Shepheard to feede and preserve not a Wolfe to teare and devoure Give me leave Did the world know how poore my beginnings were I am not ashamed of them in what small helpes I have rejoyced when the Papists vaunted they doubted not to live and see me begge mournfully at their dores for a morsell of bread that my fortunes were carried on the top of the flowing and ebbing waters two yeares from banke to banke before I was fixed and then but weakly setled in a dark nooke Did men know how I have beene used abused forced threatned reviled discomforted they would not be angry that I desired to subsist and to preach the good Gospell of Christ But I will not preach this doctrine till I am call'd CHAP. V. ANd now I thanke the Papists for my unconquerable resolution growing from the grossenesse of their scandals Josephs Brethren were very malicious against him they sold him to slavery the Scene beganne to bee tragicall God came to act his part turned the wheele and made all this malice and misery end in the great benefit not onely of the malicious and undeserving Brethren but of Joseph himselfe his old Father and the whole Kingdome of Egypt Judas sold his Master his Master and the Master of all things for thirty pence the money would goe but a little way he had an ill bargaine When his part was done God entred upon the Stage and by the execrable perfidiousnesse of the Traitour Judas brought about the redemption of mankinde the salvation of the whole world and in effect all the shining that is and ever shall be made by glorious soules and bodies in Heaven I doe not except the soule and body of our Mediatour and Advocate Christ Jesus who though he did not redeeme himselfe because he was not in captivity yet came to be betraied and to redeeme his Betrayer if he would have bin redeemed By this law a prudent Mr. of a family turnes the rough nature of an angry Dog to the benefit and peace of himselfe and his family and a wise Physitian the eager thirst of a bloud-thirsty horseleach to the health of a sick person although indeed these unreasonable creatures of themselves aime at nothing but to satiate their owne wilde natures Saint Austin speaking of evill men saith Ne igitur putes gratis malos esse in hoc mundo nihil boni ex illis metere Deum quia omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Doe not therefore thinke that evill men are suffered to be evill in this world for no good purpose and that God reapes no benefit by them For every evill man either therefore lives that in time he may decline from evill and incline to good or therefore lives that the good man may be exercised and farthered in the practise of goodnesse by him otherwise he should no live There is a course of things within the generall course of this world pertaining to the order to which God brings all straggling chances in the last act of the play which if we did examine as they come and beget experience we should enlighten and enrich the understanding with heavenly matters exceedingly We behold how admirably at this day moved by the sinfull occasion of Heresie and Superstition the Church doth watch and pray and we know that a multitude of soules now crowned in Heaven hath learned to avoid sinne by observing others punished for sinne which could not in justice have beene punished if it had not beene committed and how murderers doe open the gate of Heaven for Martyrs and that the bloud of Martyrs hath beene the seed of the Church for if they had not died bodily many had not lived spiritually And to goe as high as may be Good comes to God by the worst of evils the good of glory by sinne For to speake with Cassiodore Materia est gloriae principalis delinquentis reatus quia nisi culparum Cassio Var. 3. 46. occasiones emergerent locum pietas non haberet The guilt of a Delinquent person is a principall matter that nourisheth glory For if there were no sinne there would be no place for the exercise of mercie which supposeth misery which misery supposeth sinne And though I gather good from the evill of the Church of Rome yet the evill of the Church is to me a sound argument against the Church That rule of Christ Yee shall know them by their fruits Mat 7. 