging the acerbities long time retained upon the heart thereof hath once again commanded me to bring you its complaints in a solemn Embassage Those that wish us not well have hitherto bereaved us of the honour of your audience thereby to deprive us of the effect of your justice But I now come to acquit me of two obligations the one as Governour of the City the other as Embassadour As Governour I do a work which concerneth the Weal-publick and as Embassadour I present you the supplications of your most humble subjects Dissentions we have no more amongst us for the opinion All the Pâ—gan Senatours agreed not before upon this Embassage is ceased that one to become a great States-man must be particular in his opinions The greatest Empire which Monarchs may enjoy is to reign in the love and estimation of their subjects so is it also a matter intolerable in those that govern the State to nourish their divisions to the hurt of the publick and establish their credit upon the loss of the Princes reputation We are far distant from those imaginations for all our care perpetually watcheth for your interest and for that cause we defend the decrees of our Ancestours the rites of our Country and fatal happiness thereof as a thing which concerneth the glory of your age to which you gave a new lustre when you publickly protested never to enterprise any thing upon customs established by our Ancestours Behold wherefore we most
the best of souldiers I speak of Sampson which is so much as to say Sun in our language where it seemeth the Scripture leadeth us by the hand to make us acknowledge that military profession which is under good direction so much excelleth the ordinary vocations of men as doth the Sun the stars For letters yea eloquence and arts which are set out with so much lustre in the estimation of men are covered under the wings of military virtue as very well the Roman Oratour hath acknowledged We do not read that ever the Sun stood still to hear the gracefull words of an eloquent tongue nor to behold the Theaters and Amphitheaters of the Romans nor the Olympick games of Grecians nor all the other objects of admiration which are in the industrie of men But we do well know from the Oracle of truth that this great Star admired by all the world immoveably stayed as charmed by the voice of a souldier the illustrious Josuah at that time when he acted so many brave feats of arms as if it would admire his prowess and enlighten his conquests And what is there also more admirable in the The greatnes and excellency of a brave Captain world than to see a man covered with steel who curvetteth on a generous horse and hasteneth his head bowed to throw himself through the battallions all bristled with launces and swords through so many musket-shots so many hail-showers of iron and so many dreadfull images of death which he as freely defieth as if he were immortal and as little spareth life as if he had a hundred to loose What a spectacle to behold him in a furious conflict like a thunder-bolt in the cloud which forceth his prison and breaks all resistance flying upon wings of fire and the whirling roar of thunder to shake the height of rocks What an affrightment to see him in another posture scaling a wal all beset with arms and terrours and hastening into danger with the same pace and visage as another to a feast What support and what consolation for poor people whom injustice and hostility would butcher as sheep ordained to slaughter to perceive a brave captain with a flying squadron dissevering the malignity of those forces conspired to the ruine of innocents and by the splendour of his arms changing all the storms into calms O what a beauty is it to receive wounds in those combates from whence floweth more glory than bloud O what greatness to reap palms in midst of so many thorns O what a felicity to behold his battels attended by so many laurels congratulations and applauses of the people preserved by this military virtue How can all be in this profession but glorious seeing death it self the terrible of terribles sheweth a face all smiling to those who are buried in their valour as in the true tomb of honour It seemeth holy Histories do likewise describe these The delight of history to praise Captains Induit se loricâ sicut Gigâ—s similis factus est leoni in operibus suis sicut catulus leonis rugientis in venatione great Captains with some delight when they make them march in the war So they tell us (a) (a) (a) 1 Mac. 13. of Judas Machabaeus who having put on his arms appeared like a Gyant and that he in the battel was seen like a roaring Lion seeking out his prey So they describe in the second of Kings (b) (b) (b) 2 Reg. 23. the prowess of David and other valiant men who flourished in this time with most particular Elogies So they depaint unto us in a very admirable manner the strength and stratagems of Gedeon against the Midianites Valour is matter of astonishment which transporteth all men both great and small wittie and dull to honour its qualities Aristotle the politest judgement which hath been in former Ages so much wondereth at this warlick force though far distant from his profession that he composed an excellent Hymn in praise of it which is yet to be found in Diogenes Laertius Where he calleth it a virtue most painfull for mortals but the fairest ornament of Civil life A virtue which hath such attractive beauty that the most generous hearts seek for death with strife to enjoy the lustre of its glory If then this valour have such attraction considered onely within the limits of nature how will it be if once advanced by the assistance of grace and virtues which take al that is harsh from it to make it shine with rays of a true and happy majesty Is there any thing more lovely in the whole world than to see a valorous souldier furnished with qualities of piety prudence justice liberality goodness honesty and with all other graces which are in a sweet disposition as stars sown in the azure of celestial globes Oh Nobility if you knew your own excellency and could conform your life to your dignity what lustre and support would you afford to Christendom It was the faith of a souldier and of a souldier issued from Paganism which the mouth of the living God hath exalted above all the piety of the Israelites when he so highly commended the Centurion of the Gospel for acknowledging the Saviour had as much power over maladies and things insensible as an absolute Captain over his souldiers It was a souldier whom Saint Peter by the revelation of the Angel did first of all consecrate to faith as the first fruits of Gentilism They are warriours which so often replenish our Martyrologes with their names our memories with their veneration and mouthes with prayers offered up to them These hearts have at all times been capable to receive seeds of most noble virtues and now adays they are suffered to putrifie in neglect ordure and bruitishness Oh Nobility deceive not your selves in the acknowledgement of the badges of your profession nor flatter your selves under a false mask of valour I will here represent to you the Palace of military virtue and shew the way you must walk in to arrive thither not suffering your selves to be seduced by chimerical fantasies and illusions of greatness onely big-swoln with smoak and which when they have promised to make mountains produce nothing but rats and vermine The second SECTION The enterance into the Palace of valour and the illusions of Salmoneans and Rodomonts .. THe ingenious Delben who hath composed all Aristotoles moral Philosophie in excellent Tables figureth unto us at the entery into the Palace of valour an enraged Mistress called Audaciousness which seduceth an infinite number of Salmoneans or Rodomonts under colour of virtue It is true she is dumb in this piece of painting but I resolve to shew her full of life in this Treatise and discover to you the slie practises and damnable maxims which she makes use of to deceive the spirits of this Age to the end that the knowledge of the evil may with more facility furnish us for application of remedies Suffer me here O Reader to
poverty that he with much straitness enjoyed the necessities of life Crispus having manured his spirit with learning very couragiously addicted himself to the exercise of arms wherein he very well expressed the Genius and dexterity of his father but with much more grace and sweetness For Histories assure us he was of visage most amiable full of attractives and admiration which made upon the minds of men so much the more impression as they were ingrafted in a singular modesty and a goodness so natural that no man could near hand behold it without affection O God what fury is there in dishonest love and how much did it disturb the house of Constantine If Lords and Ladies who give admittance to affections and thoughts unlawful did well consider the acerbities which attend this passion they would rather tear their hearts out with their nails than pollute them with such ordures It is not without cause what the wise Aristophanes hath said that love was banished So Simon the MagiciaÌ„ said that the soul of Helena had put fire trouble and jealousie among the Angelâ— but that taking from thâ— this object of concupiscence he had accorded them Phâ—â—astrius de haeres from Heaven as a trouble-feast and disturber of the repose of Divinities The truth is where this passion setteth foot it exileth from thence innocency and tranquility two the most precious pearls of life and and were there wicked loves in Heaven there would no longer be felicities Happy is that life which hath no eyes for those carnal beauties and is all eyes to preserve it self especially in the beginning from such surprizals The miserable Fausta wife of Constantine daughter of Maximian who had received good education in the house of her father and was of a very sensual humour even so far as to controle the devotions of her husband and pick quarrels against Religion which she would never embrace had in this disorder vehement dispositions sinisterly to admit the love which the beauty of Crispus might easily afford her This divine feature standing always as an object for the wanton eyes of the Empress enkindled so much fire in her veins that another flame must be found to quench it The children which she had by her husband were nothing to her in comparison of Crispus Crispus was in her heart Crispus in her thought Crispus in her discourse wherein she yet had some temper fearing to discover her passion Yet could she not forbear but say Crispus was the idaea of perfect men and the incomparable son whose worth and virtue would survive with the world It was much wondered how a step-mother should entertain so much good opinion of the son of her husband yet she having hitherto lived within the limits of honour it was interpreted all these affections were sincere and innocent Crispus who then thought not upon his own defence in a combat that was nothing but courtesie took all these favours as witnesses of a most unspotted amity reciprocally rendering to her much respect wherewith she shewed her self not a little troubled desiring he would treat with her in a more free fashion for love had already despoiled her of majesty Saint Augustine hath very well said that he who will punish an exorbitant spirit must leave it in its own hands to serve both as a scaffold and executioner to it self The unfortunate Fausta who had already given over-free passage to sin felt accesses of ice and fire of desires of affrightments of confidence and remorse Her conscience accused her in the bottom of her heart and ceased not to shew her the enormity of this fault when by the help of impudency she thought to have quenched these little sparkles of goodness which God soweth in the most forsaken hearts She knew not how or where to begin this pernicious design Crispus seemed to be too chaste his Christian religion made him in her opinion too austere his spirit was as yet too tender and not capable of a most powerful wickednes and although he should consent where may faithfull complices be found fit occasions and liberty to content an infamous desire The pain which ordinarily attendeth crimes the rigour of a Constantine jealous of his bed the infamy and apprehensions of punishments coming to fall upon her thoughts made her well to see both the abyss and horrour but passion transported her hood-wincked beyond all considerations so that one day taking her opportunitie she accosted the young Prince with words which sufficiently testified her a lost woman But he who would not at the first put her into confusion with modestie declined what she had said and interpreted it far from her thought She who would no longer appear a Lucrece being much troubled he should understand in a chast sense what she had spoken to an ill purpose unfolds her self so freely that the wise Crispus no further able to suffer this blushless spirit spake a word to her rough and hopeless That if she persisted in this infamous desire he would give the Emperour notice and thereupon flew from her like a lightening and withdrew leaving her in a despair and rage not sufficiently to be expressed All her love then turned into a diabolical hatred which suggested Love turned into rage furies and black thoughts resolving with her self to use him as as the wife of Potiâ—â—ar did Joseph She served her self with all the arms of grief which were at that time very natural to her ceasing not to weep and sigh before her husband as if she had afflicted her self for anothers sin yet had she so much cunning that she feigned to hide her tears and smother her sighs to render the disguise more dangerous by a pretext of modesty The Emperour seeing her in this plight asked the A wicked calumny cause of her sadness She answered it was fit for his Majesty not to know it He the more persisted to understand what she feigned to conceal pressing and interrogating her to draw her calumny from her with as much earnestness as one would a truth In the end she declared with many counterfeit horrours and words cruelly modest That his son Crispus would have enterprized upon the honour of his bed but God be thanked her faith inviolable put her under safety free from such dangers And that she demanded no other satisfaction from this miserable man who was fled but the remorse of his wicked conscience Constantine recommending silence unto her entered into a black and deep anger proposing unto himself that the retreat of his son was a note of his crime he determined therefore to put him speedily to death and for this purpose calling one of his servants the most trusty and best resolved for executions having under great oaths and execrations obliged him to secresie gives him express commandment to meet with his son Crispus as soon as he could to treat warily with him not affrighting nor giving him the least suspition and withal to fail not to serve him at his
