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
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
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
propose three Remedies to take away the differences and to re-establish the true Queen in her Kingdom The first was That she should give assurances to the Queen Elizabeth no ways to disquiet her in the Succession of the Crown of England The Second was That she should grant an Act of Pardon and Forgetfulness to her rebellious Subjects for fear the punishment should otherwise extend to a number that was infinite The third was That the Marriage with Bothuel being condemned to be unlawfull she should consent to be espoused to some Illustrious Person in England who should be answerable in all conditions and maintain both Kingdoms in a perpetual friendship to which Queen Mary shewed a singular inclination 9. But the Queen of England was wonderfully The labyrinths of the hypocrisie of Elizabeth amazed at this Sentence and proceedings and although in publick she seemed to be much contented at the justification of her Cousin yet in secret she much raged at it and encouraged the Accusers to prosecute their complaints in full Parliament telling them They were both lazy and impertinent to begin their Suit and not to accomplish it The Process upon this was brought again to the Councel of England where the bastard Murray armed with the outragious pen of Buchanan used all his power even to the affrighting of the Agents of Queen Mary by the Authority of Elizabeth But the best sort of people began to murmure saying that it was necessary that the Traitours should be taken off and the innocent Queen re-established in her Kingdom On the one side Elizabeth ceased not to make delays and on the other she pretended that she would understand what should be the conditions of her Inlargement whether it were to appear civil and humane or whether she would sound the minds of those further whom she thought did talk with too much liberty concerning that affair In the mean time the Spirits which could not clearly enough discover the labyrinths of her dark heart conceived that Truth had now prevailed to publish the innocence of the Queen of Scotland that the Deceitfull hopes Storm was grown into a Calm and that she now began to arrive at her desired haven she now was looked on by every one with another eye and the greatest personages in England did passionately desire an Alliance with her The Earl of Liecester an intimate favourite of Elizabeths observing that his Queen had no intention to be married and that the Scepter of England did look upon this Prisoner did entertain a delicate Ambition to court her in the way of Marriage but the Transalpine humour of his most jealous Mistress did so perplex him that he durst not tell to his own heart what his own thoughts were He most passionately desired that the Queen would make some overture to him of it to submit all things to her discretion and to make her understand that this would be a happy means to take away all doubts and misapprehensions that should arise from Scotland But so it was that he durst not proceed in it so well he understood the spirit of Elizabeth who was as apt to receive an evil impression as she was cruel to revenge it The Duke of Norfolk who was President at the Treason against the Duke of Norfolk and his ruin Trial of Queen Mary was advanced above all others in Dignity and remarkable over all the Realm for his great and gallant qualities The bastard Murray did flatter him with the hope of his Sisters marriage The Earl of Liecester began to dive into his heart concerning that suit and gave him some touches of it whether it were that by that means he would know the pleasure of Elizabeth or whether he were resolved to destroy the Duke who onely was able to cast a shadow on his light Throgmorton who was a friend unto them both did first carry the message and acquainted Norfolk that Leicester had a desire to speak with him on a business of high importance which was concerning his marriage with the Queen of Scotland he told him That he spoke this unto him as of himself but counselled him as a friend to refer the further proceedings on that marriage to the Earl of Leicester who though it was thought did pretend himself to it yet he desired that his modesty would give way that the Earl might advise him because there was no great apparence of any thriving in that motion without his direction He believed this counsel and as soon as the Earl began to open his mouth concerning it he did comply unto him with all honour and submission and did express himself to be indifferent and cold enough concerning that marriage although to speak the truth her Innocence so much persecuted had kindled already the first fire of love within his heart Leicester touched with this courtesie did increase his flame and did remonstrate to him that this Marriage would highly conduce to the benefit of the State because it would prove a happy means to divert all strange Alliances which might carry the Queen of Scotland to pursue her pretensions to the Crown of England and serve absolutely to confirm her in the good opinion of Queen Elizabeth The Duke who was indued with a natural freedom of disposition and knew not how to dissemble beholding himself at one time betwixt two violent fires of Love and Honour did entertain the heat which too soon he did evaporate and besought the Earl since he pretended no more to that affair and that he himself would not proceed in it without his assurance that he would do him a courtesie worthy of the place which he had near the Queen for which he never would be ingratefull This the Earl did promise him and if men may judge by apparence very heartily which did so blow up the heart of the Lover that in thinking of it he did adore his own thoughts It was indeed a strange temptation to propose unto himself so accomplished a Beauty and so eminent a Virtue on whose trayn two Kingdoms did attend The world is not capable to be governed by two Suns and the heart of man suffers more than mortal Agonies when it sustains the shock of two violent passions who unite their forces and designs to make a war upon him The Duke beholding himself flattered with these Great passions of Love and Ambition loves by divers other Agents did write unto the Queen of Scotland with magnifick complements and offers of unparallel'd service with the greater pomp sweetness to enter into the secrets of her thoughts The Prisoner who laboured for nothing more than to break her chains asunder did desire rather to see the end of that affair than to understand the beginning of it but the experience which she had of the dissimulation and jealousies of Elizabeth did make her to go upon these considerations as on a fire covered with ashes Wherefore without being much moved at it she made answer That she must commit the
upon as a man slâ—d down from Heaven whose excellent Qualities did promise him the fullness of glory But he suddenly observed the Affairs of the Kingdom His return to England to be greatly perplexed by reason of the horrible divorce which Henry the Eight resolved on who indeavoured at once to separate himself from his wife and from the Church of God He much desired that Pool who was Famous for knowledge and integrity should approve his intention to the end that finding no assistance from Truth he might beg some apparence from the opinions of men This was no small temptation to this young Prelate The Combat in his spirit who was not altogether so austere as to distast all honour of preferment nor so little versed in Court as not to look on the King as the Original from whence it flowed He a long time consulted with himself to find a mean which might make his conscience to accord with the will of the King His integrity which was to him as another Birth did dispute in his heart with the Interest of his Fortune and he sought after the means to temper them into one One day he thought he had found it and addressed himself to the Court to expose his advise unto the King which was an advise more pleasing than just and he had then a care that the liberty of his words should not hinder the pretences to his dignity O who is he that is able to Counsel a King in his passion If you alledge unto him too much of Justice you hazard your Fortune If you comply unto him with too much Gentleness you do betray your heart The words of a Prince are the surnace which doth prove you where you may behold some to burn and consume away like straw and others to come forth purified like Gold The spirit of God did seize on the heart and the tongue of this wise Councellour he forgot all the worldly and flattering reasons he had prepared to open onely his eyes unto the Truth How Sir said be unto the â—â—ng to labour a divorce He took part with God from Queen Katharine after so many years of your marriage who hath brought you issue to succeed you in the Crown It is true that she was given a spouse to your elder Brother but he died in his youth before his marriage was consummated And you have espoused the Queen in the face of the Church with a dispensation as authentical as the Pope could give and which he granted with your consent at the request of the King your Father of glorious memory And since your Majesty hath had a secret Repugnance caused by a respect to him to whom you ow your Birth that can bring no prejudice to the publick Faith nor to the consummation of a marriage followed by such fruits and Benedictions as ordinarily do attend that mutual commerce Alas Sir your Majesty hath consecrated its Reign by so many Royal virtues and excellent Examples which have acquired you the love and admiration of Christendom will it now eclipse so pure a life and so Triumphant a reputation by a stain which cannot be washed away but by the effusion of the bloud of all your Realm Your Majesty hath sacrificed both its Scepter and its pen by the obedience which it hath rendered to the holy Sea and by the book which it hath made in the defence of the Church Cannot it honestly cast off those Laws which it hath authorized by a publick Testimony What will your people say who have so just an apprehension of Religion What will forreign Princes say who have conceived so high an opinion of your Merit Those who do Counsel you to that divorce are the most capital Enemies of your glorie who do draw upon you the indignation of God the censure of the Sovereign Priest the arms of a great estate who being offended at this affront will conjure your ruin That which hath droven you to it is onely a passion of youth which ought to be moderated it is had Counsel from which you should retire your self it is a mischief which you should labour to avoid In this case the advice which doth least please you will be the best The precipitation of so hazardous an Act can bring nothing but repentance This I speak unto your Majesty being driven to it by the fervent zeal which I have unto the safety of its Soul and by the tender respect which I have always born to your Royal Person I must beseech it that I may not be surprized in so important an affair as this marriage is which had his Ordinance in heaven and its happiness on earth This was boldly spoken by a Man who saw that in accommodating his humour to the King he incontinently entered into the possession of the richest benefits of the Kingdom and that crossing his design he exposed his liberty his Estate his life to most apparent danger Nevertheless he had the constancy to make him this grave Remonstrance without following the Example of those which flatter all evil actions and make Divinity to speak that which the interest of their Fortunes doth suggest unto them Henry the Eighth grown more hardened Henry the Eighth was no way softened at this so grave an Oration but on the contrary he had a most earnest desire to arrest his Cosin Pool and to put him to death which had been put in Execution if the hand of God had not withheld the blow He very well observed that the heart of the King was impoysoned with lust and choler even to the despair of all remedy Wherefore not long after finding his opportunity he asked leave of the King under some pretence to go out of the Kingdom and did abandon himself to a willing banishment because he would not offend his conscience He came Pool banished himself into France and stayed sometime in Avignon from thence he traveled to Padua and from Padua to Venice where he was acknowledged and esteemed for one of the chiefest men of Christendom and renowned Pool made Cardinal for excellent quallities In the end God being pleased to demonstrate that there is nothing lost in serving him and that honours are not onely for them who by a politick suppleness do accommodate themselves unto the Times and the lusts of great men he stirred up the spirit of Paul the third a great lover of learned men who made him Cardinal with approbation of all the world So that forsaking a Bishoprick in England for the satisfying of his conscience and the defence of the truth he obtained by his merit so high a place of Eminence in the Church which all the Crimes of a conscience prostituted to evil could never procure unto them Henry who had already declared war against God and all his Saints by his divorce was inflamed with choler by reason of the retreat and the promotion of this holy man causing him to be proscribed over all England and promising fifty
