much as businesses of that nature would permit But her mother Alexandra touched to the quick to behold her self amongst so many spies she who was ever desirous to converse and live with all royall liberty resolved to play at double or quit to break the guyves of specious servitude or yield her neck to Herods sword if it should come to pass her calamity transported her into such extremity What doth she Cleopatra that Queen who had filled the world with her fame was then in Aegypt and naturally hated Herod as well for his barbarous disposition as for particular interests of her own person For she knew he much had entermedled in her affairs and given Mark Anthony counsel to forsake her yea to kill her This Tyrant was so accustomed to say Kill that he easily advised others to use the same medicine which was with him to his own maladies frequent It is a strange thing that Cleopatra one day passing through Judea he resolved to send her into the other world thinking therewith to gratifie Mark Anthony but was disswaded by his friends saying it was too audacious to attempt and able for ever to ruin his fortune The design was never published But Cleopatra had cause enough besides to hate Herod which much emboldened Alexandra to write to her in such like terms ALEXANDRA to the Queen CLEOPATRA Health Madame SInce God hath given you leave to be born the most Letter of Alexandra to Cleopatra accomplished Queen in all qualities it is fit your Greatness serve as a sanctuary for the innocent and an Altar for the miserable The wretched Alexandra who hath much innocency void of support and too many calamities without comfort casteth her self into the arms of your Majesty not to give her a scepter but to secure the life of her and her son the most precious pledge which remaineth of heavens benignity Your Majesty is not ignorant that fortune having made me the daughter and mother of a King Herod hath reduced me to the condition of a servant I am not ambitious to recount my sufferings which I had rather dissemble but whatsoever a slave can endure in a gally I bear in a Kingdom through the violence of a son in law who having stoln the diadem from my children would also deprive them of life We are perpetually among spies sharp knives and black apprehensions of death which would less hurt us if it were more sudden Stretch out a hand of assistance to the afflicted and afford us some petty nook in your Kingdom till the storm be over-blown and that we may see some sparkles of hope to glimmer in your affairs Glory thereby shall abide with you and with us everlasting gratitude Cleopatra having received these letters made a ready answer and invited her to hasten speedily into Aegypt with her son protesting she should esteem it an unspeakable glory to serve as a sanctuary and refuge for the affliction of such a Princess Resolution of departure is taken but the execution is a hard task The poor Io knows not how to withdraw Enterprise of Alexandra her self from this many-eyed Argus In the end as the wit of woman is inventive especially in matters that concern their proper interests she without discovering ought to any one no not to her daughter Mariamne fearing least her nature too mild should advise her rarher to rest in the lists of patience than to attempt ways so perilous she I say onely advising with her own passion in this business caused two beers to be made a matter of ill presage to put her self and son into thinking by this means to elude the diligence of the Guard and so to be carried to the sea where a ship attended her and by this way save her life in the power of death But by ill hap a servant of hers named Aesop who was one of those that were appointed to carry the beers going to visit one called Sabbion a friend to the house of Alexandra let some words fall of the intention of his Mistress as thinking to to have spoken to a faithful and secret friend of hers The perfidious Sabbion had no sooner wrung the worm out of this servants nose but he hasteth to open all to Herod supposing it was a very fit opportunity to work his reconciliation he having a long time been suspected and accounted to be of Alexandras faction Herod after he heard this news wanted not spies and centinels The poor Lady with her son is surprised upon the beers drawn out of the sepulcher of the dead to return to the living ashamed and disgraced that her Comedy was no better acted little considering that after her personated part had failed she could nothing at all pretend to life Herod notwithstanding whether he feared the great credit Cleopatra had or whether he would not wholy affright Alexandra thereby with the more facility to oppress her contained himself in the ordinary dissimulation of his own nature without speaking one sole word unto her Although very well in the face of this painted hypocrisie was seen that the clouds were gathered together to make a loud Thunder-crack raise an unresistable tempest The caytive after he had given so many deaths Pitiful death of young Aristobulus in the horrour and affrightment of arms would inflict one even as it were in sport upon a fair sommers day Being at dinner at the house of the miserable Alexandra feigning to have buried in deep oblivion all what was past saith that in favour of youth he this day would play the young man and invite the High-Priest Aristobulus his brother in law to play at tennis with him or some other like exercise The sides were made the elumination was enkindled The young Prince hot and eager played not long but he became all on a water as at that time happened to many other Lords and Gentlemen Behold they all run to the rivers which were near this place of pleasure where they dined Herod who knew the custom of Aristobulus and well foresaw he would not fail to cast himself into these cold baths suborneth base villains who under the shew of pastime should force him to drink more than he would All succeeded as this traiterous wretch had premeditated Aristobulus seeing the other in the water uncloathed himself quickly and bare them company There was no cause why he should swim sport and dally upon this element ever dangerous although less faithless than Herod The poor sacrifice skipped up and down not knowing the unhappiness which attended him But the accursed executioners remembred it well For spying their time in this fatal sport they smothered the poor High-priest under the waters in the eighteenth year of his age and the first of his High-priesthood This bright Sun which rose with such splendour and applause did set in the waves never to appear again but with horrid wanness of death on his discoloured visage Humane hopes where are you True dreams of Vanity and
your self by the practise of retirement of penance of hair-cloth and fasting A holy maid of Alexandria was twelve years in a sepulchre Raderus to free her self from the importunities of concupiscence cannot you be there one hour so much as in thought Another had this stratagem to elude love for she seeing Speculum Anonymi a young man to be very much touched with her love who ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits which passion could suggest told him she had made a vow to fast forty dayes with bread and water of which she would discharge her self before she would think of any thing else and asked whether he pleased not to be a Party for the triall of his love which he accepted but in few dayes he was so weakned that he then more thought upon death then love Have not you courage to resist your enemy by the like arms your heart faileth you in all that is generous and you can better tell how to commit a sin then to do penance Then chuse out that which is most necessary and reasonable separation from that body so beloved which by Separation the first remedy its presence is the nourishment of your flames Consider you not that comets which as it is said are fed by vapours of the earth are maintained whilst their mother furnisheth them with food so love which shineth and burns like a false star in the bottome of your heart continually taketh its substance and sustenance from the face which you behold with so much admiration from the conversation which entertains you in an enchanted palace full of chains and charms Believe me unlose this charm stoutly take your felfe off dispute not any longer with your concupiscence fly away cut the cable weigh anchor spread sails set forward go fly Oh how a little care will quickly be passed over Oh how a thousand times will you blesse the hour of this resosolution Look for no more letters regard not pictures no longer preserve favours let all be to preserve your reason Ah! why argue you still with your own thoughts Take me then some Angel some Directour The counsel and assiduity of a good directour is an excellent antidote who is an able intelligent industrious couragious man resign your self wholly up to his advice he will draw you out from these fires of Gomorrha to place you in repose and safety on the mountain of the living God I adde also one advice which I think very essentiall which is infinitely to fear relapses after health and to avoid all that may re-enkindle the flame For Love oft-times resembleth a snake enchanted cast asleep and smothered which upon the first occasions awakeneth and becomes more stronger and more outragious then ever You must not onely fortifie your body against it but your heart for to what purpose is it to be chast in your members and be in thought an adulterer Many stick not to entertain love in their imagination with frequent desires without putting them in execution but they should consider that Love though imaginary makes not an imaginary hell and that for a transitory smoke they purchase an eternall fire § 10. Of Celestiall Amities BUt it is time we leave the giddy fancies of love to behold the beauties and lights of divine Charity which causeth peace in battails conquest in victories life in death admiration on earth and paradise in heaven it self It is a strange thing that this subject the most amiable of all proves somewhat dreadfull to me by the confluence of so many excellent Writers antient and modern who have handled it so worthily since thier riches hath impoverished their successions and their plenty maketh me in some sort to fear sterility They had much furtherance in their design they took as much stuffe as they thought good referring all that to the love of God which is in nature and above nature in grace and beyond grace They have enlarged themselves in great volumes the sight whereof alone seems to have much majesty and to please their own appetites they have said all they might possible But here forasmuch as concemeth my purpose I have reduced my self into contractions of great figures which will not prove troublesome if measures and proportions be therein observed and nothing forgotten of all that which is most essentiall to the matter we treat I find my self very often enforced to confine giants to Myrmecidia opera apud Aelianum the compasse of a ring and to cover ships under the wing of a fly drawing propositions out of a huge masse of thoughts and discourses to conclude them in a little Treatise not suffering sublimity to take ought away of their facility nativenesse of their majesty shadows of their lustre nor superficies of their dimensions Besides that which renders this my discourse the lesse pleasing is that speaking to men of the world I cannot disguise the matter in unknown habits splendid and pompous words conceptions extatick I cannot perswade them that a Seraphin hath penetrated rhe heart of one with a dart of fire and that another hath had his sides broken by the strength of the love of God I must pursue ordinary wayes and teach practises more nearly approching to our humanity I am then resolved to shew there are celestiall Amities which great souls contract with God that their condition is very excellent and most happy and that the practice of them must begin in this world to have a full fruition of them in the other Carnall spirits which onely follow animall wayes have much a-doe to conceive how a man can become passionate in the love of God and think there is no affection but for temporall and visible things It is a Love too high say they to transferre their affections into heaven It is a countrey wherein we have no commerce There comes neither letter nor message thence No ships arrive on that coast It is a world separated from ours by a great Chaos wholly impenetrable That there may be a celestiall amity by the commerce of man with God How would you I love God since he is all spirit and I a body He is Infinite I finite He so High and I so low It is a kind of insolency to go about to think of it Behold how spirits ignorant of heavens mysteries do talk But I maintain upon good grounds that we are made to place our love in the heart of God and that if we do not seasonably take this way well we may go on but never shall we arrive at repose First the Philosopher Plato hath worthily observed An exellent conceit of Plato Plato in Sympos Marlil Ficinus Amor memoria primi ac summi purissuni pulchri Appetitor artis desertor artificis amplectitur speciem eujus non miratur authorem S. Eucherius ep Paraenâ—t that the love we have here below is a remembrance of the first fair sovereign and most pure of all beauties which is
with lightening flashes transpasseth through the abysses and maketh hell it self confess it hath not darkness enough to shadow it from his face Now so it is that God condemneth reproveth chastiseth with the particular indignation of his heart this plaistered life and therefore as the Lev. 11. 18. The swan and the Ostrich rejected by God Interpreters of the Scripture observe he rejected the swan notwithstanding the whiteness of her feathers and the sweetness of note which is ascribed to her nor would he ever admit her in the number of his victimes because under pure white feathers she hideth a black flesh For the same reason he never would have the Ostrich who hath onely the ostentuous boasts of wings and no flight so much he detesteth apparence fruitless and effectless First or last he will saith holy Job take away Job 18. 19. the mask so that the life of hypocrites shall be as the spiders web in the judgement of God they shall think they have sped well but even to have hidden themselves all shall be resolved into thing to make them appear what they are in a most ignominious nakedness They now are Panthers who have their skins spotted with mirrours that search out secret fountains to wash away the ordures and impressions of their crimes as it is related of this creature But the day of God will come when as the Prophet Waters of Panthers Isaiah 15. Aquae Nimrim siccabuntur Isaiah saith the Panthers waters shall wholly be dried and soaked up that is to say as Ailredus interpreteth it that all the counterfeitings and dissimulations of the world shall find no more water to whiten them We all naturally fear the publication of our vices so sensible we are in the touches of honour Those poor Milesian maids who moved with enraged despair ran to halters and steepie precipices could never be diverted from this fury either by the sweet admonishment of their parents or rigorous menaces of Judges but when by decree the naked bodies of those who had violated the law of nature by this most wicked attempt were cast upon the dung-hill the onely apprehension of nakedness and of the nakedness of a bodie bereaved of sense stayed the course of these execrable frenzies And without speaking of ancient Histories William Bishop of Lions relateth that a certain Damsel painted in an Age when simplicity was in great esteem as she went along in a procession behold by chance an Ape came Trick of an Ape out of a shop who leaped on her shoulders and took off her coif and made a little deformity appear covered under painting and dissimulation whereby she felt herself overwhelmed with dolour and confusion If the small affronts and disgraces which we receive in the world have so much force what will it be then when the Sovereign Judge shall take away the scarf and make a cauterized conscience appear What will it be when with as many torches and burning lights as there then shall be of Angels and of the elect by his side he shall penetrate even to the bottom of a lost soul Where then shall be his plaisterings where his dissimulations and hypocrisies in the abyss of this confusion It is a thing which we rather may meditate on in silence than express in words Upon these considerations resolve with your selves to build your salvation upon the firm rock of truth and not on a vain reputation upon the slippery moving sands of human apparences Imitate that good King father of S. Lewis who bare a scepter made like an obelisk in a ring with this devise Volo solidum Tipotius in Simbol perenne as who should say all his intentions aimed at heaven and eternity Make a determinate purpose as much as possibly you may to avoid in your apparel in your hair in your words in your actions all sorts of affectation of hypocrisie of folly as things base sottish ridiculous August l. 83. quaest Summa divina virtus est neminem decipere ultimum vitium est quemlibet decipere and wicked ever remembering this sentence of S. Augustine A great and divine virtue is to deceive no man The last and most mischievous of all vices is to deceive the whole world The sixth OBSTACLE Ill husbanding of time A Notable fable maketh the spider and the silk-worm A notable fable to speak together telling their fortune in a pretty pleasing manner and greatly replenished with moral instruction The poor spider complaineth she laboureth night and day to make her webs with so much fervour and diligence that she unbowelleth herself pouring forth her substance and strength to accomplish her work yet notwithstanding her endeavour so little prospereth as that after she hath brought this her web to perfection a silly servant comes with a broom and in an instant undoes what she could not produce perhaps scarcely in ten years But if it happen she escape from this persecution which seldom is seen in great mens houses yet all the fruit she may expect from so much toyl is but to take some wretched flie in her web Behold you not herein sufficient cause to bewail her misery The silk-worm quite contrary boasteth herself to be one of the most happy creatures which lives on the face of the earth For saith he I am sought after as if I were a precious diamond I am exported from forreign countries happy is he who best can lodge breed entertain and cherish me men bend all their industrie to serve my easeful repose and commodities If I travel my pain is well bestowed but be it how you will silly spider that you take flies I captivate Kings The greatest Monarchs of the earth are involved in my threeds Queens and great Ladies make of my works the entertainment of their beauties and the Potentates which will not depend upon any are dignified by a little worm The four corners of the earth divide my labours with admiration and not being able to go higher although I reach not to Heaven yet I behold the Altars glitter under the embellishments which issue from my entrails And verily there is great difference between the travel of the spider and pain of the silk-worm The industrie of these two little creatures do naturally figure unto us two sorts of persons whereof the one laboureth for vanity the other for verity All men coming into this life enter thereinto as into a shop of toyl which is as natural to them as flight for birds A great man after Adamus de Sancto Victore A worthy Epitaph Conceptio culpa nasci poena necesse mori he had well considered this sentence of Job caused these words to be inscribed on his tomb well worthy of ponderation that is to say Man entereth into being by the gate of not being as he who is as soon in sin as in nature his birth is a punishment his life a travel and his death a necessity And very well Tertullian observeth that
which will be found at the day of our death in our own hands can put us in possession of a happy eternity If you have not time well may you have rivers of gold and magazins of pearls but Heaven you shall never have Saint Gregory Nazianzen doth sagely tell us that Greg. Nazian in Iambicis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Merchandize in request in the other world life is an open Fare for all the world to trade in And verily it is an admirable Mart where the merchants if they will be well advised may barter a vale of tears for a Paradise of delicacies earth for Heaven and a moment for eternity All consisteth in well using time this is the onely merchandize in request in the other world to which we go Some infinitely labour to adorn themselves with the mire and durt of the Indies to wit with gold and silver which is as absurd a folly as if one to climb to Heaven should make himself wings of a scuttle filled with earth Others hunt after glory and honour of the world which is but a meer counterfeit semblance in comparison of the happiness of Saints yet they notwithstanding would carry it to Heaven as if one should undertake to bring by wagon a vessel of stinking water an hundred leagues off to make sale of it where streams run of eternal fountains Will you know the merchandize which is of sale in Heaven Tribulation for there is none and Time for there is nothing but eternity Carrie thither a little pain patiently born a little time well employed and behold you become rich for ever Judge now if time be so estimable and necessary for your salvation what value you should set upon it and whether it be not an intolerable thing to wast it in fopperies and trifles Time is ill husbanded by three sorts of people Some employ it in doing ill others in doing nothing the rest in doing too much In doing ill the vitious in doing nothing the idle in doing too much the vain and unhappie All are as it were equal in loosing time although unequal in the manner of loosing it and in the reward for having lost it And not to speak here at all either of crimes or negligences which are two dangerous rocks for the ship which transporteth time some sigh under a true laziness but painful and straitened others are delighted with vanities and meer follies many are involved in business up to the elbow and yet because they do not take their aim well in that they do not travel for Heaven and are wholly ignorant of the place and path of the rendevouz all their life is a most laboursom loytering They make much adoe as little children about butter-flies They Labor flâ—ltoâ—um affliget â—os qui nesciunt in urbem ergere Eccl. 10. â—consultus ilâ—is vanusque â—ursus est quaâ—is formicis per â—â—rborem repenâ—ibus quae in summum cacumen deinde â—nimum inanes guntur Senec. de â—rancq c. 12. The idle employment of some great men â—ee Guevara â—dleness the â—usiness of some great men run up and down like rats who are infinitely busie to carrie a rotten nut into their hole They strive as fishes in a pond to take the bit one from another They wander backward and forward like ants upon the bodie of a tree Others make fools of themselves with meer bables and it is a wonder to behold the childishness and apish tricks of employments which are found in the lives of men of eminent quality See in the ancient Histories a Domitian upon whose shoulders God had placed the burden of a vast Empire yet laying aside all other affairs he every day reserved some hours to himself to stick flies through with a bodkin and thereunto intended as to one of the most serious affairs of his Kingdom Hartabus King of the Hyrcans caught moles Bias King of the Lydians stabbed frogs Aeropus King of the Macedonians made lanterns Behold you not goodly employments for Kings Are not there I pray as very triflers to be found amongst Christian Nobility at this day We see men even in this Age who waste all their time in combing their hair washing their beards in striving to have their stockins sprucely put on to new hatch their swords to draw on new boots to enquire for rich garters to make provision of girdles and hangers to cheapen beaver hats to buy feathers to trample up and down the streets to hold a racket to play at dice to dance the cinque-apace to gourmandize a banquet to throw rotten orenges at one another to prattle with women to vaunt of that which they have never done to envie the happy to contemn the miserable to breath perpetually out of one and the same mouth either calumnie or scoffs never to utter a serious word as if one had abjured all reason and lastly never to speak well but when they intend to speak ill What an unfortunate and travantly kind of life is this When such kind of men have ended their course deserve they not to have the Epitaph of an Ape inscribed on their tombs since they servilely have thus betrayed their manhood On the otherside we behold women who have no other trade but to think on new fashions for apparrel to buy stuffs to make thereof rich petty-coats and gowns to bargain for jewels and precious stones to raise their chopino's higher to look in their glass above a hundred times in a day to call a Councel upon one hair of their head to have angel-Angel-water the powder of Cypress to be ever learning some new invention of imposture to bear on their fore-heads which God himself hath consigned with his own finger to be the seat of shamefac'dness to devise curiosities in their chambers and to complain of all the world to sooth their own impatience to brave it through the streets in their coaches to roam up and down to gossippings and child-bed women to tattle with spruce Carpet-knights to search through impertinent curiosity into all kind of businesses to know nothing and to speak of all things to deafen half the world with their chattering and to hold the other in breath study to do them service to bestow a fourth part of their life in clothing and attiring themselves another in babling another in dancing and playing the rest in sleeping what remaineth for God Behold goodly husbanding of time behold how the Exchecquer of God is mannaged and then who will be amazed to see that a life spent in these goodly exercises and employments is replenished with darkness with confusion with a sluggish and lamentable forgetfulness of the life to come The remedy for this disorder is to consider I. How many damned souls do now groan in Remedies flames which all the Oceans cannot extinguish for having contemned time which you yet enjoy at your ease He that could onely grant to them one little moment of these excellent days which you prodigally waste through what thorns what fires