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
period of thy life having bid adieu to the world and drawn the curtain between thee and creatures endeavour to be united as perfectly as is possible to thy Creatour First by good and perfect confession of the principal actions of all thy life Secondly by a most religious participation of thy viaticum in presence of thy friends in a manner the most sober well ordered edificative thou maist In the third place seasonably receiving extream unction thy self answering if it be possible to the prayers of the Church and causing to be read in the approaches of this last combate some part of the passion Lastly by the acts of faith hope charity and contrition I approve not the manner of some who make studied remonstrances to dying men as if they were in a pulpit nor of those who blow incessantly in their ears unseasonable words and make as much noise with the tongue as heretofore Pagans with their kettles in the eclipse of the Moon We must let those good souls depart without any disturbance in the shades of death S. Augustine would die in great silence desiring not to be troubled with lamentations nor visits for ten days together where having hanged some versicles of Psalms about his bed he fixed his dying eyes upon them with a sweetness most peacefull and so gave up the ghost It is good to say My God I believe assist my incredulitie I know my Crâ—do Domine adjuva incredulitatem meam Marc. 9. Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit c. Job 9. Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es Psal 22. Quid mihi est in coelo c. Psal 72. Quare tristis es anima mea c. Psal 83. Redeemer is living and that I shall see him in the same flesh which I at this present disarray Though I must walk into the shades of death I will fear nothing because Oh my God thou art with me What have I to desire in heaven and what would I of thee on earth My flesh and my heart are entranced in thee O the God of my heart and my portion for all eternitie Wherefore art thou so sad O my soul and why dost thou trouble me Turn now to thy rest because God hath afforded thee mercie Behold how the Virgin our Ladie died behold how Saint Lewis died behold how Saint Paula departed of whom Saint Hierom (a) (a) (a) Hier. ep 27. ad Eustoc Digitum ad â— tenens crucis signum pingebat in labiis Anima erumpere gestiens ipsum stridorem quo mortalis vita finitur in laudes convertebat said The holy Lady rendering up her life put her finger on her mouth as desirous to imprint the sign of the Cross upon it turning the gasps of death and last breath of the soul into the praises of God whom she so faithfully had served XVI MAXIM Of the Immortalitie of the SOUL THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT Little care is to be had of the Soul after death so all be well with it in this life That we have an immortal Soul capable of happiness or unhappiness eternal 1. A Man who doubteth and questions the immortalitie of the Soul sheweth in the very beginning that he almost hath no soul that retaining nought but the substance of it to suffer he hath lost the lights and goodness which might crown it Never enter these thoughts into any man without making a tomb of flesh for his reason whilest he so flattering his body forgets all the excellencies of his soul We must here follow the counsel of ancient Sages when a Libertine will impugn a verity known by the onely light of nature it is not needfull to answer his absurdities but to lead him directly into the stall and to shut him up with beasts speaking unto him the sentence which the Prophet Daniel pronounced against Nebuchadnezzar Thou shalt hereafter be banished Sentence against the wicked Ejicient te ab hominibus cum bestiis ferisque erit habitatio tua Daniel 4. from the companie of men and thy abode shall be with beasts and savage creatures All speak and all dispute for the Maxim of the Holy Court and although we ought to have full obligation to faith which manifestly hath set this truth before us thereunto affixing all the order of our life and the principal felicity we hope for yet are we not a little enlightened with so many excellent conceits which learning furnisheth us withal upon it and which I will endeavour to abbreviate comprehending much in few words 2. I will then say for your comfort that it hath happened that an Heretick lost both of understanding and conscience having opposed the belief of Purgatory heresie being a beaten path to infidelity came to this point of folly as throughly to perswade himself that death ended all things and that these endeavours of prayers and ceremonies which we afford to the memory of the deceased were given to shadows He did all a wicked man might to tear himself from The belief of the immortalitie of the soul invincible Condemnation of impiety in the tribunal of nature himself and belie that which God made him but it was impossible for him as you shall see in considering the three chambers of justice wherein he was condemned First he entered into the Court before the tribunal of Nature and thought he saw a huge troup of all the learned men of the earth and all Nations of the universe who came to fall upon as a mighty cloud armed with fire and lightening My God said he what is this The great Tertullian Quod apud multos commune invenitur non est erratum sed traditum Tertul. said and it is true that verities which fall into the general understandings of all men as acknowledged avowed and confessed by all sorts of nations ought to be believed as by a decree of Nature The example thereof is evident For all men in the world believe that the whole is greater than a part that the superiour number exceedeth the inferiour That the father and mother should be honoured as the Authours of life That one must not do to another what he would not be done to himself And because every one understands and averreth this by the light of nature he would be thought a beast or a mad man who should contradict it Now from whence proceedeth it that the belief of the souls immortality holds the same place with these general Maxims although it be otherwise much transcendent above our sense If I regard the course of time and revolution Tertul. de testimonio animae of Ages from the beginning of the world one cannot assign any one wherein this faith hath not been published by words or actions correspondent to the life of the other world And if some depraved spirits have doubted it they were gain-said by publick voice by laws ceremonies customs protestations of Common-wealths of
must there perhaps long time remain to burn and wear off so many ordures as our soul contracted in worldly affections if we make account to decline the eternity of torments I am amazed when I reflect on the remisness of Catholicks as well in the provision for their own safety as the comfort of their bretherens souls And when I have well weighed the course and progress of this great neglect I find it hath two sources The first is called infidelity the second stupidity which I resolve to convince in two passages of this discourse It is true that after this direfull heresie blown by the breath of the infernal serpent hath for this last Age opposed the verities of our faith besides the lost souls it daily takes away in the torrent of corruption it hath destilled into the minds of Catholicks faintness and infidelities which now adays turmoyl irresolute wits upon many articles and namely that which is now our present object Purgatorie will some Libertine say amidst the fumes of wine and good cheer is not so hot as folk talk Who ever came back to tell us news of it God is mercifull think you he takes delight to burn his children and to cut off the price of his Sons passion who satisfied for our sins Young souls hear this and suck in poison by the ear which choaks their belief and killeth the exercise of good works What shall I say against these infidelities and floating opinions of feeble Catholicks It is not my purpose to cast my self upon a subtile controversie which doth nothing but hale truth hither and thither I will loose no time to touch at many passages I onely to the matter express two reasons drawn from two lights that of nature and the other of faith which are able to evict confession of truth from a man who hath never so little shame or brain 2. It is a strange thing to see the great consent of all Purgatorie proved by the light of nature Ages which agree in a pretention of purgations of the soul so strong powerfull that those lights of nature speak as understandingly as if they were written with the rays of the Sun All the Gentiles who lived out of the law knew not how to gainsay this doctrine For they were sensible of the noble extraction of their soul and knew it was defiled by the body and by sensual works Behold the cause why they tied themselves to The opinion of the Ancients concerning the purgation of souls feeble elements to purifie it one while washing themselves in the streams of fountains another while passing through flames and sometimes seeking other ways to cleanse themselves from pollutions of the flesh But it was a pitifull thing they found prophanation even in sacrifice They were not content to purge themselves in this life but extend it to the souls of the dead constantly believing they stood in need of remedies to free themselves from bodily stains Theophilus Patriark of Antioch in the book he directed to one named Antiochus saith the Gentiles took out of the Scripture all they wrote of punishments in the other life And S. Augustine observeth that having this August 21. de civitate Dei c. 13. idea that all stains of the soul proceeded from the earth they employed the other three elements to purge them as he proveth by texts of the Ancients Synesius Synesius epist ad Joan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise thought there remained certain visible spots in the soul which made it appear they were the crimes wherewith it was contaminated in the body which notwithstanding agrees not very well with the truth we hold of the spirituality of the same soul And I find he spake in this text more like a Platonist than a Christian The Hebrews the Aegyptians Grecians and Romanes all contended for prayers for the dead and the truth of purgatorie The Hebrews three times in the Morus de Missa An excellent observation upon the belief of Purgatorie among the Hebrews Apoc. 21. 16. Civitas in quadro posita est year celebrated the feast of the dead and their Priest mounting up into a chair made expresly and ceremoniously four-square to represent the Citie of the blessed according to S. John rehearsed aloud and audibly the names of the dead to recommend them to the prayers of such as were present prayers so familiar amongst them that they wrote them upon tombs instead of Epitaphs in these terms SIT ANIMA EIUS COLLIGATA IN FASCICULO VIVENTIUM let his soul be bound up in the posey of the living As one would say all the souls of Saints were as an odoriferous posey whereof every elect constituted a flower What is this but to make stones speak against impietie What shall I say of the Aegyptians that were so Notable purgation of Aegyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impressed with the opinion that souls must be purged in the other life in so much as they had been drenched in voluptuous pleasures of the flesh that in the funerals of the dead having opened the bodie they took the heart out of the breast and put it into a little casket then on the bank of Nilus where ordinarily Plutarch in convivio septem Sapientum tombs were erected a herald holding the casket and shewing it to the eyes of heaven protested before all there present the deceased now in question had lived piously and according to the laws of his Ancestours that if he had offended through bodily pleasures they wished his soul might be as well cleansed as they went about to purge the stomack the instrument of the lusts of the living thereupon they threw it into Nilus Behold these poor Pagans how they were moved with a touch from God which cannot lye who says unto them the dead must be purged but as for the rest they know not how Shall I speak of the Grecians And know we not that Plato the prime man of their Nation in his Phedon spake so perspicuously for purgatory that he seemed to have been bred in the Christian schools I will conclude with the Romans And can we be ignorant how in the beginning of the Church under the Emperour Domitian when as yet some Apostles lived Quintilian a most renowned Oratour making Qintil Declam 10. an oration in the City of Rome in a certain pleading concerning a sepulcher which had been enchanted by magick protested in terms most express the truth of purgatory saying The soul being purged of fire went to take place in heaven as we shewed also in the sixteenth maxim If you also require authorities of Pagans who have seen what Christians practised adde to all this that Julius a very ancient Authour speaking Julius Florileg l. 3. of the death of a Lady named Podon observed in plain terms that her husband who was one of the most ancient Christians made offerings for her which he called Tertul. in exhort ad castitat Jam repete apud