16. is as true a marke as a signe from Heaven For as the Church of Rome was first known by her workes so now likewise shee is knowne by her workes and the workes of her age not being of the same birth and education with the workes of her youth shew her to bee different from her selfe when workes doe alwayes answer in some proportion to Faith and the Tree cannot be good if the fruit be generally evill And as Saint Justine writeth to the Grecians S. Justin Cohort ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the solid fruit of pious workes gives testimony to the true Religion I came from the last Popish Colledge of which I was a member as I did from all others fairely and respectfully on both sides Their testimony of me is yet in my hands made strong and authenticall with their owne Seale I will give it here word for word Thomas Fitzherbertus societatis Jesu Collegii Anglorum de urbe Rector OMnibus in quorum manus praesentes venerint salutem in Domino sempiternam Fidem facimus atque his literis attestamur latorem praesentium Reverendum Patrem Franciscum Dakerum for this was the last name by which I was knowne amongst them Anglum Sacerdotem esse nec ullo impedimento Canonico prohiberi quo minus sacrosanctum Missae Sacrificium ubique celebrare possit Cum vero etiam in hoc nostro Collegio sedis Apostolicae Alumnus fuerit modo absolutis studiis in Angliam ad luerandas Deo animas proficiscatur nos quo illum affectu nobiscum morantem complexi sumus eodem discedentem paterne prosequimur omnibus ad quos in itinere devenerit quantum valemus in Domino commendamus In quorum fidem caet Romae ex Collegio Anglorum die 9. Septemb. 1635. Thomas Fitzherbertus manu propria Those with whose understandings this will suite are able to understand it without a translation The Faculties annexed by the Pope to the exercise of my Priestly function were these I have them under their owne hands Ordinariae Facultates Alumnorum Collegii Anglicani 1. FAcultas absolvendi ab omnibus casibus Censuris in Bulla Caenae Domini reservatis in Regnis Angliae Scotiae Hiberniae 2. Vt possint illis quos reconciliaverint dare Apostolicam benedictionem cum plenaria Indulgentia prima vice Catholicis vero congregatis ad Concionem vel ad sacrum in Festis solennioribus Apostolicam benedictionem sine plenaria Indulgentia
When yee shall have done all those Lu. 17. 10. things which are commanded you say wee are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe Humilitie doth not consist in esteeming our selves the greatest sinners for then it should consist in a lye because we are not all the greatest but in esteeming our selves great sinners and ready to be the greatest if God should pull away himselfe from us and feeble workers with Gods grace Our Saviours case was different for hee was most humble yet could not esteeme himselfe a sinner O Humilitie saith Saint Bernard Quà m facilè S. Bern. vincis invincibilem How easily doest thou conquer him that is invincible For man was made to fill up the now-disturbed number of the Angels which were created some while before the World not long for it is not likely that so noble a part of the World should be long created before the whole to which it belonged They fell downe though not from the possession yet from the title of happinesse by pride Not from the possession for had they beene united to God by the Beatifical Visiō they could not have sinned and therfore not have lost it by sin Wee rising up to the seats prepared for them ascend by Humility rising by falling and falling by rising if wee rise before he raiseth us who being dead and buried was not raised but rose from death to life by his own power Pride and Humility are of contrary dispositions and moreover they worke contrarily upon the subjects in which they are lodged and are in the effect and course of their proceedings contrary even to themselves Pride was the first sin in the Angels and therefore Humilitie is the first vertue in men and all your thoughts words and actions must be steeped in it Other Vertues keepe within a compasse or only now and then goe some of them together or always or direct all Vertues outwardly in respect of the Vertues as Prudence but Humility is an ingredient in every Vertue RULE 4. IN your entrance upon every worke having first examined the motives ingredients and circumstances for one evill circumstance will corrupt the whole lumpe and poyson a good action and it is not vertuous to pray ordinarily in the streets with outward observance though it be vertuous to pray and it being now cleere to you that your intended work falleth in wholly and meeteth in the same point with Gods holy will commend it seriously to GOD. And when you goe to dinner or to bed or turne to the acts and exercises of your Vocation begin all with a cleane and pure intention for the love and honour of GOD. And even the naturall work to which your nature is vehemently carried and by which you gaine temporally being turned towards the true Loadstone and put in the way to Gods glory doth rise above nature and above it selfe and is much more gainfull spiritually as being performed not because it is agreeable with your desire but because it is conformable to the divine will And often in the performance and execution of the worke if it require a long continuance of action renew and if need bee rectifie smooth and polish your intention for being neglected it quickly groweth crooked And when you are called to a difficult work or a work that lyes thwart and strives against the current of your naturall inclination dignifie