probant ratio confirmat elementa loquuntur dâ—â—ones confitentur sed longè major insania si de veritate Evangelii non dubites vivere tamen quasi de ejus falsitate non dubitares Advise to cold Catholicks imitate them in their doctrine If they expect any other arguments it will appear their frenzie would have no other remedies but the searing-iron and fire As for other Catholicks who believe as the faithful and live as infidels pronouncing JESUS CHRIST with their mouth and renouncing him with their hands I pray them to ponder a saying of one of the rarest wits which the world hath a long time had it is Picus Mirandula expressed by him in these words to his nephew It is a prodigious folly not to believe the Gospel the truth whereof is sealed with the bloud of Martyrs innumerable testified by the Apostles proved by miracles confirmed by reason published and declared by the elements and creatures insensible confessed even by the devils But it is a much more notorious folly not to doubt at all of the verity of the Gospel which one professeth and yet to live as if he made no question of the falsitie thereof What a mockery it is to carrie the name of a poor SAVIOUR and to burn with enraged avarice of an humble SAVIOUR and suffer himself to be exposed to tempestuous winds of exorbitant ambition which breatheth nothing but breaches and ship-wracks of a crucified SAVIOUR and to live in a mass of flesh wholly effeminated with delights and curiosities even to the making their spittings to swim in gold of a meek SAVIOUR and to carry under the name of a Christian a Gorgons eye the anger of an Asp the heart of a Tyger a soul full of revenges of gall of bloud of Monsters of beastly bruitishness O God what Christianity is this Salvianus speaketh a word very remarkeable Salvian 4. de guber Dei Omnis Christianorum culpa Divinitatis injuria est Atrocius sub sancti nominis professione peccamus Ipsa errores nostros religio quam profitemur accusat We cannot sin without making our selves capable of spiritual treason in the highest degree the sins of Christians are sacriledges the name which they bear condemneth their life without any other form of process These colds of the north this yciness which some Catholicks shew in their belief is greatly scandalous and prejudicial to verity because the mis-believing which see them live in such exorbitancy cannot perswade themselves they firmly believe the Gospel which they profess but that all their religion is but an exteriour countenance and rather an idle amuzement of words than a true list of virtue This bringeth a horrible prejudice into the Church of God which should even rent our hearts if we yet retained one onely vein of that noble bloud the Martyrs profusely spent for the defence of the truth The remedies for these essential impediments Remedies in the act of Christianitie are to take away and cut off the causes of this infidelity 1. To prepare a conscience chaste and timerous which never wil make it self an hostess for mortal sin and if by chance it give harbor thereunto to dislodge it presently for sins heaped one upon another by a dissolute deadness of confession make a savage and bruitish soul which seeketh nothing but to be freed from God though it be a matter impossible 2. Not to tast the blessings contentments or honours of the world with too much ardour they easily ensnare our affections and make the forgetfulness of Heaven slide into an insensible soul 3. To eschew curiositie principally in matter of religion as the canker of faith We must resemble the Cuttle a very wise fish who during storms fixeth herself firmly upon the rocks without motion amongst the floating thoughts which a dark cloudy conscience may suggest always to hold ones foot on the rock of S. Peter fixed and stable to trust the direction of the Church and not to forsake our hold It is the most palpable folly which Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere sed sapere ad sobrietatem Rom. 1. can creep into the brain of man to desire wisdom contrary to the wisdom of Saints which is humility 4. To exercise your self diligently in good works as prayers abstinencies frequentation of Sacraments and alms-deeds Faith is given to you as an inheritance of Heaven whosoever endeavoureth not to husband it looseth it The second OBSTACLE * * * Cautè hoc caput non nisi cum delectu adhibito legendum Errour in Religion Friendly and wholesom counsel to the Nobilitie of the pretended Religion AN heresie discovered is a face unmasked S. Hieromn the letter to Ctesiphon Haereses ad originem suam revocasse canfutasse Haereticorum sententias prodidisse superassi est Take away the vizard you disarm her pull away this semblance painted with hypocrisie wherewith she hath plaistered her face you sufficiently refute her you need but to know her to overcome her and when the head of her arrows are bare they have no more force Catholick Doctours have hitherto couragiously endeavoured to take from her this veil and adulterated colours yea even she at this time hath so favourably for you unmasked her self that a man must pull out his eyes if he will not behold her deformity in her rebellion justly detested by the sage and moderate of her own side And I beseech them to consider that this egge which they abhor is laid by the Raven that broodeth in their bosom and it is a great blindness to break the egges of the Asp and cherish the serpent which hath laid them Good and generous souls which yet retain some sparks of a French spirit do well see these proceedings are not according to Scripture which so severely recommendeth the honour of Kings and therefore they sound a retreat they fould up their ensigns freely confessing they have erred as men and protesting not to persevere in mischief like devils There are none but enraged spirits that will be healed by the experience of their own ill and bury themselves in their ruin wise men always make a medicine Optimum est aliena insania frui for themselves of others folly Go to then you who after so many voices from Heaven do still stagger and advise if you ought to return to the Romane Church which is the womb of your beginning and bosom of your repose give me leave that I may take this film from your eyes grow not outragious to what purpose should you stand quaking in these frightful agonies Exercise a little patience I do not doubt but you will bless the hand which layeth hold on you when you shall come to see the light I come not with sword in hand to put a religion into your heads with main force I come to you full of compassion of your misery full of affection for your salvation full of the desire of your ease of your contentment of your
it is full of gall and darkness You know what is written in the vision of the prophet Elias God is not to be found in the rustling of impetuous winds in boysterous stormes in turmoyles in fire but in a gentle gale which bringeth light and refreshment in its wings Likewise veritie fit to handle the conversion of souls is not ordinarily in these ardent and contentious disputations where the prizes of fast and loose are played but in the repose of a quiet spirit temperate moulded in the hands of a prudent docibleness For faith runneth a different course from human sciences To say why this and why that to sift the causes the effects the tenents the utmost bounds of a point it is the vulgar track of inferiour schools Faith which hath God himself for object who is a bottomless abyss of light and perfection cannot demonstrate all that it believeth otherwise it would not be faith nor God would not no more be God He that seeketh faith seeketh not reason Athens hath nothing to intermeddle with Jerusalem nor the Academie with the Church Our school is the porch of Solomon which teacheth us we must search for God with simplicitie of heart and not with frivolous curiositie Faith moveth upon two poles the first is to believe what God hath revealed the second to believe because he who is an eternal truth hath revealed it without any other restriction specified modification or humane distinction What wrong doth the Creatour to us if he would have us believe more of him than we are able to comprehend It is not for the iron to ask of the Magnet or Load-stone from whence those charms and secret influences come wherewith he attracteth and captiveth him It is enough that he follow When God proposeth a verity unto thee by the voice and general consent of the Church poor man thou kickest thou friskest thou dost appeal to human reason to sense to judgement which have wings too short and insufficient to undertake such a flight Whilest thou therein proceedest in the manner thy faith will be no true faith but a phantasie which will entertain thee with false illusions and leave thee real torments It is a great science in matter of Religion to have a holy and conscientious ignorance All Hereticks saith Tertullian Omnes tument omnes scientiam pollicentur Sapientiae haec veritas ' est interdum sapere quod nolis Hilar. 5. de Trinit initio Third disposition Purity of life promise reason and knowledge All of them assail faith with human understanding God teacheth us another way which is to adore his mysteries with submission of spirit and make of our own proper judgements a sacrifice on the Altar of faith The third thing which you are to have in great recommendation is diligently to purge your conscience from the rust of sin The spirit of God is pleased and fed amongst lilies and nothing so much hindereth heavenly doctrine as impuritie of life Pearls are dissolved in vineger and truth in a heart made bitter with the corruption of vice If you desire that it should come to you observe three things exactly First endeavour as much as you can possibly to free your self from a certain spirit of presumption which puffeth men up and inebriateth them with the love of their own judgement before they be throughly awakened and from hence it cometh that they affectionately imbrace themselves and make such esteem of their own thoughts words maxims that all seemeth gold This is a pernicious illusion and which stoppeth up all excess to our Saviour who is much pleased to converse with the humble Secondly live with great puritie of soul and body Qui diligit cordis munditiem amicum habebit Regem incorruptio facit esse proximum Deo Prov. 2. 2. Sap. 6. carefully preserving your self from being engulfed in sensual affections pleasures and ordures of flesh which bury the soul in a puddle and make it uncapable of all good God hath not upon earth a more pleasing hostess than purity of heart 'T is that which procures for us the amity of the Sovereign King and placeth us near the Divinity Finally labour to adorn your self with Charity and the very bowels of pitie towards the poor and persons afflicted assisting them according to the ability which you have and when you fortified with such arms shall daily knock at the gates of Heaven by incessant prayer asking grace speaking and conferring oft-times with some Catholick Doctour virtuous charitable and peaceful I have infinite hopes the Father of light will dart upon your heart his beams and give you leave to know the truth In the mean space ponder a little in your heart Four very notable points to discover the falshood of the pretended four notable points which will make you discover the falsitie of the pretended Religion The first is the beginning The second the progress The third the foundation of the Doctrine The fourth the fruits Behold four touch-stones to judge aright of Religion If all this do well accord with reason and veritie in the pretended Religion I give you leave to follow it but if all therein be tottering and ruinous I beseech you open your eyes a little and view your misery after you have so often shut up your ears against reason and your heart against charitie Then first of all consider whether this Religion Original you profess be ancient or new If it be ancient and the Religion of the Apostles you ought to follow it if new you ought to condemn it no man doubteth Now it is as new as noveltie it self which is proved first by the name thereof since every Religion which is called reformed ought necessarily to have been deformed for a thing is not reformed which never had deformitie This is clear And every Religion which is said to be reformed in things essential as are Sacraments was then before deformed in matters essential and so deformed that in a word it was no longer a Religion For it is as impossible a Religion can subsist without the veritie of faith and Sacraments as to say that a man can be a man without a reasonable soul Now this Religion of which we make question according Pretended religion new and therefore none at all to your saying was deformed in essential things to wit in Sacraments whereby it appeareth it was no more a Religion than a lying truth to speak properly is truth it self Wherefore we must conclude that those which boast they have reformed it within these hundred years have made it wholly new as if the Sun had been annihilated for a thousand years space and that God came to restore it it would be an absolute new Sun so is this Religion wholly new Behold then The proof thereof is evident if every new Religion as is most evident carrie its condemnation see you not that this same which you profess is false since it proveth it self to be new and onely discovered
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
and other reprehensible manner Secondly what invalidities and nullities of confession may happen now by the defect of the Priest who perhaps hath not sufficient jurisdiction sometime through your own indisposition who neither will have sorrow nor good purpose of amendment and sometime for other circumstances Thirdly who It s utility seeth not that the foundation of a life truly Christian is humility And we know not how better to attain this virtue than by representing to our selves no longer by piece-meal but wholly in gross the youth follies the slackness negligences infidelities and impurities of our passed life All that coming to pour it self upon our consideration like a great squadron necessarily stirreth in us a great confusion and dolour for our ingratitude In the fourth place we ordinarily see those who duely make this act unfolded and delivered in all its particulars do come as it were out of the furnace sparkling with radiant brightness to form a life absolutely new You therein observe a conscience most â—urious intentions better rectified actions more purified a promptness better awakened for the service of God a modesty more regular in prosperity a heart more elevated in adversity a more generous contempt of the world Briefly although one should reap but this onely good which is the peace and tranquility of conscience it would always be a matter marvellously recommendable And we know by experience many consciences tormented with divers remorses and scruples have after a general confession found themselves wholly pacified and have begun to breath a more benign air of the mercies of God To proceed therein it is good well to sound your heart afore-hand The manner and to cescend into the knowledge of your self which is a work of no small importance The tenth SECTION The Practice of Confession THe heart of man is a little abyss which seemeth Heart of man Pravian cor hominis inscrutabile Hier. 17. neither to have bounds bottom nor shore It is malicious and inscrutable said the Prophet The Hebrew readeth in the same place that it is a supplanter who escapeth from us like an eel when we think to hold it and oftentimes it overthroweth us The great S. Macarius assureth us it is Macar hom 43. a little vessel but full of caverns labyrinths precipices lyons serpents and other venemous beasts Moreover self-love which oftentimes like a wicked Knowledge of ones self very hard watch-man placeth himself at the gate of our heart will not suffer truth to approach It maketh him think it is too crude drie austere old wrinckled to be presented to such a Prince In the mean time it relateth all things to the heart to its own advantage Self-love and entertaineth it with a thousand curiosities of conceits It maketh all vices to be beheld therein in full proportion and virtue in eclipse This admitted necessarily the assistance of God is to be implored in a very particular manner to obtain the knowledge of our selves and to labour therein couragiously and stoutly without flattering our selves God threateneth in the Prophet he will lay a heavy correction upon us leaving us to our selves Psal 49. Arguam te statuam contra faciem tuam It seemeth we now have our heads turned backward never to know what passeth in our hearts But God in the day of judgement will turn it before and if we take not very good heed to our confusion S. Augustine triumpheth upon this passage August