Deum pro cujus spiritu postules pro quâ oblationes annuas reddas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gifts for ransom of the soul answerable to what Tertullian writeth that it was the custom of the ancient Church to pray for the souls of the dead yea and to make annual offerings for them We must no longer say for evasion it is Plato it is Quintilian who speaketh but confess with Aristotle when we see an universal agreement in a proposition it is not one man speaks but the mouth of heaven which uttereth this verity When S. James telleth us God must be feared and proves it by example of the divels themselves he saith not we must fear God because Daemones credunt contremiscunt the divels do so but if any despise him he is therein worse than divels Likewise when the holy Fathers produce an example of Pagans it is not to instruct us by the Pagans but to shew that to waver in the belief of things they generally held by the sentence of nature is to be worse than a Pagan 3. I say for the second argument that so often as Second proof drawn from the light of faith Vnde haec quia ita facienda sunt disputare insolentissimae insania est a truth is proved to Catholicks by the universal consent of the Church and of all Ages if any one chance to make doubt of it it is an evident sign either that he hath a giddy spirit or is malicious in religion This proposition is grounded upon the axiom of S. Augustine who in his Epistle written to Januarius assureth us that when we find the tracks of a custom generally observed throughout the whole Church it is evident that it cometh from the Apostles or those to whom God hath given full Authority in the Church and that to go about to bely or question it is to pass from folly to insolency Now so it is the truth of purgatorie is established by the opinion practice sentence and decisions of all the Church in such sort that there is not any verity of our faith more fortified How is that Begin with our France Behold the Councel of Chalons upon Saone for prayers for the dead and the truth of purgatorie Go into Spain behold that of Braga into Germany behold that of Wormes into Italy behold the sixth Councel held at Rome under Pope Symmachus into Greece behold a number of Synods collected by Martius into Affrick behold the third of Carthage Lastly behold the three Oecumenical of Lateran Florence and Trent which say the same Doth not this suffice to establish a truth in the wit of a man who hath never so little understanding Our adversaries who still bark against this verity as dogs at the moons brightness when they have said Jesus made purgation of sins and that it was said to the good thief thou shalt to day be with me in Paradise or produced some other frivolous objections have shewed all their ability I leave you a little to ponder the goodly consequences Jesus purged sins there is then no purgatorie Should not we have cause to say in the same fashion Jesus prayed for remission of our sins then we no longer stand in need of prayer or pennance and in vain is that S. Luke saith that Jesus must suffer and Luc. 24. 47. that pennance was preached in his name As the prayers of our Saviour destroy not our prayers so his satisfaction overthroweth not ours He prayed that we might pray he satisfied to give strength and merit to our satisfaction which would be dead and unprofitable were they not quickened by his bloud To what purpose is it to say the good thief went directly to Paradise without feeling purgatorie As if we should say it was necessarie for all the world to pass that way Make your self a great Saint and you shall have nothing to do with it Purge all your sins by a love so fervent that the purifying flames may not find any thing to cleanse He who hath payed ows nothing and who hath satisfied in this world shall find unrestrained freedom in the other But think you in a life which contracteth so many stains a soul may be raised in an instant above the celestial orbs to the sight of God before it have passed by those purgations which the Divine justice ordaineth to every one according to his demerits Endeavour is used to deafen your ears with piety wranglings and unprofitable disputations to make you believe purgatory is an invention of interessed Priests it seems this doctrine came into the world but within these two dayes But read the Scripture and see the Fathers who interpret it you shall find proofs to fall upon you like a cloud for confirmation of this verity When S. Paul in the first to the Corinthians third Chapter said that the day of God to wit the day of judgement be it general or particular shall be manifested by fire which shall put every ones works upon trial and that he who upon the foundations of Jesus Basil in Isa c. 1. Non exterminium minatur sed purgationem innuit Ambros Hic ostendit paenas ignis passurum shall build with wood straw or hay to wit with vain and sleight works shall be saved as by fire he clearly declared the doctrine of purgatorie unless you be more illuminated than S. Basil and S. Ambrose who have judged it so for the first saith he threateneth the soul not with destruction but purgation and the other plainly expresseth he speaks of the pains of fire which God hath appointed to purify souls And it is a poor resistance to object he said as by fire and not by fire For it is a manner of expression in Scripture which nothing diminisheth the reality of things otherwise we should say when S. John wrote in the first Chapter of his Gospel that men saw Jesus as the onely Son of God that he were onely a figure of it not a truth And when S. Paul to the Philippians second Chapter witnesseth he was found as a man we might infer he were not man See you not how these silly curiosities of words directly invade the truth When S. Matthew in the twelfth Chapter makes mention of one sin which shall never be remitted either in this world or in the other S. Bernard in his three-score sixth homily upon the Canticles mainly insisteth upon this passage and takes it as an infallible proof of our doctrine When the Evangelist himself toucheth the discourse of the prisonner which shall be put into a place from whence be shall not come until he have paid the last penny Saint Cyprian Cyprian l. 4. ep 2. says plainly It is one thing to be a long time purged for sins by the torment of fire another by the purgation which is made by the passion of Jesus Christ When in the same Authour it is spoken of divers punishments of choller handled in the fift Chapter S. Augustine in
If they sometimes take certain semblances of virtue and pennance they have no solidity in their good purposes If they be touched and raised by some good inspiration they are not constant but having sowed certain rays of hope fall back again into their myre and falling throw plague and poison among company Adde also to this discourse of the Apostle two essential causes of our evils One whereof is that the disorder and impurity of manners being very ordinary among young men who are children of the rich best qualified parents in stead of repressing of exorbitancy by the cutting off of excess and superfluity which is the nurse of impiety take no other care but to put them into abundance over head and ears and thrust them into dignities in the weakness of ability and greatest strength of passions From thence proceedeth they behold one another like little Gods and having shaken off the yoke of obedience to men free themselves what they may from the commands of the supream Master having no other guid but temerity nor other law but the liberty of doing all Blasphemies which in the mouthes of mean ones would be esteemed monsters pass from their lips for braveries and such as come to adore their fortune are constrained for worldly respect to offer incense to their vices Herein it is parents make themselves guilty of high treason to the Divine Majesty having so ill employed their travels and watchings as day and night to have amassed riches which serve for sinews to impiety and scandal to the publick The other cause which much fomenteth blasphemies and irreverencies against Religion is that as ears are supple to hear them so laws are greatly unprovided to punish them Every man is pleased to revenge his particular injuries and to reserve unto God the revenge of his own Profane speeches which heretofore made the faithfull tear their garments such horrour they had to hear them being now at this time uttered with some witty jests flatter spirits and being unable to gain the approbation of truth they take it from the courtesies of men It is to be feared God permitteth this for vengeance of some sin and wholly withdraws faith from these forlorn spirits to place it among souls more purified Of the Ignorance and Nullitie of Libertinism 4. I Find not any thing more intolerable than to see impiety flatter it self with the pretext of ability learning and goodness of wit since it is ever accompanied by two evil conditions ignorance and Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines Reg. 1. 2. bruitishness What light of understanding can there be in a Libertine who makes profession to spit against the source of light God saith the Scripture is the Lord of sciences and on him depends the good order of Vnumquodque tantum habet de luce quantum retinet Esse divini In memor rer difficil all our thoughts How much the more commerce one hath with the Essence Divine so much the more splendour he enjoyeth as the Ancient Philosophers do assure us We resemble those statues which spake in that proportion as the beams of the Sun reflected into their mouthes We cannot so much as open our lips to speak worthily of God unless God who made them unloose them for his greater glory I much esteem the sentence of S. Diadocus who saith Diado de perfect spirit c. 7 Nihil egentius ea mente quae de Deo extra Deum philosophatur There is nothing more miserable or more ignorant than a spirit which will speak of God out of God that is to say who being out of the limits of faith and innocency dares undertake to touch so high a point as that of divinity Now we know by experience the wicked are alienated both in thoughts and manners from this sovereign sanctity and therefore we may undoubtedly resolve they are most uncapable of sciences and especially those which are divine being sworn enemies of the God of sciences Moreover if that be true which Avicen the Philosopher A notable saying of Avicen Immaterialitâ—â— radix spiritualitatis Avicen apud Capreol said That immateriality is the root of spirituality and that by how much the more a thing is discharged of matter so much the more it is capable of intelligence what reasonable discourse of man can one derive from a spirit which is perpetually clouded with vapours of lust Heraclitus in the secrets of his doctrine required a drie soul to render it capable of the most purified meditations of Philosophie and can we think a spirit which hath made a prison of its body by pampering the flesh with all possible tenderness will declare us the mysteries of hidden sciences Is it not to go about to gather grapes from thorns figs from bushes and golden grains out of straw And say there were some apparance of sobriety and modesty know we not pride is a formal obstacle to the puritie of great and noble sciences because it instantly blind-foldeth men with the presumption of their ability Are we ignorant many would have become greatly knowing had they not thought they were absolutely perfect Now who is more haughty or more arrogant than a Libertine who if peradventure he have some smattering of letters is so puffed up with the opinion of his capacity that he seems to himself to have slept in Sybilla's cave to pronounce oracles and judge all other men consist of superstitions and ideots Great wits who have ravished the world with admiration Great wits modest resemble those rivers which glide along with a peacefull majesty not troubling any body with their waves But these pettie shufflers murmure like unto brooks and vex the whole world with their tattle If it happen they arrive to some perfection in humane sciences which is very seldom they cannot command their spirit which admits no other path than precipices So that in the same things wherein they take themselves to be wiser than other they commit errours and make most shamefull lapses It is truly the disgrace and tomb of humane judgement Arrogancy of Libertinism to see the barbarous censure which reigneth among those who pretend acuteness for they think so many worthy men who have penetrated into the abyss of the most sublime sciences are ignorant of the Latin tongue nay if S. Augustine and S. Thomas might return into the world they would be entertained in these quaint Academies as grooms But if there be some one can make an ode a sonnet a letter can play the gentile wittie-one in company and utter blasphemies with philosophie and affectation he is the God of learning and the Monarch of eloquence But let a capable man sound these curious fellows good God what empty chambers in these great brain-pans What darkness and what confusions It is soon found they understand not one sole principle of true science and that all their learning is like a house that hath guilded gates and chambers pestered with spiders Think then what a shame it