and sweeten it often with the comfortable remembrance of your most noble end And whereas wee are openly commanded so closely to carrie the good deeds of the right hand that the left hand be not of the Counsell and again to turn so much of our selves outward that our light may shine before men it is in our duty to observe the Golden Mean and keep the middle way betwixt the two Rocks Carry an even hand betvvixt your concealing your good vvorks and your being a light to others You must not conceale all neither must you shine onely Hide the inward but shew the outward not alwayes nor with a sinister intention to the left hand but to GOD and those that will bee edified Every Vertue standeth betwixt two extreames and yet toucheth neither whereof the one offendeth in excesse the other in defect The one is too couragious the other is over-dull but under the Vertue Now the Devill delighteth much to shew himselfe not in his own likenesse but in that extream which is like and more nigh to the Vertue or at least to the appearance of it as Prodigalitie is more like to Liberalitie then Covetousnesse God hath true Saints and true Martyrs which are both inside and outside The Devill hath false Saints and false Martyrs which are all outside like his fairnesse As Prudence is the Governesse of all Vertues so principally of Devotion RULE 5. KEep your heart always calme and suffer it to be stirred onely with the gentle East and West-winds of holy inspirations to zeal and vertuous anger Examine your inward motions whether they be inspirations or no before you cry come in for when God offereth an inspiration hee will stand waiting with it while you measure it by some better known and revealed Law of his And be very watchfull over such Anger For it is a more knottie and difficult piece of work to be answerable to Ephes 4. 26. the rule of Saint Paul Be angry and sin not the Prophet David spoke the same words from the same spirit then not to be angry As the Curre taken out of the kennell and provoked to barke will need an able and cunning hand to hold him And maintaine alwayes a strong Guard before the weake doores of your senses that no vain thing invade the sense of seeing hearing or the rest and use in times of such danger Ejaculations and Aspirations which are short sayings of the soule to God or of things concerning God and are like darts cast into the bosome of our beloved These motions will do excellently at all times when they come in the resemblance of our pious affections As upon this occasion Lord shut the windows of my soule that looking thorow them she may not be defiled O sweet Comforter speak inwardly to my soul and when thou speakest to her speake words of comfort or binde her with some other chaine that busied in listning to thee shee may not heare thy holy name dishonoured And upon other occasions Oh that my head were waters Jer. 9. 1. and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I might weepe day and night O Lord Whom Psal 73. 25 have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Take counsell my soule Commit thy way unto the Psal 37. 5. Lord trust also in him and hee shall bring it to passe Hearke my soule when we taste the thing we taste is joyned to us We neither see nor heare in this manner and having tasted we know And when the Body tasteth wee commonly see first and
afterwards taste In our conversation with God wee first taste and then see I speake not of Faith being of another order O taste and see that the Lord is Psal 34. 8. good Holy Scripture will give us matter without end This is a delicious communication of our selves with God our selves when we are present onely with our selves and with God Keepe the double doores of your teeth and lips the sorts of silence close that your nimble and busie tongue speake nothing but what some way directly or indirectly pertaineth to Gods glory agreeably to his good pleasure And therefore always before you speak think Is this which I shall now say immediatly or mediatly available to the honour of God and doth it helpe at first or last to my spirituall profit And when angry immodest injurious or other foule and sinfull words are spoken in your presence employ your best endeavour in diverting the course of the discourse if it be likely that your labour and counsell may passe without a repulse If otherwise shew a dislike and suddenly withdraw your selfe from the most infectious company of so beastly and so base an offender of such a hissing Serpent of a vile thing so venomous that hee voideth poyson at his mouth For he would not speake if others did not heare him And spare your selfe and the miserable offender For you having heard vaine words and especially words fighting with modesty hee may afterwards when hee is at his prayers and when hee little thinketh of such a businesse sin again in you And in the heat of these encounters believe