government of the Church III. Throughly to retain the summary of the Christian doctrine to inform your self of the explication of every Article not for curiosity but duty To read repeat meditate ruminate them very often To teach them to the ignorant in time of need But above all to give direction to your family that they may be instructed in those things which belong to the knowledge of their salvation It is an insupportable abuse to see so many who drag silk at their heels and have Linx's eyes in petty affairs to be many times stupid and bruitish in matter of Religion and in the knowledge of God IV. To abhor all innovation and liberty of speech which in any the least degree striketh at the ancient practices of the Church V. And therefore it is necessary as our Father Judicious notes of S. Ignatius concerning sincere faith S. Ignatius hath observed to praise and approve Confession which is made to a Priest and the frequent * * * Haec Authoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notanda non probanda Communion of the faithful interpreting the devotion of others in a good sense VI. To recommend the Sacrifice of the Mass to love practice perswade others to the laudable custom of being present thereat as much as may be To esteem Church-musick prayers Canonical hours Supplications Processions and such like VII To praise the Orders of Religion the vows of poverty chastity obedience works of supererrogation and evangelical perfection ever generally preferring virginity and continency in discourse before marriage VIII To esteem of Reliques to recommend the veneration and invocation of Saints to be much affected to the service of the most blessed Mother of God to approve of pilgrimages which are orderly performed Indulgences and Jubilies which the glorious King S. Lewis recommended to Philip his son in his last words IX To have a religious opinion of the abstinences and fasts instituted by the Church and of the manner of penances and mortifications which religious and other devout persons piously practice X. To maintain the commandments of the Church and ordinances of Superiours both by word and example and though their lives should not be conformed to their doctrine yet not to detract nor murmure at their actions in publick or private thereby to alter in the peoples belief the reverence and respect to their dignity but as much as shall be expedient privately to admonish them of their defective carriage in their charges XI Highly to esteem the doctrine of sacred Theologie which is taught in schools and to make account of the great Doctours whom the Divine providence hath raised in this latter Age valourously to oppose heresies XII Not to insist in ordinary discourses upon exaggerations comparing men who live in this Age with the Apostles Doctours and Saints of antiquity XIII To fix our selves upon the resolutions of the Church that what our own peculiar reason would judge to be white we to esteem it black when the decrees of the Church it self shall be so always preferring the judgement of the Church before our private opinion knowing that humane reason especially in matters of faith may easily be deceived but the Church guided by the promised Spirit of truth cannot erre XIV Not in considerately to be embroyled in the thorny controversies of predestination Highly to commend grace and faith but warily without prejudice of free-will and good works XV. Not so to speak of the love and mercy of God that one may seem thereby to exclude the thoughts and considerations of fear and divine justice Behold the ordinary rules to preserve your self in faith If you now desire to know how this virtue is purified and refined in mans heart and in what consisteth the excellency of its acts behold them here You must carefully take heed of having onely a dead faith without charity or good works which S. Augustine calleth the faith of the devil It is a night-glimmer obscure and melancholy but lively faith is a true beam of the Sun The acts of a strong and lively faith are I. To have great and noble thoughts of God as Heroick acts of faith Matth. 8. that brave Centurion of whom it is spoken in S. Matthew who supposed the malady health death life of his servant absolutely depended upon one sole word of our Saviour and thought himself unworthy he should enter into his house Cassius Longinus a Pagan Cassius Longinus libro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so learned that he was called the Living Librarie one day reading Genesis could not sufficiently admire the sublime speculations which Moses had of the Divinity when he wrote of the worlds creation that God at the sound of one sole word made the great master-pieces of this universe to rise out of nothing as heaven earth water the Sun and Moon II. To believe with great simplicity removed from all manner of curiosity and nice inquisition God Si levaveris cultrum tuum super eo polluetur Exod. 20. would not the point of the knife should be lifted up on his Altar to cut it So likewise the point of humane spirit must not be raised on the Altar of faith nor the curtain drawn to enlightē the mysteries with the torch of reason S. Lewis was most perfect in this degree who would not stir a foot to behold a miracle in confirmation of his belief III. To believe with great fervour esteeming nothing impossible to your faith as did that simple shoemaker who under a King of the Tartars removed Paulus Veneus l. 1. c. 18. de reb orient a mountain in the sight of the whole world by the fervour and simplicity of his faith IV. Not to stagger nor be afflicted when you ask any thing of God in your prayers holding it undoubted that it will be granted if it be for the greater glory of the Sovereign Master and your more advantageable profit You must always hold your hands lifted up in some kind as Moses did even to the Exod. 17. setting of the Sun to vanquish our Amalekites V. To have a generous heart and full of confidence in adversity not to admit distrust during the storm but with firm footing to expect the consolation of heaven even when we shall be in the shades of death as said the Prophet VI. Little to prize temporal goods in comparison of eternal To be ready to dispoil ones self from all the pleasures and commodities of the world if there be any danger of faith as that brave Courtier Hebr. 11. Moses who forsook the contentments of Pharaohs Court to be afflicted with his own people VII To give alms liberally with a firm belief that the hand of the poor is the treasury of God VIII To employ even life it self as so many Martyrs have done and to seal your faith with your own bloud This is the most heroical act but yet it ought to be guided by discretion Now to make easie the acts of faith I.
willeth us to take moderate pleasure in creatures which he hath made for our content and ease that we may enjoy them in time and place every one according to his condition profession and rule of wisdom Synesius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pleasure lays hold of the soul Somnus balnea dolorem mitigant S. Thom. 2. q. 138. Date siceram merentibus vinum iis qui amaro sunt animo Prov. 2. the Creatour hath given the feeling of pleasure to sense to serve as an arrest to the soul and to hold it in good quarter with the body Saint Thomas among the remedies of sadness prescribes sleep and bathing The Scripture it self counselleth us to give wine and other fitting draughts for them to drink who have their hearts oppressed with bitterness If one think to make a great sacrifice to God resting perpetually stretched and involved in a pensive austeritie of spirit as being desirous to avoid all pleasures of life he deceiveth himself It hath happened that many running in their own opinion to Paradise by this path according to peculiar fancie have found themselves on the borders of hell Fourthly to remember our life is a musick-book Our life is a musick-book seldom shall you find there many white notes together in the same line black are mixed among them and all together make an excellent harmonie God gives us a lesson in a little book which hath but two pages the one is called Consolation the other Desolation It is fit for each of them to take its turn In the day of adversity think of prosperity In the day of prosperity remember your self of adversity That great Prelate of Cyrenum Synes in hymno said that the Divine Providence hath mingled our life as one would do wine and water in a cup some drink the purest some the most compound but all tast a commixtion Fifthly if you exactly compare our condition to that of an infinite number of miserable creatures who groan in so many tedious and disastrous torments you will find your fardel but a dew But we have a certain malignity of spirit which ever looks back on the good it hath not to envy it and never considers the evil from whence it is freed to render thanks to God Behold some are in the bottom of a dungeon in fetters others are bowed in painful labours from the rising to the setting Sun to get their bred Some have the megrim in their head the gout in their feet and hands the stone in their kidneys Others are overwhelmed with business loss misfortunes strange and portentous accidents yet carry it out with courage Your heart is nipped with a little sadness and behold you despair what effeminacie of spirit is this It is said hares seeing themselves pursued on every side had one day resolved to drown themselves but coming to the brink of a river and beholding frighted frogs who cast themselves at all adventure in the water to escape Courage said they we are not yet the most miserable treatures of the world behold those who are more fearfull than we Ah how often should we say the same if we saw the miseries of others Sixthly is it not a goodly thing to behold a man Unworthines of sadness who probably speaking is in the favour of God who is here nourished with Sacraments with Christs body and bloud with the word of his Master who liveth among so many helps and comforts spiritual and temporal who expecteth a resurrection a Paradise a life eternally happy and happily eternal in so beautifull a societie of Saints to frame pensiveness and scruples to himself of his own head to afflict himself like a Pagan or a damned soul that hath no further hope It is related that God one day to give an antipast of beatitude to a holy man turmoiled with sundry cogitations caused an unknown little bird to chant in his ear in so melodious a manner that instantly his troubled spirit became clean and pure and held him rapt many years in the most tastfull delicacies may be imagined O if you often had strong imaginations of Paradise how your melancholy would melt and dissolve as snow before the Sun-beams Lastly sing spiritual canticles labour employ Noble tears your spirit without anxiety and if needs you will weep lament your imperfections bewail the miseries of the poor sorrow for your curiositie lament the passion of your spouse grieve and sigh at your impatience after this glory of Paradise weep over the deluge on the earth look back like a chast dove on Dulces lachrimae sunt ipsi fletus jucundi quibus restrintur ardor animi quasi relaxatus evaporat affectus the ark of your good father Noe the father of repose and consolation Then will I say of such tears with S. Ambrose O the delicious tears O the pleasing complaints which extinguish the fervours of our mind and make our affections sweetly to evaporate The two and twentieth SECTION The third combate of the spiritual man against impuritie ALl impuritie of life ariseth from three sources whereof S. John speaketh concupisence of Joan. 2. Three sources of impietie the flesh concupiscence of the eyes and pride of life Let us now see the practice of virtues which oppose these three sorts of impurities Against concupiscence of the flesh temperance chastitie modestie do wage war Against the concupiscence of eyes to wit the unbridled desires of temporal blessings povertie justice charitie mercie gratitude Against pride of life humilitie obedience magnanimitie patience clemencie The three and twentieth SECTION Practice of Chastitie CHastitie is a virtue which represseth the impure lust of the flesh a celestial virtue an Angelical virtue which maketh heaven and Angels descend upon the earth and in this kingdom of mortalitie planteth the image and titles of immortality Clemens Alexandrinus maketh mention of certain Clemen Alex. strommat enchanted mountains at the foot whereof was heard a voice as of people preparing themselves for battel a little further the encounter and conflict and on the top songs and triumphs Behold as it Three sorts of chastitie were the condition of three sorts of chastitie With some it beginneth with labour and uncertaintie there is at the first toil and resistance against lust but the even thereof is not known With others it is become more manly as being already practiced in combats With others it triumpheth after a long habit yet notwithstanding whilest here on earth it abideth it is never absolutely secured The acts thereof are Acts. I. To renounce all unlawfull voluptuousness of the flesh II. To abstain from carnal acts not onely those which are unlawfull but sometime such as are permitted among married folk upon just occasion or for some certain time which is very ordinarie or perpetually which is singular and remarkable in the lives of some Saints So Martianus lived with his wife Pulcheria and Henry the Emperour with the Empress Chunegundis III.
torment with servitude poor afflicted Queens contrary to all equity reason and Royalty of their birth Anthonie who knew Herod to be his creature and the work of his own hands would not willingly understand these complaints Notwithstanding to please Cleopatra he swore a great oath he would examine the business in sending for Herod and if he were found culpable of such a villany he would inflict an exemplar punishment upon him Behold Herod cited to Laodicea where Mark Anthonie was to remain for a certain time whither he was summoned to appear and purge himself of the murder of Aristobulus of which he was supposed to be the Authour This was a clap of thunder to this disloyal wretch which most powerfully awakened him when he least thought of it and put such terrours upon him as are not to be imagined Upon one Herod's affrightment side he had before his eyes the image of his offence and the voice of bloud which rung in his ears on the other side he saw all his fortune depended on Mark Anthonie who at that time handled nothing but by the counsel of Cleopatra his mortal enemy and whom he well knew to have an enterprize in hand upon the Kingdom of Judea for her advancement But nothing so troubled his brain as a furious jealousie For he imagined that Anthonie a loose and wanton Prince one that courted all the Princely beauties of the world would do the like to his wife whose picture he formerly had and that with the more ease to enjoy her he would make him serve as a sacrifice for his fatal loves This spirit of his was torn and distracted on all sides and in all objects discovered precipitation and affrightment one while he seemed to resolve to undergo a voluntary banishment sometime he supposed death more suitable other-while he framed to himself some purpose of resistance but nothing appeared to him better than to delay and draw the business out at length as long as he could Anthony pressed with the voyage he undertook to war against the Parthians sent instantly for him delays and excuses thrust him further into suspition Necessarily he must go or resolve to loose all He taketh leave of his mother in law Alexandra and Mariamne his wife without seeming to be amazed without complaint without giving testimony of his discontent as if he had a short journey of pleasure to make Last of all he had his own mother and his sister Salome in Court to whom he much recommended vigilancy over the deportments of those whom he esteemed to have wrought him the mischief Then drawing his uncle Joseph aside he spake these words to him Uncle you know the occasion that transporteth me to Laodicea which truly is very difficult seeing my innocency assaulted by powerfull and secret malice which would be so much the more dreadfull if it had as much effect as passion But I hope to find day-light through the storm and that you shall see me return triumphant over caluâ—ny through my integrity as I have already raised tropheys over hostility by arms If God shall otherwise dispose of me it is a meer plot prepared against me for the beauty of my wife on whom Mark Anthonie may perhaps have some design and this may be a cause to shorten my days and he thereby to get more liberty for his unbridled passion But I for the present conjure you by the love which I have born you by my fortune which you reverence by bloud and nature if happily you hear I am otherwise used than my quality and innocency permit never let the death of Herod be waited on with the injury of his bed Preserve the Kingdom for your self and your bloud and cause my wife instantly to take her leave of this world to accompany me in the other Kill her couragiously lest Horrible jealousie another enjoy her after my death If the souls of the dead have any feeling of the affairs of the world that shall serve me for a solace Joseph much amazed at this manner of proceeding doth notwithstanding promise him he would perform all according to his will if necessity so required but that his fortune ever powerfull and invincible made him conceive other hopes in all kinds Thereupon he set forward on his way carrying along with him the richest parcels of his treasure to make a present of them to those whom he should most stand in need of shewing in all things else as much confidence in his countenance as he hatched despair in his heart When he was arrived at Loadicea he found strange Great pleading against Herod informations prepared against him which strongly charged him with the murder of Aristobulus It was shewed to Mark Anthonie how Herod ever had a design upon the scepter of Judea with a desperate and enraged ambition That nothing so much perplexed him as to see Aristobulus alive to whom he in conscience knew the Kingdom in such sort belonged that himself durst not demand it of the Romans but under the title of Regency whilest the right heir grew to maturity That he had converted this Regency first into an Empire afterwards into a Tyranny removing as much as he could the Royal bloud from dignities to advance men of no worth witness Ananel placed in the High-priesthood of which Hircanus was despoyled and that which made him alter his resolution therein was not good affection but importunity and evident danger of popular commotions which he well foresaw rose upon this rejection of the bloud Royal. That Aristobulus being preferred to the High-priesthood received with all alacrity and applause of the people he shewed this action to be most hatefull to him being not sufficiently able to cover the fury of his envy under the ordinary mask of his hypocrisie That after this time he had not ceased to persecute the dead Prince and his mother in such sort that finding no longer repose among the living they were enforced to put themselves into the coffins of the dead to be carried to the sea and from thence to be transported to Aegypt That he had caused them to be surprized in the act and in sequel thereof had not afterward sought any thing more than to be rid of them That the young Prince was drowned in the water not alone and separated from the rest but manifestly smothered by the insolent youth of the houshold and bosom of Herod All this process as was then said was so evident that had it been written with the rays of the Sun one could not wish more perspicuity The voice of bloud cried to Heaven which the trayterous wretch could not stop The picture of this poor Prince which had a little before his death been carried into Aegypt was presented with a singular admiration of his beauty His ghost was made to speak which asked justice of Mark Anthonie for having been so unworthily so inhumanely murdered in the flower of his tender years by the most horrid treason that ever was