is when men of quality who affect the reputation of being judicious prostitute their wits to these gods of straw and dung and for the tuneable cadence of a rime loose all harmonies of faith and conscience All hereticks who make boast to assail the Church Their ignorance for so many Ages have likewise made a shew to bring with them into this combat some recommendable qualities Some came with points of logick other with knowledge of things natural other with eloquence some vaunted profoundness in Scriptures the rest to be versed in the reading of Councels and holy Fathers They who have had no excellent thing in them have brought an austere countenance and semblance of moral virtues But such kind of men have nothing but ignorance with bruitishness but scoffing sycophancy but language and the wind of infamous words How can it then become them to talk of the Bible and to argue upon holy Scripture and the mysteries of our Religions Shut up your ears against these Questions if you be unable to stop their mouthes Is it handsom think you to see a wretched and infamous Tertul. l. 2. advers Marc. c. 2 Censores divinitatis dicentes sic non debuit Deus sic magis debuit c. Tert. de praescript contra haeres l. 1. fellow to make himself the censurer of Divinity and correctour of Scripture God should have done this and that in such and such a fashion say they as if any one knew what is in God but the spirit of God himself who is never so great as when he appeareth little to humane understanding There is but one word saith Tertullian to determine all disputations with such kind of men do but ask them whether they be Christians whether they renounce their Baptism and Christianitie If so let them wear the turbant or go into the Countrey of God-makers and Gentiles But if they make profession of one same Christ and one same Religion with us why do they bely their profession by the impudence of their unbridled speeches Faith saith S. Zeno is not faith when it is sought S. Zeno serm de fide Non est fides ubi quaritur fides Tertul. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium We stand not in need of curiosity after Jesus Christ nor to search for the Gospel said S. Cyprians great Master Should an Angel from Heaven speak unto us we are to change nothing in our belief We have betaken us to the side of truth we have a law which the Word declared unto us which ten millions of Martyrs have signed with their bloud which the best part of mankind professeth the wisest heads of the world have illustrated by the light of their writings To whom would we abandon it To a caytive spirit which hath nothing great in it but sin nothing specious but illusion nothing undoubted but the loss of salvation Effects of Libertinism and punishment of the Impious 5. THe neglect of God is the root of all wickedness nor can there be any thing entire in a soul despoiled of the fear of God Impiety causeth most pernicious effects in States First for that it maketh havock of all good manners leaving not one spark of virtue Secondly in that it draweth on the inevitable vengeance of God upon Kingdoms and Common-wealths which suffer this monster to strengthen it self to their prejudice Philo in the Book he made that no salary of an unchast The table of Philo of the manners of Libertines woman should be received in the Sanctuary very wisely concluded when he shewed that he who is a Libertine and voluptuous having no other aim in the world but the contentments of nature is unavoidably engaged to all manner of vice He becomes saith he bold deceitfull irregular unsociable troublesom chollerick opiniative disobedient malicious unjust ungratefull ignorant treacherous giddie inconstant scornfull dishonest cruel infamous arrogant insatiable wise in his own judgement lives for himself and is unwilling to please any but himself one while profuse presently covetous a calumniatour an impostour insensible rebellious guilfull pernicious froward unmannerly uncivil a great talker loud vaunter insolent disdainfull proud quarrelsom bitter seditious refractory effeminate and above all a great lover of himself Nay he goes further upon the like epithets very judiciously and sheweth us the seeds of all evils spring from this cursed liberty Now I leave you to judge if according to the saying Tunishments of God upon Libertinism of Machiavel himself the means quickly to ruin an estate be to fill it with evil manners who sees not that Libertinism drawing along with it all this great train of vices of corruptions tendeth directly unto the utter desolation of Empires But beside there have been observed in all Ages hydeous punishments from God caused by impiety over Cities Provinces Kingdoms and Common-wealths which have bred these disorders And that you may be the better satisfied upon this point I have at this time onely two considerations to present unto you drawn from two models In the first you shall see God 's justice exercised before the Incarnation upon the sins of infidelity and irreverence towards sacred things In the second you shall behold the rough chastisements of those who after the Incarnation lifted themselves up against the worlds Saviour When God was pleased to correct the infamous Balaam who was a Patriarch of atheists and wicked ones he commanded not an Angel to speak unto him because he was a Doctour much unsuitable to a carnal spirit but he raised a she-ass to instruct him in so much as he was become worse than a beast It is likewise loss of time to deal with Libertines by proofs derived from Schools or from the invention of sciences Men as bruitish as themselves must be made to speak to them who will put them in mind of the way they have held and the salary they have received of their impieties First I establish this Maxim for such either who are not yet hardened or are too yielding and consenting to evil company that there are not any sins which God hath so suddenly and more exemplary punished than such as were committed against Religion The Prophet Ezechiel a captive in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar discovered among tempests and flames that marvellous chariot which hath served for matter of question to all curious digladiation for the learned and admiration for all Ages I say the great S. Justine Martyr touched the sense very near when he said S. Iustin in Epist ad Orthodox q. 44. An observation upon the chariot of Ezechiel that in four figures whereof the one was of an ox the other of a man the third of an Eagle the fourth of a Lion God signified the divers chastisements he would exercise upon King Nebuchadnezzar in that from a reasonable man he should become bruitish eating grass as an ox and that his hair should grow as the shag of a
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
and of our own fantasies to follow the counsel and will of those that are superiour unto us The eleventh an insensibility of the troubles that happen in adversity The twelfth an entire mortification of judgement and will that we follow all the inspirations of God as true dials the Sun He who hath proceeded therein thus far maketh a true annihilation of himself and an excellent oblation of all that he is But if you cannot give the whole tree with such perfection yet give at least the fruits desiring in conclusion to offer up all your faculties senses functions words works and all that you are remembering that saying of S. Chrysostom That it is the most wicked avarice to defraud God of the oblation of our selves Offer to the Father your memory to fill it as a choice vessel with profitable things to the Son your understanding to enlighten it with eternal truth to the Holy Ghost your will to enkindle it with his holy flame Say particularly to the Incarnate Word with the devout virgin Gertrude The ninth SECTION The manner of offering our selves to God O My sweet Saviour illuminate my intentions with thy light and support my weakness by thy mercy I recommend the small service which I shall do this day to the unspeakable sweetness of thy heart and set it from hence forward before thine eyes to direct correct and perfect it I offer it and all that I am to thee with my whole affection both for my self and all the faithfull and I offer it unto thee in the union of that most perfect intention which thou hadst when thou prayedst upon earth to thy Father in Heaven The tenth SECTION Of Contrition The fourth Act of Devotion THis is an Act exceeding necessary in so dangerous an estate and so great frailty as we continually live in Theodoret in his Questions upon the Scripture saith That there are three kinds of life intimated by the three sorts of creatures mentioned in Abraham's sacrifice Gen. 15. 9. There is a Natural life represented by the four-footed beasts a Mourning life figured in the Turtle a pure and innocent life signified by the young pigeon Natural lives are very frequent in the world Dove-like very rare but there is no Dove so pure but always needs the mourning of the Turtle This is the reason why we should not pray almost at no time without stirring up some acts of Contrition Every one knows contrition is a detestation of sin beyond all things most detestable taking beginning from the love of God and hope of his mercy and ought always to be accompanied with a firm resolution of amendment Its first foundation is the belief of a living God of a God clear-sighted of a God dreadfull in all his judgements from whence a servile fear of the pains due to sin is begot even in the most stupid hearts Thunder causeth Doves to fawn and raiseth tempests and earth-quakes in the soul Then Hope ariseth above the horizon scattering amorous beams through the assured confidence we have to obtain pardon for our sins by undergoing the yoke of Repentance Then beginneth the love of God in the soul to free and discharge it self of the interests of earth that it may at last bring forth that heavenly grief which is begot like pearls of the dew of heaven Oh blessed a thousand-fold are they that wash themselves with that snow water which holy Job mentioneth Job 9. 30. and cleanse themselves in the wholesom pool of repentance Stir up acts of contrition often for all sins in general and especially for those defects and imperfections whereunto you are most subject with a firm purpose to oppose them strongly and by Gods help to root them out Say to that end as followeth The eleventh SECTION A form of Contrition FAther I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son having paid so great bountie with contempt and so many benefits with ingratitude I grieve not at the pains I suffer for my rebellion but I grieve for having offended a God who ought to be loved and honoured above all things Where can I find punishment enough to be avenged on my self and tears enough to wash away my offences Father from hence forward the face of sin shall be more hydeous to me than hell Make me as one of thy hired servants My God thou art our Father and we are nothing but earth and dust in comparison of Thee Thou art our Maker and we are all but clay in thy hands My God be not incensed against so weak so wicked an object My God have not the sins of my life past in rememberance The twelfth SECTION Of Petition or Request The fifth Act of Devotion A Certain great Emperour coming into Aegypt to shew the zeal he had to the publick good said to the Aegyptians Draw from me as from your river Nilus but what can be drawn from a man but hopes which swell like bubbles of water till they burst It is from God that we must draw for he is a fountain which perpetually distilleth who quenching the thirst of all the world hath himself but one which is saith Gregory Nazianzen that all men should thirst his bounty We must necessarily beg of God seeing our necessities constrain us and his bounty invites us we must beg of him according as he himself hath taught us in the Lords Prayer which is the sum of all Divinity we must ask in his Sons name and with confidence to obtain We must pray for the Church for the Pastours for our King for publick necessities for our selves for our neighbours we must pray for spiritual and temporal blessings according to occasion as far as is lawfull For which purpose it is good to have a collection of prayers for all occasions like a little Fort furnished with all pieces of battery to force even heaven it self with a religious fortitude and a pious violence Desire of God every morning at least That you may not offend him That you may not want Grace Light and Courage to resist those sins whereunto you are most enclined That you may practise those virtues that are most necessary for you That you may be guided and governed this day by Gods providence in all that concerns your soul body and outward things That you may obtain new graces and assistance for the necessities of your neighbours which you may then set before him Say for your self and for all those that concern you this form of prayer used by Thomas Aquinas The thirteenth SECTION A Form of Petition O God give unto me and to all those whom I commend in my prayers an Understanding to know thee an affectionate Devotion to seek thee a Wisdom to find thee a Conversation to please thee a Perseverance boldly to wait on thee a Faith happily to embrace thee My God so order it that I may be wounded with thy sufferings in repentance that in this life I may use thy blessings
pleasures Fortitude Fortitude is a virtue which confirms us against the pusillanimity that may hinder good actions It hath two arms one to undertake the other to suffer Aristotle assigneth it four parts that is confidence patience love of labour and valour Patience Patience is an honest suffering of evils incident to nature The points thereof are To bear the loss of goods sickness sorrows injuries and other accidents with courage neither to complain nor to groan but discreetly to conceal your grief to be afflicted in innocency for justice sake and sometimes even by those that are good to covet and embrace persecutions out of a generous desire to be conformable to the patience of the Saviour of the world Justice Justice is a virtue which giveth to every one that which is his due and all the acts of it are included in this sentence You must measure others by the same measure wherewith you desire to be measured your self Magnanimitie Magnanimitie according to Thomas Aquinas is a virtue which aimeth at great things by the direct means of reason The acts thereof are To frame your self to an honest confidence by purity of heart and manners to expose your self reasonably to difficult and dreadfull exploits for Gods honour neither to be bewitched with prosperitie nor dejected at adversitie not to yield to opposition not to make a stay at mean virtues to despise complacence and threats for love of virtue to have regard onely to God and for his sake to disesteem all frail and perishable things to keep your self from presumption which often ruins high spirits under colour of Magnanimitie Gratitude Gratitude is the acknowledgement and recompence as far as lies in our power of benefits received The acts thereof are To preserve the benefit in our memory to profess and publish it to return the like without any hope of requital Amitie Amitie is a mutual good will grounded upon virtue and communitie of goods The acts thereof are To choose friends by reason for virtues sake communicating of secrets bearing with imperfections consent of wills a life serviceable and officious protection in adversities observance of honesty in every thing care of spiritual profit accompanied with necessary advice in all love and respect Simplicitie Simplicitie is nothing but union of the outward man with