not every thing which you heare but reflect upon the severall dispositions with which the Report meeteth in her Travels and the strange desire of men to speak strange things And consider that Fame takes a new Disguise from every mans Tongue and speaks as diversly as the affections of men are divers being like the Tarrand which walking in a Garden represents Philo de Temul the colour of every flower on his skin It is a truth which Tertullian saith of lying Fame quae nec tunc quidem cum aliquid Tert. in Apol cap. 7. veri affert sine mendacii vitio est detrahens adjiciens demutans de veritate Which neither then truly when it proposeth a true thing is without the scarre of a lie drawing from putting to and changing the truth Of men some speak as they have heard from old women and children some as the tie of beliefe benefits kinred or neighbour-hood obligeth some as the Passion moveth some to gaine their owne gainfull ends and some speake by guesse few according to knowledge And because the greater part of men are evill you are not bound by the Law of God who leadeth no man into errour to trust or believe every man And yet you may not judge the person or decide the doubt unlesse guided with a cleere and certaine knowledge of evill Wherefore suspend your judgment and gather up your minde into it selfe One branch is yet wanting to this advertisement You must continually stand waking and watching over your thoughts for the fit ordering of our thoughts within us and of our senses without us will certainly keepe us from all distraction and from all occasions of turning aside in our way towards Christ And therefore upon every sally or incurse of Temptation turne quickly from the suggestion and representation of it Then humbly acknowledge your own weaknesse and call earnestly upon God for help And lay up safe in your minde that every shew and representation of evill in our heart is not evill to us except it be seconded on our part either with a full and absolute consent or with a weak hanging and half-consent or with complacence or except you did wilfully thrust your selfe upon the neer danger of such representations For the divine Law commandeth us to avoid even the occasions of sin And he that wilfully toucheth upon the neere and catching occasion or openeth a little private doore to sin or to the pleasures that wait upon it as it were dallying and sporting with them is commonly tooke with some odde picture in the representation by which engaged he goeth on and still on and a little farther on till he is swallowed up at last into the great and deep Gulf of sin For as it is written in Ecclus Eccl. 3. 26. He that loveth danger shal perish therein RULE 6. ATtend alwayes upon God that you may know when hee beckens or calls to you and which way he takes At two doores Almighty God doth commonly stand and call us to him at the inward doore of the soul and at the outward doore of the sense inwardly by his holy inspirations and outwardly by his holy Word and Preachers though indeed the inward calling is more frequent For to speak with a Councell Nec momentum quidem praeterit in quo Deus non stat ad ostium Conc. Senonense pulsat A moment of time doth not passe in which God standeth not at the doore of our hearts and earnestly knocks for entrance To this end take speciall notice of the calls illuminations and inspirations which daily you have from Heaven Which calls and inspirations you may either totally reject or obey either in part or considered in their full extent and amplitude If thou wilt bee perfect goe through all which the inspiration commandeth If the inspiration pronounce absolutely follow me doe not confine him that neither can be limited in himselfe nor will be limited in his commands to a certain compasse and desire to goe first and bury thy Father lest the call coole and the inspiration be lost in the crowde of other occasions You shall discern an Inspiration from a Temptation by the lawfulnesse of the action to which you are moved and of the end Take heed therefore of committing evill under the faire goodly and godly pretence of a good end The Devill hath one device above all this doctrine He will sometimes move us even to a godly worke as when hee is informed by our beaten customary and daily practice that wee shall draw a most heavie curse upon us in performing the worke of God negligently Observe that God oftentimes withdraweth himselfe and yet I erre not himselfe but his inward lights and those especially which are tempered with the sweets of comfort from his neerest and dearest friends And then there will seeme to be a continuall night in their hearts they will be very dry and desolate as receiving no drop of sensible dew from Heaven I meane of spirituall comfort which glads the heart And the Tempter will say and often say they are forsaken of God This the holy One of Israel doth First for our exercise triall You may reply why for our triall God knoweth alreadie what wee are able to doe and above this what wee will doe put upon a triall It is so But hee urgeth us upon the combate that wee may conquer and