in Psal 49. Quae post dorsum posuisti ante faciem ponam videbis foeditatem tuam non ut corrigas sedut erubescae Tolle te à tergo tuo constitue te ante te That which thou hast put behind thee I will place before thine eyes Thou shalt see thy impurities not to correct them but to confound thee Turn thy face go behind thy self and set thy self before thy self The manner will be after an humble and serious invocation of the Holy Ghost to call to mind all your life according to the course and progress of ages remembring your self of the places where you have made abode the persons with whom you have conversed the affairs which you have handled the sins to which you have been most inclined and which most afflict your conscience Observing also if it be possible the number of those which are most heinous which if it cannot be done do not search them out with pensiveness and anxiety The order which ought to be observed is to run Multa D. Th. opusc 64. de medo confitendi puritate conscientiae through the law or the ten Commandments of God and those of the Church taking every one in his place As upon the first Commandment to examine the sins of infidelity of contempt of holy things of impiety forceries divinations magick dreams superstitions distrusts of the mercy of God presumptions of ones own ability languishment coldness hypocrisies impurities sacriledges in the service of God speaking distinctly upon every word wherein and how I by what motive and to what purpose II. Upon the second unnecessary oaths false oaths blasphemies execrations profanation of things sacred and words of Scripture III. Upon the third the exercise of labour traffick of civil and criminal justice and other works forbidden on Sundays The irreverence committed on this great day in neglecting to hear the whole Mass or some notable part thereof and employing all your time in excess of tongue dances masks follies sensualities IV. Upon the fourth contempt hatred distast ingratitude irreuerence disobedience towards father and mother kindred and Superiours Neglect towards your subjects vassals and houshold-servants V. Upon the fifth the clamours enmities quarrels violences faithlesness injustices oppressions poisonings abortions slaughters malice outrages cruelties committed against your neighbour The ill usage of your own person by perplexity despair or impatient desire of death VI. Upon the sixth fornications adulteries incests whoredoms ravishments secret marriages sacriledges self-softnesses pollutions ill use of marriage and other infamous luxuries which Tertullian termeth monsters Adde all that which attendeth on wantonness as dishonest thoughts unchaste words lascivious glancings kisses touches books pictures comedies love-letters dancings masks too free conversations with evident danger of sin and sometime charms love-potions or other attractives characters and witch-crafts VII Upon the seventh thefts pilferies robberies connivence with thieves falsification of instruments of letters seals wills contracts scedules obligations false purchases false buyings false sales false coyns deceits defraudations surprizes usurpations of the goods of the Church simonies usuries delays of reasonable payments injustices litigious wranglings excessive expences foul play in game cruelties toward the poor and such like things VIII Upon the eighth false witnesses and sollicitations thereof calumnies diffamatory libels lies impostures hypocrisies dissimulations flatteries treasons confusion of your neighbour IX Upon the ninth enterprizes and designs contrary to marriage by seducing the parties with words signs gestures letters gifts attractions with
after which caused an excellent wit to say that it drew life out of its blows and made a dug of its wounds Oh happy soul that resembleth this generous plant and which repleat with pious desires holy affections and sincere intentions produceth apprehensions and works a thousand times more precious than myrrhe when in the meditation the rays of Jesus Christ who is the true Sun of justice strikes the heart The practice of prayer consisteth in mental vocal Necessity and easiness of meditation and mixt Mental is that which is exercised in the heart vocal which is formed in the mouth mixt participateth of both Think it not to be a new thing not severed from your profession to meditate It were so if one would make your brain serve as a lymbeck for subtile and extravagant raptures disguised in new words and forms But when one speaketh of meditation he adviseth you to ponder and ruminate the points and maximes which concern your salvation with all sweetness that fruit most agreeable to your condition may be derived from thence The faintness weakness infidelity ignorance driness which reigneth in your souls cometh from no other source but the want of consideration Take this worthy exercise couragiously in hand and you shall feel your heart fattened with the unction of the Holy Ghost and your soul of a wilderness to become a little Paradise of God Be not affrighted hereat as if it were a thing impossible for you use a little method and you shall find nothing more easie and familiar What have you so natural in vital life as to breath And what more proper in the intellectual than to think Your soul hath no other operation for night and day it is employed in this exercise The Sun casteth forth beams and our soul thoughts Gather together onely those wandering thoughts which are scattered amongst so many objects into your center which is God Employ one part of the spitit industrie invention discourse which you are endowed withal for the mannaging of worldly affairs Employ them I say in the work of your salvation and you shall do wonders I undertake not here to raise you above the earth nor in the beginning to plunge you into the seven degrees of contemplation whereof S. Bonaventure speaketh in the treatise he composed thereof I speak not to you of fire unction extasie speculation tast of What you must understand to meditate well repose or glory but I speak that in few words which you may read more at large in the works of so many worthy men who have written upon that subject First know what meditation is secondly how it is ordered Meditation properly is a prayer of the heart by Definition of meditation which we humbly attentively and affectionately seek the truth which concerns our salvation thereby to guid us to the exercise of Christian virtues That you may meditate well you must know the causes degrees matter and form of meditation The Causes principal cause thereof is God who infuseth himself into our soul to frame a good thought as the Sun doth upon the earth to produce a flower It is a goodly thing to have the spirit subtile and fruitful It is to work without the Sun saith Origen to think to do any thing here without the grace of the Holy Ghost The first degree which leadeth to good and serious prayer is a good life and principally purity of heart tranquility of spirit desire to make your self an inward man Saint Augustine reciteth a saying of Porphyrius very remarkeable which he deriveth Aug. l. 9. de civit Dei c. 23. Deus omnium Pater nullius indiget sed nobis est benè cum cum adramus ipsam vitam precâ—m ad cum sacientes pâ—r inquisitionem imitationem de ipse from the mouth of this perfidious man as one should pull a thing stoln out of a thiefs coffer God the Creatour and Father of this whole Universe hath no need of our service but it is our good to serve him and adore him making of our life a perpetual prayer by a diligent enquiry of his perfections and imitation of his virtues Observe then the first degree of good prayer is good life The second as well this Authour hath noted is the perquisition to wit the search of verities by thinking on the things meditated which are the sundry considerations suggested to us by the spirit in the exercise of meditation The third is the affection which springeth from these considerations Our understanding is the steel and our will the flint As soon as they touch one another we see the sparkes of holy affections to flie out We must bray together the matters of prayer as Aromatick spices with the discussion of our understanding before we can extract good odours The fourth is the imitation and fruit of things we meditate on It is the mark at which our thoughts should aim otherwise if one should pretend nothing else but a vain business of the mind it would be to as much purpose to drive away butter-flies as to meditate Good meditation and good action ought to be entertained as two sisters holding one another by the robe As for the matter of meditation you must know Matter of meditation that all meditations are drawn from three books The first and most inferiour is the book of the great Three books of meditation world where one studieth to come by knowledge of the creature to the Creatour The second is the book of the little world where man studieth himself his beginning his end qualities habits faculties actions functions and the rest The third is the book of the Heavenly Father Jesus Christ our Saviour who verily is a guilded book limmed with the rays of the Divinity imprinted with all the characters of sanctity and from thence an infinitie of matter is drawn as those of benefits of four last things of the life death and passion of Jesus and of all the other mysteries You must digest every one in his time according to the opportunity tast and capacity of those who meditate Some appropriate meditations to every day of the week others make their circuit according to the moneth others follow the order of the mysteries and life of our Saviour as they are couched in so many books written of these matters The practice and form of meditation consisteth in six things The first to divide the subject you would Practise and form contained in six articles meditate on into certain points according to the appointment of some Directour or the help of a book Article 1 As if you meditate upon the knowledge of ones self to take for the first point what man is by nature For the second what he is by sin For the third what he may be by grace The second a little before the hour appointed for Article 2 meditation to call into memory the points which you would meditate on The third after you have implored the
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
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
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
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 Globe of glass in which the Persians heretofore bare the image of the Sun or else by the imitation of that huge Pharos of Alexandria which enlightened the sea on all sides to guide vessels to a safe haven This was expresly set down to signifie the great and divine lights of wisdom which are in a true Christian valour This Palace seemed wholly built of rocks of the colour of iron streamed with little veins of bloud which well shewed it was purposely done to represent the invincible courage of the pupils of this virtue The Halls were all hanged with prowess and victories and in stead of columes it had great Statues of the most valorous men of the world who flourished in the revolution of so many Ages Valour bare sway within it sitting not on gilli-flowers or roses but encompassed with thorns and sufferings ever armed and still with sword in hand with which it cut off an infinite number of monsters and chased away all Salmoneans from its house In this Palace was the brave Eleazar who as soon as he from far perceived this young Souldier he caused him to draw near and spake to him in these terms Son I doubt not but you found at the enterance into my Iodging a wicked Sorcerer who hath by the ear empoisoned you It is necessary you cleanse it to make your self capable of the singular precepts of valour and wisdom which I am now presently to afford you seeing you for this cause are come hither into my Palace It hath been told you that to be a good souldier you must become a little Cyclop Refutation of the first disorder without any feeling of God or Religion for devotion were but to weaken your warlick humours Those who have said this unto you have told nothing new It is an old song which they have drawn out of Machiavel who thinking to make a Prince have made a wild beast and yet would perswade us it was a man but those that believe it are such onely as bear their eyes on their heels Let us not serve our Piety the first virtue of a souldier selves with this Phylosophie of flesh which maketh valour and devotion as two things incompatible Verily I go not about to require of you an affected enforced and ceremonious piety that is out of the limits of your profession I would have you a souldier and not a Monk but assure you the prime virtue of art military is to have good thoughts and pure beliefs touching the Divinity then to practice suitableness thereto by offices and exteriour actions of pietie When I speak this I am so strong in reasons that Reasons which shew that true piety is the soul of military virtue Chap. 13. and 11. I dare take our enemies themselves for Judges Behold the subtile Machiavel who upon the Decads of Titus Livius sheweth Religion is an admirable instrument of all great actions and that the Romans made use thereof to establish their Citie pursue their enterprizes and pacifie tumults and seditions which rose in the revolution of State Because it was said he more conscience to offend God than men believing his power surpassed all humane things So we see that all those who would form cherish or advance a State although they had no true Religion in their souls have taken pretexts as Lycurgus Numa Sertorius Ismael the Persian and Mahomet I demand of you thereupon my souldier if by the testimony of this man who hath made himself our adversary false beliefs have had so much power upon minds that they have rendered them more docible to virtue more obedient to Sovereignty more adventerous to undertake things difficult more patient to tollerate matters displeasing more couragious to surmount those which make opposition if I say the sole imagination of a false Divinity accounted to punish misdeeds and recompence valour with a temporal salary was powerfull enough to make Legions flie all covered with iron through so many perils must we not say by the confession of our very enemy that a true Religion as ours is which promiseth so many rewards to virtue and punishments for crime not for a time but for all eternity if it be once well engraven in hearts shall produce so many worthy effects beyond those of other Sects as truth is above lying reality above nothing and the sun above the shaddows From whence think you do so many neglects grow but from coldness in Religion For how can a souldier but be valiant when he is confidently perswaded it is the will of the living God that he obey his Prince as if he beheld a Divinity upon earth and that burying himself in the duty of this obedience being well purified from his sins he takes a most assured way to beatitude How can he be but the more couragious having received absolution of his sins by the virtue of the Sacrament since by the Confession of all Sages there is nothing so perplexed so timorous so inconstant as a conscience troubled with the image of its own crimes How should it spare a transitory life having a firm belief of immortality since the wisest have judged that the valour of ancient Gauls which was admired by the Romans proceeded from no other source but from a strong perswasion which the Druides had given them touching the immortality of our souls How could he be but most confident if he stedfastly beheld the eye of the Divine Providence of God perpetually vigilant for his protection How could he be but most fervent if he did but figure the Saviour of the world at the gates of Heaven with his hands full of rewards See you not that all reasons combat for us as well as experience I will not flatter Christians under pretext that I call my self the Christian Knight nor ought I betray my cause under the shaddow of modesty Let all the ancient and modern Histories be read let military acts be examined and courages poized in a just ballance I challenge the ablest Chronicler to present me any valour out of Greek or Roman Historie where the most admirable prowesses are to be seen that I do not shew them perpetually parallel'd yea surpassed by the courage of Christians When I read The Acts of Pagans those histories of elder times I behold Grecians that triumphed for having vanquished Xerxes who to say the truth was a Stag leading an army of sheep never was any thing seen so perplexed And although there had been no opposition yet was this great body composed of a lazie stupified army onely strong to ruin it self I see a young Alexander who to speak truth was of an excellent nature though the most judicious observe great errour in his carriage he oft-times being rash and many times insolent but it was well for him he had to do with such gross Novices whose eyes were dazled with the simple glimmer of a sword for had he come to encounter the arms of Europe his Laurels doubtless would have been