inward The acts thereof are To be free from all false colour never to lie never to dissemble or counterfeit never to presume to shun equivocation and double speech to interpret all things to the best to perform business sincerely to forgo multiplicity of employments and enterprizes Perseverance Perseverance is a constancy in good works to the end through an affection to pursue goodness and virtue The acts thereof are firmness in good quietness in services offices and ordinary employments constancy in good undertakings flight from innovations to walk with God to fix your thoughts and desires upon him neither to give way to bitterness nor to sweetness that may divert us from our good purposes Charitie toward God and our neighbour Charitie the true Queen of virtues consisteth in love of God and our Neighbour the love of God appeareth much in the zeal we have of his Glory the acts thereof are to embrace mean and painfull things so they conduce to our Neighbours benefit To offer the cares of your mind and the prayers of your heart unto God for him To make no exceptions against any in exercise of your charge to make your virtues a pattern for others To give you what you have and what you are for the good of souls and the glory of God to bear incommodities and disturbances which happen in the execution of your dutie with patience Not to be discouraged in successless labours To pray fervently for the salvation of souls to assist them to your power both in spiritual and temporal things to root out vice and to plant virtue and good manners in all who have dependence on you Charitie in Conversation Charitie in the ordinary course of life consisteth in taking the opinions words and actions of our equals in good part To speak ill of no man to despise none to honour every one according to his degree to be affable to all to be helpfull to compassionate the afflicted to share in the good success of the prosperous to bear the hearts of others in your own breast to glory in good deeds rather than specious complements to addict your self diligently to works of mercy Degrees of Virtues Bonaventure deciphers unto us certain degrees of Virtue very considerable for practise his words are these It is a high degree in the virtue of Religion continually to extirpate some imperfection a higher than that to encrease always in Faith and highest of all to be insatiable for matter of good works and to think you have never done any thing In the virtue of Truth it is a high degree to be true in all your words a higher to defend Truth stoutly and highest to defend it to the prejudice of those things which are dearest to you in the world In the virtue of Prudence it is a high degree to know God by his creatures a higher to know him by the Scriptures but highest of all to behold him with the eye of Faith It is a high degree to know your self well a higher to govern your self well and to be able to make good choice in all enterprizes and the highest to order readily the salvation of your soul In the virtue of Humilitie it is a high degree to acknowledge your faults freely a higher to bow with the weight like a tree laden with fruit the highest to seek out couragiously humiliations and abasements thereby to conform your self to our Saviours life It is a high degree according to the old Aâ—iom to despise the world a higher to despise no man yet a higher to despise our selves but highest of all to despise despisal In these four words you have the full extent of Humility In Povertie it is a high degree to forsake temporal goods a higher to forsake sensual amities and highest to be divorced from your self In Chastitie restraint of the tongue is a high degree guard of all the senses a higher undefiledness of body a higher than that puritie of heart yet a higher and banishment of pride and anger which have some affinity with uncleanness the highest In Obedience it is a high degree to obey the Law of God a higher to subject your self to the commands of a man for the honour you bear your Sovereign Lord yet a higher to submit your self with an entire resignation of your opinion judgement affection will but highest of all to obey in difficult matters gladly couragiously and constantly even to death In Patience it is a high degree to suffer willingly in your goods in your friends in your good name in your person a higher to bear being innocent the exasperations of an enemy or an ungratefull man a higher yet to suffer much and repine at nothing but
beseech thee O blessed Saviour do thou command and by thy onely word my affairs will go well and receive a happy dispatch my body will become sound my soul innocent my heart at rest and my life an eternal glory The Gospel upon Saturday the first week in Lent and the Sunday following out of S. Matthew 17. Of the Transfiguration of our Lord. ANd after six days Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James and John his brother and bringeth them into a high mountain apart and he was transfigured before them And his face did shine as the Sun and his garments became white as snow And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him And Peter answering said to Jesus Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles one for thee one for Moses and one for Elias And as he was yet speaking behold a bright cloud over-shadowed them And lo a voice out of the cloud saying This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him And the Disciples hearing it fell upon their face and were sore afraid And Jesus came and touched them and he said to them Arise and fear not And they lifting up their eyes saw no body but onely Jesus And as they descended from the Mount Jesus commanded them saying Tell the vision to no body till the Son of man be risen from the dead Moralities 1. THe words of the Prophet Osee are accomplished the nets and toils planted upon mount Tabor not to catch birds but hearts The mountain which before was a den for Tigers and Panthers according to the story is now beautified by our Saviour and becomes a place full of sweetness ravishments Jesus appears transfigured in the high robes of his glory The cloud made him a pavillion of gold and the Sun made his face shine like it self The heavenly Father doth acknowledge his Son as a true Prince of glory Moses and Elias both appear in brightness the one bearing the Tables of the Law and the other carried in a burning Chariot as Origen saith which made the Apostles know him For the Hebrews had certain figures of the most famous men of their Nation in books They both as Saint Luke saith were seen in glory and Majesty which fell upon them by reflection of the beams which came from the body of Jesus who is the true fountain of brightness The Apostles lose themselves in the deliciousness of this great spectacle and by seeing more than they ever did desired to lose their eyes O that the world is most contemptible to him that knows how to value God as he ought So many fine powders so many pendents and favours of Glass so many Towers and Columns of dirt plaistered over with gold are followed by a million of Idolaters To conclude so many worldly jewels are like the empty imaginations of a sick spirit not enlightened by the beams of truth Let us rely upon the word saith Saint Augustine which remains for ever while men pass like the water of a fountain which hides it self in the Spring shews it self in the stream and loseth it self at last in the Sea But God is always himself there needs no Tabernacle made by the hands of man to remain with him for in Paradise he is both the God and the Temple 2. Tabor is yet but a small pattern we must get all the piece we must go to the Palace of Angels and brightness where the Tabernacles are not made by the hands of men There we shall see the face of the living God clearly and at full There the beauties shall have no vails to hide them from us Our being shall have no end Our knowledges will not be subject to errour nor our loves and affections to displeasure O what a joy will it be to enjoy all and desire nothing to be a Magistrate without a successour to be a King without an enemy to be rich without covetousness to negotiate without money and to be ever-living without fear of death 3. But who can get up to this mountain except he of whom the Prophet speaks who hath innocent hands and a clean heart who hath not received his soul of God in vain to bury it in worldly pelf To follow Jesus we must transform our selves into him by hearing and following his doctrine since God the Father proposeth him for the teacher of mankind and commands us to hearken unto him Wee must follow his examples since those are the originals of all virtues The best trade we can practise in this world is that of transfiguration and we may do it by reducing our form to the form of our Lord and walking upon earth like men in Heaven Then will the Sun make us have shining faces when purity shall accompany all our actions and intentions Our clothes shall be as white as snow when we shall once become innocent in our conversations we shall then be ravished like the Apostles and after we have been at Mount Tabor we shall be blind to the rest of the world and see nothing but Jesus It is moreover to be noted that our Saviour did at that time entertain himself with discourse of his great future sufferings and of his death to teach us that his Cross was the step by which he mounted up to beatitude Aspirations O Blessed Palace O magnificent Tabor which this day didst hold upon thee the Prince of Glory I love and admire thee but I admire somewhat else above thee It is the Heavenly Jerusalem that triumphant company that face of God where all those beauties are which shall never cease to be beauties It is for that I live for that I die for that I languish with a holy impatience O my Jesus my most benign Lord transform me then into thee that I may thereby be transformed into God If I have carried the earthly Image of Adam why should I not also carry the form of Jesus Catch me O Lord within those tissued nets and golden toils of brightness which thou didst plant upon this sacred mountain It is there I would leave mine eyes it is there I resolve to breath out my soul I ask no Tabernacles to be there built for me I have long since contemplated thy heart O Father of essences and all bounties as the most faithfull abode of my eternity The Gospel upon Munday the second week in Lent S. John 8. Jesus said to the Jews Where I go ye cannot come AGain therefore Jesus said to them I go and you shall seek me and shall die in your sin Whither I go you cannot come The Jews therefore said Why will he kill himself because he saith Whither I go you cannot come And he said to them You are from beneath I am from above you are of this world I am not of this world Therefore I say to you That you shall die in your sins For if you believe not that I am he ye shall die
find the like to whom wouldst thou have me go but to thy self who doest not yet cease to call me The Gospel upon the third Sunday in Lent S. Luke 11. Jesus cast out the Devil which was dumb ANd he was casting out a devil and that was dumb And when he had cast out the devil the dumb spake and the multitudes marvelled And certain of them said in Belzebub the Prince of Devils he casteth out Devils And others tempting asked him a sign from Heaven But he seeing their cogitations said to them Every Kingdom divided against it self shall be made desolate and house upon house shall fall And if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand because you say that in Belzebub I do cast out Devils And if I in Belzebub cast out Devils your children in whom do they cast out Therefore they shall be your judges But if I in the finger of God do cast out Devils surely the Kingdom of God is come upon you When the strong armed keepeth his court those things are in peace that he possesseth but if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him he will take away his whole armour wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth When the unclean spirit shall depart out of a man he wandreth through places without water seeking rest and not finding he saith I will return into my house whence I departed And when he is come he findeth it swept with a besom and trimmed Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits worse than himself and entering in they dwell there And the last of that man be made worse than the first And it came to pass when he said these things a certain woman lifting up her voice out of the multitude said to him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that thou didst suck But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Moralities 1. THe Almond-tree is the first which begins to flourish and it is often first nipt with frost The tongue is the first thing which moves in a mans body and is soonest caught with the snares of Satan That man deserves to be speechless all his life who never speaks a word better than silence 2. Jesus the eternal word of God came upon earth to reform the words of man his life was a lightening and his word a thunder which was powerfull in effect but always measured within his bounds He did fight against ill tongues in his life and conquered them all in his death The gall and vinegar which he took to expiate the sins of this unhappy tongue do shew how great the evil was since it did need so sharp a remedy He hath cured by suffering his dolours what it deserved by our committing sins Other vices are determined by one act the tongue goes to all it is a servant to all malitious actions and is generally confederate with the heart in all crimes 3. We have just so much Religion as we have government of our tongues A little thing serves to tame wild beasts and a small stern will serve to govern a ship Why then cannot a man rule so small a part of his body It is not sufficient to avoid lying perjuries quarrels injuries slanders and blasphemies such as the Scribes and Pharisees did vomit out in this Gospel against the purity of the Son of God We must also repress idle talk and other frivolous and unprofitable discourses There are some persons who have their hearts so loose that they cannot keep them within their brests but they will quickly swim upon their lips without thinking what they say and so