perpetrated The tears of the disconsolate mother were not omitted in her absence Cleopatra made this whole Tragedie to be presented the combate was much enkindled and the battery was forcible Herod who wanted no eloquence in his own occasions replieth with a countenance very lowly and modest Prince and you Sirs who are of the Counsel I hold the Apologie of Herod full of craft scepter of Judea neither of Hircanus nor Alexandra never having had any purpose to flatter them for this end yea much less to fear them You know Most Illustrious Anthonie the Kingdom is in my hands I hold it of you from you all my greatness ariseth and in you all my hopes are concluded If you command I am at this present ready not onely to leave the scepter but my life also which never have I been desirous to preserve but for your service But it troubleth me the way of death being open to all the world the path of reputation which is more dear to me than life should be shut against my innocencie I am persecuted by women and much I wonder how the soul of Queen Cleopatra wholly celestial can nourish so much spleen against a King who never hath failed in any respect lawfully due to her merit For Alexandra it is not strange that she raise such a storm against me her fierce and haughty spirit hath always opposed my patience endeavoring by all means to disparage my government to pull a crown from me which a more puissant hand than her Ancestours hath placed on my head What apparence is there that being by the favour of the Romans a peaceable possessour of a Kingdom the which even by the consent of my adversaries I sought not so regular was my ambition I should attempt a horrible crime which cannot fall but into the mind of a monster No man will be wicked in chearfulness of heart the memorie of the recompence which man proposeth to himself ever beareth the torch before the crime To what purpose should I attempt upon the life of Aristobulus to settle my affairs They were already established your gracious favour most Noble Anthonie hath afforded me more than all their machinations can vanquish But I perpetually have kept back the bloud Royal from dignities What keeping back is it when I have cherished them in my own bosom as much as possible Every one knows Hircanus the prime man of this Royal family being held as a prisoner among the Parthians I bent all my spirits employed all my credit to have him set at libertie and to procure his return to Court where he now liveth in full tranquilitie enjoying all the priviledges of Royaltie but the carefull sollicitude of affairs It is known I have divided my crown and bed with his grand-child Mariamne making her both Queen of people and wife of a King I have given the High-Priesthood to her brother Aristobulus of my meer and free will not enforced by any constraint as being absolute in the mannage of my own affairs and if in ought I delayed him it was because the minority of his age ran not equal with my affections but in effect he hath been beheld High-Priest at eighteen years of age which is a favour very extraordinarie Alexandra his mother who maketh way to this business hath ever had all the libertie of my Court except the licence of ruining herself which she passionately pursueth For what reason had she to hide herself in a coffin and cause herself to be carried in the night as a dead bodie to steal from my Court and after she had wronged me in mine house to traduce me among strangers If she desired to make a voyage into Aegypt she needed to have spoken but one word it had been sufficient But she pleaseth herself in counterfeiting a false peril in a real safetie to thrust into the danger of life those who make her live in all reposed assurance I having discovered this practice did not let fall one word of bitterness against her desirous she should enjoy at her ease the sight of me as a spectacle of patience thinking all folly sufficiently punished with its own proper conscience Certain time after the death of this young Prince happened which draweth tears of compassion from me for I loved him and much it troubled me his mother perverted the sweetness of his exellent nature and cut more stuff out for his youth than he was able to stitch together He is dead not in my house but in the house of his mother dead by an accident which no man could prevent dead sporting in the water a faithless element where a thousand and a thousand have without any such purpose perished dead among the youth of the Court with whom daily be disported himself His own meer motion bare him into the water the bravery of his youth caused him to dally even in danger it self without any possibility to divert him and his own mishap hath drowned him It is to tie me to bard conditions if Alexandra will make me both accountable for the youthfull levities of her son as if I were his governour and of the frail inconstancy of elements as if I were Lord of them This pernicious spirit spake this with so much grace and probability that he gained many hearts So much force had eloquence even in the hands of iniquitie Behold him now on the shore out of peril remaining in Anthonie's Court in all liberty to attend the sentence of his justification In the mean time being as he was wise and liberal in all occasions by force of presents he purchased the hearts of the chief and made all the accusation of Cleopatra appear to be the passion of a woman ill advised Mark Anthony himself said to Cleopatra she did ill to intermeddle so much with forreign Kingdoms and that if she took this course she would raise enemies prejudicial to her estate That Herod being a King it was not fit to use him like a subject and that it would be her happiness rather to have him a friend than an enemie As these things were handled in Anthonie's Court the Queen Mariamne and her mother Alexandra ceased not to be observed by the sollicitous diligence of the mother and sister of Herod Joseph his uncle An act of great stupiditie in Joseph uncle of Herod played the Goaler and often visited Queen Mariamne sometime to treat some affairs with her sometime in the way of complement This man began to burn like a butterflie in the eyes of this incomparable beauty and much affected her although he saw himself far off from all manner of hope Notwithstanding he found some contentment to have fixed his affection in so eminent a place This passion made him foolish and full of babble having already rudeness enough of his own nature which made him utter strange extravagancies For one day there being occasion to speak of Herod's affection to Mariamne his wife Alexandra the mother mocked thereat in an exorbitant
prophesie it were the ascendent in the spirits of men transported at that time the belief of the Empress who would no further proceed in this pursuit She caused the Bishops to be assembled signifying to them how having treated this business with much fidelity and sollicitude she could not find the Councel disposed to this resolution that they must have patience and suffer the fruit to ripen before it be gathered Thereupon Porphyrius Bishop of Gaza the principal Agent as being the most interessed well perceiving the Empress had not used the utmost of her credit saith to her in a discreet and effectual manner Madame that your Majesty may not fear seriously to employ your endeavours in the business now in question I promise you in recompence that God will give you a son which you bear in your bodie and that quickly you shall see it to sway the scepter by your side Women desire nothing more than to conceive male children But if it concerneth establishment of houses they passionately love their sons Eudoxia who notwithstanding all the forcible words of Porphyrius had before not undertaken the affair but sleightly upon this promise made to her of a male child and of a son to be Emperour protesteth to employ herself wholly therein and in such manner that she not onely would cause the idols of Gaza to be thrown down to the ground and absolutely raze the Temple but which was not to be expected from her zeal she addeth she would build in the place of the Temple it being demolished a most magnificent church Porphyrius thanking her for so much favour taketh leave to retire to his lodging attending the effect of the good mans prophesie Eudoxia faileth not in few Birth of Theodosius days to be delivered of a fair son who is our Theodosius the Younger As soon as he beginneth to breath air behold him covered with royal purple declared Augustus with intention to associate him the year following to the Empire of his father All the world was poured into joy at the birth of this infant there was nothing but sports largesses and publick alacrity so much happiness they promised themselves for this little Theodosius in whose infancy already were seen all hopes of the publick to bud The Empress seven days after her delivery shewing herself very gratefull to God caused the Bishops to be called and received them at her chamber door then holding her little Theodosius covered with a royal garment in her arms Fathers saith she to them behold the fruits of your prayers bless the mother and her infant Then bowing her royal head under the hands and benediction of the Bishops she presenteth to them the fruit of her child-bearing to be marked with the sign of our Redemption which they presently did The good Empress having made them to sit down Dream of Porphyrius Well then saith she what shall we do for discharge of our promise Porphyrius taking the word relateth to her a dream he had the night before upon this subject which was that he seemed to be at Gaza a Citie of his Bishoprick in the temple of idols named the temple of Marna and that the Empress coming to him offered him a book of the Gospels entreating him to open it and read therein whatsoever he should first encounter and that upon the opening thereof he found these words couched in the Gospel of S. Matthew Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall have no power against it and that thereupon the Empress should say Courage in good time That saith she Pious stratagem of a woman very well accordeth with the design I have figured in my mind for the expedition of our affair In few days I hope the son whom God hath given me shall be presented at the holy font of Baptism In the mean time prepare some very ample request whatever you think good of and upon return from the Christening just at your going out of the Church present it confidently to my son I will instruct him that shall carry him in his arms to take it and do what then shall be needfull When he is returned to the house I will do the rest and hope so much from the mercifull hand of God that we shall have all we desire The Bishops assembled fail not to present their request causing therein to be inserted not onely the destruction of the Temple but also many priviledges and immunities in favour of their Churches The day of Baptism being come all the Citie is Baptism of Theodosius adorned and hanged in such sort that it seemed a little Heaven where the Sun and Stars smiled out of their houses The infant is carried in solemn pomp to the Font washed and regenerated with the water of Baptism by the hands of S. John Chrysostom who gave him the name of Theodosius his Grandfather and then adopted him for his spiritual child Baptism ended they went out of the Church in very good order The Princes and Lords of the Court glittered in robes of their degrees as stars the Court of Guard was in very good equipage the number of those who attired in white bare burning tapers in their hands was so great that they seemed to equal the lights of Heaven The Emperour Arcadius was there in person appearing that day with a most singular majestie as he who had given an Emperour to the world Near to the father the little Theodosius was carried who drew tears of joy from all the people The Bishops Porphyrius and John beheld this goodly procession to pass along and in the mean time spied their opportunitie They failed not to approach near as the Empress had instructed them and with a lowly obeysance presented their petition to the infant The Gentleman who bare him in his arms received it and opened it as if he would make the little Theodosius to read it afterwards skilfully guiding him with his hand he made him bow his head upon which he cried out aloud speaking to the Emperour who was near Sacred Majesty our little Master agreeth unto all whatsoever these good Prelates have asked of him and in speaking this held the petition upon his breast The people credulous and desirous to flatter the Emperour thinking the infant had made this inclination of his own motion began at that instant to thunder with loud acclamations of joy congratulating with the Emperour that he had a son who through forwardness of judgement already received petitions As soon as they were come to the Palace the mother who had contrived all this business made it to be read to her over and over as a thing she had never thought on before and straightways commandeth in the presence of the Emperour to open the petition once again There was to be read the destruction of the temple of Marna and many immunities which the Bishops earnestly demanded The Emperour knew not which way to turn him well knowing
Nations the ebbe and floud of great affairs a profound peace an absolute power to satisfie all sorts of desires with attractive objects and delights ever ready to be reaped and in the mean time what a life led the new couple what a life Pulcheria and her sister what monasterie more regular than the Court of this Emperour what virtue what chastity what sanctity what devotion was ever found in Cloysters which hath not here been seen with so much the more lustre as it is more difficult to have all vices a power and all virtues in will If in religion the first account be made of devotion which is the master-wheel of all great actions this Court was as the Tabernacle of the ancient law which born amongst armies environed with hosts of men bristled round about with pikes and javelins ever retained a sweet silence a chaste religion a sacred veneration and perpetually had holy fire in centinel victims and prayers in sacrifice So the Palace of Theodosius amongst all the clamours of affairs all the rumours tumults and accidents which upon one side and other occur in a large Empire never so much slackened as to loose the sweetness of prayer which was as the Manna these Royal souls daily gathered in the desert which they had planted in the midst of their hearts Pulcheria as the Abbess governed the devotion of all the rest by her counsel and example As soon as break of Note here O Noblemen a Holy Court day drew the curtain of Heaven to discover the works of God they adored the work-man and assembling in their houshold Chappel sung the praises of God following therein the course of the Church-prayers The whole time was there circumvolved in compass The divine office had the first fruits affairs and recreations had likewise their turn nothing was exorbitant where all was done by weight and measure If in religious life so much esteem be had of poverty as of walls and rampires of the Citie of God where shall you find a more admirable poverty than in this Court Is it not a prodigious thing to be spoken that this good Emperour for whom seas and rivers ran for whom the earth opened her bosom with so much prodigality for whom she kept so many Magazins of gold and silver within her entrails beholding himself among the revenues of a great Empire so husbanded them for the entertainment of things necessary wherein he was ever magnificent that he suffered no excess in his own person He used all his blessings as things borrowed and sometimes in his own particular would not permit the expence of his diet exceed the value of the work of his own hands He painted very well and took pleasure so much as affairs would give leave to delineate the holy Scripture in most noble characters saying to his familiars it was reason since all the world took pains in his Kingdom himself should have a trade and that as others he should learn to dip his bread in the sweat of his brow and his body being of the same composition which others are it was fit to exercise the same labours Such innocency was very far from the profusions which are made in Princes Courts with the expence of the peoples bloud a matter that beyond all other burdens would surcharge them at the Judgement-seat of God The Emperours sisters to imitate him had always their works in their hands that they might leave no passage open to idleness If in religion Excellent chastity and modesty chastity be esteemed here the conjugal supereminently flourished between Theodosius and Eudoxia virginity in Pulcheria and her sisters Marina Flaccilla Arcadia was as redolent balm which ascended to Heaven in a perpetual sacrifice The very name onely of dishonesty was not so much as known in this Palace yet all things were therein learned but vice and idleness Glances of the eye were simple and dove-like words pondered ordinary discourses of the imitation of Jesus Christ and virtues of Saints carriages full of respect honour and majesty This chastitie abode among the chief in Court and was spread over all the rest by the odour of good example as do the rays of the Sun which involve the whole world without ever parting from the original fountain of light If in religion obedience be esteemed this Court was the very model of well obeying and commanding Those holy souls had made a law to themselves most exactly to observe all the Commandments of God and the Church to reverence the Prelates of the same to cherish assist comfort the religious and all Ecclesiastical Orders with most cordial affection tempted with holy reverence in such sort that the most austere Monks could not be more punctual in religious obedience than all of this Court were in the government of their consciences God for reward imprinted on the Emperours forehead the rays of his Majesty which made him so much the more awfull as he less of purpose sought to make himself such If in religious Orders they live in perpetual exercise Mortification of mortification what life more mortified than to behold so much humility in sovereign greatness so much chastity in vigorous youth in an absolute power to do all so much retention In so much science so much conscience so much temperance among so many occasions of delights Besides the fasts of the Church which were there exactly kept abstinence was observed on the wednesday and friday in every week The Emperour gave the example his wife and sisters imitated it their table was rather a perpetual list of temperance than a provision of dainties It was observed the good Prince travelling one A worthy act day through the heats of summer full of dust and sweat his Court being in great scarcity of water behold a peasant cometh who presenteth him with a draught of cool water in a fair christal glass he was in his passions so mortified that as an other David after he magnificently had recompenced the good mans present he gave it back again to bestow where he pleased without once touching it thinking it unreasonable he should flatter his own tast during the thirst of his followers He sometimes stole away in hunting and went to dine with some Hermit where he fed on a little slice of mouldy bread and drank the clear water of the fountain protesting afterward it was one of the best repasts he had made for commonly it was seasoned with sacred discourse and wholefom counsel In his apparel although he appeared full of majesty according to his quality yet he oftentimes hid under his royal purple the old frock or hair-shirt of some holy Anchoret In publick shews he also abstained from gazing that seeing one would have thought him blind His virtues were so much the more as they had the less of affectation He was in conversation among men as a man and yet therein preserved himself pure as an Angel If religion be the hive wherein the honey of good
in good works in the Church in the hospital with the sick at a Sermon who was most exact in not giving orders nor benefices but to persons very capable and of good life who never did any matter important without communicating it to the Pope and his Cardinals whom he as an Oracle honoured These are the words of this fore-mentioned Authour which seem to have very little bulk but much weight Is it not sufficient to make you undertake by necessity that which you cannot refuse without crime No longer think upon piety as a thing impossible and do not like ill Physitians who make the sick despair of health because they cannot cure them These latter Ages are not so barren of good men who are most excellent plants in the orchard of Almighty God but that it hath born and doth still produce plenty of good Prelates who honour their profession by the merit of their virtues If you cast your eye upon those whom the nearness of time doth make us as it were almost to touch you shall behold a Cardinal George of Amboyse who was marvellously potent but employed all his power to the maintenance of the Church and State and never sought to be great but to oblige inferiours nor approach to the Court but there most gloriously to serve his Prince A Zimenes Archbishop of Toledo who amidst the magnificence of Court retained the austerity of a Religious man who was such an enemy of pomp and ostentation that he hath been seen to visit his Diocess on foot without train or attendance who employed his ample revenues to make war against Sarazens build Monasteries found Universities imprint those admirable Bibles in many languages which are the treasures of all the Libraries in the world A Pool who was not onely free from the ambitions and avarice of the world but made as small an account of his body as of his shirt since he being violently persecuted by King Henry the Eight plainly said that for defence of the faith he would as willingly disarray himself of life as of his habit and would ever be as ready to enter into his tomb as into his bed to sleep You shall there behold the four Cardinals of Bourbon who have equalled their virtues to the bloud of Kings and the purple of their sacred Colledge The great Cardinal of Lorain who hath had the honour to anoint three of our Kings with his own hands to assist in their Councels to enlighten them with the rays of his spirit to defend them by his fidelity fortifying his hand from his tendrest youth for the conservation of the State In all these pomps he wore austerity under scarlet he preached and ardently cathechized the most simple of his Diocess he supported as an adamantine pillar the faith which was both in France and Germanie so shaken by the unspeakable disorder of the times he received the remannts of the English shipwrack with most pious liberality he instituted Religious Orders he raised Seminaries he on every side armed against impiety A Cardinal of Tournon who served four Kings to wit Francis the First Henry the Second Francis the Second Charles the Ninth and that in France and Rome in all the most important affairs being likewise Arbitratour of the great Potentates of the earth with a most remarkeable loyalty a prudence inestimable a courage invincible A Baronius who hath eternized himself by the endeavour of his hands a thousand times more honourable than all the Monarchs of Aegypt in their rich Marbles Pyramids and Obelisks But from whence think you have the large blessings of his labours proceeded but from a most innocent life which was as the Sun without blemish but from a most ardent charity which caused him for the space of nine whole years to visit hospitals morning and evening to help the necessities of the poor but from a most singular piety which wasting his life in the fervour of his prayers consumed also his revenues with good works in most sacred liberalities A Tolet a Religious man out of Order who raised to the dignity of a Cardinal employed the most part of the hours of day and night in prayer living on nothing almost but herbs and pulse fasting the saturdays with bread and water and adding a particular Lent besides the ordinary to the honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary as the Reverend Father Hilarian de Costa observeth in the Treatise of his life Cardinal D'Ossat writing to Monsieur Villeroy affordeth him the titles of sanctity learning prudence integrity worth fidelity and saith it is an admirable thing to see the handy-work of God in raising this great man for advancement of the affairs of France and absolution of the late King of most famous memory And the great Cardinal Peron in a letter he wrote to this triumphant Monarch dated the second of September in the year 1595. saith among other things speaking of the negotiation of Tolet upon this affair Besides that he hath renounced all worldly respects to embrace the equity and justice of your cause that he hath shut up his eyes from the natural obligation of his Prince Countrey Parents that he hath trampled under foot all sorts of menaces promises and temptations he hath also taken so much pain both of body and mind upon this treaty that we much wonder he shrunk not under the burden combating sometimes by writing sometime by conference with those who were opposite removing and animating such as were stupid and in sum carrying this business with such zeal and constancy that your Majesty could not hope for so many trials not to say so many master-pieces yea miracles from the most affectionate and couragious of all your servants Behold the testimony of a most untainted Prelate I say nothing of the excellent Bellarmine nor of that prime man among the learned the most illustrious Peron nor of the great light of sanctity my Lord Bishop of Geneva whose lives are printed I likewise behold most eminent personages on the Theater of France who as celestial bodies have sufficient height and lustre and are of ability to exercise a pen more powerfull than mine but since I have put my self upon limits not to speak here of any man now living I better love to resemble those who being not of stature able to affix crowns on the head of the Suns statue burnt flowers to it to make their odour mount to the Heavens So since I cannot crown their merit with humane praise I will offer up prayers and vows for their prosperities with all submission due to their eminent qualities As it is not my humour profusely to enlarge upon the panegyricks of the living so is it not my intention to insert all the dead in this little Treatise If you seek for those who speak and write purposely Greg. pastoral curae lib. c. 4. you will be overwhelmed with a main cloud of witnesses which will shew you men who have been greater than Kingdoms who have parallel'd the