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
to all the great virtues which concern the Weal-publick It oftentimes happeneth that those who flie from charges and affairs under pretext of tranquilitie of spirit if they be not well rectified therein find instead of repose a specious sluggishness and those who make profession of arms if they take not good heed suffering all the innocencie of the Golden Age to languish make themselves virtues of the iron Age but your conditions which have a certain temperance of a life more sweet accompanied with laudable employments open the way to you which maketh and crowneth merits Yet is there need of a soul very able to preserve it self sincerely in charges among so many corruptions and of a heart perfectly purified to link it wholly to the interests of God who with three fingers of his power supporteth Estates and Empires That is the cause why I offer this Treatise not so much to give Maxims of State of which there are always enough to be found as sometimes to awaken a good conscience which is a true ray reflected from the eternall Law to the end that among so many temptations of Honour and such burdens of affairs it may not lose any part of its vigour If you deign to spend some hours of your leasure hereon it perhaps wil not be unprofitable for at least that will let you see a States-man as rare as a Phenix and as pure as an Angel But if this consideration furnish you with any good thoughts for your perfection I shall esteem my self well recompensed for the service which I in this work have vowed to your eminent qualities THE STATES MAN The first SECTION The excellencie of Politick Virtue I Have ever made account of the division of virtues which the Platonists use when they call the one Purgative the other Illuminative the third Civil and the last Exemplar Purgative virtues are those which give to our souls the first tincture of sanctity For they take our heart wholly possessed as it is yet with earthly passions and discharge it from so many imperfections which ordinarily corrupt nature to give it a tast of heavenly things Illuminative afford us day-light when we have vanquished the agitations of sense establish us in the sweetness of some repose where we begin to behold the entrances progresses and issues of the world wherein we are placed and the course of this great Comedy called life The Civil draw us out of our selves to apply us to our neighbour and to render every one his due according to his degree in the good conversion betwixt man and man Exemplar proceed much further in perfection for they expose themselves in publick to serve as models for others and appear in charges and dignities in the government of Kingdoms Provinces Cities and Communalties This is it which I call here the virtue of a States-man taking the word generally not only for those who are engaged in the manage of Monarchies Sovereignties and Re-publicks but also for such as exercise justice and other principal charges of civil life We must Excellentibus ingeniit citius defueritars quâ civem regant quà m quâ hostem superent Tit. Liv. lib. 2. affirm this politick virtue which maketh true States-men is a rare piece and as it were the cream and most purified part of wisdom seeing that not contenting it self with a lazy knowledge of virtue it laboureth to build adorn and establish the civil world by the maintenance of justice without which in the amplest Kingdoms are the greatest thefts If the world be a harp as saith the eloquent Sinesius D. Tho. 22. q 58. Justicia legalis praeclarior omnibus moralibus quia bonum commune preâ—minet bono singulari Tertul. l. 2. adversus Marcion Bonitaâ— Dei operata est mundum justitia modulata est justice windeth up the strings stirreth the fingers toucheth the instrument giveth life to the airs and maketh all the excellent harmonies If the world be a Musick-book framed of days and nights as of white and black notes justice directeth and composeth If it be a ring justice is the diamond If it be an eye justice is the soul If it be a Temple justice is the Altar All yieldeth to this virtue and as it is enchaced in all laudable actions so all laudable actions are incorporated in justice It is an engine much more powerful in effect than was that of Archimedes in idaea for it doth that in Kingdoms which this man could never so much as imagine in his mind though ambitious enough in inventions It maketh I say Heaven to descend on earth and earth to mount up to Heaven Heaven to descend in introducing a life wholly celestial in the uncivil conversation of men earth to mount up in drawing it from dreggs and corruption of a covetous and bloudy life to enlighten it with rays of a prudent knowledge to embelish it with virtues diversifie it with beauties and settle it in the center of repose God maketh so much account of an honest man Genes 8. v. 27. according to the Hebrew text recommended to the government of others that having chosen Noah to command over onely seaven souls shut up in the Ark as in a moving prison he calleth him his Heart for to say truly we must have the heart of God to bring forth counsels sufficiently able to save men and to be in the same instant the mouth of God to pronounce the Oracles of truth God asketh Job who is the man on earth Job 8. 33. Ordinem Coeli that shall make the musick of Heaven To which I would willingly answer It is a good Justicier For in what consisteth this harmony of Heaven We are not in my opinion to imagine it according to the dotages of some Philosophers who of it have made unto themselves a celestial musick composed of voyces and sounds formed by the mutual encounter of those admirable Globes The harmony of Heaven is nought else but the good order of the sun the moon stars day and night and seasons which daily progress along with a regular pace and measured motion not erring in the least point This order which is so excellent and divine in Heaven is introduced upon earth by the means of justice which guideth and governeth all the actions of men within the circuits and limits of duty so sagely and divinely that he who would observe so many singular laws which books recommend unto us should quickly make earth become a little Heaven For the same reason Origen interpreting Isay 66. Coelum miki sedes est Efficiuntur sedes Dei facti prius conversatione peritia coelestes Orig. Philostr l. 1. c. 18. this passage of Isay where God saith Heaven is his Throne sheweth that the Paradise and Heaven of God upon earth is justice from whence it cometh to pass that such as use it as they ought are wholly celestial in science life and conversation Was it not this consideration which drew the Babylonians to build
with a constancy which amazed this bloudy soul that so tortured her In the end she again took her garments going out of the water as from an Amphitheater of her glorious battel The twelfth SECTION The retreat of Hermingildus and his Conversion HErmingildus who knew nothing of what had passed beholding her somewhat pase and weakened with such harsh usage asked her if she felt any pain of body or affliction of mind to discolour her so much more than ordinary but the wise Princess replied It was nothing and that there was not any thing so important as to be worthy of his knowledge He who well perceived that she by her discretion dissembled some great affront enquired very curiously of those who might inform him and somewhat too soon discovered the cruel disgrace which his mother-in-law Goizintha had put upon his wife This transfixed him with a dolour so sensible and so enkindled him with fire and choller in his heart that if the fear of God and the sweetness of his wife had not served for a counterpoize to his passion he had torn this wicked Queen in pieces But the good Indegondis prostrating her self at his feet besought him by all that which was most noble in him not to precipitaâ—e the matter into such extremities and prevailed so well with her natural eloquence that he was contented to remove presently from the Court and retire to Sevil which his father had given him for his lively-hood Then was the time when those chast loves which had been crossed by the disturbances of Goizintha all obstacles being overcome enlarged themselves as a river which having broken his banks poureth it self with a victorious current in the wideness of his channel Hermingildus could not sufficiently satisfie himself to behold so many virtues in so great a beauty the modesty which she had witnessed in this last disgrace gave him apprehensions of her piety above all may be said Those who seek nothing in marriage but sensual pleasure which is more thin than smoke and much lighter than the wind cannot imagine how much these fair amities which are the daughters of virtues nourish holy delights These are celestial fires which are ever in the bosom of God as in their sphere It is he who begetteth them and breedeth them they being not constrained to descend upon earth to beg a caytiff nourishment from perishable creatures which promise so many wonders and produce nought but wind These two great souls beheld one another with the eyes of the dove and were mutually enflamed with affections so honest and innocent that Angels would not be ashamed to entertain the like fires since they are those of charity which is the eternal furnace of all souls the most purified Indegondis perceiving she had already great power in the affection of her husband and that there was no longer any step-mother to dissolve her designs sollicited him seriously for his Conversion and said Sir I must confess unto you the honour I have received from your alliance seemeth not accomplished whilest I behold between us a wall of division which separateth us in belief and Sacraments Since our amities are come to that point as to enjoy all in common and that they unite things most different why should we divide God who is most simple of nature Why should we make two Religions and two Altars since we now live in such manner that we have but one table one heart and one bed Verily Sir if I saw the least ray of truth in the Sect you profess and some hope of salvation I would submit thereunto the more to oblige me to your person which I love above all the things in the world But it is most undoubted that you are ill rectified that you pursue a fantasie in stead of a verity and that dying in this state you loose a soul so noble which I would purchase with expence of my bloud I boast not to be learned as you Arians who have so many goodly allegations of Scripture that you make the ignorant believe God is all that which to your selves you imagine Sir I for my part think the chief wisdom in matter of religion is not to be so wise as you are and to have a little more submission of spirit for faith is the inheritance of the humble and never doth the day of God shine in a soul which hath too much light of man You well see this heresie of the Arians is a revolted Band which hath forsaken the high way to wander cross the fields you are not ignorant that this Arius was a wicked Priest who raised an heresie for despight that he was not made Bishop and was rejected and solemnly condemned in a Councel of three hundred and eighteen Bishops These men were wise enough for you and me I fix my self upon their resolutions I follow the generality of the Church I adhere to the body of the tree and you tie your selves to a rotten branch I have no argument more strong than the succession of lawfull Pastours than the conformity of the Universal Church than the succession of all Ages than the wisdom sanctity and piety which I see resplendent on our side Besides I come from a Countrey where we have seen all the Arian Kings our neighbours round about to have had most unhappy ends when in the mean time my great grand-father King Clodovaeus for having sincerely embraced Catholick Religion received so many blessings from Heaven that he seemed to have good hap and victories under his pay I am not the daughter of a Prophet nor do I vaunt to have the spirit of prophesie but I dare well foretel the Kingdom of Spain shall not be of long continuance unless it vomit out this pestilence of Arianism which lies about the heart of it I would to God with expence of my life I might establish my Religion then should I account my self the most contented Queen of the world Hermingildus knew not what to answer to the strength of truth and love two the most powerfull things in the world onely he said it was a business which well deserved to be pondered and that these changes in persons of his quality are subject to much censure if they have not great reason for caution The good Princess to give him full leisure to advise thereupon handled the matter so by her industrie that he conferred with S. Leander who was a strong pillar of the Catholick faith in Spain The sage Prelate so well mannaged the spirit of this Prince that with assistance of God and the good offices of Indegondis who moved Heaven and earth for this conversion he drew him from errour This brave courage so soon as he saw the ray of truth needs would acknowledge and freely confess it taking the Chrism of Catholicks with pomp and solemnity even to the giving a largess of golden coyns which he purposely caused to be stamped a little too suddenly making his own image to be engraven thereon with a