that he should have been either of few dayes or full of trouble It is a great while before we can goe before we can speake before we can make it plaine that we differ in the maine point from beasts and are reasonable creatures before wee know any thing And then endeavouring to know we learn evill easily good with great paine And in our first lesson which the world giveth us we learne to sinne What is that to breake the Divine Law and forfeit our soules to eternall damnation And yet as it is in Job Man drinketh Iob 15. 16. iniquity like water the sense is it is as familiar with man to sinne as to drinke The best and most quiet halfe of our lives passes away in a dreame when we are asleepe and in a manner dead vitam nobiscum dividit somnus saith Seneca our life is parted betwixt sleepe and us In our youth we are greene and raw and the sport of ancient people and for want of judgement and experience lose our selves in a thousand thousand extravagancies which afterwards appeare not like Starres but like skars upon our lives And having at length climed above youth we are yet troubled with some odde humour and crack in our nature by which we are burdensome to our neighbours and hatefull even to our selves Hither poynteth the old Litany when it prayeth A me salva me Domine From my selfe good Lord deliver me Meditation 3. OUr life is full of changes wee passe from one yeare to another and the faster the yeares goe the faster age comes and we are chang'd We change the places of our abode and with them our selves We change from a single life to the state of marriage and new passages comming with new courses hold us as it were in discourse and make us forget that while they are new we are old We desire to see our children grow but while they grow we decay The variety of this life deceives us Corruptio unius est generatio alterius say the Philosophers the corruption of one thing is the generation of another The end of one misery is not onely the end of one but also the beginning of another and thus we live tossed continually betwixt fire and water We beleeve and goe on a little then we doubt and there we stop we hope and follow the good we hope for like a wandring fire by night and then we feare and grieve and despaire and there we sink In the reasonable soule of Christ good acts passed from one to another without any stop or interposition at least all the while he waked I reflect upon him that saith I sleepe but my heart waketh Cant. 5. 2. So that one vertuous thought followed another in so close and pressing a manner that they were not onely broken or hindered with the foule exercise of evill but they were never at leasure never sate idle in the Market-place never out of the faire and solid practise of good For example when the deepe exercise of Humility had kept the thoughts in worke and wages awhile perhaps she gave up the keyes and government to patience Then patience farthered in good by evill men put the Scepter into the hands of Charity Then charity changed into sorrow for the sinnes of the world And sorrow might beget strong resolutions of fortitude to die for them And thus the soule of Christ tooke her steps from vertue to vertue But in us now love raigneth and soone after hate kils it with a frowne And then perhaps indifferent thoughts may step forward in the by and the soule may wonder a little without the knowne fellowship of good or evill And then the sight of money may breake up all and sell the heart to covetousnes And then reflection may coole it with a drop of sorrow And then vexation may set all on fire with anger And then the love of drinke may come washing the way quench anger And then the heart may reject what it loved and presently desire the thing which even Salu. lib. 1. de gubern Dei now it rejected Humanae mentis vitium magis ea semper velle quae desunt saith Salvianus It is the fault of the minde alwayes to desire the things which are wanting And at last according to the Poet Frigida pugnabant calidis c. Hot cold moyst dry fighting together and striving to make a new quality of hot cold moyst dry may breed confusion and neither gaine the day We make good purposes and begin a new life we turne up the eye and all in haste we will be very good and godly men and women we will be humble patient sober but our vertuous courage quickly droops and in a short time we are the very men and women that we were before And yet not the same but a degree worse for grace neglected drawes a curse upon us We are pretty cleare and merry and then comes a cloud the losse of goods or good-name or friends or of a thing like these which cooles and darkens all and our sweetest joyes are sooner or later steeped in sorrow we are now somewhat pleasant then dull then outragious and for the time lose our wits and are mad Doe all that wee can and all that God can enable us to doe we please one displease another this man smiles upon us the other frownes and yet both have the same motive But the best is it is the voyce of Saint Peter and of the other Apostles We ought to obey God rather Act. 5. 