of Curiositie which ordinarily fixeth it self on the fairest Spirits as it is said Cantharides rest on the beautifullest Roses A great train of vices is ever waited on by a great curiositie and he that can well know them shall find that to be Curious is to forsake innocencie to draw near to sin according to the eloquent S. Zeno Curiositie maketh Curiositat reum efficit non peritum S. Zeno 2. de aeternâ Filii generation◠Curiositie the description thereof more offenders in prison than learned in schools and ever the desire to know what God would have hidden is paid with ignorance of ones self Were I a Painter or Pourtrayer to represent to youth the vanitie of this passion I would make the statue thereof on a moving globe what can be more inconstant I would give it wings what is lighter I would sprinkle it all over with eyes what more watchfull I would fill it with ears what more industrious in the discoverie of so great a diversitie of things I would give it a mouth perpetually open for it is no sooner filled by the ear but emptied by the mouth I would lodge it at the sign of Vacuum for what is more vain I would afford it spiders webs for attyre what is more frivilous For table and viands smoke what more slender and hungry I would ordain for officers many lyers and impostures for such people are its favourites Before it a certain itch of generall knowledge should go for it is the ordinarie messenger thereof at the right hand Opinion for it is it which deceives her at the left Tattle it is that which instructs her after it I would set disturbance of Spirit ignorance and miserie for it is its inheritance in the end Augustine as it were from his most tender years made himself tributarie to this false Deitie and instead of taking the way of true Religion by the paths of holy simplicitie needs would he dive into it by reasons and humane subtilities which alienated him as far from truth as they were of power to encline him to vanitie He had a great wit as it were like a prodigie and The wit of S. Augustine it seemeth that Africk which produced him would then bring forth nothing which was mean It must still bring forth huge monsters or mightie men He notwithstanding was over-sharp being not as yet in his consistence but resembled the glass of a mirrour which cannot render forms till it be leaded So this admirable wit through want of the virtue of humilitie which is in men as lead in the mirrour sparkled with a vain presumption which bringeth with it no other profit made more illusions in eyes than it left good examples in manners Now to specifie the qualities of this excellent nature we must consider it from his tenderest years since the disposition makes it self soon appear in children as the rose in his bud Augustine began almost as soon to studie as to live His inclinations for he burned from his younger dayes with a thirst of knowledge so eminent that he surmounted his age And for a note of his curiositie which alreadie rather aimed at splendour than utilitie young though he were he resembled the children who make themselves Preachers before they can read Nothing was he pleased with the elements of Grammar which he reputed too low for his spirit He would climb without a ladder and scorned to learn of a Grammarian how the name of Aeneas was written but rather readily disputed whether Aeneas had been at Carthage or not Greek to him was a pill which he swallowed not but by constraint and better loved he to speak Latine by custom than the rules of Donat. All his delight was to know fables and histories to weep over the disastrous loves of poor Dido and to be angrie with Juno with so good a grace that composing thereupon certain imitations of Virgil he ravished his Masters and companions in the school which made it well appear he one day should become more fruitfull in strong imaginations which are the principal pieces of eloquence than religious in choice of words and polished in periods His father who discovered the riches of this wit had an ardent desire that he might swim in a large water for he as yet studied at Oran a pettie village of Africk having not the means to go to Carthage Want of enablements is many times a counterpoize to the height of the understanding but in depressing it he crowned it since generous studies according to Plines saying are lodged at the sign of povertie and ever sciences are refined by necessity Augustine not then knowing what God would do with him sought to make a fortune and such likewise was the will of Patricius his father who more desired to see him eloquent than chast Behold why the good man who had much courage and little means strove beyond his abilitie to send his son to Carthage the most famous Universitie of Africk As great fishes are found in great seas so Augustine had there wherewith to satisfie the passion of his curiositie and measuring his own strength with that of others saw matter enough how to make his wit be held in esteem to which he alreadie had sufficient inclination He was not contented to exercise himself in eloquence which in all Ages hath had much reputation among arts as the fullest of noise and that which unfolds it self with most ostent but he throughly studied Philosophy and all other sciences which are of power to make an able man in such sort that there was not then a book which he had not with undefatigable industrie perused The poor young man went like a torrent whither passion transported him and where the blast of ambition breathed having the feeling of Christianitie in him very faint for much better he loved to measure the world in his vanitie than possess it in the love of God not as yet considering the difference between a good countrey swain who at full ease enjoyeth the fruits of his tree whereof he knoweth no other secrets and a Philosopher that observeth the ten Categories and remains almost famished not tasting of any one fruit His curiositie failed not to transfer him to judicial Astrologie Astrologie wherein he imployed much time still thinking to discover some secrets in this labyrinth of fools which better knoweth how to involve minds than give them satisfaction He happeneth one day to confer with an old Physitian a man grave and of great capacitie who seeing him passionately in love with these books of Astrologie said Son if you desire to transcend others in any profession of the world rather take eloquence in which as far as I can see you have greatly profited than to stick on vain sciences unworthy of your judgement Verily I will herein confess the ignorance of my youth I have been as much addicted to judicial Astrologie as ever was any man of my condition for I not onely sought the
possesseth you it will pass away and you will be much ashamed to have no longer made use of us You hasten to go awrie which shall cost you dear if you take not heed When you have done you will be ashamed to return this way back again and for fear to be thought a fool you will live miserably all the rest of your dâ—ies What can you live without us You are not so ignorant of that which God hath created for you You have affection for beautie and will have as long as you live To love and not enjoy is to be set on the torture and to be there voluntarily is to loose your wits What this moment of time here being ended are we yours no longer What shall neither this nor that be permitted us for ever Is it enough when one saith for ever What hell is there in the world if it be not to be deprived for ever of what we most affect These blameless Syrens altered not their discourse for still they batter'd me with such like words but found I had changed mine ears Behold the cause why as I then shewed my self verie resolute they much lessened their holdness Their speech was no longer a command but a request and when I turned my face from beholding them it seemed their voice was lost in the air like a languishing eccho to which proximitie affordeth no more reverberation The more I fortified my self with reasons the more they desisted All they could do was but to speak some slight words softly in mine ear or by stealth pull me by the cloak to cause me to turn my face once again towards them but I stood firm as a rock beholding the beautie and sweetness of the life to which I felt my self called by God It seemed unto me that I saw before mine eies fair chastitie the mother of holy loves encompassed with a large troup of virgins and chast ones all white with innocencie and resplendent with light of glorie She smiled upon me with a brow more brightsom than the clearest summers day and stretching out her arm full laden with palms Come confidently saith she why do you any further dispute with your thoughts Forsake those Syrens they too much have abused the flower of your age I will acquaint you with their deceits their vanities and infamies if the experience of a dozen years have not taught you more than I am able to discover What else have you done the space of so many years but till a barren field which promised fruits and gave you thorns and ill savours sprinkled with some slight blossoms As for their words were they not full of promises their promises of oaths and their oaths of perjuries What illusions and fantasies have you experienced And if you have in some sort enjoyed them hath it not been worse than your own desires so much was it mingled with gall and attended by remorse which made you bear gibbets and tortures with your pleasures Must you purchase a hell with so many mischiefs which seemeth wide open to receive the desperate Where think you to find pleasure out of God from whom all pleasures are I am not hydeous nor barren as your thoughts O Augustine do figure me I am the mother of holy delights ever fruitfull by the visitations of God My joys are gardens which never wither since they perpetually are watered with immortal graces Ask those children those maids those men and women Behold of all ages and all conditions Ask them if they ever found any bitterness in my conversation You turmoil your self upon the frailties of flesh how simple are you why cannot you do what such and such have done who have waxed old in virginitie Think you they have other flesh bloud and other qualities than you You equal them in all except in a strong resolution to be a slave no longer Imagine you that all this they do is by their own power God gives them the will God grants the power God affords them the accomplishment Child of diffidence why do you still handle your infirmities Cleave to God as doth the ivie to the wall and fear not that ever he will bereave you of his support if you to him remain faithfull He entertained his mind with such cogitations and it seemed unto him this consideration at that instant drew all his misery as from an abyss to represent it before his eyes Then was it when the secret attraction which consisteth in the particular touch of the Holy Ghost did manifestly appear Behold the prophesie of David accomplished Behold the God of Majestie Psal 28. Vox Domini super aquas Deus majestatis intonuit vox Domini super aquas multas who thundereth Behold the voice of God on the waters and on the great waters since it forceth tears to issue out in abundance Behold the voice of God which cometh with a strong hand since it over-beareth all resistance Behold the voice of God which cometh with magnificence since it operateth so glorious a conversion Behold the voice of God which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus since it overthroweth all the pride of the world Behold the voice of God which divides the flames since it scattereth the fires of concupiscence Behold the voice of God which shaketh the desert since it removeth from the bottom to the top the sterilities of this desolate soul Behold the voice of God which prepareth the Hind for her deliverance since it removes all the obstacles He was near his Alipius who expected the issue of these agitations of mind and suddenly behold he felt in his heart a tempest raised which in it contained fire and water and seeing the cloud began now to be divided with the ardent sighs and fountains of tears which he poured forth he left Alipius the Secretary of all his thoughts to engulf himself further into retirement and give free rains to his passion He threw himself under a fig-tree which Isidorus of Pellusium holds to have been the tree of the first unhappiness of the world so as if to wipe away this stain it had then been the beginning of his happiness There he made rivers run from his eyes which were wasted with his heart in a noble sacrifice of love and seemed willing to wash the victim with the waters of Libanus before they were burnt in the fire of Sion Thereupon he cried out with redoubled sighs My God how long My God how long No longer remember the sins of my foolish youth but treat with me according to the greatness of thy mercies Shall we yet say to morrow to morrow And why not to day And wherefore is it not time to give end to a life so exorbitant I am troublesom to my self nor can I any longer endure my self Must I ever be to Heaven an object of vengeance and to earth an unprofitable burden My God how long My God how long Speaking this with an abundance of brinish tears he heard a voice sweet and harmonious
merit who left faith as an inheritance for Princes of his posteritie This extremity then is an extremity either of troublesom affairs in which Constantine saw himself involved for having so long time deferred his Baptism or as others say an extremity of sickness wherewith he was surprized in the Citie of Rome and cured by Baptism The opinion of Eusebius being rejected I ask whether it be not much more probable to take that of a Councel entire and very ancient held under Pople Silvester about the year of our Lord Three hundred twenty four which is said expresly to have been assembled at the same time that the Emperour Constantine was baptized by Sylvester Bishop of Rome than to adhere to inventions of a passionate adversary As for other circumstances of this Baptism which are The history of the Baptism of ConstaÌ„tine drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester is more easie piously to be believed than effectually proved drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester we must affirm there are divers things very hard to believe if we proceed according to humane reason for we cannot so easily imagine what is expressed in those writings that Sylvester was hidden in the caverns of the mountain which afterward bare his name flying the persecution of Constantine of which other Authours make no mention as being contrary to the humour and Edicts of this Prince who after the victory gained against Maxentius ever favoured Christianitie Besides it is there said that Constantine demanded what Gods were S. Peter and Paul who had appeared to him in his sleep Which was not very likely in an Emperour that so many years before was instructed in the mysteries of Christian Religion Adde also the leaprousie of Constantine whereof no authour hath spoken before those acts and wherewith it is held that Constantius the son of this great Emperour was much offended complaining they attributed to his father counterfeit maladies to cure him in picture If we must pursue opinions humanely reasonable I would say that Constantine could no more be leaprous than our King Clodovaeus of most glorious memory of whom S. Gregory of Towers Gregor Turon hist l. 2. cap. 31. Prodit novus Constantinus ad lavacrum deleturus leprae veteris morbum hath said that on the day of his Baptism he was cured of an old leaprosie intending by that speech from sin It is true that Cardinal Baronius doth all which an able man may to clear these difficulties but there are certain things which it is more comely to believe piously than easily to establish by reason And therefore if the Reader here desire to know my conceit I hold it is a timorarious thing to go about to tax and turmoil old beliefs which though they pass not for articles of faith are notwithstanding received with edification in common opinions Varro saith that no Contra mulâ—os sapere desipere est desire to be wise contrary to common understanding is to rank ones self in the number of fools and the great S. Hilary hath said very worthily that the Sapientiae priâ—ae haec veritas est interdum sapere quoâ— nclit Hilar. l. 8. de Trinitate first verity of wisdom is sometime to believe what one would not submitting our judgement to men of the best understanding which if it were well conceived so many young heads would be ashamed to account themselves able men especially in matter of faith thereby inordinately taxing all the monuments of antiquity I say then for these acts which are accounted to be S. Sylvesters and namely for those reported by Pope Adrian as it is not my intention to engage my self upon the proof of them by a way of sleight human reasons so would I not in any sort impugn but rather believe them with a religious simplicity which is the science of Saints and ever the most assured These acts tell us that Constantine still deferring History of Baptism according to the acts of S. Sylvester his Baptism and living in much liberty was strucken with a leaprousie which was a manifest wound from Heaven wherewith greatly afflicted he consulted with Magicians to apply some remedie They gave him deadly counsel whereof the Kings of Aegypt had heretofore made use in the like maladie which was to make a bath of humane bloud This at the beginning seemed to him very strange but the infirmity which pressed him had no ears to hear reason little children were taken of the meanest condition in the Citie to cut their throats like sheep and consecrate their bloud to the health of the Emperour The mothers dissheveled and desperate ran after their tender infants even to the gates of the Palace and howled so dreadfully that Constantine hearing their cries and withal the cause of their sorrow commanded the infants to be restored to their mournfull mothers esteeming it more reasonable to tollerate his evil than to be cured with so cruel a remedy The night following S. Peter and S. Paul appeared to him in a dream and advised him to forsake all these Pagan superstitions to re-edifie the Churches of Christians and send for Pope Sylvester who was at that time hidden in the grots of Mount Soracte that would discover unto him a fish-pool which should heal his leaprousie As soon as he a wakened he recounted his dream to the Lords of his Court and sent to seek out the Pope who seeing these Gentlemen come disposed himself to Martyrdom thinking they came to lead him forth to slaughter but understanding from their own mouthes much other news he set forward towards the Emperour who most courteously received him and having made a long discourse of matters which had happened unto him concerning his calling to Christianity he demandeth of him what Gods were Peter and Paul who had appeared unto him in sleep and made overture of the fish-pool wherein he should be washed The Pope answered they were no Gods but Apostles and servants of God Thereupon he required to see their images which Sylvester sent for by a Deacon and having found them like to the faces he saw in sleep he cryed out aloud that he no longer must defer the fish-pool Sylvester seeing him resolved to be baptized commandeth a publick fast accompanied with ordinary prayers catechizeth the Emperour and counselleth him to take seven days of retirement to prepare himself for Baptism and which is more to lay aside for those days the purple and Imperial Diadem that he might be clothed with the habit of penance which he couragiously performed And the day of Baptism being come as soon as he was washed with these life-giving waters he was miraculously cured of his leprousie beholding a light from heaven and a hand stretched over him See what is in these ancient monuments and which Cardinal Baronius rendereth probable with reasons very consonant The ninth SECTION The acts of Constantine after his Baptism CONSTANTINE after his Baptism began a quite other course of life for