there so ill intreated that he more hastily returned than came thither laden with confusion and in short time heard the discomfiture of his Armies and victory of the Jews whereupon he entered into so desperate sury that he resolved to retire hastily again to Jerusalem and to make of the whole Citie but one tomb But the hand of God had already designed his for Joseph Ben Gerion it happened being in his coach his horses frighted extraordinarily upon the meeting and roar of an Elephant gave him so boysterous a stroke that thrown on the ground he received a mortal wound the fire and venom whereof crept so far into his hurts that he seemed to burn alive like the damned feeling inexplicable dolours throughout all his body which became a nest of vermin and having his soul turmoyled with Specters and Furies that gave him no repose At which time the miserable Atheist coming to himself after a drunkenness of so many years spake these words JUSTUM EST SUBDITUM ESSE DEO ET MORTALEM NON PARIA DEO SENTIRE professing there was a Great God to whom we must submit and never with him contest when being in the bed of death he acknowledged impiety had been the original of al his evils and that should God restore him to his health he would fill Jerusalem with gifts and wonders even to the becoming a Jew and ever proclaim the glory of the Creatour But the gates of mercy were already shut up against this disloyal man who had no true repentance his hour was come which made him die all wasted with putrefaction insupportable to his Army who could not endure the stench troublesom to himself and execrable to the memory of all mankind The Prophets and holy Fathers mention him as a damned soul and the figure of Antichrist to teach the wicked out of the deportment of this man that there is not any one withdraws from God but flies from his mercy and falls into the hands of his justice which pursueth Libertines beyond the gates of hell III. MAXIM Of the Excellencie of the DIVINITIE THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That Great men are Gods on earth whose favours we should adore That all greatness is wretched before the Majesty of God who alone is to be adored THere is not any thing hath more perplexed Divers opinions of the Divinity the minds of men since the beginning of the world than the diverse opinions of the Deitie since the wisest when they had spent all their abilities upon this question found nothing more certain than uncertainty One would wonder why the knowledge of the true God being so important for man hath been so many Ages obscured and covered in a great abyss of darkness even from those who thought themselves the most clear-sighted in the knowledge of total Nature But who sees not it is an evident punishment for sin and a most just effect of Gods vengeance who hath permitted truth to be hidden from man because man would conceal himself from truth even in the shadow of death and nothing They vanished in their thoughts said Evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis obscuratum est insipiens cor eâ—rum Rom. 1. God in this life handleth the wicked as the damned the Apostle and their senseless hearts were obscured But that which herein is very considerable is that God hath ever handled wicked men like the damned for the unhappy souls condemned to hell have an idaea of the beatitude they have lost which serves for an executioner And infidels after shipwrack of faith and truth which they abandoned fail not still to retain an opinion of the excellency of the Divinity not knowing what it is nor why they should stick to it It was that wherein Plinie esteemed men more miserable than beasts For creatures not made for the knowledge and fruition of a God are troubled at nothing nor make any question thereupon contenting themselves peaceably to enjoy innocent favours of Nature but the curiosity man hath had through all Ages to be informed of the state of the Sovereign cause is a strong conviction of his infidelity He findeth himself obliged to seek into the knowledge of God which as saith Tertullian is the first vesture of the soul but this knowledge flieth him so long as he renounceth faith innocency and reason the prime pieces of the intellectual life From thence grew the great diversity of gods heaped Diversity of Gods Plin. l. 2. c. 7. one upon another by the Gentiles For poor humane nature overwhelmed partly by the greatness of this sovereign Essence partly also clouded by its own ignorance misery and sin being unable to understand a God most Onely and Simple with one sole touch of the soul hath made an impertinent dissection of it dividing it into as many parts as there are errours on the Altars of Gentiles whilest every one sought to adore that which most flattered his imagination or sensuality They who were more spiritual have deified virtues as Chastity Concord Intelligence Hope Honour Clemency and Faith Other more absurd have tied themselves to the worship of creatures as the Aegyptians Some who questionless were sottish have framed gods in humane shape some old others young and many perpetually infants They have made them male and female black white winged and deformed They made some to rise out of a wind others from the sea and divers from rocks They who were more fearfull and superstitious adored the feaver and tempests not for esteem of their worth but through horrour of their malignity They ware their gods shut up in rings and many times submitted to monsters denying themselves repose and repast to satisfie their superstition It is the misery which S. Augustine deplored in his Citie of God after Plinie the Historian and other Authours who handled this subject But such as amidst this great obscurity of Sects God of flatterers thought themselves more gentile and refined in conversation taking other ways and leaving old superstitions began to canonize Emperours Princes and the Great-ones of the earth saying There were no Divinities more visible and propitious than these seeing they daily became the distributours of glory and worldly fortunes The Athenians who vaunted to Remarkeable punishment of flattery Senec. Suasor 1. have the most subtile wits of the earth quickly suffered themselves to fall into such like flatteries whereof we have a very notable passage in Seneca who telleth us that Mark Anthonie being a Prince extreamly dissolute was instantly called god Bacchus by his flatterers and soon came to such shameless impudence as to suffer this title to be engraven upon his statues Behold the cause why entering into the Citie of Athens all the men of quality marching before him and desirous to be acceptable with him both through humour and affection of favour they failed not to introduce him with the title of Bacchus nay willing to over-value him above other people they added the hearty offer of
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
a love more fervent than their flames and the ax which separated the head from thy bodie placed a Crown on thy head I behold thee with an eye wholly rapt with the beauties of thy glorie I a thousand times kiss thy wounds and take part in thy tropheys and sanctifie my self by loving thee as a Martyr of Jesus Christ What then remains O blessed soul but that I imitate thee and though executioners forbear my bodie never to spare my pains That all my life may be but a martyrdom and that there be not any part in me which serves not as a victim to the sacrifice of my patience Aglae having performed her duties and caused a Church to be built dedicated to God in memory of the Martyr S. Boniface entered into a Monastery and perfected her self in the glorious travels of penance finishing her course near her well-beloved and entombing her ashes at his feet THE SECOND PART OF MAXIMS Of the HOLY COURT THE DESIGN WE have directly looked towards God in the first Part deducing Maxims which most nearly concern the Divinitie I now descend in this Second to those which touch the direction of this present life and consider them in three respects whereof one tendeth to the service of God the other to our neighbour and the last stayeth upon our selves In the first I treat of Pietie against all counterfeit devotion In the second I shew we must carry our selves towards our neighbours with justice sinceritie and sweetness excluding our own ends dissimulation and crueltie In the third I entertain what concerns the ordering of our selves in prosperitie against Epicureans and in adversitie against impatience upon accidents of humane life wherein I endeavour throughout effectually to observe the disorders which Plato and Aristotle noted were the causes of the destruction of Families Cities and Empires THE SECOND PART Touching the Direction of this present Life IX MAXIM Of DEVOTION THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That if Devotion must be used we should embrace that which is in fashion accommodating it to our ends That we must be devout for God and that if Devotion be not solid it is no longer Devotion IT is a matter very considerable that Devotion is subject to many more illusions than all other virtues of which we have proof enough from our own experience although we could find no other foundation in reason But if the judicious Reader The cause wherefore Devotion is subject to so many illusions desire to know the cause I will tell him that as nothing hath been so much turmoiled and counterfeited as Religion which hath in all Ages been disfigured by such variety of Sects so it is no marvel if Devotion which is according to S. Thomas as the branch of this tree find the like contrarieties Bodies most delicate are soonest corrupted by extream impressions so this virtue which is of a temperature very subtile since it is as it were the cream of charity may easily be perverted by the evil mannage of it Adde that the wicked spirit seeing this exercise is very necessary for us seeks to envenom it in its sources to the end we may draw poison from those things which might be our remedy Besides men either through superabundance of idleness presumption of ability through love of their own conceits or desire of novelty multiply their inventions upon this matter and many make golden Goldē calves taken for Cherubins The practice of the Lacedemonians calves to themselves in Bethel in stead of the Cherubins of Jerusalem The Lacedemonians ever attired their gods according to the fashions and humours which then swayed in their Citie Every one delights to dress up devotion by the pattern of his passions I affirm one cannot worthily enough praise the practise of so many devout souls which live in singular purity either in Religious or Civil life And I may say it is an Host of the living God as terrible in his mildness as he is sweet in his terrours I honour all the bodies yea the particulars with the honour their deserts have acquired But as the strongest truths fail not to be invaded by some obscurities so it is no wonder if in the ordering of virtues some defects creep into the life of particulars which should no way prejudice the integrity of the general Of Dark Devotion THere is a dark Devotion which is rude and Gross and afflicting Devotion stupid another nice a third transcendent and a fourth sincere and solid I call a stupid devotion that which establisheth all virtue in indiscreet and immoderate austerities which very often kill the body and extinguish the total vigour of the mind that which without any obligation of the Church or of some particular Order or sage direction ties it self to straight and rigorous observations rather for satisfaction of self-will than through any other sense of piety and which placeth in this act all Christian perfection not minding so many other duties which strictly bind us to matters more considerable We have heard the Idolaters of the Eastern parts kill themselves with recital of a fearfull number of prayers to their Idols roul in the scorching sands clog themselves with fetters and slash themselves with razors thinking by these ways they may arrive to the top of sanctity Nor can we likewise be ignorant what is sufficiently declared unto us by holy Scripture that many of the Ancients were much enclined to these superstitious devotions establishing therein all the order of spiritual life in such sort that they perpetually afflicted their bodies and in the mean time suffered their hearts to sway in empty vanities burning avarice rigours and cruelties towards their neighbours wholly insupportable Such was the devotion of Pharisees so often rebuked and condemned herein by the lips of the eternal Truth For when you saw them walk in publick you beheld men lean and disfigured who bare scrowls of parchment on their heads wherein they wrote some sentence of the Law of God and tied thorns to the border of their gowns to prick and torment their heels whilest the heart uncontroulably committed all disorder Such also was the devotion of certain superstitious reproved by the Prophet Isaiah in the 58. Chapter where God speaketh Isaiah 58. saying unto them Who ever hath gone about to exact such fasts from you and such devotion as you practise to afflict the bodie a whole day together how the head lie on sackcloth and ashes Is this then that which you call fasting and can you think days and times spent in such actions are very acceptable to God I will teach you another kind of fast Break off those Dissoloe colligationes impietatis solve fasciculos deprimentes bargains you have made with such iniquity tear in pieces the bundles of unjust and insupportable obligations let the poor go at libertie who are overwhelmed with wants Take the yoke from them which they can no longer bear give food to the hungrie lodge pilgrims and
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