make a shift to wound their souls 4. Imitate a holy Father called Sisus who prayed God thirty years together every day to deliver him from his tongue as from a capital enemy You shall never be very chaste of your body except you do very well bridle your tongue For loosness of the flesh proceeds sometimes from liberty of the tongue Remember your self that your heart should go like a clock with all the just and equal motions of his springs and that your tongue is the finger which shews how all the hours of the day pass When the heart goes of one side and the tongue of another it is a sure desolation of your spirits Kingdom If Jesus set it once at peace and quiet you must be very carefull to keep it so and be very fearfull of relapses For the multiplying of long continued sins brings at last hell it self upon a mans shoulders Aspirations O Word incarnate to whom all just tongues speak and after whom all hearts do thirst and languish chase from us all prating devils and also those which are dumb the first provoke and loose the tongue to speak wickedly and the other bind it when it should confess the truth O peace-making Solomon appease the divisions of my heart and unite all my powers to the love of thy service Destroy in me all the marks of Satans Empire and plant there thy Trophees and Standards that my spirit be never like those devils which seek for rest but shall never find it Make me preserve inviolable the house of my conscience which thou hast cleansed by repentance and clothed with thy graces that I may have perseverance to the end without relapses and so obtain happiness without more need of repentance The Gospel upon Munday the third week in Lent S. Luke 4. Jesus is required to do Miracles in his own Countrey ANd he said to them Certes you will say to me this similitude Physitian cure thy self as great things as we have heard done in Capharnaum do also here in thy Countrey And he said Amen I say to you that no Prophet is accepted in his own Country In truth I say to you there were many widows in the dayes of Elias in Israel when the heaven was shut three years and six moneths when there was a great famine made in the whole earth and to none of them was Elias sent but into Sarepta of Sidon to a widow woman And there were many Lepars in Israel under Elizeus the Prophet and none of them made clean but Naaman the Syrian And all in the Synagogue were filled with anger hearing these things And they rose and cast him out of the Citie and they brought him to the edge of the hill whereupon their Citie was built that they might throw him down headlong But he passing through the midst of them went his way Moralities 1. THe malignity of mans nature undervalueth all that which it hath in hand little esteems many necessary things because they are common The Sun is not counted rare because it shines every day and the elements are held contemptible since they are common to the poor as well as the rich Jesus was despised in his own Countrey because he
figureth it unto us a woman for it is a feminine vice to skirmish with the Tongue in the want of courage and virtue It hath by its sides two waiting-women one whereof is called Surprizal and the other Deceit because these Lucian The picture of Slander are the two vices which make Calumny prevail the one surprizing credulous spirits the other sophisticacating and disguizing Truth It is very curiously decked and pranked up for who would not abhorre it if it had not some exteriour attractive to surprize the unwary It neverthelesse shews in its countenance passion and rage for it is as hard to hide Love and Hatred as a Cough or Fire It holds in one hand a Torch like that of the Furies and who hath not heard that a great personage called it the Phaeton of the world because it sets all a fire and in combustion With the other hand Lipsius de Calumnia she catcheth a poor man by the hair as if she were ready to strangle him and albeit he implore heaven and earth to his aid there is not any one to deliver him out of the hands of this murtheresse These are the effects of the tyranny of this Passion Before it marcheth a vast fellow dry frightfull and lean whose eyes are sharp He is Envy's Agent and the inseparable companion of Slander On the right hand is seen a man with great ears such as were Midas'es who makes a shew to receive this impostresse with open arms Ignorance and Suspicion seeing the disposition and inclinations he hath do put a yoke about his neck and lead him by the nose Behold just so they are composed who readily hear Detractions They for the most part are open-eared to receive all poured in but otherwise suspicious and ignorant Lastly Repentance cometh behind all mourning and ill clad saying What have we done This creature was innocent and then with a finger sheweth Truth which in the Evening presenteth her self to enlighten darknesse It is the misery of humane things that one never almost repenteth a wickednesse but when it is remedilesse Nothing may be added to the conceit of this excellent Painter so happily he hath hit it I will onely say that if you desire to know the officers and inferiour ministeâ—s of this tyrannicall Passion they are not all equall in qualities or vices I find three principall Orders of them The first is of those who slander of purpose to vilifie the actions of others and to weaken their reputation Divers degrees of Calumniatours whether they be disposed thereto by some motive of pride which cannot endure any thing eminent but it self or through some jealousie as it happeneth in concurrencies of professions and conditions or out of some pretension of interest These are not gone so far yet as to black Slander for they do not report any criminall matters but content themselves to fall upon some defects sometimes slight and sometimes sufficiently apparent yea they seem to be reserved in matter of Slander for they do as the spies of the Land of Promise who first told its beauties and singularities before they mentioned its monsiers They lick the person before they bite they know the number of his virtues and perfections as if they had undertaken to make a Panegyrick of them saying This man is witty is sober is temperate is just and other such like neverthelesse there is alwayes a Conclusion which in the end marrs all You see likewise of this sort who cover the praises of another under a sad silence others who ascribe to chance that which was out of virtue others who by comparison of excellent men extenuate the acts of him whom they would blame others who punctually decipher all the defects of a good action others who say they have great compassion of his imperfections of whom they speak and would have supplied them at their own charge if it were in their power To conclude all such have some honest cloake for their Passion The second order is much more dangerous for it comprehendeth those who publickly and confidently speak of defects not common and incident but important and notable So you find an infinite number of them in the world who seem to have studied the lives the estates the families and genealogies of a whole City and as nothing can exempt it self from the curiosity of their eyes so none escapeth the poison of their tongues The third order is that of the Devill the father of Calumniatours and conteineth such as invent mischiefs and crimes with defamatory libels to brand the reputation of persons most innocent and many times very virtuous And as it is said that the ink of the Cuttle-fish poured into lamps maketh the bravest pieces of Painting to be seen with horrour so these wicked tongues when they have cast their poison upon the lights of a life the most innocent make it appear with hideous deformities One cannot say how damnable this vice is for it proceedeth from a source of Hell to ruine and extirpate all the members of humane society and if there be a disorder which deserveth that all men detest it and by common consent make warre against it This stands in the first place Such as forge Calumnies are extreamly detestable but those who lend their ears to receive them and do easily believe all which is suggested to their credulity against the same persons whom they have loved without hearing their justification grievously offend the divine Majesty and shew they have little judgement but much wilfulnesse An ear very hard to evil reports is needfull in a time when the tongue is so soft and streaming in an overflow of words § 4. Humane remedies of Envy IF you at this present seek for humane remedies which Humane remedies against Envy may be applied against the poisonous passion of Envy and Jealousie I can then tell you that this evil laies hold very often by the eyes and that it is expedient to guard them with a carefull heed and to divert them what one may from objects which are of power to excite many inordinate motives in the soul in this kind To what purpose is it to be so curious in the affairs of one towards whom you have no affection since by understanding his prosperities you very often learn your own disastres you look on his lands his houses his bravery his pomp his family his alliance his friends and all that entring into your heart through the curiosity of your eyes causeth therein fits of a lingering feavour which wasts and consumeth you The amourous eye sucketh in a sweet poison and the envious eye feeds it self with a venome which is full of bitternesse It perad venture expecteth that beholding the parts of the person it hateth it shall see the mischief it wisheth but God permits it there to find what least it would and that those envenomed aspects serve for a torment to the soul S. Gregory Nyssen in the life of Moses saith it
of his side The Prince in whom passion caused a continuall drâ—â—kennesse of Reason being more easie to believe then prudent to examine reasons turned towards them and presently found himself caught in their snare When seeing himself betraied and ready to be delivered into the hands of his Father and step-mother whom he more feared then a Panther he addressed himself to Geilan his confident friend and prayed him to give an end to his miserable life sith having found so much infidelity in his beloved treachery in his friends and crueltie in his father there nothing remained for him but a Tomb to bury all his miseries The other thinking to do him great service thrust his sword into his body and separated his soul Which may be a fearfull example for youth to make them for ever to abhor the charms of love That of Carloman was as light although it had Paulus Aemilius not so long a sequele of accidents Paulus Aemilius recounteth that this young Prince accustomed to sottish and sordid love having in a street perceived a creature which to him seemed handsome he began to follow her being mounted on his horse but the maid very chaste to avoid his courtships cast her self speedily into a house whither Carloman spurring his horse desperately followed her not observing that the door of the house was too low which smote him and stroke him down so unfortunately that he left both love and life It was a direfull thing to see so great a Prince to die in jeast but the sports of this passion are ordinarily bloudy and Venus came from a sea of water to swim in a sea of bloud 3. I will here also let you see the effect of a passion Concilia Gallieana tom 3. to all extremity dissolute and scandalous which made a great noise throughout all Christendome and will serve to make men detest the wickednesse of such as break conjugall bands to satisfie their lust The young Emperour Lotharius grand-child of Lewis the Courteous loved in his younger years a Lady much mentioned in the Epistles of Popes under the name of Valdrada She had a commanding beauty was of a humour full of attractives and wiles which surprized the young Prince with an affection so strong and catching that after a thousand crosses he could not be unloosed from it but by death Neverthelesse Time and Reason inviting him to think upon a lawfull marriage he espoused Theutbergue a beautifull and virtuous Princesse Scandalous love of the Emperour Lotharius and Valdrada who was thought fit to quench the fire of his unchaste love and hereafter to enkindle his heart with flames more chaste and happy But fascinated by his evil Genius he presently took an aversion against his wife being seldome personally with her and perpetually in mind and affection with her who had laid hold of his first love Whether it were that this audacious woman imperiously ruled over him as a man timorous in his passions who durst not yet confidently do a mischief or whether he were sufficiently disposed thereunto by the violence of his love he undertakes a very scandalous businesse which was to unmarry himself falsly imputing adultery and barrennesse to his wife The criminall processe is handled in the Ecclesiasticall Court Gontier Archbishop of Collen who had great power and great faults supporteth the Princes part what he might having won Theutgard Archbishop of Trew on his side he drags along souls set to sale by a torrent of authority to which none make resistance The innocent Theutbergue is condemned in two pestilent Synods and handled as a prostitute the Crown is taken from her and put on Valdrada's head who appeared with a marvellous pomp whilest the other groaned under the ashes of a publick penance The chaste Princesse who not so much regarded eminent wedlocks as the honour of her purity which she meant to preserve to her tomb appealed to the Pope which at that time was Nicholas the first and wrote mournfull letters to him able to rent rocks asunder The common Father of Christendome heareth her complaints animated by truth and deputeth two Legates to do her right These Prelates had not courage enough to decide the matter and seeing themselves upon one side assailed by their conscience and on the other besieged by the powerfull contentions of Lotharius and two Archbishops they found out a way how to wash their hands from this judgement They shew that since two Provinciall Councels had passed upon it and that the Archbishops Gontier and Theutgard had born sway therein it were good that the same men took pains to go to Rome to let the Pope see the acts of those two assemblies and to justifie all their proceedings These