rally their troups he in the mean time fighting in his own person and withal performing the duty both of a great Captain and valiant souldier But notwithstanding all his endeavours terrour had so seized on these flying men that the affair grew desperate And as remedies are sought from Heaven when those of the earth are of no effect Aurelianus the great favourite of the King approching near to his Master perswadeth him to make a vow unto God to fulfil the promise he had made to the Queen his wife which was to be baptized if he returned victorious from this battel which he did calling aloud upon the God of his wife and promising an absolute conversion to the Catholick faith The word was no sooner spoken but that his troups rallied themselves up made head against their enemies pursued them ran through and routed them with so great a massacre that the fields were all covered with dead bodies The discomfiture so terrified them on the other side of the Rhein that the Almans which survived fearing least the King puffed up with his victories might pass the river dispatched a speedy Embassadour unto him to yield themselves tributaries to his Majesty Clotilda hearing the news of this battel and of the holy resolution of her husband was transported with so great joy that she went out to meet him as far as Champaigne accompanied with the great Archbishop S. Remigius a man whom God was pleased to make use of to crown this great work of the salvation of Clodovaeus For besides his admirable sanctity acknowledged throughout all France he had the reputation to be one of the most able and eloquent men of his time witness Sidonius Apollinaris who speaketh Sidon Apollinar ep 7. c. 9 Flumen in verbis lumen in clausulis of his eloquence with admiration saying He thought there was not a man living upon the face of the earth whom S. Remigius surpasseth not without any elaborate study at all through the experience he had acquired of well speaking His conceptions were inimitable his language so sweet and polite that it resembled a piece of ice very smooth whereon nothing might be seen unequal His sentences were full of weight his arguments of force and his words glided along like a river and ever bare in them some flashes of lightening at the end of his periods So soon as the King who was still replenished with sweet idaeaes of his victory saw the Queen his wife It is now Madame saith he that you have gained Clodovaeus triumpheth over the Almans and you triumph over Clodovaeus The deed is done my Baptism must no longer be deferred The Queen infinitely comforted with this word answereth Sir To the great God of Hosts is due the glorie of these two triumphs and your Majestie doth most wisely to render him with the first opportunitie what you have vowed That man giveth doubly who affordeth readily Behold one of the greatest Prelats of your Kingdom whom I have brought along to serve your Majestie in an affair of such importance Thereupon Saint Remigius was presented whom the King most honourably entertained and signified he much desired to be rectified by his good instructions whereat the holy man exceedingly rejoycing for the good which he hoped to derive from thence made him on the day assigned a Sermon of the knowledge of God and of the glory of Christianity against the vanity of Idols so ravishing that it transported the King and all his Court who ceased not afterward to confine himself to the lips of Saint Remigius as to a stream of living waters It is true that S. Vedaestus who was afterward Bishop Anno Christi 499. Clodovaei 15. of Arras had already begun to catechize Clodovaeus but as these holy men pretended nothing but the interests of God not having regard to any thing which touched their own persons he most willingly gave way to the dignity of an Arch-bishop and to the great ability of a man accounted as an Oracle contenting himself to assist S. Remigius and to contribute in this action all which his ministery and service might afford This King going to Rhemes disposed himself religiously to receive Baptism under the direction of this Prelate daily hearkening with singular attention unto the instructions of faith and informing himself with much judgement in all that which was necessary for his salvation It is written among other Chronicâ—â— manuscription things that when S. Remigius came to explicate the mystery of the passion unto him he was much moved thereat so that transported with a generous impatience he put his hand to his sword and spake aloud in anger That had he with his French been present in the place where this act was committed against his Master he would have revenged it with the utmost ability of his forces The holy Prelate sweetened his warlike humours and made him capable of every mystery using therein much endeavour and great perspicuity of discourse After these instructions they proceeded to Confession and ordinary penances wherein the King shewed so much devotion that laying aside the purple robe and Crown he covered himself with ashes imploring the mercy of God in his most fervent prayers When the day of Baptism came which was the Eye of Easter Saint Remigius caused the Church of Rhemes to be excellently adorned as the custom of those times would permit commanding it to be hanged with the richest pieces of tapestry he could find to be perfumed with sweet odours and lightened with a great quantity of wax lights composed of certain perfumes which rendered a delicate splendour in such manner that Saint Gregorie of Tours saith this place resembled a little terrestrial Paradise Some while before the Baptism the King and Queen sitting with S. Remigius in the Oratory of S. Peter attended by few persons of note behold there came on a sudden a most resplendent light which appeared unto the eyes of all the world with rays so sparkling that scarcely it might be endured and at the same instant was heard from Heaven a voice which said Peace be with you fear nothing persevere in my love This was the time when the new Constantine set forward towards holy Baptism where being arrived in the presence of all the world S. Remigius spake to him these words Mitis depone colla Sicamber Adora quod incendisti incende quod adorâsti Bow thy neck O French man under the yoke of God Adore that which you have burned and burn what you adored Thereupon pronouncing his profession of faith Omnipotentem Deum in Trinitate confessus Gregor Turon and especially that which concerned the mystery of the holy Trinitie he was baptized In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost The hand of God that is not shortened and which being the Work-master of nature operateth when it pleaseth him above nature useth to honour with some great miracles the foundations of Religion in certain places where it is planted Here he
this affair and that it might perhaps be too soon decided for him This put more disturbance upon him than he had before so that to satisfie him Eutyches needs must be sent for who urged his accusation very coldly upon which Tyberius who spake but half a word and said nothing to Macro Captain of the Guards but Take take him neither His prison naming whom nor how Macro that thought not of him at all who was spoken of in this business stood much amazed not knowing whom he meant which made the Emperour repeat the word again in choller saying plainly I command you seiz on the person of Agrippa so that instantly he was taken almost in Caligula's arms and put to the chain before the Palace gate with other Criminals brought thither It was then very hot weather and he being extream thirsty saw a servant of Caligulas named Thaumastus passing along who carried a pitcher of water he called him entreating he might drink which the other presenting with much courtesie he having drunk said assure thy self I will one day well pay thee for this glass of water thou hast given me if I get out of this captivity I will make thee great Thereupon leaning to a tree an Strange prediction owl in a strange manner perched over his head which a certain prisoner an Almaign by Nation a great Southsayer perceiving foretold him as Josephus relateth that this bird would prove a good Augur and that he should overcome all his affairs but when he saw her the second time let him expect death within five days Note that these kind of predictions proceed from a cunning sleight of the divel nor are their issues every prosperous for such as look after them Notwithstanding Agrippa seeing himself in this condition despaired not of his fortune he is carried to prison the good Princess Antonia whose heart was transfixed not daring in any sort to speak to Tyberius for him whose humours she too well understood All she could do was to recommend him to the Captain that he might be well used and lodged to let him take the baths and have some indifferent keepers He remained there some space with much anxiety when one day as he entered into the baths Marsyas one of his servants brought him news of Tyberius his death whispering it in his ear in Hebrew to this purpose The Lyon is dead The Centurion who guarded him seeing them talk together in great secret would needs have his share and understanding what it was became so joyful that he merrily supped with his prisoner Yet other reporting this bruit was false the Centurion entered into such enraged choller that finding Agrippa in his bed he made him arise fettered him thought to kill him for the displeasure he conceived to have so easily witnessed the joy of his heart But his anger was soon appeased the death of Tyberius being most certain Caligula his successour burnt with desire to go instantly Admirable change of virtue to Rome to deliver his good friend but Antonia counselled him not so much to hasten this affair least it might be thought he did it to brave the decrees of the deceased which he found to be discreet advise Behold the cause why after some days were past he gave the royal purple and diadem with his own hands to our Agrippa adding thereunto a chain of gold of like weight with that of iron wherewith Tyberius had fettered him caused him to sway in Judaea giving him the Kingdom of Philippis in its whole extent A year after he got leave of the Emperour to visit his Kingdom where every one beheld him with much amazement seeing him return with a crown in that place where he had been reduced almost to beggery Wherefore not to be ungrateful for benefits recieved from God he offered his gold chain in the Temple and made Thaumastus who gave him the cup of water Controuler of his house such power hath a slight good turn well placed over a generous soul When he had reigned about four years Caligula the little God of his felicity after a general inundation of all the vices in the world is slain by Chereas which taught him great men of the earth are weak reeds that in an instant fall by the breath of God Every one thought his whole fortune was ruined but the Emperour Claudius his Successour with whom being young he had been bred set him above wind and tempest adding to what Caligula gave him all Judaea and Samaria Behold how the Kingdom in the end returned to the race of Mariamne of which it had been dispossessed and how Providence rendereth insensibly a justice most sensible Agrippa seeing himself unexpectedly so exalted endeavoured all he could to gain the love of his people to entertain justice and commerce to raise goodly buildings to prepare at certain times publick sports and recreations But let us still pursue at the heels this frail greatness of men which having touched the stars is lost in abysses This unfortunate Prince so much desired to become acceptable to his Jewish people that through excess of this thirst he embarked in an ill business For being arrived at Jerusalem at the time when the Church began which was outragiously persecuted by the Jews to please them he cut off the head of S. James brother of S. John and at the same instant caused S. Peter Prince of the Apostles to be taken whom he fettered with heavy chains of purpose very speedily to sacrifice him to the rage of the giddy multitude had he not been delivered miraculously by the help of an Angel But the unhappy Agrippa perpetually adhering to men and not fearing to purchase their favours at the charge of innocent and sacred bloud soon found himself overwhelmed under the burden of his greatness to teach perfidious Princes the great ruin of their fortunes often proceedeth from the persecution of the servants of JESUS CHRIST The seaventh year of his reign setting forth magnificent games at Caesarea the second day of the entertainments he appeared in full Theater before the Embassadours of Tyre and Sydon in a robe of cloth of silver on which the Sun reflecting his rays he was presently beheld resplendent as a star and being about to open his mouth to make a speech his flatterers began to cry out with loud applauses It was the voice of a God not a man wherewith he entered into a desperate vanity and Josephus sayes that at the same instant he saw the Owl whereof the southsaying impostour spake which presaged his death when suddenly he cryed out to his Courtiers Behold the God you have made who ceaseth to be a man you have placed me among the Immortal but I go to take place among the dead He felt whilst he spake this the gripes of a violent colick which enforced him to be carried from the theater to the bed and from the bed to the tomb The rumour of his malady being divulged the people conceived
her for love which she cannot have by nature It is a shadow of the goodness of God who ceaseth not to provide for our necessities to love us as his children Hosea 11. Et ego quasi nutritius Ephraim portabam eos in brachiis meis nescierunt quod curarem eos In funiculis Adam traham eos in vinculi◠charitatis Exod. 2. to defend us as the apple of his eye I was said he by his Prophet as the foster-father of my people I bare them all between my arms they never vouchsafing to open their eyes to my protection Yet will I draw them to me by the hands of Adam which are the chains of my charity Behold in Exodus the little Moses who floateth on Nilus in a cradle of reeds the mother for fear of the rigour of men abandoneth him to death the sister followeth him with her eyes to see what will become of him but her weakness could do nothing to warrant him from danger God in the mean space becomes the Pilot of this little bark he conducteth it without sails without rudder without oars he bears it upon the waves he makes it arrive at a good haven He draweth out this infant who was as a victim exposed to make of him a God of Pharaoh one day to drown in the red sea the posterity of those who would have drenched him in Nilus 8 Adde to this immenss goodness justice an inseparable His Justice virtue of the Divinity which seems to oblige God to preserve and direct what he created But it is to judge most abjectly of this divine understanding to say as did Averroes he abused his magnificence and soyled his dignity if he busied himself in the mannage of so many trifles S. Ambrose judged better when he said If God wrong himself in the government Amb. l. 1. offic c. 13. Si injuria est regere multò major injuria fecisse cum aliquid non fecisse nulla sit injustitia non curare quod feceris summa inclementia of the world did he not himself a greater injury in creating it For to do or not to do what one is not obliged unto hath no injustice in it but to abandon a creature after it is produced is a stain of inhumanity And if we regard the justice which appertaineth to the government of men what malignity and prostitution of mind were it to think souls the most caitive having some spark of justice yet God who must be sovereign perfection would suffer the world to be exposed to fortune or delivered over to tyrāny as a prey and a booty without any care of it or inquiry into injustices There is not any Age which could not furnish out a million of proofs against these mischievous beliefs if we would open our eyes to consider them but our distrusts and pusillanimities blind us and alienate us from knowledge of those truths which God reserveth for the most purified souls 9 To conclude the last colume which should settle His Power our faith in the verity of divine government is the magistral power God exerciseth over all the world which he ruleth tempereth and directeth with one sole thought much otherwise than did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. de mundo heretofore those practick wits who vanted to animate statues because they by certain engines gave them motion Wretched and blind that we are ever bowed down to the earth perpetualy divested of those great lights of Saints We measure God by the ell of men we cloth him after our fashion and we hold impossible to the Divinity what our understanding cannot comprehend Shall we never say with the Prophet Jeremiah O most strong O onely great and Hier. 32 19. Fortissime magne potens Domine excercituum nomen tibi magnus consilio incomprehensibilis cogitatu cujus oculi aperti sunt super omnes vias filiorum Adam onely potent The God of bosts is thy name Thou art great in thy counsels incomprehensible in thy cogitations and thy eyes are upon all the waies of the children of Adam We daily see upon men who are but worms of the earth so many tokens of Gods power A King speaketh and a hundred thousand swords hasten out of scabbards at the sound of one syllable A master of a family builds and at one silly beck behold so many artificers so many mules and horses some draw materials out of the bottom of quarries others carry them in waggons some make morter and cement others hew stones some raise them aloft others lay them some play the carpenters and others polish marbles There are some who work in iron and others in brass all is done to the liking of one man who is possessed of a little money Do you never consider God as a great King in an army as a great father of a family in a house who by his sovereign power governs all he created not with a toilsome care but an incomparable facility He gave in the begining of the creation an instinct to all Guil. Par. de vnivers 1. p. par 3. c. 14. Nascitur aranea cum lege libro lucern◠living creatures and there is not any so little a spider which comming into the world bringeth not its rules its book its light it is presently instructed in all it should do God speaketh interiourly to all creatures in a double language with a powerfull impression a secret commandement he gives a signal into the world and every one doth his office every one laboureth regularly as in a ship and all things Deus ipse universa sinu perfectae magnitudinis potestatis includit intentus sempe operi suo vadens per omnia movens cuncta vivificans universa Tertul. l. de Trin. c. 2. agree to this great harmony of heaven The little Nightingal in the forrests makes an Organ of her throat sometimes breaking her notes into warbles sometime stretching them out at length The Swallow is busie in her masonrie the Bee toileth all the day in her innocent thefts the Spider furnisheth out the long train of her webs and makes more curious works with her feet than the most skilfull women can weave with their hands Fishes play their parts under the water beasts of service labour in their duty small grains of seed though dead and rotten give life to great trees which advance to the clouds There is nothing idle in all nature nothing disobedient but men and divels who employ their liberty to resist him whose power is as just as it is eternal 10 Let us then concluding this discourse adore the divine Providence which holdeth the helm of the universe Let us behold it as a watch-tower furnished with a thousand fires that abundantly enlighten this Ocean whereon we sail Let us behold it as a burning pillar in the wilderness of this life Let us behold it as our pole-star and never loose sight of it It is our support our sweetness our
see many women of quality who engross this second order and who being little interiour open themselves with profusion to all whatsoever hath in it exteriour ostent Some fall into it for satisfaction of their own wills others by servile imitation and complacence to the humour of powerfull persons who like the great Orbs of heaven draw along the lower planets some through interest of fortune others for colour of piety and the rest by amusement I know some who therein proceed sincerely and did the wicked and Libertines understand the purity excellency and sanctity of so many good souls who handle devotion as it should be of which the Church is at this present furnished with a good number they would be ravished with sight of the interiour and take their lives to be a perpetual miracle But we must confess there are many devotes who wander from these purer paths to run after a fantasm of piety and although I here note defects I would have virtuous souls know my censure no more toucheth them than thunder the stars in heaven The first endeavour of this sophisticate devotion All exteriourly consisteth in making an Oratory or little houshold Chappel in building a little magazin of relicks begged on all sides with more curiosity than Religion setting candlesticks and pictures in order in providing rich ornaments in inventing new fashions of crewets in weaving girdles and dressing up a little mercery of trinkets And though these actions which concern the care of Altars are very laudable yet are they often very much perverted both by the intention which is vain and execution most indiscreet We many times find in these cabinets so religious and curious a Venus with our Lady a Cupid near S. Michael and a pair of beads hanging on the toes of some little giddy marmouzet This is to renew the practise of that Lady named Marcellina of whom Saint Augustine speaketh in the book of heresies who mingled Aug. lib. de haeres c. 7. the pictures of our Saviour with those of Pythagoras Furthermore these places which seem dedicated to piety so follow the humour of their Mistress as they are accommodated to all and if they in the morning have seen a Priest celebrate Mass they will make no difficulty to entertain a Ball that very evening All this devotion is pompous and proud in The pomp and practises of it its furnitures there is not so much as hair-cloths and disciplines but are made of silver rather to see the bright lustre of it than feel the smartings It hath mysteries and marvellous intrications which many times look on the earth under a veil of skie-colour It seems to many the aim of piety is nothing else but to seek out all its petty accommodations and contentments in the world to have liberty to do all game-courtship costliness of apparrel a caroach to ones self to flutter through the streets whilst the essential parts of marriage are contemned affairs of the house neglected and a husband enforced to murmur who doth express more impatience in an hour than the other gaineth devotion in ten years If question be made of choosing a ghostly Father there are of them who much delight in change and if Seneca said that Roman Ladies in the time when Senec. lib. 3. de benefi cap. 16. divorces were permitted reckoned their husbands by the number of Consuls who altered every year one may more justly say that some devotes measure their Confessours by the course of moons by taking almost every moneth a new Other stick so close to one and set him in so high account above all humane things that according to their opinion he alone hath the grace Sacraments and bloud of Jesus Christ in his hands But if they must be deprived of him there is no more piety nor religion for them in the world the paths of Sion mourn Churches and Altars are but wildernesses and the hope of salvation hath lost its lustre Such services and diligence must be used to a slight conscience as if it were a huge Common-wealth After the tediousness of a confession which maketh those to loose patience who were most resolute to attend it you must give and receive frequent visits spin out discourses and eternal prattle one cannot suppose they are all of God who is more honoured by silence one would hardly believe a soul should need such polishing which appeareth not to be so much refined in the knowledge of things divine One thinks this devout creature through superabundance of charity beareth all the sins of the house another that she tells all the tales in the Citie and those who easily suspect what themselves do without difficulty imagine there are other ties which I had rather conceal This devotion is not foolish according to the world but having learnt to make an arrow of any wood to hit the mark of its interests she maketh use of a Confessour pliant and mercenary for this purpose If any be found in the world who stretch their conscience who teach to withhold goods ill gotten to sooth humours entertain libertines and lodge sin almost in the bosom of Theologie these are sanctified spirits and Prophets in fashion There is enough done if there be outward shew enough If some small alms be drawn out of those great treasuries of gold and silver and that she communicate often For since some Priests are satisfied with saying Mass but once a year it is come to pass that certain devotes as if they meant to supply their defects take almost so many Communions as there be days in the year God forbid I should blame an exercise so holy which cannot be too much recommended but it troubles me they go to it without any feeling of that awfull Majesty and seek access to God as unto fire to make it tractable Frequent Communions which ought not to be permitted but with great discretion as a reward for the most solid virtues are turned into pillage according to the greedy humour of a spirit giddy and inconstant There needeth but the want of some small circumstance to stay a Priest and hinder him from saying Mass but these devotists pass all over and some of them have found the way to accord the Communion and a Comedy upon one and the same day What will ensue of this but that such women may draw water from the fountains of our Saviour like the Danaides in the hell of Poets with a five They often bear profanation to Altars to bring back vengeance and know not the many evils which assail them proceed from the contempt of holy things After so many Communions these souls profit in Callipedes spiritual life as the little Cavalier shewed at Rome who laboured much in running in a wheel and at the end of his travel had gone no further than when he began When was it that a dozen of Communions have taken from them one hair of vanity Are they less pompous less powdered less frizled more reserved