29. S. Chrys then men Certe saith Saint Chrysostome quot homines in populo sunt tot Dominis subjicitur qui vulgi laude gaudet Truely as many men as there are so many masters he hath who rejoyceth in the praise of people Saint Paul reads us another lesson For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience God 2 Cor. 1. 12. grant that if it may be done without sinne I may heare more of my dispraises then praises for otherwise I am in great danger of swelling and breaking The light which I steer to is our poore Saviour with all his knowledge with all his truth did not please every man Meditation 4. WE are in health and looke fresh and full and then the head akes a paine lyes heavie upon the stomach and wee looke neither fresh nor full but pale and empty and then will one say O had I my health againe Happy are you that enjoy your health we are shaken with an Ague or scorched with a Feaver and sigh and groane and turne from side to side but cannot sleep It is the case of him that turnes from one falsehood to another yea the great ones are sicke and suffer paine lament and shed teares as plentifully as we And moreover the great ones are commonly sore clogg'd with a grievous disease that makes them a little greater the Gout which we poore plaine people are ignorant of his name be blessed that is worthily called the
Father of the poore We are now rich now poore though indeed most rich when we are poore We are esteemed by the world and then contemned and condemned The care of catching after money more and more and still more takes up all the time of our life A man is born to a good estate with much care and many sinnes he doubles it and dyes But a prodigall heire comes after him in the first or second generation and turnes it all into vaine smoke and so the name failes the house fals and here is the goodly fruit of worldly care and of all the paines the old man tooke And yet riches cannot satisfie the heart of man Saint Austin hath the reason of it in his Meditations Domine feeistinos properte S. Aug. in confes irrequietum est cor nostrum donec pervenerit ad te Lord thou hast made us for thee and the heart of man cannot bee quiet till it come to thee and rest in thee And the Prophet speakes not besides the matter When I awake up after thy likenesse I shall be Ps 17. 15. satisfied with it There are holy meditations and vertuous exercises to which wee owe much time and therefore the Devill a cunning dealer keepes the richer part of women busie all the prime of the day in dressing their bodies and undressing their soules and in creating halfe-moones and stars in their faces in correcting Gods workmanship and making new faces as if they were somewhat wiser then God Quem S. Ambr. judicem mulier saith Saint Ambrose veriorem requirimus deformitatis tuae quam te ipsam quae videri times O woman what more true judge can we require of thy deformity that is thy uglinesse then thy selfe who fearest to be seene The Devill is alwayes more forward in seducing women because he knoweth that women are of a soft pliant and loving nature and that if they should love God they would love him tenderly The Devill whither can any of us men or women flie from the Devill Be sober be vigilant saith Saint Peter because 1 Pet. 5. 8. your adversary the Devill as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure It is not enough to be sober nor enough to be vigilant He is not our friend but our adversary And he is a busie Devill he goes about an angry Devill he goes about like a roaring Lion a hungry Devill for hee does not roare onely but he comes roaring with a greedy purpose to devoure and hee walketh lest going with speede he should run over you and he keepes not one way but walketh about and does not onely devoure those who stand or meete him in his way but he seeketh whom he may devoure and he is alwayes the same alwayes a Devill for when he hath found his prey fed upon it and eate up all he is not satisfied he goes on still seeking whom hee may devoure God blesse every good man and woman from a roaring Lion Sixtus Sixt. II. the second in one of his Epistles directed to a certaine Bishop gives the Devill no good report Si in Paradiso hominem stravit quis locus extra Parad. esse potest in quo mentes hominum penetrare non valeat If he gave man a fall in Paradise what place can there be out of Paradise in which he may not insinuate and wind himselfe into the hearts of men Here is a picture of the life we so