two Prelates who thought nothing was impossible to their credit refused not the commission They go armed with impostures and tattle to oppresse truth and overwhelm innocency The Pope a clear-seeing and charitable man interessed himself in the cause and in full assembly discovereth their jugling with such vigour and perspicuity that all the Fathers cast their stone at them The mischief they meant against the innocent Theutbergue falls back upon their own heads they are excommunicated degraded deprived of their offices and benefices to be reduced to the communion of Lackies Never did men practise a mischief with more unluckinesse and lesse successe A Legate is dispatched to annull all they had done which was the courageous Arsemius who caused all the processe to be reviewed drave away the impudent Valdrada restored her honour to Queen Theutbergue and tied her marriage with an indissoluble knot Neverthelesse this judicious Lady well foreseeing that those loves which are re-enkindled with the fires of S. Peters thunders would neither be happy nor faithfull for her saith she was satisfied to have put her honour into safegard and that having observed so much evil disposition in her husband and treachery in the world she desired to spend the rest of her dayes with God Lotharius was transported with joy upon this news and addressed an humble supplication to the Pope shewing he had obeyed his commandments being dutifully bent to take his wife again but since the piety of this Princesse who is not born for worldly matters is suggested with the thought of entering into religion it would please him to favour her generous purpose to give him leave to marry Valdrada which would be a means to take away all the sin scandall of his miserable life The holy Father answers that he much commended the charity he had towards queen Theutbergue his spouse but that it was fit this good affection might begin in himself and should he throughly resolve to enter into a Monastery the permission he required for his wife should hinder nothing This answer confounded him and seeing that of two wives he was despised by the one and interdicted from the other he lived in the world as a man without soul or contentment Mean while he hoped that
dinner of Locusts and wild Honey retired in his Cabben then at the fight of the pomps and pleasures of the King of Galilee But God that is the Master of Kings and the Directour of Hermites hath thus disposed of him and willed that he should dye at Court after he had so long a time lived in the wildernesse It is not certainly known what occasion drove him to it whether he went thither by zeal or whether he was sent for by design or whether he was forced by violence Some think that the miseries of his countrey afflicted under the government of a dissolute Prince affecting him with a great Compassion He went out of the desert of his own accord to admonish the king of his duty Since that all those that came neer him and that were obliged to speak to him were mute partly by a servitude fatall to all those that are tyed to the hopes of the world and partly also being seized with fear by reason of the power and cruelty of a womans spirit that possessed Herod Others as Josephus have written that the Prince hearing every day of the great concourse of all sorts of people that went to the wildernesse to see Saint John was afraid lest under colour of piety this might make some change of State Tyrants love not men endowed with an extraordinary virtue and that have not learnt the trade of flattering their voyce is the Cock that frights those cruell Lyons their life is a flash of Lightning that dazles their Eyes their actions are as many Convictions of their Iniquity And therefore this Authour saith that without other form of processe Herod caused him to be apprehended to prevent him and break off those assemblies that were made about him Yet it is probable and more consonant to the Scripture which assures us that this Prince bare some respect to John and heard him and did many things according to his advice that he proceeded not against him at first with so much violence But the cunning Fox as he was according to the judgement that the Eternall Truth made of him seeing that Saint John was in an high esteem for holinesse and in great credit amongst the people strived to winne him and to draw him to him to make himself be reputed for a good Prince that cherished honest men and to maintain by this means his authority that was already rottering and little rooted in the true Maximes of a good Government It was thus that Dionysius the Tyrant made use of the Philosophers not for any affection that he bare them but to appropriate them to the bad intentions that he had in State and to give them some colour by the expresse or interpreted approbation of those personages that were in reputation for their wisdome But Herod did ill choose his man this was not a Court-flatterer a Tool for all Trades a Shoe for all Feet but a stiffe and austere man to whom a whole World would not have given the least temptation to do any thing against his conscience It would be a superfluous thing to enlarge ones self at length upon the rare qualities of Saint John who having been many times highly commended by the Creatour of Virtues and the Distributour of true praises who hath preferred him above the greatest of the world seems to have dryed up by his abundance the Elogies of the most eloquent Let us content our selves to say that there are abundance of excellencies in him enough to make all chaires speak and all pens write even to the end of the world He was born of the blood of Aaron the brother of Moses the first ornament of the Priesthood and the great Conductour of the People He came out of a barren Womb which he rendered fruitfull above all fecundities of the earth His birth was declared miraculously by the voyce of an Archangell He was sanctified almost as soon as conceived and virtue appropriated him to her self before that nature had brought him to the Light He was a worshipper of the word when he was yet in the bowels of his mother and received the first rayes of the everlasting day before that his eye was open to the brightnesse of the Sun Reason was advanced to him by a wonder altogether extraordinary He hath had this honour to know first after the Virgin Mary the news of that high mystery of the Incarnation and of the Redemption of the world Of all the Nativities of so many children of Adam the Church celebrates none but that of John who hath this common with our Saviour and his most holy Mother who by a speciall priviledge honoured his birth by her actuall presence So that he saw his first day under the aspect of the Mother of the Universe His name was given him by an Archangell a name of grace and favour that shewed he was placed in the ranke of the dearest delights of Heaven and the tongue of his dumb Father tyed by an heavenly virtue was loosed by its power that it might pronounce that fair name He was exempted from grievous sins and as many Divines hold even from veniall He consecrated his retirement in the Desert almost as soon as he entered into the world Farthermore he was a Prophet and more then a Prophet a Virgin a Doctour a forerunner of the Son of God the Trumpet of Repentance the Authour of a Baptisme that ushered in that which regenerates us all whereof Jesus was pleased to receive the sprinckling In fine he was the Horizon of the Gospel and the Law and the first that shewed with the finger the Lamb of God and the Kingdome of Heaven But let us make no reckoning of what I have alleaged but let us say onely that which the word hath said of him That he was not a Reed to bow at every wind nor a man that could be allured by the delicacies of the Court He spake there as a Prophet he conversed there as an Angell and at last dyed there as a Martyr The time furnished him with an occasion about which he could not speak without making much noyse and he could not hold his peace without betraying his Conscience That Herod Antipas which we are to speak of here was the sonne of the great Herod the Murtherer of the Innocents and of a Samaritan woman who after the death of his Father forasmuch as the Legitimate issue of Mariamne had been unworthily murthered to make way for unjust heirs had for his part of the Kingdome of Judea Galilee which he held in quality of a Tetrarch He was a Prince of a small courage addicted to his pleasures lascivious and loose that endeavoured to preserve himself by poor shifts having nothing stout nor warlike in his person He had a brother named Philip which held another parcell of that Kingdome of Judea dismembred and little enough considerable the Romans having possessed themselves of the best part of it after they had deposed Archelaus that had reigned as Successour of his
Princes ears with such like words and to breed a distrust in him of Saint John in such a manner as that he consented that he should be apprehended and put in prison under colour as Josephus saith that he went about to change the peoples minds and to embroil the State This detaining of a man so holy and so renowned made a great noyse through all Judea but the wicked woman had this maxime That one ought to take ones pleasure to content nature and little to trouble ones self at the opinions of the world below nor at the complaints of honest men judging that all mouthes ought to be stopped by the rigour of punishments and that she should be innocent when no body durst any more find fault with her actions She slept not one good sleep with her Herod as long as Saint John was yet alive but fearing alwayes either that her pretended husband whom she thought light enough might be softned with compassion to release him or that the people that held him for a Saint might break open the prisons to take him thence she resolved to see the end of him to give all liberty to her unbridled passions She watches the opportunity of Herods birth-day on which he was accustomed to make feasts and to intertein the principall Officers of his Kingdome This crafty woman tampered with all the wills of those that had any power over his spirit for this design and seeing that her daughter was a powerfull instrument to move that effeminate Prince and that he was extraordinarily pleased to see her dance conjured her to employ all her genius and all her industry all the baits allurements and gentilesses that she had in dancing to gain the Kings heart and that if she saw him very freely merry and on terms to gratifie her with some great advantage she should take heed of asking any thing but the head of John and that he was necessarily to fall if she would not see her mother perish and all her fortunes overthrown The daughter obeyed and fits her self even to perfection to please the Princes eyes she enters into the banqueting house richly deck'd and makes use of a dance not vulgar whereat he was ravished and all the Guests that were perhaps hired by Herodias to commend her made a wonderfull recitall of her perfections There was nothing now remaining but to give her the recompence of her pains This daughter of iniquity and not of nature sayes Chrysologus seeing that every one applauded her and that the King that was no longer his own man would honour her with some great present which he would remit to her own choyse even as far as to give her the moity of his Kingdome if she would have desired it made a bloudy request following the instructions of her wicked mother and required that instantly S. Johns head should be given her in a plate Herod felt his heart pricked with a repentance piercing enough but because he had sworn in presence of the Nobles of his Kingdomes to deny nothing that she should ask would not discontent her but gives command to the Master of his House to go to the prison and to cut off S. Johns head to put it in the hands of this wanton wench As soon as the word was pronounced her mother was not quiet till she saw the execution of it to Prison they run every one thought that it had been for some grace since that it was upon the nick of the feast of the Nativity of the King but they quickly saw an effect quite contrary to that thought when S. John was called for and told that he must resolve to dye What think we did this divine forerunner do at this last moment that remained to him of so innocent a life but render thanks to God that made him dye a Martyr for the truth after he had inlightned his eyes with the visible presence of the Incarnate Word which permitted him not to have any thing left in this world to be desired He exhorted his disciples to range themselves about our Saviour who was the Way the Life and the Truth He prayed for his persecutours and for the easing of the miseries of his poor people afterward having a relish of the first contentments of his felicity by the tranquility of his spirit he yielded his neck to the hangman His body was honourably buried by his disciples and his head brought in a plate to that cruell feast put into the hands of that danceresse who presented it to her mother and the mother according to S. Jerome made a play-game of it pricking the tongue with the needle of her hair All that one can speak is below the horrour of its spectacle sayes S. Ambrose The head of S. John of the Prime man of the world that had shut up the Law that had opened the Gospel the head of a Prophet of an Angell is outrageously taken off and delivered for the salary of a danceresse The soberest of men is massacreed in a feast of drunkards and the chastest by the artifice of a prostitute He is condemned on an occasion and on a time in which he would not even have been absolved as abhorring all that proceeded from intemperance O how dangerous is it then to offend a woman that hath renounced her honour Herod gave her an homicide for a kisse The hangmen wash their hands when they are ready to sit down at table but these unhappy women pollute theirs in the banquet with a Prophets bloud The righteous slain by adulterers the innocent by the guilty the true judge by criminall souls This banquet that should have been the source of life brings an edict of death Cruelty is mingled with delights and pleasure with funerals This horrible plate is carried through all the table for the satiating of those unhumane eyes and the bloud that drops yet from his veins falls upon the pavement to be licked up with the ordures of that infamous supper Look upon it Herod look upon a deed that was worthy of none but thy Cruelty stretch out thine hand put thy fingers in the wound that thou hast made that they may be again bedewed with a bloud so sacred Drink cruell man drink that river which thou seest glide to quench thy thirst Look upon those dead eyes that accuse thy wickednesse and which thou dost wound again with the aspect of thy filthy pleasures Alas they are shut not so much by the necessity of death as by the horrour of thy luxury The vengeance of God delayed not long to fall upon those perverse souls that had committed so enourmous a crime Arethas King of the Arabians resenting the affront that had been given to his daughter by those Adulterers enters in arms upon the lands of Herod who bestirrs himself but weakly to resist him Pleasures held him so fast chained that he had not the boldnesse to go to his frontiers in person to oppose his adversary but contented himself with sending a