be therein sufficiently informed The Jews were heretofore the chosen people and are become the reprobate God for them drave back the waves of the read sea and suffered them to walk drie-foot between two waters as between two chrystal vaults and afterward why did he drown them so many times in rivers of their bloud with so horrible slaughters that in the whole siege of Jerusalem under Titus and Vespasian were reckoned according to Josephus his calculation eleven hundred thousand Vide Iosephum Hegesippum Thraenos dead God opened to them the sides of rocks to quench their thirst and afterward why dried he up the dugs of women who saw their little ones die between their arms they unable to give them one drop of milk God for them made Manna and clouds of Quails to showt and why afterward did he so afflict them with such cruel and enraged a famine that the hands of mercifull mothers slew and roasted on coals their own proper children and eat them to satisfie their hunger God carried them through deserts as upon eagles wings and wherefore afterward did he abandon them to eagles and vultures which so many times made carrion of the bodies of his children God had given them a land so fat and fruitful that it streamed altogether milk and honey and wherefore afterward had it entrails of iron denying food to the living yea burial to the dead God gave them strength as a devouring fire before which all Nations were but as straw and why afterwards became it the shuttle-cock of the arms of Infidels God gave them liberty for an inheritance and why afterward obtained they not so much as an honourable servitude Why at the siege of Jerusalem among so many thousand prisoners did they so much disdain to make use of a Jew that there being never a a Cross to crucifie them they were reserved for beasts to devour them rather than derive any service from them God gave them knowledge and wherefore afterwards became they blockish idle and stupid in all learning God ordained for them the assistance and protection of Angels and why afterward forsook they their Temple crying out aloud Let us depart let us depart from hence God destined to them Royalty and Empire over neighbouring Nations and why afterward had they not one inch of land at their own dispose and especially of land where formerly Jerusalem was built unless they purchased it with money onely to enjoy it one hour or two in the year and weep over it and bedew it with the water of their eyes after they had so often moistened it with their bloud God established priest-hood to them and afterwards what became of Jerusalem the Holy What became of Solomon's Temple the miracle of the world Where is the Propitiatory the Table of Proposition-bread the Rational which was before the peoples oracle Where is the majesty of High-priests the comeliness of Prelates the perpetuity of Sacrifices From whence comes it that it is above fifteen hundred years ago since this miserable Nation goes wandering through the Regions of the earth as abandoned into an eternal exile without Priests without Temple without Sacrifice without Prince King or government O eternal God how hast thou thrown down thy foot-stool O God of justice how hast thou made desolate thy royal Priesthood O God of vengeance how hast thou suffered thy Sanctuary to be profaned Who hath ever heard speech of such a punishment There have been adulteries rapines concussions gluttonies yea and idolatries which God hath not revenged in this manner A captivity of three-score and ten years expiated all these sins but this after fifteen hundred years to what sin may we attribute it but to the neglect of the essence of the Word Incarnate After the time that the Son of God shut his eyes steeped in tears and bloud over the miserable Jerusalem he never hath opened them to afford them mercy A Lord so sweet so mild so clement as that he raised thieves almost from bloud and robbery in an instant to thrones of glory for having acknowledged and confessed his name so roughly to chastise the neglect of his authority for the space of so many Ages what meaneth this but to prove the opposing of the divine Essence of God is a crime of all the most hydeous and unspeakable Run over the Histories of antiquity as long as you Tragical events of the wicked please revolve in your memory all the experiences which your Age may afford and if you see the impious come to a good end say There is no cause of fear Cain their Patriarch banished from the sight of God lived long like a melancholy spirit among forrests with a perpetual affrightment until Lamech took away his life The Cainists were all drenched in the waters of the deluge Pharaoh drowned in the Red-sea Nebuchadnezzar turned into a beast Holofernes slain in his bed by the hand of a woman Senacherib lost one hundred four-score and five thousand men for a blasphemy Antiochus strucken with a horrible maladie Birds did eat the tongue of Nicanor and his hand was hanged up over against the Temple Heliodorus was visibly chastised by Angels Herodes Agrippa born from the Theater to the bed of death The President Saturninus strucken blind Hermianus eaten by worms in his Pretourship Leo the fourth all covered over with botches and carbuncles Bamba crowned with a diadem of pitch after his eyes were pulled out Julian the Apostate strucken with a dart from Heaven Michael the Emperour who had in his train a heap of young scoffers that in scorn counterfeited the ceremonies of the Church was torn in pieces as a victim by his own servants Olympius strucken with thunder in a bath And if we observe times more near Rogero dragged to a laystall Vanin burnt at Tholouse Alsan Calefat divided between fire and water and slain by his own hand Great eye of God which art ever open upon the sins of the earth who can steal himself from the lightning-flashes Great hand of God who thunderest and lightenest perpetually over rebellious heads who is able to resist thy justice Advice to Youth and such as too easily give way to impietie O Unfortunate youth who having received the first tincture of good instruction after thou wert bred with so much care and honour by those to whom thou owedst thy birth betrayest the tears of thy parents the travels of thy teachers and the whole hopes of the publick How canst thou embark thy self among these treacherous and ignominious associates How canst thou walk among so many shelves and precipices not so much as once opening thy eyes to behold the abyss thou hast under thy feet So many heads crushed in pieces under the Divine vengeance are as broken masts and shivers of a shipwrack advanced on the promontory of rocks to give notice of the deplorable events they have found whose examples thou still pursuest yet thou lookest on them with arms across and dallyest in
As soon as you have received the Sacrament say this prayer of S. Bernard in his Meditations upon the Passion O Heavenly Father look down from thy Sanctuary from the Throne of thy glory upon the blessed sacrifice which our High Priest Jesus thy most innocent and sacred Son doth offer unto thee for the sins of his Brethren Pardon the multitude of our offences and have compassion upon our miseries Hearken to the voice of the bloud of that immaculate Lamb which crieth out to thee and he himself standeth before thee at the right hand of thy Majestie crowned with honour and glory Behold O Lord the face of thy Messias who hath been obedient to thee even unto death and put not his blessed wounds out of thy sight nor the satisfaction he made for our sins out of thy rememberance O let every tongue praise and bless thee in commemoration of thy infinite goodness who didst deliver thy onely Son over to death upon Earth to make him our most prevalent Advocate in Heaven For Petition Immediately after you have recited the Lords Prayer say these words of the aforesaid Liturgie O God be mindfull of all Pastours and faithfull people dwelling in all parts of the habitable world in the union of the Catholick Faith and preserve them in thy holy peace O God bless our most gracious King and his whole Kingdom hear the prayers which we offer up at thy Altar O God remember all those that travel by sea or land and are exposed to so many dreadfull dangers Remember the many poor prisoners and exiles who groan under the miseries of the world O God remember the sick and all such as are in any discomfort of mind Remember the many poor souls opprest with bitterness who implore thy succour Remember also the conversion of so many Hereticks Infidels and sinners whom thou hast created after thine own image O God remember our Friends and Benefactours Accept this sacrifice for us sinners and let us all feel the effects of thy Mercy drive away scandal war and heresie and grant us thy peace and love And at the end of the Communion O God pour down thy graces upon us direct our steps in thy ways strengthen us in thy fear confirm us in thy love and give us at last the inheritance of thy children It is very expedient also to have our devotions ordered for every day of the week The seventeenth SECTION Devotion ordered for the days of the Week WE may derive an excellent practise of Devotion for every day of the Week from the Hymn of S. Ambrose used by the Church For therein we learn to give God thanks for every work of the Creation and to make the greater world correspond with the lesser Sunday which is the day wherein the light was created we should render thanks to God for having produced this temporal light which is the smile of Heaven and joy of the world spreading it like cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth and lighting it as a torch by which we might behold his works Then penetrating further we will give him thanks for having afforded us his Son called by the Fathers The Day-bringer to communicate unto us the great light of faith which is as saith S. Bernard a Copy of Eternity we will humbly beseech him that this light may never be eclipsed in our understandings but may replenish us every day more and more with the knowledge of his blessed will And for this purpose we must hear the word of God and be present at Divine Service with all fervour and purity Take great heed that you stain not this day which God hath set apart for himself with any disorder nor give the first fruits of the week to Dagon which you should offer up at the feet of the Ark of the Covenant Munday which is the day wherein the Firmanent was created to separate the celestial waters from the inferiour and terrestrial we will represent unto our selves that God hath given us Reason as a Firmament to separate divine cogitations from animal and we will pray unto him to mortifie anger and concupiscence in us and to grant us absolute sway over all passions which resist the eternal Law Thesday the day wherein the waters which before covered the whole element of Earth were ranked in their place and the earth appeared to become the dwelling nurse and grave of man we will figure unto our selves the great work of the justification of the world done by the Incarnate Word who took away a great heap of obstacâ—es as well of ignorance as of sin that covered the face of the whole world and made a Church which like a holy Land appears laden with fruit and beauties to raise us up in Faith and to bury us in the hope of the Resurrection We will beseech him to take away all hinderances to our soul so many ignorances sins imperfections fears sorrows cares which detain it as in an abyss and to replenish us with the fruits of justice Wednesday wherein the Sun Moon and Stars were created we will propose unto our selves for object the Beauty and Excellency of the Church of God adorned with the presence of the Saviour of the world as with a Sun and with so many Saints as with Stars of the Firmament and we will humbly beseech God to embellish our soul with light and virtue suitable to its condition Especially to give us the six qualities of the Sun Greatness Beauty Measure Feâ—vour Readiness and Fruitfulness Greatness in the elevation of our mind above all created things and in a capacity of heart which can never be filled with any thing but God Beauty in gifts of grace Measure to limit our passions Fervour in the exercise of charity Readiness in the obedience we ow to his Law Fruitfulness in bringing forth good works Toursday the day wherein God as S. Ambrose saith drew the birds and fishes out of the waters the birds to flie in the air and the fishes to dwell in this lower Element We will imagine the great separation which shall be made at the day of Gods judgement when so vast a number of men extracted from one and the same mass some shall be raised on high to people Heaven and enjoy the sight of God others shall be made a prey to hell and everlasting torments And in this great abyss and horrour of thought we will beseech God to hold us in the number of his elect and to be pleased to mark out our predestination in our good and commendable actions Friday wherein the other creatures were brought forth and man created who was then appointed to them for a King and Governour we will set before us the greatness excellency and beauty of this Man in the Talents which God hath given him as well of grace as of nature How much it cost to make him the hands of the Creatour being employed in his production Hands saith S. Basil which were to him as a
Come O my adored Master walk upon this tempestuous Sea of my heart ascend into this poor vessel say unto me Take courage It is I. Be not conceited that I will take thee for an illusion for I know thee too well by thy powers and bounties to be so mistaken The least thought of my heart will quiet it self to adore thy steps Thou shalt reign within me thou shalt disperse my cares thou shalt recover my decayed senses thou shalt lighten my understanding thou shalt inflame my will thou shalt cure all my infirmities And to conclude thou onely shalt work in me and I will be wholly thine The Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent S. Matthew 4. Of our SAVIOUR's being tempted in the Desart THen Jesus was led of the Spirit into the Desart to be tempted of the Devil and when he had fasted fourty days and fourty nights afterward he was hungry And the Tempter approched and said to him If thou be the Son of God command that these stones he made bread Who answered and said It is written not in bread alone doth man live but in every world that proceedeth from the mouth of God Then the Devil took him up into the holy Citie and set him upon the pinacle of the Temple and said to him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down for it is written That he will give his Angels charge of thee and in their hands shall they hold thee up lest perhaps thou knock thy foot against a stone Jesus said to him again It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Again the Devil took him up into a very high mountain and he shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said to him all these will I give thee if falling down thou wilt adore me Then Jesus saith to him Avant Satan for it is written the Lord thy God shalt thou adore and him onely shalt thou serve Then the Devil left him and behold Angels came and ministered to him Moralities 1. JESUS suffered himself to be tempted saith Saint Augustine to the end he might serve for a Mediatour for an example and for a remedy to work our victory over all temptations We must fight on his side Our life is a continual warfare and our days are Champions which enter into the lists There is no greater temptation than to have none at all Sleeping water doth nourish poison Motion is the worlds soul fighting against temptations is the soul of virtues and glory doth spring and bud out of tribulations Virtue hinders not temptation but surmounts it Jesuâ— fasted saith the ordinary gloss that he might be tempted and is tempted because he did fast He fasted fourty days and then was hungry he did eat with his Disciples the space of fourty days after his resurrection without any more necessity of meat than the Sun hath of the earths vapours to make us thereby know that it onely appertained to him to teach that great secret how to mannage want and abundance by which S. Paul was glorified 2. The first victory over a Temptation is to know that which tempts us Some temptations are gay and smiling at their beginning as those of love and pleasure which end in terrible and bitter storms Others are troublesom and irksom Others doubtfull and intricate Others rapide and sudden which seize upon their prey like an Eagle Others are close and catching These are the snares of Satan who fomes like a Bore roars like a Lion and hisseth like a Serpent We should always have an eye ready to mark from whence the Temptation comes whither it tends what is the root of it what the course what the progress and what power it may have over our spirit 3. Solitude of heart fasting prayer the word of God are weapons of an excellent temper which the Word Incarnate teacheth us to use in this conflict These things are to be used with discretion by the counsel of a good directour to whom a man must declare all his most secret thoughts and bear a breast of chrystal toward him with a firm purpose to let him see all the inward motions of his heart It is also good to note here that our Lord would expresly be tempted in that Desarr which is between Jerusalem and Jericho where the Samaritane mentioned in the Parable did pour wine and oyl into the sores of the poor wounded man to teach us that by his combat he came to cure the wounds of Adam and all his race in the very place where they were received 4. Sin is killed by flying the occasions of it Absence resistance coldness silence labour diversion have overcome many assaults of the enemy Sometimes a Spiders web is strong enough to preserve chastity and at other times the thick walls of Semiramis are not sufficient God governs all and a good will to concur with him is a strong assurance in all perils and it will keep us untoucht amidst the flames of lust 5. Since it imports us so much to fight valiantly let us bring the hearts of Lions Where is our Christianity if we do not give testimony of it to God both by our fidelity and courage How many Martyrs have been rosted and broiled because they would not speak one ill word What honour can you expect by yielding at the first enterance to a temptation Look not upon the violence of it but contemplate the Crown which you should gain by conquering it think at your enterance how you will come off and know for certain that he who truly considers the consequence of a wicked action will never begin it 6. Lent is the Spring-time for sanctified resolutions it mortifies the body that the spirit may triumph it is a time of grace which tends to salvation and mercy It imports extreamly to commend all to God at the beginning to sanctifie this fasting which is part of our devotion we must abstain from flesh and be content with one meal at seasonable hours without making over large collations except age infirmity or weakness labour or necessity of other functions shall dispence with our diet for those who are unable to fast suffer more by their disability than others do by fasting It is good to follow the counsel of Athanasius who adviseth to eat late and little and at a table where there is but one sort of meat We must also fast by abstinence from vice For to weaken our body and yet nourish our naughty passions is to fast as the devils do who eat nothing and yet devour the world by the rage of their malice Sobriety is a stream which waters all virtues Our soul and body are as the scales of a ballance if you pull down the one you raise up the other and if you tame your flesh it makes the Spirit reign and govern Aspirations O Most mercifull Lord Father and Protectour of all my life how great are the temptations and snares whereunto I am subject when
I eat drink sleep when I do business when I am both in conversation and solitude Whither shall this poor soul go which thou hast thrown into a body so frail in a world so corrupt and amongst the assaults of so many pernicious enemies Open O Lord thine eyes for my guidance and compassionate my infirmities without thee I can do nothing and in thee I can do all that I ought Give me O Lord a piercing eye to see my danger and the wings of an Eagle to flie from it or the heart of a Lion to fight valiantly that I may never be wanting in my duty and fidelity to thee I ow all that I am or have to thy gracious favour and I will hope for my salvation not by any proportion of my own virtues which are weak and slender but by thy boundless liberalities which onely do crown all our good works The Gospel upon Munday the first week of Lent out of Saint Matthew 25. Of the Judgement-Day ANd when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty and all the Angels with him then shall be sit upon the seat of his Majesty And all Nations shall be gathered together before him and he shall separate them one from another as the Pastour separateth the sheep from the goats And shall set the sheep at his right hand but the goats at his left Then shall the King say to them that shall be at his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father possess you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world For I was hungred and you gave me to eat I was athirst and you gave me to drink I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you covered me sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me Then shall the just answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred and fed thee athirst and gave thee drink and when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and covered thee or when did we see thee sick or in prison and came to thee And the King answering shall say to them Amen I say to you as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me Then shall he say to them also that shall be at his left hand Get you away from me you cursed into fire everlasting which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungred and you gave me not to eat I was athirst and you gave me not to drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and you covered me not sick and in prison and you did not visit me Then they also shall answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee Then shall he answer them saying Amen I say to you as long as you did it not to one of these lesser neither did you it to me And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Moralities 1. BEhold here a Gospel of great terrour where our spirit like the Dove of Noah is placed upon the great deluge of Gods wrath and knows not where to find footing Every thing is most dreadfull But what can be more terrible than the certainty of Gods judgement joyned with the great uncertainty of the hour of our death It is an unchangeable decree that we must all be presented before the high Tribunal of the living God to render a just account of all which our soul hath done while it was joyned with our body as we are taught by S. Paul We must make an account of our time spent of our thoughts words actions of that we have done and that we have omitted of life death and of the bloud of Jesus Christ and thereupon receive a judgement of everlasting life or death All men know that this must certainly be done but no man knows the hour or moment when it shall be So many clocks strike about us every day and yet none can let us know the hour of our death 2. O how great is the solitude of a Soul in her separation from so many great enticements of the world wherein many men live and in an instant to see nothing but the good or ill we have done on either side us what an astonishment will it be for a man suddenly to see all the actions of his life as upon a piece of Tapistree spred befor his eyes where his sins will appear like so many thorns so many serpents so many venemous beasts Where will then be that cozening vail of reputation and reason of state which as yet cover so many wicked actions The soul shall in that day of God be shewed naked to all the world and her own eyes will most vex her by witnessing so plainly what she hath done 3. O what a parting water is Gods judgement which in a moment shall separate the mettals so different O what a division will then be made of some men which now live upon earth Some shall be made clear and bright like the stars of heaven others like coals burning in hell O what a dreadfull change will it be to a damned soul at her separation from this life to live onely in the company of devils in that piercing sense of torments and eternal punishment It is a very troublesom thing to be tied with silken strings in a bed of Roses for the space of eight days together What may we think of a damned soul which must dwell in a bed of flames so long as there shall be a God 4. Make use of the time given you to work your salvation and live such a life as may end with a happy death and so obtain that favourable judgement which shall say Come O thou soul blessed of God my Father possess the kingdom which is prepared for thee from the beginning of the world There is no better means to avoid the rigour of Gods judgements than to fear them continually Imitate the tree mentioned in an Emblem which being designed to make a ship and finding it self wind-shaken as it grew upon the land said What will become of me in the sea If we be already moved in this world by the bare consideration of the punishment due to sin think what it will be in that vast sea and dreadfull Abyss of Gods judgements Aspirations O King of dreadfull Majesty who doest justly damn and undeservedly save souls save me O Fountain of Mercy Remember thy self sweet Jesus that I was the cause of that great journey which thou tookest from God to man and do not destroy me in that dreadfull day which must decide the Question of my life or death for all eternity Take care of my last end since thou art the cause of my beginning and the onely cause of all that I am O Father of bounties wouldest thou stop a mouth