himself and that without it the world would not be and that it was a Divinity which had a Temple in the hearts of men the most purified and best worthy of God If with one single glance of an eye you might see the world as a huge Theater you therein should behold Empires arms laws Cities Provinces sciences arts riches infinite magnificencies you would be enforced to say the basis which supporteth all this great majesty of Common-wealths is fidelity without which Cities would rather resemble Cyclopean caverns than Temples of peace and justice But if you destroy it not by improvidence or frailty but by the form of a setled life and by example cause others to imitate you is it not to overthrow all that which is best established and to profane whatsoever is most holy 4. You perhaps will say publick virtues little concern Reason 3 you so you may advance your particular interests Craft shameful to the authour of it I will not tell you this answer better becomes the mouth of a Tartar than a Christian but I dare well assure you these ways of craft and deceit which so much please you are most prejudicial to your honour and most fatal for your ruin For first of all say you be a man of quality you are not so unnatural but you have some sense of honour Now rest assured nothing Debasement so much villifieth you as to be reputed a crafty man who carrieth labyrinths in his heart and snares in his tongue Dyon Chrysostomus judiciously observed that nature gave subtility as an inheritance to creatures the most feeble and abject as to Apes Foxes Cats and Spiders but the most generous as Eagles and Lions know not what slights and wiles mean We must likewise affirm all the most eminent and divine spirits are very naturally inclined to sincerity and that it onely belongs to inferiour souls and such as distrust their own ability to amuse themselves in search of inventions and tricks to involve those who treat with them by the way of sincere freedom See you not mirrours render forms when they are leaded think you natively to represent the draughts of verity unless your soul be solid and stable supported by its proper weight on constancy and magnanimity Seneca noted that women the most destitute Subtile women of strength are most inclined to fraud and doubleness Seneca in Octaviâ Pectus instruxit delis sed vim negavit of heart what I speak nothing concerneth the prudent and generous who know how to correct infirmities of sex by virtue but our daily experience teacheth us that there are of them very crafty and such as under a pure and delicate skin with a tongue distilling honey often hide the heart of a panther all spotted over with subtility as the skin of this beast with diversity of mirrours Their throat is Novissima illius amara quasi absinthium acuta quasi gladius biceps Prov. 5. 4. more slippery than oyl said the Wiseman but in the end you find effects more bitter than worm-wood and more penetrating than a two-edged sword What sense is there that a Noble man who would in all things seem more than a man should take upon him the vices of women and inclinations onely fit for silly creatures It is a strange thing to see what the light of nature Sincerity preserved in the light of nature dictated to the souls of infidels so alienating them from all manner of deceit that they made scruple to treat with their enemies by way of dissimulation We learn in Titus Livius that one called Philippus Tit. Liv. l. 2. Decad. 5. giving an account to the Senate what he had negotiated in the Court of the Macedonian King declaring particularly the course he took to entertain Perseus under pretext of peace and to feed him with fair words the old Senatours stood up and aloud protested much to disavow such proceedings as matters opposite to Roman generosity Violence said Thucid. that great Captain Brasidas though it seem unjust is always more excuseable in a man of authority than craft which secretly contriveth some black business under colour of amitie What could there be more odious in nature than a man who to deceive the world might have the art to change faces every hour and seem sometimes white sometimes black Hatred and horrour of doubleness sometimes gray another while grizly sometimes hairy another while beardless in such sort as to be meerly unknown to those who should treat with him Now what deceivers cannot do on their faces they act in their souls through a strange profanation of Gods Image they take upon them a thousand countenances and a thousand impostures to train a poor victim into the snare They flatter they promise they swear they protest they call Heaven and earth to witness you would take all their words for eternal truths but if you speak to them an hour after and that it be time to pull off the mask they with a brazen brow will deny all they said they will mock at all they promised and disavow all they have done with the same lips which before contrived it What Behemoth what Leviathan was ever beheld so Phot. Bibliot p. 67. prodigious in nature I know Ctesias among the great rarities of the Indies makes mention of a Martichore a beast which hath the face of a man and the body of a Lion who counterfeiteth the sound of flutes to charm passengers and then entrappeth and kills them with the tayl of a scorpion all bristled with pricks and which is more makes the same serve for bowe arrows and quiver Needs must this be terribl but to see it before our face is to have one beast for an enemy which may by prudence be avoided which may by force be vanquished and with weapons mastered but in a faithless man you discover under a smiling brow a thousand plagues a thousand Centaurs a thousand Geryons infinite many Charybdes and Syrens who lay snares for you who undo you who ruin you who strangle when they seem to embrace you Can you then admire if among the six abominations of the Linguam mendacem cor machinaâ—s cogitationes pessimas Prov. 6. heart of man deceit be one of the first Laws have not severity enough arms terrour nor scaffolds punishments to chastise affright torment a man with a double tongue and heart who persecuteth truth killeth faith poisoneth friendship and many times plotteth effects of death even in a banquet the solace of life 5. All this is to no purpose will some Polyphemus Reason 4 say so that one prosper in the world either by treason Craft pernicious or craft little heed must be given to the judgements of certain men who are onely able to bark at our fortune not to hinder our felicity Here now is the knot of the business wherein we must consider that besides that the ways of treachery are laborious and
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
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
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
eat them soon enough as if all this should say unto us What do we so long in the world since all things that must serve our use last so little Gold and silver continue long but last very little in our hands and though one keep them as well as he can they keep not ever one Master If there be creatures which live much longer they flie from us as Harts Crows and Swans you might say they are ashamed to participate in our frailty Great-ones of the earth have in all times done what they could with a purpose to prolong their days so naturally are we desirous of the state of Resurrection but they have many times abridged them seeking to lengthen them Garcias telleth us that a King of Zeilam having learned the adamant had the virtue to preserve life would neither eat nor drink but in a dish which he caused to be made of adamant through a strange giddiness of spirit but he failed not to find death in these imaginary vessels of immortality We make a great matter of it to see men very old they are beheld with admiration But if some desire to come to their age there is not any would have the miseries and troubles of it This Phlegon of whom we now speak who had been one of the most curious Authours of his Age made a book of long liv'd men wherein he confesseth he hath exactly looked into the Registers of the Roman Empire there to find old men and women of an hundred years and scarcely could he meet with a sufficient number of them to fill up a whole leaf of paper But if he would take the number of such as died before fifty which the Ancients called the exterminating death he had filled many huge volumes Pompey took pleasure at the dedication of Bâ—ro in historia vitae mortis his Theater to see a Comedianess act named Galeria Capiola who reckoned ninety nine years since her first enterance into a Theater It was a goodly play of life in a woman who danced on the brink of her grave But how many such like have there been people go into the tomb as drops of water into the sea not thinking on it Nay do but observe all which is Sovereign you will find among all the Emperours which were through so many ages there is not one to be found who attained to the age of a hundred years and four alone arrived to four-score or much thereabouts Gordian the elder came to this point but scarcely had he tasted of Empire but was over whelmed with a violent death Valerian at the age of seventy six years was taken by Sapor King of Persia and lived seven years in a shamefull captivity his enemy making use of his back as a foot-stool when he would mount on horse-back He was at first much greater in the estimation of men than he deserved and every one would have thought him worthy of Empire had he not been Emperour Anastasius a man of little worth and less courage who had more superstition than religion arrived to the age of four-score and eight years when he was blasted with lightening from heaven Justinim reckoned four-score and three which made him wax white in a vehement desire of glorie although being some-what contemptible in his person he was fortunate in Captains They speak of a King called Arganthon who heretofore reigned in Spain the space of four-score years and lived an hundred and fourty But this is rather in fables than authentical histories Of so many Popes as have been since S. Peter not any one hath possessed the See twenty five years scarcely find you four or five four-score years of age John the two and twentieth an unquiet and treasure-heaping spirit was about ninety years when death took off his triple Crown So many had Gregory the twelfth who was created before the schism but his papacy was as short as his life was long Paul the third attained to one above four-scor and was otherwise a man as peaceable of spirit as prudent in counsel Paul the fourth severe imperious and eloquent came to four-score and three Gregory the thirteenth lived as many a Prelate wise courteous prudent liberal who lived too little a while for the Churches good for which he could not end but too soon If we speak of the blessed S. John S. Luke S. Polycarp S. Denys S. Paul the Hermit S. Anthony S. Romuald so many other religious men they lived long And it seems there are many things in religion which further long life as contemplation of things Divine joys not sensual noble hopes wholesome fears sweet sadness repose sobriety and regularity in the order of all actions But all this is little in comparison of the Divine state wherein bodies shall not onely never end but live eternally impassible as Angels subtile as rayes of light quick as thought and bright as stars Conclusion of the MAXIMS by an advice against Libertinism where all men are exhorted to zeal of true Religion and the love of things eternal Of the obscurity and persecution of TRUTH INcredulity is an immortal disease which hath reigned from the beginning of the world and which will never end but with the worlds dissolution Dreams and lies are many times believed because they insinuate themselves into the heart by charms but truth which will never bely her self hath much ado to make her self understood and if she be once known she is beloved when she smiles and feared when she frowneth There are four things have ever been much unknown Four things much unknown in the world time wind terrestrial Paradise and truth Time is a marvellous creature which perpetually passeth over our heads which numbereth all our steps which measureth all our actions which inseparably runs along with our life and we have much business to know it as well in its nature as progression It is a very strange thing that there are such as promise themselves to reckon up the years of the world as of an old man of three-score and yet we know by the experience of so many ages it is a great labyrinth wherein we still begin never to end It was for this cause the Ancients placed the figures Hadrianus Junius of Trytons on high Towrs with tails crookedly winding to represent unto us the intrication of the foulds and compasses of time And for this also Isa 6. Hieron in Isa in the Prophet Esai the Seraphins covered the face and feet of God with their wings to teach us faith S. Hierome that we are very ignorant in things done before the world and in those which shall happen to Non est vestrum nosse tempora momenta quae Pater posuit in sua potestate Actor 1. the end of it If we on the other side consider the wind we cannot but sufficiently understand the commodities and discommodities of it which have made the wise to doubt whether it were expedient there should be
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
themselves up to Heaven Let the Arms and Feet shake off the numbness of sleep as S. Peter did his chains at the voice of the Angel This were a beginning as it were of sacrificing our selves to God They used to pluck the hair off the beast and cast it into the fire before they sacrificed it so should we take these little actions from our uprising as the beginning of our sacrifice The third SECTION Five good actions to begin the day THat Action should be as a preparative to another more long and serious devotion which you should perform in your Closet as you come out of bed If your attire be so curious that it would require much time to dress you it is a miserable slavery Stay not till that be done to give God your tribute but clothe your self indifferently so much as is necessary for decency and health Then on bended knees do five things Adoration Thanksgiving Oblation Contrition and Petition I will here shew you the way to frame these actions which you may read at times and I will adde examples and forms taken partly out of Scripture such as are fit to be repeated daily The fourth SECTION Of Adoration The first Act of Devotion YOu are to observe that Praise is one thing Honour another Reverence another Adoration another Praise consists properly in words Honour in outward signs Reverence in inward respect but Adoration considered at large comprehends all these acts with much eminence For Adoration is an act of Religion whereby we do homage to the sovereignty of God with a lowly submission which is not communicable to any creature This act is formed and composed of four things which are as it were its four Elements The first is a strong apprehension of the greatness and excellency of God The second a consideration of our own meanness in comparison of that great Majesty The third a fervent act of the will which at the thought hereof melts it self into respect And the fourth an outward expression both of the mouth and gestures of the body testifying the resentment of our heart To discharge her self in this act of Adoration the soul first conceives God great dreadfull majestick she conceives him as a sea infinite in essence goodness beatitude comprehending within himself all Being all Good all Truth and not onely comprehending but anticipating it to all eternity with an incomparable eminence She beholds the whole universe in the immensity of God like a spunge in the midst of the Ocean an atome in the air and a little diamond set in the highest Heaven She acknowledgeth God to be the Foundation of all things possible the Super-essential being of all things that are and that are not without whom nothing can subsist neither actually nor potentially and that he hath no hold which the understanding may take to have knowledge of him She represents God to her self as the beginning and end of all things the Creatour the Founder the Basis the Support the Place the Continuation the