much love and so much desire to continue And in the last place an old house fals or an arrow goes out of the way or our feete slip or the Devill comes to us in the outside of a Saint it is his course with drooping and melancholy spirits and tels us religiously that we shall give glory to God or at least ease and comfort to our selves if we cut our owne throats or hang our selves and we are dead gone Perhaps we may leave our pictures behinde us with our friends but what are they a meerely a meere deceit of the Painter our pictures are no part of us neither doe they represent us as we are we are dead we see but one anothers faces when we are alive we are parted in substances we cannot mingle into one another as wine and water and therefore death puls one out of the others bosome And commonly when our hopes are now ripe and the things we long desired at the doore Death comes and overtakes and takes us And any man being wicked himselfe may send with Gods leave a wicked man to Hell in the turning of a hand and then what would he not give to bee with his friends in the world againe Here the reason fals open why never yet from the beginning of the world any wise man died but if he could speake in his last words he cryed out against the vanities of life and of the world My prayer shall be the prayer of one that knew what hee prayd for O spare me that I may recover strength before I Ps 39. 13. goe hence and be no more Meditation 5. IF I consider man in his death and after it He dyes that never dyed before Hee dyes that knowes not what it is to dye Which of us knowes what the pangs of death are and how going naked agrees with the soule It is as true as old Death is of all terribles the most terrible For howsoever the holy Spirit in holy Scripture is pleased to call it a sleep it is not a sleep to the wicked It is recorded of Lazarus Our friend Lazarus sleepeth and of Saint Io. 11. 11. Act. 7. 60. Stephen And when he had said this he fell asleep And of the Patriarchs and Kings of Judah that they slept with their Fathers But this was the death of the Saints so pretious in the sight of the Lord. And the soule of man now leaving the body carrieth no mortall friends with her they stay behind the brother and the sister and the wife and the pretty little children with the sweete babe in the cradle No temporall goods or evils rather nothing but good or evill Revel 14. 13. workes and their workes doe follow them All the fairest goods which made all people in all ages proud are stil extant in the world and will be after us even to the end of the world And although the living talke pleasantly of their dead friends and hope well while one looketh soberly and saith I doubt not but such a man or such a woman is with God another neither truely doe I a third he she there is no question of it if he or she be not in heaven what shall become of me Yet notwithstanding all this plausible and smooth discourse not one of these three tender hearted and charitable persons nor any one living here in the world knoweth certainly whither they were carried This we all know certainly Many of them are most heavily tormented in Hell and there curse the Father of mercies and the
in a plaine letter to the Jewes but in characters in a close and covered manner because they first came from Egypt where a multitude of Gods was adored and were afterwards seated in Canaan where the like adoration was performed And if God had talked to them in a familiar way in a worne and beaten phrase of three Persons they moreover being an idolatrous generation their corrupt natures might have easily corrupted the Text and beleeved as many Gods as Persons especially when they were of themselves such waxen creatures so prone and pliant to Idolatry that the onely reason why they danced to a golden Calfe in the Wildernesse was because they had formerly seene the like sport and practise in Egypt when they were busie as it is recorded of them in raising an Egyptian Pyramis Yet God did often draw here a line and there a figure of this great mystery in the old Testament that it might not seeme to be new doctrine when it should afterwards be delivered with the sound of a Trumpet in the new Testament And questionlesse we shall know in Heaven and behold in every degree and latitude of the beatificall vision many great secrets and priviledged mysteries though not in so high a kinde which God is not pleased ever to reveale out of himself to the world in consideration of humane weaknesse and distraction This thrice high mystery of the blessed Trinity is onely fit nourishment for an understanding thrice purified thrice enlightned that is by the light of Nature the light of the Law and the light of the Gospel And onely we by the onely helpe of Grace can throughly digest it It is our Faith onely which can say with a good courage to these humane sciences that vaunt so much