greatest of all conquerours Charity drew her from home to seek health for her daughter because like a good mother she loved her not with a luxurious love but in her affliction feeling all her dolours by their passionate reflection upon her heart Her faith was planted upon so firm a rock that amongst all the apparances of despair her hope remained constant Humility did effect that the name of Dog was given her for a title of glory she making profit of injuries and converting into honour the greatest contempt of her person Her words were low and humble but her faith was wonderous high since in a moment she chased away the devil saved her daughter and changed the word Dog into the name of a Sheep of Christs flock as Sedulius writes Perseverance was the last of her virtues in the Combat but it was the first which gained her Crown If you will imitate her in these four virtues Love Faith Humility and Perseverance they are the principal materials of which the body of your perfection must be compounded Aspirations O Jesus Christ Son of David I remember well that thy forefather did by his harp chase away the devil from Saul And wilt not thou who art the Father of all blessed harmonies drive away from me so many little spirits of Affections of Appetites and Passions which trouble and discompose my heart This poor soul which is the breath of thy mouth and daughter of thine infinite bounties is like the Sun under a cloud possessed with many wicked spirits but it hath none worse than that of self-love Look upon me O Lord with thine eyes of mercy and send me not away with silence since thou art the Word Rather call me Dog so that I may be suffered to gather up the crums which fall from thy table Whatsoever proceeds from thy mouth is sacred and must be taken by me as a relique If thou say I shall obtain my desire I say I will have no other than what thou inspirest and I can be contented with nothing but what shall be thy blessed will and pleasure The Gospel upon Friday the first week in Lent S. John 15. Of the Probatick Pond AFter these things there was a festival day of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and there is at Jerusalem upon Probatica a Pond which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida having five porches In these lay a great multitude of sick persons of blind lame withered expecting the stirring of the water And an Angel of our Lord descended at a certain time into the Pond and the water was stirred And he that had gone down first into the Pond after the stirring of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he was holden And there was a certain man there that had been eight and thirty years in his infirmity Him when Jesus had seen lying and knew that he had now a long time he saith to him Wilt thou be made whole The sick man answered him Lord I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the Pond for whiles I come another goeth down before me Jesus saith to him Arise take up thy bed and walk And forthwith he was made whole and he took up his bed and walked And it was the Sabbath that day The Jews therefore said to him that was healed it is the Sabbath thou mayest not take up thy bed He answered them He that made me whole he said to me Take up thy bed and walk They asked him therefore What is that man that said to thee Take up thy bed and walk But he that was made whole knew not who it was For Jesus shrunk aside from the multitude standing in the place Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple and said to him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest some worse thing chance to thee That man went his way and told the Jews that it was Jesus that made him whole Moralities 1. ALl the world is but one great Hospital wherein so many persons languish expecting the moving of the water and the time of their good fortune The Angels of earth which govern our fortunes go not so fast as our desires But Jesus who is the great Angel of Counsel is always ready to cure our maladies to support our weakness and make perfect our virtues We need onely to follow his motions and inspirations to meet with everlasting rest It is a lamentable thing that some can patiently expect the barren favours of men twenty or thirty years together and yet will not continue three days in prayer to seek the inestimable graces of God 2. The first step we must make toward our salvation is to desire it That man is worthy to be eternally sick who fears nothing else but the loss of his bodily health Men generally do all what they can possibly to cure their corporal infirmities they abide a thousand vexations which are but too certain to recover a health which is most uncertain And as for the passions of the mind some love the Feavers of their own love and their worldly ambition above their own life They suck the head of a venemous aspick and are killed by the tongue of a viper They will not part with that which kills them and if you take from them the worm which makes them itch or the executioner who doth indeed torment them they believe you take away the chiefest of their felicity Happy is that soul which holds nothing so dear in this world but will forsake it willingly to find God and will spare nothing to gain Paradise 3. There is nothing more common nor so rare as man The world is full of vicious and unprofitable men But to find one very compleat in all good things is to find a direct Phenix There are more businesses without men than men without businesses For how many charitable employments might many lazy and idle persons find out So many poor mens affairs continue at a stand so many miserable creatures languish so many desolate persons long to find some man who with little trouble to himself would take some small care of their affairs and make up some little piece of their fortunes Jesus is the man of God desired of all Ages to him we must apply our selves since he is both life and truth By him we may come to all happiness by him we may live in the fountains and streams of life and in him we may contemplate the chiefest of all truths Aspirations WHat patience have I in committing sins and how impatient am I in my sufferings for them I am ever most ready to execute vice and unwilling to abide the punishment O good God there are many years in which I have retained an inclination to this disorder to that sin My soul is bound as it were with iron chains in this unhappy bed will there be no Angel to move the water for me But art not thou the Lord and Prince of Angels Then I most humbly
And if I shall say that I know him not I shall be like to you a lier but I do know him and do keep his word Abraham your father rejoyced that he might see my day and he saw and was glad The Jews therefore said to him Thou hast not yet fifty years and hast thou seen Abraham Jesus said to them Amen Amen I say to you before that Abraham was made I am They took stones therefore to cast at him But Jesus hid himself and went out of the Temple Moralities 1. THe Saviour of the world being resolved to suffer death as the Priest of his own sacrifice and sacrifice of his priesthood shews that it is an effect of his mercy and not a suffering for any fault He doth advance the standard of the Cross which was the punishment of guilty persons but he brought with him innocencie which is the mark of Saints he honours it with his dolours and sanctifies it with his bloud to glorifie it in the estimation of all the just He is without spot and capable to take all stains by his infinite sanctity and yet he suffered as a sinner to blot out all our sins It is in this suffering he would have us all imitate him He doth not require us to make a heaven nor stars nor to enlarge the sea or to make the earth firm but to make our selves holy as he is holy according to our capacity And this we may gain by his favour which he hath by his own nature No man is worthy to suffer with Jesus who doth not purifie himself by the sufferings of Jesus If we suffer in sin we carrie the Cross of the bad thief We must carrie the Cross of Jesus and consecrate our tribulations by our own virtues 2. It is said that the venomous serpent called a Basilisk which kills both men and beasts by his pestilent breath kills himself when he looks upon a looking glass by the very reflection of his own poison The Jews do here the very same They come about this great mirrour of sanctity which carried all the glory of the living God he casts his beams upon them but envy the mother of murder which kills it self onely by the rayes of golden arrows makes them dart out venomous words to dishonour him yet his incomparable virtue kills them without losing any of his own brightness to teach us that the beauty of innocency is the best buckler against all slanders Though it seem to be tarnished for a time yet her brightness will thereby become more lively for it is a star which the blackest vail of night cannot darken 3. Abraham did rejoyce at this day of God two thousand years before it was manifested to the world All the Patriarchs did long after it and did anticipate their felicities by the purity of their thoughts This blessed Day hath been reserved for us and yet many of us despise it We so much love the day of man that by the force of too much love to it we forget the love of God We should and must contemn those perishing dayes of worldly honours and pleasures which are covered with eternal night that we may partake the eternity of that beautifull day which shall never have any evening Aspirations O God of purity in whose presence the Angels ravished with admiration do cover their faces with their wings and have no sweeter extasies than the admiration of thy beauty The stars are not pure enough before thy redoubted Majesty The Sun beholds thee as the true Authour of his light Thou onely canst purifie all humane kind by a sanctity which spreads it self over all Ages Alas I am confounded to see my sinfull soul so often dyed black with so many stains and beastly ordures before those most pure beams of thy glory Wash O wash again out all that which displeaseth thee Regenerate in my heart a Spirit that shall be worthy thy self How shall I follow thee to Mount Calvarie if I be pursued with so many ill habits which I have often detested before thine eyes How can I go in company with the first and greatest of all Saints drawing after me so many sins The increase of my offences would multiply thy crosses I will therefore do my best to drown all my imperfections within thy bloud I will procure light to my nights by that bright and beautiful day which Abraham saw from that glorious day which took beginning from thy Cross I will no more care for the day of man that I may the better apply my self to the day of God The Gospel upon Munday the fifth week in Lent S. John 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees You shall seek and not find me and he that is thirsty let him come to me ANd the Princes and Pharisees sent Ministers to apprehend him Jesus therefore said to them Yet a little time and I will be with you and I go to him that sent me you seek me and shall not find and where I am you cannot come The Jews therefore said among themselves Whither will this man go that we shall not find him will he go into the dispersion of the Gentile and teach the Gentiles what is this saying that he hath said You shall seek me and shall not find and where I am you cannot come And in the last the great day of the festivity Jesus stood and cried saying If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth in me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water And this he said of the Spirit that they should receive which believed in him Moralities 1. TAke for your comfort this excellent word of our Saviour he that is thirsty and desires in this world to thirst after God let him come unto me and he shall quench his thirst at the chiefest fountain S. Augustine saith We are all here as David was in the desart of Idumea our life is a perpetual alteration which will never be settled while we live If we be weary we desire rest and if we rest over-long our bed becomes troublesom though it should be all of roses Then again we thirst to be in action and business which also in a short time tires us and puts us into another alteration and that carries us again to a desire to do nothing All our life goeth like Penelopes web what one hour effects the next destroys We do sufficiently perceive that we are not well in this world It is a large bed but very troublesom wherein every man stirs and tumbles himself up and down but no man can here attain to his perfect happiness 2. This shews us plainly that we are made for God and that we should thirst after divine things if we desire true contentment There is no default in him because all that can be desired is there and yet there is no superfluity because there can be nothing beyond him There onely we abound without necessity we are assured without
as mine Mine eyes O mine eyes who have first received that fire which hath so passionately devoured my soul I will make you imitate the Pond of Hesebon and sooner shall those two fountains be dried up which serve the stream of Jordan than you shall want water to wash the steps of your Concupiscences I will have that neck which hath suffered it self to be embraced by unlawfull Arms held under the yoke of him that hath overcome me and so happily subjected me to to his Empire These arms and hands which have been the chains of wanton embracements shall henceforth for ever be lifted up to Heaven in prayer and they shall have no other Altars but the feet of my Lord and Master if I dare think my self worthy to kiss them This mouth which hath been the gate of unchastity shall now become a Temple of Gods praises And this heart which hath been a burning furnace of worldly love shall be a burning lamp of holy affections before God and shall have no other oyl to maintain it but that water which shall be drawn from mine eyes O my God since I have so betrayed my heart abused my youth spent prodigally thy Treasures and made crowns to Baal out of thy silver since I have forsaken thee who art eternal unchangeable and incomparable Goodness without whom all other goods are nothing to follow a wanton fire which hath brought me to the brim of everlasting precipice where shall I find sufficient tears to wash my offences where shall I find enow parts of my body to be continually offered up as the sacrifice of my repentance I would make my life immortal to have my pains so lasting and if thy mercy will not let me be the object of thy vengeance let me at least serve for a sacrifice at thy Altars The Gospel upon Friday the fifth week in Lent S. John 11. The Jews said What shall we do for this man doth many miracles THe chief Priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a Councel and said What shall we do for this man doth many signs if we let him alone so all will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away our place and Nation But one of them named Caiaphas being the High Priest of that year said to them You know nothing neither do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man die for the people and the whole Nation perish not And this he said not of himself but being the High Priest of that year be prophesied that Jesus should die for the Nation and not onely for the Nation but to gather in one the children of God that were dispersed From that day therefore they devised to kill him Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews but he went into the Countrey beside the Desart unto a Citie that is called Ephrem and there he abode with his Disciples Moralities 1. ONe of the greatest Tragedies acted in the life of man which makes curious persons to question wise men to wonder good men to groan and the wicked to rejoyce is to see an innocent man oppressed by colour of justice Now Jesus being resolved to espouse our miseries as far as they can reach was pleased to pass through those rigours and formalities of the wicked coloured with a pretext of equity He is not here condemned by a mean people without consideration without power without formality of process But by these chief Priests and principal men of that Nation assembled in Councel they informed themselves they reason and conclude his death The Lions of Solomons throne did anciently bear certain Writs of the Law to signifie that it was to be handled by couragious and clear-seeing Judges But here Foxes got it into their hands and did manage it by crafty deceits and wickedness Alas we are far from the Laws of God when we cannot abide the least word spoken against our reputation We are troubled to suffer for innocency as if it were a greater honour to suffer for a direct offence Shall we never think that the triumph of virtue consists in well doing and thereby sometimes receiving harm even from those who are esteemed good men 2. There are some difficulties in affairs where truth is shut up as within a cloud Wise men can hardly find out where the point lies but God doth so order it that falshood leaves always certain marks by which it may be known and the beauty of truth is ever like that lake of Affrick which early or late discovers all that is cast into it and makes all impostures plainly appear when we think they are most concealed And this appears by the proceeding of Caiaphas who chose to condemn Christ for those things which were the certain tokens that he was the true Messias He concluded his death by reason of his miracles and those gave him authority as to the Prince of life A troubled spirit makes darts of every thing which it can to fight against reason and kills it self not suspecting its own poison 3. The devil publisheth Jesus for the true Messias and so doth likewise Caiaphas prophesie the same It is not always a certain mark of goodness to speak that which is good but it is an assurance of virtue to avoid that which is ill There are many from whom good works do escape while they both think and do ill Truth makes use of their tongues when Devils command their hearts It is this which makes us to see our Saviours Empire and the extent of his conquests which is not limited by time he being already entered into possession of Eternity and it is not bounded by place because it contains all Immensity Night hath no power to cover it because it is light it self It cannot be shut up in any deceitfull shadow because it scatters and discovers all falshood It cannot be comprehended within our senses because it exceeds their Capacity and it is present in all places being omnipotent and eternal in all time Aspirations O Jesus Father of all blessed unions who hast suffered death to unite all the children of God together who are scattered over all the countreys of the world wilt thou have no pitie of my heart so many times torn in pieces strayed among a great multitude of objects which estrange and draw me from the first of all Unities My soul melts through all the Gates of my senses by running after so many creatures which do kindle covetousness but never serve to refresh or cool the heat of it Draw me O Lord from the great throng of so many exteriour things that I may retire into my own heart and from thence arise to thine where I may find that peace which thou hast cemented fast with thy most precious bloud When shall I see the first beams of that liberty which thou grantest to thy children When shall my thoughts return from wandering in those barren regions where thou art not acknowledged When shall I be re-united and so