bound the Order the Tie the Concord the Consummation of all creatures who hath within himself all the good of Angels of men and universal Nature who hath all glory all dignities all riches all treasures all pleasures all comforts all delights all joys all Beatitudes as Lessius very well explains in his Treatise of Infinitie This soul unsatisfied walks leisurely into these fourteen depths of greatness which are in God that is Infinitie Immensitie Immutabilitie Eternitie Omnipotence Wisdom Perfection Holiness Bountie Dominion Providence Mercie Justice and the End to which all things tend She considers every perfection first absolutely then by comparison and application making return upon her self and comparing this Infinitie of God with her nothing this Immensitie with her smalness this Immutabilitie with her inconstancy this Eternitie with the shortness of this temporal life this Omnipotence with her weakness this Wisdom with her ignorance this Perfection with her defects this Holiness with her vice this Bountie with her ingratitude this Dominion with her povertie this Providence with her stupiditie this Mercie with her obdurateness this Justice with her iniquity this End to which all things tend with the necessarie dependances which arise from her infirmities Here she is ravished in God as a little pismire in the Sun and like Aristotle who as it is said being not able to comprehend the ebbe and flow of an arm of the Sea threw himself into it so she drowneth her self in such a multitude of wonders not willing any longer to measure her love by the ell of her knowledge She is transported in this great labyrinth of miracles otherwise than the Queen of Sheba at sight of the Palace of Solomon and cannot at the last but break forth into an outward act and say My God and my All the God of my heart my portion and my inheritance to all Eternitie The fifth SECTION Example of Adoration IN pursuit hereof you shall worship God prostrate on the earth sounding like a small string of that great Harp the world offering to the Creatour the whole Universe as a picture to hang up at his Altar and resigning your self totally to his will The Hymn of the three children in the fiery furnace suiteth very well with this Act who call all creatures as by a catalogue to praise God or else take that form which the Angels and Saints use in adoring this Sovereign Majestie Holy holy holy Lord God Almightie which was and is and is to come Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Thou hast made Heaven and earth with all the ornaments thereof Thou hast compassed the sea with bounds by thy Almightie word Thou hast shut up the deep and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious Name Thou makest the pillars of Heaven to tremble under thy feet Thou strikest terrour into all creatures by the insupportable brightness of thy Majesty Thou art in the Temple of thy holy glory Thou beholdest the depths and sittest upon the Cherubims I adore thee my God from the center of my nothing with all the creatures of the Universe making an entire resignation of all that I am into thy hands and desiring now and to all eternity to depend on thy blessed will The sixth SECTION Of Thanksgiving The second Act of Devotion THis is an Act very necessary considering the benefits that we receive continually from the hand of God We should not be like the clouds which obscure the Sun that raised them but let us rather imitate the Looking-glass which returns the image so soon as the face is presented to it We must not let slip any benefit proceeding from this sovereign hand without representing to our selves the lively image of it in our acknowledgement And if the Ancient Hebrews as Josephus relates set marks and tokens sometimes on their arms sometimes at their gates to publish to all the
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
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
of Angels who say that he is alive And certain men of ours went to the Monument and they found it so as the women said but him they found not And he said to them O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all thing which the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so enter into his glory And beginning from Moses and all the Prophets he did interpret to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him And they drew nigh to the Town whither they went and he made semblance to go further And they forced him saying Tarry with us because it is toward night and the day now far spent and he went in with them And it came to pass while he sate at the table with them he took bread and blessed and brake and did reach to them And their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight And they said to the other Was not our heart burning in us whiles he spake in the way and opened unto us the Scriptures And rising up the same hour they went back into Jerusalem and they found the eleven gathered together and those that were with them saying That our Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon And they told the things that were done in the way and how they knew him in the breaking of bread Moralities 1. IT is a strange thing that God is always with us and we are so little with him We have our being our moving our life from him he carries us in his arms he keeps us as a nurse doth her dear child and yet all this while we scarce know what he is and use him so often as a stranger He is in our being and yet we keep him far from our heart as a dead man who is quite forgotten And Enoch walked with him and for that he was taken from the conversation of men and reserved for Paradise To speak truth our soul should always be languishing after her Jesus and count it a kind of Adultery to be separated from him so much as by thought Let us learn a little to talk with him we commonly have that in our tongue which we keep in our heart Let us sweeten the sadness of our pilgrimage by the contemplation of his beauties Let us look upon him as God and man the God of gods the Man of men our great Saviour and Prophet powerfull both in word and work for if his word be thunder his life is a lightening He hath been here doing good to all the world and suffering hurt from all the world doing good without reward and enduring evil without impatience We all pass here as Torrents into valleys the onely question is of our passing well whether we look on worldly goods as on waters which pass under a bridge and as upon the furniture of an Inn which is none of ours If we be embarked in the Vessel of life let us not amuse our selves to gather Cockles upon the shore but so that we may always have our eyes fixt upon Paradise 2. Two things do hinder those Pilgrims from knowing Jesus as they should The one is their eyes are dazeled and the other is the little account they make of the Cross which drives them into the mistrust of the Resurrection And this is it which crosseth us all our life and so oft diverts us from the point of our happiness Our eyes are dazeled with false lights of the world they are darkened with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of their day Worldly chains have a certain effective vigour and pleasure which is onely painted but they have a most certain sorrow and a most uncertain contentment They have a painful labour and a timorous rest A possession full of misery and void of all beatitude If we had our eyes well opened to penetrate and see what it is we should then say of all the most ravishing objects of the world How senseless was I when I courted you O deceitfull world thou didst appear great to me when I saw thee not as thou art But so soon as I did see thee rightly I did then cease to see thee for thou wast no more to me but just nothing We run in full career after all that pleaseth our sense and the Cross which is so much preached to us is much more upon our Altars than in our hearts We will not know that the throne of Mount Calvarie is the path-way to Heaven and as this truth wanders from our hearts Jesus departs from our eyes Let us at least pray Jesus to stay with us for it is late in our hearts and the night is far advanced by our want of true light We shal not know Jesus by discourse but by feeding him in the persons of his poor since he gives the continual nourishment of his body Aspirations O Onely Pilgrim of the world and first dweller in the heart of thy heavenly Father what a pilgrimage hast thou made descending from Heaven to earth and yet without forsaking Heaven Thou hast markt thy steps by thy conquests made visible thy way by thine own light thou hast watered it with thy precious bloud and paved it with thy wounds O what a goodly thing it is to walk with thee when thou openest thy sacred mouth as the opening of a temple to discover the beauties and mysteries of it O that is most pleasing to understand that mouth which distils so much honey through lips of Roses But wherefore My good Lord art thou pleased to hide thy self from a soul which languishes after thee Take away the vail from mine eyes and suffer thy self to be seen in the vesture of thy heavenly beauties If I must bear the Cross and pass by the throne of Mount Calvarie to come to Heaven I most humbly submit to thy divine pleasure that I may possess all that thou art The Gospel upon Tuesday in Easter week S. Luke the 24. ANd whiles they spake these things Jesus stood in the midst of them and he saith to them Peace be to you It is I fear not But they being troubled and frighted imagined they saw a Spirit And he saith to them Why are you troubled and cogitations arise in your hearts See my hands and feet that it is I my self handle and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and feet But they yet not believing and marvelling for joy he said Have you here any thing to be eaten But they offered him a piece of fish broiled and a honey-comb And when he had eaten before them taking the remains he gave to them And he said to them These are the words which I spake to you when I was yet with you that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written
torments no whit shaken blessing God for all these things and incessantly praying and forming some stuttering inarticulate sounds to instruct and exhort those who visited him A while after he is called again before this Tyrant who made a sport of his pains and sought to make him end his life by despair to kill the soul with the body But when he perceived his heart was of so strong a temper and that the dreadfull horrour of a poor body carried up and down among so many tortures made nothing for his reputation he gave order to Chrodobert to put him to death and instantly he was delivered to four executioners who led him forth into a forrest which retaineth the name of S. Leger The blessed blind man perceiving his hour approached said to them I see what you go about to do Trouble not your selves I am more ready to die then you to execute me Thereupon three of the murderers relenting prostrated themselves at his feet and craved pardon which he very freely granted and putting himself upon his knees prayed for his persecutours recommending his soul to the Father of souls at which time one of these four executioners persisting in his obduratenesse cut off his head The wife of Chrodobert took the body and interred it in a little Chappel where it did great miracles which have deserved the veneration of people Some time after the detestable Ebroin continuing the wickednesse of his bloudy life was slain in his bed like another Holophernes and suddenly taken out of the world not shewing any sign of repentance to be reserved for an eternall torment Behold all which Envy Jealousie and the Rage of a man abandoned by God can do which letteth us manifestly see that there are not any men in the world worse then those who degenerating from a religious profession return to the vices of the world And on the other side we may behold in the person of S. Leger that there is not any Passion which may not be overcome nor honour which may not be trodden underfoot nor torments which a man is not able to set at naught when he with strong confidence throws himself between the arms of the Crosse there to find those of Jesus Christ LAUS DEO FINIS THE HOLY COURT VVritten in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Fifth Tome Containing the Lives and Elogies of Persons of the COURT most Illustrious both of the Old and New Testament c. divided into five ORDERS Monarchs and Princes Queens and Ladies Souldiers States-men Religious men Printed M.DC.L To the READER HAving employed my first Volumn in pious and profitable discourses I have purposed to set forth in this fifth Tome a sufficient large Court to serve for example Which I have done by uniting to the Histories which I have already published these which I have here added a new which are almost all taken out of the holy Scriptures and handled in a style more solid and contract then specious and enlarged If this Work hath somewhat delayed its coming forth into the light it hath been businesses other wayes coming upon me that hath staid it We have had adversaries to deal with very well known that have by their Requests and by their Libels exceedingly troubled themselves to molest us I have answered them in two Books after a long silence for that the necessity did seem so to require and Authority therein did expresly command my obedience I have done it with the greatest modesty and sincerity that I was able and I may with confidence say that it hath been to the satisfaction of people of quality and desert Since as I understand they have continued their Replies where they largely witnesse their sharpnesse against me But what offence have I committed if in a Cause so good and by order from my Superiours I have undertaken the Defence in generall of a Society in which I have lived near these fourty years and have never learned any thing therein but Wisdome and Virtue They have so little matter that they are compelled to use old News-books against me which have spoken nothing but what hath been interpreted to my honour I have served God the King the Queen and all France without ever offending any person they might be ashamed to reproach me with that which hath been so much for my credit and to imitate those people that threw their Gods at the heads of their enemies for want of arrows God keep me from losing so much time as to reade their Writings or any desire to answer them I should seem to have lost my understanding if I should busie my self in fighting against Shadows and Lies put into Rhetorick so fully refuted by our Justifications and so manifestly condemned by the judgement of the Queen Regent and the rest of the. Powers that have acknowledged and maintained the Innocency of this Society against all Accusations These Books of evil Language are intolerable to all honest people and even odious to those that are rationâ—ll of their own party in so much that I pity their Authours to whom the pains of so great a Volumn with so little successe hath already served for a large punishment Instead of Replies to all those slanders I do sincerely offer up Prayers to God for our Persecutours that he may please to kindle in their hearts his holy Love which may purge out this gall of bitternesse this carnall wisdome and cause them to bring forth the fruits of Truth Justice and Charity The which I have endeavoured to do in this Work wherein I conceive that I have acquitted my self of the promises that I made to the Publick by treating on the true Histories of great Personages and especially those whom the holy Scripture hath honoured by its style for the edification of all the world It is in these illustrious Representations that the mind contents it self it is here that it contemplates the Virtues of famous Persons like the beams of the first Magnitude it is here that it quickens it self to the imitation of their glorious deeds and that it fore-stalls the delights of its own immortality It is here that it learns to endure adversities without departing from the duties of its Calling and firmly to keep its Constancy like the shadow in the Quadrants that remains immoveable under the blasts of the most furious winds not forsaking the measures of the Sunne Receive therefore courteous Reader the fruits of this my labour sprung up in the midst of a tempest that is may find calmnesse in thy favourable acceptance THE MONARCHS THe wisest of Monarchs speaking in the holy Scripture unto the Princes of his age and proceeding at large to give a full warning to all those that should bear part in their honour and imitate their lives delivereth these words by way of Oracle Hearken O Kings not onely The words of the wiseman directed to the Kings of his time Sap. 6. with an ear of flesh but attend with that of the understanding and