of their clearenesse as the Spouse in the Canticles to the daughters of Jerusalem I am blacke but 1. Cant. 5. comely O yee daughters of Jerusalem I am blacke seeme blacke I le tell you why because the most noble part of my Verities stand over humane capacity the distance in part causing the errour And likewise they seeme not faire not because they are foule but because they are vail'd and discover not their choyce beauty to the dull uncapable and weake eye of reason Yet I am 〈…〉 because the ground of my beaty is good and can never decay and because I and my beauty stand upon a firme Basis and fixe upon the sound and solid verity or veracity of God who can neither deceive others in respect of his infinite truth nor be deceived in himselfe in regard of the infinite light of his understanding from whom I descend by Revelation The Kings daughter is all glorious within Ps 45. 13. sayes the Kingly Prophet She is but glorious within and yet shee is all gloririous And the glory of the Kings daughter of Faith is from within from the Truth of God upon which it secretly anchors Let Moses speake And the Lord Exod. 13. 21. went before them before the children of Israel in their journey towards Canaan by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light Some fit this Text to the comforts and crosses of this life God appearing a cloud in our earthly comforts and light in our crosses and in both a pillar And some to Faith For God was both blacke and comely as our Faith by which we are led towards Canaan is both darke and cleere We may best learne of our Masters and teach our Schollers with Aquinas that whereas there are two chiefe faculties of the Soule the Understanding and Will and with the Understanding we know with the Will we love it is a greater height of perfection to know the things which are under us then to love them but for the things which are above us it is more perfect satisfaction to love them then to know and understand them CHAP. X. BUt here we must encounter a difficulty It is the quaint observation of Saint Bernard that Caine was Fideicida antequam S. Bernar. Serm. 24. in Cant. Fratricida that he killed Faith before hee murthered his Brother As likewise the great Doctor of our Westerne Church Saint Austin saith of Judas that hee first betraied Faith and then his Master For an evill Faith is commonly the lewd and common mother of evill workes And alasse Caine had many children like him in this foule act of killing Faith For till God was pleased after the death of his Sonne to spread himselfe with an equall streame upon Jew and Gentile we read but of one people and some odde persons in the number of whom were holy Job and his friends that were his Why now was not God all things to all men The answer is not farre off He was and gave meate to every sicke and diseased person agreeable with the qualities and disposition of his stomacke supposing his disease I will make it as cleere as the light Saint John speaking of Christ the true light saith That was the true light which enlightneth every man Io. 1. 9. that commeth into the world Every man not every man that is enlightned but every man that commeth into the world Before the comming of Christ God enlightned the Gentiles by many fit helps and competent directions As the three Kings and people of the East by the doctrine and Prophesies of some beleeving Gentiles The Egyptians by an old Record shewing that when a Virgin should bring forth a childe their Idols should fall before him like Dagon before the Arke of God in memory of which they set up in one of their great Temples a faire Image of a Virgin with a childe in her armes The people of Alexandria in Egypt by the Hieroglyphicke of a Crosse mentioned by Ruffinus the interpretation of which Ruffin Eccles Hist l. 2. c. 29. was vita ventura life to come with a Propheticall sequell annexed to the interpretation that their emblems and obscurities should continue till by the Crosse life should come to the world The great and learned Travellers into Egypt by certaine holy markes of life and doctrine left there as it were imprinted by the Jewes And the whole world by Jewes dispersed here there which gathered many to God and to Jerusalem And there were dwelling saith Saint Luke at Jerusalem Jewes devout Act. 2. 5. men out of every Nation under Heaven As likewise now a great Schoole of holy Fathers teacheth they are all scattered and dispersed that they may daily shew to Infidels the old Prophesies and predictions of what wee preach And also the whole world by the Sibyls who dwelling in Caves under ground were thought to bee filled with a Spirit rising like a dampe from the fruitfull entrals of the earth but were indeed inspired from Heaven and filled like Conduit-pipes with sweete water of which themselves did not partake as not understanding the drift of their owne words And againe all the