go under hatches to sleep like the out-casts and scorns of humane Nature The fifth the peace of a good conscience the inseparable companion of honest men which sugereth all their tears which sweeteneth all their sharpness which melteth all their bitterness a continual feast a portable theater a delicious torrent of unspeakable content which beginneth in this world and is often felt in this life even in chains prisons persecutions what then will it be when consummated in the other life when the curtain of the great Tabernacle shall be withdrawn when we shall see God face to face in a body impossible as an Angel subtile as a beam of light swift as the wings of thunder bright as the Sun and when we shall dwell among so goodly and flourishing a company in a palace of inestimable glory where we shall enjoy no life but the life of God the knowledge of God the love of God as long as God shall be God Nescio quid erit quod ista vita non erit ubi lucet quod non capiat locus ubi sonat quod non rapit tempus ubi olet quod non spargit flatus ubi sapit quod non minuit edacitas ubi haeret quod non divellit aeternitas said S. Augustine What will that life be or rather what will not that life be Since all good either is not at all or is in such a life Light which place cannot comprehend Voices and musick which time cannot ravish away Odours which are never dissipated a Feast which is never consumed a Blessing which Eternitie bestoweth but Eternity shall never see at an end The sixth is on the other side to consider the state of this present life A true dream which hath onely the disturbances but never the rest of sleep a childish sport a toil of burthensom and ever-relapsing actions where for one rose we meet with a thousand thorns for an ounce of hony a tun of gall for apparent good real evil The happiest here may number their years but not their cares The paths here to the highest honours are all of ice and often bordered onely by precipices Its felicities are floating Islands which always retire when we but offer to touch them they are the feast of Heliogabalus where are many invitations many ceremonies many complements many services and at the end of all this we find a table banquet of wax which melts at the fire whence we return more hungry than we came It is the enchanted egg of Oromazes in which that Impostour boasted that he had enclosed all the happines of the world but broken there was found nothing but wind Omnia haec conspectui nostro insidiosis coloribus lenocinantur vis illa occulorum attributa lumini non applicetur errori saith Eucherius All these prosperities flatter our senses with an imposture of false colours why do we suffer those eyes to be taken in the snares of errours which are given us by Heaven to behold the light and not to minister unto lying Besides another thing which should put us into an infinite dislike of this present life is that we live in a time as full of diseases as old age of indispositions we live in a world extreamly corrupt of which may be said it is a monster whose understanding is a pit of darkness his reason a shop of malice his will a hell where thousands of passions outragiously infest him his eyes are two Conduit-pipes of fire out of which flie sparkles of concupiscence his tongue an instrument of cursing his face a painted hypocrisie his body a spunge full of filth his hands harpies talons and to conclude he owns no faith but infidelity no Lord but his passion no God but his belly what content can there be in living with such a monster The seventh If there are any pleasures in this life they do nothing but overflow the heart slightly with a little superficial delectation Sadness dives into the bottom of my soul and when it is there you would think it hath leaden feet never to go thence but pleasure doth onely tickle us in the outside of the skin and then all those sweet waters run down with haste to discharge themselves into the sea of bitterness For this reason Saint Augustine said when any prosperity presented it self before his eyes he durst not touch it he beheld pleasure as a wandering bird that would deceive him and flie away as soon as he should offer to lay hold of it The eighth Pleasures are begot in the sense and like abortives die in their birth their desires are full of disquiet their access of violent forced and turbulent commotions their satiety is seasoned with shame and repentance they pass away as soon as they have wearied out the body and leave it like a bunch of grapes whose juice hath been pressed out as saith Saint Bernard They stretch themselves out at full length to much purpose when they must end with this life and it is a great chance if even during life they prove not executioner to him that entertains them I see no greater pleasure in this world than the contempt of pleasure Nulla major voluptas qâ—à m voluptatis fastidium saith Tertullian The ninth He that consumeth his time in pleasures when they slide away like waters occasioned by a storm findeth himself destitute and ashamed like a Pilgrim despoiled by a Thief so many golden harvests which time presented to him are passed away and the rust of a heavy age furnished him with nothing but sorrow for having done ill and impotence to do well what then remains but to say with that miserable King who gave away his scepter for a glass of water Alas Must I for so short a pleasure loose so great a Kingdom The tenth Sin always carrieth sorrow behind it but not always true repentance It is an extraordinary favour from God to have time to bewail the offences of our life past and to take that time by the foretop Many are sent into the other world without once thinking of their departure and some think of it at their death with many tears but not one good act of repentance they weep for the sins which forsake them and not for God whom they have lost True contrition is a hard work how can he obtain it who hath ever falsified it Faciliùs inveni qui innocentiam servarent quà m qui congruè poenitentiam agerent saith S. Ambrose The eleventh Death all this while is coming on a great pace he waits for you at all hours in all places and yet you cannot wait for him so much as one minute so displeasing is this thought unto you his sentence is more clear and perspicuous than if it were written with the Suns beams and yet cannot we read it his trumpet soundeth perpetually more audibly than thunder and yet we hear it not No wonder that David Psal 49. 4. calleth it according to the Hebrew a Riddle every one beholds the Tablet but
few know the meaning yet it is a granted truth that we must bid a long farewel to all such things of life as can extend no further than life it self a granted truth that we must inherit serpents and worms in a house of darkness How excellent a lesson might be learned from hence to know it once well we must study it every day Every where we see watches and clocks some of gold some of silver others beset with precious stones they give us notice of all hours except that which must be our last and since they cannot strike that hour we must make it sound in our conscience The very instant that you are reading this a thousand and perhaps a thousand souls loos'd from their bodies are presented before Gods tribunal what would you do if you were now to bear them company Omnia ista contemnito quibus solutus corpore non indigebis said Diodore In a word despise timely whilest you are in the body those things whereof you shall have no need when you are out of the body The twelfth your soul shall go forth and of all her followers in life shall onely be attended by good and evil If she be surprized in sin hell shall be her share hell the great lake of Gods wrath hell the common shore of all the filth of the world hell the store-house of eternal fire hell a bottomless depth where there is no evil but must be expected nor good that can be hoped These twelve considerations are very fit to be meditated upon monethly at leisure The second SECTION Seven paths of Eternitie which lead the soul to great Virtues THese twelve Considerations well weighed make us take a serious resolution to proceed directly to good whereof if you desire further demonstration Bonaventure points us out seven fair paths and seven great gates which lead us in a strait line to this blessed eternity and I wish we had as much courage to follow them as he grace to unfold them First seeing the beginning of your virtue and felicity consisteth in the knowledge of God and in the state of the next life of which we cannot without some crime be ignorant and which we can never know but with profit you must understand that the first gate of eternity is To have good and sincere intentions in the performance of eternal things To take a strong resolution to work out your salvatioÌ„ at what rate soever To account all temporal things as wandering birds which look upon us from a bough of some tree make us a little chirping musick and then flie away To think that to bear a vicious mind in a fair ornament of fortune is to keep a leaden blade in an ivory sheath To banish evil hypocritical impure and mercenary intentions throughout all the course of your life and exercise of your charge to go towards God To do for God To aim at the honour and glory of God above all things You are no little way on your journey when you have gone this path Thence you come to the second which is the Meditation of eternal things wherein the Kingly Prophet exercised himself like a stout Champion when he said I have considered the days of old the years of ancient times Psal 77. 5. This good intention which you take to advance to Eternity will imprint daily in your thoughts an eternal God an eternal Paradise an everlasting hell an everlasting life and as Iacobs flocks by looking upoÌ„ the streaked rods brought forth ring-streaked and spotted cattel so all you do in contemplating this eternity will be coloured with eternity And if any temporal pleasure or opportunity to commit a sin were offered you would say as Demosthenes the Oratour did of the beautiful Lais when he was asked an excessive sum of money to behold her I will not buy repentance so dear I am not so ill a Merchant as to sell the eternal for the temporal Having passed through this gate you will come to the third which is the gate of Light called Contemplation of Eternal things Here is it that we see the divine things not onely by form of argument and discourse as if we cast up some account but with the light of our illuminated understanding as if we should behold with a glance of the eye an excellent piece of some eminent Master almost with an extasie of admiration So Tiburtius saw Paradise when he walked upon burning coals so all the Saints beheld Beatitude when amidst so many afflictions they remained immoveable drowning the pain of their bodies in the overflowing content of the minds From this step we necessarily light upon the fourth gate which is most servent love of Eternal things for as saith Thomas Aquinas very well the sight of temporal beauty begetteth temporal love oftentimes filling the soul with fire and flame so the contemplation of eternity begetteth eternal love which is an ardent affection towards God and all that appertaineth to his glory as was that of S. Mary Magdalen who saith in Origen That Heaven and the Angels are a burthen to her and that she could live no longer except â—he beheld him who made both Heaven and the Angels she had crossed seas armed with monsters and tempests without any sails but those of her desires to reach her Beloved She had past through flames and grapled a thousand times with lances and swords to cast her self at his feet The perfect love of God is a wonderfull Alchimie when we have attained it it changeth iron to Gold ignominies to Crowns and all sufferings to delights At the fifth gate which is called the Revelation of Eternal things God speaketh in the ear of the heart and replenisheth the soul with extraordinary light and knowledge darting even here upon it as saith Gerson some lightening flashes of Paradise as when a torch casteth some beams through the chinks of a door or window And as the knowledge of the understanding is nothing without the fervour of the will from this gate we go on to the sixth called the Tast of Experience by which we begin to relish the joys of Paradise in this life and contentments which cannot be expressed A hundred thousand tongues may discourse to you the sweetness of honey but you can never have such knowledge of it as by tast so a world full of books may tell you wonders of the science of God but you can never understand it exactly but by the tast of experience True science as Thomas Aquinas saith upon the Canticles consisteth more in relish than in knowledge In sapore non in sapere I had rather have the feeling which a simple soul hath with God than all the definition of Philosophers Lastly the seventh gate of Eternity is called The deifying or divinized operation which S. Dionysius termeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is when a soul worketh all its actions by eternal principles in imitation of the Incarnate Word and a perfect union with God Clemens Alexandrinus called him that