eyes confesse God is visible and that he sheweth himself in as many mirrours as there are creatures in this great Universe A man needs to be a Philosopher but a little to learn to love let him see know and study nature in all its works let him hear the harmonies of Gods consort to understand in some measure the perfections of the workman Those little golden and azure shels which make a lodging for certain fishes more magnificent then Solomons Palace Those cob-web-lawns and those tiffanies which compose the body of flowers with an exquisite delicacy Those waves which curle on the current of rivers those gentle western blasts which bear comfort and health on their wings those huge theatres of seas that vast extent of plains those meteors so artificially varied those little eyes of heaven which shew themselves so soon as night spreads its mantle on the inferiour regions of the world all that is seen all that is heard all that is touched all that is handled cease not to recount unto us the love of our Father One must never have seen the sun not to have love for God he must have lived like a hog with his head in the mire and his eyes in a trough to say he knoweth not what the Divinity is To speak truly this great starre is the visible sonne of the first Bright the Image of the sovereign King the eye of the world the heart of nature it daily speaketh to us out of the gates of the East with as many tongues as it hath raies This great supervisor of the fornaces of the universe travelleth throughout totall nature He lighteth up the stars in heaven he createth crowns and rain-bowes in the air on earth flowers and fruits in the sea pearls and in the bosome of rocks saphires and diamonds he throws fire and vigour into all living creatures his presence causeth alacrity and his absence insensibly horrour and melancholy in all nature His motion so rapid his circumvolution so even that so regular harmony of nights and dayes those reflections which are as fathers of so many Essences set the whole Divinity before our eyes O what a goodly thing it is to talk face to face with those great forrests which are born with the world to discourse with the murmur of waters the warbling of birds in the sweetnesse of solitude and of so many creatures which according to S. Denis are the veils and Tapistries of the great Temple There it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dyonisius c. 1. Hierar coelestis where God accoasteth on all sides where our soul is stirred up with its own thoughts dischargeth it self of matter and entreth into a great commerce with Intelligencies When I behold all the perquisites of Organs where Musick is in perfection I stay not on the Iron Lead Wood the Piper nor on the bellows my spirit flyeth to that hidden spirit which distributeth it self with so melodious proportionable divisions throughout the whole Instrument So when I contemplate the world I stick not on the body of the Sun the stars the elements the stones the metals the plants nor the living creatures I penetrate into that secret spirit which insinuateth it self thereunto with such admirable power such ravishing sweetnesse and incomparable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synesiâ—o Quod colimus nos Deus unus est qui totam molem istaÌ„ cum instrumento elementorum corporum spirituum expressit in ornamentum majestatis suae Tertul. Apol c. 17. Harmony I infinitely love him because he is fair since he made all the beauties which are presented before mine eyes Because he is good because he is wise since he communicateth himself with so much profusion since he so well tempered the consonancies of the whole world I love him because I know he is mine and I am wholly his Were I not touched with his beauty his wisdome his goodnesse perpetually his benefits would soften my heart Me thinks I meet him every where with a hundred arms and as many hands to do me good I neither see place room time or moment which is not figured with his liberalities I am clothed with his wooll fed with his Granary warm'd with his wood served by his Officers I live in him I breathe by him I have nothing which is not his Inheritance It is neither Father nor Mother great one Lord or King which gave me wealth honour and estate Well they may be instruments of my happinesse but they are not the cause They were nothing for so many years They came into the world as poor as I they daily return from it into dust I feel my necessities and dependences and I know they cannot be supplyed but by a necessary and independent Essence We must not say we have not commerce enough with him great things are for the little and the rich The commerce of man with God S. Maximus Cent. 5 ex vatiis Deum extra se effici creaturis omnibus providendo Melinra sunt ubera tua vino Can 1. Quia vinum exprimitur cum la bore in torculari ubèra sponte fluunt for the necessitous See we not that heaven is all for the earth doth it cause one sprig of an herb to grow in it self produceth it one sole flower among its stars It giveth all it hath and is perpetually content with what it is So God is all for us as if man were his God saith S. Thomas If we be miserable he is not therefore disdainfull if he be high he is not therefore far distant from our inferiour condition He is all in all things ever present continually doing somewhat He hath dugs of bounty which put him to pain if he stream not upon us We see him to come from all parts and his approch is not mute for the best part of us is spirituall which maketh commerce easie unto us with a God who is all spirit How often find we our soul to be raised above it self and to be transported with thoughts knowledges lights joyes pleasures consolations hopes confidences courages and antipasts of glory which we acknowledge to be above our strength It is God then who worketh by them in us who enters into our soul as a Master into his house who becomes our guest our friend our Doctour and our Protectour We need not seek for him in heaven he is in our heart saith the Emperour Antonine and there he uttereth his oracles There it is where he enterteineth us and teacheth us we are his children and reserveth for us an admirable inheritance When it was said to little Nabuchodonozor who was exposed in his infancy and bred up in the house of Glossa in Danielem a Peasant whose son he took himself to be Courage child you are not made to drive Oxen and till the ground there is another profession expecteth you you are the son of a great Prince who keeps the prime kingdome of the world for you These raggs must be changed into
the love with which he will be loved and who hath loved us even in disfavour to transport us to favour Whereby it appeareth that this fair love is nought else but a celestiall quality infused into the soul by which we love God above all and all for God Now I imagine with my self that he is born in our hearts in such a manner as pearls grow in their shells The mother of pearl is first pierced by a celestiall influence as with an arrow fiery and sharp which sollicits and importuneth it to dispose it self to this excellent production Which is the cause that it spreads openeth and dilates it self to receive the dew distilled into it from the air and having moistned it it digesteth concocteth and transfigureth it into this little miracle of nature which is with so much curiosity sought after Behold what passeth in a soul when it bringeth forth this precious love it is prevented by a speciall grace from the Divine Goodnesse which at first gives it a distaste of all things in the world and fixeth a generous spur in the heart to excite awaken and enflame it to the quest of so great a good Then it extendeth dilates and opens all its gates to the Holy Ghost who descendeth into it as the dew of Hermon by qualities and Donec Christus formetur in vobis Gal 4. 10. effects admirable which through free-will it embraceth and ties and habituateth it self therein conceiving and forming Jesus Christ as saith S. Paul Then is the time when this divine love is conceived which is no sooner born but it causeth a rejoycing in the heart of man like unto that which happened in the house of Abraham at Isaacs nativity It is a celestiall laughter The Empire and eminencies of Divine love an extraordinary jubilation an expansion of all the faculties and functions of the spirit and will This little Monarch is no sooner born but it begins to command and sits on the heart as in its Throne All powers do it Instructi in charitate in omnes divitias plenitudinis intellectûs Col. 2. 2. Ailredus tom 13. Bibliorum in speculo charitatis Excellent conceit of charity homage all passions render it service All the virtues applaud at its coronation and confesse they hold of it and are all in it He who is once well instructed in charity aboundeth with all riches and hath the full plenitude of the spirit according to the Apostles and is a Tree grafted with siens of all perfection and which fail not to bring forth their fruits Sciences and virtues are that to us which oars to vessels what the viaticum to travellers what light to blear-eyes what arms to souldiers but charity alone is the repose of the wearied the Countrey of Pilgrims the light of the blind the Crown of the victorious Faith and the knowledge of God carry us to our countrey Hope maintaineth us the other virtues defend us but where charity is perfect as it is in glory one no longer believes any thing because it seeth all one hopes for nought because he possesseth all Temperance combateth against Concupiscence Prudence against errour Fortitude against adversity Justice against inequality But in perfect charity there is a perfect chastity which standeth not in need of the arms of temperance having no blemish of impurity A perfect knowledge which expecteth not any help from ordinary Prudence since it hath no errours a perfect Beatitude which needeth not Fortitude to conquer adversities since to it nothing is uneasie a Sovereign peace which imploreth not the aid of Justice against inequality since all therein is equall For in a word what is charity but a temperate love without lust A prudent love without errour a strong love without impatience a just love without inequality Faith is the first day of our Creation which driveth away darknesse Hope is the second which makes a firmament for us and which divideth waters from waters things transitory from eternall Temperance is the third which arraungeth the waters and storms of passions in their proper element and causeth the land of our heart to appear which sendeth up vapours to God that are its sighs Prudence is the fourth which lighteth up in us the sun of understanding and the lights of knowledge Fortitude is the fifth which sustains us in the Ocean of adversities not suffering us to corrupt as fishes in salt-waters and as birds above the Tempest Justice the sixth for it gives us to command over our passions as Adam who on the same day he was created obtained it over all living creatures But charity is the seventh day The Symbole of Glory which contracteth all delights in the circle of its Septenary And how can it but abbridge all Theology since it abbridgeth God himself S. Zeno ser de fide spe charit Tu Deum in hominem demutatum voluisti tu Deum abbreviatum paulisper à majestatis suae immensitate peregrinari fecisti tu virginali carcere nove nâ—mensibus religasti tu mortem Deum mori docendo evacusti and that we have cause to speak to him in such terms as Saint Zeno did O love what hast thou done Thou hast changed God into Man Thou hast contracted him drawing him out of the lustre of his Majesty to make him a pilgrime on earth Thou hast shut him in the prison of a virginall womb the space of nine moneths Thou hast annihilated the empire of death when thou taughtest God to dy Love thus acknowledged by all the virtues mounteth as on a chariot of Glory maketh it self conspicuous with heroick and noble qualities It is pious since it employeth all its thoughts on God It is generous and magnanimous since it is ever disposed to great designs It is liberall as that which spareth nothing It is strong not yielding to any of all those obstacles which present themselves to divert the course of its intentions Qualities of divine love by which we may know whether it inhabit a soul It is just equally distributing rewards to merit It is temperate admitting no excesses but of love It is prudent having eyes alwayes upon its deportments It is witty to find out a thousand inventions It is violent without eagernesse active without participation sage without coldnesse good without remissnesse and calm without idlenesse But I must tell you though its perfections be without number you shall chiefly know it by three qualities Three principall marks of love which will make it appear unto you plyant obliging and patient I say plyant for there is nothing but fires desires sweetnesse affections joyes admirations extasies Plyantness pleasures transportments for its well-beloved This is the State which the great Origen figureth unto us Orig. Hom. de Magdal of S. Mary Magdalen when he saith that by the strength of love she was dead to all the objects of the world She had her thoughts so employed upon her Jesus that she was almost insensible she had
Ceremonies and infinite merriments The King not contenting himself with having broken the chains of the capitall city of the world made great presents to her Church and after he had been crowned King of Lombardy by the hands of that great Pope who offered him also the dignity of a Senatour the fore-runner of the Imperiall He returned to France leaving to all Italy an approbation of his deeds and a great desire of his Domination On the other side the Christians of Spain that suffered an Age since insupportable outrages under the Tyranny of the Sarazens had also recourse to this invincible Monarch who as one alwayes ready to exalt the Standard of the Faith and to succour the afflicted passes happily over the Pyrenean mountains takes the city of Pampelona crosses the river Ebro seizes himself of Sarragossa and afterwards of Barcelona plucks the Mahumetans out of the fortresses that they possessed and re-established the Christian Faith in all the places from whence the fury of that Barbarian had banished it His zeal alwayes burning carried him by the same means to the Conversion of the Infidels of which he caused innumerable multitudes to be baptized so true it is that every thing gave way to the Arms and to the perswasions of that incomparable Prince whom God seemed to lead by the hand to the Possession of the Roman Empire Here is the great work of the Providence of God upon his well-beloved Charles that he did him this favour to wear the first of all the Diadem of the Cesars in the house of France and to have transmitted it to a sufficient long posterity I pray you Reader to observe here the sacred traces of that wise governesse of Empires and to consider how she insensibly collected all dispositions necessary to set this great King upon the Throne of the Emperours The conquest of Kingdomes resemble often that golden bough of Virgil which one could not pluck off from its tree by main force but might easily be taken off by an hand that had good fortune on his side There are many Princes that to take Cities and Provinces by violence have covered the earth with Arms and the sea with Vessels with a noise that astonished the whole world without ever compassing their designs whereas others have come to Crowns with as much haste as easinesse without troubling themselves and almost without stirring because the hand of God was in the mingling of their affairs This is the proceeding which we visibly discover in the advancement of our Charles whilst he dream'd of nothing but on the means of exalting the Glory of God and succouring afflicted Nations Heaven labours for him in the East in the West and raises him occasions which without his thinking of it set the Diadem upon his head It was already a long time since the Eagle of the Roman Emperours clapt but with one wing Italy having been so many times pillaged by the Gothes the Huns the Vandals and the Lombards The courageous wisdome of Justinian that thought he had freed it from oppression did but change not break its chains The East had enough to do to defend it self against the incursions of the Barbarians and could no more contribute any thing to the West but unprofitable compassions and griess to lose that which it could no longer keep It happened that to aggravate the evils of the successours of Constantine there sprang up an Heresie of the Iconoclasts or Image-breakers which was worse then a plague of Egypt and which being fomented even by those that were upon the Throne caused innumerable disastres and shook the Pillars of the State The beginning of this unhappinesse came from Leo the Isauric who being of a very base extraction took in hand the Sceptre of Constantinople which he soil'd much more by his furious deportments then by his shamefull originiall He had in his Privy Councel a pernicious Jew that perswaded him to abolish the holy Images promising him the Empire when he was yet but a private man as the recompence of that Sacriledge and for this reason he afterward employed himself about it with fury and cast out the roarings of a Lion which were heard from East to West The Patriarch S. Germain opposed his Edicts who was for that businesse deprived of his Dignity and many great personages horribly persecuted for the same cause sealed with their bloud the Belief of the Church Gregory the Second thundred from S. Peters Chair against that Lion although he was under the captivity of the Lombards and declared him not onely Excommunicated but had also forfeited his Imperial Dignity and all the Demesnes he pretended to in Italy The rage of his Revenge caused a Fleet to be prepared to go down to Italy and to put this generous Pope in chains but it was cast away and death strangled his designs so that he could never root out of the hearts of men the worshipping of Images Constantine Copronymus his sonne that defiled in the day of his Baptisme the waters that purifie all the world continued Leo's furies and made himself the most abominable of all men a professed enemy of the most holy Virgin the mother of God and of all the Saints till such time as he was consumed by the leprosie He left an heir of his Sceptre and Impiety which was called by his Grandfathers name Leo a profane and unhappy Prince who being much in love with pearls and precious stones took away from the treasures of the Church a magnificent Crown that the Emperour Maurice had dedicated to God but his crime was followed suddenly with vengeance for scarce had he set it upon his head but it was covered with impostems and sores accompanied with a violent fever that took him away in few dayes after a reign of four years and a half He had a sonne named Constantine who began his Reign at the age of ten years under the protection of his mother Irene who was declared Regent of the Empire by her condition and because she was a woman of great discretion and courage the daughter of a King skilfull in holy learning end owed with a perfect beauty and accomplished in many graces and virtues that rendred her Government pleasing to all world She gave the direction of her affairs to Stauratius a man of a sublime capacity and an equall reputation that seconded all her good intentions so that she governed ten years with her sonne in great peace and in the approbation of all honest men Her Regency was greatly remarkable for the Zeal which she testified to the Catholick Faith following the good counsels of Pope Adrian and of Tarasus Patriarch of Constantinople who perswaded her to cause a generall Councel to be held at Nice where the memory of the preceding Emperours that had authorised the Heresie of the Iconoclasts was condemned the Images re-established and the Devotions of the people enflamed to their veneration This Councel gave a thousand benedictions to the Empresse even so farre
to the miserablest and although he was higher then all the Cedars yet he humbled his eyes even unto the smallest worms of the earth If he appeared in publick with a splendour agreeable to his Dignity in his retiring he made his life a continuall Repentance which equalled the strictnesse of the severest Religious ones The zeal of justice was so perfect in him that he would not usurp a fingers breadth of land upon his neighbours to the prejudice of his conscience and his generousnesse caused him also to refuse the Empire which the Pope and all the Princes of Christendome offered him with a generall consent after the deposing of the Emperour Frederick The exercises of War did never stop up in his heart the pitifull bounties that were there towards the poor not contenting himself to give them most liberally all that they could expect from his condition but very often being ready at their hand to provide them with necessities for their life Amidst the great tumults of war he was alwayes peaceable never making any war but for necessity or for zeal of the glory of God but carrying throughout all places peace with an exceeding meeknesse His chastity amidst all the delights of so great a Realm was alwayes impenetrable by the darts of love and his heart was like the bed of the Phenix which takes no fire but from the Beams of the Sun He was persecuted by the tongues of slanderers by the arms of his kindred by the chains and prisons of Infidels by the ingratitude of those upon whom he had heaped good turnes without having one least motion to revenge rendring alwayes good for evil and if justice did require of him reasonable punishment of the wicked he paid the Tribute that Kings owe to the Sovereign Power without ever altering the quietnesse of his mind in such manner as if you will judge rightly of that which I have said you will find that S. Lewis hath brought the eight Beatitudes to the Court and hath happily joyned the highest Maximes of the Gospel to the Policy of a great Kingdome Neverthelesse some one may make himself believe that he was not sufficiently refined in the tenets of a great States-man but that the excessivenesse of his devotion must needs mollifie somewhat the vigour of his understanding and that the tendernesse of his conscience was incompatible with the Principles of those Politicians that are compleat in the managing of affairs I entreat my reader to consider here the great errour of the Politick ones of the world that will be wise without God and believe that the Empires and Kingdomes of Christendome being founded in Piety and Justice can maintein themselves happily and encrease by the subtleties and Maximes that are common amongst the Pagans and Mahometans Let any one compare the Fredericks Emperours that flourished in the same age with Saint Lewis the King let one weigh the Principles of the one and of the other let him examine their proceedings and look upon the successe and they shall find that the honest wisdome of our King hath surpassed all the subtleties of those great brains and that these lights have as far excelled those their false glances as the eyes of the Eagles are far above those of the Owls The Fredericks aim was to look at themselves to bring all to their own ends to complain against the Pope to contest with the Princes to regard nothing but their own greatnesse to have nothing in esteem but their own interest to measure the true and the false by their own profit to keep Religion under the State to think that a good conscience was an hindrance to great designs and that there was nothing unjust of all that was profitable and glorious in appearance for so high a Monarchy to employ all the subtilties and all rigour that might obtein their purposes to beat down all that they might raise themselves and to ruine all to make themselves great Saint Lewis on the contrary caused the glory and interest of God to march at the head of his actions esteemed himself little prised the benefit of the publick above all things honoured the Pope with a singular reverence enterteined as much as he could Peace with the Princes of Christendome never undertook any thing to the prejudice of his conscience would not buy a Kingdome with the smallest lye made every thing serve for Religion valued nothing great that was not just nothing glorious that agreed not with equity and measured all by the law of God and the benefit of his subjects If it be true which our Saviour saith That we should judge of men by their deeds and by the fruits of their actions who sees not that those men with their refined politick Maximes did very ill govern themselves seeing that after so generall a dissipation of bloud of men and of wealth they buried their fortunes in the ruines of the publick And this man with his honesty which others do take for simplicity did free himself happily from civill warrs frustrated the subtleties of the craftiest brought to the ground the strength of the mightiest securing his Crown and Sceptre in the hands of a woman against the enterprises of men subtle and interressed He made forreign warres for the pure glory of God without oppressing his people He governed his Kingdome in Peace in Piety in Justice and in the abundance of all things leaving a large posterity which sits even yet upon the chief thrones of Christendome May we not well affirm that this Prince was indued with marvellous wisedome seeing that he knew God the fountain of all Essences and judged of all things according to the rules of the eternall Truth From this fountain there ran down in his soul two Rivulets which were the great contempt that he had of the world and the perfect union which he had with God which poured forth a vigorous influence upon all his undertakings From hence came that good choise that he took for the ordering of his life mingling contemplation with action which were as two sisters mutually helping each other It happens sometimes to men that some are carryed away with the world and others flying from it carrie it along with them The one let themselves runne with the torrent of corruptions the other retiring themselves to solitarinesse carry with them all their worldly affections which do but sleep and cast forth still sparkles under the ashes But Saint Lewis being within the world was nothing lesse then of the world seeing that amidst the meeting with so many people which encompassed him every day he built himself a desart in his heart and in the midst of a great sea of affairs he lived as the fishes that are silent in the roarings of the waves and keep themselves fresh amidst the briny waters The sweet familiarity that he had with his Redeemer did not steal from him the care of his employments and government of his Kingdome seeing that alwayes like the beams of the Sun