great spectacle of the Creatures thereby to ascend to the Creatour is not unprofitable for a good understanding that which teaches to reason and discourse is good for every occasion but the Morall Politicall and History make up the best part of a Kings Library and if hee make a little digression into Musick and Painting it cannot but be commendable Promote that knowledge that puffs not up vain spirits but that rather which humbles the solid ones for by learning that which we know not we understand our Ignorance and know by experience that one might make a great Library of that which is beyond the knowledge of the most learned in the World There are none but those that know little and which know ill who take upon them to have a sufficiency of knowledge they crackle like little Rivulets whereas the greater Rivers run quietly That Prince which by reason that he hath studied will carry all his counsell in his own head shews that he hath little profited by his study for in this mortall life a man is so far wise as he seeks still to become so but after that he thinks that he hath atteined it and hath no more need of others help then he begins to be out of the way The use of wisedome is to become wise as that of the eye is to see The wisedome of a King may be seen by a reasonable tincture of Learning by the knowledge that he hath of himself and the frail flourishing of all humane things by the discreetnesse of his words by his modesty in prosperity by his constancy in adversity It will shew it self by a Greatnesse without Affectation a Majesty without Pride an Humimity without Contempt a Comelinesse without Striving where every thing declares a King without any shew of making him seem so it will shew it self by its Temperance by the moderating of his passions and by Prudence in the government of his life and estate This is to have deeply studied to be able to overcome his Anger to disarm Revenge to moderate a Victory to overcome Concupiscence to regulate his Affection to keep under Ambition to restrain his Tongue to over-rule his Delights to asswage his Discontents to live like a Saint and speak like an Oracle This is exceedingly to have profited in wisedome to be able to proceed in all affairs according to the laws of true prudence But the false maketh that its principall which is but the accessary it takes Greatnesse and Pleasures for the chief ayme of a Kings life it consults little it judgeth ill it decreeth nothing But the true Prudence can look unto the end can take a right mark in all businesses it doth all things with advice it brings Judgement without Passion in all occurrences and gives an effectuall order for the performance of all that which hath been wisely concluded the remembrance of that past the understanding of the present and foreseeing of that to come makes up its whole perfection a quick apprehension prepares an accutenesse works it good advice orders foreseeing confirms and performance crowns it It is by these steps that a Prince ascends to the Throne of wisdome which is an unestimable Gift and the true favour of the Deity Saint Lewis whose life might have been the school of the ablest Philosophers although he bore in his mind the best maximes of Empires yet ceased not to reade good Books and as he had seen in the time of his imprisonment in the East that a Sarazen Prince had a Library of the Books of his Law he caused the like to be made at his return in his Palace where he spent many hours and would converse freely with men of learning and desert Demetrius Phalereus advised Kings to instruct themselves often by reading for that there one may learn of the dead which they cannot know by the living The next to Wisedome followeth Justice which performs in a manner the chief duty that is required of a Prince and Royalty seems to be nothing else but an excellent science of Justice as Justice is taken for that habit of virtue by which we render to every one the right that belongs to him Tertullian said That Goodnesse had created the World but that Justice had made the Concords thereof This wise mother of Harmonies ceaseth not to open an ear to the dissents that are made in the World to correct the disagreeing Voices by its own love and to bring all to its own end Ambition inventeth extravagant sounds Covetousnesse sends forth enraged cries tyranny makes an infernall Musick but Justice corrects all these excesses and if it meet with valiant and incorrupt souls to serve it as an instrument it sends forth incomparable Melodies which delight the ears of God and rejoyce the whole fabrick of Nature There are two great Virtues which make all the equalities of mans life Truth equals the understanding to all the objects and Justice the hearts to that which is right Lying and Injustice make every where great inequalities which fill Kingdomes with Disorder Consciences with Crimes and the World with Confusion But Truth and Justice render light to dark things strength to feeble certainty to doubtfull and order to the confused We naturally take a delight to behold the fair bow in heaven which compasseth the air with a crown of glory but Alcuin the School-master of Charlemagne writes That that which makes it the more admired is for that amongst its other beauties it carrieth the ensigns of Justice It shews the fire and the water in its red and blew colours to instruct us that Justice holds the fire in its power to consume the wicked and the water to bring refreshment to those scorching heats of calamities that trouble the miserable Justice is Gods profession and an Antient said that his continuall exercise was to weigh the hearts and the works of men and to distribute rewards and ordain chastisements according to the good and ill deserving of every one in particular The Scripture saith that he is glorious and magnificent but that these magnificences are chiefly seen upon the mountains of wounds and robberies when he beats down with an invincible arm the great ones of the earth loaden with the spoils of iniquitie The Hebrews said that Good took such delight in Justice that he had bestowed even the Saphires of his own Throne to engrave the Law thereon The Saviour of the world is named the Just by the holy Ghost in the writings of his Apostles not in dissimulation but by his Essence All the great Imitatours of God have honoured this quality and have held it in the number of their dearest delights Job maketh it his crown and his garment David his virtue Solomon his wisdome Josias his love Augustus his exercise and Trajan his honour The memory of so many Conflicts Sieges Battels Conquests Triumphs whereby the life of this great Emperour was so famous are found but in the record of a few lines but that which remaineth engraven
Darius the Mede who knowing the Prophecy of Daniel and the freedome with which he had spoken to the King esteemed him for it and retain'd him at the Court in the quality which his Predecessour had given him a night before his death When he saw himself established in favour again he forgat not God his heart being alwayes animated with a zeal to his Religion and when he saw his King inclining to the Superstition of the Countrey his heart was much grieved at it and he endeavours to cleanse him from his errours seeing him to be of a disposition too simple and credulous to the prejudice of the truth Amongst these false Deities Bel was adored with an exquisite and sumptuous worship in as much as there were offered to him every day out of the Kings house twelve baskets of meal forty sheep and six great measures of wine and it was believed that that Idol did eat up all the offerings The King that loved Daniel so much as to make him dine sometimes at his own table desired that he would accommodate himself to the Laws of the Countrey and that he would expresse some affection to the service of that great Bell that was adored universally by all the Nation But this wise Courtier answered him freely that he would never worship any but the true living God Darius replyed That there was nothing required to be adored but to live Bel was truly the living God because he did cat and drink well and cost much to feed him Daniel smiling answered that it was a great simplicity to think that that Idol did eat up all that was offered him every day Whereupon the King was moved with a curiosity to know how all this went and having caused the ordinary viands to be offered at Bels altar carefully saw all the doors of the Temple shut and put Guards before them that no body might enter in Daniel before he went out thence with the King caused abundance of Ashes to be sown there hoping by this means to discover the Imposture The morrow after the King caused the doors to be opened that had remained fast shut with his own seal and when as he entred in he saw that all the victuals had been taken away he cryed out that Bel was a great God and that it must needs be acknowledged that he did eat excellently well seeing nothing of all those offerings was remaining But Daniel instantly made him see upon the ashes the steps of those that had entered whereat he was astonished and called for all the Priests of that Idol to whom he shewed their cheat and pressed them so eagerly that they discovered certain little doors under the Altar through which they entred to the number of threescore and ten besides women and little children to devour the sacrifice The King was ashamed at the simplicity of his belief this shame passed into wrath and wrath proceeded as far as bloud causing him to put to death all the Impostours Furthermore in the same place there was a Dragon which was yet worshiped by that superstitious people which Daniel after he had obteined the permission of the King killed by making a masse composed of pitch of grease and of hair which he made him swallow and with it choake himself This made a great commotion amongst the people that said that the King was become a Jew causing his Priests to be murthered and killing the Dragon that there was now nothing remaining but to strangle all the sense of the Antient Religion In such a manner that behold a great tempest is raised against Daniel which in the opinion of all the world threatned him with an inevitable death The Grandees of the realm endeavour to ruine him by all ways and considering that he was exact and irreprochable in his office they resolve to ensnare him in matter of Religion Under colour of gratifying the King they beseech him to make an edict That whosoever should desire any thing of the Gods or of men for the space of thirty dayes except of the King should be cast into the Lions-den which the King granted them not knowing what their malice plotted against the innocence of his Prophet and Officer of State He was watched on all sides and retired himself from the King to diminish the jealousie that men had of him for the favours he received from him All his consolation was in Prayer and in those amiable discourses which he had with God and therefore he was afflicted as much as can be expressed seeing that the King his Master let himself be perswaded to make an edict so outrageous against the honour of God as to forbid to pray unto him Yet this hindered not him from continuing his oraisons lifting up thrice a day his weeping eyes on that side whereon the Temple of Jerusalem was built and sighing in the presence of his great Master with the ardours of an heart that evaporated it self â—ll in Love The Nobles that were every day at his door falled not to surprise him and to accuse him that he had transgressed the Edict which he acknowledged freely Complaints of it were suddenly made to his Majesty whose heart was wounded for the affection that he bare to Daniel and he laboured even till the Sun set to save him neverthelesse seeing himself pressed violently by his Edict and the vehemence which the Nobles used that it should be observed he abandoned the innocent to their fury against his will This defiles the conscience of many great men who are evil-doers of their disposition and yet for all that commit great evils through the complacency that they give to the violent humours of those that are about them He had some hope that Daniel would escape and that the God which he adored would save him and therefore he made no resistance by arms but delivered him into their hands to be cast into that horrible den of the Lions that had been kept hungry on purpose that he might be the sooner devoured But O God of wonders what Prodigie is here The Lions worship their prey Daniel is visited in that Cave by a Prophet come in an instant from Judea by the Ministry of an Angel that brought him his dinner The beasts change their Nature and Nature forces her Laws for the respect of a servant of God The King that had lain down without his supper and had not slept all night for the fear that he had for his poor Daniel runs early in the morning to the Lions-den which he had caused to be shut up with a great stone put upon the mouth of it and stampt with his own Seal and there cryes out with a lamentable voyce asking of Daniel whether he were yet alive who made him see how the God that he adored had delivered him and preserved him from all evill Whereat he was so ravished that he began to look upon him as an heavenly man caused his accusers to be apprehended to be exposed to the same Lions
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
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